Chapter 13 Lucy
Lucy
Ouch.
Two a.m. on Saturday, and Lucy woke up with a thudding pain radiating throughout her leg.
She heaved it into a different position.
The leg felt less like a limb and more like a wooden tree trunk attached to her hip.
She fisted the knot and, for the second time in twenty-four hours, her chest tightened.
How the hell was she going to inject herself for the next several weeks?
Sure, she had melted into a pile of goo with the calm and extremely sexy way Jade took charge, but she couldn’t ask her to just drop everything to come over every night until Drew got back into town next week.
The ache lessened and Lucy must’ve dozed off because she woke up to a whiny Chucky.
She threw a robe over her pyjamas and stepped outside as Chucky zoomed past her on the lawn.
The morning sun warmed her face; the dewy grass squished beneath her bare feet.
Her purple nail polish peeked out between the grass blades as she spread her toes against the earth.
Of course, soon, being barefoot in the grass wouldn’t be safe.
After going down a destructive internet search on everything pregnant women should avoid, from alcohol and cat litter to deli meats (that one really sucked), she starting double-clicking on the super scary articles.
Apparently, bare feet on grass could lead to an infection.
Manicures could lead to a staph infection.
No sushi, of course (no fair). No colouring her hair.
No soft cheeses, nail polish, household cleaners, coffee …
the list went on. After the embryo transfer, she’d have to travel in a latex body suit and eat only organic veggies to make sure she kept the embryo growing.
Well, one more week of enjoying feeling the earth on her feet for almost a year. She might never move from this spot.
She yawned and pulled her phone from her pocket.
Drew: Hey, can you call me when you wake up?
She dialled. ‘I’m up.’
A rustling sounded over the phone. ‘You know, most people start with a hello, or hi, or hey. Not, I’m up.’
‘I’ll add that to my long list of things I should do to make me seem human.’ She watched the dog chase a squirrel up a tree. ‘What’s up?’
‘Just checking in. How are you feeling after the shot last night?’
More emotions than she wanted to share. A little scared.
Sore. Kind of enamoured with Jade. And feeling a little skittish about essentially kicking Jade out last night so quickly.
But Lucy had come down, hard, with a case of rescue romance after Jade saved her from shot hell, and Lucy needed some space so she didn’t do something stupid.
The only message she’d sent the previous night to Drew was: ‘Shot one down. Just like that time senior year when we got into your dad’s disgusting cinnamon whiskey.’ No reason to rattle the Drew-cage and tell him she hadn’t actually been able to do it on her own.
‘Good. A little sore.’ She wiggled her toes against the grass. ‘I’m going to have Chucky crawl on me for a paw massage.’
‘Nice. Time for him to be useful.’ A sound like a suitcase zipper sounded over the phone. ‘Question. Mason looked through the weekly invoice and you never charged us for the two doctor visits last week.’
She slouched down in the wicker patio chair. ‘I have like a gazillion sick hours at the bank. I’m not going to charge you for those hours. I use or lose them.’
‘You have to charge us. You’re already doing so much and—’
‘We’ve talked about this. Seriously. It’s like I’m double-dipping. Which is great if we’re talking chocolate fondue, but not as fun with your and Mason’s money.’
A hefty sigh sounded through the phone. ‘But it’s in the paperwork and the last thing I want to be in is a breach of contract and the lawyers get involved, and then the clinic gets involved, and then something happens.’
The unusual panic in Drew’s voice gave her pause. ‘Hey, sorry. You’re right. I just feel guilty taking your money.’
‘It still blows my mind that you feel guilty about anything. Sister Katherine would be so proud.’
Back in the parochial school days, Sister Katherine had been the main guilt enforcer, pounding into the children’s heads that they should constantly think of all the terrible things they’d done that week and seek forgiveness.
Thankfully, Sister Esther was there to offset with a stash of butterscotch candies and sunshine stickers.
‘Do you remember that time she whacked Jordan on the knuckles for talking back?’ said Lucy.
‘That kid was a dick, though. Still is. Remember when he tried to sell me some weird ass skin moisturiser a few years back?’
‘Oh God, I forgot about that.’ Chucky trotted up to her with a toy frisbee in his teeth and dropped it at her feet. She tossed it and he tore around the yard.
‘Hey, after the embryo transfer, you want to hit up Luigi’s the Second? Mason and I were thinking that’d be a perfect sort of “pre-celebration” spot. Although we all know how superstitious he is, so we won’t actually mention that. We’ll call it a post-appointment dinner.’
She threw the frisbee again. ‘Wait, they opened? I thought that wasn’t until next month?’ Luigi’s had been their favourite pizza and pasta joint for years, and she and Drew had been counting down the days until the second location opened.
‘Yeah, they opened last week. How did you forget?’
How did she forget? She pushed a thumb into her forehead. Ugh, she was so scattered lately.
‘I’ve gotta run. Gonna have some breakfast with my boss. I might need you to rescue me. If you get a text that says X, call me five minutes later and tell me that there’s an emergency. I’ll love you forever if you do.’
‘You already do love me forever,’ Lucy said. ‘But deal. I got you.’
After fully exhausting Chucky, she returned to the kitchen and popped a pod into her coffee machine.
Soon, the freshly brewed scent filled the air.
Cutting down from a four-cup-a-day habit was tougher than she’d expected, but with the transfer only a few short days away, the moments of enjoying even the occasional fresh cup were ending.
The doctor said she could have one cup a day, or even switch to decaf, which she scoffed at (because, what was the point?).
Ultimately, she wasn’t risking Drew and Mason’s kid coming out with an extra toe because she needed her morning espresso.
A few hours later, after a trip to the doggy park and a quick stop at the grocery store where she did not, under any circumstances, walk every aisle hoping to see Jade, Lucy pulled into her dad’s home.
The home conjured up complicated feelings, and each time she pulled up the long gravel driveway, she never knew which feeling would emerge.
The summer after she graduated high school, her dad had bought this chunk of land and moved into a trailer on the property while he built a modest, one-level home among the trees and fields.
Lucy suspected her father had wanted to move right after her mom died but didn’t because he also wanted to offer Lucy some sense of stability.
He rarely talked about her mom, or at least never initiated the conversation.
Lucy struggled for years to reconcile what that meant, feeling like a nuisance when she asked about her, feeling guilty for how much she thought of her, and feeling angry that he seemed to just move on.
Although he never dated anyone else, everything else just seemed to continue.
As if she were never here. Not until Lucy was an adult did she understand that was how her dad coped.
That first year, he hugged Lucy when she cried, probably trying his very best with words like ‘Let’s focus on happier things.
Want some ice cream?’ Sometimes it seemed he wanted to pretend his wife’s passing had never occurred.
That instead of being truly gone, she was just ‘somewhere else’.
He didn’t remove any pictures of her, redecorate, or even so much as remove her random bags around the house filled with cross-stich supplies and overflowing with yarn.
But when he moved into this home, he stripped everything of her mom away, as if she had never existed.
Though this house had never felt like home to Lucy, she had to admit it had grown on her these last fifteen years.
A white house with black shutters and hanging plants lining the front porch.
Surrounded by standing gardens, strawberry bushes, and mismatched lawn furniture.
Perched bird feeders and birdhouses scattered the yard.
She appreciated that the place was her father’s fresh start, but while sometimes that made her happy, sometimes it made her sad.
As she killed the engine and watched her father pull weeds from his vegetable garden, a dull ache filled Lucy’s chest. So many times over the years she had wished her mom was here – when she aced an impossible science course, graduated, was promoted at work, or when she first got her period.
Now was one of those times. Her dad had the emotional intelligence of a pineapple, and she always leaned on Drew for moral support.
But she couldn’t talk to Drew about all her feelings about surrogacy.
He was on code-red high alert with anything she said, and if she said the wrong thing, he might dive into a tailspin of despair.
For once, she wished she had a partner.
Her father crossed the driveway to her truck. ‘Unless I’m losing it more than the average bear, you’re here on the wrong day,’ her father said, fisting a large chive bunch in his gloved hands. The front of his work jeans had stains from years of effort and garden dirt.