Per the legal contract, between each of the Howes and The Parent Portal, Jamison was now sole owner of the embryos and the only person who could make that difficult decision.
A phone call, a notarized signature to the lab, would make that happen. He needn’t visit The Parent Portal, but Christine wasn’t all that surprised by the fact he’d requested to come in person. In the years she’d been in business, she’d come to understand the full emotional depths that people went through when dealing with their own fertility, their future. Most couldn’t just destroy what, to them, once represented the beginning of their child, with a phone call. Some hung on to embryos for years. And while Christine had her degree in health management and was not a counselor, her clients often sought her out when they had difficult decisions in front of them.
She’d present the facts, most of which they already knew, in a way that allowed them to step back. She’d give them a glimpse of a fuller picture, one in which science and biology couldn’t create people alone. Without the final component of a loving mother and a womb in which to grow, the embryos were just science and biology. Oftentimes she was able to help them see their way more clearly to a decision they’d probably already subconsciously made before they’d entered her office.
It was all part of the job she’d created for herself and taken on with her whole being. Her clients were all looking to create families of their own. The Parent Portal was her family. Her progeny. Her future. Her love and happiness.
Her purpose.
There’d been a time when she’d envisioned being a mother herself one day. But then an excruciating young love had put her on a completely different path.
A buzz from the reception desk interrupted her contemplation, letting her know that her client was on his way in and the knock on the door sounded a full five minutes before Jamison Howe was due.
She was ready. Had been in since six that morning to prepare for the day, as per her general routine.
She’d mentally chosen to conduct this meeting on the tan-colored leather sofa and chairs on the other end of her office. Something more comfortable and homey for what was sure to be an emotionally difficult conversation. There was nothing legal to discuss here.
Opening the door, she stepped back.
Jamison Howe, his thick, long, dark hair tipping the collar of his short-sleeved dress shirt, barely gave her a glance as he took seemingly purposeful steps right past her and lowered his tall athletic frame in one of the two leather chairs in front of her massive, light wood desk.
So much for homey and compassionate.
But that was fine.
Anything she could do to make this difficult time easier for him...
He looked completely different than she remembered. But when she looked back, mostly what she remembered from her one visit with the Howe couple was...Emily. The woman’s unbounding joy in life. Her smile, which seemed completely genuine, from the inside out, even when discussing the possibility of failure of the in vitro process. The two-year-old impression of Jamison stored in Christine’s brain was of a quiet man who seemed truly happy to give his wife whatever she wanted.
As she remembered, he’d been a PhD in math. Taught some kind of spatial art class at the local, privately run, but nationally known, art college in town. Also had a math professorship at a university in Mission Viejo, or LA. Someplace with a bit of a commute.
He’d had super short hair then, too, and wore dress pants with his shirt and tie, instead of the jeans his shirt was currently tucked into. He’d had a beard before, she remembered that. The clean-shaven look suited him, showed the strength in his jawbone as he flexed it.
Nervously?
The kindest thing she could do for him was get him through the next few minutes and out of there as quickly as possible. She had a notary on standby—an employee of the clinic—and they could fax the paperwork to the lab for him.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Dr. Howe said before she’d even taken her seat behind her desk. “I’d like to say that I won’t take up much of your time, but, if you can even consider indulging my request, that won’t be the case.”
She dropped a little heavily into her seat. A little less gracefully than usual.
“I have time,” she said, meeting his dark-eyed gaze with the professional courtesy she offered everyone who stepped through her door.
The office was hers. The appointment, the need, was his.
He had her curious, though. What request could he possibly have of her? A notary took seconds. Faxes, the same. It was all standard procedure.
But not to him. For the father of the embryos under consideration, the choice he was about to make could seem like a matter of life and death.
Maybe he wanted her to talk to someone for him? She’d do whatever she could. Of course she would. Her clients, every single one of them, even those she only knew by name, were dear to her.
Which was why she always tried to meet each of them, at least once.
“My request is quite unusual, and I’ve been rehearsing all day, in between summer session classes, trying to come up with the best way to break it to you. But if there is one, I’ve been unsuccessful in finding it.”
Okay, so now she was really curious. The man seemed strangely energized. Not broken.
Sitting forward, her arms on her desk, she said, “Well then I suggest you just ask.” Hoping that whatever it was, she could grant the request. The man was endearing. An unusual combination of vulnerable, strong, sexy and...a bit unsure?