The Offering (3 page)

I had just scribbled a note to ask Mama Isa about suntan lotion when a hugely pregnant woman came toward the register, one arm holding her shopping basket, the other supporting her back. The woman looked slightly familiar, but I couldn't place her face.

When she lifted her basket onto the counter, I tilted my head. “You look familiar. Do you attend Calvary Chapel? Or maybe you just shop here a lot.”

The woman smiled. “I've seen you in the car pool line at the Takahashi school. My little boy goes there.”

I nodded. “Okay, now it makes sense. This is my daughter's first year at the school.”

“I've noticed her—she's cute. Does she like the school?”

“Marilee loves it. And she's learned so much! I keep telling my husband we may have a budding Mozart on our hands, but he just laughs and tells me to rein in my imagination.” I shot a pointed glance at her protruding belly. “I see you're expecting another child. Your second?”

“This?” Her free hand fell protectively on the mound beneath her breasts. “This baby is responsible for my being here—I've a
desperate craving for flan. Though I don't know why I'm eating anything. I feel like I'm about to pop.”

I studied her belly again. “When's your baby due?”

“Any day—and it's not my baby.”

I had been about to lift a can of evaporated milk from her basket, but my hand froze in midair. “Did you say—Wait. What did you say?”

The woman pressed her hand to her back again and grimaced. “This kid belongs to a couple in D.C. As soon as I feel the first honest-to-goodness contraction, I'm calling them so they can fly down. And I don't mind telling you, I'm more than ready to see my feet again.”

I lifted a brow, then rang up the
leche evaporada
and a package of flan mix. “So the other couple is adopting your baby?”

She gave me a weary look, wordlessly letting me know she'd been asked the question before. “It's
their
baby—they defrosted a frozen embryo and I'm carrying it for them. A friend of mine convinced me this would be a good gig for a military wife.” The woman reached for a bag of merengue puffs and tossed it onto the counter. “Those look good, too.”

“They are good.” I ran the puffs under my scanner and stuffed them into a grocery bag, glad to hear the woman and I had something else in common. “Your husband's stationed at MacDill?”

“He's in Afghanistan. By the time he gets leave, I should have my figure back.”

“So . . . you're a surrogate?”

The woman shifted her weight and leaned forward, bracing her arms on the checkout counter. “That term's gone out of fashion because it usually means the birth mom is supplying the egg. No couple wants Mary Beth Whitehead drama, so most intended parents either supply the egg or buy it from an egg farm.”

I shrugged to hide my confusion. “Wow. I had no idea that kind of thing went on around here.”

“It goes on everywhere, I guess. Most people just don't talk about it.”

“But you do?”

The woman tossed the Cuban version of a Twinkie into her basket. “Lots of women on the base do. Surrogacy agencies love military wives because they know we tend to be independent, we have access to great health care, and our husbands are underpaid. Plus, they're always saying we have an unusual willingness to serve others. While I don't know about
that,
all the other stuff adds up to a lot of willing women.”

The word
underpaid
vibrated in my head. “You do this for money,” I whispered, thinking aloud.

“Not only for money.” A suggestion of annoyance flashed in her eyes. “I'm doing it to help a couple who couldn't have kids otherwise.”

“Oh, I'm not blaming you,” I added quickly, “because I know how it feels to stretch a dollar until it rips. I don't fault you at all, in fact, I think what you're doing is great. You're doing it to help your family, right?”

“Why else would I go through this kind of agony?” The woman stepped back, looked pointedly at her bulging belly, and gave me a lopsided smile. “Trust me—at first it's all about helping a childless couple, but as the months go by that good feeling fades and you keep reminding yourself that you're doing something good for
your
kids. By the time I hand over this baby, I'll have earned as much in nine months as my husband does in a year. Helping other people is great, but helping your family is better.”

I snapped my fingers as a realization took shape. “The base—you must shop at the PX.”

“When I'm not shopping at Walmart, yeah.”

“Maybe I'll see you again. Marilee and I shop there every couple of weeks.”

“Well, I hope I'm skinny the next time you see me. I can't wait to pop this baby out.”

My mind bulged with noisy thoughts as I finished ringing up the woman's order and ran her credit card through the machine.
“Good luck with your delivery,” I said, handing over her grocery bag. “I hope things go smoothly for you.”

“They had better.” Her mouth lifted in a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. “I'm giving these people nine months of my life. That's enough.”

I crossed my arms as the woman slowly waddled out of the store. Amelia stepped out from behind a display and followed my gaze as I watched our heavily pregnant customer get into her car.

“Who was that?” Amelia's brow wrinkled. “And isn't she about to drop that kid?”

“Her husband's in Afghanistan, and her son goes to Marilee's school.” I turned to face my cousin. “We were just talking about her pregnancy.”

“I was wondering if we should call an ambulance. She looks like she's at least a week overdue.”

I didn't answer, but stared at my cousin as a series of thoughts toppled like dominoes in my brain. Gideon and I needed money, we were a military family, and I had time and a strong constitution. We wanted other children, but not right away, so I could carry a baby for someone else. I'd have to do some research and convince the family, though, and Amelia knew
la familia
better than I did. I could talk Gideon into almost anything, but the other members of his clan weren't as susceptible to my powers of persuasion. . . .

“What?” Amelia's expression shifted to alarm. “Something wrong with my face?”

“I need a coffee break.” I uncrossed my arms. “Want to come with me?”

The question hung in the air between us, shimmering with significance, and Amelia seemed to understand that I didn't really want coffee at all. “Jenna!” she finally called. “Can you watch the register a few minutes?”

“I'm busy.”

“Mario?”

“Claro. Un momento.”

We waited until Mario stepped out from behind the meat counter, then I led Amelia toward the back of the store.

Amelia and I stepped out into a blindingly bright Florida morning. November had brought cooler temperatures, and with it the promise of something resembling winter, but not even the appearance of decorator pumpkins, dried cornstalks, and harvest scarecrows could convince our tropical sun that autumn had arrived.

Amelia sank into one of the cheap plastic chairs by the back door, Mama Isa's idea of furnishing an employee break room. “So what's on your mind?” Amelia said. “Mama said you might be needing a raise.”

“I don't want a raise.” I pulled the other chair into the thin strip of shade cast by the overhanging roof. “But Gid and I do need extra money. Marilee's tuition will go up every year, and her teacher has already mentioned that we need to think about buying her a piano. I wouldn't worry about finances if I had the sort of job I thought I'd get after college, but I can't get anything close to that until I finish and get my degree. Going back to school will cost money we don't have.”

Amelia propped her sneakered feet on an overturned plastic bucket. “Things are tough all over. Mario and I are trying to tighten our belts, too. Someday this store will be ours, so if we invest in it—”

“Gideon and I can't wait to invest, we need more income now.”

Amelia hauled her gaze from the shrubs behind the store and squinted at me. “What's your hurry?”

I shook my head. “We've been married five years and we've never had a home to call our own. I'm sick of renting. And there's Marilee's school; the tuition goes up every year. Finally, we want to have more kids someday, in a house with a real backyard and room for a dog.”

Amelia nodded. “Have you thought about a loan?”

“We applied for a loan a few months ago; the bank turned us down.”

“You could talk to Mama or Elaine or Abuela Yanela—”

“Gideon doesn't want to borrow money from the family. He says his parents and grandparents worked hard to get what they have, so he's not about to take it from them, not even as a loan.”

Amelia pressed her lips together, then shrugged. “If you're planning to ask me and Mario, I hate to disappoint you, but—”

“I didn't bring you out here to ask for money. I came because I wanted to ask your advice about something.”

Her mouth twitched with amusement. “I would advise you not to clean out the cash register.”

“Don't be silly. I was thinking about that pregnant woman.”

“Whatever for?”

“Because she's not pregnant with her own child—she's having a baby for some people in D.C. It's their kid. She's only carrying it.”

Amelia gaped at me like a woman facing an IRS audit. “Don't tell me you think
that's
a good idea.”

I blinked, momentarily intimidated by the intensity of her reaction. “I don't know what I think. First, I don't know if I could do it. When you're pregnant, you're so aware of everything the baby is doing—you can feel it moving, kicking, and turning around. I'm not sure, but I think I could even tell when Marilee burped. I sang to her, I stroked her through my skin, I was so completely in love with her. . . .”

A warning cloud settled on Amelia's features. “Would you have been in love with her if she belonged to someone else?”

She asked the question I'd been avoiding. “I don't know. I don't know how I'd feel. The idea never crossed my mind until today.”

We sat in silence for a long while, then Amelia leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “You're seriously thinking about this?”

“I think maybe I am. The money's good.”

She snorted. “It's crazy. Who does that? Ordinary people do not rent out their uteruses. Or uteri. Whatever the word is.”

“But apparently it happens a lot these days. Maybe more often than we realize, and right under our noses. It's just not talked about.”

“You don't think people would notice if someone showed up with a baby when they were stick thin the week before?”

“Maybe they'd assume her kid had been adopted.”

“What about a woman who walked around with a big belly and then—
poof
—she was thin and childless? And flashing a wad of cash?”

“Maybe her belly and her finances are nobody's business. All I know is the money is really, really good. It's enough to solve our problems, at least for a while. And I think it's enough for a down payment on a house.”

Amelia leaned back and closed her eyes. “I didn't know you and Gideon wanted more kids.”

“Sure we do, but we have to be able to afford them. Right now we can't even afford to eat out more than once a month, so how could we pay for another baby?”

“You have good insurance.”

“It's not the hospital expense that kills us, it's the
living
expense. It's schools and college funds and clothing and all the gadgets kids want these days—it adds up. Once I have my degree and a good job we could get pregnant again. Then we might have a couple more kids.”

Amelia sighed and appeared to study her hands. “I don't know,
prima
. A baby is a gift from God, so maybe that privilege shouldn't be for sale.”

“Couldn't God work through a surrogate? He works through doctors to help people overcome infertility. Why couldn't he work through a surrogate to help a couple have a baby?”

“Okay, but it's so expensive! It hardly seems fair that some people can buy a biological baby when other people try so
hard
to have one—”

“Those would be the people I want to help.” I leaned toward her, eager to make her see my point of view. “Infertility is on the rise, haven't you heard? And this is a way to do something for those people. Just think—I could help create a family for a couple who can't have their own babies.”

“You want to have a baby for a poor woman? There's no money in that, Cousin.”

I stared into space, lost in my thoughts, and then realized that Amelia had risen and was opening the back door.

“I think the idea is
loco,
” she said, her voice drained and distant. “And I think Gideon would hate the thought of his wife being pregnant with some other guy's child. You forget you married a Latin man,
chica.
”

“That's a stereotype.”

“Stereotypes exist because they are usually true.” Amelia stepped into the doorway, then hesitated. “Better get back to the register. Mario has meat to cut, and he won't be happy if you make him stay too long at the checkout.”

“I'm coming.” I sighed and stood to follow her, but my thoughts remained miles away.

Somehow I made it through the rest of the morning without spilling my thoughts to everyone who crossed my path. I left the grocery at two, picked up Marilee from preschool, then went home and put her down for a nap. When she had dozed off, I went to the laptop in the kitchen and clicked on the Google icon. I typed “surrogate mother” in the search box, then sat back and watched the screen fill up with links.