Baby Business. Brenda Novak

As hard as we’ve tried, we’ve only been able to raise…what?”

      “Fifty thousand and change.”

      “Fifty thousand dollars. And no hospital is going to perform the operation unless you give them full payment, in advance. We’ve already been through that.”

      Reaching across the sterile, white sheets, Macy curled her fingers around Haley’s small hand. Her head was beginning to ache, but it bothered her only slightly more than the burning in her eyes and far less than the ache in her heart.

      “What did he say when you told him why you needed the money?” Lisa asked.

      “I haven’t told him about Haley yet. I didn’t see any reason to bare my soul when I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do this.”

      Lisa studied her. “And now? You’re going to go for it if he chooses you, right?”

      Macy sighed. Somehow, somewhere, all the lines had blurred. There was no more black or white, right or wrong, only her daughter, who needed a bone marrow transplant and Macy’s determination that she get it.

      “I’m still thinking about it,” she said at last.

      THE DIM INTERIOR of the steak house where Thad had told Macy to meet him was a cool respite from the bright April sun, making it seem later than it actually was. Macy removed her sunglasses and slid them into her purse, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

      The smells of the restaurant—grilled onions, broiled meat, blue cheese dressing—greeted her more quickly than the hostess’s smile, but did little to chase away the chill that ran through her blood. She was going to do it. Despite all her misgivings, she was actually going to try to convince Thad Winters, a total stranger, that she should be the one to bear his child. And her only consolation was that she’d spoken to Dr. Peters, another fellow who’d known Thad at college, and a couple of his firm’s clients, and they all said the same thing: he was an honest, intelligent man who deserved to be a father. It was a shame that fate had robbed him.

      Just as fate was trying to rob her now of Haley, Macy thought. But she wasn’t about to let that happen—at least not without a fight.

      “One for dinner?” the hostess asked.

      “No, I’m meeting someone.” Surreptitiously studying the tables she could see from her vantage point at the entrance, Macy hoped Thad Winters hadn’t arrived yet. She needed a few minutes to calm down after her most recent conversation with Haley’s oncologist. The stark realities he softly intoned always shook her to the core, where a fundamental part of her refused to believe her daughter’s chances could really be so slim.

      But Thad Winters was already waiting for her. He looked up from the drink he was nursing at a table nearby and spotted her at almost the same instant she noticed him. Standing, he waved to make sure he had her attention, then folded his tall form back into the booth.

      “You’re early,” he said conversationally as she put down her bag and slid into the seat opposite him. “I take it you didn’t have any trouble finding the restaurant.”

      “No.” She felt his gaze run over her hair, knit top and blue jeans and wished she’d had time to freshen up since her afternoon classes at the University of Utah’s College of Medicine. She’d returned to the hospital, instead, where Haley had been watching Robin Hood.

      “Can I order you a glass of wine or something?” he asked.

      It looked as though he was having a mixed drink, but Macy wasn’t here to enjoy herself. She asked for a club soda, then pulled the application from her purse and slid it across the table. “I’ve answered all the questions.”

      She cringed as he picked up the document and began thumbing through it, partly because many of the questions were uncomfortably personal, but mostly because, in the end, she had lied about having slept with the stranger from Studio 9. Haley needed the money too badly for her to risk the truth. And she justified her falsehood by repeating over and over to herself that it was the only time in her life she’d done something so irresponsible.

      When he paused about halfway through, Macy squirmed in her seat. What was he reading? Her answer to the question about having regular menstrual cycles? The one that asked about her marital history? She wished he’d take the darn thing home to go over it, but he thought of their arrangement as business. And if it was business, then this was a business dinner and a perfectly acceptable place to study the “prospectus” in which he was considering investing so much.

      God, when had she become a commodity?

      The moment I walked through the door of his office a week ago.

      Fortunately the waitress arrived with Macy’s drink, interrupting him. He set the package aside in favor of the thick, tasseled menu the young woman handed them both.

      “Are you finding anything you like?” he asked after several minutes.

      Macy peeked over the menu she was using to block his close regard and offered what she hoped was an at-ease smile. “I think I’ll have the chicken salad.”

      When the waitress returned, Thad ordered her salad and a steak, medium-rare, for himself, then retrieved something from his briefcase. He glanced through it, apparently comparing it to what Macy had written on the application, and she suddenly felt as though the word liar hovered in the air over her head.

      A frown creased his forehead. “Your grandmother died of heart disease?”

      “Yes, but she was eighty-eight, hardly cut down in her prime.”

      He nodded. “There’s no information here about your father.”

      “Because I don’t know anything about him.”

      A raised eyebrow told her he expected to hear more.

      “He ran out on my mother after she got pregnant with me. It seems he didn’t share her desire to raise a family.”

      “I see.” He went back to his questionnaire, and Macy suddenly wished she’d ordered something much stiffer than soda water.

      “You’ve had a miscarriage?”

      “Just after my husband and I were married, I became pregnant, but it only lasted three months.”

      “What happened?”

      “My doctor had no idea why I lost the baby. He said it happens all the time. He gave me a D & C and sent me home.” She took a gulp of her drink, feeling the tasteless fizz roll down her throat and wishing their food would arrive to divert Thad Winters’s attention from her before he reached the infamous Have you had unprotected sex with anyone in the past ten years? question.

      “It says here you’ve never taken any drugs.”

      “Right.” At least her conscience was clear there.

      “You’ve never even experimented? No pot? No acid?”

      Macy thought back on all the college parties where she’d been offered such things. She’d been tempted occasionally, but she’d heard of too many bad things that had happened while people weren’t themselves. Except for that short window after Richard left, when she’d drunk more than she should have, she’d always decided to protect her judgment. “No.”

      He nodded and kept reading. Finally, he stopped and glanced up, and Macy knew he’d arrived at the question she most wanted to avoid.

      “You claim here that you’ve never had unprotected sex, except with your husband.”

      Macy let her gaze slide away, unable to face the ocean-blue intensity of his eyes while she lied. Instead of voicing her answer, she nodded, hoping he’d let her get away with that and move on. But he didn’t. He frowned and waited until she started fidgeting with a lock of her hair.

      “Do you want to change your answer?” he asked at last.

      Forcing her hands away from her hair and