Signs of Life (3 page)

Jase unlocked the front door and pushed it open, setting his keys and sunglasses down on the little table inside. It was such a small action, so meaningless, yet Jeremy had seen Brent do that same thing countless times. The knowledge he would never do it again ripped through Jeremy, and anger boiled up and erupted all over the nearest convenient target.

“It’s so fucking unfair,” Jeremy hissed as he turned and gripped the lapels of Jase’s suit jacket. Jase opened his mouth to say something and Jeremy shook him, hard.

“You! You went to a fucking war zone, got shot at, were living in a country full of assholes trying to kill you! You were in the most dangerous place on earth, and yet my husband manages to get his ass killed just two motherfucking miles from home on a goddamn neighborhood street!”

Jeremy’s voice had risen to a hysterical shout, and he was twisting his fists in Jase’s coat.

“It’s so unfair! You’re the one that should be dead! Not him!”

Jase’s face was white, stricken, his eyes full of tears, but his voice was compassionate as he said, “I know, Jere. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, man.”

“
You
should be dead, not him. Not him.” Jeremy’s grip on Jase’s coat was the only thing holding him up, and when he shoved Jase away, his legs buckled. He collapsed onto his knees, his body shaking as the last tenuous hold he had on his composure snapped.

“Go away, Jase. I don’t want you here anymore.” He lashed out, his anger at Brent for dying focusing with vicious intent on the man who had been his rock, his unwavering support during the worst week of Jeremy’s life. Yet he couldn’t stop.

“You don’t get to be here anymore. I wish you had died, not him.
Go away!
” Jeremy’s voice had risen to almost a scream, and before the hysteria took him over completely, he dimly felt Jase stroke his hair with a trembling hand before the door closed softly behind him.

Jeremy collapsed onto his side and curled into a fetal position as he sobbed, feeling like he’d never be able to stop, crippling pain and grief making him wish for death himself.

When the storm finally passed, Jeremy crawled on hands and knees into the bedroom and pulled himself up on the bed, burying himself in the covers, Brent’s pillow clutched to him as he fell into an exhausted sleep. He woke hours later, his eyes gritty and feeling like sandpaper, his throat shredded from crying. The sight of Brent’s reading glasses on the night table next to a paperback novel he would never get to finish set him off into another bout of weeping.

That happened over and over as Jeremy was assaulted with signs of Brent’s presence: his toothbrush and razor, his dirty clothes in the hamper, his leftovers from their last dinner out together in a box in the fridge. As each storm raged and passed, Jeremy thought he couldn’t possibly have any tears left, but the reality of Brent’s permanent absence always dredged up more until Jeremy was weak with exhaustion and emotional overload.

WITH THE
ruthlessness that had always served him well in his law practice, Jeremy boxed up all of Brent’s things one afternoon, took them to a local donation center and left them without a backward glance. What he couldn’t donate he threw away. His next stop was to a realtor’s office, and he listed their house, instructing the realtor to take the first offer.

There was one difficult task that Jeremy couldn’t put off any longer, and he made a phone call.

“Leticia? Can I come over?”

He drove across town and pulled up outside a small neat house in Chula Vista, a blue-collar enclave south of where he and Brent lived in exclusive La Jolla. Jeremy sat in his car for a while, breathing deeply, hoping he could hold it together and not lose it in front of the woman who was carrying his and Brent’s son.

Surrogacy had been a long, exhausting process, extremely stressful. He and Brent had gone through an agency, one that specialized in “matching” prospective surrogate mothers with gay couples. They elected to go with gestational surrogacy, where the woman they chose would “grow” and carry a baby created with their sperm and donor eggs, a baby that would not be hers biologically in any way.

Jeremy remembered the night he and Brent cuddled up together in bed, looking through the profiles and questionnaires of women the agency forwarded to them as potential matches. Brent immediately zeroed in on a young woman with two little boys of her own and a husband who was in the Marines.

“She has kind eyes,” Brent had said, tracing his finger over the face of the smiling dark-haired woman. “And she’s a military wife, so she’s resilient and strong.”

They selected three of the women for a face-to-face meeting, and while all of them were perfectly nice, one of them focused almost solely on the fees she would be receiving while another was so painfully shy it was hard to get two words from her. Leticia was warm and welcoming from the minute they met, asking them questions about themselves, showing genuine interest in their lives. She truly was in it to help them achieve their dream of fatherhood, and in the end it wasn’t a hard decision at all.

Next came psychological evaluations for all of them, several different physical exams for Leticia, sperm count and motility tests for him and Brent. With the all clear given on those, the negotiations started, and finally a contract acceptable to all parties was entered into. After that there was another round of profiles and questionnaires as they looked for an egg donor, finally settling on a young college girl with an impeccable health and family history. She was fresh faced and pretty, and Brent liked her smile.

Everything was finally in place, but first Leticia had to undergo a so-called mock cycle, where she took the IVF fertility drugs to see how she responded to them. She responded beautifully, her uterine lining thick and perfect, ready to accept an embryo.

He and Brent had given their sperm samples and then waited tensely to see if any of the donor eggs fertilized. They wanted embryos created from both of their sperm, and to have several of each transferred into Leticia for the best chance of success. Neither Brent nor Jeremy wanted to know whom the “real” father was. They were both going to be a father to the baby and it didn’t matter whose genetic material it was.

Leticia’s medicated cycle once again resulted in a thick, fluffy uterine lining, so the embryo transfer was scheduled within days. It went smoothly, and finally all that was left to do was wait the required two weeks to see if a pregnancy resulted. That first time there was heartbreak when Leticia’s blood test came back negative. Jeremy and Brent had viable embryos left, so after Leticia’s next natural cycle, they started all over again.

Another round of IVF, another tense two-week wait, and then another tearful phone call from Leticia, but this time they were tears of happiness; she was pregnant. He and Brent went to every doctor’s appointment, every ultrasound, were there every step of the way. Leticia and her husband Keith always made them feel welcome, but they tried not to be intrusive on Leticia’s personal life. Leticia texted them every couple of days with updates on how she was feeling and kept them in the loop. Finally the time came where they felt comfortable enough to shop for nursery items, and they picked out a name: Zachary Evan.

Jeremy leaned his forehead on the steering wheel and took deep breaths as fresh grief ripped through him in powerful waves. Brent would never get to hold this baby he wanted so much, would never get to be the wonderful father Jeremy knew he would have been.
No more fucking crying
, he told himself firmly. Brent wouldn’t want that, and he needed to be strong for their son.

He climbed slowly out of his sleek and expensive sports car, reflecting that he needed to get a new vehicle soon, something more suitable for driving a baby around. Brent had teased him about getting a minivan, cracking up at Jeremy’s shouted “Never!” and reiterating all the safety features in the newest-model vans. If only Brent’s car had had side airbags—

Jeremy pushed those thoughts away, knowing he could “what-if” for the rest of his life and it wouldn’t change anything. He felt like an old man as he made his way up the well-kept front walkway to Leticia’s door, ringing the doorbell and waiting, wondering how Leticia would react to seeing him. He knew she and Keith were aware of Brent’s death, Jase having called the surrogacy agency with the news at Jeremy’s request.

All of his tenuous control deserted him at the sight of Leticia’s loving and compassionate face, and the swell of her belly that held—oh God. In a few short weeks he could be holding a part of Brent in his arms again. He fell to his knees right there in the doorway and wrapped his arms around her hips, burying his face against her hard protruding belly.

“Oh, sweet man,” she whispered, as she stroked her fingers through his hair. “Oh,
mijo
.”

The comforting touch and whispered endearment were his undoing, and he lost it right there, great heaving sobs ripping from his chest as he clutched her to him. He couldn’t let go of her, couldn’t stop crying as he pushed her maternity shirt up so that he could lay his cheek directly against her skin, right over where his son rested.

Leticia let him, held him and murmured to him until she could coax him inside and lead him into her homey, welcoming living room. She pulled him down to the couch with her and grabbed his hand, placing it low on the side of her belly where Jeremy could feel a rippling, actually see the skin bulging in and out with the baby’s movements.

“He’s active today,” Leticia whispered. “He knows that his daddy is here.” Those words brought fresh tears, and she cupped his cheek.

“Talk to him, mijo.”

Jeremy did, his cheek resting once again on Leticia’s belly as he talked to his son, feeling the baby move almost as if in response to his words. She had a Doppler listening device she used, pressing it to her abdomen and moving it around so that Jeremy could hear the baby’s strong, fast heartbeat. At that moment it was what he needed the most, and he loved her for it.

She fixed him a cup of tea and let him spend as much time as he wanted, Keith having taken their boys over to their grandparents’ to give Jeremy some privacy. Finally he took his leave, hugging her close, whispering his thanks in her ear.

“You’ve helped me today more than you know, Leticia.”

She stroked her hand over his hair once and kissed his cheek. “I’m glad.”

He drove home, the savage darkness of his grief lightened a little by the promise of new life, of renewed joy. The next couple of weeks passed quickly as Jeremy finalized the sale of his La Jolla house and traded in his sports car for a sleek new SUV with every safety feature imaginable. His realtor forwarded some listings for him to look at, and he settled on a small but elegant house on Coronado Island. He loved the neighborhood, lined with large mature trees, the beach and city parks just a short drive away. Perfect for raising a child, and perfect for a fresh start.

With Zachary’s birth imminent, he had everything but the nursery items put into long-term storage, and he rented a furnished condo not far from his new house. He needed a place to bring the baby home to while he had some light renovations done, and he didn’t want Zachary around the noise and chaos.

Grief was never far from the surface, sometimes roaring up like a tsunami, unexpectedly and at awkward moments, dragging him under, suffocating him under the weight of it. He weathered each storm as it came, missing Brent so much it was a constant ache, the thought of the baby’s arrival the life ring he clung precariously to.

A week before Leticia’s due date, Keith called to say Leticia hadn’t felt the baby move in several hours, and when she realized it during her daily kick count, she immediately called the doctor. They didn’t seem overly concerned at first, advising her to drink a glass of juice and see if the sugar wouldn’t help to “wake him up.” An hour later there still hadn’t been any movement.

“They want her to come in, Jeremy,” Keith said, his voice strained. “We’re leaving as soon as I hang up with you.”

A low-grade dread started burning in Jeremy’s gut. “I’ll meet you there,” he managed. During the half-hour drive from Coronado to East Chula Vista, he gripped the steering wheel and prayed, “No. Please, God, no.”

When he arrived at the doctor’s office, the front desk lady wouldn’t look at him and Jeremy just knew. There wasn’t any need for words like “cord accident” or the doctor’s gentle attempts to explain “sometimes these things just happen.” Leticia was inconsolable, weeping in her husband’s arms, her eyes beseeching as she looked at Jeremy, needing his comfort and assurances he didn’t blame her. He didn’t, but he was beyond comforting anyone, beyond feeling anything, a crushing numbness spreading through his body and pulverizing what was left of his shattered heart.

When the doctor informed them Leticia would be admitted to the hospital for immediate induction, and there would be a private room set aside for as long as needed for everyone to hold the baby and say their good-byes, Jeremy turned on his heel without a word and strode toward the parking lot.

“Jeremy, please!” Keith chased after him, calling his name until Jeremy stopped in his tracks, his fists clenched at his sides.

“I won’t go,” he warned in a low voice. “I can’t.”

“Please think about what you’re doing, man,” Keith pleaded. “Leticia—”

Jeremy whirled on him, his voice savage. “You’ll still get your fucking money, Monahan. It’s in the goddamn contract.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “It’s not about the money,” he whispered. “It never was.” Jeremy turned away and started walking toward his car again, Keith’s voice rising as he called after him. “You and Leticia need to say your good-byes to this baby, Jeremy. You’ll need the closure, and you need each other. Please!”

Jeremy whipped around again and advanced on him, forcing him to retreat. “It’s not her child, Keith,” Jeremy said cruelly, wanting to hurt, to wound, a dying animal turning on the attack. “Her job is almost over. Obviously I have no further need of her services.”

Keith reeled back as if struck. “You don’t mean that, Jeremy. Leticia carried this baby inside her for nine months, nurturing him, loving him, until she could put him in your arms. She needs you to be there while she goes through this, and you need her, man. She’s grieving too. Don’t think for one minute that this isn’t killing her. Please. Don’t do this!”