The Other Mother. Кейт Хьюит

woman in Manhattan enjoying the company of a guy friend who happens to be incredibly attractive.

      And maybe Eduardo gets that, because he starts telling me about his rehearsal and neither of us mentions pregnancy again.

      Chapter 9

      MARTHA

      I don’t call Alex for a week. I think about it all the time, and twice I start to scroll through my contacts to call her number before I stop myself. I am not going to micromanage her. It’s going to be awkward enough without me seeming like I’m checking up on her all the time. I know that, but it feels weird—abnormal, somehow—not to call her. We’re friends, after all. Admittedly, we only saw each other every couple of weeks if that, but not calling her now isn’t just about being busy or forgetting; it’s a choice.

      Still, I obsess in other ways. I can’t bring myself to buy a pregnancy magazine, but I surf the Internet constantly. I find so many websites, more than I’d ever imagined, because I’ve never allowed myself to indulge this way. I’ve never had so much hope. I read about the development of the fetus, and I wish I knew exactly how far along Alex is. I didn’t even ask her the due date.

      I also find message boards for adoptive parents. I resist these at first, because there is a part of me that doesn’t want to admit that’s what I am. If I hold my child the day she is born, the minute she’s born, how can I be an adoptive parent? It’s just a matter of genetics, really, and a little pain.

      Yet as the week goes on and I don’t hear from Alex I finally break down and read the message boards one evening after work. I’m horrified, and yet I can’t stop. There is story after story after story of canceled adoptions, heartbroken parents who now won’t be parents. I read about a birth mother who met the parents and loved them and shared Christmas cards and barbecues and then the day after the baby was born she changed her mind and sent a social worker to tell them.

      I read a story where parents took their son home and had him for six weeks. Six weeks, and then a social worker came and took the baby away and they never saw him again. Their son.

      “Hey.” Rob sits down next to me on the sofa, puts an arm around my shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

      I quickly close the browser window. My fingers tremble and I feel sick.

      “Adoption forums?” he says, frowning.

      “Just reading some different stories,” I say lightly and Rob squeezes my shoulder.

      “Don’t get your information from the Internet.”

      “I’m not sure where to get it from at this point.”

      “I know.” He’s silent, and so am I, because this is so big and strange and neither of us knows how to deal with it. “Sometimes I wonder if this is a good idea,” he says slowly, and I freeze, fighting a frustration at his typically flip-flopping attitude. What happened to not wanting to fuck this up?

      “Of course it’s a good idea,” I snap, and he sighs.

      “Eight months is a long time, Martha.” We both know what he’s really saying. “I wish we could just fast forward through everything,” Rob continues quietly. “Till the moment the baby’s ours.. Everything signed and sealed.”

      I nod, my throat tight. I know how he feels, and yet I also feel cheated. If this is the closest to pregnancy I’m ever going to get, I’d like to enjoy it. I’d like to feel the wonder of the first kick, the ultrasound photo, all of it, without the ever-present fear.

      “I mean, you hear about adoptions falling through all the time, don’t you?” Rob asks, and, since I’ve just read of dozens, I have to agree with him, even though I don’t want to. I want to hear the good stories, the happy stories, the stories where the birth mother handed the baby to the adoptive parents with a teary smile and then—

      And then what? Disappeared?

      I close my laptop and lean my head against the sofa.

      Rob rubs my shoulder, my arm. “There’s another part of me,” he says, “that wants to start getting excited now. I mean, that’s the normal thing, right? You tell your families, you buy the nursery furniture, you pick out names. You get excited, that’s part of it, you know?”

      “Yes,” I whisper. “I know.”

      “I want to be excited. Now that it could be real…” He stops and I look away. I feel that churning of guilt and fear, as if I’m the one who’s got to make this happen. It was my idea; I’m the one who is forcing this through. Rob might get excited about it, he might want this baby, but he’s still going to be laid-back about it. I’m going to be the one to manage everything, to make it work.

      It’s always been that way between us, and I’ve never minded because we know we’re different, and we play to our strengths. But right now part of me wants Rob to man up and tell me everything’s going to be okay, that he’ll make sure it is.

      Rob stares into space for a moment before he asks the question neither of us dared say aloud before. “Do you think Alex is going to change her mind?”

      “She can’t,” I answer automatically, even though I know she can. “She can’t take care of a baby,” I amend because I think that much is true.

      “She can, Martha. Plenty of women are single moms with no money or health insurance.”

      “I know that but surely she wants more for—” I stop suddenly, because it has occurred to me that Alex can give her child more. Her parents are, if not wealthy, then certainly well off. They could afford to supplement Alex’s income, to support her and her child. If she really wanted to have this child, she could.

      But she doesn’’t, I tell myself. She agreed to this. She wants this for us, for her. But another inner voice, sly and yet so logical, tells me that she’s only seven or eight weeks along, it’s still so early, and she’s still shocked and confused. She’s got a whole pregnancy to reevaluate her decision, even to meet someone and decide she wants a family. And what about Matt? He’s a good guy. Maybe he’ll decide to step up and be a dad.

      “If she changes her mind,” Rob says after a long moment of silence, “we’ll support her the best we can. I know it will be hard, but…” He tails off, and I say nothing.

      How could I possibly support the woman who will have ripped out my heart? Rob turns to me with a lopsided smile. “It’ll probably all be fine,” he says, and I know he’s feeding himself his usual line. He needs to believe it. “But if it isn’t,” he continues, “she’s still your friend. Our friend.”

      And that is the difference—one of them, anyway—between Rob and me. He would support Alex. He’d even be happy for her. He’d make himself see the damned bright side of things.

      As for me? I’d dwell in the darkness and pain. I wouldn’t support Alex; I wouldn’t be able to speak to her if she decided to keep my child, even if Rob obviously would.

      Chapter 10

      ALEX

      Camp fills up my time and thoughts, and I’m glad for the distraction of kids and art and craziness. I’m tired of being inside my own head, of constantly thinking about this baby and what will happen in about seven months. Ramon lights up when he sees me, and tackles my knees. I hug him, smoothing his silky dark hair, feeling that strange tug of longing and love that scares me with its sudden intensity.

      I’ve enjoyed most of the kids I work with, although some have been complete pains in the ass. But even with the sweet ones I’ve been happy to leave them at the door, to forget them almost completely when I’m out of the classroom. To let them go, which I do, easily, freely.

      A few have touched me, but it’s only now that I realize I’ve always kept a little distance,