That sounded rehearsed, but I was the last person to judge how other people coped with their pain. “I’ll follow your lead here.” I reached out to squeeze his hand. “But you know I had to come. If you’re really okay, that’s great, but if you’re not, you don’t have to pretend.”
Zach nodded and asked if I wanted something to drink. Mr. Bingham, an undeservedly-named orange tabby cat that had been part of Teddy’s household for ten years, made an appearance. The oddly subdued feline sat next to me, not purring, of course, but somehow sensing this wasn’t the day for his usual hiss-and-show-me-his-butthole routine. I declined Zach’s offer, but he got up to grab some water for himself. When he hadn’t returned after a few minutes, I sought him out in the kitchen. I found him there, leaning against the fridge, water bottle in hand and staring into space. He looked over when he saw me.
“Sorry, doll. Sometimes it just sort of comes over me.”
I wrapped him in my arms. “Of course! This isn’t something you just get over.”
He returned my hug and stepped away before taking a swig from the bottle. “The thing is, it’s been completely weird for me this whole time dealing with this like it’s a business arrangement.” Releasing a breath, he ran his sleeve over his mouth before continuing. “When we found our surrogate, and we put all the contracts in place, we planned for what would happen in case of miscarriage. Not, like, how we would feel, but what our financial obligations would be and how we’d go about making medical decisions. Thank God this has been straightforward and didn’t come to anything like that. Seriously, Sadie, you should have seen these documents. We had plans for every scenario. She had to have her own lawyer. We had to use our own. All we wanted was a baby, but everyone’s interests had to be protected.”
I recalled the research I’d done after I’d made my naïve offer to be Zach’s surrogate. Some of this information was familiar. But it was one thing to read about the process, it was another to watch him navigate it.
“It seems inadequate to keep saying it, but I’m so sorry you and Teddy are going through this.”
He huffed sadly. “The thing is, we really liked our surrogate. She seemed like the kind of person everyone gets along with. We met her husband and kids, her fucking Labrador. But then this happens, and it all just feels so transactional. Don’t get me wrong—she’s fantastic, but we don’t evenknowher. Not really. We don’t even know her and yet we have to go through the saddest thing in our lives with her. It just seems sort of effed up, right?”
I bent back against the counter and noted the green tinge of Zach’s face, along with the fine lines of sleeplessness around his eyes. “Are you able to talk about this with Teddy?”
“Yeah. I’ve told him. He sort of feels the same way, but what choice do we have? We’re listed with a couple of adoption agencies, too. We’re planning on getting married sooner than later to help our chances. But God, it all seems so clinical.” He crunched his hand around the bottle.
“What about trying again with the surrogate?”
“Teddy wants to. Money has never been an issue for him, so he always thinks of problems in those terms. Like, if we can throw enough cash at the situation, we’ll end up with a baby.”
“But…” I prompted. I could tell by his face it was there somewhere.
“But he doesn’t understand that I might not be able to go through it again. Not like this. You know me. I don’t operate this way, with lawyers and contracts and negotiations and ten people in suits all in a room. Teddy is so used to functioning in that world it doesn’t faze him. He even told me we needed to come up with a marketing plan to make ourselves the most attractive option for couples looking for adoptive parents. A fucking marketing plan!”
“Oh, Zach.” My heart ached for him.
“I love Teddy more than anything, but I don’t want to talk about marketing plans and pre-decide what happens if there’s a miscarriage. I don’t want to deal with lawyers drawing up a contract about who’s in charge of making decisions if the surrogate has an accident or gets gestational diabetes. I don’t want to make a thirty-slide PowerPoint meant to convince people we’d be great fathers. I don’t want to endlessly discuss money and negotiations and fine print. I hate that it’s like this.”
I moved toward him again, and this time he hugged me fiercely and murmured, almost confessing. “I just want to be a dad, doll.” So soft I barely heard it. “I just want to be a dad.”
And then Zach did something I realized with a shock I’d never seen him do before. He put his head in his hands and started crying.
Later that night,Renn and I were on my couch making out. Having sex had deepened our relationship and I was learning new things every day. For instance, Renn had a particular habit of latching on to the sensitive spot at the top of my shoulder where it met my neck. He kept sucking and kissing it, not enough to leave a mark, but enough so I could tell it really turned him on. If this was a fetish of his, I’d decided I could happily live with it. Good thing he hadn’t wanted to spend more of his time licking my armpits or sucking my toes. That would have been more of a conversation.
But even though it felt amazing, Renn could tell I was distracted, worrying about Zach. He pulled himself away from me reluctantly, so it would be easier to talk.
“It makes sense,” I reasoned. “Zach is a total people person. Always has been. That’s why he loves the bar. I mean, he can do the business side of things, but that’s not what he’s about. It’s not where he shines.”
“Poor Zach,” Renn agreed.
“It’s so unfair. My mom and dad were so cavalier about having a kid. They just dropped me off with Grandma and were all, ‘Peace out. Off to save the world. Or at least improve its water supply.’ And here you have Zach and Teddy, who would be fantastic parents, but can’t catch a break.”
“You really can’t be their surrogate?” We’d discussed my previous offer to Zach several times—including my rationale behind doing it sooner than later—and the prospect of me performing this service didn’t seem to faze Renn. All I saw on his face was compassion.
“I told you. No agency will let you do it if you’ve never had a kid before. I’m also just under the age limit for what they’d prefer. It’s the kind of thing even Teddy’s money can’t solve.”
“So no back-alley surrogacies?”
“Exactly.”
Renn looked at me with the mildly constipated expression of someone choosing their words carefully. “If you really want to help them, have you thought about doing it the old-fashioned way?”
“The old-fash—Wait…What!? What the hell, Renn!? I’m not having sex with Teddy!”
“No, no. That’s not what I meant.” He shook with laughter.
