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The exact moment Hannah took Bagel away from me put everything into perspective. Mila was there for me without even a thought, regardless of our status. She dropped everything and stuck her neck out for Bagel and me. I could trust her, finally someone I could trust. I’d gone through life not wanting to have kids, as if that was a choice I and I alone would get to make. The truth was that I wanted what everybody really wanted: to be happy. Children might or might not make me happy, and it was even possible that they could get in the way of my happiness. Not wanting to risk it, I figured finding what I was looking for would probably be easier without the responsibility of little versions of me running around.
It was the same reason I didn’t want a dog. But once I met Bagel, I knew she was the only dog for me, and my life would be so much emptier without her. Maybe having kids would be the same way. I wasn’t sure.
What I did know, however, was that Mila made me happy. And if not wanting children stood in the way of me being with Mila, then I would have to reevaluate the idea of me not wanting to be a parent.
We stopped for new tags at the pet store on the way home. I’d have to adjust the registration, too, in due time, but for right now, those tags needed to ensure that anyone who found Bagel would bring her back to me. And if Hannah wanted to fight me on ownership, she’d need to take me to court in order to do so.
Mila joined me in Kiefer’s apartment when we got back to the complex. We were lying on the floor together, cuddling with Bagel.
“I don’t believe in the algorithm,” I told her. “I’m a man of medicine and a man of science, but if science says that we don’t belong together, well, then science must be wrong.”
“It’s great that you feel that way,” Mila said, “it really is, but I need to know I can count on you. I think you’re an amazing person, but I’ve known a lot of amazing people in my life who pulled a 180 and became nasty after a while. And, right now, I just don’t know. This feels so right, but at the same time, so wrong. I can’t risk it. I’ve got too much at stake.”
She put her hands on her stomach. Obviously, it was much too early for her to be showing at all, but I imagined it gave her comfort to know that, inside her, a small bunch of cells was dividing over and over again in a process that would lead to her baby.
“I need something to lean on to know that you’ll be dependable and that this can work,” she told me. “Like I said, I’m not looking for a quick fling here. That was never something I was interested in anyway.”
My mind was racing, trying to come up with what I would need to do to convince her that I had an investment in this relationship lasting long term.
“Look,” I said, “I managed to make it work with Hannah for nearly two years. If I was committed enough to that relationship, which was stress twenty-four seven, non-stop, imagine how easy it’ll be for me to commit to someone like you, who is so selfless and kind. I was a fool to almost let that go.”
She nodded.
“There’s another thing, too,” I told her. “You do realize you could be carrying my child, right?”
She nodded again, biting her lip as she did so.
“I was trying not to think of that. In a way, I guess I was pretending that it just wasn’t possible. Hoping that a guy like you, who didn’t want children, had gotten a vasectomy.”
It’s true, it was something I had strongly considered, but never followed through with. Hannah had been on birth control, or at least that’s what she told me, and if I was a smarter man I would have doubted her. We never had any real pregnancy scares, but if she had stopped taking her medication when we were still being intimate, it could have been very bad news for me.
The fact was that it was hard for me to offer up a permanent no to something. What if I changed my mind later? Of course vasectomies could be reversed, but in even getting the procedure done, it was as if I was putting my foot down, saying that I absolutely didn’t want kids ever in my life. In reality, it was more like I wasn’t ready for them and, eventually, it turned into the realization that I never would be ready for them.
Of course, situations change, and now I wasn’t so sure I wasn’t ready for kids. In fact, so long as I had Mila and nine months time to get used to the idea, I was sure I could be ready.
“I never got one,” I said. “And since you were doing the hormone injections, it’s very possible that I got you pregnant even before the implantation.
“All things being equal, I’d hate for our child to grow up without a father,” I said. “I think it’s to their benefit for us to, at the very least, try this out and see if it’s going to work. Maybe the algorithm is right, and we’ll realize very early on that this is a bad idea, but I don’t think that’ll happen.”
Mila shook her head and leaned closer to me.
“I don’t think it will, either.”
“At the very least, you need to test the algorithm for your job, right?” I asked.
She smiled at that. “Right. This is for research.”
“Exactly.” I could see the look in her eyes that made it clear things were going my way, but I had to be sure. “So we’re doing this? We’re going to make this happen?”
“Why don’t you kiss me and find out?”
That was excellent advice.
CHAPTER19
***MILA***
Bagel needed a distraction, so we gave her one. We put on Puppy Palace just as we had before until she was preoccupied and on the verge of falling asleep. I could only hope that our human child would be so easy. After all, the parenting guidebooks all said (in passages that I’d mostly skimmed past) that it’s essential to carve out time for you and your partner once a baby comes into your life. In that sense, it seemed best for Leo and I to get as much practice as possible in spending time together before the baby came along.
