The Offering (17 page)

“I know that, too. I've been praying it happens quickly for her.”

“Ah, yes. We are all praying. Many prayers. And we are confident God will answer.” Mama Isa leaned forward and looked at me from the corner of her eye. “You still have the cradle from Tumelo and Elaine? That Gideon used when he was a baby?”

I nodded again, but more slowly this time. When Marilee was born, my in-laws had been kind enough to give me Gideon's baby bed. The beautiful oak cradle had been hand carved and stained in a rich, warm color. Someday I hoped to pass it down to Marilee and her children.

But the gleam in Mama Isa's eye set off my internal alarm system.

“Would it not be nice”—Mama Isa leaned closer—“if you gave Amelia the cradle for her baby? She would love to use it, I know.”

I stiffened. Give away Gideon's cradle? It had come from
his
side of the family, not Isa's, so it belonged to us. Gideon had been rocked in it, and so had Marilee. The next baby to use it should be from my branch of the family tree.

“Um, maybe Amelia would rather have her own cradle—something she could give to her children. Or maybe you have Amelia's bassinet up in the attic? Maybe Yanela has your old cradle stashed away someplace—”

Mama Isa shook her head. “My
madre
kept us in a dresser drawer when we were babies, and I never had a cradle for Amelia. Elaine, she had money, so she bought a cradle for Gideon.” Isa's expression took on a wistful look, and I knew she wanted a promise from me. But how could I give up something so precious? The cradle belonged to me and Gideon, and within a couple of years I hoped to lay our son in it.

“I tell you what.” I forced a smile and patted Mama Isa's hand. “When Amelia gets word about her baby, we'll see if she still needs a cradle—maybe she won't, if the child she adopts is older. But if she needs one, we can have a baby shower and pitch in to buy her a cradle. That way she can have an heirloom for her children.”

Mama Isa nodded, but the spark had gone out of her eyes. Apparently my suggestion was a sorry alternative.

But that heirloom cradle belonged in my family, and I wouldn't—couldn't—give it up for love or money.

Much to my dismay, apparently every woman in Tampa kept her appointment with Dr. Hawthorn during the last weeks of April. The receptionist never called to tell me about an available opening, and when I called to see if anyone had canceled, the receptionist just laughed. I was in no hurry to go back to the doctor, but Simone was eager to know if they should expect one baby or two.

“I don't want to pressure you,” she told me on the phone one afternoon. “But surely you can understand our longing to know if you're carrying twins.”

“Oh, I understand,” I assured her. “But I don't know what to do about it, unless you want me to change doctors.”

“No, no,” Simone answered quickly. “If this is the doctor you know and like, then you should stay with him.”

“It's a
her,
” I said. “And she delivered Marilee, so I know she's good.”

“Then I will try to be patient. As will Damien.”

I told Simone good-bye and hung up, knowing she was thinking of their second surrogate, the woman who said they were too demanding. The Amblours had asked very little of me so far, and I knew they were terrified of stressing me to the point where I might lose the baby. I didn't think they had to worry—my stomach was still queasy and my breasts still tender, so I was certainly still pregnant—but I understood their reluctance to press me unnecessarily.

Yet I was also curious. Was my still-flat belly home to one little baby or two?

On the eighth of May, the date of my OB appointment and ultrasound, I groaned when Gideon shook me awake. The room spun around me, my stomach churned, and I knew that if I
attempted to speak or stand, I'd throw up. I could barely lift my hand to warn Gideon away.

No wonder I'd spent the night dreaming that I lay on a bobbing, spinning life raft.

“I can't . . . go anywhere,” I whispered, carefully portioning out my words. “Call Amelia . . . won't be in.”

Gideon dropped to the edge of the bed, compressing the mattress and unintentionally threatening my fragile equilibrium. “Won't you feel better in the afternoon? Or is this something other than morning sickness?”

I barely had the strength to answer. “Don't know . . . but
sick.
Leave . . . don't . . . make me talk.”

“Can I get you anything? Do you want something to eat?”

Gideon learned a lesson that morning: never mention food to a woman with an unsettled stomach.

My strength had returned by that afternoon, so I showered, dressed, and went to my OB's office. Dr. Hawthorn met me in the exam room and smiled as we listened to the quick, pulsing heartbeat of an unborn baby.

“Are you sure there aren't two heartbeats?” I asked, thinking of Simone's longing for twins. “They implanted two embryos.”

The doctor shot me a sideways glance. “Were you hoping for twins?”

Until she asked, I hadn't realized how much I
had
been hoping for twins. Simone and Damien wanted children, so why not give them two at once?

I sighed and leaned back on the table, realizing that the spotting I had noticed might have resulted from the death of the second fetus. I couldn't know for sure, but the timing seemed about right.

“I only want a healthy baby.” I bent one arm to pillow my head. “One is fine.”

Gideon would be glad to hear I was definitely carrying a
singleton. “One would be so much easier for you,” he'd told me that morning. “I don't want you doing anything dangerous. Leave the risk taking to me, will you?”

I blinked the memory away as the doctor reluctantly shook her head. “I'd show you on the ultrasound, but our machine is out of commission at the moment. I'm only hearing one heartbeat, but it's nice and strong. How are you feeling?”

I shrugged. “Like any pregnant woman, I suppose. I'm more tired than usual, I have strange cravings, I have to pee all the time, my breasts are tender, and my mood can turn on a dime.”

Dr. Hawthorn chuckled. “Sounds like you're feeling normal. Anything unusual?”

“I had some spotting a couple of weeks ago,” I confessed, gripping the edge of the exam table. “Scared me to death, but it only lasted a few hours. And I had spotting with Marilee, too.”

“Apparently it was nothing to worry about.” The doctor made a note on my chart, then told me I could sit up. “I know any kind of unusual bleeding is scary, but everything looks and sounds good.” She moved toward the counter where she would write out her notes. “I'll have my office call the Surrogacy Center to report a heartbeat. I know that milestone is important to your clients.”

I thanked her as I sat up, realizing that the Amblours and I had reached a financial checkpoint: my monthly surrogacy payment would rise to twenty-four hundred dollars once the doctor confirmed a fetal heartbeat.

Good news indeed.

The day before Mother's Day, I sent a cute e-card to Simone. In the message box I typed,
Wishing you a Happy Mother's Day this year and for many years to come.

Gideon and Marilee made me a delicious breakfast in bed the next morning, then my husband and his duffel bag disappeared. This time, I knew, he'd be gone several weeks. According to the
news reports, our work in Afghanistan was far from finished, so he and his team would be going back to continue working against enemies of truth, justice, and the American way—or whatever their shadowy bosses ordered them to do.

I spent the rest of May trying to be a good military wife. Marilee and I quietly tied a yellow ribbon around the skinny tree in our front yard and tried to carry on. We spent a lot of time at Mama Isa's, where the family accepted our presence as if we belonged there.

At dinner one night someone mentioned a rumor that had surfaced in the grocery store: the expats had heard Castro was dead. Gordon and Yanela were thrilled by the report, but Tumelo didn't believe it.

“Nothing in the press about Castro being on his deathbed,” he said, saving a newspaper before Gordon's eyes. “If it were true, it'd be on the headline news. No one has confirmed anything.”

Not wanting to explain Castro's atrocities to Marilee, I sent her into the living room to play Mama Isa's old upright piano. As she plunked the yellowed keys, I propped my elbows on the table and tried to follow the conversation. Neither Gideon nor I reacted as passionately to news about Castro as the older generation did, but we hadn't lived under his regime.

“None of us knew Castro was a communist when he took power,” Gordon proclaimed. “We thought he was a patriot, a nationalist. But then he and the government took control of everything, beginning with big industries. Then they came for the small merchants, then they came for our homes. Soon he had turned a proud and prosperous people into slaves. Those who did not agree with him were imprisoned . . . or murdered.”

“¿Te acuerdas?”
Yaritza spoke up, her eyes glowing with the distant light of happy memories. She spoke quickly in Spanish, her voice wavering with emotion as Mama Isa translated for my benefit. “Cuba was so beautiful in those days. The Teatro Nacional was outlined in lightbulbs and lit up the night. Havana was famous for
its exotic nightclubs, cabarets, and shopping. The Paseo de Martí was as pretty and modern as anything you'd find in Chicago or New York.”

“Recuerdo.”
Gordon nodded. “But these young people”—his hand swept across the table, taking in me, Mario, and Amelia—“they have no idea. Living in a free country has spoiled them. So many riches here! And so few appreciate them.”

We who had never lived under Castro or communism maintained a respectful silence as Gordon's hot eyes raked over us. “Castro is as much a tyrant as he ever was. Eleven million people his family keeps in slavery.” His snapping eyes trained on me. “Did you know his regime keeps ninety-eight percent of the money from foreign contracts and gives only two percent to the workers?”

I swallowed hard and shook my head. Experience had taught me that Gordon could not be distracted when the subject of Castro came up, but I had to admire the man's passion.

Business at the grocery picked up over the next few days as Cuban expatriates stopped by to talk about Castro, his brother, and the faded glory of Cuba. And as I listened to them reminisce, I experienced an epiphany: to the expats, Cuba before Castro was an Eden, a beautiful place that had been spoiled and from which they were exiled.

My generation had its own Eden: America before September 11, 2001. We had taken so much for granted before terrorists destroyed our illusion of safety, and we would never be the same. Like my family's Cuban friends, we would always be exiled from those innocent days when we breezed through airport security with our soft drinks in hand. We now lived with what Gideon called our “new normal.”

If terrorism did not exist, my husband would not need to be a warrior. But Gideon would not always carry a gun. In eighteen months he would be finished with his tour, then he would walk away from the military and be a normal husband and father. I could be an ordinary civilian wife and not have to worry about
him being tortured and killed in some obscure region. I could cut up that blasted duffel bag and burn it on a trash heap.

As the days of May slipped away, Marilee's school year came to a close. The Lisandras and I attended her year-end recital on a Tuesday evening and sat patiently as other young musicians struggled through various classical pieces. When Marilee played a simplified version of Bach's
Minuet in G Major
on the school's grand piano, I applauded politely while Mario, Jorge, and Tumelo stomped and whistled their approval. But afterward I made Marilee stand next to the huge piano so I could snap her picture and email it to Gideon.

When we got home, I called Natasha Bray for my weekly check-in and sent a pleasant email to Simone Amblour. I had nothing new to report to either of them, but they were happy to know I was still doing well.

But after I put Marilee to bed that night, my world darkened when Fox News reported that an American contractor's body had been discovered in a shallow grave just outside Pakistan's borders. The corpse had been chopped into pieces.

I sat alone in the living room, shocked silent by the news, and couldn't help wondering if I would soon hear this kind of report about Gideon. I knew his work was dangerous, I knew he and his team members were elite warriors, but I also knew anything could go wrong during a mission. His jaunty little sayings—
Lead from the front, not from the rear
and
The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle—
had once made me smile, but now they colored my thoughts with gloom. I kept seeing Gideon running up a mountain at the head of his squad; I imagined him hit by rifle fire, I visualized him tumbling into the hands of ruthless captors who would beat him senseless and videotape his torture and murder for all the world to see.

Then I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and quietly went to pieces.

I tried to be strong during the long days when Gideon was away, but more than once that month I cried myself to sleep. On
the mornings I showed up at work with anguish in my eyes, Amelia would ask how I was doing. I always told her I was fine, but feeling a bit hormonal.

But I would have you know the truth. On those days, during those hours, I felt as though a vicious tumor had unfurled in my chest, taking up the room I needed to breathe. Only Gideon, only
normalcy,
could shrink it enough to fill my lungs with life-giving air.

I tried to soldier on, but every tear only proved once again that I wasn't cut out to be a warrior's wife.

On my way to my second OB appointment—when by my reckoning I had entered my second trimester—I picked Marilee up from Mama Isa's house and drove straight to Dr. Hawthorn's office.