Their Doorstep Baby. Barbara Hannay

asked her brother if she could buy his baby!

      How had she ever imagined that Maria and Jim would be relieved and pleased with her offer? What a fruit cake she was! Why hadn’t she seen that they would find her offer shocking, even insulting?

      She’d totally lost it!

      The impulse to ask for Rosa hadn’t been rationally thought out. It had seized her with frightening speed and, once it had taken hold, she’d reacted quickly, not giving herself time for second thoughts.

      For a brief, shining moment it had seemed like a brilliant solution to everyone’s problems.

      Her brother and his wife were really struggling to support their family. Maria looked very tired and strained. Their house was bursting at the seams. And it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be able to see Rosa whenever they wanted to.

      But how quickly that shining idea had dimmed. Now it could go on record as the blackest plan ever hatched.

      The taxi swung sharply around a corner and Claire shoved a fist against her mouth to hold back a sob. She didn’t want to cry again. She was so sick of crying.

      What a mess she’d made of things! And she’d hurt Adam, too. She could tell by the grim set of his mouth that he was still very upset.

      Leaning back against the seat, she closed her eyes, but tears insisted on seeping from beneath her lids as she remembered the look on his face when he’d realised what she’d done.

      ‘You’re not in this alone,’ he’d reminded her and she’d felt a horrible pang of guilt.

      Rushing headlong into making the offer without even consulting Adam was yet another example of how thoughtless she’d been this evening.

      She had apologised later, after they’d made their uncomfortable farewells to Jim and Maria and were walking back down the uneven garden path to the waiting taxi, but she had the horrible feeling that her apology had been too little, too late.

      For the first time in her marriage, she felt as if a tiny but irreparable rift had broken the tightly woven fabric of their bond.

      Claire swiped at her damp eyes with the backs of her hands. She would feel better if she thought it were possible for Jim or Maria to understand what had made her behave that way. But there was no way they could imagine what it was like to be trying for a baby for years and years…and years.

      Not even Adam really understood how she felt. He hadn’t experienced the deadening, inner desolation she suffered when, month after tedious month, she was forced to accept that her womb was empty again…

      She wanted him to understand. She needed him to, but she feared it was asking too much of her husband. This problem of infertility just wasn’t the same for a man as it was for a woman.

      No one labelled a man barren.

      Just thinking about that brought a wave of self-pity sweeping over her and she was still feeling sorry for herself when their taxi glided up the impressive column-lined drive to their hotel’s entrance.

      Adam paid the driver, but, instead of slipping her arm companionably through his as she usually did, Claire marched stiffly in front of him through the automatic sliding glass doors and across the polished marble foyer.

      In the lift they stood staring blankly ahead in brittle, uncomfortable silence.

      As soon as the door of their room swung shut behind them, she turned to her husband, bracing herself for his attack. ‘I know you’re very angry,’ she countered quickly. ‘I’m sorry I made such a dreadful scene. I didn’t stop to think how much my offer would hurt Jim and Maria. You must be so ashamed of me.’

      Adam sighed as he dropped his wallet and a set of keys onto the little table at his side of the bed. ‘I’m not ashamed of you, Claire.’

      ‘But you’re upset.’

      ‘I’m disappointed that you rushed in and offered Maria and Jim that money without talking it over first.’

      Emotion constricted Claire’s throat. She should have known Adam would be decent about this when he had every right to be angry, to lecture her. Illogical as it was, the fact that he was exercising so much self-control made her feel worse.

      She forced her eyes wide open to hold tears at bay. She was determined not to cry, but it was so hard. She wondered if she’d sprung a leak.

      ‘I didn’t have time to talk it over with you,’ she tried to explain, conscious that it was a rather weak excuse. ‘The idea only hit me tonight and—and I couldn’t help myself, Adam. I felt I had to act straight away.’

      ‘But rushing in like that without talking to me. It’s as if I just don’t count. It’s sure as hell not the way I want to become a father.’

      ‘Oh, Adam.’ Claire’s voice broke on a sob. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘But I’m afraid our—our problem—this whole infertility deal—is so much harder for me than you.’

      Adam undid the top buttons on his shirt. ‘What makes you so sure about that?’

      In a gesture she realised was overly grand, Claire flung her hands out to her sides. ‘It doesn’t dominate a man’s thinking the way it does a woman’s and society doesn’t have the same expectations for men to produce babies.’

      The slight movement of his mouth might have been an attempt at a smile. ‘I always understood that men played an admittedly small but vital part in the quest for babies. I thought you’d noticed.’

      Claire groaned. Trust Adam to remind her how much she enjoyed his lovemaking. The most upsetting thing about this whole business was that their sex life could be so powerful and beautiful and yet…so fruitless.

      ‘Of course you play a role.’ Any other time she would have been able to turn this moment into a friendly joke. A joke that would lead to laughter and love.

      Not tonight. Tonight she’d lost sight of her sense of humour. ‘You have to admit that where pregnancy is concerned, ultimately, it’s a woman’s responsibility to come up with the goods.’

      Adam walked towards her then. He came around the foot of the bed and reached for her and drew her towards him. ‘Sweetheart,’ he murmured sadly. ‘We’ve been over this before. You know you mustn’t blame yourself.’

      With his arms around her, he caressed the side of her head with his jaw. In the past, Claire had always loved the way he did that. She loved the way they fitted together as if they’d been custom-built for each other. She loved the feel of him, especially in the evening when his chin was just a little raspy with the beginnings of stubble.

      She wanted to enjoy it again. She wanted to relent and to melt against him, to absorb her husband’s love. But tonight she was too tense and too full of self-recrimination to yield to his touch. Even though she hated herself for doing it, she remained standing stiffly in his arms.

      ‘We’ve discussed this over and over,’ he said.

      ‘But, Adam,’ she answered in a hollow, toneless voice that echoed exactly how she felt, ‘if I can’t have a baby, my whole life feels meaningless. What on earth is the use of being a woman if I can’t fulfil the main reason I was put on this earth?’

      He let her go then and stepped back a little and a kind of resigned bleakness crept back into his eyes. ‘I think you’re being melodramatic, Claire. We’re still young and you shouldn’t give up hope.’

      ‘It’s too hard to keep hoping.’

      ‘Then look around you. There are many, many women who never have a baby and who live fulfilled, useful lives.’

      ‘But I’m not one of them!’

      ‘How can you—how can you be so certain?’

      Claire sighed.

      ‘Adam, in my head I know you’re right. But my emotions