23. James
JAMES
I watch Millie as Lewis sleeps next to me—she’s still tucked up on the hospital chair, her legs under her, her head lolling awkwardly to one side to try and find something to rest on.
I thought about moving her earlier, into a more comfortable position at least, but she’s so exhausted.
I think the best thing I can do for her is let her sleep.
Outside, dawn is just beginning to break, the city beyond starting to wake up.
As for me, I’ve been up since three, when Cole called me and told me to meet them at the hospital as soon as I got the chance.
I rushed down here, on a call to Johnson the entire time, the gastroenterology expert we’ve worked with a few times at the clinic.
And while he might not have been there to tend to the matter himself, he sent someone who clearly knows what she’s doing, and Lewis already looks like he’s on the mend.
It hurt, seeing him in so much pain; he’s been so sweet and cheerful the other times I’ve seen him, it’s hard to believe that he could be capable of such depths of agony too.
A kid should never have to go through something like that, not in a million years, and I pray that we have done enough to get the worst of it out of his system.
I intend to get him a few more referrals tomorrow, just to feel like I’m doing something to make this entire situation a little easier.
Across from me, Millie stirs, her eyes fluttering open as she looks around and seems to remember where she is. She sighs, rubbing a hand over her face, and looks around. “What’s going on?”
“Cole and Ross had to go to the clinic,” I explain softly, reaching across the bed to take her hand.
“But everything’s okay. Mathilda came by to give Lewis his medication, and he’s been sleeping ever since.
She’s going to come back again in about an hour, check in on how he’s doing, and see if he might be ready to go home. ”
Her eyes fall shut with relief. “Thank goodness,” she mumbles, her voice still croaky from sleep. “I… When I saw him in his room yesterday, I could just tell how much pain he was in. I would have done anything to make it better, but—”
“You did everything you should have,” I assure her. “You took care of him. That’s what matters.”
She looks at me, and I can tell that she doesn’t believe it.
There are dark rings under her eyes, and I can tell that they’re not just from tonight.
No, they’re from a million nights like this in the past, nights she had to deal with all of this alone, nights when she didn’t even have us to turn to.
“I mean it,” I murmur, and she manages a smile.
“I know,” she replies, and she turns her attention to Lewis, fussing with the covers and adjusting his pillow to make sure he’s comfortable. I can’t help but grin as I watch her; she’s such a mom.
“I think he slept better than you did,” I remark, and she rolls her eyes, laughing slightly.
“Oh, yeah, from what I remember, hospitals aren’t exactly the easiest to rest in,” she replies.
“When I was in here giving birth, they tried to tell me to sleep, but I just couldn’t.
I feel like there’s always something going on here, right?
And you can’t just switch off and relax, even if you want to. ”
“Agreed,” I reply. “Even when I was in medical school, I knew I wanted to work in the private sector. Somewhere a little slower. Somewhere I could spend a little more time with my patients.”
She smiles, cocking her head at me slightly. “That’s really sweet.”
I shrug. “Hey, it just works for me.”
“Works for all of you,” she replies. “That clinic, I looked it up. It’s amazing the reputation you have. How many people you’ve helped bring their children into the world…”
I smile. She’s not wrong about that. It’s one of the most satisfying parts of the job, by far, the days where we get to be with someone when they find out that they’ve finally fallen pregnant after years of trying.
“Yeah, I know,” I reply. “It’s…rewarding. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else with my career.”
“And now you’re going to be having babies of your own,” she reminds me, glancing down toward her stomach. “Hey, you want to feel the bump? I think I’m just starting to get one…”
“Kind of early for that, isn’t it?” I remark, but I get to my feet anyway, curious to see what she’s talking about.”
“Yeah, but if I’m having multiples, they’re going to start showing sooner,” she points out, as she takes my hand and guides it against her tee. “See? You can feel it. Right there. Just a little bit, right?”
She looks up at me, and I focus on the feel of her belly under my hand.
I feel like I’ve come to know her body so well since we’ve been in each other’s lives again, and I can’t help but notice that she’s right.
There is something there, just the beginnings of a bump, a reminder of everything that’s growing within her right now.
“Wow,” I mutter, as I move back to my seat.
She’s grinning at me, eyebrows raised. “See, I told you,” she replies. “You can feel it. It’s totally there, right?”
“Seems that way to me.”
She stares at me for a moment, the corners of her lips tugging downward. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I am.”
And it’s the truth. I’m not upset, or freaked out, or anything even close to it.
But feeling her bump like that, it’s bringing everything into stark contrast in a way I’ve not felt before.
My children—our children are taking shape inside of her right now.
If there was ever a moment where it all became real, it was when I felt that bump, a concrete signifier of what’s happening inside her body.
“It brings it all home, doesn’t it?” she asks softly, as though noticing my sudden change.
I nod.
“In a good way though,” she adds. “Right?”
“Right, right,” I assure her. “In a good way.”
She leans forward, squeezing my hand across the bed. “You know, when it first hit me that I was going to have Lewis, it felt like the toughest thing in the world to wrap my head around.”
“Really?”
She nods. “Yeah. It was right after…well, it was right after Matt and I lost our parents, and I figured out that I was late,” she explains. “And I took test after test, I kept waiting for one to come up negative, because I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of actually being…you know.”
She smiles slightly. “So I think I have some idea what you’re going through.”
“A little different,” I remark, skimming my thumb across her knuckles. “Given that we planned these ones.”
“I guess so,” she replies. “Still, a big change though, right?”
“A big change,” I agree. “A big one.”
“Hey, don’t say it like that,” she laughs. “You’re making it sound like you’re being forced at gunpoint to give up the bachelor lifestyle.”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” I reply. “But I’ve been by myself for so long. Lived just for me for so many years. It’s going to feel…different, that’s all. I’m looking forward to it, but it’s still going to be one hell of a change.”
“You’ve been by yourself all this time?” she asks softly.
A wash of sadness courses through me as I remember Caroline.
There’s hardly a day that goes by when I don’t think of her, but moving on to this next stage of my life has me feeling as though I’m betraying her in some way.
She should have had the chance to do something like this, to start a family of her own, but she never did. Died too young.
Even if she had done none of it with me, I wish she’d had the chance to try.
“There was someone,” I admit. “Before I met you. Caroline.”
“Caroline?”
It’s almost surreal, hearing Millie say her name out loud. I do so much to try and leave her memory where it belongs, but something pangs in my chest the way she says it.
“Yeah,” I admit. “She was…we were together for a couple of years back in college. Shit, I know it sounds crazy now, but I thought we were going to do it all…” I smile slightly.
“She passed,” I explain. “Not long before I met you, actually.”
“Oh my God, James, I had no idea…”
I shake my head. “It’s okay,” I reply. “I just…I never thought that I was going to do all this with someone else. After I lost her, in my head, that was my chance for a normal life, a normal family, just gone. We had talked about it a bit, and she was the only one I’d ever thought about doing that with.
And then, the guys came to me, told me they wanted to try surrogacy, and you walked back in, and… ”
I smile at her. She chews her lip as she looks back at me, clearly still surprised by what I’ve just told her.
“So you…you’ve been alone ever since?” she asks me. I can tell how sad it makes her, to think of me like that, and I figure the best port of call is to change the subject before things get any heavier than they already have. God knows she’s already dealt with enough.
“Well, not entirely,” I reply, glancing up at Lewis to make sure he’s asleep. “I’ve had plenty of…company, over the years.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “Oh, yeah?”
“Nothing that came close to you, though,” I assure her, as our eyes lock once more.
She flushes slightly, looking away from me, and then lowers her gaze to our hands, locked in front of us.
“So you really wanted this, right?” she asks. “I mean, I know Cole and Ross did. But you…it sounds like you were having a lot of fun by yourself. You’ve never been tempted to just stick that out a while longer?”
I pause for a moment before I answer. Not because I doubt what I have to say, but because I want to make sure I put it in the exact terms I want her to hear it in. I shake my head, slowly, tracing a circle against her knuckles with my thumb.
“No,” I reply. “No, I know I need something more than that. I enjoyed it, sure, but I’ve always wanted something more solid than that. Something real, something that matters. Something that helps me build a legacy and a life for myself, beyond just the clinic.”
She cocks her head slightly as she listens to me, clearly glad that I’m expressing such enthusiasm about all of this. I can’t imagine what a huge amount of trust she had to put in us, to believe that we would all step up to be fathers, but there’s no way I’m going to let her down.
“You’ve been so amazing with Lewis already,” she remarks.
“And…and I’m so happy that you’ve been able to get to know him.
I mean, something like this, I know, it’s not ideal.
” She gestures to him lying in the bed beside us.
“But doing it with the three of you, it’s so much easier than handling it on my own.
You have access to stuff that I would never be able to get my hands on, and you have no idea how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. For both of us.”
Her voice catches slightly, and Lewis shifts in the bed between us. She looks over at him, smiling quickly, clearly not wanting him to see her so overwhelmed with emotion.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she greets him, reaching up to stroke his face with the back of her hand. “How are you feeling? A little better?”
He nods slightly, and looks over at me.
I grin at him. “You’re already looking stronger,” I remark, as I rise to my feet, heading for the door. “I’m going to get Mathilda, tell her to take a look at Lewis now since he’s up. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Sure,” Millie replies, as she gives Lewis’s arm a squeeze, adjusting the pillow again so he can sit up.
For a moment, I just stand there in the door, watching the two of them together.
I don’t know for sure that Lewis is my son, but when I see the two of them like this, it’s hard to believe that the bond I feel isn’t something close to fatherhood.
At this point, I don’t think it even really matters who his biological father is—the attachment we all clearly have to him overwhelms all of that.
I head down the corridor to find Mathilda, stopping at the coffee machine on the way there so I can get Millie and myself a cup.
Feeling that bump has left me feeling all the more protective of her, and though I can’t do much better than bring her coffee for the time being, I will do whatever I can.
Because I want her as more than just my surrogate.
Seeing her with Lewis, I know I want her as the mother to my children.
She has already done such an amazing job with Lewis, it’s not hard to imagine her being just as incredible with our newborns too.
I don’t know what life looks like for us once the contract is up, but I’m certain that I want her in it, in any way that she wants.
As long as she’s there, I’m happy.
I reach Mathilda’s office, knock, and step inside. Despite myself, I find that I have a smile on my face. Because no matter what might have happened with Matt at the clinic, everything else seems to be falling into place.