by Tasha Blue
“What about you? What’s going on in your world?” she asked happily.
“Oh, well the tech industry moves faster than the speed of light all over the world, so you know they all keep me hopping. New toys, new innovation. It will never end, it will only continue to keep changing.” He shrugged and laughed, and both David and Marina chuckled with him.
She tilted her head to one side and eyed him curiously. “How’s your mother doing? Is she still getting chemo treatments?”
Henry stopped short then. “Yes… she is. It’s an aggressive form of therapy, but it hasn’t changed the diagnosis. They’re still saying there’s no way that she’s going to make it past two years. They say a year and a half at best.”
He was quiet and looked down at the glass of wine in his hand, swirling the red liquid and watching it turn in the crystal embraced in his fingertips.
David frowned and leaned further over the table toward Henry. “Henry…” he began slowly, eyeing him. “What’s going on? Is there something new? Is something going on that we don’t already know about?”
Henry sighed woefully and glanced at the people in the room around them. There were people of varying adult ages huddled around candlelit tables, murmuring in conversation. All of them settled into the moments of their lives; the bubbles in which they lived, none of them thinking of the other bubbles around them, so near to them, that were almost intertwined with their own lives. None of them paying attention, none of them listening or looking.
He turned and drew nearer to David and Marina. “Well… there is one thing,” he began with a deep breath. “She just brought it up, and I’ll be honest, I’m totally stumped. I really don’t know how to handle this. I don’t know how to give her what she’s asked for. I wish I could… I really do, but there’s just no way for me to do it. It’s not possible. I’ve never had to tell her no for any reason before, but she just asked for the impossible, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Both of his friends sitting across from him grew puzzled. “What is it?” David asked in wonder.
Henry’s shoulders slumped. “Grandchildren. She’s worried about me being alone. She’s worried that I will grow old without anyone, and she wants to see her grandchildren before she… before she has to go.” He stumbled over the words. He swallowed hard as tears stung at the back of his eyes. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to hear his own voice give any kind of life or power to the words he was thinking.
David nodded with a sigh and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he shook his head and looked at Henry sadly. “I wondered if that was going to come up. I have to be honest: I’ve kind of been wondering the same thing. You haven’t had a serious relationship in a long time, and I know you haven’t wanted one since-” he saw the sharp look that flashed over Henry’s face, and he cleared his throat and continued, “since college… but you aren’t doing anything about starting a family, and your parents were so big on family. It was so important to both your dad and your mom. I know my parents have brought up the grandchildren conversation with Marina and me a few times already, and they’re not backing down. They want to see them and spend time with them while they’re able. I could imagine in your mother’s case, that’s exponentially important. She won’t have much time with them at all, or she wouldn’t, even if you started today. I’m sorry it’s come up like it has, especially right now, but I’m not surprised at all.”
Henry raked his fingers through the sandy brown waves on his head, and then unceremoniously dropped his hand down to his lap and looked back at David and Marina. “I wish that I could give her a grandchild, or several, not only because she wants them, but because I do want to carry on our family name and bloodline. I just… I don’t have anyone in my life with whom I’d be ready to start a family. There’s no one… not even close. I feel like she brought this up out of the blue and caught me off guard, but yet at the same time, there’s another part of me that knew that it was coming because of exactly what you just said, David.
“My mom and dad did put family first, and I knew that they would both be wanting heirs from me. I knew that the longer I pushed it off, the more important it would become. I knew that when my father passed away and left my mother and me alone that it would become a priority for her. Then, when we found out that she had cancer and the doctors said that she didn’t have long to live at all, the worry of creating a next generation in our family sort of fell to the back of my mind, and I thought it must have fallen from hers as well, because our only concern was her illness and the dark day that we both know is coming all too soon.”
Marina bit her lower lip and wiped a few tears from her eyelashes. She and David sat and watched Henry as he spoke. Neither of them interrupted him or said a word to him about it. They just sat quietly and listened.
Henry continued, “I haven’t thought about since her diagnosis and her treatments. I’ve been much too concerned with her health and… everything… to worry about finding a wife and carrying on the family line. I’m… I’m fine with the way that things are. I don’t want any of it to change. There’s no one that I want in my life that way. I used to want a family, and I guess that I still do, except that it’s not a priority for me right now. She is my priority right now, her and the business. There’s nothing else in my life. Now she comes to me out of the blue and begs me for grandchildren? What am I supposed to do about that? I’d give her the moon if she had the notion, but I can’t give her that. I can’t find someone and fall in love right away and get married right away and get my wife pregnant right away and in less than a year produce a baby that she may know for six months to a year if she’s even that lucky. It’s just not possible. I wish so much that there was some other way to do this… to help her and give her what she wants, but it’s just not realistic.”
David’s face twisted into uncertainty. “I guess adoption is probably out of the question. That’s all I can think of as far as instant kids.”
Henry shook his head. “It’s about our family line with her. She wouldn’t be opposed to adoption, but she’d want our own flesh and blood right along with it. There would need to be a child that was descended from my father and her. She would want that.
Marina sniffed and wiped at her nose and eyes with a tissue she had pulled from her purse, as she shook her head. “It’s so sad, you know… it’s just so…” she paused in the middle of what she was saying and looked up at Henry with widening eyes.
He frowned a little and tilted his head curiously at her. “What? What is it?” he asked, furrowing his brow slightly.
She reached her hand toward him, though it was still closed around the tissue. “Actually, I might be wrong about that!” she said as hope and something akin to excitement began to dawn on her face.
“What do you mean you’re wrong? You’re not wrong, Marina. I don’t have time to find a wife and have a baby before she’s gone.” His mouth turned downward sharply.
Marina shook her head as David stared at her. “Honey, what on earth are you talking about?”
She looked from Henry to David and then back to Henry again. “Listen… I might have a solution for you and her, just… just hear me out.” She leaned close to them both, almost conspiratorially.
Lowering her voice, she spoke her thoughts. “What if you didn’t have to get married? What if you just had the baby or babies?” she breathed with a growing thrill that was building up in her like the swell of a huge tidal wave.
Henry gave his head a shake. “I don’t know what you mean… Can you explain what you’re talking about please?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! Yes, I can definitely explain.” She held her hands up as a smile began to grow over her face, beaming like sunshine through dark clouds.
“So, there are companies out there, fertility companies, that can help people have children. What if you found a company that was able to help you that way somehow. You contribute your… biological part of it, and the doct
ors or specialists or whatever they are, they have someone carry a baby for you, or multiple babies… I guess that is a common occurrence with invitro fertilization pregnancies, you don’t have to get married or find a wife or anything, and in nine months… voilà… you are a father to your own biological children, and your mom has her grandbabies. She can spend time with them while she has it, you have someone to leave your family legacy to, and you don’t have to get married. It’s kind of perfect really.” She smiled and lifted her chin, quite pleased with herself that she had come up with what she was certain was a viable solution.
He stared at her. “I can’t…” he began, but as her words floated into his mind in a jumble of “No” and began to reconnect into actual thoughts, his eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly. Every word that she had said had begun to fit together like a puzzle piece, forming a picture that was beginning to make sense to him in his head. “Can I?” he whispered in disbelief.
David turned fully in his seat and looked at his wife. “That’s a brilliant idea! I love it! I think you might have actually come up with a viable solution!” He turned back to Henry then and gazed intently at him. “What do you think, Henry? That’s a pretty solid idea, actually. I can’t see any holes in it, and it’s my job to look for holes.”
Henry stared off into space thinking about it. It’s not a bad idea, he mused to himself as every possibility coursed through his mind. He, too, tried to find the pitfalls of it, but there didn’t seem to be any. It seemed that Marina had in fact come up with a solution that just might work.
If he could produce his own children without having to find a wife and get married, his mother could have her grandchild, or grandchildren, and the only downside for her would be that he still wouldn’t have anyone to grow old with, but then he reasoned that he wouldn’t have to grow old with a partner. He could instead grow old with his own children. It dawned on him that nothing could be better than that.
He looked back at David and Marina with bright eyes. “You’re right, David, it’s a brilliant idea! I think it just might work. The only thing that I think might be an issue is me raising the child or children on my own when they’re babies,” he finally answered aloud.
Marina shrugged and waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Oh no, no. Don’t worry about that. Just hire a nanny to help you take care of them. David and I have been talking about possibly starting our own family soon, so our children could grow up together, yours and ours, and we’d be there for one another as we raise them. Really, if you think about it, it’s kind of perfect. It’s really ideal.” She glowed as she talked about it, bubbling happily about how things could be.
David nodded as well and seemed to light up. “I’ll tell you, Henry, the more I think about this crazy scheme, the more I like it. I think it would work well for all of us to tell you the truth. You just need to find a girl to do the pregnancy for you, and then the rest is easy going after that.”
Henry thought about it carefully some more as he listened to his friends. “You know, I think I’m going to look into this, but I do think that I’m going to see if there’s someone who could do a pregnancy for me and then help me raise the children, at least for the first couple of years or so. I don’t know if I’d want a nanny, and after my mother… after she isn’t around any longer, it would be difficult to know how to do it on my own. I think a nanny would be too impersonal. I feel that the natural mother of the child, or the children… I think I’d really want a multiple birth situation ideally… I think that the natural mother should be around to help raise them for a little while. That way there would be a genuine love for the babies, and not someone there just because I’m paying them to be there.”
Rubbing his fingers over his chin thoughtfully, Henry considered it with even more detail than he had. “I really like this idea, Marina. I think you may have just solved my problem. Thank you.” He grinned at her and she smiled right back at him.
Chapter2
Two days after having dinner with David and Marina, and stumbling upon the very best idea that any of them could have come up with to solve his problem, Henry sat at his desk and waited for his secretary Cara Landers to arrive. He tried to occupy himself with as much work as he could do at his desk without letting his mind wander too far into possibility.
When she arrived for work that day, he called her into his office to talk with her. She breezed through the door, her shapely legs thinly covered by a sweater dress that reached to a space a short distance above her knees. The material hugged her form from there to her shoulders where her red hair was curled under just at the ends. She smiled adoringly at him, her blue eyes wide and rimmed with dark lashes, setting off the paleness of her skin and making her cheeks look pink.
“Good morning, Henry!” she called out with a lilt in her voice, almost in a sing-song sort of way. She batted her eyelashes at him and her cheeks flushed a little more. She went to his desk and perched her body at the edge of one of the chairs before it. In her hands she held firmly to an electronic tablet that she began to swipe her finger over as they faced one another.
“Good morning, Cara,” he answered pleasantly. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his hands together and set his eyes on her seriously. She watched him as if he was the center of the universe and nothing else existed outside of him; it was as if he was powerful, holding her to him with an unbreakable gravitational force.
“I have something of the utmost importance to discuss with you,” he began, drawing in a deep breath, barely able to believe what he was about to tell her. He had gone over it in his mind until the words had left tracks in his thoughts, but he still was astounded that he was about to utter words that would change his entire life forever. It was one of the single most significant moments in his life.
“I have made a decision for myself and my life that will mean a profound and total change,” he said in a quiet and stoic tone. The edge of the chair that she seemed to already be teetering on looked as if it was sending her forward to him in slow motion. She drew nearer to him and her smile widened as an expression of joy began to form on her face.
“I never thought that these words would be spoken by me, or that if they were that they would be spoken to someone who isn’t my wife, but… life has a way of making us do what we didn’t know we could ever do.” He gave his head a shake and let his breath out in a gush.
“It’s time that I started a family,” he said, his hazel eyes locked on hers as he listened to himself saying the words.
She grinned and blinked repeatedly, “Oh… Henry, I’m so glad that you’re finally coming to this decision! I have believed for a long time that it’s exactly the right decision for you… for us! I’m so thrilled to hear it! I wasn’t sure when you’d finally admit it, or bring it up, but here you are, saying it, and now everything can finally change!” She looked as if someone had just handed her everything she had ever wanted.
“No one knows you better than me,” she continued to gush. “It’s so perfect. The time is right to make the change. Oh…. Henry, everything is going to be perfect. You’ll see. It’s exactly the right time for this change to come.” She set the tablet on the desk in front of her and was just about to stand up when Henry’s words stopped her, freezing her almost in midair.
“I’m glad you feel that way, because I’m going to need your help. It’s time I started a family. You couldn’t be more right about the time, and it’s unfortunate, but it really has to be now or never, I’m afraid. There’s no way I can put it off any longer. I’ll need you to do most of the work for me, if you don’t mind. At least initially.” He looked at her with humbled hope in his eyes.
Cara grinned. “Oh of course, you know I’d do anything for you. Anything in the world for you! I feel exactly the same as you do, and I have for so long, but we’ve just never talked about it. Now here we are, and you’re bringing it up out of the blue like this, helping us to make this change… this life altering change.” She sighed blissfully.
“I need you to find a fertility clinic for me and arrange to have a woman carry my children. I want to do an invitro fertilization procedure, and I want it to be a multiple birth if we can manage it. At least two children.” He felt as if the words were falling from his mouth like a waterfall, just tumbling out one after the other in a cascade of change.
Cara blinked and stared at him. “You… you want some strange woman to carry children for you?” she asked in disbelief. She blinked back tears and sat back at the edge of the seat she had begun to rise from.
“Yes, exactly. We need to find just the right woman to do this task. She must be intelligent, strong, reliable… healthy. Definitely healthy…” he added thoughtfully. “I want her to carry my seed and give birth to the children, and then I’d like her to live with me at the house for the first couple of years of their lives to help me raise them. It would be more like a job for her though, above the position of a nanny of course, but there to care for the children. When the little ones reach two years old, she would be able to leave. She could go and live her own life and be finished with this position. I’d be willing to compensate her generously for her work and time. Five hundred thousand for the pregnancy and for the birth of the babies, then five hundred thousand for each year she is helping to raise them. Can you do that? Can you help me find her?” he asked hopefully, leaning forward and resting his hands on the desk between them.
She sat silent and as still as a statue for a long moment, and finally she nodded her head and held the smile that was on her face. “Yes, of course. As I said, I’d always do anything for you. I’ll get to work on this right away. I’ll find her and get it all set up for you. It’s clear that you want these children right away, and I’m sure your mother would be glad to see some grandchildren while she can.”
Cara turned her head slightly, but kept her eyes locked on Henry’s eyes. “One thought however, if she’s going to leave at some point when the children are still young, you might not want her to live in the house with them and you, because she might become too attached to them. You might want her to live in her own house nearby, so that there is some distance, and then when it’s time for her to go, she doesn’t protest leaving the children or try to keep them at all. Letting her be too close to them in their first years might become a problem. I can arrange to have a house available to her near your home, where she can come in perhaps during the day… like a nanny almost, and then leave at night. We would want her there to help, but not to get too close to them, or to you.”