father to drive her to the airport to catch an earlier flight. After they dropped her off, Francie said gently, “I’m sorry. I know you looked forward to this.”
“It’s all right,” John said, hands tight on the wheel as they crossed the Burnside Bridge.
“I won’t ever let our children treat you like that.”
There was a long pause, and then John had said carefully, “Is that very important to you, that we have children?”
“Yes! What? Of course!”
“All right,” John said evenly. Over the next seven years, he did not resist any of the process. He used those same two words, all right, with varying inflection, consternation, aggravation, and finally resignation, as they navigated the quest for parenthood.
When Francie underwent her third in vitro, John had surgery on the ropes of hideously huge, painful varicose veins that gnarled his calves. They convalesced together in the front living room, moss velvet drapes drawn, watching endless movies, passing pillows and pints of Dulce de Leche. They got rid of the authentic, horsehair-stuffed period couch and bought something squishy and leather—“and if chocolate milk or sticky fingers get on it, it’s wipeable!”—at City Liquidators.
Francie believed that the more still she was, the better the chance that her embryos would burrow. She was almost thirty-nine, one hundred and forty-five miserable pounds from the hormone shots. They had twin Mac laptops on their laps, John making connections in Asia, where his hobby microbrew had a strange but passionate following, Francie chatting on her seven message boards, filling online shopping carts with maternity clothes from Pea in the Pod, waiting to push “checkout.” She talked about their baby in a hopeful, superstitious whisper. And then Francie bled. Thank god for the wipeable leather couch.
John’s veins receded, and came back worse. Francie bought him diabetic hose to wear under his suits when he took those long flights to China and Singapore. He was overseas when their fertility doctor, a soft-spoken man who wore ties decorated with cartoon sperm and ova, told Francie that they had done all they could.
She had to wait to call John in Singapore until the next morning to share the news. “He thinks adoption is really our best option.”
A long pause, slight crackling over the thousands of miles that separated them, and then, quietly, “All right.”
IN THE LAVENDER PREDAWN of Black Friday, Francie reads over her post. Exhaustion, seven years of this ride, have worn her down, but sharpened her edges too. Sometimes she has flashes of recognition, of how she might be perceived, misunderstood.
[SELECT ALL, DELETE]
She types:
(((Angie))) Think positive—I am sure it will all work out. Trust your CW; she will keep you informed.
We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with friends from the agency who are due with a boy at the same time as our BM. Hard to believe this time next year our sons will be sitting between us eating mashed sweet potatoes at the same table!
But as Francie hits Post, she knows in her heart of hearts this is not true, that at least one person will be absent from the happy future Thanksgiving scene she imagines.
Quickly, she opens a new browser window and begins searching: “dark wood distressed nursery nightstands.”
5
Ultrasound
CHLOE
It is 7:30 Monday morning, rain streaking down the windows of the bedroom. Chloe hears the shower cut off, watches from the bed while Dan walks in, naked, pulling on his gray boxer briefs, then jeans, then orange rainproof pants. He has perfect lines to his body, and as he stretches his arms over his head, just the right amount of muscle to his naturally skinny frame. He is pulling on his rain jacket when she says, “I can give you a ride to the MAX line, babe.”
“I didn’t know you were awake.” He startles; endearing. Sometimes she can see the little boy under the man, and it makes her heart lurch.
In his mother’s home in San Diego, the entire stairwell is an ascending tribute to her only child—from his twinkly-eyed infancy to chipmunk-cheeked toddlerhood, every beige-background school picture, his choirboy days, highlighted newspaper clippings that mentioned his high school soccer achievements, to the most recent, right before he left for Europe, a stint as an Abercrombie and Fitch model.
“Is this you?” Chloe had asked when he took her home for the first time. Standing in the middle of a sea of vacant-eyed, straight-haired, bored-looking women: Dan, naked, chest shaved and oiled, abs flexed, casually holding a T-shirt with one finger hooked in the collar to cover his groin. “When was