When You Least Expect It

by Whitney Gaskell

  “If we did have a baby, it would be a long time before he was old enough to play with you. And by then, you probably wouldn’t want to play with him, because you’d be so much older,” I explained to Luke.

  Luke considered the wisdom of this argument. “But I wouldn’t be the youngest anymore. And I’d have someone to boss around.”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  “If you had a girl, it would almost be like I had a sister,” Rose said.

  “Yeah, and if it was a boy, it would be like I had a brother,” Luke continued.

  “You already have a brother,” Rose informed him, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Yeah, thanks, Luke,” Miles said mildly, still juggling his Hacky Sack.

  “Besides,” Rose continued, “India and Jeremy are my godparents, not yours. So if they had a baby, it would be my sister or brother, but it wouldn’t be yours.”

  Rose liked to lord her superior claim to Jeremy and me over her two brothers whenever possible. It had the desired effect now. Luke swelled with outrage.

  “That’s not true! Take it back!” he demanded.

  “It is too true. Right, India?” Rose said.

  Both kids looked at me, as though I were the referee. I tried to remember what Mimi did at moments like this, and had a vague recollection of her saying that if there wasn’t actual bloodshed, she stayed out of sibling warfare.

  “Okay, everyone simmer down. I promise that if Jeremy and I ever do have a baby, you can all be official big brothers and sisters. Yes, Rose, that includes Luke,” I said. “Now, who wants to toast a marshmallow?”

  “Me, me, me,” Miles, Leo, and Rose chorused.

  “Me, me, me!” Jeremy chimed in.

  Otis had drifted away to sniff at a dried patch of seaweed. But at the word marshmallow, he scampered back over. I handed bamboo skewers around, and after warning the kids to be careful around the hot coals—and then nervously repeating the warning over and over, until even laid-back Miles was rolling his eyes—the toasting of the marshmallows commenced. Once everyone’s marshmallow was properly browned and gooey—or in Rose’s case, charred black, which she insisted was how she preferred them—Jeremy passed around graham crackers and chocolate bars.

  “The s’more,” he announced, holding one up for us to admire. “The world’s most perfect food.”

  “I don’t like s’mores,” Luke said, looking at his suspiciously.

  “Good! More for me,” Jeremy said, making a pretend grab for it. Luke backed away, screeching with laughter.

  “No! I changed my mind!” Luke said, giggling. “I do like s’mores!”

  “So why don’t you have kids, India? Don’t you want them?” Rose asked as she munched on her s’more.

  I should have known that Rose wouldn’t be so easily thrown off topic. When in pursuit of a goal, Rose displayed terrifying single-mindedness. Someday she would make an excellent CIA interrogator.

  “Who wants another marshmallow?” Jeremy asked quickly.

  “Because I think you’d be a good mom,” Rose continued.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I said. I put an arm around Rose, and she snuggled in toward me. Her hair smelled of baby shampoo and smoke. Suddenly, without warning, tears burned at my eyes.

  “What about me?” Jeremy asked, threading another marshmallow onto his skewer.

  “What about you?” Rose asked. She grinned impishly. “You’d be an okay dad, I guess.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jeremy said.

  “Maybe India doesn’t want kids,” Miles suggested.

  “Why wouldn’t she want kids? She likes us,” Rose said.

  I laughed at her indignation. “Jeremy and I would love to have a baby. But sometimes adults who want to have children aren’t able to,” I explained, wiping away my tears before the kids noticed them.

  “Why not?” Luke asked.

  How do you explain premature ovarian failure to kids? I wondered, before quickly realizing that you don’t. It was much better to stick to generalities. Still, I couldn’t talk down to them. All three of them hated that.

  “You know what it means when a woman is pregnant, right? That she’s going to have a baby?” I asked, suddenly having an unpleasant vision of the kids demanding that I go into a detailed explanation of reproductive biology. But luckily, Rose and Luke both nodded. Miles had gone back to his Hacky Sack and didn’t seem to be paying attention. “My body doesn’t work the right way. No one knows why, really. But I can’t get pregnant.”

  Luke began feeding Otis marshmallows straight from the bag. Rose, however, was keen to hear more.

  “How do you get pregnant?” she asked.

  Jeremy and I exchanged a panicked look. But before either of us could speak, Miles chimed in.

  “You don’t know?” he said. “I thought everyone knew that. The woman makes an egg. And then the man—”

  “Miles, not a good idea,” I said quickly.

  “Yeah, buddy, I think that information might be above their pay grade,” Jeremy said.

  Miles blinked at us, clearly confused as to why we were interrupting his biology lecture.

  “Your brother and sister are a little young to hear the details,” I explained.

  “I am not too young!” Rose said indignantly.

  “Eggs? Like, bird eggs? In nests?” Luke asked.

  “Mimi is going to kill us,” Jeremy murmured to me.

  “Maybe we should talk about something else,” I suggested. “And give me those marshmallows, Luke. Otis will get sick if he eats any more.”

  “Really?” Luke said, perking up. “Do you mean he’ll puke?”

  But Rose wasn’t ready to change subjects. “Why don’t you adopt a baby?” she asked. “One of the girls in my class, Jenny Mathers, was adopted from China when she was a year old.”

  Another look passed between Jeremy and me. We’d reached the point in our marriage—and our infertility struggles—where we could have whole conversations without saying a word.

  “That’s something we might consider,” I said cautiously.

  Jeremy and I had talked about adoption, although only in the most abstract, general terms. Early on, we’d made a decision to pursue in vitro fertilization first. On three separate occasions, Jeremy’s sperm was used to fertilize donor eggs in a glass dish, and then, three days later, the embryos were placed in my uterus via catheter. Each time, the IVF had failed.

  “You should,” Rose said confidently. “Jenny Mathers can do a handstand and a full split.”

  I nodded. “Very impressive.”

  “I can do a cartwheel. Do you want to see?” Rose asked, jumping to her feet.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  Rose attempted a cartwheel, but wasn’t able to get her legs all the way around. She tumbled onto the sand with a shriek.

  “The sand is too soft here,” Miles said. “Watch me.”

  He ran down to the firmer sand by the water’s edge and demonstrated a cartwheel, timed perfectly so that he landed on his feet just as the water lapped back in. Rose ran after him, followed by Luke and a joyful, barking Otis. Jeremy sat down next to me on the blanket.

  “S’more?” he asked, offering me his plate.

  I shook my head, and wiped away the lingering tears. “No, thanks. I’m all s’mored out.”

  Jeremy looked worriedly at me. “You know it’s all going to work out, right?”

  “I know,” I said, although I knew no such thing.

  Jeremy put his arm around me, and I leaned toward him, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said.

  I nodded and tried to swallow back the emotions welling hotly in my throat. I’d tried to stay upbeat through the first IVF cycles. But with each additional failure, it became harder to stay optimistic.

  Not now, I thought. I’m not going to worry about it now. Not on such a beautiful night.

  The soft early-evening light was dancing on the waves, shimmerin
g as the tide rolled in. A pelican flew by, his wings just barely skimming the water. Rose was attempting a handstand, assisted by Miles holding her ankles. Luke tore off large hunks from a hot dog roll and was throwing them at an excitable flock of seagulls.

  “Come on, let’s go join them,” I said, standing and brushing the sand off my bare legs.

  Jeremy got to his feet a bit more slowly. “Okay, but I’m not doing a cartwheel,” he said. “I’d probably throw out my back.”

  I laughed and brushed my wind-blown hair out of my face.

  “Come on, old man,” I said, and held my hand out to him. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  But later that evening, as I cleaned up the kitchen, putting away the picnic supplies, I found it harder to escape the whirlwind of my thoughts.

  It had been two weeks since we’d learned that the last round of in vitro fertilization had failed. Jeremy and I had discussed whether we should try again, but hadn’t yet come to a final decision. No small part of our indecision was the cost. At twenty thousand dollars per cycle, IVF wasn’t cheap.

  When Jeremy and I first married, we’d bought a cozy bungalow that we’d fallen in love with at first sight. It needed a ton of work, but had the benefit of being located in West Palm Beach’s historic Flamingo Park neighborhood. It also came with a tiny guesthouse in the back that Jeremy, a science fiction writer, immediately claimed as his office. Between our sweat equity and an unexpected upswing in the housing market, our little house had doubled in value in the seven years since we bought it, which had allowed us to take out a home equity loan to finance three rounds of IVF.

  But I wasn’t sure if the bank would approve another, larger loan. And even if they did approve it, what were the odds that another round of IVF would be successful? Or another after that? I could spend years letting them shoot foreign fertilized eggs up into my uterus, only to have my body spit them back out two weeks later.

  Rose’s words suddenly came back to me. Why don’t you adopt? She made it sound so simple, so obvious. Taking someone else’s unwanted baby into our desperate-for-a-baby home. The theory had a nice ballast to it. Of course, it meant that the child wouldn’t look like either of us—even with the borrowed-eggs scenario, any successful pregnancy would have resulted in a baby that inherited half of its DNA from Jeremy. Did this matter to me? Would it matter to Jeremy?

  I thought about it, trying to imagine a baby as unlike Jeremy and me as possible. A baby with a fluff of dark hair and serious eyes. A little girl who danced with the natural grace I’d never known. A boy who loved to run until his legs tired and his breath came in gasps. A child who would be mine, even if he or she didn’t come from me. A child who would call me Mama. I would hold him in my arms, and he’d wrap his chubby arms around my neck. I’d blow kisses on a soft, round stomach. I’d inhale that sweet baby smell, until it swamped all of my senses….

  A longing washed over me that was so intense I had to put a hand on the countertop to steady myself.

  The back door opened, and Jeremy came into the kitchen, Otis panting at his heels. I was right—he did smell like a fish.

  “Are the troops all tucked in?” I asked.

  “They’re in their sleeping bags, but no one’s gone to sleep yet. They’re asking for cocoa. Which they apparently want served in a thermos,” Jeremy said.

  At the children’s insistence, Jeremy had pitched a borrowed tent in our backyard, and the three of them were sleeping out there.

  “Isn’t it a little hot out for cocoa?” I asked.

  “You would think. I already had to talk them down from building a campfire, which I’m pretty sure is against the city code,” Jeremy said.

  I poured some milk in a pan and turned the burner on underneath. “I don’t think I have a thermos. Will they accept their cocoa served in regular old mugs?”

  “I’m sure. Are there any marshmallows left?” Jeremy asked. “Or did Otis eat all of them?”

  I reached into the cupboard and pulled out a new bag of marshmallows. “Ta-da.”

  “Excellent. What else are you hiding in there?”

  “Two bags of Hershey’s Kisses,” I admitted.

  “You’ve been holding out on me!”

  “They’re not for us. They’re for you to bring to the sci-fi convention tomorrow,” I explained. Jeremy would be manning a table at the annual South Florida Science Fiction Convention, or SciCon for short.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Why am I bringing two bags of Hershey’s Kisses to SciCon?” Jeremy asked.

  “I thought it would be a good marketing trick. You put the Kisses out in a bowl on your table. And then when people stop for the candy, you can sell them a book,” I said brightly.

  “No,” Jeremy said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because bowls of Hershey’s Kisses are not very manly.”

  “Do you want to be manly, or do you want to sell books?”

  “I want to sell books in a manly fashion,” Jeremy said.

  I rolled my eyes, but put the Kisses back in the cupboard. “I’m worried about them sleeping outside. Do you think it’s safe?”

  “It’ll be okay. I’m going to stay with them.”

  “Is there room in the tent for you?”

  “No. I’ll sleep on one of the chaise lounges,” Jeremy said. We had a pair of chaise lounges next to our tiny pool, another feature that had sold us on the house.

  “It’s supposed to rain tonight,” I protested.

  “So? I don’t melt,” Jeremy said, smiling.

  “But you’ve got SciCon tomorrow. You need to be well rested.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Jeremy pulled me into his arms and nuzzled his chin against the top of my head. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “I’m fine. The kids didn’t notice anything, did they?”

  “Those three? They notice everything. But what exactly are you referring to?”

  “My getting all blubbery at the beach,” I said.

  “First of all, a few tears hardly equals blubbery. And second, no, I don’t think they noticed. They were too busy with their impromptu gymnastics training session,” Jeremy said. “I think the milk is boiling.”

  I broke out of his embrace and reached for the pan before the milk could scald. I dumped some cocoa into the pan and whisked it into the milk. Jeremy leaned against the counter and watched me.

  “So … I was thinking,” I said slowly. “Maybe Rose is right.”

  “Right about what? That she should be crowned Imperial Leader of the World? Because I have to say, I don’t think she’d be a particularly benevolent dictator,” Jeremy said. “She’d force us all to be her slaves. In fact, she’d probably keep us chained to her throne.”

  “No, not that. Although, yes, I agree, the thought of Rose in power is terrifying. But I was thinking about what she said earlier at the beach. About how we should adopt a baby. I think …,” I began, but then stopped and swallowed hard, trying to quell my nerves. “I think maybe we should think about it.”

  Jeremy nodded, but didn’t say anything for a few beats.

  “We always said adoption was a possibility,” he said finally.

  I realized I’d been holding my breath, and let it out in a whoosh. “We did,” I agreed.

  “But we wanted to try IVF first,” Jeremy said. “We wanted to pursue that for as long as it was a viable option.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t think it is a viable option,” I said. I was trying to keep my voice steady, but I could hear the pain seeping in around the edges of my words. Jeremy heard it, too. His face creased with worry, and he reached for me.

  “No, I’m okay,” I said. “I just … I just really want to be a mom. And I think that adoption is the only way it’s going to happen for us. So maybe it’s time we looked into it.”

  Jeremy inhaled deeply. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  Two

  JEREMY

  I sat at my out-of-the-way table at SciCon, trying not to yawn. T
he plum table assignments had been given to the rock stars of the sci-fi community—minor actors from hit television shows, comic book artists, computer game developers. As the writer of a series of paperbacks with middling sales, I’d been placed so far away from the action I might as well have been in the parking lot. I perked up as a pair of twenty-year-old geeks dressed as Captain Picard and Spock from Star Trek passed by.

  “I’m telling you, I totally saw Tricia Helfer by the laser exhibit,” Spock said. “Caprica Number Six in the flesh.”

  “No way. That wasn’t her,” Captain Picard replied. “That was just some blonde chick in a Caprica Number Six costume.”

  “I’m telling you, it was her. The real Six,” Spock insisted.

  They glanced in my direction. I smiled winningly.

  “Hi,” I said. I held the bowl out. “Hershey Kiss?”

  India had talked me into bringing the candy with me, despite my protests that I wouldn’t use it. I held out for about an hour. After watching convention stragglers trailing past my table without once glancing in my direction, I finally gave in and broke out the Kisses.

  “Thanks, dude,” Picard said as they each grabbed a handful of Kisses. Neither one even glanced at my book display or at the cardboard sign that read, JEREMY HALLOWAY, AUTHOR OF THE FUTURE RACE SERIES. Instead, they walked off in the direction of the stage, where characters from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were scheduled to appear.

  A robot passed by, headed in the opposite direction from the Trekkies. “Kiss?” I offered, shaking the bowl. The robot didn’t speak. He—or she, it was impossible to tell—held up one silver hand and pointed toward its masked head. “Oh,” I said sympathetically. “Yeah, I guess it’s hard to eat when you’re in costume.”

  The robot shrugged and kept moving. I slumped back in my chair and swallowed back another yawn. It had been a late night. The chaise lounge had not made a comfortable bed, and the situation got even worse after the storm blew in at around two in the morning. Luckily, the kids hadn’t wanted to stay out in the tent once it started thundering, so we moved indoors. Miles slept in the guest room, Rose and Luke unrolled their sleeping bags on the sofas in the living room, and I managed to get a few hours of sleep in my bed.