It was obvious, wasn’t it? That’s what everyone would think. Would assume. Including her.
“When I met with you before it seemed to me that you and Winston were equally determined to have a child. That it was something you both needed in equally intense measure.”
“It was!” Why would the woman be going back there at this point in time? That dream, that life, was over.
“And your desire to be a mother, to raise a family, do you think that died with your husband?”
“Of course not. If it had, having a child wouldn’t assuage the grief now, would it?” She heard the sarcasm in her tone. Was ashamed of it. And kind of relieved to know that she had fight left in her, too.
Christine stared at her. Expecting her to get something?
“My mother died when I was ten, trying to have the sibling I so badly wanted, the son my father wanted,” Christine stated a few moments later. “She was forty at the time. Because my father worked eighty hours a week, he left me with my grandparents...”
“The grandmother who was diabetic.” Emily’s turmoil settled, desperation eased for a second, as she saw again the high school girl leaving at lunchtime.
Christine nodded. “Other things happened that don’t bear going into right now, but ultimately, at twenty-two, I was alone, without any close family, and only the money left to me from my mother’s life insurance policy.”
And here Emily had been wallowing in her own pity. Compassion spread through her instead.
“I’d spent the previous twelve years fighting off grief, eschewing all the pity, desperately grasping sometimes, and there I was, a college graduate with a degree in health management, thinking I’d go on to med school as my mother had...”
“Your mother was a doctor? Here in Marie Cove?” Their little town wasn’t all that well known, had no public beach access, but though it had only been incorporated for a couple of decades, it had been around more than a century and had enough of a population that not everyone knew one another.
“A pediatrician,” Christine said. “Children were her life.”
And she died trying to give birth to one. Emily wasn’t sure where Christine was going with this, but for the first time since she’d received word that her husband had been declared legally dead, Emily felt a sense of...calm. And maybe a wee bit of strength, too.
“I had a choice to make,” Christine said. “I could take that money, leave Marie Cove, start a new life for myself, a family of my own, or I could stay here in the town where I was born, in the home where I grew up, and use my mother’s money to honor her life and the importance of children to families. To make it easier for women like her, and others, too, to have the children they need to feel complete. To give couples that chance.”
The fertility clinic.
Emily wanted to take the other woman’s hand. To thank her somehow, though nothing in her life was any different than it had been moments ago. “What happened to your father?”
“He met a woman in LA, ten years older than me, twenty younger than him, remarried, had his son. And another daughter, too. They never asked me to live with them, but honestly, even if they had, I’d have chosen to stay with my grandparents.”
“Do you see them? Your dad and his family? Your half brother and sister?”
“Once or twice a year. For an hour or so over a meal, usually. I never got along with his new wife. Probably somewhat my fault. But on the other hand, he never tried all that hard to bridge the gap.”
Certain that there was a lot more Christine wasn’t saying, Emily thought over what she had said. Searching for its application to the current situation.
“You’re worried about the morality of using Winston’s sperm when he isn’t here to father his child. Or have any say in whether or not he has a fatherless child in the world.”
Christine’s statement hit home. Hard. “I didn’t say that.”
“You kind of did.”
Not in so many words...but she’d rambled a lot and... “I guess that’s part of it,” she said, clasping her hands together in her lap, slumping some, too, but still not leaning back against the couch. “Is it fair to the child? To bring him or her into a single-parent home?”
“You know these are questions only you can answer.”
But that didn’t mean she liked that truth.
“A lot of people have disagreed with choices I’ve made in my life,” Christine continued. “One of them was choosing to use my mother’s money to build this clinic when I could have gone on to med school, or been a lawyer, or had any other life. But for me, this clinic is a part of her, and using my life to keep her legacy alive, to actually be able to give other people what she wanted most—the chance to have babies—this was my right choice. I’m happier today than I’ve been since I was ten and lost her.”
Emily believed her.
“You have to make your right choice,” Christine’s words fell softly between them. “I could tell you what I think, or give you pros and cons, but you’ve done a pretty stellar job of arguing both sides all on your own.”
No disputing that one.
“You know the paperwork you and Winston signed when you started with us gives you permission for the use of his sperm.”
She knew. Of course she knew. Her, and only her. That had been important to them.
“How do I know this is the choice he’d have wanted me to make?”
Therein was the crux of her self-torture. They’d never talked about one of them carrying on without the ever. It hadn’t been an option for them. Or a possibility she’d ever considered.
Hard to believe she’d ever been that naive.
“He’s not here, Emily. You think my mother would choose for me to be living alone in her parents’ home, dedicating my life to work? You think she’d choose for me to never have babies of my own?”
When she put it that way...not likely.
“You’re young. You’ve got a lot of years to have kids.”
“I’m childless by choice.” The brightly dressed woman smiled as she looked around her office. “This is my life. There’s no doubt in my mind that I made the right choice. And my point to you is...just because grief plays a part in your choice, that doesn’t mean it’s reactionary, and therefore invalid.”
Emily considered that for a moment before replying. “I’ve known since I was a teenager that I was going to be the mother of Win’s kids someday. I knew I’d have a career, that I’d be someone professionally, that that was important to me, but being the mother of his kids, being his wife, mattered more than anything else.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
Emily smiled and teared up a bit, too. “I think that’s pretty obvious, huh?”
Christine shrugged.
“I’m going to do this.”
No judgment came from the other woman. No sense that she was doing the right or wrong thing. That she’d made the choice Christine thought she should make. Or hadn’t.
But she felt a kinship with her.
“I’ve got the ability to have my husband live on, even after his death, to bring parts of him to life, to give him descendants. I can raise his children and love them as much as we both wanted to. I know his views on pretty much every aspect of raising children...we talked endlessly about schooling, about discipline—even eating habits we’d allow. And not allow. It’s crazy-sounding, but Winston and I...we were just meant to be. And our family was meant to be, too.”
She wasn’t rambling anymore. Wasn’t lost in the not-knowing. She and Winston had talked over every detail of child raising, of investing, of career plans, vacationing, homeownership, pet acquiring—but they’d never once talked about one of them not being there.
They’d never discussed death.
She knew how he’d thought about telling his children about sex, but had no idea what h
e’d think of her using his sperm to have his baby after he died.
So she couldn’t make this decision based on him. She was the only one left. The choice was hers alone.
The first big decision she’d ever made completely alone.
“It might not take,” she said aloud, still a bit shaky as a whole new set of worries came upon her. “This might all have been for nothing if I can’t get pregnant.”
“Nothing in your tests showed you to be infertile.”
“I know, but...”
“If nothing else, insemination gives you a better shot,” Christine said, more distant and professional now than she’d been. “If you’re still unsure, or thinking it might be better if it didn’t work, if you’re looking for an out...”
“I’m not!” She stood, and Christine followed suit. “I want this child more than anything...”
Christine’s smile was a surprise. But not as much of one as the hug the other woman reached over and gave her.
“I know,” the health director said. “And now you do, too.”
Chapter Three
“My name is Winston Hannigan. I am a chief petty officer first class.” He rattled off his serial number. “I was deployed as a sand sailor under the Individual Augmentee Combat program two years and four months ago. For the past two years I have been living with the enemy.”
They could shoot him dead on the spot, lying there on the ground, hands behind his head. Part of him wished they would. Most of him wished it.
They were US Army. A sergeant and a private, based on the uniform markings. Both heavily armed.
As he’d been before they’d stripped him of his guns and ammo and the blade in his boot. His US-issued boot, with holes in the sole, worn with his pale gray kuchi dress and loose pants.
No one from the United States was going to believe he was still on their side. Most days he questioned it himself.
The string of curse words that followed sounded unbelievably good to him—issued as they were in his native tongue. Even the word traitor attached at the end of it made him want to weep with relief. It had been so long since he’d heard American English.
He wasn’t a traitor. Hadn’t betrayed his country’s secrets. But he’d done what he’d done. There was no undoing it. And no way to live with it, either.
He just wanted it over. Was ready to die, just like his heart and soul had already done. Winston Hannigan, married naval officer with a future at home, had been buried in the Afghan desert ages ago.
Hungry, thirsty, tired, Winston didn’t argue when he was hauled up roughly, his shoulders half coming out of his sockets. Didn’t care at all that the servicemen restrained him and threw him in the back of their off-road vehicle. He’d been on the road for three days with a goal that could go one of two ways: he’d get out of the desert or die in it.
The way he figured, that Jeep, the excruciating jars as it bumped along at top speeds, was helping him reach his goal. Maybe both ways.
* * *
The actual insemination wasn’t painful. In a room with mood-enhancing new age music playing and the lighting low, other than the small bright light positioned for the doctor, and the lavender candle she’d brought burning not too far away, it was all over while she was still mentally preparing for the ordeal. She tried to doze while waiting the appropriate time before she could get up and go home. Thought about what she’d have for dinner—some kind of treat to celebrate.
Couldn’t land on anything.
Wasn’t happy about that.
She did a lot of math in her head. Financial reports, estimating amounts of money needed per year to raise a child, adding in incidentals for vacations and the unforeseen, college account deposits and even possible competition fees if he or she was into sports or dancing.
She counted months. If the insemination took, she’d have a March baby. Counted days, fourteen of them, until she would know if the process was successful. She could take a home pregnancy test earlier than that, but according to Dr. Miller false positives were fairly common any earlier due to low hormonal counts.
Salad ended up being dinner—she didn’t have much of an appetite. And she didn’t call anyone. Her mother, a widow living with Emily’s divorced brother in San Diego, helping him raise his two kids, would insist on driving up. And her friends... Most of them had either moved away or faded off. She didn’t go out anymore, not since Winston went missing. Most of the people she used to spend time with were other couple friends with families of their own now, leaving her the odd one out—and she worked eighty hours a week and didn’t relish spending even more time with the people there.
Another math problem to work through. Getting as much work done in fewer hours. She couldn’t spend eighty hours in the office every week once a baby came. Child care funds had already been calculated. Multiple times. There was a day care in an office building not far from hers. The Bouncing Ball’s LA branch. Mallory Harris, the owner, was a client at the clinic—and expecting a baby of her own around Christmastime. Christine Elliott had introduced them.
If all went well, they’d be pregnant at the same time. Pregnant. She could be. Winston’s baby could already be forming inside her.
Math. Numbers. Focus.
Wednesday, June 12. Insemination day.
Conception Day?
Two years, four months and three days since she’d seen the father.
Hugging Winston’s pillow, Emily cried herself to sleep that night.
* * *
“I did things.”
Sitting on a worn blue couch, elbows on his khaki-covered knees, hands steepled at the fingers, Winston tried to help the naval therapist understand. Though he’d been back in the States for more than a week, in San Diego for three days, he didn’t feel any different than he had bumping around helplessly in the back of a military Jeep in the Afghan desert. He’d murdered his soul there. Nothing was going to change that.
“You’re a hero to your country.” The woman’s soft tones bounced off his eardrums like the buzz of an irritating fly. “What you did saved lives. And what you’ve brought back to us will save even more.”
He didn’t need to be told the facts. He knew them. Was wearing the ribbons he’d earned above his right pocket. He’d put country and his fellow comrades before soul. Had made very clear decisions—for very clear reasons. He’d come up with the plan on his own. Had implemented it without telling anyone, knowing that if he’d spoken up, he’d have been told not to act.
His plan had succeeded. Beyond his expectations. He hadn’t counted on surviving.
“My wife believes I’m dead. I wish to leave it that way.” An unusual request, but not impossible. He was informing on a terrorist cell. He could request a new identity. Keep anyone who knew him by his former identity out of it.
Not that they were really in any danger. No one in the sect he’d joined knew who he really was. And the man they’d thought him to be, another soldier he’d impersonated, was dead.
“She’s going to know you’re alive when the death benefits stop.”
He’d thought of that. Had told his superiors that he didn’t need to see a shrink, and the morning’s meeting was only proving his point.
“I’ll do whatever I have to do, sign whatever I have to sign, so that she continues to receive insurance coverage and monthly checks in the amount she expects.” His salary should be able to cover that, with enough left for him to live on. They’d told him he’d have his pick of duties. After a mandatory six-month leave. And a release from the fly-voiced woman. All due respect to her, meeting with her was a waste of his time. She couldn’t begin to see inside him. And wouldn’t know how to handle it if she could. No amount of learning could prepare you...
“You indicated a desire to stay with the navy.”
“Yes.” It was all he had. He’d chosen his loyalty.
“Naval police,” she said, glancing through the dark reading glasses sitting halfway down her nose at the open file on her desk. He’d considered going civilian...applying to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, but then his checks to Emily would no longer come from the navy.
“Correct.” Sitting back, his ankle across his knee, he reached an arm out along the back of the couch—a pose of relaxation he’d perfected over two years of living as family within an enemy sect. Pretending not to have a care in the world as he lied to them every single day, knowing that if he slipped up, was found out, he’d suffer torture far worse than death.
His free hand came to his chin and for a second, he was startled by the bareness there.
He’d shaved the beard. No longer had it to pull on when he needed to make certain he was still alive. And could feel.
He was Petty Officer First Class Winston Hannigan again. Not Private First Class Danny Garrison—the young man in his command who’d died in his arms, the man whose identity he’d assumed. If he’d died over there, as he’d expected to do, Danny would have been hailed as the hero. His family deserved that.
“You need my sign-off at the end of six months.”
Hers, or another military shrink’s. He looked her straight in the eye. After the past two years, Winston didn’t scare easily. Was way beyond falling prey to intimidation or manipulation.
He’d lived with the enemy for two years and had come out with a body still fully intact. Not many visible scars, even.
“Tell me why you don’t want your wife to know you’re alive.”
He’d already done so, when he’d first taken a seat in her office and she’d asked him to tell her a little about himself.
“I’m not the man she knew. Nor am I a man still interested in a lifetime commitment to another individual.”
“So you said.” The brunette fortysomething in dress whites kind of shrugged as she tried to pin him with her eagle eye. Wasn’t going to happen. The only pins he wore were attached to his ribbons.
“It’s not fair to her,” he added, lest the woman think he’d developed a selfish streak during his time in pseudo-captivity. “I am not the man she married. She wouldn’t love the man I’ve become. Trust me on this. I know her. She’d grieve every day, living with me. It’s much kinder to let her make a new life for herself.”
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