"So the stewardship part?—"
"Favors me. But it's not sufficient on its own. The heir clause is separate." He looked at the sunflower print. "Hence…"
"Hence," I agreed.
We sat with that for a moment.
I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing, which was running a completely different set of numbers. Not the ones on my spreadsheet. A new set. The kind that started withhe needsandI needand arrived, with the uncomfortable efficiency of a well-built formula, at a conclusion I had absolutely not come here to reach today.
Stop it,I told my brain.
My brain did not stop it.
"So you're here looking at—what, surrogacy options?" I asked.
Casual. Very casual. A normal question.
"Among other things." He exhaled slowly. "The clinic came recommended. I thought I'd—explore what was available. Legally. Before I made any decisions."
"Right." I nodded. "That makes sense."
Stop it.
"What's your plan B?" he asked. "If the numbers don't work out."
"Move back in with my parents." I said it lightly, like it wasn't a small death. "My mom would actually love it. She'd make me go to mass."
"You're not a mass person?"
"I'm alapsedmass person. There's a difference." I paused. "She lights candles for me. A lot of candles. I think at this point I have a whole vigil going on my behalf at Saint Anthony's."
His eyes crinkled again—a smile I was dying to see without the mask. "What are the candles for?"
I gestured vaguely at the waiting room. At the spreadsheet. At the entire situation.
"This," I said. "The plan. She's very—she believes in doing things in the right order. Marriage, then baby." I shrugged. "I'm trying to negotiate a shortcut."
"She know you're here?"
"She knows I had an appointment. She doesn't know what for." I folded the spreadsheet one more time, a habit now, something to do with my hands. "She'd light more candles."
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "My mother would probably do the same."
I looked at him sideways. "She know you're here?"
"She knows I have a problem." The corner of his eye creased. "She's chosen to have faith that I'll solve it."
Something about the way he said it—not self-pitying, not funny exactly, just honest—hit me somewhere undefended.
He needs a woman who wants a baby,said the part of my brain I had been telling to stop it.
I need a man who?—
"Okay," I said, out loud, before I'd made the decision to speak.
He looked at me.
My face was on fire behind the marigold mask.
