A Necessary End (4 page)

“It's a boy?” I take a deep breath. If I were going to want a baby, I'd want a boy more.

“Leah doesn't know for sure. But I know.” She looks over at me, and her expression is so full of love and hope and wonder that it breaks my heart. I want to be the one to make her look that way; at the very least, I don't want to take it away. But she's talking crazy. Leah's arriving
tonight
? Leah doesn't know the sex, but Adrienne somehow does?

“This is breakneck, Adrienne. This isn't how people do things.”

“I know it's fast. But that's because it's fate.” Again, she doesn't wait for my response. “Like you said, she can't fly too late in the pregnancy so she needs to do it now.”

“It's already too late. What's she been doing her whole pregnancy, smoking crack?”

“She wouldn't do that.” Her attention returns to the dough, which she kneads with an almost pathological vigor. “Seriously, I have a good feeling about her. It's overwhelming, being her age and
pregnant. Maybe she's been waiting for Trevor to change his mind, to tell her he wants to raise the baby with her.” I can tell that Adrienne is convincing herself as she speaks. She nods authoritatively. Yep, she likes that explanation. So it must be true.

“You mean you didn't ask what took her so bloody long?”

“I wasn't going to accuse her. I wanted her to like me. She needs to like us.” She looks over at me. “Maybe you could go get your hair cut before she—”

“No.”

“Okay, okay. Just a thought.” She smiles and raises her sticky hands in the air to indicate her harmlessness. Adrienne is many things, but harmless is not among them.

“She didn't board the plane yet, did she? There's still time to cancel?” Her head whips toward me. “I'm just saying, we can Skype with her first. Get to know each other that way. It's safer for the baby with no air travel. Maybe we can fly out and visit her in Rhode Island, be there for the birth.”

Now her eyes are downcast, on the bowl, and I feel the temperature in the room rising. “There isn't time.” She pushes it out between clenched teeth.

“What did Hal say?” Hal Grayson III, Mr. “Call me Hal,” we're all friends here, especially since he's going to make a mint brokering our baby.

“I can't reach him on a Saturday.” Her next glance contains a plea. “She's got other birth parents in the queue.”

The queue, like this is Netflix.

“Do you get what that means? She likes us best. She likes how we look and the way we love each other. She wants to meet us
first
. We're her favorites. But if we cancel, she'll go down the list. We'll lose her.”

“Then there'll be other birth mothers.” It comes out like I want it to—masculine and confident—but she's not buying it. She doesn't want others, she wants this one. It has to be this one.

She's turned into an ice sculpture. Her hands are frozen in the
dough, and I can't even see her mouth moving. “This is happening, Gabe. She's flying out tonight. We're picking her up at SFO at eleven twenty-three. You can cut your hair or not. You can drive us to the airport or not.” Her eyes flicker in my direction but don't light on me. “This is in motion.”

Motion, for Adrienne, is unidirectional. She never reverses.

“Tell me you haven't signed anything,” I say. I don't like my tone. Too wheedling. I make it stronger. “If we meet her and we don't like her, we can back out. We put her on a plane back home.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Adrienne asks, incredulous. “You want to turn a birth mother away? We don't need to like her. We're not going to raise her.”

“But she'll be in our lives forever. Open adoptions—”

“Can be closed,” she finishes for me. “If I need to, I'll close it.”

She's always been this way, so sure that what she doesn't want open can be closed. Her certainty can sweep you up like a tidal wave, and before you even realize what's happened, you've been carried far far away, so far you can't even see land anymore.

“We'll meet her,” I say. “But after that we can still back out. Right? Answer me.”

“Yes. But why would we?” She fixes me with a brilliant smile. “She's a teenager, Gabe. You think we can't work this to our advantage? She found
us
. She wants
us
.” There are fireworks in her eyes. “
Her baby looks like us.
We've got this in the bag.”

G
abe puckers his lips a little as he drives, as if he's just eaten a sour candy. You'd think he lost a fight, when really, we're about to get what we've always wanted. I didn't just imagine that, us wanting this together. We used to lie on the grass when we were teenagers (well, I was still a teenager) and talk about what beautiful babies we'd make. Leah's going to be our incubator.

I reach over to touch the hair at the nape of his neck. “I was wrong,” I say. He turns to me hopefully. “You look handsome with your hair this length. You don't need a cut.” He swivels back to the road.

However he's acting now, he'll put on a good face for company. That's if I know Gabe, which I absolutely do.

The airport is only a few exits away. I start bouncing in my seat. Leah called me when she landed; she should have her luggage by now and be on the curb. Our baby's here.

“One nice thing,” I say. “No traffic jams at this time of night.”

Gabe's been silent this whole ride, but it's not going to bring me down. Sometimes I have to yank him by the arm to go out, and later
he's glad we went. The same goes for this. On a much bigger scale, obviously. This is monumental.

There are only a few days in a life that qualify as truly monumental. This is definitely one of them. We're about to meet the mother of our child. The
birth
mother, I mean; I'm the mother. “Mama.” It's going to be his first word. A little person is going to walk this earth and call me Mama. How monumental is that?

I wish Gabe would share this with me. “Dada” will be the second word.

“Time to get excited,” I tell him. “There's no do-over. We only meet the birth mother for the first time once.”

“And then for the rest of our lives.”

Gloomy Gabe. That's what I call him when he gets like this. Usually, I say it right before I do something cute, like go down on him. Then he perks right up, literally. But I don't think he'll find it cute if I say it now, when there's no time for a blow job.

I watch the taillights of the other cars, like it's our own private disco, and decide that if he wants to miss out on this, he'll do it alone. I intend to be joyous.

“Sorry,” he says. “I want to be happy.”

“Then do it. Please, be happy with me.”

“It's all going so fast. We just put up the profile a week ago.”

“We
revised
our profile a week ago. Before that, it was eleven months of looking. And before that, years of trying. It's the opposite of fast.” I point frantically. “That's our exit! You need to—”

“I know.” He cuts me off, just as he cuts off a car in the next lane. A horn blares. He does that sometimes, speaks through his driving. “I want to do a background check on this girl. I mean, haven't we learned anything?”

I stare through the windshield. For Gabe, it's not about this girl; it might not even be about Patty. “We can have this conversation later. After Leah leaves.” I can't allow her to hear heated whispers through walls, not when we're supposed to be the perfect couple.

“Terminal One,” I say. We drive along slowly through Arrivals. “Stop, stop.” I gape out the window. “Holy shit.”

I'd thought that Leah might have been overstating our resemblance, but no. It's like my nineteen-year-old self is standing there on the curb—big tits, little everything else, except for a gorgeously compact belly (can she really be six weeks from giving birth?).

I get out of the car and approach her with a feeling of slight disorientation. I think of that old Clairol ad: “You, only better.” Leah is me, only better. Same olive skin, hazel eyes, and dark hair, but all the features are sharper and more refined. It's like I'm a sloppy reproduction of a classic painting. Because where I've always been hot, but not actually pretty, Leah is both, even with a stomach like a taut helium balloon. She's in head-to-toe black, wearing scuffed lace-up boots, her dark hair caught up in a ponytail. I wonder if she straightens hers, too.

Gabe is beside me now, also gaping at Leah. He probably assumed she was overselling. Or maybe he thought I was lying, who knows. When he's Gloomy Gabe, he's capable of all sorts of disloyal thoughts that fall away as soon as he's back in his right mind. But he doesn't look gloomy anymore. He's positively lit up, shaking Leah's hand, asking about her flight, telling her no, don't worry about anything, don't lift a finger, I've got your suitcases. Yes, suitcases, plural, three of them, big and red and cheap looking. She brought an entire luggage set.

I hug her—I could swear I feel him kicking through her, reverberating through me, hello, little guy!—and I chatter about how amazing it is that twelve hours ago I didn't even know her, and now she's here, in the flesh. And with so much luggage! (No, I don't say that last part.) She's not saying much, but she's smiling back at me, and smiling at Gabe. Gabe, mostly. Oh, right, he reminds her of Trevor, her lost love. Isn't Trevor the one who did her wrong, though?

Once she's in the backseat of the car, the lap part of the seat belt secured under her belly, and we start to drive, I have this flash, like
it's twenty years later, and she's our kid. We're taking her off to college—no, we're picking her up at the airport when she's home for spring break (I subtract the protuberant belly). I almost want to ask her how school's going, but I realize I don't know if Leah's actually in school. I don't know what she does with herself, or what she plans to do someday, after she's given birth and moved on with her life. It's probably too soon for heavy questions.

So what do I ask? Think light. Think whipped cream. Yet I'm stumped. A whole car ride here, and I didn't prepare anything. I like spontaneity, but sometimes it bites me in the ass.

“Your flight was good?” I sound boring.
I'm not boring!
I want to tell her, but you can't tell someone that; you have to prove it. I need to come up with something more exciting, but not too off-puttingly unconventional either. This is an audition for the role of mother.

“It was okay,” she answers. “They make you buy your food.”

“Airlines are so chintzy now,” Gabe interjects. It's a funny word choice, “chintzy,” something a New Jersey grandmother would say. Doesn't he realize we're auditioning here?

But Leah laughs. Then she leans forward and curls her fingers around his headrest. It's an oddly intimate gesture. “And they charge you to check bags, too, did you know that? I spent a hundred and fifty bucks on this trip already.”

First I think she's flirting with him. Then I think, No, she's telling him she needs money. I bet in her family, if you need money, you go to Daddy.

Gabe doesn't seem to get it. He starts telling her about our flight to Barbados, and then she's all, “Wow, Barbados! I bet the water is really clear and blue. Where is that exactly?” and he's talking about snorkeling and an ill-fated attempt at scuba diving, and she's laughing again. I realize I haven't said anything in whole minutes, so I start describing the hotel and the food. She listens to me politely, like you're supposed to with your elders, but she's still clinging to Gabe's seat and hanging on his words.

“We'll give you the hundred and fifty dollars,” I tell her, resigned.

I'm used to people liking me first and then warming up to Gabe more gradually. That's because I start out big, and he starts out small and gets bigger throughout the conversation, but tonight, it's the opposite. I'm not entirely sure what to do. But she likes Gabe, that's obvious, and I should just let her like him.

Wait. Gabe's being who he is at work, when he needs to be on from the first second. I turn to him with a smile, getting it now. Gabe is coming through for me; he's closing this deal for us. I sit back and watch him work.

When we get to the house and open the door, the pulled pork is like smelling salts. Leah is clearly revived. “I'm starving,” she says.

“Adrienne was working on this all day,” Gabe says. He gives me a proud little smile. I don't know where this Gabe came from, but I'm so glad he's here now. I put my arm around his waist and lean my head against his shoulder. It's authentic, but I still hope Leah notices it.

She's following the smell into the kitchen. I assemble her a plate of pulled pork with roasted vegetables and sourdough bread (I wait for Gabe to tell her I baked it myself, but he falls down on the job a little, which is totally forgivable given what a champ he's been). We all sit at the dining room table, and as Gabe and I watch her tear into the food with abandon, I really do feel like we're her parents, and all we want to do is see her eat, eat, eat, she's so thin, put some meat on those bones, hers and the baby's.

“You're so tiny,” I say. “Is the baby tiny, too?” What I mean is, is he underweight, are there problems for which we need to brace ourselves.

“The baby's normal size. They did an extra ultrasound, just to make sure, because I'm carrying so small.”

“And your face isn't all distended like some pregnant women's.” She looks at me curiously. “Bloated, that's probably a better word.” I have to remember she might not be super-educated. She might not
love reading, like I always have. One of the great pleasures of my life is going to be reading to that baby, the normal-sized one, who was carried small. I need to get a baby book and write this stuff down so I don't forget any details.

Leah's done eating. We sit smiling awkwardly. It's late, especially for her, with the time difference; she probably needs to get to bed. We can do all the real talking tomorrow. Tonight was all about first impressions, and I think we scored. But one last thing . . .

“Can I see the ultrasound pictures?” I ask.

She licks her fingers slowly, one by one, not looking at me. “I was in a total rush to pack, and I thought I knew where they were, but it turns out they're somewhere else.”

“And you didn't have time to find them.” My chest has constricted. This cannot happen again. Then it comes to me: “Do you mind if I touch your stomach?”

She shifts toward me so immediately and so casually that I feel myself relax, just a little.

“Sure. The baby really likes your cooking.”

“How can you tell?”

“He's kicking like crazy. Here, feel.” She grabs my hand and places it on her bump.

And I do, I feel him. The sole of his tiny—excuse me, normal-sized—foot strains against the palm of my hand, like an amplified heartbeat. My God, it's actually him. Where've you been all my life? I laugh in delight and relief, because Leah couldn't fake that. This time, it's all real. “Hi, little guy,” I say, leaning in so he can hear me better. “You like pulled pork, huh? And homemade sourdough. I'll bake as many loaves as you want.” I turn to Gabe. “You have to feel this. Him.”

He waves a you-go-ahead hand. “There's not enough room for both of us. She's carrying small.”

“No, really, come here.” When he does, I place his hand over mine. The baby is strong enough that we both get a jolt. I look up
into Gabe's face, hoping it will mirror mine. But maybe he just doesn't want to give too much away in front of Leah; he's playing hard to get.

This, I tell him with my eyes, is our baby. There's no doubt in my mind.

What are the odds that we would meet a birth mother who's practically my twin (separated by twenty years), and the birth father would look like Gabe? They must be a million to one. Yet here she is, and here he is, inside her.

“You're crying,” Gabe says, like it's a miracle, like I'm one of those statues of Mary in the convenience store that suddenly rain down tears.

Self-conscious, I lift my hand, and his falls to his side. Scooting my chair back, I start to clear the table. “I made up the air mattress for you,” I tell Leah. It's in the office. I bought it this afternoon, along with all the bedding. We don't really have out-of-town guests, no family to come see us. But I'm not volunteering that information. “You must be tired.”

“No, not really.” She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “Can we stay up and talk?”

“Sure.” Gabe gestures toward the living room.

She and Gabe go ahead while I rinse the plates and put them in the dishwasher and generally tidy up. When I enter the living room, I see that they're together on the red velvet sofa, talking animatedly, so I'm relegated to the love seat, solo. But I can still feel our baby reverberating against my hand, and I'm warmed by it. Once you have a child, you're never really alone again.

I start lighting the thick candles we keep in the fireplace. I hope Leah will notice the pictures and mementos on the mantel above, proof of the enduring love that lured her here.

Instead, she's fixed on Gabe. “I hate winter,” she's saying. “You don't really get winter in California, do you?”

“We get rain,” Gabe says. “And I complain about it like the pansy ass I've become.”

She laughs, of course. “How long have you been out here?”

“We moved seventeen years ago,” I interject. “Right after I finished college. We took a trip to San Francisco and we were like, yep, this is it. You can be a teacher anywhere.”

“And they've got car dealerships everywhere,” Gabe says.

“You must know a lot about cars, then.” Leah puts her legs up underneath her, surprisingly agile for a pregnant woman.

He holds up his hand. “I never talk business past midnight.”

Again, that laugh. It's starting to grate. “But what if I want to talk business?”

“You play by your own rules,” he says.

She looks from him to me and back again. “Yeah,” she says, “I do. I feel like you guys do, too, like you won't be all uptight about what I'm about to say.”

I get butterflies at that—no, not just butterfly wings flapping but something bigger. It's more like a whole pigeon is taking flight in my stomach. “Let's talk business,” I tell her.