Mixed Blessings

by Danielle Steel

  “You’re right.” She looked her mother right in the eye. “I don’t. I never have wanted children … thanks to you and Daddy …” And on those words, Pilar disappeared into the small crowd, feeling herself tremble as she looked for Brad. He had drifted away to talk to someone while Pilar seemed to be chatting with her mother.

  “You okay?” Marina whispered to her, her own gray hair looking curly and a little frumpy. She was the mother Pilar had never had, the friend she had always longed for. She was wise in many ways, and she had made many similar choices to Pilar’s, although for different reasons. The oldest of eleven children, she had raised all ten of her siblings when her mother died, and she herself had never married or had children. “I gave at the office,” she always explained, and she had always been sympathetic to Pilar’s agonies about her parents. In recent years, the younger woman’s pain had dimmed, except on the rare occasions when she saw her mother. “The Doctor,” as Pilar called her, only came out to California every two or three years, and the truth was that in between times, Pilar didn’t miss her. She called her dutifully, and she was always amazed to find that in the years since her childhood nothing had changed, the calls were still “interrogations.”

  “Looks like the Doctor was giving you a hard time.” Marina eyed her kindly, and Pilar smiled. Just being with Marina always made her feel better about the human race. She was one of those rare people, great souls, who enhance the lives of all those who know them.

  “No, she just wanted to be sure that Brad and I understood we’re too old to have children,” Pilar said with a smile, but her voice sounded surprisingly bitter. It wasn’t the lack of children that bothered her, it was the lack of kindness or warmth from her mother.

  “Says who?” Judge Goletti looked annoyed on her behalf. “My mother was fifty-two when she had her last one.”

  “Now, there’s something to aspire to.” Pilar grinned. “Promise me that won’t happen to me, or I’ll shoot myself now.”

  “On your wedding day? Don’t be ridiculous.” And then, she surprised Pilar by asking a question. “Are you two thinking of having kids?” She knew lots of people older than they were who had had children recently, but she was curious, and she felt that she was close enough to Pilar to ask her. She had been so startled by the idea of Pilar marrying Brad, after being so adamant about staying single all her life, that now all her earlier decisions seemed to be in question.

  Pilar laughed openly before she answered. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. The last thing on my wish list is kids, in fact, it’s so low on my list that I never wrote it down at all, and I don’t plan to.” She wanted Brad, but the one thing she was sure of was that she didn’t want children.

  “You don’t plan to what?” Brad joined them and slid an arm around his bride’s waist with a happy expression.

  “I don’t plan to retire from the law,” Pilar said, looking calm again. His soothing effect made her forget her irritation at her mother.

  “Who ever thought you would?” He looked surprised that anyone would even ask the question. Pilar was an excellent attorney, and she was devoted to her career. He couldn’t imagine her ever leaving her profession.

  “I think she should join us on the bench,” Marina Goletti said solemnly, thinking that there was some truth in that, and then she was distracted by someone and moved away, and Pilar and Brad stood looking into each other’s eyes, alone for a moment, in the swirl of good friends around them.

  “I love you, Mrs. Coleman. I only wish I could tell you how much.”

  “You have a lifetime to tell me … and I you … I love you, Brad,” she whispered.

  “You were worth the wait, every minute of it. And I’d wait another fifty years if I had to.”

  “Then you’d really make my mother nervous.” Pilar laughed, and she looked young and mischievous as she did.

  “Oh? Is your mother worried that I’m too old for you?” He was, after all, only a few years younger than she was.

  “No … she’s afraid I am. She thinks we might go crazy and decide to have half-witted kids, who would then become her patients.”

  “How nice of her. Is that what she said to you?” He looked mildly annoyed, but he wasn’t going to let anything seriously upset him on this special day he had waited so long for.

  “Yes, it is actually. The good doctor thought she ought to warn me.”

  “See if we invite her out for our twenty-fifth anniversary,” he said softly as he kissed her.

  They danced with each other, and with their friends. And at midnight, they slipped away quietly to the suite he had reserved at the Biltmore.

  “Happy?” he asked, as she leaned against him in the rented limousine.

  “Ecstatic.” She beamed, and then yawned as she rested her head on his shoulder, and her white-satinshod feet on the jump seat. “Oh, God …” She suddenly frowned as she looked up at him. “I forgot to say good-bye to my mother, and she’s leaving in the morning.” She was going to L.A. for a medical convention. She’d been very pleased Pilar’s wedding date was so convenient for her.

  “You’re allowed this one time. This is your wedding day. She should have come to kiss you and wish you happiness,” Brad said as Pilar shrugged. She really didn’t care now. It had taken a long time, but for her the war was over. “I’ll wish you happiness instead,” Brad said softly and she kissed him again, and knew that she had lived her entire life for this moment. He was everything she had ever wanted, and more, and for just an instant, she was sorry that she hadn’t married him sooner.

  Her past no longer mattered to her, her parents, or how they had failed her. All that mattered now was Brad, and the life she was going to share with him. And all she could think of as they drove up to the Biltmore that night was their future.

  The week after Thanksgiving, Diana was swamped with coordinating shoots for their April issue. They were doing extensive pieces on two homes in Newport Beach, and another in La Jolla. She drove to San Diego herself to oversee the one there, and by the end of the afternoon she was exhausted. The people were difficult, the woman who owned the house hated everything they’d done, and the junior editor she’d assigned to the piece spent most of her time crying on Diana’s shoulder.

  “Take it easy,” Diana told her calmly, feeling on edge herself, and since noon that day she’d had a raging headache. “If she thinks you’re upset, she’ll get worse. Just treat her like a little girl. She wants to be in the magazine, and you have to help her get there.” But shortly after that, the photographer had a fit and threatened to walk out, and by the end of the day, everyone’s nerves were raw, most especially Diana’s.

  She went back to the Valencia Hotel, let herself into her room, and lay on the bed without turning on the light. She was too tired to move, or talk, or eat. She didn’t even have the energy to call Andy. She knew she would eventually, but she decided to take a hot bath first, and order some soup from room service. She did that before she ran the tub, and then she went to the bathroom. And when she did, she saw it there. The terrible telltale trace of blood she prayed not to find each month, and always found anyway, despite her prayers, despite their attempts to schedule their lovemaking at the right time to get her pregnant. Despite all of it, it hadn’t worked. Again. She wasn’t. And for six months, they’d been trying. It was getting discouraging, to Diana if not to Andy.

  She closed her eyes when she saw it there, and tears were running down her cheeks when she stepped into the tub a few minutes later. Why was everything so difficult? Why did it have to be that way for her? It had been so easy for both her sisters.

  She called Andy at home after her bath. He had just gotten home from a late meeting at the network.

  “Hi, baby, how’d it go today?” He sounded tired, too, and at first she decided not to say anything to him till she got home, but he heard the sorrow in her voice, and wondered what had happened. “Something wrong?”

  “No … just a long day.” She tried to soun
d normal for him, but her heart ached. It was as though every month someone died, and she went into mourning.

  “It sounds like more than that. Trouble with your crew, or the people who own the house?”

  “No, no, it was fine. The woman is kind of a pain in the ass, and the photographer threatened to quit twice, but that’s par for the course.” She smiled sadly.

  “So what’s up? What are you not saying?”

  “Nothing … I … it’s nothing. I just got my period, that’s all. It’s kind of depressing.” Tears welled up in her eyes again as she said it to him, but he sounded undaunted.

  “No big deal, kiddo. It just means we get to try again. Hell, it’s only been six months. It takes some people a year or two. Just relax. Don’t worry so much, and enjoy the ride. I love you, silly girl.” He was touched by how devastated she was each month, but he knew nothing was wrong. Besides, they were both under constant stress in their jobs, and that didn’t help. Everyone knew that. “Why don’t we go away for a couple of days next month, at the right time. You figure it out and tell me.”

  “I love you, Andrew Douglas.” She smiled through her tears as she held the phone. He was such a nice man, and he was so reasonable about her attempts to get pregnant. “I wish I felt as relaxed about it as you do. I keep thinking I should go to a specialist, or at least talk to Jack and see what he thinks.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” For the first time Andy sounded annoyed, he didn’t want her discussing their sex life with her sister’s husband. “There’s nothing wrong with either of us, for heaven’s sake.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do. Now, trust me.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry … I just get so upset … every month, I interpret every twinge, every sign … every time I’m tired or sneeze or have indigestion, I let myself think I’m pregnant, and then zap … suddenly it’s over.” It was hard to explain to him the disappointment she felt each month, the anguish, the fear, the ache, the emptiness, the terrible longing. They had been together for almost three years, married for six months, and now she wanted his baby. Even the empty third floor in their house suddenly seemed like an accusation. They had bought the house to have kids, and it just hadn’t happened.

  “Just forget about it for a while, sweetheart. It’ll happen, give it time. Now, when are you coming home?”

  “Tomorrow night, I hope, if these people don’t drive me nuts first.” She sighed. Suddenly, the prospect of dealing with all of them the next day depressed her even further. Losing hope again when she got her period deflated everything she did. Each month, it was a terrible loss, an emptiness she couldn’t describe to anyone, not even Andy. It seemed absurd, but it was incredible how much she was affected by it each month, and then tried to overcome it, began hoping all over again … only to have her hopes dashed again a month later.

  “I’ll be waiting for you when you get home. Get a good night’s sleep tonight and you’ll feel better in the morning.” It was so simple for him, the pat answers, the encouragement. In an odd way, she wanted him to be worried too. She wanted him to share her fears and her grief, but maybe it was better he didn’t. “I love you, Di.”

  “I love you, too, sweetheart. I really miss you.”

  “I miss you too. See you tomorrow night.” After she hung up, her soup arrived, but she never bothered to eat it. She turned off the lights eventually, and just lay there in the dark, thinking of the baby she wanted so much, and the bright red stain that had ended all hope of that again, for this month. But as she drifted off to sleep that night, she hoped that next month would be different.

  Pilar Graham, as she still called herself professionally, sat in her office, staring intensely at a file on her desk, making notes to herself, when her secretary buzzed her on the intercom, and she answered it quickly.

  “The Robinsons are here.”

  “Thanks. Send them in.” Pilar stood up, clearly expecting them, as her secretary ushered in a serious-looking couple. The woman was somewhere in her late thirties, with neat mid-length dark hair, the man was tall and spare, not expensively dressed, and slightly older. They’d been referred by another attorney, and she’d been studying their case all morning before she met them.

  “Hello, I’m Pilar Graham.” She shook their hands, and invited them to sit down, and they both declined tea or coffee. They looked nervous and seemed anxious to get down to business.

  “I’ve been reading your files all morning,” Pilar said quietly. She looked serious and mature and intelligent, the kind of person they could have confidence in. But they knew her reputation, too, which was why they had come to see her. She was reputed to be a killer in the courtroom.

  “Do you think there’s anything you can do?” Emily Robinson looked at Pilar unhappily, and the attorney could see all the anguish lurking there, and she wondered if she could help her.

  “I hope I can help, but to be honest, I’m not sure yet. I have to study it more. I want to talk to some colleagues about this case, in confidence, of course. I’m afraid this is the first time I’ve ever dealt with a surrogate situation. The laws are a little gray in some areas, and they vary incredibly from state to state. It certainly isn’t an easy situation, as you know, and I just don’t have the answers.” Lloyd Robinson had made an arrangement with a seventeen-year-old girl, who lived in the mountains near Riverside, to have his baby. She had already had two illegitimate children before, and she was more than willing to have this one. He knew of her through a school where he’d worked, but no longer did. Everything had been handled by artificial insemination through a local doctor. He had paid her five thousand dollars for it, enough to move to Riverside the following year, live decently and go to college, which was what she said she wanted. Without the money he had paid, she had no hope of that, and she’d be stuck in the mountains forever.

  It had been a foolish thing to do, they knew now—she was young, unstable, and her parents had raised hell with the local authorities when they finally found out. Lloyd had faced criminal charges, all of which were dropped. But the court had taken a dim view of his choice of a mother. For a while there had been a vague possibility of charges of statutory rape, but Lloyd had been able to prove that there had never actually been sexual contact. But in any case, in the end the girl, Michelle, had refused to give up the baby. By the time it was born, she had married a local boy, and he was adamant too. And by the time Pilar was talking to the Robinsons, Michelle was pregnant again, with her husband’s child. Lloyd Robinson’s child was a year old by then, and the courts hadn’t even allowed him visitation. They had explained that, as a “donor,” he had no rights. They felt that he had had undue influence on a minor, and they had placed a restraining order on him in lieu of further action. The Robinsons were distraught about it. They acted as though it were a child they knew and loved who had been stolen from them. The baby was a little girl and they kept calling her Jeanne Marie. They had named her after both their mothers, although Michelle called her something entirely different and as Pilar looked at them, she had the feeling that the Robinsons lived in a dream world.

  “Wouldn’t it have been easier to adopt a child, even in a private adoption?”

  “It might have been,” Emily said sadly, “but we wanted his child. I’m the one who can’t have babies, Miss Graham.” She confessed it like a terrible crime, and Pilar felt sorry for her, although she had to admit she found the case fascinating and strange, but what kept coming across to her was their irreversible compulsion to have a baby. “We’re too old to adopt legally,” Emily explained. “I’m forty-one, and Lloyd is almost fifty. We tried for years, our income wasn’t big enough, Lloyd hurt his back and he was out of work for a long time. Now we’re doing fine. We sold our car, and we both held down two jobs for a year to save the money to pay Michelle to have the baby. The rest of what we made went on legal fees. We don’t have much left,” she told Pilar honestly, but Pilar didn’t really care. She was intrigued by the case. The c
ourt had had a social worker’s report on them, and even though they were certainly unusual, they had no apparent vices and they both appeared to be decent people, according to those who knew them. They just couldn’t have kids and they were desperate to have a baby. Desperation made people do strange things, and they had, in Pilar’s opinion.

  “Would you settle for visitation rights?” Pilar asked calmly.

  Emily sighed and nodded. “We might, if that’s all we could get. But it doesn’t seem fair, Michelle gave up two babies when she was barely more than a little girl herself, now she’s having another one with the boy she married. She’s going to have that baby, why does she have to keep Lloyd’s?” Emily asked plaintively, but there was more to it than that, as they all knew.

  “It’s her baby too,” Pilar said gently.

  “Do you think all we’ll ever get is the right to visit?” Lloyd asked finally, and Pilar hesitated before she answered.

  “It’s possible. Given the court’s position now, that might be a step forward. And in time, if Michelle doesn’t behave properly toward the child, or if there’s a problem with her husband, then you may be able to get custody, but I can’t promise you that, and it could take a very long time, maybe years.” Pilar was always honest with her clients.

  “The last lawyer we saw said he might be able to get Jeanne Marie back to us in six months,” Emily said accusingly, and Pilar didn’t want to remind her that it wasn’t a question of “back to them” since the baby had never been with them in the first place.

  “I don’t think he was being honest with you, Mrs. Robinson.” And neither did they apparently, or they’d still be there with him.

  The couple nodded and looked at each other in despair. There was a kind of desperate hunger and loneliness about them that ate at one’s heart just to see them.

  Pilar and Brad had had friends who were desperate to adopt, and some had even gone to Honduras and Korea and Romania, but none had done anything as foolish as this, or looked quite as forlorn as these people. The Robinsons had taken a chance and lost, and they knew it.