Raising Rain (15 page)

Bebe's cell phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket and turned off the alarm. “I'm scheduled for surgery this morning. Oh, here.” She dug deeper in her pocket and produced a slip of paper. “It's Scott's address. Sorry I didn't get it to you sooner. He called us last Sunday.” She gathered her purse and they headed for the door as she filled Rain in on the phone call. “He sounded good, but of course, moms never stop worrying.”

Outside, Rain gave Bebe a hug before she left. “You're a good mom.”

Bebe hugged her back. “I try to be. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Rain answered.

As she drove to work, Rain felt warmed by Bebe's motherly affection. She wondered what it was that kept Jude from being the mother Rain had always wanted and needed her to be, and which one she would naturally emulate—Bebe or Jude—if given the chance to mother a child.

Bebe talked to Neil that night about connecting with Hayden to encourage him not to give up on the relationship. She had hoped Hayden would change his mind himself, but when she heard that he had officially moved out, she became disheartened. Neil wasn't sure it would make any difference, or that Hayden would even agree to meet with him, but he promised to try.

Bebe checked the mailbox on Thursday, hoping to find their weekly letter from Scott. Inside, among the bills and junk mail, was a white envelope with the eagle, globe, and anchor in the corner and Scott's handwriting. He had established a schedule of writing on Sundays, which was his only day off, and mailing his letters in time to arrive on Thursdays. It gave her a thrill to hold this paper that Scott had held and written his thoughts on, and she grinned like silly, smitten woman.

She opened the envelope, slid out the single lined sheet, and began reading on her way back to the house. “Dear Mom and Dad,” it began.
What followed was a brief rundown of his normal day-to-day activities and comments that he'd lost weight and wasn't getting enough sleep. He sounded distracted and perfunctory, and she thought he was just tired until she got to the end. He said that Uncle Bobby had sent him a letter and given him some things to think about.

Rain laid two complete outfits on her bed and stood back with her arms crossed. Which one should she wear on a first date? She considered the blousy babydoll-peasant top, but decided that it might not be a good choice if Craig had gotten a good look at the donor site on her computer. Her indigo jeans would work if the temperature dropped when the sun went down, but by then, she could have a very embarrassing heat rash going on. She knew it was an open-air concert and that the weather could stay sultry, or drop from blazing hot to a chilly 60 degrees in the space of a few hours.

She had to admit that she was also worried about what to wear in case she ran into Hayden. What would she have worn if it were Hayden instead of Craig who was picking her up? A screen-printed T-shirt and capris with sandals and a lightweight zippered sweatshirt for the evening. Rain and Hayden no longer felt the need to impress each other. It wasn't a bad thing—it was just familiar. Comfortable.

She decided to go for comfort and dressed up her simple T-shirt and capris with dangly earrings and a necklace. As it turned out, Craig dressed for comfort too, and she pocketed the earrings when she saw him come up the driveway.

At the amphitheater, she scanned the crowd to the point of distraction and finally quit after Craig asked her who she was looking for. She never saw Hayden. They had a nice time, but Rain established a comfortable distance between them from the start and he didn't even try to hold her hand. He must have known about Hayden and was smart enough to figure out that she wasn't ready for a new relationship yet. She wouldn't even let him walk her to her door, but insisted that
she could just hop out. She gave a wave as she went in and closed the door behind her.

She dropped her purse on the counter, kicked off her shoes, and set out some catfood for Noah. He preened as she put a dollop of mashed salmon into his bowl. She reached down and stroked him as he dove into it. “Well,
that's
over,” she said.

Would it get easier to be with other guys that she really didn't have a “thing” for, or should she wait until she found someone who made her feel the way she did with Hayden? Did lightning ever strike twice?

If she wanted a baby, she decided, she may have to settle for making lightning of her own.

Rain breathed a sigh of relief to find that this time the waiting room at Dr. Lazenby's office was devoid of women in their third trimesters. She explained to the doctor about her desire for a child, her recent change to single status, and lack of candidates for fatherhood. Since it was determined that she would need a sperm donor and artificial insemination, the doctor recommended a fertility clinic that she knew had good results. Dr. Lazenby gave her a physical exam to rule out obvious reasons why she wouldn't be able to conceive and carry a child to full term. She told her to begin charting her ovulating cycles by taking her basal temperature each morning before she got out of bed. In conjunction with that, she suggested that Rain buy ovulation predictor kits (OVPs) that tested the levels of luteinizing hormone in her urine and were more accurate than taking her temperature alone. She gave Rain a lab slip for a complete blood workup and said she would forward the results to whatever clinic Rain decided to use.

Gathering this information in advance would help her to expedite things. Dr. Lazenby gave her some literature to read and told her to go ahead and call for an appointment with a fertility clinic, since there could be a waiting list.

Rain left the doctor's office feeling a mixture of excitement and
frustration. At last she was making progress on having a baby, but if it took months just to get an appointment at the fertility clinic, taking her body temperature would be like slogging through wet cement, and she felt that time was not on her side.

She stopped at a drugstore on her way to work where she didn't normally shop to purchase a basal thermometer and an ovulation kit. She placed the kit on the floor of her backseat and covered the bag with a blanket she pulled from the trunk. Later, on her lunch hour, she checked out the clinic Dr. Lazenby had suggested and was encouraged by their success rates, although their prices were a shock. She set up an appointment for mid-October, which fortunately, was a cancellation that had occurred just that morning. Rain wondered whether the cancellation had been the result of a successful pregnancy, or of a woman accepting defeat.

Rain found herself making mental notes about the guys she saw at work. It was always possible that she could save some money by getting one of them to agree to be a donor instead of paying lots of money to the cryobank. She tried to stay open-minded about which ones had the potential to be a good donor. There was Luke from Accounting, who was attractive and smart and moving to the top of her list, until she cruised by his cubicle to find him playing Warcraft online during his lunch hour. David was a junior attorney and his stock was rising within the firm, from what she'd overheard, but then she saw him with a Spice-girl-type stick in three-inch heels and decided he probably wasn't the right type. Kyle, the FedEx delivery guy, was a hunk and obviously spent a lot of time at the gym, but he had the imprint of an absent wedding band on his left hand and a roving eye. He was either freshly caught-and-released, or was a shark cruising shallow waters.

There was also Craig. He was sweet, and she'd had a nice time at the concert. He wasn't on the “no” list, and she couldn't really find any objections to him except for the fact that he was boring. On a color scale, he was a gray winter's day. He told her about his Saturday fly tying class and his favorites, the woolly bugger and the Montana nymph. They worked best for trout, pike, and walleyes. At Starbucks,
he preferred frou-frou macchiato drinks to a good cup of Kona or a strong Caffe Verona, and he bought his clothes online because he couldn't stand to shop at the Galleria. Ever. The worst part was that she sensed that he was interested in her. He would interpret being approached as a donor to be an overture for a relationship. If he agreed, he would want contact with the baby, she was sure. She wasn't in it for the relationship—she was in it for the baby. Plain and simple.

She stopped by the mall on her way home from work and looked at the new fall fashions at Macy's. Soon the weather would be turning cool again, and she saw some things she liked, but reasoned that she shouldn't spend the money in light of her tenuous financial situation.

She wandered down to the baby department to see what was new. She found an adorable pink sweater in a delicate knit with rosebuds, and a matching hat. She ran her hand over the soft weave and breathed in its scent. She could imagine baby powder and saltines. Maybe Cheerios. She took it to the counter and charged it to her Visa card. The clerk exclaimed that it was the prettiest sweater they had, and she carefully wrapped it in tissue before bagging it up. She asked Rain if it was for her, and she answered that it was for a friend.

When she got home, she went into the spare bedroom and opened the dresser. In the top drawer, neatly folded, lay pale yellow baby blankets, onesies with ducks and bunnies, and dresses with tiny collars. Soft terrycloth toys, designer baby shoes in supple pink leather, and a Hello Kitty pacifier were tucked in between the stacks. She pulled the new sweater from the Macy's bag and pulled away the tissue paper. She refolded it gently so that the tiny buttons would show in the front and carefully placed it in the stack. Reverently, she closed the drawer.

It had only been a little over three weeks since Dylan left for college, but Bebe felt a surge of joy at the prospect of having one of her boys at home again. The Friday afternoon before Labor Day was slow, so she left work early. Next Tuesday morning, the fun would begin.
Someone's pet always ended up with allergy issues, foxtails, or injuries after a long weekend of fun.

When Dylan's car pulled into the driveway, Bebe was taking a pan of brownies out of the oven. They were his favorites, and made the house smell wonderful.