The Baby Gift. Bethany Campbell
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vision, his brother’s sweat and his wife’s smarts, Josh thought. Leo Hanlon’s shaping dream had been a simple but good one. Most important, it came at exactly the right time.
Twenty-five years ago, the time of the small farmer in America was nearly over. People were not merely migrating to the cities, they were swarming there. Big farms gobbled up the small ones, and corporations bought out the big farms.
But America had begun as a country of farmers and settlers. Many who had gone to the cities missed the cycles of planting, growing and harvesting. They missed the feel of dirt between their fingers and the taste of tomatoes fresh-picked and still warm from the sun.
Leo Hanlon might not have succeeded as a farmer, but he prospered as a nurseryman. He supplied seeds and seedlings and potting mixtures to those city-dwellers who still yearned to garden.
But Leo’s true stroke of genius was not to sell just any seeds and plants. He specialized in the old-fashioned varieties with old-fashioned flavor. He was in short, one of the pioneers in heirloom gardening.
The big seed companies often didn’t offer the older classic breeds. Instead, they came up with new, improved, scientifically developed strains. They grew fast, uniformly and well. They just didn’t seem to taste as good.
Heirloom varieties were in vogue again, and across the country a few dozen places like Hanlon Heritage Farms kept gardeners in supply. Leo Hanlon’s mission was good. It was even noble. Josh sincerely admired it.
But Leo himself was a different matter.
When they first met, Josh had thought Hanlon likable, well-intentioned and slightly comic. But Josh had underestimated him.
Leo Hanlon had proved to be the strongest adversary he’d ever met.
The two of them waged a stubborn war, and Hanlon won, hands down. What he had won was Briana.
THE TRUCK PASSED between the gates of Hanlon’s Heritage Farms. We’re home again, Briana thought.
At least she and Nealie were home. She wondered how the farm looked to Josh’s worldly eyes.
The main farmhouse, where Leon lived alone, stood on the hill, a stark shape against the gray sky. Set in the valley was the ranch house Larry had built for his family. There were the old greenhouses as well as two new ones, modern and utilitarian.
Her house was on the next rise, clearly visible through the winter-bare trees. Her brother would be in one of the sheds, tinkering with the tractors. It was that time of year.
Her father would be in the room that served as his office, pottering with his endless notes. Was he watching? Did he suspect anything?
She glanced at Josh, who peered at the landscape, frowning.
“It looks pretty boring to you, eh?” she said. “It’s not exactly Moscow or Paris.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.”
“Oh?”
“I was thinking of the fields. They’d make a nice shot. A black and white abstract.”
Briana looked at the familiar fields. Snow filled the furrows but hadn’t stuck to the black ridges of dirt that ran between. The effect was like a painting, a great, complex design of sensuously rolling stripes.
How wonderfully he sees things, she thought. I think Nealie sees things that way, too.
Nealie stirred. “Are we home yet?” She rubbed her eyes with her fists. Josh took her glasses from his pocket and helped her settle them on her nose. “We’re home, Panda.”
The girl looked out the window, then settled against him with an air of contentment. “You’re really here,” she said to him. “I thought maybe I only dreamed it.”
“No dream, kid.” His voice was gruff. He kissed her tousled hair.
Briana’s emotions made a hard, painful knot in her throat.
“How long can you stay?” It was the third time Nealie had asked him the same question.
“I don’t know. As long as I can. A while, I guess.” For the third time he gave her the same answer.
“Then you have to go back to work,” Nealie said with unhappy resignation.
“But for now, I’m here,” he said. “With you.”
Briana pulled into her driveway, pushed the button to open the garage door and drove in. “I guess we can leave your things in the back,” she said to Josh. “There’s no sense unloading them. You’ll be going to the motel.”
He said nothing. He gave her a look that clearly said, We’ll see about that.
THE MOMENT CAME that Briana had dreaded.
Josh came down the narrow stairs. “She’s asleep.”
Briana stood by the couch, nervously folding the afghan. Josh had been upstairs for almost an hour. He had promised to read Nealie to sleep.
He crossed the room and stopped, looking at Briana. She felt threatened in a dozen conflicting ways. She was glad they had the couch between them, like a barrier.
“It’s time,” he said. “Now we talk.”
She paused, biting the inside of her cheek. At last she said, “Let me pour us some wine. I think I’m going to need a drink for this.”
She moved toward the kitchen, and he moved with her. He said, “Now what’s all this about artificial insemination and healthy embryos?”
Why do you have to start with the hardest question?
She tried to keep her hands from shaking as she took the wine from the cabinet and poured two glasses. But she knew what she had to say. She’d rehearsed it enough. The words came to her lips almost as if someone else were saying them, and she was only mouthing them, a ventriloquist’s doll.
She explained about the Center for Reproductive Health in St. Louis. There specialists could fertilize a group of eggs in vitro, a test tube union. The fertilized eggs would grow and divide until they produced what was called a blastocyst or pre-embryo.
When the pre-embryos were three days old, geneticists would test to see whether they showed signs of Yates’s anemia. If a fertilized egg was healthy, it could be placed in the mother’s womb before the end of the week.
“So that’s it,” Briana finished. “It’s pretty simple, really.”
“It’s anything but simple,” Josh said.
She shrugged and moved to the living room, wineglass in hand. She sat in the easy chair so he would be forced to sit on the couch. She crossed her legs. “Should I explain it again? I—I have some brochures and magazine articles and things if you want—”
He cut her off with a sharp gesture of his free hand. “The science I understand. At least well enough. It’s the ethics that bother me.”
“What do you want? Your ethics or your daughter’s life?”
The coldness of her voice surprised her. But he didn’t flinch, and his eyes didn’t waver from hers.
“What about the baby?” he demanded. “We bring a child into the world for one reason. To save another child who’s sick. Not because we want him, but because we don’t want to lose the one we’ve got.”
She raised her chin. “I’d love him. You know I would. I love children. I always wanted a big family.”
Josh shook his head. “And what am I supposed to feel for him? I mean, we’re talking about a child who’s mine, too, you know.”
She wished he’d sit down, but he stood in front of her as if rooted in place. She was ready for his argument. She’d anticipated it.
“Your feelings are your own business.