Her Last Wish (7 page)

“Charlie, this is Dr.
Schaffer,” Professor Mason stated. “I’ve known him quite a while.”

I smiled as politely as
I could and shook the doctor’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said.

Dr. Schaffer nodded.
“The pleasure is all mine. So what can I do for you today?”

Professor Mason decided
to jump in for me. “Charlie has agreed to be my surrogate. You still have
Elizabeth’s eggs, yes?”

“Of course. Did you
bring the paperwork?”

Professor Mason handed
him the contract from the lawyer that we’d signed the day before. “It’s all
here.”

The doctor quickly
flipped through it. “Your lawyer works fast. These were signed yesterday. You
have copies, already?”

“I paid a lot of money
to make sure he would be fast.”

“I imagine you did. So,
Charlie. Would you like to get started? Connor, you can wait outside.”

Professor Mason’s face
drained of color. He looked as if he wanted to protest, but we all knew he had
no legal right to do so. Although the resulting baby would be his, the medical
history would be mine, and it was still protected under doctor-patient
confidentiality.

“He’s fine in here,” I
jumped in, hoping to reassure him. After all, what did I have to hide? I was
perfectly healthy. “This is important to him, and he wants to be here every
step. That’s what I agreed to. I don’t want to kick him out of anything that he
wants to be present for, even if it’s not written in the contract. I’m doing
this for
him
, after all.”

“Some of the questions
I’ll be asking today can be considered personal. I’ll also be doing a physical
exam, which will require you to undress.”

“It’s fine. I won’t
hold any secrets from him that might affect his future baby or the process to
get it here.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” I
smiled reassuringly at Professor Mason, and the relief I found on his face was
immediate. When the doctor nodded and looked down at his clipboard, I leaned
over and whispered in the professor’s ear. “You’ll look away when we get to
that exam bit, right?”

Professor Mason
chuckled and whispered back, “Of course.”

“Let’s start with the
basics,” Dr. Schaffer began. “Do you now or have you ever had any STDs or
STIs?”

“No,” I replied.

“Have you had any
successful pregnancies?”

“No. I’ve never been
pregnant, at all.”

He peered up from his
clipboard at me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I prayed he
wouldn’t dig too deeply into my (lack of) sexual history. As far as my physical
health went, I had nothing to hide. I figured that as someone expecting me to
carry a child for him, the professor had every right to know that I was
completely healthy in every way. How else could he be sure that I would do what
I could to deliver a healthy baby to him? But having him know about what did or
didn’t go on in my bedroom was a little too personal for my taste. Fortunately,
the doctor didn’t seem too interested. He did, however, seem concerned.

The doctor turned to
Professor Mason. “The success rate for IVF treatments is pretty low, as it
stands. Are you sure you want to try this with someone who has never had a
successful pregnancy at all?”

The professor smiled at
me. “Very.”

***

Connor

I stood awkwardly
behind the curtain as Charlie changed into a clean, blue hospital gown for the
physical exam. A part of me felt uncomfortable thinking about her state of
undress on the other side of that thick piece of hanging fabric. Another part of
me wanted to sneak a peek, despite my promise to look away. Of course, I knew
better than to act on the second part. I had far too much respect for her to
even try. But I couldn’t help but wonder if she was just as perfect underneath
those clothes as she appeared with them. I took a deep breath as I felt my
jeans begin to tighten. I had to redirect my thoughts, before I had a very
embarrassing (and awkward) trip to the other side of the curtain.

I wondered what the
hell was happening to me. Each minute I spent with her caused my attraction to
her to grow. I was starting to surpass my odd fascination into something far
more physical. Only a few days before, I’d felt dead and emotionless. Standing
behind the curtain while she stripped down to a thin robe, I felt like a school
boy trying to resist peeking into the girls’ locker room knowing a glimpse at my
crush’s physical assets lay just on the other side.

On top of that, I felt
guilt. My job was on the line. I’d already crossed that boundary into a threat
to my position as both a professor and department head just by making our
agreement. All it would take is the wrong person finding out. On top of that, I
felt as if I’d completely betrayed my wife by allowing myself to even remotely
fall for Charlie, even though Elizabeth was dead. Was there a life after death
that allowed her to watch over me? God, I hoped not. I hoped my developing
feelings for Charlie would suddenly disappear overnight. I certainly didn’t
need the added complications, and neither did she.

“Okay,” Charlie called
from the other side of the curtain. “I’m ready.”

I quickly readjusted
myself in my jeans to hide my obvious arousal at my previous thoughts and
pulled the curtain back to find Charlie sitting on the examination table in her
hospital gown with a blanket draped over her legs. I cautiously crossed the
room to my chair, trying to keep my mind off of the fact that she looked
adorable, even in the ugly gown. It certainly wasn’t helping my problem.

“Are you okay?” she
asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Are
you?”

She nodded. “I think
so. I have to admit, though, this whole process is pretty awkward. You don’t
have to come to all of these if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.”

“Are you saying you
don’t want me here?”

“No, of course not. If
this works, this will be
your
baby. I wouldn’t want to keep you from
being a part of anything. But I know you could probably get in trouble for
this. I hope you know I haven’t told anyone. Not even Jackson. I told him that
I would be doing this, of course, but I didn’t say who it would be for.”

I tried to ignore my
irritation before it had a chance to grow. A part of me was glad she hadn’t
told anyone. A part of me wished she’d have at least told her idiot boyfriend.
The anger on his face would have been well worth any consequences to my career.
“Thank you.” It was all I could think of to say.

“I just hope this all
works out how you want it to,” she added.

I could feel a twinge
deep in my chest. With the turn my thoughts had taken while I waited behind the
curtain, I wished she hadn’t said that. My wishes for the end result seemed to
have extended a little beyond the contract and the baby. They were starting to
involve her.

Chapter Ten

Charlie

Although the whole
doctor’s visit was a little awkward, I thought it went pretty well. Despite the
slight weirdness of having my professor in the room with me when all I wore was
a barely there hospital gown, I found his presence strangely comforting. I’d
had plenty of physical exams in my lifetime. However, none of them held as much
weight as the one I’d just endured. If anything went wrong, Professor Mason
would lose his last chance at having a child belonging to his dead wife. I’d
seen the state of despair he’d been in when he thought that chance had been
snatched away from him. I couldn’t stand to see him go through it all over
again.

Fortunately, Dr.
Schaffer decided that I would be okay to start treatment as soon as my cycle
lined up with where it needed to be, despite my lack of previous pregnancies.
Fortunately, I was only a few days away from there. And I’m sure that a huge
part of his agreement to go through with it had to do with Professor Mason’s
refusal to budge on his decision. I was a bit surprised to see how set he was
in his plan. It seemed to surprise Dr. Schaffer, too. But I was glad that Professor
Mason felt as if he could trust me to do this for him.

Near the end of the
visit, Dr. Schaffer warned me not to have unprotected sex with Jackson until
Professor Mason and Elizabeth’s embryo implanted. It would obviously have been
a bad thing to be pregnant with the wrong baby. I wanted to laugh and tell him
that it wouldn’t be a problem, but I held back. I still wasn’t even close to
ready to having sex at all. But I really didn’t want to get into the mechanics
of my relationship with a doctor I had just met, who didn’t technically need to
know that, or the professor, whom I barely knew.

If anything, I probably
needed to speak with a shrink about it. Jackson was a fine specimen of man, but
I somehow couldn’t get over my apprehension about sex without being absolutely
sure that I loved him. Any other girl would have jumped all over the chance and
all over him. But no. Not me. I had to be that weird girl who wanted to wait.

On top of that, I knew
my decision to help the professor would likely hurt my relationship with
Jackson. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that no guy would be cool with his girlfriend
doing what I was about to do, regardless of the circumstances. I simply didn’t
give him a say in the matter, which would only make it worse. Did I care? Well,
of course. I didn’t purposely seek out ways to sabotage my relationship. I just
wasn’t ready to fully rely on him for any major decisions in my life. Heck, I
thought I was doing pretty well by even acknowledging that he was important
enough for me to keep him informed in advance. It probably wasn’t the best of
strategies for an even worse plan, though.

In the end, however, I
decided it would be a great test for us. I would find out how he would really handle
me taking and keeping control over my life. Even if we stayed together forever,
I would never sign over my entire existence to him. I was a person, not a
handbag. I wasn’t some trendy accessory to make him look good. I had to
maintain my own life and happiness, just as he had to maintain his. Being
together only meant we should be ourselves with each other. With that would
come a lot of compromise. Ideally, I would support him in things that I
wouldn’t necessarily like, just as he was supposed to be doing for me. Would we
actually be able to work together through something he didn’t like? I didn’t
know. I knew I would eventually make a decision that he would hate, maybe even
more than this one. That was a part of life. From my experience with it in the
past, he got mad to the point that I would have to leave to avoid a fight. What
if we had been living together? How would he handle it when there was nowhere for
me to run to? It wasn’t as if I would be able to take a break from pregnancy
and just leave a developing fetus outside the door until he calmed down.

And what would he do if
later on down the road, I got pregnant with our own? I couldn’t figure out if he
was just upset because of the surrogacy or if he was against all pregnancies.
All I knew for sure was that he was mad that I was willing to be pregnant
without even having sex with him. What if that wasn’t all he was mad about?
What if all he wanted was a sexual relationship. What if he didn’t want a
family, like I eventually did?

And why was I starting
to stress myself out over things that wouldn’t matter anytime soon? I wasn’t
ready for sex or a family. I was more or less doing a job. I was to carry a
baby and then give it back. The end. No use reading further into it or my
boyfriend’s reaction to it.

I laughed to myself, as
I got ready for work. If everything went as planned, I’d be a pregnant virgin.
I wasn’t sure if it was hilarious or pathetic. Only one person in history could
pull off a virgin birth without looking pathetic, and it sure wasn’t me. But at
least I’d be pathetic by choice.

Chapter Eleven

Connor

My first class of the
morning started about the same as any other. Well, any other in
recent
days, anyways. It had been a little over a month since Charlie had gone in for
the insertion part of the IVF process, and I kept my hopes high that it would
successfully implant. The wait was excruciating, but I knew that bothering
Charlie about it wouldn’t speed anything up. She simply didn’t have any news to
give me. I chose to distract myself by turning my classes back around into
something more enjoyable for both me and my students. It was about time they’d
actually learned something, anyways.

Half the class hung on
my every word. Charlie, of course, was part of that half. The other half,
however … Yeah, I wasn’t sure they would even pass at bare minimum. The glazed
over eyes and the minimal attention span didn’t look too promising. But I’d
slacked off up until that point. I’d given passing grades to failing students,
just to keep my ratings up and the number of repeat students down with no added
effort on my part. It was my own fault for setting that standard. All I could
do was try to turn it back around. If they followed my lead, great. If not …