Having The Soldier's Baby. Tara Taylor Quinn
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been alone, living in an emotional freezer, waiting.
No answers appeared in the brightness outside her window. Stars and yellow-lined pink smears dotted her vision as she moved toward her purse and keys. She had to get to the office.
She wasn’t dead, and work was the life she had.
Almost at the front door, Emily glanced toward the living room. Tearing up again, she went back, picked up the wadded paper, carefully smoothed it. Carried it out to the car with her. Drove all the way to LA with it on her lap.
She parked in her designated spot five minutes ahead of schedule. Dropped her keys in their pocket in her purse. And very carefully, she picked up the letter, folded it and slid it in her wallet.
* * *
Emily wasn’t 100 percent on board with her plan a month later when she presented herself at the fertility clinic in town. Her heart was all there, 150 percent. Her body, the same.
But her mind...wasn’t totally convinced she hadn’t lost it.
“Let’s head back to my office,” Christine Elliott, the clinic’s founder and manager, said as she collected Emily from the large and oddly calming waiting room. Instead of sitting in seats placed close together, forcing patients to face each other, the comfortable armchairs were arranged in separate areas, only two to four per grouping, with large floral arrangements separating them. Healing tones of new age music played, and the wall art, with predominant shades of purple, was somehow comforting.
The air was infused with a hint of lavender. She recognized the scent immediately only because, in her attempts to survive over the past couple of years, she’d gone through a phase of relying heavily on aromatherapy.
And, okay, still dabbed her wrists with pure lavender oil on occasion.
She’d taken up carrying peppermints with her at all times, too—just in case they really did promote calm and mental clarity.
As they reached the door bearing Christine’s placard at the end of the inner hallway, Emily pulled an individually wrapped little white circle out of her pocket and slipped it into her mouth. Fresh breath was always good.
In a short flowered summer dress, Christine could have been heading out for a day of shopping and lunch with friends. Emily liked that. Just...it felt better entering her office for “that” conversation with a woman who looked like shopping and lunch, rather than austerity.
Not one who’d ever really spent tons of time contemplating her wardrobe once she’d purchased clothes—figuring she did the work in the store so whatever was in her closet had already passed inspection—Emily had troubled herself for most of her shower time that morning, trying to determine what to wear. Would she do better if she appeared casual, like she was fully sane and prepared to calmly bring a child into the world all alone?
Or would businesslike and competent serve her better?
Her white capris and short black top with jeweled thongs didn’t seem to matter a whit as she took a seat on the couch Christine indicated for their meeting.
The first time she’d been in that room—the only other time she’d been there—she and Winston had been shown to the two leather-bottomed seats in front of Christine’s massive light wood desk. She’d liked sitting there. The woman’s desk looked like something out of an upscale trinket shop, with everything carefully placed to show it off in its best light. To tempt you to want to own it. Angels in various forms. A china horse. Florals and a small colorful metal heart sculpture.
The couch, also light-colored and leather, faced the chair Christine had landed on. Emily had nowhere to look but in the other woman’s eyes.
“You asked to speak with me specifically,” Christine opened the conversation. No “How have you been?” Or “Nice to see you.”
Emily nodded, her light blond hair loose and straight around her shoulders. She used to curl it. Pull it back in clips. It all seemed like too much trouble these days.
“You were behind me in school...what, a couple of years?” she asked inanely, panicked for a second as she grappled with the reality of what she was doing. Christine had never attended parties or been a part of any crowd that Emily knew of, but she’d recognized her when she and Winston had visited the clinic.
He hadn’t remembered her.
“Three years. I was a freshman your senior year.”
“You used to leave during lunch. The McDermott Street door was down the hall from my locker and I’d see you...”
Only seniors had been allowed to leave for lunch.
“You always left alone...”
She’d wondered about it, in the way you’re curious about something in the moment and then forget about it. It hadn’t been any of her business.
And still wasn’t.
“My grandmother was diabetic and needed an insulin shot,” Christine said, not seemingly at all put out by Emily’s rudeness. Or the unprofessional and inappropriate topic of conversation.
“You were, what, fourteen?”
Christine’s short dark hair barely touched her shoulders as she shrugged. “I wanted to help, thought it was cool and seriously didn’t mind doing it. Gram said Gramps hurt when he did it. Besides, she always had a great lunch ready for me when I got there.”
Still...she’d been fourteen. A kid. Missing out on all of the gossip and drama in the lunchroom. And the friendships that formed or solidified because of them.
Not to say that Christine hadn’t had a slew of friends. Emily had no idea who Christine had known.
“I was sorry to hear about Winston.” The compassion in Christine’s brown eyes came close to undoing her. And focused her, too. Finally.
“That’s why I’m here,” she said, sitting upright on the couch, nothing at her back. Because that’s how it was going to be. “Labwerks contacted me... I actually forgot to pay my yearly storage fee...”
Christine could have jumped in as Emily faltered. Instead, she sat silently, that warm look still in her gaze.
“They asked if I wanted them to discard Winston’s sperm...”
The vial had been taken as part of an initial testing process when he and Emily first visited Elliott Fertility Clinic. They’d been trying to have a child for over a year with no success. Low motility had been ruled out. As had any other obvious reasons for an inability to procreate. They’d been given the option to keep trying naturally, with some hormonal help, or consider artificial insemination. Because they’d both just turned thirty and figured they had time, they’d opted to go the natural route for a while longer, but had paid to have Winston’s sperm stored just in case.
“So what can I do for you?” Christine’s question came quietly. More of a boost than a push. Like she was helping Emily do what she’d come to do, not forcing her to get on with it.
“I’ve become obsessed by an idea I had and I want your opinion before I allow myself to seriously consider it.”
“Why me? I’m not a counselor—Though, as you know, we have a couple of top-rate ones on staff, and I’d be happy to refer you...”
Emily shook her head. Maybe a counselor was what she needed but it wasn’t what she wanted. Not at that point, anyway.
“I want your opinion.”
“My degree is in health management. I founded the clinic, I run it, but the work that we do...that’s the fabulous doctors and their teams, not me.”
“When we met with you before...it was clear to me...you aren’t in this as a business. You’re here because you care about people.”
With a silent nod, Christine acknowledged the truth of the remark.
“And...you