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I’m so astounded that I don’t speak at first. “What? You want to buy my baby from me?”
Mrs. Anderson looks at me as if I’m the one here who is crazy. “Wasn’t it the same sort of agreement you had with the Clarks?”
I hate Alec. How could he have sent his parents to do this? Was it his way of revenge for the way I kicked him out of my house? Why didn’t he come himself to make the stupid, insensitive offer? Probably cowardice. He sent his parents to do his dirty work for him.
“Be reasonable, Ivy,” Mr. Anderson says in a cajoling tone. “You’re not financially capable of raising a child. Alec told us you want to be a writer. The settlement we give you means that you’ll never have to worry about money ever again. You can pursue your writing free from financial worries.”
A blanket of sadness comes over me. My child will be related to these people, and there is nothing I can do about it. In their world, money is the answer to all life’s problems. How could they even think I’d be willing to sell my child?
“What do you say, Ivy?” Mr. Anderson continues. He slips a card from his wallet and slides it onto the table for me. “That’s our lawyer’s card. He has all the documents drawn up, and he’ll be waiting for your call.”
I’m so angry I want to lash out at them, but I remind myself they are Alec’s parents, as horrible as they are. Instead, I inhale deeply, stand up and walk to the door. I push it open.
“Get out of my house,” I hiss, fighting not to tell them exactly what I think of them. Any other time, it would have been comical to see the astonishment on their faces. I would be willing to bet that this is the first time they have been kicked out of anywhere. Well, they can go and compare notes with their son.
“Are you throwing us out?” Mrs. Anderson says, looking from me to her husband.
“Yes. I thought I was clear enough.”
Her face changes, and she stops just short of baring her teeth at me. She jumps to her feet with an agility I would not have expected her to have at her age.
“Come on, Adam, let’s go.” She stops a step from me. “You’re going to regret this, Ivy. It’s not over. That is our grandchild, and we will fight for them. Even though it means going to court to prove what an unfit mother you are.”
Fear freezes me to the spot as they whiz past. Did they say they were going to fight me for my baby? Nausea rises up my throat, and a second later, I rush to the bathroom and throw up in the toilet bowl. Tears sting my eyes as I retch out my lunch.
What have I gotten myself into? These people are out of my league. It’s not an idle threat. They have money for good lawyers, the best. If they want to take my baby, they can. The only time my child is safe right now is while she is in my belly. The moment I give birth, I could lose her.
Real grief comes over me as if it’s already happening. Interspersed with the grief are bouts of panic as I make myself take deep breaths. I need to speak to someone. My sister.
I rush back to my bedroom desk to get my cell phone. I call Molly, hoping she’s not in class. She’s not. She picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, sis, what’s up?” she says cheerfully.
There’s no time for pleasantries. I hysterically tell her everything that transpired from the time Alec and I had sex.
“He doesn’t come across as the type of man who would send his parents to threaten you, Ivy. He doesn’t need his parents to threaten you. He’s the father of the baby. The law is on his side, just like it’s on yours.” I know what she’s saying makes sense on some level, but Alec being in cahoots with his parents is the only logical explanation I have. “Why don’t you call Alec and straighten it out with him? I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for his parents saying all those horrible things.”
“Call Alec?” I shriek. I imagine facing him after our last encounter, and I shrink inwardly. “After I threw him out of my house?
My sister giggles. “I would have loved to see you throwing the handsome Dr. Anderson out of your house after sex.”
My face heats up at the memory. “I never expected to see him ever again.”
“Really, Ivy?” my sister says, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “He’s your baby’s father; how did you figure you would never see him again? Sometimes you are so dumb.”
“What am I going to do, Molly?” I sob into the phone.
“I already told you what to do. Talk to Alec,” my sister says with exaggerated patience.
12
Alec
I’m satisfied with how well the laparotomy has gone. It’s a major surgery and the fourth one the patient, Jane, has undergone. She’s suffered from endometriosis all her life. Every surgery she undergoes causes scar tissue, making it harder to get pregnant. She and her husband have been married for five years, and while they do want a baby sometime down the line, they are not ready for one yet. I hope I’ve impressed upon them the fact that every year will make it harder for Jane to conceive. She’s in graduate school now, and they have things they want to accomplish as a couple and individually before they have a baby. All that is well and good, but if there’s one thing the last couple of weeks have taught me is that, somehow, we adapt to whatever situation we’ve been thrust into.
Take my situation. If you told me a couple of months ago that I’d soon look forward to the birth of my child and being a dad, I’d have called you crazy. And yet, here I am, wondering how my baby will look when it’s born.
Thinking about Ivy makes my heart ache. I’ve met many beautiful women, so why has Ivy captured my attention and attraction? Having sex with her should have taken the edge off the attraction I feel for her, but it has increased it if anything. I’m haunted by memories of the softness and femineity of her body. I miss her terribly. It feels as if I’ve lost my best friend, which is foolish considering I’ve known Ivy for only a couple of months.
