A Mother's Secrets (Parent Portal 4)

“You’d be asking a lot of yourself,” Olivia said. “Having your body change, the hormones, morning sickness, fatigue, back pain...”

Yeah, and no wine. She gulped at the liquid barely filling the bottom of her glass.

“It’ll only be for a matter of months, realistically,” she said. “You don’t even show the first two or three months. A lot of women don’t even know they’re pregnant until two or three months. And the fourth month, okay, maybe some morning sickness, but otherwise your pants just fit a little more tightly.”

She stopped herself. Chilled and a bit light-headed as she heard, in her mind, where her words had been headed. Olivia knew a lot about her. But not about Ryder. That was her name for her son, not the one the boy had been given by his parents. She had no idea what name was on his birth certificate. First, middle or last.

No one in her current life in Marie Cove knew about Ryder. Her father knew, but not because he’d been around. Gram and Gramps had had custody of her by then and had agreed not to tell her father. And going five months without seeing her father, to keep him ignorant of her pregnancy, would have been surprisingly, heartbreakingly, easy. He hadn’t seemed to notice when that much time had passed in between visits. But his health insurance company had sent a bill for the ultrasound...

Or rather, she’d thought no one in her current life knew about Ryder.

She’d told Emily Howe—with Jamison sitting there beside her.

“I’m not sure if you want kids of your own,” Olivia was saying, blissfully not seemingly in tune with quite every thought in Christine’s mind. “But have you even thought about what it would be like to have one growing inside you? To feel him moving, a part of you...how would you not fall at least a little

bit in love? And then to have to give it up?”

Now there was an easy answer. “I’d be giving him or her to someone who wants only to love and support him, who has the means and the desire to give him a happy and secure life in a world filled with love.

“And besides,” she added, blurting words out of the panic that had nearly consumed her seconds before, “I’m not sure I can be a surrogate. All of the clinics require that you’ve delivered at least one healthy baby. I’d have to check to see if, in private surrogacy, that stipulation still exists.”

“I’m not sure it does,” Olivia said.

Not an issue for her. She’d basically just lied to her best friend by omission, and it made her feel kind of sick.

“I guess, when you think about it, no one can stop you from having a baby if you want to. And, legally, you can work out any custody or adoption arrangements you want to, as long as the recipient of the child passes adoption inspections, but with the proposed recipient actually the biological parent, then that wouldn’t be an issue. You’d just need to make sure he couldn’t ever come after you for child support...”

She’d led Olivia to a wrong path, and her friend, sweetheart that she was, was galloping down it.

“The state of California requires that both parties, no matter who they are, have separate surrogacy lawyers,” she said, needing to get them both going in another direction.

Olivia finished her wine. Grabbed the bill that had been left before Christine could do so, and the two of them walked out to Christine’s car. They’d driven over from the center together.

She asked her friend about a project she was working on at the hospital, something to do with a research study that measured the health benefits of reading to babies, in an effort to get a library set up in the neonatal intensive care unit. Christine had offered to help to fundraise for books as soon as the project was approved.

And they talked about a two-day Catalina Island cruise Christine was taking the next weekend. She was going with two of her friends from college, one of whom was going through a divorce.

“You want to tell me why you really want to have this baby?” Olivia asked when she was supposed to be getting out of Christine’s car back at the women’s center and then into her own just a couple of steps away.

“I told you. The money would help a lot. It’s not like I have any family or am in a relationship that would be affected by it. And, as you pointed out, I’ve never been sure about kids of my own so the emotional part wouldn’t be such an issue...”

Even if she did want kids of her own, there was nothing to stop her from having another one once the favor was done. Women could give birth multiple times. Her great-grandmother had had fourteen children.

Olivia nodded. Moved to get out. But not before Christine had seen the quickly masked hurt in her eyes. The two of them—they’d bonded over their true desire to live alone. To be single. They were the odd girls out. Those who didn’t want to be part of a couple.

And they kept very few secrets from each other.

She had Ryder. And Olivia had whatever it was that kept her single.

“His wife...” she blurted. “Emily. I remember her so distinctly. She got to me, you know?” She’d told her about Ryder. “We went to the same high school. They’re from here, but I didn’t know them. Still, it felt like she was a friend. And then, to hear that she’d told her husband that if they ever needed a surrogate she thought I’d make a great one...”

Olivia’s eyes glistened in the blend of light and shadows.

“Have you ever felt like something stronger than what you can see and prove is at work in a situation?” Christine asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Almost as though she’d taken a lid off the magic potion only to find out that it had no power at all.

“Every day,” Olivia said. “I see it in the eyes of the parents who hang on and believe after I’ve told them that their newborn has little chance of sustaining life. And then, sometimes, in the little ones who prove me wrong.”

It was all so confusing. The request. The fact that it was hitting her so strongly. It wasn’t the first time she’d had the chance to be a surrogate. There’d been another couple a few years back... They’d both had steady jobs, but an income that wasn’t ever going to allow them to be able to pay for one. The fertility testing and drugs had taken all of their savings. Christine had had herself tested, just to make certain she’d be a viable candidate, but before she could offer to help them, the woman’s sister had agreed to carry their child...