6. Millie
MILLIE
“Hello?”
I answer my phone the second I feel it buzzing against my side, turning away from the grocery store clerk who’s currently packing up my stuff. It could be a call from the temping agency, and I know leaving it to ring for more than a few seconds is always going to make you look uninterested.
“Hi, Millie?”
“Yes, it’s me,” I greet the woman on the other end of the line, as the clerk looks at me pointedly, waiting for me to pick up where I left off with packing my groceries.
“We have an offer from a private agency that we’d like you to take a look at,” she explains to me, as I try to cram my stuff into bags with one hand while smiling at the clerk in the hopes she doesn’t get too irritated with me.
“Oh, really? That sounds great.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet,” she points out, and I wince. I don’t want to sound as though I’ll just take any job right now, but honestly, it’s not far from the truth.
There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t jump at right now, if it meant that I could bring in a little money for Lewis and me.
Things have been seriously strained financially over the last few months, and I’ve gone through the last of my savings.
I’m down to the final few hundred dollars in my bank account, and if I don’t do something to improve my standing soon, I know I’ll be in serious trouble.
“Right, yeah, sorry,” I mumble. “I…”
“It’s not got much in the common with the previous work you’ve done for us,” she remarks, and I notice a slightly delicate tone to her voice, almost as though she might be trying to bury the lede.
“But I can send over the contracts to you via email if you want to take a look over them and decide for yourself.”
“That would be great,” I reply. “Thank you.”
She hangs up before I can even say goodbye, and I hurry through the rest of my grocery shopping and head back toward the apartment.
I have to pick up Lewis in an hour or so, but I have just enough time to glance over everything she wants me to see so I can figure out just what kind of job is on the line here.
As I rush home, I can’t help but turn over what she said to me a few more times. The way she was speaking, it almost sounded like she was unsure of even passing along the job. But what could be so weird that it would give her pause?
I brush the questions out of my mind as I get back to the apartment, reminding myself of how badly I need a cash injection right now, and open up my clunky old laptop to see what she has sent through for me.
The email is waiting for me when I open my inbox, and I hover over the message for a moment before I open it, somehow nervous.
Which is ridiculous, because all I’m doing is looking at a few contracts, but I can’t help but wonder if she would think I’m ungrateful if I turn this thing down.
Not that I don’t need the work, but there are some things…
Don’t be silly. I click the email and open up the attachment, watching as it pops up to fill the screen while the fan whirs loudly. As my gaze settles on the wording at the top of the page, my heart nearly stops.
Surrogacy agreement.
For a second, I think I must have read the damn thing wrong, because there’s no way on earth—no way in hell it could say something like that, could it?
My mind reels. Surrogacy means…means carrying a child for someone else, doesn’t it?
Which is something that I’ve never done before.
I mean, yes, I gave birth to Lewis, but this is different. This would be carrying a child that I would then just hand off to someone else once it was born, the thought of which is enough to make my chest ache.
I push those thoughts aside and continue to read, deciding that I should at least give this thing a look. And when I see the money they’re offering, my eyes nearly bug out of my head.
Holy shit.
Two million dollars. Half paid upfront, and half after I give birth, with all medical expenses paid for. Every detail accounted for, with the money laid out like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
I sit back in my seat for a moment, trying to take in the enormity of that number.
That’s more money than I’ve ever had in my life, by a long shot.
More money than what someone like me is ever likely to make, come to that.
The kind of money that would change everything, not just for me, but for Lewis too.
I could get him into one of those specialist schools if I took this job.
Pay for his tuition for years upfront. I wouldn’t even have to work full-time to do it, I would still be able to spend most of my time with him, and though it might take a lot of explaining, if he understands that I’m doing it to take care of him…
Suddenly, reality comes piercing through the veil of my fantasy.
Lewis. What the hell would I tell Lewis?
How could he be expected to make sense of his mother going through a full-blown pregnancy, and then he doesn’t even get to meet his sibling?
It would be too much for him to take. The stress would drive him crazy, and I know better than anyone just how bad it can make things.
Maybe if I asked these people, whoever they were, to cover the cost of his medical expenses too, then I would be able to…
Which brings me to another matter. Who exactly is asking me to do this in the first place?
Because a demand as huge as this one, it’s not the kind of thing you can just drop out of the blue, without a hell of a lot of planning.
And what would I tell Matt? He’s already been kept in the dark about the father of one of my children, and then I ask him to just trust me to make the same mistakes again? That’s how it’s going to look to him, no matter how I try to spin it.
My mind ticks with questions as I try to focus on the matter at hand. I have to think about that money. It would change so much for us, and it would only be, what, a year of my life?
I would be set for a long time. I would be able to buy a house, take some time off looking for work, really focus on doing everything I can to make sure that Lewis has the best childhood possible.
I do what I can now, of course, but it’s always going to be limited by how much I earn, and I hate the thought of having to spend these precious years of my son’s life on the job hunt.
I read through the rest of the contract, combing over every word in great detail until I’m sure I’ve made sense of all of it. It seems pretty straightforward, all things considered.
I would be implanted with a few embryos, to see which ones would take, since they’re hoping for multiples.
And then I would go through the pregnancy, getting the very best medical care that’s on offer, until I would be taken to a private hospital where I would give birth and hand the children over to their new parents.
In a lot of ways, it sounds way easier than everything I did with Lewis, and this time, I would at least know what I’m getting into when it comes to the matter of actually being pregnant.
Fuck it. I have to at least try. No matter how crazy it might feel, no matter how mad it might seem to even think about it, this is the kind of money that I can’t just turn down like it’s nothing.
I don’t have to go through with anything—if I meet with these people, whoever they are, and find that I don’t like them or wouldn’t trust them to raise a child, then I don’t have to even consider letting it go any further. But if I do…
Then I might stand to make more money than I’ve ever seen before in my life. And I can’t lie and pretend that doesn’t appeal to me in a huge way.
I grab my phone before I can think about this any longer, pulling up the same number that called me when I was at the grocery store and dialing swiftly.
I lift it to my ear, and I can hear the blood rushing through my temples, the hair on the back of my neck standing up.
I can’t tell whether my instincts are warning me to drop this before it goes any further or insisting that I don’t stop now that I’ve come so close, but either way, I’m going through with it.
“Hello?”
I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear her voice again, and I have to take a moment to gather myself.
“Oh, uh, hi, again!” I blurt out. “I just—I took a look over the contracts that you sent over…Millie, remember?”
“Yes, of course,” she replies, and she sounds intrigued as she speaks again. “So, have you had a chance to consider it?”
“Yes, I have,” I reply, and I inhale deeply, gathering myself before I come out and say it. “And I’d like to arrange a meeting with the people who sent over those contracts.”
“You would?” She sounds surprised.
I don’t know whether to read into it or not.
Does it mean that she thinks this is the wildest thing in the world and that I’m crazy for even considering it?
Does it mean that she wants to tell me to think about it before I jump into anything I can’t take back?
Or is it just that she’s surprised it took me so long to accept the offer, with that much money on the table?
“Yes,” I reply. “Can I give you some times that work for me? My schedule is pretty busy, but I’d like to get it done this week…”
She notes down some times and finishes up the call, promising me that she will be back in touch the moment she’s heard anything from them.
I thank her and hang up, leaving myself alone in the quiet of the apartment once more—and trying to work out if I have just made a huge fucking mistake.
I rise to my feet. No time to think about that.
I need to head off to pick Lewis up from school, and I don’t want to leave him waiting.
He’s the reason I’m even considering this in the first place, after all—if it wasn’t for the worry of providing for him, I would have laughed off this offer no matter how much money came with it.
But that’s what you do as a parent. You step up and take on things you would never even have thought about before, just to make ends meet. That’s the deal I made when I decided to bring Lewis into this world, and that’s the one I intend to see through, no matter what.
I head through to the bathroom to wash up, and catch sight of myself in the mirror. Could I really do it again? Go through a pregnancy and then hand over the child to someone else? It’s one hell of a big ask, but…
But I have been through worse. And if two million dollars is waiting for me on the other side—then the least I can do is entertain a meeting with the people who want to give it to me.