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“I wanted to talk to you,” Sadie felt like she was tripping over her words. “But when I talked to the guard—”
Gillian frowned. “Come on, babe. Let’s get coffee.” Immediately, she steered her away from the building. “It’s so stuffy up there,” she said. “Your allergies would go crazy.”
They headed toward a coffee place. Sadie glanced over her shoulder. Lenna had disappeared into the building.
“Why aren’t you on the office employee list?” Sadie blurted.
Gillian’s jaw tightened. “Excuse me?”
Sadie explained the guard not having her name on her roster. Spots formed on Gillian’s cheeks. “Well, obviously it was some kind of mistake. What, you think I’m lying about working there?”
“I wasn’t saying that…” Sadie looked at her. She felt sodiscombobulated, the last thing she wanted to do was fight. “Look, I came here because I need to talk to you. Something happened.”
Gillian’s expression changed. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the embryos.” Sadie’s voice cracked. “Or, well. Thelackof them.” She explained the results.
“Oh shit,” Gillian whispered. “I’m so sorry. So,sosorry.” And then she threw her arms around her and squeezed tight.
There, then. Gillian was coming through for her. She’d put aside her feelings and was focusing on how Sadie felt for once. Should Sadie have noticed the false note in her tone? Therelief,even? Should she have known that actually, Gillian was a liar through and through, someone she absolutely didn’t want in her life?
Easy to be sure of that in hindsight, she supposed. If she lived her life backward, she’d do everything right. Everyone would.
Sadie just didn’t understand how none of the embryos made it. Her bloodwork was good. Her uterine lining excellent. Her donor was in perfect health. Such calamities were possible, of course—she was on enough message boards and support groups—but she never thought she’d be one of the unlucky ones.
It was evening that same night. Sadie sat in the living room in the dark, looking out the blinds to the sloping street that overlooked the canyon. Where was Gillian? She’d been so supportive when Sadie gave her the bad news and promised to come home so they could order takeout as soon as she was done with work. Gillian’s company was better than nothing. Sadie really,reallydidn’t want to be alone. Her doomed thoughts were getting the best of her.
She dialed Gillian to see what the holdup was. Voice mail. She dialed again. This time, voice mail picked up before it even rang.
She frowned and lay down on the couch, her heart twisting. What felt like a lark, a fun little experiment, even a few months ago was now suddenly something she desperately wanted.Needed.Her life felt so stalled, suddenly. Now that she’d decided to have a child on her own, she wanted immediacy, progress.
She tried Gillian again. Still nothing. After the beep, she cleared her throat. “Um, can you come home?” she said in a small voice. “I’m having a hard time being alone. My thoughts are spiraling.”
She waited for Gillian to call, but she didn’t. Whatwasthat all about today at Gillian’s office? Gillian had been twitchy the rest of the time they’d been together, like she couldn’t wait to leave.
Sadie opened her laptop. Navigating to her Gmail, she pulled up an email Gillian had sent to her from her official address atWellnessmagazine. At the bottom was an official-looking logo and signature.Gillian Winters, Assistant to Cordelia Logan, Editor in Chief.
But then she noticed something strange. Gillian’s email ended in .net. Sadie navigated to theWellnesswebsite, which provided a few free articles from that month’s issue—including a letter from the editor in chief…whose name wasn’t Cordelia Logan. It was someone named Stacey Ross. Cordelia was theoldeditor in chief; she’d moved on to another magazine several months earlier.
Puzzled, Sadie scrolled to the bottom of Stacey’s letter, which included Stacey’s email address at the magazine in case anyone had questions or comments. Stacey’s email atWellnessended with .com.
Sadie sat back, jiggling her legs.
A moment later, the key turned in the lock. When the door opened, Sadie rose from the couch and watched as Gillian stepped inside. “Where were you?”
“I got sucked into this work thing,” Gillian said, pulling off her jacket.
Sadie caught a whiff of Gillian’s breath and drew back. “Are you drunk?”
“Are you my mother?” Gillian walked back to the bedroom. She was buried in her phone. She’d barely looked up since she’d come in.
“You said you were going to come back hours ago,” Sadie said in a small voice. “We were going to have dinner, watch some TV…”
Gillian’s eyes darted to her for a moment. “I tried to call you. You didn’t pick up.”
“I had my phone on the whole time. There was no call.”
“Well, I did. An hour ago. I had an awful day at work.”
