The Match: A Baby Daddy Donor Romance

by Renshaw, Winter

  When I first decided to have a baby, gender wasn’t important.

  And I’d have been thrilled either way.

  But I’ll never forget the way I felt when that pink confetti flew through the air after I popped the balloon. I was plucking it out of my hair for days after, smiling every time as I daydreamed about a little mini me. About mommy-daughter mani/pedis. Barbies and babies. Lazing by the pool together in matching swimsuits in the summer. The enormous collection of dresses and hair ribbons I was about to start for her. I’d have been just as excited to have a baby boy, but being able to visualize this next chapter of my life without effort quashed any tiny voices in my head telling me I was crazy for doing this.

  “You realize the irony in all of this, don’t you?” Carina asks. “You’re a genealogist. You study family histories and make family trees for a living. Legacies are your jam. Now you’ve got the opportunity to fill in the other half of your daughter’s family tree and you’re content just to leave it … leafless?”

  She has a point, but I’d accepted that half of her tree would be bare the second I agreed to go the sperm donor route. It was a trade-off I was willing to make in the grand scheme of things. Plus with DNA technology advancing every year, it’s not like she wouldn’t be able to figure out her heritage when the time came.

  Lucia coos, clapping and reaching for me.

  Typically we have a no-baby-in-the-office-during-work-hours policy, but I can’t not hold her when she gives me that look.

  Carina slides her into my arms, and I kiss her warm, pink cheek before studying her deep brown eyes.

  My sweet, perfect, beautiful, brown-eyed girl.

  My whole world, really.

  It’s funny, despite being thirty-five, I hardly remember life before her. All those memories feel like they belong to someone else. The rebellious college years. My brief marriage to Brett. Launching my genealogical services business. Starting over single, fabulous, but still aware that something was missing …

  “Nonna always says everything happens for a reason,” Carina quotes our vivacious Italian grandmother. Though the cliché words don’t belong to her, it’s something she says all the time, about everything. If it rains, it means the grass needs watering. If a guy ghosts Carina, it’s because his presence in her life would’ve thrown off her entire path. After my husband left me for another woman, she swore it was because my soul mate is still out there.

  I don’t know about all of that—but she’s never been wrong.

  The things that don’t work out for us are because something better is waiting in the wings.

  Lucia is worth every painful moment of my failed marriage, every tear, every headache, every embarrassed explanation I had to give friends and family.

  “She kind of looks like him,” Carina studies my baby’s face.

  “You did not just say my nine-month-old baby girl looks like a thirty-seven-year-old Greek god.” I snort.

  “The hair and eye color,” she says. “It’s his.”

  “A lot of people have that combination …”

  Pulling out her phone, she taps something into the screen and flips it to show me. “Look at his eyebrows. The shape of them. Those are Lucia’s brows.”

  “I don’t know why you’re trying to hard to sell me on this when it doesn’t matter.”

  Carina blows a puff of hair between her lips and slides her phone away. “Fine. You’re right. It’s none of my business. I just think …”

  “What? Everything happens for a reason?” I finish her thought.

  “Exactly.” She gathers Lucia in her arms and kisses her temple before brushing her jet-black hair from her forehead. “But it’s your life. And Lucia’s. And it’s not my decision. I just would hate for you to spend the rest of your life wondering …”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I swat her away. “I really need to get back to work.”

  “You called me in here.” She points, winking. “Just remember that.”

  She’s not wrong—when I first opened the letter a few minutes ago, my heart fluttered at the thought of this secret information landing in my lap on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon. But the more I think about it … it’s not for me to know.

  Then again, the more I think about it, what sense would it make that someone as famous and successful at Fabian Catalano would ever need to be a sperm donor?

  There’s no way it’s him.

  Rising, I refill my coffee in the kitchen before returning to pace my office—or at least the single window that looks out onto our little front porch. Sliding the sash, I inhale a burst of fresh spring air. A year ago, I was six months pregnant, happily and comfortably so.

  I loved being pregnant. Relished every minute of it. I studied a million baby books, listened to her little heartbeat on the at-home doppler at least ten times a day, and snapped hundreds of belly photos.

  She was my first pregnancy—but also my last.

  I know my limits.

  Motherhood is hard. Single motherhood is even harder. Not that I’m complaining. I’m simply rationalizing my decision to be one-and-done.

  I’ve caught myself daydreaming of having just one more, a sibling Lucia can grow up with, someone to play with and fight with like Carina and I had, someone to make fun of me when I do something embarrassing during their teen years, or someone to call and vent to when I’m getting on their nerves. Someone to hold and hug them long after I’m gone.

  A decade ago, I thought I wanted that boring, typical, traditional family—and Brett and I tried for years to get pregnant before going in to see Dr. Wickham and discovering that Brett was the issue. He refused to so much as consider using donor sperm, which left my hopes and dreams of having a family with him on the cutting room floor. He was also adamantly against adoption, calling it a parental form of Russian roulette. At the time, I thought he was simply being bitter because of his infertile diagnosis. I didn’t think he meant those harsh words, and I was one hundred percent convinced he’d come around with a little time.

  Everything changed the night his best friend came over, drunk as I’d ever seen him. Brett was out of town for work and Ethan knocked at the door, asking if he could crash at our place. We lived in a trendy neighborhood with popular bars, and Ethan had done it a million times before so I didn’t think twice. But it wasn’t ten minutes into getting him settled when he said he had to tell me something.

  I’ll never forget the tears in his eyes. I’d chalked them up to far too many beers and the toll his recent breakup was having on him.

  “Brett doesn’t love you,” he’d blurted next. Followed by, “Two years ago, he got a vasectomy. That’s why you can’t have kids.”

  I stood in the doorway of our guestroom in stunned silence as he proceeded to tell me my husband wasn’t alone on his latest business trip, that he’d brought along another woman for company. And he rattled off half a dozen names of other women who’d kept him company over the short course of our very new marriage.

  At the time, it felt like a bad dream and seemed like a ploy—because when Ethan was finished ratting out my husband, he tacked on a confession of his own … he’d been in love with me for years.

  I quickly ended the conversation, tucked him in with a bottle of Gatorade and two Advil, and hid in my room the rest of the night.

  He was gone by the time I woke up in the morning, but I spent the entirety of that day verifying and confirming all of Brett’s “activities.”

  “Think I’m going to go for a walk,” I call to my sister as I slip into my tennis shoes, grab my ear buds, and jet out the front door. All these thoughts and memories swirling in my head is making me stir crazy, and I can’t possibly finish the Valdez project like this.

  Striding around our picturesque little neighborhood, I gather as much fresh air as I can while an eighties pop station plays in my ear. The synthesized sounds and funky beats always break me out of my strangest moods. They’ve never failed me once.

  Thirty minutes later, I’
m back to our street when a silver Lexus pulls up and rolls the window down. I pause Blue Monday—which is a shame because it’s one of my favorites.

  “Hey, stranger.” My next door neighbor, Dan, flashes a megawatt smile and flips his shiny sunglasses over his head.

  “Oh, jeez. Didn’t recognize you. New car?” I approach his window and the scent of new leather floats on a breeze.

  “Fresh off the showroom floor. Whatcha think?”

  I give it a careful inspection, making a show of it as I nod. It’s spectacular compared to my trusty Subaru, but I’ve never been one to care about this sort of thing.

  “Going to miss seeing you come down the street in that bright red BMW though,” I say.

  “Psh.” He waves a hand. “That thing was a lemon. Always in the shop. And my ex picked the color. Always thought it was obnoxious. Lease ended today—couldn’t have happened sooner.”

  When Dan first moved to the block a few months back, I did the neighborly thing and brought him a tray of made-from-scratch caramel brownies and introduced Lucia and myself. Within seconds, he’d invited us in and gave us a tour of the place. A corporate accountant, he’d just gone through an ugly divorce and was excited about starting over. It didn’t take long for us to bond over failed marriages and our love of this little boutique neighborhood where all the houses look like they’re out of some movie set and all the neighbors won’t hesitate to bake you a casserole and stick their nose in your business. I called it a miniature Wisteria Lane, and then we spent the next few hours talking about our favorite TV shows.

  We’d been hanging out—in a casual neighbor sort of way—for a few months when he asked me on a date.

  A real date.

  I had to let him down gently, informing him that Lucia was my priority, and I wasn’t in a place to start thinking about that sort of thing. I’ll never forget the way his lips curled into a gracious smile, but his eyes were a deep shade of glassy blue. Either way, it changed nothing between us. He still shovels the snow from my sidewalk in the winter and hand delivers my mail when he accidentally receives it. He also texts me movie recs and has gifted Lucia miscellaneous toys—always soft ones, never the noisy ones. We’ve also made a couple of jaunts to the farmers’ market together—all three of us, that is.

  “Nice day for a walk,” he says, buying time. “You should’ve waited another half hour and I’d have joined you.”

  That’s another thing—he loves our walk-and-talks, always offering to push the stroller when Lucia’s along and never complaining when we stop at the park to let her enjoy a few minutes in the baby swing. I can’t count how many times passersby have stopped to fawn at my daughter and then tell us what a beautiful family we are.

  I shrug. “Just needed a little fresh air. About to head in and get back to work.”

  Splaying a palm across his pristine dress shirt, he feigns an injury. “Ugh. Should be illegal to work on a gorgeous day like today.”

  “Just tell that to my boss,” I tease, referring to my ball-busting alter ego. While I love being self-employed, some days it’s a struggle to find motivation to stay on task. A schedule—a strict schedule—is the only way around that. “Hoping she gives me a day off soon.”

  “I meant what I said the other week. Name the date and we’ll go.” Two weeks ago we were drinking wine, chowing on pizza, and bingeing some trendy Netflix series when Dan suggested we take a road trip—the three of us. His grandparents had a farm in Wisconsin and he insisted it’d be fun for Lucia to see the animals. Plus, he said his mom loved babies more than anything in the world, and she’d be happy to babysit if we wanted to go into the city for a night.

  His offer was tempting …

  I haven’t taken a proper vacation since before the pregnancy, but I didn’t want to give Dan the wrong impression—not to mention the thought of leaving my only child with a complete stranger made me want to vomit on the spot.

  I’m not there yet.

  “I’ll let you know.” I point to my house ahead. “Going to head in and get back to work. Congrats on the new wheels …”

  I trot along the sidewalk, skirting around the back of his shiny new car, heading back before he can stall me another minute. Dan’s a pro at that. He can turn any kind of casual small talk situation into a forty-five minute full-on conversation. Deep down, I imagine he’s lonely. The man was married for ten years—to his high school sweetheart no less. They’d been together since they were fifteen and then poof. And the house he bought is better suited for a family. Two stories with a finished basement and five bedrooms. Plus a fenced back yard and a playset leftover from the previous owners. Waking up to all that emptiness, all that wasted potential must get to him somedays. I can only imagine he chose this home hoping he could one day fill it.

  And I have no doubt there’s someone special out there for him—it’s just not me.

  Kicking off my tennis shoes in the foyer, I drop my ear buds on the entry console and duck into my office before Lucia hears me. Taking a seat, I find myself face-to-face with that damn letter again.

  The odds of Lucia’s donor being a famous, crazy-hot tennis player are slim.

  And if for some insane reason it is him—nothing about my life is going to change.

  Also, my sister’s right … the answer to this question is going to haunt me the rest of my life if I don’t put it to bed now.

  I tug a handful of hair, gather a deep breath, and place today’s letter next to the donor form from the file cabinet.

  And then I compare the donor numbers.

  W44321G …

  and …

  … W44321G.

  It’s a match. Holy shit. It’s a match.

  “Carina!” I yell for my sister. “Carina, hurry—get in here!”

  Three seconds later, the office door swings wide, slamming against the wall.

  “What?” she asks. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

  Clamping a hand over my mouth, I hand her both papers. “It’s him. Fabian is the donor.”

  Examining the numbers for herself, she sucks in a sharp breath. “I … I didn’t think … I mean, I thought it was a long shot … I didn’t …”

  She’s as speechless as I am.

  “I know,” I say, letting the information sink into my marrow, where it’ll live the rest of my life.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  Steadying my breath, I force myself to get a grip. I need to come back down to earth. I had my mini freak-out but now it’s back to reality.

  Folding both papers together, I tuck them into the file cabinet folder where they belong. I wanted my answer. I got it. And someday, when the time is right, I’ll share it with my daughter—for whatever it’ll be worth at that time.

  “Nothing,” I say. “There’s nothing to do. My life—our life—is staying exactly the same. Only difference is, now I can fill in the donor side of her family tree if she wants me to do that someday.”

  Carina lingers in the doorway, hand on the knob as she studies me.

  “I’m fine,” I insist, despite the fact that she hasn’t asked. I can read her thoughts—they’re practically broadcasting off her forehead. Glancing at the clock on my desk, I add, “Should be about time for Lucia’s afternoon nap, yeah?”

  Carina closes the door on her way out, and I wake my laptop, diving back into the research I’ve been conducting on the Valdez family—a project initiated by a woman named Mimi who was adopted in the fifties as an infant. She never wanted to trace her biological roots, fearing it would offend her adoptive parents who were nothing but wonderful to her. But now that they’re gone and she’s nearing the twilight of her own life, she wants to answer the unanswered questions that have silently plagued her for the last seventy years.

  In fifth grade, Mrs. Wesley assigned us each a family tree project for a social studies unit we were working on. At first, it seemed tedious and monotonous. I knew the names of my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and great-grandpar
ents. By the time Mrs. Wesley made her way around the classroom and back, I’d already filled my tree in completely. Birth dates and all. So then she challenged me to take it further. To interview my family and see how far back I could go—to get as many names as I could, until the trail dried up.

  So that’s what I did, tracing my father’s side all the way back to Colonial New England times and my mother’s side to the mid-1700s. My great-grandma Bianco, who was still living at the time, fished out a hat box full of old photographs from her time as a small child in northern Italy, and she spent hours telling me all about her cousins and aunts and uncles. There were scandals. And there were stories—some heartbreaking and some that made me snort chocolate milk through my nose. I took meticulous notes, typed them up and placed them in a binder later that night. Later on, I emailed copies to everyone on that side of our family. It wasn’t long before I was the designated family historian. And I did the same for my mother’s side—the French half of me. For my senior trip, my parents took us to Europe for two weeks, and we stopped at every landmark, gravesite, and still-standing home we could find that was in any way connected to our ancestors.

  I was a year into college when my university came out with a new degree program, one that combined genealogy and DNA studies.

  The rest is history.

  As Nonna always says, everything happens for a reason.

  Double-clicking on my family tree software, I create a new file for Lucia and type the name of her father next to mine. And then I lean back, taking it in for a surreal moment.

  Rossi Alessandra Bianco (mother) and Fabian Catalano (father).

  Lucia Evangeline Bianco (daughter).

  Our own little, tiny family tree—one with enormous roots waiting to be explored.

  All in due time.

  I hit ‘save’ and return to Mimi Valdez’s project. I’m so close to uncovering the name of her biological mother, who gave birth to her at fifteen. There’s a chance she’s still living. Slim, of course, since she’d be in her mid-eighties. But I have hope. Logging into my Ancestry account, I send a message to a woman connected to Mimi’s DNA—a possible second cousin, it says. When I’m finished, I log out and shove my chair away from my desk … only to have second thoughts.