Читать книгу The Choices We Make - Karma Brown, Karma Brown - Страница 21

12

KATE

David and I were sitting in the gym’s parents’ lounge—really a well-used room with plastic orange chairs and fluorescent lights that made the purple walls practically glow—watching the girls at their weekly gymnastics class and drinking bad coffee from the café next door. Every time I sat watching one of their classes I felt grateful for my mom, who had endured years of thrice-weekly dance classes and competition weekends throughout my childhood and teenage years, never complaining about uncomfortable plastic chairs or bad coffee or the time it took away from her having her own hobbies.

I took a sip from my white plastic take-out cup and grimaced. “Next time, why don’t we make coffee at home and bring it?” I silently thanked my mom again. “Oh, almost forgot. I’m meeting Hannah for a drink tomorrow night. That okay?”

“Sure. How is she doing?”

I paused. Long enough for David to swivel in his chair and look at me.

“She’s okay.”

“And?” he asked.

“And nothing.” I gave Josie a thumbs-up after her unassisted cartwheel and smiled big.

“Kate, what’s up? I know that look.”

“What look?” I asked, but then sighed and took a deep breath. “Fine. She was planning to meet with a surrogate.”

“A surrogate? Where?”

“Here. In town.”

David let out a low whistle. “I didn’t realize they were at that stage of things.”

“Well, they aren’t exactly at that stage of things.” I shrugged, then looked back at the girls. “It’s been six years and they’ve basically tried everything. I don’t blame her, but I’m worried for her.”

“What do you mean by they aren’t at that stage of things?”

I kept my eyes trained on the girls, even though they were doing nothing but waiting for their turns on the balance beam. “She didn’t tell Ben about the surrogate meeting.”

“What? Really? So, she was just going to go by herself? Without Ben?” David’s eyebrows rose along with his voice.

“I told her I’d go with her, but she said she was going to cancel anyway.”

“Katie...”

“What? I couldn’t very well let her go alone. She’s...she’s definitely off-kilter right now.”

David sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Do not get in the middle of this, Kate. She needs to talk with Ben, period. You can’t go meet a surrogate with her. This isn’t like getting dragged to boot camp for moral support or something. This is no small thing, and it’s between them.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“Do you?”

I looked back at the girls, trying to mellow the irritation threatening to take over. “It doesn’t matter, because I talked her out of it.”

“I hope so. I would lose it if you did something like that without telling me.”

We sat in silence for a moment. “How would it even work?” David asked. “They don’t have embryos, right?”

“This surrogate would use her own eggs.”

“So the baby would be Ben’s and this other woman’s?” David gave his head a couple of quick shakes. “No way. I could never do that.”

“Why? It’s not really different from adoption when you think about it. Except at least Ben’s genes would get in there.”

“But what if this woman decided to keep the baby in the end? I mean, it would be her baby, right?”

“It would,” I said, frowning at the thought. “I don’t think Hannah really thought it all through.”

“Shit, Ben would flip if he knew she had propositioned this woman without telling him.”

“She didn’t exactly ‘proposition’ her,” I said, his choice of words grating on me; my need to defend Hannah boiling up. “It was more curiosity, or a reconnaissance mission, I guess.”

“Still...don’t you think he’d be open to it? He wants a kid as much as she does. But not telling him?” David shook his head again. “That’s a sure way to guarantee he won’t go along with it.”

“Well, she implied he wasn’t on board with the idea anyway.”

“That makes it worse,” David said. “I love Hannah, but she’s playing a dangerous game here.”

I pressed my lips together, pausing for a moment. “She’s desperate, David.”

“Desperate enough to risk her marriage?”

I shrugged. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about Hannah and Ben sticking it out if there was no baby—a relationship could only bend so much under stress before it snapped. And Hannah keeping this from Ben felt like a big crack in their happy marital veneer.

David nudged my shoulder, and I lifted my coffee cup to avoid spilling it on my legs. “For the record, if you ever kept anything big like that from me I’d be beyond pissed.”

“Noted, and ditto.”

* * *

“Are they asleep?” David looked at me from our bed, lying on top of the duvet in his boxers and an old hole-filled T-shirt from his days as a first aid instructor. He had plenty of shirts, including others from his instructor days, but for whatever reason this was the one I couldn’t get him to let go of. I filed it under things-to-ignore-even-though-they-drive-me-crazy-because-I-love-my-husband-more-than-I-hate-what-he’s-wearing.

“They are.” I got into bed beside him. Running my hands over his chest, feeling the softness of the fabric, I remembered back when we were as new as the T-shirt. Pushing it up, the black color now faded to a velvety gray, I planted a row of kisses around his exposed belly button. His abs flexed, and I looked up to see him smiling. “I’m going to lock the door,” I whispered into his stomach, kissing it again. I jumped to my knees and scrambled off the bed, my feet padding softly on the hardwood floor of our bedroom. With a quick twist of my hand, our bedroom door was locked—one of the best tips my hippie mother-in-law, a sex educator, had ever given me, even though I had been horrified at the time—and I was back in bed stretched out beside David.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” I asked.

“Who?” His voice was low, his lips caressing my ear and whispering that I had too much clothing on. I obliged by lifting my arms over my head so he could do something about that.

“Hannah and Ben,” I replied, only half paying attention to what his hands were doing. “If they can’t have a baby, do you think they’ll stay together?” My heart beat faster, in part from David’s touch and in part from imagining the end of Hannah and Ben, which was unacceptable as far as I was concerned.

David propped himself up on an elbow and rubbed his thumb over my jawline. “They’ll work it out. They love each other. And, yes, they’ve been through hell with all of this. But they are stronger than that. You’ll see. It’ll be okay.”

I smiled, then wriggled out of my underwear with some help from David’s persuasive hands. Our bodies knew each other so well—having done this enough times there was never any doubt of a home run for all. My breathing sped up and a moan formed in the back of my throat as David gently spread my thighs, moving between them. When I wasn’t sure I could hold out much longer, I lay a hand on his head and pulled his hair gently, forcing him to look at me. I gestured under the bed and he smiled, nodding.

“Which one do you want tonight?” he asked, and I heard him rustling through the box under our bed, which held a variety of adult-only toys and, like the door, also had a lock on it.

“You choose,” I replied.

A minute later I was enjoying David’s choice for the evening, no longer caring about hole-filled T-shirts I’d dreamed of tossing out weekly with the trash or the state of Hannah and Ben’s marriage.