Well, of course my girlfriends would hate him. They didn’t have a choice. But strangers, and acquaintances, and society? They would all cut him slack. He was finally living his truth. There would be pity for me, of course. And maybe even whispers that our marriage had been for appearances.
I exchanged pleasantries with the women I knew, forcing a smile, getting close enough to smell their Jo Malone perfume and see the diamonds sparkling in their ears, hoping that they couldn’t see how I was dying inside.
As I sat down in one of the chic leather chairs, I couldn’t help but realize how different this was from the waiting rooms of my youth with their standard-issue medical office chairs with the upholstery that itched the backs of my legs. This waiting room smelled of soothing essential oils, not antiseptic.
As I picked up the latest issue of Clematis—as though I couldn’t have practically recited its contents—all I could think about was that I should have stayed in Raleigh. If I had continued on at the little newspaper outside of town I interned at for two summers in college, if I had taken the job they offered me, my entire life could have been different.
I’d loved working for that little newspaper; I had loved getting to do absolutely everything, from writing to editing, proofreading to graphic design. I had even learned to take a decent photo or two. Those summers made me the journalist I am today. I wasn’t a one-trick pony. I knew every element of putting out a publication.
But when I saw the salary package they could offer, I realized that even I, a single girl in a small town, couldn’t live on it. And, to be honest, I felt a little bit ashamed. I had been number one in my journalism school class, the editor of my college magazine. By all accounts, I was destined for journalistic greatness. I couldn’t work at a small-town newspaper for the rest of my life.
Even still, I actually didn’t expect to get the job at Clematis. It was a smaller, core group of journalists. And if it didn’t work out, I was stuck in Palm Beach—which, admittedly, isn’t a bad place to be stuck—with no New York City publication on my résumé. If I’m honest with myself, I was scared. When I was in college, I said I stayed in Raleigh so that I could be close to the beach, drive home on the weekends to soak up the summer rays. And I guess that was true, in some ways. But when you got right down to it, I was terrified of being in a big city, scared to leave home, intimidated by the great, wide world beyond the South.
Plus, Clematis was my dream job. And even though it was less money and a less prestigious position in the eyes of the world than a New York magazine, I believed with all my heart that if I took it, it would pay off. At a midsized publication like Clematis, I could have the opportunity to write both investigative stories and profile pieces.
I had been so nervous moving to Palm Beach, renting the smallest apartment on the least noteworthy street with a girl from Craigslist who I had never met. (My parents would have killed me if they’d known.) I didn’t have any friends. In some ways, it was a much bigger risk than going to New York with a handful of college friends. But there were vestiges of my Southern upbringing everywhere. The trappings of city life, but the manners and protocols of a small town.
And then I met Thad. He was handsome and kind and made me feel like I was at home in this new world.
I had gotten my dreams early. So I guess I was getting my comeuppance early, too. I was only thirty-five, and I was going to be joking about my starter husband.
I knew I was in real danger of crying when a very pleasant nurse with Texas-sized hair opened the door to the waiting room and said, “Mrs. Williams, Dr. Wright will see you now.”
Mrs. Williams. I wasn’t going to be Mrs. Williams anymore. I was going to go back, as quickly as possible, to being Miss Saxton.
On autopilot, I followed the nurse as she opened the door to Dr. Wright’s office, which was so sparse it was clear he didn’t do a lot of actual work in here. I put my game face back on like my daddy taught me on long days at the softball field. “Are you the one who has to call the patients?” I asked.
“We all take turns,” she said. I could tell she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to talk to me. I supposed a reporter in a doctor’s office usually didn’t mean much good. But I wasn’t there to get her in trouble. I was there to sniff out a trail; I was writing about what happens to frozen embryos once they are no longer needed.
I wanted to talk to parents of these fertilized eggs. Did they destroy them? Adopt them out? Donate them to science? Did they have more children because they couldn’t stand the idea of doing any of the above?
“So you only call them when it’s time to make a decision?”
She shrugged. And then she made a tiny, simple gesture that would end up thrusting my life so far off its axis that my divorce would seem like a blip on the radar. She pointed to a thin stack of paper on Dr. Wright’s desk. “Yeah, once they’ve been in there for three years with no activity, we start calling the parents. They pay a bundle to keep them frozen, and our freezer space is always at a premium, so we try to keep on top of them.” She paused. “But that list is the ones we can’t get in touch with. After a few years of being unable to reach a contact, of not being paid for storage, we consider them abandoned.”
I nodded. “Then what?”
She shrugged. “That’s the hard part. We don’t want to destroy them or donate them for research without the parents’ consent, but eventually, we’re going to have to make some hard decisions.” She paused. “Dr. Wright is a little behind, but he should be here shortly.”
I smiled cheerily, wanting more than anything for her to get the hell out of the room so I could snoop. “Please tell him to take his time,” I said. “And please reassure him I’ll be brief.”
As soon as the door closed, I practically pounced on the first page of that list. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but one of the hurdles I was facing was finding parents to interview for this article. I needed real-life patients to tell me why they’d decided to destroy their embryos, adopt them out, etc., and the listing I had placed on HARO, a website where journalists and sources connect, wasn’t doing much good. In this case, no one wanted to help a reporter out.
Maybe I would know someone on this list and could lead them into a discussion without their knowing I had broken all kinds of laws and without their doctor breaking HIPAA, which I was one hundred percent sure Dr. Wright wouldn’t do. This was the kind of office with a secret entrance for its high-profile patients.
I scanned the As, flipping quickly through the alphabet. When I got to the Ts, my eyes focused, and I gasped audibly. I heard a hand on the doorknob and practically flung myself into my seat, trying to look calm, even though my heart was racing out of my chest.
I breezed through my cursory list of questions. I just needed Dr. Wright as a quoted source on questions I knew the answers to, so it wasn’t that hard. I actually skipped a few because I needed to be alone with this moral dilemma.
I had seen a name on that list that I recognized. I wasn’t supposed to know that those embryos had been abandoned. It isn’t any of my business, I repeated to myself. But what if he didn’t know that his embryos were even here? What if a decision was made about them that he wouldn’t want?
As I walked out the door, I said nonchalantly to the nurse, “Thanks. And good luck.”