“I don’t know when we last did that alone and not at a party,” I say.
“We are now.” He puts his mouth close to my ear.
I want to cling to this, the two of us. Without ANVO, in vitro, the board at the Literary Society, little children lurking about.
James glides back to the counter, places radicchio and endive on two salad plates, sprinkling walnuts from a small glass jar that Justine’s has included. I remember our baby’s face in the sonogram, her mouth shaped like an O, her tiny chin.
* * *
“The couscous was delicious,” I say an hour later. “It’s sweet of you to have arranged it.”
He smiles politely. The dance segment of the evening has waned. James stops eating and stands up, tugging on his shirt collar with his left hand.
“Elodie, I’ve thought it through.”
“Thought what through?” I hope we’re about to focus on the house, an incident at ANVO, or my plan to bring the Ukrainian-born mother and daughter poets to the Literary Society. I’m prepared to describe how this afternoon Mrs. A. insisted on “tried-and-true fiction” from the eighties and selected two Danielle Steele books, when I was recommending The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I dread any other discussion. That includes our calendar for the season, since I’m not ready to breeze into every party yet. Being back at work is both a panacea and a staggering feat.
Snatching our dinner plates, James clears and piles them in the sink. I’d make a light remark about how few times he has cleared a table or loaded a dishwasher, except I sense the weight of his next lines. I know he is going to talk again about a baby.
I jump up to help out—something my mother would do and my married friends might do, depending on the circumstance. Because tonight most of them, like our parents, are en route to the Norrics’ on Island Drive for their party, which we have politely nixed.
James scrapes the food into the garbage, then faces me, leaning against the counter.
“I have an idea, Elodie,” he says. “I realized there’s a solution. We can ask Aubrey. Let’s see if she’ll do it for us.”
“Ask Aubrey what?”
“It should be Aubrey’s egg,” James says calmly.
“Aubrey’s egg?” My mouth almost glues shut. I’m speaking through a stifling layer, a residue. I repeat, “Aubrey’s egg?”
“Aubrey as the traditional surrogate. That’s how I see it. Her egg, my sperm through artificial insemination.” James’s voice is lucid. He keeps going. “I wish we had figured it out earlier, but this is where we are. Your sister carries the closest DNA to your own. She looks like you and has your IQ. You’re so close, you’re simpatico.”
I walk to the window of our sliding glass door; the exterior lights illuminate the patio. I cough twice.
“Aubrey? I mean really? Aubrey’s egg and another woman carrying the baby?”
“No, not that. Aubrey would be the surrogate. It’s not done as much anymore, yet easier. Like I said, there’d be in vitro and that would be it. She’d be pregnant with our child. There’d be no hiring a gestational carrier, a random woman.”
What he is recommending is unthinkable. Yet my husband has put great thought into the idea. I know to measure my response, not to blurt out, This is absurd, desperate.
“And we’d have some kind of control over Aubrey? Isn’t she a bit unreliable, a little too hip to be asked? Aubrey does what she wants. How can we ask her?”
Wasn’t I the one who brought my little sister to where she is today? From push-up bras to Edith Wharton, Gloria Steinem, Bobbi Brown eyeliner, mean girls at the Academy, birth control in high school, I’ve been her guide and protector. I taught her how to be, such specific lessons that she is the quintessential cool girl.
“You know you’d see her almost every day.” James comes to the window, stands beside me. “I bet she’d be in Palm Beach more. She’d rise to the occasion, I know it. She’d quit clubbing to protect our child. It’s not work for hire; she’s your sister and she’d have a genetic stake in it.”
“A genetic stake would matter to her less than the sacrifice. How could it not be that? Look at what the ask is,” I say.
“You love each other, Elodie. I haven’t seen sisters more connected. She would do anything for you.”
“Would she? How do you know? Until now there’s never been talk of a test.”
There is an image of Aubrey walking with her friends in their miniskirts and Converse sneakers on Clematis Street when she was only thirteen. It was Christmas break. I was secretly following her, a half block behind, my eyes glued to her head. Just in case she needed me to fend off lecherous males or for some extra cash.
I shake my head. “Beyond the idea of asking Aubrey, which seems selfish and unfair and complicated, she has a boyfriend, she cares about him. She finally has this job, this career. Besides that, what you call a connection will change what she and I have. Our essence.”
“I don’t believe that,” James says.
How convincing James is when he pushes for what he wants most.
“James, it seems plain weird.”
“Weird?”
“Say that I thought it was a good idea, that it worked for us, James, how can I ask my sister to give up everything that’s hers for your sperm and her egg?”
“Our baby,” James sighs. Now again, he must be thinking how I’ve failed, put us in such a position. I wait for him to dispel this, flip it out of his consciousness so I feel less awful.
“Except…” I begin.
“Sure, she’ll be giving up some superficial things, but look at what she would be doing.”
“What she would be doing for us, James. I mean, Aubrey’s feet don’t touch the ground. The collective lie, the one my parents tell, is that Aubrey will be back to live a mile from us. Some bullshit about her studying for a degree in musicology in Miami, that it’s the only thing that keeps her there—seventy-five miles from Palm Beach.”
A degree she might or might not pursue. Every time my mother talks about my sister, her voice drops a decibel and she purses her lips. Don’t we wonder if Aubrey is more capable than she lets on?
James waits because he and I know that my mother lies about me as well. When she’s at cards or shopping at Vintage Tales, she will say, if asked, that I’m not interested in a baby. She’ll play up the house we’re building instead, what charities James and I favor. I cannot fathom my mother’s take on James’s strategy, how she would navigate the rumors, the disbelief, Palm Beach judgments and chatter. If this were to happen, my mother would be protecting both her daughters—for their shared decision.
“We’ve talked about my mother already. We’ve been through this. Besides, two sisters, one baby—it’s irrational. On every level, from how it would happen to living in town while it happens.”
“You know, your dad might like the concept. He can be narcissistic, someone who would respond to the genetic bond.” James is insistent.
“Aubrey wouldn’t agree to such a crazy idea, never.”
“Aubrey will be giving you the greatest gift anyone can give. A baby! Our baby!” More insistence.