Unexpecting (Unexpecting #1)

5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“The second child should be conceived not immediately, as it would place undue stress on the body, but so as to arrive within twenty-two to thirty-eight months of the first. This is to ensure the least amount of resentment and jealousy between the children and for them to feel secure in their place in the household. It is also beneficial to have one of each gender so as to ease any rivalry that may possibly occur.”

A Young Woman’s Guide to the Joy of Impending Motherhood

Dr. Francine Pascal Reid (1941)

T he idea of just going ahead and having a baby by myself was swirling madly in my head and making me so excited that I hadn’t had a chance to figure out the logistics. But I would. Even if it meant paying a visit to the friendly neighbourhood sperm bank, which was really not something you ever plan on doing. I mean, I’ve dreamt of having a baby for years, and in none of those dreams have I ever gone up to the counter and said, “One cup, please, and a turkey baster to go.” That’s not how they do it—at least I hope not. I needed to really look into this option if this was how it was going to go down. Maybe it would seem more appealing once I learned a little more. Because really, I couldn’t see any other way to do this.

But before I did anything, I went over to my sister’s to tell her what I’d decided .

My sister, Libby, has two beautiful children and therefore considers herself to be my superior when it comes to anything related to children. This is despite the fact that I have been a teacher for almost ten years. To Libby, if they didn’t come out of my womb, it doesn’t matter what I do with them. The main problem about this attitude—other than the annoyance factor—is that it’s my younger sister who has this wealth of experience with which she loves to regale me. I should have been the one who got married first, bought a house first, and had babies first, seeing as how I’m two years older. But, of course, things didn’t work that way for me.

Libby and I are pretty close considering how often sibling rivalry gets in the way. It’s not a big issue, just something we’re both aware of. We compete over everything. How many Christmas presents did you get? How old were you when you lost your virginity? How often do you go out partying? With the exception of the third, Libby’s had me beat for almost everything our whole lives. It’s quite tiring coming in second-best your whole life. If I didn’t feel such a huge wave of sisterly love at times, I’d put an end to Libby and I being friends and just do the whole see-you-on-the-holiday thing. But as strange as it sounds, I adore my sister. And her husband, Luke—who is the same age as me, and therefore should have married me—and especially her two kids, Max and Madison.

To me, Libby has the perfect life. It seems I may be a glutton for punishment since I spend so much time with her, but the truth is I’m closer to her than just about anyone. We may have fought constantly as children, but we were always there for each other during the Ed-the-alcoholic father years, and as Mom became Terri-with-an-I and began the rounds with her countless boyfriends. Libby even lived with me for a couple of months between school and marrying Luke.

″You just missed our mother,” Libby greeted me sourly as she opened the door.

″I’m devastated,” I said sarcastically. “Was she alone?”

″Do you think I’d let one of her boy-toys in my house?”

Libby and I have some issues with our mother.

My mother has spent every day since my father died celebrating being a single, attractive woman. It might be okay if she just decided to celebrate life and being alive by taking cruises with other single fifty-somethings or trying skydiving. Even canoeing down the Amazon would be preferable. But no, my mother decided she likes men more than anything else. To say she’s fun-loving is missing the point. My mother, formerly Mrs. Teresa Samms, now Terri-with-an-I, discovered she likes sex. She likes sex in a big way. While the feminist part of me thinks that’s always a good thing, the daughter part of me wishes Mom would keep her legs closed. The worst memory of my childhood wasn’t the day my father died, but the day six months later when I came home from school early to find Terri entwined in bed with Aaron, the sixteen-year-old boy who cut our grass and whom I had a huge crush on. What can I say? Mom likes them young.

Terri at fifty-three is still a good-looking woman. She had an almost instantaneous transformation from plain Jane Mom to voluptuous cougar when my father kicked the bucket, and for some reason, a great deal of men find cougars attractive. Unfortunately, these men are becoming closer to my age than hers.

Libby refuses to condone our mother’s lifestyle and won’t take her kids to visit Grandma anymore since there’s usually some evidence of this week’s “boyfriend” at her townhouse. Like when little Maddy found a vibrator—one of three, Terri confessed with a coquettish smile—underneath a cushion one Christmas morning. Terri didn’t even bat a false eyelash.

“What did dear Terri want?” I ask Libby, following her through the house. I left the new set of markers and a board book I brought for Maddy and Max on the kitchen counter and helped myself to an iced tea before heading outside, cringing as I looked around. Libby gives Martha Stewart a run for her money. It’s so perfect it’s nauseating. Everything matches, from the dishtowels hanging on the oven handle to the magnets on the fridge holding Madison’s artwork, to the Kleenex boxes and the curtains she made herself. I almost sigh with relief when I get outside, but the backyard is just as perfect. Libby describes herself as type A with perfectionist tendencies, but I say she’s anal retentive with a vengeance. It’s scary how we came from the same mother.

″She said she was in the neighbourhood. She positively reeked of CK One, so I bet she came from a sleepover. Eww. You can tell she was dying to tell me about it, but I didn’t ask. I had to give her lunch.” Libby sank to her knees on the lush green lawn to weed a patch of white and pink flowers. I think they’re called impatiens, but my gardening skills are very limited so I can’t be certain. Libby, of course, has five green fingers on both hands, and her gardens are works of art. But at least my knees don’t need constant exfoliation from crawling around on the ground like Libby’s.

“Well, I’m sorry I missed her.” I giggled inside. “Where’s Luke?” I asked as I pulled the lawn chair closer to Libby.

“He ran off to Home Depot while Terri was still here.” I noticed Libby had the baby monitor clipped on her belt. “We’re building a playset for Maddy.” Luke is deathly afraid of our mother, which is pretty funny to see. He’s such a sweet guy, sort of like a modern-day Luke Skywalker, without the lightsaber and super-cool Jedi powers. You just know he’d stick around to help blow up the Death Star with you. Unless he has to face off against his mother-in-law, and in that case, he’s out of there.

I watched as Libby separated the flowers with confident fingers, pulling only the intrusive weeds out of the soil. She and Luke bought the house in Leaside two years ago, doing extensive renovations to create the home they wanted. And, of course, while lots of couples constantly bicker and may even split up over the stress of DIY (do-it-yourself renovations), the experience only brought Luke and Libby closer together. My sister definitely has a charmed life.

″The kids?” I began hesitantly, not knowing exactly how to broach the subject of me providing a cousin for them. It was easier telling Cooper and J.B. With them, I just blurted it out and enjoyed their confusion. With Libby, because she has kids, it’s a lot more serious. Plus her opinion holds a little more weight because she’s family. “The whole mother thing—that’s a good thing, right?”

Libby sat back on her heels and looked at me like I was on crack. “Why?” Her blonde hair was pulled off of her face into a thick ponytail, enhancing her heart-shaped face and sprinkling of freckles. No one who meets us believes we’re sisters. Libby is small, blonde, and cute, with a figure that automatically stretches back into shape only weeks after giving birth. On the other hand, I am tall, with real-woman-size hip and chest measurements, which easily expand without constant vigilance.

My best—and worst—feature, depending on how much time I have when I’m getting ready, is my hair. I’ve been blessed—or cursed—with masses and masses of red curly hair hanging below my shoulders, like that Scottish girl in Brave. And like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Actually, not to brag, but when that movie came out, I heard a fair number of comparisons between myself and the lovely Ms. Roberts. Not that I’m at all beautiful like she is—Julia Roberts is gorgeous, and I’m just me. I may not be Top Model material, but I don’t make dogs howl when I walk by. Anyway, there are some similarities—I’m about the same height, and I’ve got one of those huge, wide mouths with the upper lip a little fuller than the bottom one. I don’t think Julia Roberts’s face and body are covered with freckles, though. I consider them the bane of my existence.

My most interesting feature, I think, is my eyes. They’re perfectly almond-shaped with thick black lashes—uncommon in a redhead—and one is blue and the other is hazel, like one of those Siberian husky dogs. I guess I’m okay to look at. But I have to admit that I have a set of spectacular breasts. I really think that’s why I get all the male attention I do. They look at the chest first and stick around to check out the rest of me.

I stopped comparing myself to Libby since she was still staring at me, waiting for a response. “It’s, well, because I want to have a baby,” I told her quickly.

″Yes, I know.” Libby’s tone told me everyone in the known universe must know of my desire to have a baby. “What else is new?”

″What do you think about me having a baby now?” I asked as casually as I could.

″You’re pregnant?” she cried loud enough to wake the baby inside the house.

″No! Not yet anyway. But last night I went to this wedding and found Mike hooking up with someone else, and then I got all drunk and came home and started blubbering on J.B. and then ended up having sex with him—”

″Really?” Libby asked gleefully.

″Don’t sound so happy. It wasn’t my finest moment. But it made me realize that I’m just wasting my life. There’s no one out there for me—no one that I would want to have a baby with. And then I thought, what am I waiting for? I’m just getting older, and it’s going to get harder to meet decent men because they’re all either emotionally warped or divorced or both…”

″And you think you can manage to have a baby by yourself?”

″Thanks to the advancements in science, there are options these days. It makes sense, you know.”

″What does? I think you lost me when you said you had sex with J.B. What was that like?” Libby asked, practically drooling for details.

″It was lovely, but don’t get me off topic when I’m on a roll. I got thinking about everything last night, and then it just came to me—I’ll go and get artificially inseminated and then…” I trailed off when I realized Libby was looking at me with something akin to horror. “What? It makes sense!”

″Why on earth,” she whispered, “would you want to have a baby now?”

″You have a baby,” I pointed out. “You have two of them, actually, and you seem pretty happy. ”

″Yes, but you’re not me.” Libby yanked out a few blades of grass that dared to invade her flowers with enough vengeance to send nuggets of dirt flying over her shoulder toward me.

″What’s that supposed to mean?”

″It means,” Libby said heavily, sitting back on her heels, “that you’re a single woman.”

″So?” So much for thinking it might be a good idea to talk to my sister!

″I mean, Casey, you have so much freedom in your life. You can do whatever you want! You can move to England for a year if you want to, you can sleep-in all day and not worry about feeding everyone and doing the laundry, and you can go out any night and hook up with whomever you want! You’ve got it all—you’re still young and pretty and you’re not tied down to anyone.”

If I didn’t know better, it might have sounded like Libby was somewhat jealous of my life.

″It’s not all it’s cut out to be,” I told her awkwardly. “It’s hard, dating and meeting guys, and…” Again, I trailed off.

Now Libby’s eyes looked like icy blue slits, and her whole expression resembled the one I’d seen our mother make on occasion. Not that I would ever tell Libby that if I hoped to have her speak to me again. “Are you complaining about being independent? About not having to answer to anyone, not being responsible for anything but feeding your cat? Have you seriously thought about how much work is involved in raising a child? And how much it would change your life? Sure, you love them and all, but it’s hard work. Seriously hard. And frustrating—so frustrating that you’ll find yourself crying in a closet or screaming your head off into a pillow when no one will go to sleep. Not to mention keeping a marriage going with two kids. And you think you can manage on your own?”

″I think I can. I see you—”

″You don’t see anything!” Libby burst out. “You don’t see me getting up five times in the night and still have to be bright-eyed at 7:00 a.m. to get ready for work. You don’t know how expensive kids’ clothes are; you don’t know what it’s like to buy new shoes every other month! You’ve never had to discipline your own child, and you don’t know how it breaks your heart when you make them cry because they’ve done something bad! You have no idea what it’s like to be totally and absolutely responsible for not only the well-being of a child, but their entire life—if they get hurt, get sick, or anything horrible that may happen to them! You just swarm in and spoil them and think you know what it’s like to raise kids. Well, you don’t, not until you have to go through twenty hours of labour and then, that’s just the beginning! You think it’s another hobby, something you want now, but wait six months from now, and you’re all fat and miserable, or two years from now when you’ve got a toddler screaming at the top of her lungs in Toys R Us.”

Libby went back to pulling out weeds. I didn’t say anything until I saw her pull out a pink flower by accident.

″So you’re not happy with being a mother?” I asked cautiously.

″Of course, I am,” Libby barked. “How can you say such a thing?”

″Well, from the sound of it…”

″I love my kids,” my sister said firmly. “I love my life, but I need you to know that it’s not a bed of roses all the time. It’s hard and it’s frustrating, and sometimes it just saps the energy out of you.”

″But it’s worth it?”

″Of course it is,” Libby sighed.

″Well, then, why are you trying to scare me off?” I cried. “You know it’s what I’ve always wanted. I’ve been ready for years, spending all this time trying to get the right guy, and you know what? I’m sick of it! Sick of dates and having to be all cute and likable and listen to guys drone on and on about what super studs they are in the bedroom and the boardroom, when all I want to do is find someone who likes the same things as I do and will take me to a stupid movie or dinner at a place I like. And then get me pregnant.”

″Just like that, you think? It’s no wonder they all run screaming when you mention the word.”

″They don’t go screaming,” I argued. “Well, maybe some, but others are long gone before I even think of them as a father.”

″I have to tell you, Casey,” Libby continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “after having a baby, your body never goes back to the way it was.”

″You are just trying to scare me.”

″I’m trying to make sure you know what you’re doing,” Libby corrected, speaking as though I were no older than Maddy. “If you’re going to go have a kid, I don’t want you to go off half-cocked and then start yelling at me that I never told you anything. So I’m telling you—your vagina will never be the same. Sex will never be the same. Jumping up and down on a trampoline will never be the same, because you’ll be too afraid of accidentally peeing yourself because you didn’t do enough Kegel exercises while you were pregnant and you’ll be freaked out you’re going to be incontinent when you’re old.”

″Oh.” What was I supposed to say to that? “Really?”

″I haven’t even started on the labour yet, let alone what it really feels like to grow to the size of a small humpback whale.”

″So you don’t think it’s a good idea?” I prompted. As much as Libby and I argue and get on each other’s nerves, there’s not a lot we won’t support each other with.

″I think you’re nuts,” Libby said reluctantly, pulling out a weed with a little too much vehemence and spraying dirt over her smooth tanned legs. “But it might be nice for Maddy and Max to have a cousin to play with.”

″What do you think of the insemination thing?” I asked.

″I’m not keen on having a niece or nephew and not knowing who the father is.”

″It’s not about you, Lib, you know,” I told her quietly. “It’s not my first choice, but what other options do I have?”

Libby looked seriously at me. “Isn’t there someone you know who could donate and then step back and let you take over? What about one of your friends? An ex-boyfriend?”

″It’s funny. Emma asked the same thing and all I could think of was David Mason.”

″Oh,” she said wistfully. “I remember him. I liked him. You were really stupid back then.”

″Thanks. It’s always nice to be reminded.”

″Well, you were. So, is there anyone else you could get to do it?”

″Most of them are already involved with someone, and it seems strange to ask. It sort of crosses the line of friendship, you know? I thought it all through, and I don’t see any other way.”

″Well, there’s always the not having a baby right now option,” Libby reminded me, echoing J.B.

″That’s what J.B. said,” I told her. “But I don’t think that’s an option right now.”

″You’ve made up your mind then?” Libby asked, crawling along on her knees to another part of the flower bed. No wonder her knees need serious help. “About this donor stuff?”

″Pretty much. Unless you have a better idea.”

″I don’t,” she sighed. “So go for it, I guess. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”