HAPPILY EVER BEFORE (3 page)

 “If I say no, will you hate me and ignore me at family gatherings?”

Clair leaned next to her. “If you say no, then you say no. No harm, no foul.” Clair put her feet on Grace’s lap. “I won’t hate you. I could never hate you. And, I won’t ignore you at family picnics or weddings, unless well, you’re drunk or you say ‘no’ to me and then go off and have someone else’s baby.”

Grace made a face. “P.S., your manipulation skills and passive aggressive techniques have really improved--bringing up Dad and the whole complete stranger having to have your kid, genius. Ah,
Clairsan
, the student surpasses the master.”

 “Let me know when to kick the emotional blackmail into high gear.”

“Oh you haven’t yet?”

Clair laughed. “Please, this is bush league; I learned from the best.”

Grace nervously played with the silverware and menu as she waited for her friend George to show up. Once Clair had given her a tour of her own storage unit, took digital pictures of each and every item and thanked her for what felt like the millionth time for her promise to think about the bigger, more important question she had asked, and finally left, Grace called George. George was Grace’s catch all. They had known each other for most of their adult lives -- that is if you were considered an adult at fifteen. George was the one person Grace could really talk to about anything, well, anything-anything, like sex, politics, sexual politics, men, drugs, cosmetics, food, and anything she couldn’t talk to her mother or sister about, which was either her mother or her sister or her mother and her sister. George was Grace’s
Switzerland
. Grace liked to think she was George’s
Switzerland
. While Grace was studying to be a librarian, George was studying communications and marketing. She was now a fabulously wealthy advertising executive. When George needed to unwind and really let off steam she called Grace, got a car service, fired up the Corporate Amex card, and off they went. Sometimes, it was a night on the town that ended at ten the next morning and sometimes it was a night on the town that ended at ten the next morning in an entirely different city. And, so, Grace was George’s Vegas, and what happened when George was with Grace stayed exclusively between them. This little system of theirs fell into effect during spring break their senior year of high school when they took a class trip to California and got tattoos of dolphins on their asses.

While Grace waited for George she stared at the pregnant woman coming her way and wondered if she could do it. Was she strong enough to lend out her womb? Could she handle all those hormones being out of whack, having to pee every five minutes, wearing maternity clothes, not seeing her feet for six months, and other things she couldn’t possibly imagine? Then to add insult to injury, not reap the benefit of keeping the kid at the end of the whole ordeal? Would she even be able to hand the kid over? What would she feel like every time she saw the baby? Would she want to knock Clair over and steal the child? Grace had always imagined that she’d be married or at least with someone she loved when she had a child; that she’d be financially settled; have a career; and well, you know, had her shit together. She didn’t expect to be a single thirty-five year old 911 Operator who was having a baby for her sister. That was nowhere near the realm of possibilities. Single, knocked up and abandoned; well, if she had stayed with Ray that definitely could have happened. She watched as the pregnant woman waddled out the door and immediately thought she couldn’t go through with it. Grace loved her sister, she’d give her an organ in a heartbeat; well, she thought she would it depended on what organ.

An Amazon of a woman dressed to perfection in a navy blue Donna
Karan
suit with a fabulous black leather Coach commuter bag and a knock out pair of Gucci kitten heels elegantly plopped herself down across from Grace. If anyone can elegantly plop
it’s
George. “You’re up before
noon
, what the hell is going on?” she growled in her throaty, I’ve quit smoking for the second time this year, voice.

Grace laughed and handed her friend a menu. “More than even I care to admit. Order first, bitch second.” George grabbed the menu and gave it a quick once-over as their waitress approached.

“What do you ladies want?”

George sighed, “a man who doesn’t cheat, a boss who doesn’t stab me in the back, and stack of pancakes that won’t go directly to my ass, but because I’m dealing in realities here--coffee, black; low fat cottage cheese; fruit, no berries; and that includes raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, boysenberries, gooseberries; a side of low fat turkey sausage; and one scrambled egg.”

“Got it!
And you?”

Grace gave the menu one more glance. “I’ll take two eggs fried, over easy, well done; low fat turkey piggy in a blanket; green tea; and a small cranberry juice--hold the ice.”

“Got it!
Syrup for your pancakes or honey?”

“Syrup.”

The waitress grabbed a pot of coffee and filled George’s cup before she left. George stared at Grace. “When did you order pancakes?”

“That’s the blanket. Waitresses speak the same language.” Grace started folding and unfolding her napkin.

“You were a waitress?”

 “In between barber and massage therapist, but before dog walker and after bike messenger.”

George grabbed Grace’s hand and stopped the next round of napkin origami. “Ooh, yeah-- Denny’s. What’s got your napkin in a twist?”

 “Clair just found out she can’t have kids. Her womb is inhospitable, which means that it’s septic and attacks the sperm.”

George took a long breath. “
Kinda
like my dating life; I’m septic and attack the right single men and, of course, sleep with the wrong single men. The married single men.”

“Just because you say it like it exists doesn’t actually mean it exists.”

“Technically the married single man is a man who is separated from his wife and has no intention of going back to her and absolutely no intention of divorcing her either. It’s a rare breed, but it does exist-- mostly in
France
, I think. I should move to
France
.” George narrowed her eyes and took a sip of water.
“An inhospitable womb.
Well, I guess that’s what happens when you try to organize everything from your toilet paper to your vagina.” George did feel bad though. “So, how do they fix it?”

“They don’t. They can’t.” As the waitress refilled George’s coffee Grace leaned into the table and blurted, “
she
asked me to be the baby’s mommy. You know have her baby-- be a surrogate.”

George added milk to her coffee. “Borrow sugar, borrow milk, but borrow a uterus? There are boundaries Grace, boundaries!”

“She’s my sister.”

“I don’t care if she’s your conjoined twin. First rule of life--never lend family money or your uterus. Just let them hire a surrogate.”

Grace thought the same thing, but now she just wasn’t sure. “It takes too long to find a good one and with family there’s a better chance the procedure will work.”

The waitress dropped off their food. George picked through her fruit cup as the waitress turned to leave. “What’s this?”

The waitress peered into the fruit cup. “I have no idea.”

George huffed, “it’s a gooseberry!” The waitress grabbed George’s fork, cherry picked out all the gooseberries, and walked away with them. “You are not having Clair’s baby. There is no way in hell you’re doing this.”

Grace, suddenly defensive, retorted, “I have no good reason not to. I mean really what am I doing with my life that is so damn important that I can’t hatch an egg for my sister?”

George paused before biting into a piece of watermelon. “You’re not just sitting on a nest for nine months. And, it’s not going to be one of those
Hollywood
pregnancies where you don’t gain any weight. And, it’s not even one of those Heidi
Klum
pregnancies either where before your episiotomy is healed you’re wearing angel wings and a push up bra on a runway. It will fuck your body up. My mother said she never felt right again.” George paused for some coffee. “And, yes, right now your life quest is a bit sketchy, but you’ll be sacrificing a lot of stuff--no drinking, no cheese, no more flat stomach, plus there’s vomiting, all different kinds of swelling, hemorrhoids, heartburn, mood swings, and last, but not least, no sex and--No Fireman Jack! And, you won’t even be able to drink to console yourself!”

“How do you know so much about pregnancy? You don’t even like baby carrots!” Grace was a bit shell-shocked.

“Look, my mother always said knowledge gives you power. Anytime I get caught up in the heat of the moment and I don’t have four safety nets in place I just think of that.” George shook her head to make her point.

On the one hand, George was telling her everything she already knew. On the other hand, it’s her little sister. She’d do anything for her, why should this be any different? “No Fireman Jack?”

George dramatically sighed. “No Fireman Jack. If your first date goes well, you could become a thing, but if you show up pregnant because you’re carrying your sister’s baby the only thing you’ll become is the crazy girl he tells people about when they’re playing ‘pin the tail on the most worst date’ game.”

“I never thought of that.”

“Well, sweetie, that’s what I’m here for.”

Grace took a bite of her pancake.
“Really?
Well, where were you when I woke up at thirty-three and realized that Jesus had not only died at that age, but walked on water, made it rain frogs, and came back from the dead! George, he came back from the dead and I hadn’t even paid off my student loans. Where were you when Jesus made me quit my job and embark on a personal quest that has lasted over two years?”

“
Cabo
.
You had that epiphany while drinking out of the same bottle of Tequila as me, remember?”

“Yeah?
Oh, yeah. Well, why did you get the Target campaign out of that bottle and I became a dog walker, a barber, a massage therapist, a
ESL
teacher, a barista, a waitress, and a manicurist?”

George washed down her spoonful of cottage cheese with a sip of coffee. “Two very important reasons: I ate the worm and I hold my liquor better.” George waited until Grace had a mouthful of pancakes to deliver her last piece of wisdom. “Three words for you, Gracie, You-- Henry-- Sperm!” George watched the color as it drained from Grace’s face and knew her job was done.

Clair sat. She sat in the living room. She sat in her bedroom. She sat in the kitchen. She sat on the back porch. The only time she didn’t sit was when Henry entered the room then she got up and sat in another room because she couldn’t face him yet. What had she done? She asked Grace to have her baby. What the hell was she thinking? Grace had her own life to live; her own mistakes to make; her own pregnancy, at some point, to experience. She should say no. She had every right to say no. Clair was the freak, the half woman who couldn’t have a child because her body hated her, and so, she decided to hate her body back by finishing off a box of Hot Pockets and a bowl of chocolate pudding. A nauseous Clair reasoned that maybe the whole inhospitable thing was because she had gone on the pill when she was sixteen, ate too much tuna, and drank an unhealthy amount of Tab while she was growing up. “Oh, God,” she thought. “What if Grace had an inhospitable womb? With the kind of people she’s let in to the place and all the alcohol she’s drank, Grace’s womb probably looked like a hotel room after Tommy Lee trashed it!”

“How you doing?”

Clair looked at her Husband, “I cannot believe I asked my sister to do this.”

“That makes two of us.”

“What was I thinking?”

Henry sat next to his wife. “You were thinking you needed to fix this
fast, that
you wanted a kid, and that Grace was the answer to your prayers.”

Clair managed a small smile. “I need to talk to her.”

Henry kissed his wife. “I know. Do you want me to go with you?”

“No thanks. I started this on my own and I have to end it on my own.”

 “Okay, but can we have dinner first? Someone ate all the Hot Pockets.”

Children who shared the common bond of parentage also shared a certain amount of parental friction while growing up. If you found one of your parents dead while going through the growing pains of puberty, periods, and unruly body hair, the amount of parental friction escalated. Now, in this tale there is no evil stepmother or for that matter an evil stepfather.  There is just Grace and Clair’s widowed mother, Diane, who never remarried after Daddy Higgins froze to death on that random afternoon. And so, in between the all too familiar mother-daughter wars of hair, clothing, drinking, belly rings, and tattoos, there was trust, patience, L’Oreal hair care products, and unconditional love that created an unspoken bond of survival. They knew there was nothing the three of them couldn’t face as long as they faced it together. Thus far, they had survived a death, an abusive boyfriend, a semi nervous breakdown, a dye job gone badly, near bankruptcy, and the dread that fell upon them every winter when the first snow of the season sprinkled onto their lives.  Now, as curveballs go, Diane was not expecting this one. She had retired two years ago from her professorial duties at The Art Institute of Chicago and effortlessly segued into the Head Curator position at the Institute’s museum. Her first exhibit, Cézanne to Picasso, was a smashing success and paved the way for a leisurely life of wine-tasting, art, literature, foreign movies, and if she was lucky, a little bit of grandmother-hood-- a hood that in the last ten minutes became more complicated than she had ever imagined.  And, as she sat across from her daughter, who stared at a pile of medical brochures and in vitro pamphlets, she was completely flummoxed.

Grace was flummoxed as well. She promised Clair that they wouldn’t tell their mom about the biggest and most important question she had ever been asked until she had made a decision, but in order to make that decision, she needed her mother. As she sat in her mom’s kitchen with all of this information swimming around her head, she felt sick to her stomach. Maybe the morning sickness for the pregnancy she hadn’t planned had somehow already started?
“Oh, my GOD!
Did you read all the shit you have to do? There’s a psychologist evaluation to make sure you’re not a whack job and there are rules like they prefer a surrogate to have already had a kid, so they know she can successfully carry a baby to term. And, do you know how
much this costs
? I knew having a kid was expensive, but this is ridiculous!”

Diane put on a pot of tea. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“How can she ask me to do this? It’s a huge commitment. I’m talking HUGE!”

Diane set the mugs on the table, leaned against the counter, and waited for the teakettle to whistle. “Gracie, sweetie, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Would you do it?”

The kettle whistled, and Diane pulled the cherry red teapot off the stove and poured water in the mugs. “Wow! I just don’t know. I’m an only child. I didn’t have to share much of anything growing up. I’d like to think I’d say yes, but I can be pretty selfish. And let’s be honest, you know me, I don’t have what it takes to subject myself to all those shots and psychological evaluations and then nine months of the actual pregnancy. And then the whole labor thing-- I’d probably say no.”

Grace picked a tea bag from the basket and
unwrapped
it. “One minute I feel that way and then ten minutes later I’m like
it’s
Clair, this is something I have to do for her.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “How the hell am I supposed to figure this out? What the fuck is the right decision? And what if I decide to do this and something goes horribly wrong? I’m thirty-five years old, what if I miscarry? Or, what if I have the same problem as Clair, or if I end up carrying twins or the baby
has
Down’s syndrome, or some horrible genetic disease?”

Diane poured some milk into her tea and sighed. “Calm down. Before you can even go there you have to decide what you want to do.” She put her mug down and grabbed a tin of Mrs. Fields cookies off the counter. “At the very least, this will force you to examine some things in your life. You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re one of the smartest women I know plus you’ve got balls. I mean, not many women can admit that they’re in an abusive relationship, let alone get out of it, and then deal with the financial fall-out when the scumbag cleans out their bank account.”

Grace grabbed the tin from her mother and peered inside. She pulled out a double chocolate chip cookie and dipped it in her tea. “Yeah, well, I didn’t do it alone. I had you and Clair. What if I say ‘no’ and it pushes her over the edge--again?”

“Now you’re not giving your sister enough credit.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t take much to push her off her rocker the last time.”

“I was not pushed off my rocker.” Clair stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “I was under a lot of pressure working two full time jobs, going to school for my MBA, and volunteering at the women’s shelter. The doctor said that I was suffering from exhaustion. I repeat, there was no rocker falling here, it was not a nervous breakdown.”

Grace jumped. “Jesus, you shouldn’t sneak up on people especially when they’re talking about you. And, you can call it whatever you want exhaustion, retreat at a health spa, but we all know when a superstar shaves her head and is whisked off to rehab, no one thinks she’s exhausted, they think she fell off her rocker!”

“I got highlights!” Clair sat down next to Grace and foraged in the tin of cookies. “I’ll make you a deal. If I allow you to refer to your weekend gig in a Volkswagen van as being on tour, you let me refer to my episode as exhaustion.”

Grace stole the last double chocolate chip cookie out from under Clair’s nose.
“Deal.”

Clair grabbed the cookie back and quickly bit into it. “You told Mom? You can never keep a
friggin
’ secret.”

“I can, too.”

Clair gave her the stink eye.
“Johnny Desmond, The Bangles concert, the crock pot incident, and the Dodge Polar breakdown!”

“He got you drunk, you lied and were driving without a license, it exploded-- and I stress it exploded! And, you were stranded in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere and you called to ask me to pick you up! What was I supposed to tell Mom? That
Avon
was calling and I had to go pick up my Cherry Cola lip-gloss because they no longer delivered? You know, for someone who prides herself on planning out every detail of her life you sure missed a few.”

Clair gave her the finger. “Well, you, as per usual jumped the gun because I’m taking it back!” She then picked a packet of apple spice tea from the basket and sniffed it.

Grace was relieved, shocked, and oddly pissed. “You already asked me the biggest and most important question I have ever been asked.  You can’t pretend like it never happened!”

 “Yes, I can!”

“No, you can’t! That’s like eating a whole pie and then saying you never ate it.”

“I’m not asking you to have my baby.”

“Why? Is my womb suddenly not good enough for you?”

Diane sighed. “Okay, stop it! Your womb is a fine, upstanding womb. Clair, what is this all about?”

“I shouldn’t have asked in the first place; it was completely selfish of me.”

 “Now you’re trying to convince me to not have your baby, so I’ll have your baby?”

“That makes no sense. I’m taking it back because it I was wrong to ask. I totally overstepped my bounds.”

Grace softened. “Lord knows I’ve overstepped my bounds over the years. Although, not directly onto your womb.” Grace picked at the cookie tin. “Now, here’s the thing. What if I can’t have your kid?”

Clair stared at her. “It doesn’t matter, I’m taking it back.”

Diane cleared her throat. “Well, you know there was a woman in
Italy
who gave birth to her daughter’s child when she was seventy.  I just want you to know there’s no way in hell I’m doing that. I love you, but that’s absolutely insane. But I will go to
Italy
and help you find that old lady.”       

Grace sighed. “Let me take all the tests and find out if I can actually do this then I’ll make a decision.” Clair jumped out of chair and pulled Grace into a hug.

Diane smiled, she was relieved that her daughters had reached a happy medium, but worried that it depended on Grace passing a psychological evaluation. 

Decisions big and small were made in just about every moment of a person’s waking life. Now, if you’re a member of the Higgins clan and happened to decide on a bitter cold morning many years ago that you didn’t need to get up and help your Dad shovel the snow well, decisions big and small are always, and this can’t be stressed enough, always second-guessed. With that in mind, a fearful Grace waited to be analyzed--within an inch of her life. In the past three weeks, she’d been tested for stress; body fat; heart rates—sleeping, waking, and exercising, to be exact; and she’d been poked and prodded in places one normally would have thought was illegal for a person, gynecologist or not, to do to another human being. She’d met with a reproductive endocrinologist and an embryologist-- all for the sake of trying to decide if she can psychically have her sister’s baby.

Grace looked around the sleek and modern office. She got up to examine the certificates on the wall and was both relieved and intimidated that Dr.
Yael
Bedouwin
graduated from both Harvard and Yale. When Dr.
Yael
Bedouin walked into the office Grace was stunned. She had expected someone like Dr. Ruth
Westheimer
, an intense short woman of Jewish decent. What she got was a tall Egyptian woman who was a cross between
Halle
Berry
and
Iman
. “Ms. Higgins?” inquired the mocha skinned Goddess with a slight French accent as she dropped the files on her desk and sat.

“Uh, yeah, that’s me.” Grace hoped that was the right answer.

“Thank God. My assistant is rather new. Last week she mixed up the files of two patients. It took me half a session to figure out that the young woman sitting in front of me with the eating disorder was really a young man with a transgender issue. They were both thin and boyish and, well, you can understand my confusion.”

“Completely.”
Grace figured she’d stick to one-word answers. It felt safer.

Dr.
Yael
opened the manila file on her desk and perused it, shut the file and smiled. “Well, I’m very pleased with the results of your MMPI personality test.”

“Thanks, I think.” Damn, three words thought Grace, keep it to one she told herself.

“There’s really no one to thank except you. You’re a well-adjusted, socially acceptable, and intelligent individual.”

“Are you looking at the right test?”

“Are you Grace Heloise Higgins?” Grace nodded and as she watched her elegantly sit back in her chair, she decided that Dr.
Yael
was a Nubian Goddess. “That name is printed in bold letters at the top of this test, so yes, it’s you.”

“Really?
Well, that’s a relief.” Grace sighed.

“You were concerned?”
chuckled
the Nubian Goddess. She leaned forward and when she did Grace smelled a hint of musk and sandalwood.

“Well, I’ve made some questionable decisions in my life.”

“We’ve all made questionable decisions in our lives, Grace, the proof is in how we handled the fallout from those decisions.”

For some reason, the first thing that popped into Grace’s mind was fireman Jack. Grace had successfully rescheduled their first date three times, but now she had to go through with it. She both dreaded and looked forwarded to their Friday morning breakfast.