First Comes Baby

“If that’s what I wanted, I would have gone with a sperm bank. I actually was hoping that Matt—that the father,” she corrected herself, “would at least be a friendly figure in my child’s life.”

“You know, our food is getting cold.”

Trust a man to be thinking about eating. But she shot to her feet. “The broccoli.”

SHE PICKED at her dinner.

In contrast, Caleb ate with a good appetite. “I think they gave me some peanuts somewhere about lunchtime. Breakfast was…I don’t even remember when. A long time ago.”

He’d flown from Santo Domingo, Laurel remembered, via Miami. He probably was starving. She decided to forgive him.

Neither talked much as they ate. She mentioned hearing that a mutual acquaintance from college had decided to go back to graduate school. “Oh, and I got an e-mail from Nadia. I haven’t heard from her in ages.”

“Your choice, as I recall.”

It had been. At first Laurel had turned to her best friends, but finally one day she’d looked at herself in the mirror and saw what they did: a woman who bore no resemblance to the Laurel they’d known in college. There was a Before, and an After, and the After was a painful contrast. It was easier, somehow, to be with people who hadn’t known the Before version. Who didn’t ask difficult questions, didn’t look puzzled at her new timidity, didn’t keep expecting her to become herself again. Old friends had refused to understand that this was who she was now, that the old Laurel had died that night in the parking garage. So she made new friends, like Matt Baker. They knew she had been raped and that she hadn’t gone back to law school, but didn’t see the painful contrast. She could feel comfortable with them in a way she would never be able to again with people like Nadia and even Caleb.

“It was still nice to hear from her,” she said, quietly.

His gaze rested on her face, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “What did she have to say?”

“It’s funny, but she just got pregnant. She said they weren’t planning to start a family yet, but it happened and now they’re excited.”

“Does she still live on Bainbridge?”

Laurel nodded. “I was thinking of giving her a call.”

“You were good friends.”

They’d been more than that. Paired by the college as roommates their freshman year, the two, at first sight ill-matched, had continued to room together the entire four years. Nadia’s parents were Russian immigrants, and she’d grown up deferring to men in a way that infuriated Laurel, who had been a militant feminist. But they both liked the window open at night, they laughed at the same things and they committed to listening to each other. By graduation, Nadia had been more willing to stand up for herself, and Laurel had begun to see shades of gray instead of stark black and white.

Laurel realized suddenly how much she missed Nadia. Who else could she call and say, I’m pregnant, and guess who the dad is?

Caleb pushed his plate away and said, “So.”

She gave up moving her food around and set down her fork. “So.”

“Have I been persuasive? Or are you going to stick with Matt?”

She shook her head. “No. Unless you want to think about it for a few days?”

“No thinking.” He held out his hand, laying it on the table, palm up. “I’m ready when you’re ready.”

Her chest felt as if it might have a helium balloon in it. She reached out her left hand and laid it on his, then almost jumped at how sensitive she was to such simple, everyday contact. The pads of his fingers tickled her skin, and when he wrapped his hand around her much smaller one, the scrape of his calluses might as well have been fingernails slowly, sensuously, drawn down her spine.

Something flared in his eyes, too, perhaps only awareness of how startled she was. But his voice, if anything, was pitched to soothe her.

“We’ve been good friends for a long time, Laurel. We’ll make this work.”

She gave a jerky nod. “I think we can.”

“So when? How?”

The procedure sounded even more appallingly clinical, even degrading, when she described it to Caleb.

“Does your insurance cover this? Or will it cost you?” he asked.

“It costs, but it’s not that much.” She hoped he wasn’t planning to offer money.

“Because I’m thinking, why can’t we do it ourselves?”

Her chair lurched as she jerked back, pulling her hand free. That quickly, her breath came fast, shuddery, and she stared at him in shock.

“Laurel.” He started to stand, but when she shrank further into herself he stopped, then sat again. “I didn’t mean that way. God! Do you really think I’m that big a jackass?”

“No! Of course not!”

“Then why are you cringing?”

“You know I can’t…”

A muscle spasmed in his cheek, and he closed his eyes for a moment. “I know. I do know. That’s not what I was suggesting. Only that we go the do-it-yourself route. Save bucks. I give you the sperm, you, uh, use a—I don’t know what—a turkey baster or something and squirt it in.” He winced at the imagery. “I’m just saying, it can’t be that hard to do.”

As rattled as she’d been a second ago, Laurel started to think. He was right; it couldn’t be hard. Women got pregnant even when their boyfriends had used condoms. It might be…nicer, yes, nicer to get pregnant at home. They could laugh at the awkwardness and their own embarrassment, instead of him having to get aroused in some examining room at the clinic, and her having to lie on her back with her feet in the stirrups with the doctor and nurses snapping on latex gloves and speculating about why she’d chosen this route to motherhood.

It wasn’t as if she was afraid of sperm. Only of men’s bodies, of being overpowered, of…

No. Don’t think about it. Don’t remember. Not now.

“Crap,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m being insensitive, aren’t I? The last thing you want is me handing you…I don’t know what. A baggie of… Jeez. Forget I suggested it.”

“No, I kind of like the idea. If you won’t be embarrassed. We could try, and then if I don’t get pregnant we could go to the clinic the next month.”

“You’re sure? Wow.” A grin broke out. “Hey! We’re going to be a mom and dad.”

“Together, to see our kid graduate from high school and college.”

They were smiling at each other, foolishly.

“An adventure,” Caleb said.

Finally, one she could take with him.

“An adventure,” Laurel agreed.

THAT EVENING, AFTER HE LEFT, she called Matt.

“Hey,” she said. “Listen, I hope this won’t break your heart, but Caleb and I talked, and… Well, he volunteered to father my baby.”