by Mary Stone
Today, I leaned back in my busted pleather chair and took a moment to appreciate this.
This moment, when everything was going exactly the way I wanted it to.
I read the email again and smiled. Blonde and blue-eyed. That, we could do.
Hell, we could do anything for half a million dollars. Or die trying, as my dear old husband had been fond of saying. RIP. Dead for twenty years now.
As I opened an email to respond, the door opened, and my assistant popped her head in. She was one of those high-maintenance, just-out-of-college millennials, with a too-short skirt and a useless sociology degree, who thought she was making minimum wage bringing my coffee today, and ruling the world tomorrow.
I closed out of the email quickly and said, “Honey, didn’t I tell you to knock?”
“Yes, I know, but…” she flipped her blonde hair off her shoulder and gnawed the bright red lipstick off her bottom lip as she shuffled in the doorway excitedly, “your twelve is here.”
“Ah.”
Well, that explained her overeagerness. There was always a degree of excitement whenever one of the children being shuttled through the foster system found a forever home. I stood up and followed my assistant to the conference room, where the anxious new parents had brought all sorts of gifts for their newest family member.
Shaking hands with them, I said, “Tom. Gerri. So wonderful to see you again. It looks like you’re ready to become a mom and dad, huh?”
They nodded, nervous laughter all around.
“Jared will be here in a few minutes. We sent a car to pick him up.”
The new, young parents nodded and thanked me, sitting down at the table and twiddling their thumbs in anticipation. This particular case, Jared Watts, had been born to a heroin-addicted mother ten years ago. Though Jared had grown up in foster care, his mother had fought for custody, which had been granted, up until the time she was found in the back of a Walmart bathroom with a needle in her arm.
She had been given a second chance at least three or four times, and each relapse was worse than the last. After that, there was a lengthy court battle where she eventually wound up relinquishing rights, and Tom and Gerri Marlowe, who’d fostered Jared as a toddler, stepped up to make the situation permanent.
A happy ending. I lived for those. Jared was a cute kid. He deserved a good life.
And that’s what I delivered to kids. Day in, day out. The dream of a happy life. Though there was plenty of heartbreak in the child welfare system, I felt privileged to play a part in the act of uniting families. Of making the dreams of childless couples and orphans come true.
Yes. A very noble cause indeed. I had a wall in my office full of awards and commendations, all shining and sparkling and reminding me why I’d gotten into this business. I’d started as an RN working in obstetrics, but when the situation arose, I’d gotten my master’s in social work. I lived to serve the children of not only this community but other communities around the country.
I couldn’t have been prouder when the door opened and little Jared peeked his head through. Once a scared little boy, his big brown eyes were now full of joy, and his smile lit up the entire room. He ran to his new parents, and they heaped together, hugging and sobbing.
Next to me, my assistant tucked her visible red bra strap back under her blouse and wiped a tear from her eye.
I reached over and handed her a tissue. There was a reason our office had cases of Kleenex delivered every month. Most of the tears, though, were happy ones.
I made sure of that.
My assistant offered them our standard congratulations basket—full of little goodies, and a gift card to Applebees so that the family could have a nice meal together. Photographs were taken, with Jared holding a little wipe-off board that said, Adoption Day! and the date. Hugs all around.
A cake was brought in that said Congratulations, Marlowe Family! I let them make the first cut, and then my assistant went around doling fat pieces to everyone in the office. There was never a shortage of parties here. It was a wonder we all weren’t fat as pigs.
When the crew said goodbye to the new family, I walked back to my office, rolled my busted chair close to the desk, and opened the email again.
Some families, like Jared and the Marlowes, came together easily.
But in other cases, a little finessing was needed.
After fifty years in the business, first working in hospitals and now in social work, I knew all the shortcuts, all the loopholes. Sometimes, crafting a perfect family for a child required a few risks. But in the end, the child would be happier. And that’s all everyone wanted, wasn’t it?
Some families were so eager to adopt that they threw money at us; especially if it meant they could be placed first on the list and avoid the usual years-long waiting period. It wasn’t unusual for them to offer up hundreds of thousands of dollars in “fees,” no questions asked, for the chance to become mommy and daddy.
The cut I took of the adoption “fee” was nice too. I’d never be able to take my yearly cruise vacation if I’d had to survive on the director’s salary. Social workers were paid peanuts, even high-level ones like myself. And my stupid husband had died and left me with very little in the way of a retirement pension. I had to do this all myself.
I reread the email on my private account. It was written in code so that anyone looking at it wouldn’t be able to decipher it, but by now, I read the code as if it was written in everyday English. It said: Hello, Looking for a blonde, blue-eyed infant for a high-ranking government official. $500k if you can deliver by the end of the month. K
I smiled again.
That was the most I’d ever been offered for one baby. Party time, indeed.
I knew my contact only as K. The emails always came from [email protected]. He or she was my marketing guru. Whoever K was, he sourced the people looking for children and passed the information on to me. When I received the goods, I usually dropped them off at whichever clinic was arranged ahead of time, to be united with the adoptive family. I’d never met K, but from what I’d heard, he fielded requests for these adoptions daily on the dark web. I was only a small cog in his operation.
I’d lost count long ago, but this little baby would be close to two hundred, plus or minus a few.
A cause for celebration.
Two hundred sweet children I’d saved from poverty and neglect. Two hundred little souls who now had the chance for happiness and prosperity. Two hundred men and women who attained the blessed goal of being parents…because of me.
I placed both hands over my heart and smiled. My life’s mission fed my soul.
Digging through my desk, I pulled out the burner phone I used only for this contact and pressed the call button, then smiled when the line was answered almost immediately. Mark Lamb. One of the best obstetrics nurses in the business, he’d been on the job for twenty years, working at one of the little Podunk hospitals in some backwoods town in Mississippi.
“Well, hello, Mark.”
“Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while,” he said, clearly pleased that I’d called. That was good. “Beginning to wonder if I’d fallen off your radar. It’s been, what…two years?”
It had been three, but who was counting?
“Feels like much longer,” he went on, his voice deepening.
Was he flirting? I was nearly twice his age. Well, two could play at that game. I’d been around the block long enough to know when a man was using his charm to try to get somewhere with me.
No, he wasn’t flirting. He wanted more money. That was always the case with these people. I’d dealt with it enough to know.
“As you know, sweet boy, I have to spread myself around as much as possible. You understand, I’m sure.”
He laughed, playing the game. “Yeah, I do. How can I help you today?”
Small talk was over.
“If you can manage it, I have another opportunity that has come up.”
“Okay. What are the deta
ils?”
“Blonde, blue-eyed if possible. Sex doesn’t matter. Your cut will be given to you upon delivery to me.”
He didn’t even pause. “Actually, this is perfect timing. I know just the candidate. Mother came in a few hours ago. Fits your requirements perfectly.”
“All right. Let me know when you think you can have it ready for me, and I’ll arrange the details.”
“Will do,” he said, and I smiled. Sometimes, it was like taking candy from a baby. “But as for the compensation…”
Oh, no. Here it came. “Just as before. Twenty percent.”
He made a noise, low in his throat. “It was pretty tough last time. I almost got caught. And I don’t have to tell you that I’m risking my entire life on this. My career, my reputation, not to mention that I could get put in jail for years.”
I rolled my eyes. This was the most common wrench, but not one I wasn’t used to dealing with. People getting greedy. As if $100,000 wasn’t more than he made in an entire year. “Yes, yes,” I said dismissively. “And I’m very grateful to you for the help.”
“Are you grateful to the tune of fifty percent?”
I nearly choked. Hell no.
“You understand that I only receive twenty percent, same as you?”
This was a lie, but I found that this line usually helped put an end to the negotiations rather effectively.
“Yeah. Well, maybe you should be asking for a raise as well,” he muttered.
I didn’t have time for this. I had another meeting at two, with a couple of potential adoptees looking for an older child. “Fine. Twenty-five is the most I can offer you.”
“All right. Twenty-five,” he said. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
I gritted my teeth. This was bullshit. He might’ve been sticking his neck out, but I had a lot more to lose than he did. And the people I worked with should’ve counted themselves lucky to get a call from me. Not the other way around. I had enough connections that I didn’t need Mark or anyone else.
“Just…get it done right. I’m expecting no more bullshit from you.”
“Always.” He sounded cocky. That was always a problem.
I didn’t say goodbye. Suddenly, I didn’t really care for Mark that much. Greedy bastard.
I hung up, opening an email to my contact. Not a problem. Will contact you when ready so you can give me details on drop-off.
I loved hearing when my contact had a potential candidate. Sometimes, it could take months. But Mark was good at what he did. The last time I worked with him, he’d done well. No problems. I had dozens of other contacts in the hospitals all over the United States, but I only worked with them two, three times at most. Any more than that, and people started to get suspicious. My contacts got cocky. In the nineties, I’d sourced three from one hospital alone in a matter of a couple years. That had been reckless. I’d almost gotten caught.
But this would be my last time working with Mark.
This was a win-win situation for everyone involved. Well, the mother would lose…lose the responsibility and expense and effort a child took. A baby was likely something she hadn’t wanted to begin with. Another complication in her already difficult life. I’d be doing her a favor, taking a baby off her hands. That was the way I saw it. And the baby would grow up in a life of privilege, instead of a trailer somewhere with pot-addicted, lowlife parents.
Because of me. Because of my efforts to make the world a better place.
Yes. It certainly was nice when things went to plan.
7
Avery Boone would have adored being in labor, if it wasn’t for the pain.
“Get me some ice chips,” she said to whoever would listen after the last contraction subsided. “Please! Thank you!”
She’d been in active labor for just over four hours. From her three hours at the hospital, she’d quickly learned that these people in scrubs had been assembled to do her bidding.
Since being waited on hand and foot sure beat working at the local grocery for minimum wage, she was making the best of it. She didn’t have insurance, but one of her friends had told her that doctors had to treat her, so not to worry about it.
So, she didn’t.
First, some pain meds in her IV, followed by a few sips of Sprite. Now, ice-chips. If she asked one of these nurses to wipe her forehead with a wet rag, or even feed her grapes, they’d probably do it.
This was the life.
Avery was sure she was meant to be rich. After spending a twelve-hour shift on her feet behind a cash register, getting yelled at by annoying customers whenever she had to do a price-check, having people wait on her as she lounged on the bed was heaven. Plus, the hospital bed was so big she could stretch out in it. She didn’t have to worry about Billy rolling over and smacking her in his sleep as he was fond of doing.
She’d take whatever pleasure she could from it now. Especially since every person she came up against told her that having a baby meant that she wouldn’t rest for the next eighteen years straight. Enjoy the high life now, baby, because it ends the second they wheel you out those hospital doors. She planned on milking it for as long as they would let her.
A nurse came in with a cup full of ice cubes and set one on her tongue. She sucked it, looking around at the people assembled around her hospital bed, all dressed in scrubs of varying pastel shades.
All of them were strangers.
Of course. The produce manager at the grocery had driven her here after her water had broken in the parking lot, but he must’ve hightailed it out of there the second she got through the Holmes County Hospital’s front doors. Probably didn’t want to be accused of being the father, since Avery was only sixteen and he was probably forty. Maybe fifty. Old.
And of course, no Billy. She couldn’t count on that deadbeat to do a damned thing right. He was the reason she was here, putting her body through this ridiculousness, since it was his condom that had broken. Probably a cheap one he’d gotten at the dollar store. Moron.
She never should’ve trusted him. Likely, right now, he was somewhere playing Fortnite, maybe with a needle in his arm. Maybe screwing Cathy, that little slut. Her best friend. Correction…ex-best friend. Ex ever since she discovered that the two of them had been sexting each other regularly, and who-knew-what else.
Avery had dropped out of school and gotten a real job at the grocery store to try to make a good living so that they could be a family. Meanwhile, her belly had just kept growing until even Billy looked disgusted by her.
It would be nice to look human again. Put on one of those short skirts and the stilettos that had gotten her into this trouble in the first place. But of course, she’d be more careful next time. She’d lose the baby weight and drive the boys wild—making sure they could look but never touch.
She wouldn’t do it for Billy, though. Screw Billy. When she got out of here, she’d leave him. Never look back. He’d never cared about being a father. She and the baby would be better off without him.
As she sucked on a chip, letting the cool liquid slide down her throat, another contraction ripped through her. As it ramped up, she dropped the cup between her legs and tightened her hands on the bed rails, wincing and moaning until it was over.
That was the worst one yet.
“Oh, that was a good one,” the nurse said with a grin, studying the monitor.
Avery scowled at her. Sure it was a good one. Because you didn’t have to feel it. Fuck you, bitch.
She turned to the television set, which was on some old television sitcom she’d never seen before with a bunch of middle-aged, unattractive losers living in an apartment. She wished she had Netflix. Of course, Netflix and chilling with Billy in the living room of her family house was what had gotten her here to begin with.
She’d been so stupid. Buying all his dumb lines last summer. To think, at the beginning of the school year, the only thing she had to worry about was making sure she looked good in that tiny cheerleading skirt so she could make asshol
es like Billy drool.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
After the pregnancy test came back positive, her mother had flipped, and her father had hounded her nonstop, asking why she hadn’t kept her legs together. She couldn’t take their constant bitching, so she’d left. She’d told her parents that she didn’t need them and dropped out of her junior year of high school, intending to get a place with Billy. But apartments were super-expensive, he couldn’t get a job, and so she’d been living at Billy’s dad’s house, in his basement bedroom. The only good thing about that arrangement was that Billy’s dad was rarely home and usually let them do what they wanted.
Usually, that entailed sex, smoking pot, Fortnite, and more sex. At least, when she wasn’t at work.
But what she wanted most, now that she and Billy were no longer a thing was to get away from him. He wouldn’t miss her.
It was time to move out. She and the baby could probably go somewhere. A house for unwed mothers or something. That was a thing, wasn’t it? She could hang with all the other moms, bond over diaper changing and feedings and shit.
A man who looked like a television doctor with a stethoscope around his neck and a confident, easy gait strode into the hospital room. Ignoring her, he asked the nurse, “How are things with this patient?”
The nurse told him that she was fifty percent effaced, whatever that meant, as Avery glared at the man. Why did all these people ignore her like she wasn’t even there? It was especially hard, because he was kind of cute. Where once, she drove boys crazy, now, they looked at her like some kind of head case. She couldn’t flirt her way out of a paper bag anymore.
“Are you the doctor?” she asked him.
He shook his head as he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. “I’m the head nurse here. The doctor on-call will be here shortly. Am I right in reviewing your paperwork that this baby has had no prenatal care?”
Avery let out a huff and crossed her arms. “I was busy. I meant to, but I don’t got insurance so…” All these excuses came pouring out of her mouth at once, and she found herself blushing from shame. Maybe she would want to get out of here, sooner rather than later.