“You called me in here.” She points, winking. “Just remember that.”
She’s not wrong—when I first opened the letter a few minutes ago, my heart fluttered at the thought of this secret information landing in my lap on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon. But the more I think about it … it’s not for me to know.
Then again, the more I think about it, what sense would it make that someone as famous and successful at Fabian Catalano would ever need to be a sperm donor?
There’s no way it’s him.
Rising, I refill my coffee in the kitchen before returning to pace my office—or at least the single window that looks out onto our little front porch. Sliding the sash, I inhale a burst of fresh spring air. A year ago, I was six months pregnant, happily and comfortably so.
I loved being pregnant. Relished every minute of it. I studied a million baby books, listened to her little heartbeat on the at-home doppler at least ten times a day, and snapped hundreds of belly photos.
She was my first pregnancy—but also my last.
I know my limits.
Motherhood is hard. Single motherhood is even harder. Not that I’m complaining. I’m simply rationalizing my decision to be one-and-done.
I’ve caught myself daydreaming of having just one more, a sibling Lucia can grow up with, someone to play with and fight with like Carina and I had, someone to make fun of me when I do something embarrassing during their teen years, or someone to call and vent to when I’m getting on their nerves. Someone to hold and hug them long after I’m gone.
A decade ago, I thought I wanted that boring, typical, traditional family—and Brett and I tried for years to get pregnant before going in to see Dr. Wickham and discovering that Brett was the issue. He refused to so much as consider using donor sperm, which left my hopes and dreams of having a family with him on the cutting room floor. He was also adamantly against adoption, calling it a parental form of Russian roulette. At the time, I thought he was simply being bitter because of his infertile diagnosis. I didn’t think he meant those harsh words, and I was one hundred percent convinced he’d come around with a little time.
Everything changed the night his best friend came over, drunk as I’d ever seen him. Brett was out of town for work and Ethan knocked at the door, asking if he could crash at our place. We lived in a trendy neighborhood with popular bars, and Ethan had done it a million times before so I didn’t think twice. But it wasn’t ten minutes into getting him settled when he said he had to tell me something.
I’ll never forget the tears in his eyes. I’d chalked them up to far too many beers and the toll his recent breakup was having on him.
“Brett doesn’t love you,” he’d blurted next. Followed by, “Two years ago, he got a vasectomy. That’s why you can’t have kids.”
I stood in the doorway of our guestroom in stunned silence as he proceeded to tell me my husband wasn’t alone on his latest business trip, that he’d brought along another woman for company. And he rattled off half a dozen names of other women who’d kept him company over the short course of our very new marriage.
At the time, it felt like a bad dream and seemed like a ploy—because when Ethan was finished ratting out my husband, he tacked on a confession of his own … he’d been in love with me for years.
I quickly ended the conversation, tucked him in with a bottle of Gatorade and two Advil, and hid in my room the rest of the night.
He was gone by the time I woke up in the morning, but I spent the entirety of that day verifying and confirming all of Brett’s “activities.”
“Think I’m going to go for a walk,” I call to my sister as I slip into my tennis shoes, grab my ear buds, and jet out the front door. All these thoughts and memories swirling in my head is making me stir crazy, and I can’t possibly finish the Valdez project like this.
Striding around our picturesque little neighborhood, I gather as much fresh air as I can while an eighties pop station plays in my ear. The synthesized sounds and funky beats always break me out of my strangest moods. They’ve never failed me once.
Thirty minutes later, I’m back to our street when a silver Lexus pulls up and rolls the window down. I pause Blue Monday—which is a shame because it’s one of my favorites.
“Hey, stranger.” My next door neighbor, Dan, flashes a megawatt smile and flips his shiny sunglasses over his head.
“Oh, jeez. Didn’t recognize you. New car?” I approach his window and the scent of new leather floats on a breeze.
“Fresh off the showroom floor. Whatcha think?”
I give it a careful inspection, making a show of it as I nod. It’s spectacular compared to my trusty Subaru, but I’ve never been one to care about this sort of thing.
“Going to miss seeing you come down the street in that bright red BMW though,” I say.
“Psh.” He waves a hand. “That thing was a lemon. Always in the shop. And my ex picked the color. Always thought it was obnoxious. Lease ended today—couldn’t have happened sooner.”
When Dan first moved to the block a few months back, I did the neighborly thing and brought him a tray of made-from-scratch caramel brownies and introduced Lucia and myself. Within seconds, he’d invited us in and gave us a tour of the place. A corporate accountant, he’d just gone through an ugly divorce and was excited about starting over. It didn’t take long for us to bond over failed marriages and our love of this little boutique neighborhood where all the houses look like they’re out of some movie set and all the neighbors won’t hesitate to bake you a casserole and stick their nose in your business. I called it a miniature Wisteria Lane, and then we spent the next few hours talking about our favorite TV shows.
We’d been hanging out—in a casual neighbor sort of way—for a few months when he asked me on a date.
A real date.
I had to let him down gently, informing him that Lucia was my priority, and I wasn’t in a place to start thinking about that sort of thing. I’ll never forget the way his lips curled into a gracious smile, but his eyes were a deep shade of glassy blue. Either way, it changed nothing between us. He still shovels the snow from my sidewalk in the winter and hand delivers my mail when he accidentally receives it. He also texts me movie recs and has gifted Lucia miscellaneous toys—always soft ones, never the noisy ones. We’ve also made a couple of jaunts to the farmers’ market together—all three of us, that is.
“Nice day for a walk,” he says, buying time. “You should’ve waited another half hour and I’d have joined you.”
That’s another thing—he loves our walk-and-talks, always offering to push the stroller when Lucia’s along and never complaining when we stop at the park to let her enjoy a few minutes in the baby swing. I can’t count how many times passersby have stopped to fawn at my daughter and then tell us what a beautiful family we are.
I shrug. “Just needed a little fresh air. About to head in and get back to work.”
Splaying a palm across his pristine dress shirt, he feigns an injury. “Ugh. Should be illegal to work on a gorgeous day like today.”
“Just tell that to my boss,” I tease, referring to my ball-busting alter ego. While I love being self-employed, some days it’s a struggle to find motivation to stay on task. A schedule—a strict schedule—is the only way around that. “Hoping she gives me a day off soon.”