A December to Remember (63)
Her mind flip-flopped between the positives and the dangers. Obviously, she would need to make sure that Star fully understood the implications of what she was proposing to undertake. She’d always been impulsive, often to her own detriment, and this wasn’t something to be taken lightly; if they went down this road, sudden cold feet would have dire consequences. Simone’s head began to swim. It was too much. All of it. The hope and the worry were piling in on her from a great height and she couldn’t breathe—she was drowning in a cacophony of feelings that were too big.
Unlike Star, she was not in tune with the universe, she did not entrust things to fate. Simone was measured and methodical. Lying back on the sofa, she took a calming breath and began to compartmentalize her feelings. The worries went in one box, the excitement went in another, and so she continued, sorting her mind in this way until all that was left was the very essence of the issue: herself and Star. And then she knew. Star was many things, but above all she was her sister, and she knew within her very atoms that her sister would rather break her own heart a million times than risk Simone’s. She allowed the calm acknowledgment to flow through her.
This was how she was going to have her baby.
She pressed the call button on her phone and waited for her wife to pick up.
* * *
At first Star couldn’t place the vibrating sound that had punctured her sleep. When she finally realized it was her phone ringing, she snatched it up clumsily as though she were wearing mittens and saw that the time was nearly 2 a.m. No good phone calls ever happened in the dead of night.
“Hello? What’s wrong? Who is it?” she asked in disorientation and panic.
“It’s Evette. Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry to call you so late, again, but it couldn’t wait. I need to talk to you.”
Star flicked on the bedside lamp and pulled herself up to sitting, blinking in the light. “Okay. Good morning, Evette. What do you need?”
“Are you serious? About being a surrogate for us?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think you’re rushing into this? I mean, you only found out a few days ago that we were even trying for a baby. I’m not sure you’ve had enough time to properly think through the implications. It’s a huge decision. Life-changing for you. Your world will be tipped on its head, your body will be irrevocably changed, your hormones will be all over the place. It could affect your future relationships. And that’s before we get to how you will feel handing over a child that you’ve carried for nine months. Or the fact that you will have to watch it grow up from afar. Have you thought about any of these things? I don’t want to make accusations, but are you sure you’re not being irresponsible with your sister’s feelings, and mine? Simone is desperate to be a mother and she feels like you’ve offered her a lifeline. I know it comes from a place of love, but you can’t say things like that off the cuff. It isn’t fair. Worse than that, it’s unkind.”
“Are you finished?” Star asked when the line had finally gone quiet. She guessed from the way Evette—usually a thoughtful, measured speaker—had blurted it all out that she had been stewing for a while.
“For the moment.”
She could hear the annoyance in Evette’s voice. She thought she was a flake, just like everyone else did. “I understand your concerns. And I know it seems quick and impulsive.”
“It is without question both of those things, Star.”
She had never heard Evette speak so sternly. “Let me give you some background. I didn’t tell Simone this because, well, the shock of my offer seemed to knock the stuffing out of her. I was going to discuss it with her when she’d had some time to regroup.”
“Okay.” Evette was listening.
“I realized a long time ago that having children wasn’t a priority for me. I also realized that I had all these perfectly good eggs that I might never need and that I could help someone who really did want children. So, I began donating them to a fertility clinic. Long story short, someone at the clinic introduced me to a couple who were thinking about surrogacy. She suffered from endometriosis and was unlikely to ever conceive. I’d not really considered it before, but once I started looking into it, I decided that surrogacy was something I could do, something I wanted to do, not as a career or anything, but just once to help someone who needed it. Anyway, there was lots of back-and-forth and eventually everything was in place, and we agreed on a date for insemination. Only, that week, she found out that against all the odds, she was pregnant. It was kind of a miracle. And naturally my services were surplus to requirement.”
“Was everything okay? For the couple, with the pregnancy, I mean?”
“Everything was perfect. They have a little girl, Tansy, and I am her godmother.”
Evette let out a long sigh.
“I get how, for you, this seems to have come out of nowhere,” Star continued. “But I know what I’m getting into, what I’m offering. I was happy to do it for relative strangers. I am ecstatic to be able to do it for my sister. Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t know. I believe in the power of coincidence.”
“Good enough. Once I’d learned about surrogacy, I knew without a doubt that I was meant to help someone else become a parent. I’d thought it was my calling to help Tansy’s parents, but fate had someone else in mind. Don’t you think it’s crazy that all the while Simone’s been trying to get pregnant, I’ve been waiting to become a surrogate? I had no idea until the other night that you guys were even trying for a baby. I mean, hey, why would my sister tell me? I’m like her least favorite person. And yet, some higher force seems to want us to work together.”