“Wonderful. Now, for payment. Usually, we take check but cash and card are accepted too.”
I had the check ready. I was doing this. I couldn’t deal with any more dates. If this was the only thing standing in the way of my mother leaving me and my love life alone, then I was doing it. Once the responsibility was gone, I was free.
I went straight back to the house instead of going to the office. I felt numb the whole time. The place was massive. Five bedrooms. Enough room for a family bigger than the one I was planning.
Ha. Family.
It was going to be me and the kid. I didn’t even know whether that counted as a family. That was the way my mother and I were after dad died, but he had been around for a while first. I’d probably have to hire someone. I’d definitely have to do that. What the hell did I know about taking care of kids? Maybe two. A day shift woman and a night shift woman. A nice, feminine presence so that the baby didn’t grow up feeling the absence of motherly love.
The thought made me want to curl up and die. How depressing was that? Being raised by the hired help and a father who had had a baby just to satisfy his family’s rules of inheritance?
I walked into one of the empty rooms. All of the rooms, occupied and unoccupied were furnished. This place was a guest bedroom for guests I rarely had. The king-sized bed had never been slept in and the fifty-inch television on the wall had never even been turned on. Any one of the guest rooms could be turned into the baby’s room. They’d need a nursery to start with. I’d be hiring someone to do that too.
This wasn’t what it was supposed to feel like planning for a kid. If I had someone to do it with… if Brenna was pregnant and we were picking out what kind of wallpaper to put in our nursery, this wouldn’t feel so fucking empty. If Brenna was pregnant, I’d actually be looking forward to having a child. I’d know they were going to have a mother who loved them. I’d be getting to raise a child with someone I loved, not just a woman who I paid per hour to take care of them.
When are you going to get over it, huh? Who the hell told you she wasn’t married and raising her own kids by now?
Just because I had spent the last seven years thinking about her didn’t mean she had. For all I knew, that summer meant nothing to her. She had moved on and all I could do was keep wishing. I walked out of the room.
4
Brenna
I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have to but out of all the things that I could be doing for money, this wasn't actually that bad.
Seriously. No, really.
I cast a nervous glance over at my phone. I had been staring at it, waiting for it to rain all day. Nothing yet. if someone told me one day that I would be seriously considering becoming a surrogate, I would laugh in their face. And then I would have to swallow my words because not only would they be right, I would have already sent tons of applications in order to do it. I had covered both Manhattan and Brooklyn; cast a wide net and all that, you know? Turns out, being a surrogate was one of those jobs where the acceptance rate wasn’t very high.
It seemed like easy work so everyone, and I do mean everyone who had a womb and some time applied. I had spent the last few days researching it; how popular it was, what it usually paid, how to get into it, scandals. I had come across more than one story about women who agreed to be surrogates but refused to give up the babies when they were born. Apparently, your body did everything it could to help you bond with the baby hormonally. Celebrities coming out about using surrogates had made it less weird and controversial lately but there was that one little barrier of entry being that it was so damn expensive. It was still pretty weird though. Maybe weird was a bad word for it. It was just a little extreme.
Carrying a baby was one of the most dangerous things a woman could do. It was also one of the most personal and intimate things that a person could do.
Imagine going through that only to give the baby away.
At least they got paid. You could pay people to do anything for you, touch you, feed you, fuck you, also carry your baby but a lot of people wanted to do that last thing themselves. I had read accounts online from women who were surrogates or who had been surrogates in the past. Naturally, the woman who gave birth to a baby was considered to be the mother which was what made surrogacy such a legal minefield. I couldn't say that I wouldn't become one of those women who wanted the baby after nine months of carrying them, but for fifty thousand dollars I had no choice but to take the risk.
My mother's health was worth it. I knew that if I turned down an opportunity like this, I would regret it. Acceptance rates were low and they tended to go for women who had delivered healthy babies in the past already and I hadn’t. There was a good chance I wasn't going to get in but as long as I tried. I had to do something. None of the fertility centers had gotten back to me except to say that they had received my application and they were looking over it. How was it that I was more nervous about this than about any test I had taken in my whole life?
My mind wandered. I grabbed for my phone, then forced myself to put it down because I was getting distracted. My whole day at work today had been a record low for productivity. The chances were I wouldn’t get the surrogacy gig so I couldn’t fuck up the job that I did actually have because of it. I needed the money that Jameson was and wasn’t giving me. I was putting the phone down when it started to vibrate suddenly. I didn’t recognize the number but I picked up.
“Hello?”
“Is this Brenna Andrews?”
“Yeah, speaking.”
“I’m calling from Nova Fertility. Are you available to talk?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“We may have been able to match you with someone,” the woman on the line said. I sputtered.
“A match?”
“Yes, we have a client whose needs match your profile. They are a high-value client with a number of extra stipulations and precautions. They require the utmost discretion. If you agree to work with them you will need to sign a nondisclosure agreement.”
“Sure, yeah, that’s no problem,” I said.