How to Make a Baby: a novel

by Sadie Sumner

  Dog growled at Puffy as Rufus emptied the containers. “He just won’t let up,” Rufus said and put his hands over the rabbit’s ears.

  “Maybe it’s an inter-species thing,” Monica said as she laid the table.

  “That’s a bit gross,” Rufus opened the wine he’d brought.

  “Not you and Puffy,” she said, “although…he is very soft.”

  Rufus scratched the rabbit. “Oh baby, don’t listen to that silly woman. You are so much more than a furry friend.”

  “Have you always been nurturing?” Monica asked.

  “I guess, but especially with this little guy.” He found a small brush in his bag and began to groom Puffy. “Can I ask you something?”

  Monica nodded as she watched Gil straighten the cutlery she’d laid out.

  “I wondered if you got a chance to talk to your mother in her last week, to you know, resolve all that unspoken stuff?”

  Monica took out fabric napkins she had inherited from Dotty. Her saris and old batik fabrics were in a bag in the empty spare room. “She was the same, naked all the time like she knew it was her last chance to shock. It was weird. She refused chemo, so her hair didn’t fall out, so no one knew it was cancer.” Monica thought for a moment. “I guess she was just sort of hollow.”

  “How about a hug?” Rufus said.

  Monica frowned. “Perhaps you have low blood sugar.”

  “Monica. Be nice to my friend.” Gil sipped his drink.

  Monica glared at him. Rufus was all heart and failure to launch, but it occurred to her that Gil had become that thing he had always despised: the failed artist.

  Gil took down the framed photo from over the dining room table and opened the tube he’d brought in with him and pinned the new photo to the wall.

  “This is great.” Rufus gazed at the image of Dotty’s coffin, with Dog a hazy blur beside it. “It’s so ghostly, like Dog is the spirit escaped from the box.”

  Gil smiled like a happy child. Monica had to admit it was a good image, ethereal and strange with the fog touching the coffin balanced on kitchen chairs. She watched as Gil poured himself another shot of vodka and realized he was already drunk.

  He ran his fingers through the chilled moisture on the outside of the bottle. “What happened to all our friends? We used to have friends.”

  Monica brought the plates to the table. He was right. Their dinner parties reduced to Rufus and whatever new lover he dragged along and the occasional new client and, a few weeks before, an art dealer Gil had tried to impress.

  Monica watched as he stumbled against a chair. “You know, all we do is service the fantasy of marriage.” He slurred his words. “Your gowns, my photos. We just market a bullshit dream, and none of us is living it.” He took out a tumbler and filled it to the top with the last of the vodka, and they sat at the table and ate the meal in silence.

  Monica held out her phone. “Here,” she said. It was a video of Dog as he ran in circles in the kitchen. “I’m going to show this to a trainer, this is not normal behavior.”

  “He’s okay when he’s with me,” Gil perked up.

  “We love Dog, don’t we, Puffy?” Rufus lifted the rabbit from the sling.

  “How do you manage to eat wearing that thing?” Gil asked.

  “You just have speciesism. If it were a puppy or, god forbid, a baby, you wouldn’t say a word. But no, a rabbit, and he’s just a species too far.” They all turned to watch as Dog scratched at the door. “I think he wants to go out,” Rufus said as he hugged Puffy.

  “Are you okay, Gil?” Monica asked.

  “Nothing wrong with me.” He slumped in his chair.

  Rufus nudged her. “I think I’ll go.”

  “No, stay. You already know everything. There’s something wrong with both of us.” Gil blurted out. “When did we start to think all of this was enough? These clothes.” He pulled at his t-shirt. “Not enough. Or that.” He pointed to Dog. “It’s a fucking dog, and we treat him like a small, naughty child.”

  Monica called Dog over and patted her knee. She knew he was right. “So if Dog or Puffy got sick what would you do?”

  Rufus did not hesitate. “Anything to save him.” He kissed the rabbit’s pink nose.

  “I don’t know,” Gil said.

  “Come on, Gil, be honest.” Monica stroked the dog on her lap.

  “Okay. All right. Yes, I’d probably have him put down.”

  “Harsh words Gil,” Rufus said.

  “Exactly.” Monica thumped the table. “God, we’re such clichés. Career, fashion, travel, design, art, it’s not exactly a fulfilling life, is it?” She let Dog lick her plate.

  “Oh for god’s sake. That’s disgusting.” Gil banged the bowls together as he collected them. Monica pushed Dog onto the floor, and they watched as he chased the stub of his tail. She worried she had gone too far. Telling the truth had never been part of their relationship. To agree with him was tantamount to saying it was all over. And especially now when she needed him in a way she never had before. In the corner the phantom baby stood with hands on its hips, its mouth open in a silent laugh. Monica turned away.

  “Do you think Dog needs to go out?” Rufus asked again.

  “He’s just playing,” Gil replied.

  “I’m going to have a baby,” Monica spoke without thinking then covered her face with her hands and could not believe she’d said it.

  The two men stared at each other then Rufus clapped his hands. “Wow. When?”

  “It will take some time. First, we have to source the egg. Then we have to match with a suitable surrogate.”

  Gil swayed on the spot, and Monica smiled at him. “You should still have good swimmers Gil. You’ll have to, you know.” She made the hand movement.

  “At least it will be quick,” Rufus laughed.

  Gil gripped the stack of bowls. “Every time. You make every decision first and then enroll me in it. Like I’m a child. Like I have no agency. It’s all a fait accompli with you.”

  Monica shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I go along to keep you happy, to keep the peace. But not this time. I’m not having it.” He took the plates into the kitchen.

  Dog ran back to the door, whimpered and turned a slow circle. They stared at him for a long moment then Monica shouted as he lifted the remains of his kinked tail and deposited a dark pile on the tiles.

  “I’ll just take him for a quick walk first,” Rufus said and took his lead from the hook by the door.

  Monica followed Gil into the kitchen. She unrolled a handful of paper towels and wrung out a cloth in the sink. Gil came and stood beside her and she looked up and saw both their faces reflected in the dark window, pale and lifeless.

  Nine

  Monica walked across the downtown core of the city towards Stanley Park. The rain had stopped earlier and the streets felt clean. The air was so clear that even from that distance, in the daytime, she could see the threads of the ski lifts. Light through the winter trees speckled the pavements. She held her breath then let go in a rush of condensation. The clinic was in an old industrial building hidden behind a café and a store selling artisanal nuts. She stared at the logo painted on the concrete wall. Two fat lines curled around a small oval shape, vaguely reminiscent of a child in utero, surrounded by the slogan ‘Planete Bebe: We Create Family’.

  Monica wanted to turn around and go back to work, to go shopping or drive far away, take a ferry north to where the ocean roiled and crushed stones into gravel and endlessly dragged them into the water, only to return them a moment later.

  She pushed the door open and a buzzer sounded. Apart from a wall of black and white photos of perfect cherub babies held by beaming parents, the clinic reception was spartan with little more than a coat of white paint, a slatted blind, an empty desk and two chairs.

  A woman appeared right away, as though she’d been listening for the door. Dressed in the latest yoga fashion, she hugged Monica, like they’d gone to school
together. “I’m Antoinette,” she said and tucked a strand of short frizzy grey hair behind her ear.

  At the bridal salon Monica had banned yoga clothes, but here it seemed appropriate, Antoinette an aging yummy mommy about to chase a small child around a supermarket. Monica followed her down a dim corridor with tracks of lighting tucked along the bottom of the walls as if they were at a spa and heading for a massage. “Wasn’t this an auto body shop before?” Monica asked.

  “Oh, I’m not sure,” Antoinette led her past closed doors, and Monica wondered if they opened onto empty spaces or an old beaten up car. A cheap chandelier lit the consulting room and Antoinette gestured to the oversized velvet armchairs she’d pushed together. Her desk was free of all clutter except a laptop and silver photo frame relegated to a corner. Long dark curtains covered the windows, and Monica thought them out of place. She wanted white sterility, not this cloying faux opulence.

  “Coconut water?” Antoinette passed her a tall glass without waiting for an answer. “I’ll jump right in, shall I?”

  Monica sipped the slightly warm juice.

  “Your OBGYN sent over the results from your tests, and as you obviously know, at some point you had pelvic inflammatory disease. The damage to your fallopian tubes is extensive. And exacerbated by an underlying and, I suspect, undiagnosed premature ovarian insufficiency.”

  “What insufficiency? How?” Monica felt light-headed.

  Antoinette’s tone was scrupulously non-judgmental. “We might never know. You could have had chlamydia, gonorrhea or some other sexually transmitted infection. They can be very mild you know, at least on the surface.”

  Monica closed her eyes, the palm of her hand flat across her stomach. She did not want to melt down in front of this perfect woman, with her well-spent youth, her medical degree in a gold frame above her desk. “So, I should have started earlier?” Monica said and wondered why Antoinette had given up being a doctor.

  The woman’s laugh tinkled, a breeze rustling her chandelier. “We should all have started earlier. Do you know the optimum age to have a baby? 18. I mean, we have careers, we would never consider having a baby at that age.”

  Dotty had called Monica’s pregnancy obscene. The moment came back to her whole and fresh as though she were still 16. She remembered the burn of humiliation as her mother made her lift her top to see if her breasts had swollen. “We’ll have to be strategic about this,” Dotty had dropped her voice to the faintest whisper. “But what if it’s a girl,” Monica had thought out loud, and Dotty had screamed. “It’s nothing. Not a boy or a girl. It’s a nothing. No one needs a baby to ruin their life.”

  It had made perfect sense at the time. Her mother did not want her, so she was not allowed to want the baby. And by extension, any baby. Perhaps ever. Dotty had walked out of the room, away from the tears and Monica could hear her in the hall, on the phone, speaking to their doctor.

  “We want you to be comfortable.” Antoinette had moved on, and Monica realized she had missed a chunk of her sales pitch.

  “It’s a big decision.” She patted a stack of photo albums on the coffee table. “Did I say already how much I loved your selections on our website. It’s good to work with someone with such clear ideas.” She opened one of the albums. Sticky black corners held the photos in place like an old-fashioned family album. Each woman had a double page with her first name and achievements hand-lettered in cursive script. There was Cassie’s first day at school in an over-sized new uniform, and Cassie as she stood beside a pony in jodhpurs and boots. There was Cassie at Disneyworld, and water skiing with her mouth wide open. And Cassie as she looked right down the lens in her graduation gown, her blue eyes luminous. It took a moment for Monica to realize she was looking at egg donors.

  Cassie’s childhood was like a dream, and Monica wondered if her father knew his proud photos would be used to sell his daughter’s eggs. The doctor turned the pages for her and seemed to know just when to pause. Every girl was attractive in the same wide-eyed way that made Monica feel blank, emptied of every reason and excuse.

  Antoinette pointed to a girl with wild curls who perhaps, just possibly, could have been Monica in her twenties, with low lighting and a dye job.

  Antoinette passed the next album to Monica and went to an alcove to prepare matcha tea with a little bamboo whisk. When Monica looked up, the phantom baby had taken her place. It was so close she could reach out and touch the peach fuzz on its head as it frowned and waved a tiny clenched fist. Her eyes itched in the cloying air, and she removed her patch and rubbed them both, and the phantom baby disappeared. So that was the trick, she thought as she turned the page

  “They’re all pretty,” she said.

  Antoinette laughed. “Well, there’s not a lot of demand for the other kind.” She handed her the freshly whisked tea. “Most are students, paying off their loans.”

  “This one,” Monica pointed to a tanned girl with dark eyes and short pixie hair. “Are there health checks?” She warmed her hands on the mug.

  “All thoroughly tested for cystic fibrosis, sickle cell traits, and thalassemia. Tay-Sachs disease if they’re Jewish, Canavan disease, familial dysautonomia, Gaucher disease. I think we exceed the industry standard here.”

  “It was never on my agenda, you know.” Monica put the mug down. The matcha had separated into a goopy mess.

  “I understand. I do. You know, one of our intending mommies said it came over her like the flu. I thought that was rather sage.” Antoinette ran her finger over the face of the girl with the pixie cut. “That’s the beauty of science. We have all these options. Can you imagine, back in the day, to have no choice?”

  Monica glimpsed the phantom baby behind the curtain.

  “Oh, by the way, your OBGYN was unsure if you wanted to try donor egg IVF first.”

  Monica sat still. The idea of actually being pregnant with the egg of a stranger felt alien, a baby growing inside her body somehow ludicrous. She had thought only of the child in her arms. When she tried to imagine her stomach distended, her skin as taut as spandex, she saw Dotty as she decorated her friends’ bellies with intricate henna patterns, monstrous and beautiful at the same time. “Well, there’s my age. And I’m not sure I’m cut out for that part of it.”

  Antoinette smiled. “I am so with you there. We have awesome surrogates to help you complete your family.”

  “Why would someone do that?”

  “Altruism mostly. They have finished having their families. It’s a way of extending the blessing, of giving back.”

  Monica frowned. “Really? A woman would do that? Not just for the money?”

  “Absolutely.” Antoinette nodded. “Of course money does come into it, but they always say that’s not their first consideration.”

  “Are they from here?” Monica felt she’d entered another world where the rules were different.

  “A little difficult at the moment. We’re finding India very accommodating. And, of course, the Indian women are lovely.”

  Monica thought of Dotty’s pilgrimages. When she was small, India seemed like a mythical place. Her mother would disappear, often for months, and return transformed. At least until the winter cold and the responsibility of parenting would whittle her down, and she would be off again.

  “Of course we can source you a more local surrogate, but you indicated a lower to mid-range process on your form.”

  Monica sat very still. She loved her home. Could she really sell it? Did she want a baby that much?”

  Antoinette watched her. “It can be challenging to balance a budget and find the best surrogate match,” she said.

  “So let me get this right. I select eggs from your range here, and you find a surrogate in India to carry the child?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But what about genetic affinity?” The reality of a stranger’s child in her arms suddenly hit her. “What about my genes?”

  Antoinette smiled. “I know it’s a compromise. But of course, you would
get that through your husband. We’ll need those male gametes to complete the picture. Men seem to care more about continuing their male line than we do, don’t you think?”

  Monica had never considered this. She knew Gil was not at all interested in his male line.

  Antoinette swirled the last of her matcha. “I hope I’m not making assumptions here. Your husband will provide his gametes?”

  “He will,” Monica spoke forcefully. Just saying it made it real.

  “Great. We take care of all the paperwork, the creation and shipping of the embryos and the implantation and care of the surrogate. Your only job is to go to India and collect your baby.” Antoinette tapped her pen to emphasize the finality of it all.

  Monica could not focus. “My mother loved India. She even had an Indian guru.” She pointed to a blonde donor with long straight hair and a small almost upturned nose. “This one.”

  “Are you are sure you want a blonde child with straight hair?”

  Monica touched her curly hair. She always wanted straight hair and to be an effortless blonde, without recourse to the salon. She shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure I even want a child yet. And, I doubt this one is a natural blonde.”

  Antoinette stiffened. “Oh yes, we insist on very accurate descriptions. No Photoshop and, god forbid, no cosmetic surgery before donation.” Antoinette’s voice had lost some of its encouragement. “Perhaps one with brown eyes, to match yours?”

  “My mother’s eyes were blue,” Monica said and remembered the game. Dotty would sit perfectly still, unblinking so Monica could stare past her pale irises to what lay behind. She called it ‘find my soul’. Monica trembled. She loved and hated that game, thrilled Dotty was right there, playing with her and yet terrified somehow she would fail to find her mother’s soul. What would Dotty think of this? Of her daughter gazing into the eyes of strangers in photos looking for the very same thing. “I guess there’s no way to guarantee intelligence?” she asked.