“How do I know this is the choice he’d have wanted me to make?”
Therein was the crux of her self-torture. They’d never talked about one of them carrying on without the ever. It hadn’t been an option for them. Or a possibility she’d ever considered.
Hard to believe she’d ever been that naive.
“He’s not here, Emily. You think my mother would choose for me to be living alone in her parents’ home, dedicating my life to work? You think she’d choose for me to never have babies of my own?”
When she put it that way...not likely.
“You’re young. You’ve got a lot of years to have kids.”
“I’m childless by choice.” The brightly dressed woman smiled as she looked around her office. “This is my life. There’s no doubt in my mind that I made the right choice. And my point to you is...just because grief plays a part in your choice, that doesn’t mean it’s reactionary, and therefore invalid.”
Emily considered that for a moment before replying. “I’ve known since I was a teenager that I was going to be the mother of Win’s kids someday. I knew I’d have a career, that I’d be someone professionally, that that was important to me, but being the mother of his kids, being his wife, mattered more than anything else.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
Emily smiled and teared up a bit, too. “I think that’s pretty obvious, huh?”
Christine shrugged.
“I’m going to do this.”
No judgment came from the other woman. No sense that she was doing the right or wrong thing. That she’d made the choice Christine thought she should make. Or hadn’t.
But she felt a kinship with her.
“I’ve got the ability to have my husband live on, even after his death, to bring parts of him to life, to give him descendants. I can raise his children and love them as much as we both wanted to. I know his views on pretty much every aspect of raising children...we talked endlessly about schooling, about discipline—even eating habits we’d allow. And not allow. It’s crazy-sounding, but Winston and I...we were just meant to be. And our family was meant to be, too.”
She wasn’t rambling anymore. Wasn’t lost in the not-knowing. She and Winston had talked over every detail of child raising, of investing, of career plans, vacationing, homeownership, pet acquiring—but they’d never once talked about one of them not being there.
They’d never discussed death.
She k
new how he’d thought about telling his children about sex, but had no idea what he’d think of her using his sperm to have his baby after he died.
So she couldn’t make this decision based on him. She was the only one left. The choice was hers alone.
The first big decision she’d ever made completely alone.
“It might not take,” she said aloud, still a bit shaky as a whole new set of worries came upon her. “This might all have been for nothing if I can’t get pregnant.”
“Nothing in your tests showed you to be infertile.”
“I know, but...”
“If nothing else, insemination gives you a better shot,” Christine said, more distant and professional now than she’d been. “If you’re still unsure, or thinking it might be better if it didn’t work, if you’re looking for an out...”
“I’m not!” She stood, and Christine followed suit. “I want this child more than anything...”
Christine’s smile was a surprise. But not as much of one as the hug the other woman reached over and gave her.
“I know,” the health director said. “And now you do, too.”
Chapter Three
“My name is Winston Hannigan. I am a chief petty officer first class.” He rattled off his serial number. “I was deployed as a sand sailor under the Individual Augmentee Combat program two years and four months ago. For the past two years I have been living with the enemy.”