‘But could you be involved? If you wanted to be involved?’ asked Amy.
Troy shrugged. ‘She says it’s up to me, but what would be the point of me turning up every few months and taking the kid out to McDonald’s like some sad divorced dad? Better if it just thinks the cardiologist is its father, don’t you think?’
Joy was on a boat being rocked about on a stormy sea.
She met Stan’s eye. He looked stunned. She could tell he didn’t really get it. The brand new possibilities and dilemmas created by modern technology, modern science and modern thinking were beyond him.
‘You like this idea?’ asked Logan.
‘No, I don’t like the idea at all,’ said Troy, and there it was: a flash of anguish. ‘To be frank, I hate the idea.’
‘Well, then, mate, you’re not obliged –’
‘But it could be Claire’s only chance to have her own biological child.’ Troy lifted his hands in a hopeless gesture of surrender. ‘Her only chance. Ever. How can I take that away from her? When those embryos are just sitting there? It would be so cruel.’ His voice dropped and he moved his wineglass around in circles on the red wine stain on the tablecloth, as if he could rub it away, which he couldn’t. That stain would be there forever.
Troy added in a small remorseful voice, ‘Especially after what I did to her.’
Oh, for goodness sake.
This was exactly how Joy used to feel when Troy got in trouble as a kid, and he’d sit there in front of her and Stan, head hanging, hands dangling between his knees, looking so sad, remorseful and bewildered, as if the actions he’d taken hadn’t been his choice, not really, but he was once again stuck with their consequences.
‘I think I have to say yes, don’t I?’ He looked up the table at Joy. ‘Don’t I, Mum?’
Joy sighed. She put a hand once again to her burning cheek and shuddered. She was freezing.
‘Don’t you think, Mum?’ said Troy. ‘I have to say yes?’
He needed an answer. He’d always looked to her, not his father, for answers to the moral quandaries in which he found himself.
I stole this CD, Mum, and now I feel bad about it. Should I just take it back to the shop and tell them? But I kind of scratched it.
‘Oh, Troy.’
Joy thought of Claire’s parents. She and Stan had met them only a handful of times but they’d liked them. Uncomplicated and kind people. They’d even played doubles against them. The mother, Teresa, had a nice double-handed backhand. Joy had been mortified when her son had broken Teresa’s daughter’s heart like that. She’d phoned her and told her she was so sorry and she was ashamed of Troy, and Teresa had been kind and gracious. If the situations had been reversed Joy would have been well mannered too, but cool and snippy. Now that nice woman would get Joy’s grandchild, and Joy wouldn’t be allowed to see it, to hold it or know it. What if the baby had Troy’s smile? And Claire’s beautiful red hair? Joy would have especially loved a red-headed grandchild!
‘Yes,’ she said to Troy. ‘You’re right. You have to say yes. It’s the right thing to do.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ began Stan uneasily.
‘It’s the right thing to do,’ Joy hissed at him.
He shut up.
Yes, this was the right thing to do, but it was also the wrong thing.
What if this child, this dear little red-headed child who she already loved but might never meet, turned out to be Joy’s only grandchild?
She said suddenly, ‘Maybe you should all go home now.’
Everyone stared at her.
‘I’m not feeling the best,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m coming down with something.’
All of a sudden she recognised the combination of symptoms she’d been experiencing for the last few days. What a foolish old woman she was. She had a damned UTI, just like the one she had on her honeymoon, because of the recent unusual sexual activity.
Now she was furious with Stan, sitting there like a silent, stupid monolith at the end of the table with his balloon, contributing nothing except a UTI! At her age! She picked up her glass and took a long drink of water, although that ship had clearly sailed. She needed antibiotics, and it was Sunday, so she couldn’t go to her lovely GP, Susan, she’d have to go to a medical centre, and she’d have to tell a kid straight out of medical school about her sex life.
‘Dammit to hell,’ she said to Stan.
‘Eh?’ said Stan. ‘Why are you looking at me? What did I do?’