Her Christmas Future

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Tell me what you really think.” The words came out as a full-out plea.

  “I really don’t know if she has pets.”

  “I mean, about this. What I’m doing here. What we’re talking about. It’s like I’m having this out-of-control moment and you’re treating it all like a legitimate situation.”

  “This is definitely an unusual moment in time.” Christine’s tone didn’t change, though her gaze softened, making her feel like more of the friend Olivia knew. “But sometimes that’s how opportunities present themselves,” she said. “You know, like winning the lottery. If you play, you could do so every week for your whole life and never hit it big. Chances are, that’s what would happen. But one day, one person who’s done that looks at their card, or their numbers, and they see a win. It’s life changing in a second...”

  Okay, the lottery. Olivia could easily focus on that.

  “Today is kind of like the lottery in that your life could change for the good with one decision. The decision to buy the ticket. You might not win anything. Life might not change at all, other than you’re out the money you spent trying. But you could win.”

  She could have a baby that was biologically hers and Martin’s. A baby conceived inside of her and out of the love she held for the man she’d once married.

  Having another baby wasn’t a choice they’d made. Or that she’d thought to make. For nine years she’d refused to even open the door to the possibility.

  For sound, valid reasons.

  “You sound like you think I should take this chance.”

  The expression emanating from the eyes in front of her changed in the blink of Christine’s eye. Professional fertility clinic owner was back. “I’m not saying that,” she said, shaking her head. “This is not a decision I can make. Or even want to make.”

  “I see babies die on a too regular basis.”

  “I know you do, sweetie. And frankly, I don’t know how you do what you do.”

  “Lily’s love is how I do it,” she said. “Every day I’m here, every baby I help, I’m doing what was done for Lily. And we save more than we lose. Even if we only saved one, how could I not do that?”

  Christine nodded, but didn’t speak up. Like she knew there was more.

  Because somehow she saw what was hidden.

  “I can’t save them all.”

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t know that I could handle having another child. I’d worry constantly. I just don’t know if I’m strong enough...”

  “You think all of the parents you see think they’re strong enough?”

  “No.”

  “You think that I think I’m strong enough?”

  Christine had been adamant about not having another child. And then Jamie, her husband, had done some research and had introduced her to the son she’d given away during high school. The boy was happy and healthy with adoptive parents and didn’t know Christine had given birth to him. But seeing that boy had changed her, helped her open her heart...

  “I know you are.”

  “You think you’re weaker than I am?”

  She wasn’t weak. Unless you counted weak with fear. She was afraid.

  “Tell me something,” Christine said, her hand on her enlarged belly, rubbing, and then pushing a particular spot, as though the baby was pushing against her. Olivia let the movement distract her. “You’ve been with me every step of the way here,” Christine continued. “If not for you, I might not even have taken the chance to have William. And now look at me. I have an infant son who owns me, I’m married to a man I adore and pregnant with the child we created together. So through all of this, have you ever, even for a second, thought about having one of your eggs fertilized and using a surrogate to start a family of your own?”

  Of course she had. Her own mother had thought about it and she didn’t even have viable eggs to use. They’d talked about what it would be like to be in Christine’s situation when she’d been pregnant with William. As a lot of women would do. Talk about it, that was.

  She didn’t really nod. Just a quick lowering of her chin and back up.

  “And let’s go at this from another angle. Do you regret having Lily?”

  “Every single day. The suffering that precious little girl endured was...”

  Through her tears Olivia noticed Christine shaking her head. “No decent person in this world would choose that for a baby,” she said adamantly. “What I’m asking is completely different. If you had to choose between having known Lily, and having her not exist, having never had a baby, held her in your arms, known she was yours, having never known that intense motherly bond...which would you choose?”

  She’d choose Lily. The answer came in a heartbeat. If she’d known how her baby was going to suffer, she wouldn’t have made that choice for any reason. Period. Not for her own selfish needs or for anyone else, either. But having known that sweet soul—being a mother—seeing Lily smile when she walked in the room, knowing she was recognized and that her being there brought comfort...

  “You’re asking me if I’d choose to know that kind of love or not, even knowing how much it hurt to lose it.”

  Christine nodded. Olivia held her own counsel on that one.

  “You might not be fertilizing an egg right now,” Christine said. “And even if you are, the embryo might not make it through the procedure, or adhere to the uterus of a surrogate. It could get through all of that and then not thrive, resulting in a miscarriage three months from now. You know all of this. And you know I do, too. I’m not blowing sunshine here, Liv. I’m just here to help if you feel compelled to try.”

  Did she feel compelled to try? Seriously, what did she have to lose other than the money she’d pay Beth, which she was willing to give to this unknown angel, anyway. More, she’d always wonder if she’d killed an embryo she and Martin had conceived.

  If she tried to save it, it might never flourish.

  But if it was there, and she didn’t try...

  Suddenly, looking at the situation through Christine’s eyes, things didn’t seem so out of control. They seemed almost...

  “Answer me this.” Christine leaned forward, reaching across the desk for Olivia’s hand. “If everything worked out, if the fates really are plotting here with the stars seemingly to be aligning, if Beth managed to birth a baby from an embryo inside you...” Olivia’s heart leaped again. With such incredible joy, she almost didn’t hear Christine’s next words. “Would you want the baby?”

  “More than anything in this world.” There was no doubting the wealth of truth in those six words.

  Chapter Three

  The woman who’d been assigned the seat next to his at the formal dinner portion of Saturday night’s party had long dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin, informed conversation and a sneaky sense of humor. Victoria was single, confident...but she wasn’t Olivia.

  She was familiar with Fishnet, which provided boarding to young people sixteen and older who’d been drug free, held a job and attended school for at least a year straight, and then provided the financial assistance a parent might provide as long as they stayed in school—through college—and continued to meet the other criteria. The youngers had separate sleeping areas from the eighteen and olders, and had licensed caregivers—but he aimed to give the kids the same economic privileges they’d get at home if they’d had parents able to provide for them. They didn’t pay rent, not as long as they were in school. And even if they went away to college, boarded there, they kept their room at Fishnet, too, so it would be waiting for them to come home to on break.

  His hosts, or the party planners they’d hired, had done their homework on him. And sat him next to exactly the type of woman who’d not only snag his interest, but intrigue him enough to make the evening memorable.

  He enjoyed dinner. And the hours he spent drinking and dancing wit
h Victoria afterward. She’d jumped right in with Fishnet statistics when he’d been procuring the promises of support for which he’d come.

  Even so, he didn’t invite her home with him. And declined her invitation to have a nightcap at her place. Nightcap. A nice word for sex.

  As attractive as Victoria was, as close to his type as she could get, she wasn’t Olivia.

  And the sex he’d had with his ex-wife Friday night had been unbelievably satisfying. It was like the past ten years had been swept away and he and Olivia had been transported back to the first six months of their relationship. The first year, even. She’d been so open and giving. Fun and free and adventurous.

  She hadn’t even waited for him to put on a condom before she’d slid down on top of him, surprising him with her need.

  For the first time in forever, her hunger had matched his.

  And that was why she’d texted, asking him to call. Her version of “we need to talk.” She’d had a lot to drink. Reverted back to the person she’d been before Lily.

  And he realized she’d woken with regrets. He’d known it the second she’d refused coffee before dawn Saturday morning. The way she’d thrown on her clothes from the night before and hightailed it out of LA.

  Back to the work that meant far more to her than his sorry old self ever had. The work behind which she hid.

  He wasn’t the least bit worried about repercussions from unprotected sex. In another woman, that might have been a consideration, but not with Olivia. From the moment the doctor had told them that Lily’s birth defects were a result of Olivia’s uterus’s failure to provide proper space, his wife had changed. Blaming herself, as though she’d chosen to have a defective uterus.

  Or could somehow have known that she had. She’d become obsessed with her monthly cycle. Keeping a calendar in her nightstand and on the refrigerator, too, as though to make certain that he was as aware as she was of when it was safe to have sex and when she would refuse his advances. From that point on she’d never have sex while she was ovulating...not even with a condom.

  She’d apologized to him again and again for what she’d “done” to their daughter. And when he’d try to tell her it wasn’t her fault, she’d shut down on him. Just as she’d done for the four months she’d spent nurturing their little girl at the hospital. Some nights she’d come home, some she wouldn’t. Some she wouldn’t even remember to call him and tell him she wasn’t coming home.

  And the nights he went up to Lily’s room to be with them, she’d barely talk to him. As though she wanted him to be angry with her. To blame her. It got so bad he stopped going when she was there. Instead, he’d spend early mornings with Lily. Just talking to her. Touching her when he could.

  Feeling helpless and worthless, him with all his age and experience and money and know-how, and able to do absolutely nothing to ease the suffering of one tiny, little body.

  And still, she’d smiled at him. Grabbed at his finger once, even...

  Olivia would be kind to him when she’d arrive before he left. His ex-wife was pretty much always kind. Just distant. And with each month that passed, the distance between them became greater.

  Her walls were her protection against the pain. He understood. Just as he knew that after her loss of control Friday night, she’d need to get those walls repaired as quickly as possible.

  He wasn’t eager to participate in the process.

  So while he didn’t sleep with Victoria Saturday night, he also didn’t call Olivia.

  Instead, he took a shower and went to bed naked. Lying in the dark, surrounded by his ex-wife’s scent, he seriously considered that it was time for him to move on. Move away.

  At forty-one, he wasn’t getting any younger. He needed to be with a woman who wanted to share the life he’d built. Who’d attend dinner parties so his hosts didn’t feel compelled to play matchmaker, who’d enjoy traveling the world to raise money for a good cause, and meeting dignitaries in the process.

  It was time to let Olivia go.

  Permanently.

  * * *

  Olivia didn’t sleep much Saturday night. Nor did she take the pill.

  The longer she waited, the more chance an embryo would form, which meant more likelihood she’d be killing a living start to a baby. Her baby.

  Phone in hand, she lay in bed, waiting for Martin to call. He’d have some function or other, possibly multiple functions, and then he’d call. He always did.

  Martin was forty-one. His sperm might be slowing down. Could be low motility would prevent natural fertilization between them.

  There was, technically, nothing stopping them from going through a normal process of fertilization—her egg, his sperm, brought together in a petri dish in a lab and implanted in a surrogate. She’d never even considered the option. Had no idea whether or not he had, either. When they’d split, she’d been unopen to any discussion about the possibility of future children. She’d been just shy of twenty-two when Lily had died, had just completed her first year of medical school, the youngest in her class, when her daughter was born. In love, newly married and still in the process of accepting the mother she’d barely known, she’d had no realization at all that something could go so drastically wrong. No concept of how the entire course of her life could change so abruptly.

  And after months of seeing her baby suffer, she’d been absolutely certain she was never going to open herself up to the possibility of that happening again. Even if she wasn’t the one carrying the child.

  Already a self-made millionaire, Martin had had one life goal at that point: to have a family. And she’d been adamant in her refusal to ever try again. In any fashion.

  While intellectually she’d been a couple of years ahead of her age, she’d been little more than a kid—emotionally.

  At thirty-two Martin had had a head start of maturity on her.

  She didn’t, however, think it really mature of him to not at least text her back and let her know that he was otherwise occupied and couldn’t call.

  Because he was with another woman? One who didn’t just flit in and out of his life when one or the other of them got weak and reached out?

  Part of her hoped that was the case. It would ease the guilt she still carried where he was concerned. Martin wasn’t meant to live alone.

  Because of the possibility of him spending Saturday night with another woman, Olivia didn’t text again. Or call him.

  Instead, on Sunday morning, she dragged her thick-headed self out of bed and into the shower, and dressed in close-fitting stretch jeans, a thigh-length beige long-sleeved, fitted button-up shirt and beige knee-length boots, and was waiting on the dock in Long Beach, watching for Sylvia Miller to disembark. The cruise had been a forty-seventh birthday present from Sylvia’s close friends, women who’d been her tribe since she’d left home at sixteen to go live with one of them while her mother raised the baby Sylvia had just birthed.

  All of them had celebrated when she had finally been able to be a part of Olivia’s life. The first couple of visits, facilitated by Olivia’s grandmother when Olivia was eighteen and already in college, hadn’t gone so well. Olivia hadn’t been particularly open to them. But then her grandmother had died and her mother had continued to reach out. Grieving, Olivia had allowed the reconnect. She’d already been dating Martin then.

  And still hadn’t been all that open to the woman who’d done her own mother’s bidding and stayed out of Olivia’s life all the years of her growing up. Olivia’s grandmother had meant well, had raised Olivia with an abundance of love. She’d just misjudged the benefit of having one mother with one set of rules, against the challenge of growing up with the confusion of a grandmother and guardian with whom she lived and a mother who was off at college and starting a life. Mom and Grandma had made a deal. Sylvia, who had no means to care for a child, and whose boyfriend had relinquished all rights to the baby,
would make a life for herself with her mother’s financial help, and Grandma would raise the girl. But only if Sylvia stayed out of the picture.

  Grandma and Sylvia had failed to factor into the equation how a little girl would feel, to know that her own mother had abandoned her.

  Standing on the dock, Olivia saw Sylvia before her mother saw her. Noticed, immediately, the smile on her mother’s face as she spoke to the tall, gray-haired man standing beside her. The way she looked up to him.

  Noticed, too, that not one friend was with her.

  The glimpse only lasted a second. Before she’d even started down the plank, Sylvia had stepped in front of the man, and sped up, putting distance between them. She never glanced back. Never saw the way the man watched her all the way down the ramp.

  Could have been someone who’d merely held the door open for her and had noticed how stunning Sylvia still looked. Kind of odd, having a mother who was just a few years older than her own ex-husband. Olivia was twice the age Sylvia had been when she’d had her.

  Sylvia saw her. Waved. Olivia waved back, nervous as she thought about the conversation ahead.

  “You look great! Did you have a good time?” Olivia asked as her mother, letting go of the handle of the bag she’d rolled beside her, hugged her tight for a moment and then stepped back. Olivia wasn’t real big on hugs. Quick and done was her modus operandi. Sylvia always respected that.

  “I had a great time,” her mother said, looking at Olivia with a big smile. “I missed you, though. Two weeks is too long.”

  “I missed you, too.” She had. A lot. More than she’d ever have thought possible a decade before. “Where are the others?” she asked then, still not seeing even a single one of her mother’s friends.

  As she glanced toward the ship she did see the man who’d followed her mother down the plank. Alone, he was looking around, as though waiting for someone, but his gaze landed on her and Sylvia a number of times.

  “We got a photo package, you know where the photographer on board takes photos of you and you can either purchase them or not at the end of the trip, and there was a mix-up. They knew you were waiting on me so told me to go ahead,” Sylvia was saying, seemingly unaware that she’d caught the attention of the distinguished-looking man.