I was competitive by nature. In sports, in life. And now I was out of the game, I thought again, as Parker helped me up the steps and into my bed at the Thaysdens’ little house. The octagon house was nothing if not charming. With the tall, angular ceilings and leaf fans, I felt like I was somewhere in the Bahamas, not Cape Carolina. But when I looked out my window, I remembered because I could see the tree. And the tree was decidedly Cape Carolina. Live oaks grew all around our houses, with gnarled branches that extended up and out and sideways. They were amazing to climb. When I was in my prime tree-climbing years at seven, Parker was only four, but around our neighborhood, four was definitely old enough to be climbing trees. Only, I don’t know why or how, but Parker just couldn’t get the hang of it. He could take on bigger kids at basketball, hang in backyard baseball, and run with a wild abandon, but the kid couldn’t climb trees. His shoes would slip if he had them on, but he’d get splinters if he was barefoot. And even when I hoisted him up, he’d only make it to the lowest branch. Then I’d scurry up to the top, and he’d look up at me and cry and cry.
So I went out to Daddy’s workshop one day and got a bunch of boards and nails and hammered those scrap pieces one by one, climbing as I went. I knew I’d be in trouble later. Mom would be mad that I might have hurt the tree, and Daddy would be mad I’d taken wood without his permission. But Parker wouldn’t have to cry over tree climbing anymore, so that would make it worth it. Sure enough, it worked. Parker climbed that tree for the very first time like it was nothing.
Light filled his eyes that day, like it did now, as he handed me a glass of water, sat down beside me, and said, “How are you feeling?”
I grinned up at him. “I feel great.” I was a little crampy and a little nervous, but much calmer than I had felt before the in vitro. The “before” is so often the hardest part—that was definitely true of this process. I was lucky because I had heard and read a million times that egg retrieval was by far the hardest part of IVF, and Greer had taken one for the team on that one. We’d done a test implantation the month before so that the doctor could see exactly where the embryo was likely to implant. I’d taken a few medications to increase the chances of implantation, and the usual estradiol and progesterone I took each month anyway had been adjusted a little. But, overall, it had been pretty easy.
I was worried I would turn into one of those hormonal women you see on TV who absolutely cannot get it together, but I mostly just felt like I had PMS. Mom and Mrs. Thaysden might have caught the side effects instead. They had lain on each others’ shoulders, clutching handkerchiefs and crying. Mr. Thaysden had muttered a bit about “real men,” and my dad opened the bourbon. But, all in all, it could have been worse.
I mean, I had obviously had at least one full-on freak-out. I was becoming pregnant with my neighbor’s baby. A freak-out was in order, right? It had started out quietly, as mine mostly do. I’m a serious internal processor, so I tend to keep things bottled up, which, as we all know, is very healthy.
I’d had some mounting concerns as implantation day got closer. And by “mounting concerns,” I mean an endless supply of worst-case scenarios coursing through my mind on an endless loop. Fun thoughts like that I could hemorrhage and die or that God had made me so I didn’t make eggs so I wouldn’t have babies, and now I was absolutely going to die because I was bucking the plan. Or that both embryos would take and one of the babies die in utero and I’d have to deliver both of them and one was stillborn and the other one was way too premature. Or that both eggs would split a bunch of times and I’d end up on the cover of Star as the new Octomom. Or that Parker would freak out, change his mind, and I’d end up having to keep this baby I never wanted because it’s not like I would just give it to a stranger.
Did I mention any of this to Parker? No. Of course not. Because keeping it all bottled up and not bothering anyone with your problems is a much better idea.
Two nights before the implantation, I was up panicking (this time because I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks and that was for sure going to keep the embryos from implanting). Nothing calms you back down and puts you right back to sleep quite like panicking about not sleeping. But finally I couldn’t stand the gentle whir of the ceiling fan or the feel of the world’s softest sheets and heaviest but also coolest comforter on my body. So I got up and walked out of the glass door in my bedroom, tiptoeing across the deck, across the yard, and to the end of our dock, which was closer than Parker’s. I walked down to the end of the floating dock so I could submerge my feet in the cool water. I wasn’t even pregnant yet, and already my feet and ankles felt a little swollen. I briefly envisioned a shark breaking the perfect silence and stillness of the night, soaring up out of the water, and chomping my foot off.
Parker and I didn’t have a clause in the contract about whether I would still carry the babies if I’d had a recent dismemberment.
I heard a noise on the dock behind me and turned to look. Not a land-walking, oxygen-breathing shark. Just Parker.
“Oh, good,” he said. “I didn’t want to scare you.” He sat down beside me and squeezed my knee. “I know. I’m freaking out, too.”
I felt like I finally exhaled for the first time in about six months. “You are?”
“Are you kidding me? Lia, I’ve literally never held a baby. Not once.”
I laughed. “Well, you seem very confident and unflappable.”
“I have to. Can you imagine if I showed even an ounce of weakness to those vultures?” He pointed to the two big houses. “They would eat me alive. The I told you sos would be heard ’round the world.”
I laughed. “I’m worried about everything, Parker. But, if I’m being honest, my biggest worry is that this isn’t going to work, and it’s going to be all my fault, that I got your hopes up and then dashed them in the ultimate way.”
He squeezed my knee again, and I was suddenly aware that I was wearing striped flannel pajamas. Parker looked me straight in the eye and said, “Amelia, this is the first time my hopes have been up in more years than I’d like to say. If high hopes are all that comes out of this, that’s enough.”
I couldn’t help the tears rolling down my cheeks. I wanted to say something about how between his brother and Greer he had been through so much. But I couldn’t. All I could do was pray to God or the moon or the still, cool water or anyone who was listening that I got to give Parker Thaysden something to feel happy about.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be involved in their lives?” he asked me for the thousandth time. But we had talked about this over and over again. It was even in our contract.
“Park, I just can’t. My job here is to give birth to your children, help you get acclimated for a few days after and walk away. I’ll see them. I’ll be Aunt Amelia.”
“And they’ll know you gave birth to them,” he added firmly.
“They’ll know,” I said. “Of course, they’ll know. I gave birth to them, but Greer is their mother.” I looked over at him, as he was looking out over the water. His cheeks were sun-kissed from the boat and his hair slightly disheveled. I loved him most like this, in an old pair of gym shorts and Summer Splash and Fish tournament T-shirt, his guard down. The Palm Beach man in the suit was powerful and sexy. But this man was vulnerable and kind. I squeezed his shoulder, and when he turned to look at me, I nearly melted. And I allowed myself to envision, just for a moment, what it would be like if I stayed.…