“Hi,” she said, after a moment.
He smiled. This was just abrupt enough for him to properly deal with.
“Hey,” Rodger said. He paused. “So, that’s some rather heavy stuff.”
“I think that’s an understatement,” said Melissa.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Well, I guess that’s the thing,” said Melissa. “There’s not really much for me to do. I don’t have as much time as I thought, I guess.”
This sentence weighed on the two of them and their very newly minted relationship somewhat as an anvil might on an antique handkerchief.
“But—that’s no matter—let’s figure out when I can get out of here, we’ll go do something fun.”
“Or,” said Rodger. “Or—we could do something—impulsive.”
Melissa turned to him. “You’re an adrenaline junkie. Following you this far got me to this place. What makes you think that I’m ready to follow you again?”
“The fact that you wanted me here while the doctor was laying that sentence on you,” Rodger said quietly. “Tell me, Melissa. You wouldn’t say it in front of the doctor, you wouldn’t betray any sort of emotion in front of the doctor, and that’s fine—but I’m curious. Did you have any kind of plans about having children?”
“Not plans, per se. No plans…as it were,” said Melissa, hedging.
“Just shy of plans, then,” Rodger said. “Any thoughts? Hopes? Dreams?”
“Possibly,” Melissa said in a very quiet voice. In actuality, she’d had a habit of stopping by thrift shops and holding very small socks in her hand and picking them up to bring home whenever she had pennies to spare.
“I might have…once,” she said in a soft voice. “But I’m quite adaptable. I’ve been adapting my entire life. If it’s simply not in the cards for me. Well, then, I’d honestly rather it be me than someone else. I can deal with it. I’ve practiced disappointment for years, now. I’m quite good at it.”
Rodger stared at her. “But it doesn’t have to be disappointment,” he said. “The door didn’t say you’re infertile. And she ran all the tests; we would know. She just said you’ve only got so many eggs left. Which means that you’re fertile now, and you won’t be in a bit. So you’ve got a window, Melissa. A small window, perhaps. But a window nonetheless.”
Melissa looked at him. “But—you see—I can’t—I just—can’t.”
Rodger smiled at her. “I’m sorry, I misspoke,” he said clearly. “A moment ago, I said that you had a small window. What I’m going to say now—and I want you to listen to me very carefully —Melissa: we have a small window.”
It was Melissa’s turn to stare at Rodger.
“If you’d like some help, and you’d like that help to come from me, then—Melissa—we have time, if you’d like to try to make something happen.”
“But—it’s not—proper—”
When Melissa became uncomfortable she often referred to the morals debuted in the regency novels which she so loved. Rodger rightly waved this away.
“It’s a risk, sure. And I’m an adrenaline junkie, sure. But—Melissa—you can’t deny; you’ve got a chance. I’m handing it to you. You can turn it down—probably should. But wouldn’t it be so much more fun, so much more exciting, if you said yes?”
He was beaming at her like a child on Christmas Eve, all anticipation, all glow. It didn’t seem like there was anything else which he wanted more in all the world.
Which was odd, Melissa thought. She’d never really thought that she’d wanted to be a mother. But then, she’d always assumed that she’d be one.
Perhaps it was one of those awful, typical, torturous situations in which you only knew what you wanted precisely when it was beyond the pale; when attaining it was completely impossible in every way.
But then – another part of her brain, perhaps what Rodger might have termed the more fun part of her brain, piped up. The doctor hadn’t just told her that she couldn’t have children. That wasn’t actually what she'd said. She'd merely said that she’d have to start now.
And here was a man, sitting before her— a handsome one, a rich one. Though that last bit shouldn’t matter, Melissa chided herself. But then, the other voice in her head kept equivocating, it certainly didn’t hurt. It meant that a decision which would have come down, in some way or another, upon her own checkbook, her own meager store of savings, her own salary and retirement nest egg, now didn't have to.
In a way, how lucky was she? Sure, she was suddenly being forced to contemplate motherhood in a much more escalated, deadline-y way than she might have wished to in the first place. But that was the female body for you; as wonderful as it was, it wasn’t something which she could dictate. But here she was, given warning, given time—and she really had nothing in the world to stop her from it.
She looked as composedly as she could at Rodger, looking him straight in the eye. To his credit, he seemed to get—after his impassioned monologue of a few seconds before— that she needed to digest what was happening, to mull over her choices, to assess him as he was now an integral part of a decision which she hadn’t been planning on making this morning but now had to.
She didn’t have to love him, she thought wildly. They could be amiable co-parents or something.
But there was something in his eyes which made her think that that line of thinking was impossible. She couldn’t just be around this man casually. He was an all-or-nothing sort of guy. She needed to make a decision as to whether she wanted a child, whether she wanted this man in the child’s life, and whether she wanted this man in her own life. And she had to make that decision all right now.
She took a deep, stutter-y breath.
“I can’t make this decision right now,” she said.
Rodger deflated a bit before her. She saw it clearly: the edges of him retreating a bit, as if he diminished the moment a plan got kicked down—one in which he had been instantly and irrationally invested.
This did not last long.
“Of course you couldn’t make a decision right now,” he said briskly. “Of course not! This is a life-changing decision! A life-altering plan! And you’re picking the people with whom you’d be doing it—not literally—well—” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “That’s neither here nor there. Will you take the time to think about it, though? Will you consider it? Don’t just shelve it, don’t just say no, think about it, really—”
The quickness with which he'd completed this one-eighty twist was almost alarming. Melissa found herself laughing, even though the situation wasn't so much a funny one.
“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’ll do nothing but think about it, I’m sure.”
Rodger smiled, satisfied, even though nothing had particularly just happened which was in his favor.
Melissa looked up and around herself at the cold, sterile hospital room. She sniffed. Something had recently been bleached.
“I think I’d like to go home, now,” she said. It was crazy, after what they'd just been talking about; the intimacy which had just been broached, now she felt stiff and embarrassed. She over-corrected with a cold, formal tone.
Again to his credit, Rodger didn't take offense at this. “You’ve just been put through a whirlwind,” he said quietly and sympathetically. “Of course you want to recover in your own home! Let’s get you back to your apartment so you can recoup. I’ll just get the doctor back in here lickety-split so we can make sure that leg’s all patched up so we can get you out safely, eh? And then we’ll stop by the store on the way home to get you all of the recovery foods; you know, chicken noodle soup. Just leave it to me, it’ll all be taken care of.”
And Melissa saw, as everything began to blur and quicken before her eyes, that he wasn’t lying. Everything was taken care of. Later, looking back on the hour, she could never be quite sure how he'd gotten her out of the hospital without her signing anything. Had he pretended to be family? Had he pret
ended to be her lawyer? Did she sign paperwork without remembering it? She never remembered how she got out to the car, nor their quick trip to the score to get a cart full of comfort food, but when she woke up several hours later she was at home in her own scrawny, comfortable bed, surrounded by flowers and bowls of Doritos and a note telling her that there was sorbet and watermelon in the freezer. She turned on the TV and noted that her very favorite sitcoms had been loaded, and on her phone was a text imploring her to call him when she woke up.
“Huh,” she thought—and a grin slowly curved its way over her mouth.
Chapter 6
The next morning when Melissa woke up it was a Sunday. It would have been quite easy for her to lapse back into her normal Sunday routine as if nothing whatever to disturb the peace, if boring, of her quotidian existence had occurred.
She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and mused over her normal routine and how much it had been shattered. What would she normally be doing just now? She rolled over and looked at her phone. It was six in the morning.
Well, first off, she thought, she wouldn’t be awake at six in the morning on a Sunday. She generally took advantage of that day as the one in which she could rightfully sleep in, and did so languidly, often languishing in bed past eleven o’clock.
That wasn’t happening today. It was barely ten minutes past six when, after what seemed like eons of tossing and turning, Melissa got up and put the kettle on the stove. She went through the motions of making her French press and sat on the couch some seven minutes later, staring off into the middle-distance, wondering whatever it was, what on earth it was, that she was about to do with her life.
If she was being honest with herself—and, at this point, she could not but be honest with herself, she couldn’t afford not to be—she was at a crossroads.
Rodger was expecting a call from her sometime today. He was making the offer of a lifetime. He was offering to make a life with her, to give a part of his life, in effect to her and the life that they might be creating. It was the most generous thing that anyone had ever done for her. But accepting that—if she chose to accept it—would be very difficult; but its difficult paled in comparison to the gift which the universe seemed to be demanding from her. What she would give would be just as great—if not greater.
She leaned back into her couch cushions. On the whole, she’d love to not have to make this decision. She’d have loved to have been told that she had time. That she didn’t need to pressure-cook her relationship with Rodger. A man she’d met on the internet just that weekend!
Parents?
No—no—it was ludicrous.
It seemed there were two Melissas at play in the early hours of that morning; the one who wanted to stay put and the other who wanted to leap. Melissa couldn't decide which she would rather be.
With the seeming ease of a phone call she could tell Rodger that she was in, and they’d presumably go—she didn’t know—book a hotel room, or something, and within a month they could be staring at a positive pregnancy test. She almost wanted to laugh. It seemed like a sitcom.
Or – on the other hand – she could text him that, sorry, no, it was far too big of a commitment; just too far of a leap. Which it was! It was a hair away from insanity, truly. Really. She barely knew Rodger, and there was little in her life which screamed that she was innately suited toward motherhood.
Except for that tiny yen which she rarely acknowledged.
Except for the part of her that wanted to simultaneously yell and cry and sob when the doctor had told her she had little time left. That had felt like a very small but keenly felt door slamming in her face.
Something had risen up in her, then.
Something which wanted to fight.
She took a sip from her mug and considered the feeling.
What was the alternative? Of course, she could leave things be; she could just not worry about it and let her hourglass run down, and then when – if – she met a guy in the appropriate time later when things were prudential, they could consider adopting. That was a beautiful thing.
But then she’d never experience what it was like to see a tiny boy or girl with a mixture of her features and someone else’s…she’d never go through that horrible pain which united all mothers even as it was usually forgotten, eclipsed by the joy of seeing the tiny faces of their newborn children…
And – again – what was the alternative? That she go back to her grey life as a greying librarian? That she continue to stare at blank Word documents which were never—she steeled herself—never ever going to magically turn into the great novel she wanted them to be?
This was her opportunity for adventure. This was where her life could turn on a dime. This was the story which she had the opportunity to begin living.
Her skin began to fizzle and her hair stood on end.
She thought she could feel the very blood begin to rush through her veins as she suddenly dove for her phone. She didn’t want to waste another second. She didn’t want to let herself think that she could change her mind or talk herself out of it.
She typed a few letters onto her screen, stared at them with wide eyes, and then pressed send.
***
Rodger was having, all in all, a rather good day.
He was still flying high on yesterday’s experience. The falling had been magnificent. Falling generally was, he thought. As the saying went, it was the landing which was usually the problem; and when you knew that the landing was going to be safe, it tended to spice up the falling, leaving that a more pleasurable experience.
Mike had texted him four times already, wanting to know how the date had gone. Rodger had left those texts unanswered. There was just one notification he was waiting for, and he didn’t want to do much else until it came rolling in.
He busied himself with some paperwork and housework, little though he needed to do it. He tried to spruce up his kitchen, and then gave it up as a bad job. He didn’t know how to properly clean a kitchen.
He supposed that he needed to learn how to do that in order to be some kind of proper human being, the sort who knew what napkin rings were and how to properly mow a yard and could talk about things like religion and politics without embarrassing himself and everyone within a fifty-foot radius.
The sort of man who could be a father.
Of course, one could be a father without having any sort of those types of activities on their curriculum vitae. Now that he thought of it, there wasn’t a registered curriculum vitae for fatherhood. But he wanted to be able to teach his son or his daughter things when it came to fatherly types of things like that.
When it came time.
Of course, the way things were going, that time might be much sooner than he thought. He had after all just gone ahead and offered up his life and his fortune and everything he was—in a way—for a fetus which didn’t even exist as of yet.
He was spiraling. He knew that.
Rodger grabbed his phone and stared at it, as if willing the words to appear upon his screen. He didn’t know whether he wanted Melissa to take him up on his offer or not. There was a certain wistfulness, a certain fullness that would be on the other end of an affirmative text. He’d sweat, he’d yelp, he’d wipe his brow—and then he’d be able to start researching how to be a good dad. He’d have a project. He’d have the greatest project he’d ever have.
He’d probably never have to go searching for an adrenaline surge ever again. He’d probably never be able to sleep again, naturally, just due to where his life was taking him.
Particularly if he had a daughter. The thought of sitting up late at night waiting for her to come home when her teenage years swung around already put him into a cold sweat.
But then, he was a wealthy adrenaline junkie. He was already accustomed to paying for that.
But then, he’d be paying through the nose to raise a child. What were the latest projections on how much it cost to raise a child from birth to c
ollege? Or beyond? He wasn’t sure he wanted see that.
But then—he was really continuing to spiral, and he knew that he really had to stop—he was a billionaire. He could handle bills. He was good at that. That was part of what he did.
His phone buzzed. Rodger ran across the room, almost breaking a chair, to seize it, as if there were twenty other men in the room looking to grab the phone before him. The phone slipped through his fingers. His fingers, he noticed, were shaking.
His eyes focused on the screen.
Mike, again. Are you seriously not going to tell me how last night went? Hope you’re okay, man.
Rodger threw his phone across the room. And at that moment, it rang.
He climbed across the room again to pick it up. Melissa was calling him.
Rodger held the buzzing phone in his hands for a moment and breathed in and out several times quickly, then pressed the accept call button and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hi,” he said, in a very shaky, high-pitched voice. He didn’t like the sound of that. He rapidly cleared his throat. What came out next was no basso profundo, but it was much more acceptable.
“Hey,” he said. His voice did not waver.
“Hi,” he heard Melissa say. His heart stilled .This was the moment his life would change. This was the moment at which he would know what the next years would take of his life. This was the moment—
He wondered briefly if this was what women felt like in the two minutes after they'd taken a pregnancy test, or right after they realized that they were a day or two late.
He held his breath, waiting to hear what Melissa would say.
***
As convenient as cell phones were, Melissa sometimes yearned for the romance of land-lines. The mystique of not knowing who was calling. The simple act of twirling the curly phone cord around her fingers as she entertained the momentous phone calls of her youth.
Such as the one she was having now. She took a deep breath and smiled. She’d read somewhere that smiling while on the phone made you sound happier and younger and fresher, somehow.
Be My Bride and Have My Baby Page 6