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 he’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.”
“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.
*