In court the next morning, Angela Moretti’s face is pinched shut as tight as a lobster claw. “My client is withdrawing her objection, Your Honor,” she says. “We ask that the embryos not be destroyed per the contract and that they be released to Max Baxter’s custody.”
There is clapping in the courtroom. Ben grins at me. I feel like throwing up.
I’ve felt this way since last night. It started when Zoe bolted out of the driveway. And then when I walked back into the house, blinking because the lights were so suddenly bright, and told Liddy and Reid that Zoe was going to give in.
Reid lifted Liddy in his arms and danced her around the foyer. “Do you know what this means?” he asked, grinning. “Do you?”
And suddenly I did. It meant that I would have to sit by quietly and watch Liddy getting bigger and bigger with my baby inside her. I’d have to hang out in the waiting room while Reid took part in the delivery. I’d have to watch Reid and Liddy fall in love with their baby, while I was the third wheel.
But she looked so goddamned happy. She wasn’t pregnant, and there was already a glow to her cheeks and a shine to her hair. “This calls for something special,” Reid said, and he left me standing alone with her.
I took a step forward, and then another. “Is this really what you want?” I whispered. When Reid came back, we moved apart. “Congratulations, Sis,” I said, and I kissed her cheek.
He was holding an open bottle of champagne, still foaming, and two glasses. In his pocket he’d tucked a bottle of root beer. Clearly, that was for me. “Drink up,” he said to Liddy. “From here on in, it’s going to be soy shakes and folic acid.” He handed me my root beer and said, “I say we toast. To the beautiful mother to be!”
I drank to her. How couldn’t I?
“To Wade!” Reid said, hoisting his glass again. “To Lucy!”
Confused, I glanced at him. “Who’s Lucy?”
“Clive Lincoln’s stepdaughter,” Reid said. “Zoe sure picked the wrong girl to mess with.” He drained his champagne, but I didn’t drink. Instead I set my bottle down on the bottom step of the staircase and walked out the front door.
“I need some air,” I said.
“Let me go with you-” Liddy took a step toward me, but I held up my hand. I walked blindly to the gazebo, where I’d been sitting with Zoe just a few minutes before.
I had met Pastor Clive’s wife a hundred times. And his three girls, who stood up there with her on the stage and sang. None of them was anywhere near old enough to be in high school. And none of them, I knew, was named Lucy.
But there was another child. A black sheep, who suffered through services and never stayed for fellowship. If she was his stepdaughter, she could have had a different last name from Clive. It was entirely possible Zoe would never have made the connection.
Had this girl really come to Zoe for help because she was worried about being gay? Had she tried to tell her mother and stepfather? Had Clive heard all this, and immediately assumed Zoe had tried to recruit his stepdaughter to her lifestyle-because any other interpretation would only reflect poorly on him?
Or had Pastor Clive-knowing that we needed ammunition in court, knowing how much a victory would mean to the beliefs he preached daily-pressed this accusation out of his stepdaughter? Had he made her the fall guy so that I’d win? So that he’d win?
I sat with my head in my hands, puzzling this out, until I realized that how the accusation came about didn’t matter.
All that mattered was that it had happened at all.
Judge O’Neill looks over at Zoe, who is staring down at the square of wood between her hands on the defense table. “Ms. Baxter,” he says, “are you doing this freely and voluntarily?”
She doesn’t answer.
Behind her, Vanessa raises her hand and rubs Zoe’s shoulder. It’s the tiniest gesture, but it reminds me of the day I first saw them together in the grocery store parking lot. It is the kind of comfort you offer, out of habit, for someone you love.
“Ms. Baxter?” the judge repeats. “Is this what you want?”
Zoe slowly lifts her head. “It is not what I want,” she says. “But it’s what I’m going to do.”
After about an hour in the gazebo, I saw a ghost.
It moved like a memory across the grass, slipping between the trees. I thought it was saying my name.
Max, Liddy said again, and I woke up.
“You can’t sleep out here,” she said. “You’ll freeze to death.”
She sat down next to me, a cloud of billowing cotton nightgown.
“What are you two doing in there? Poring over the baby name books?” I asked.
“No,” Liddy said. She looked up at the sky. “I’ve been thinking.”
“What’s there to think about?” I asked. “It’s all good news.”
Liddy smiled a little. “That’s what the word gospel means, you know. Spreading the good news of Jesus.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, starting to get up, “I’m not really in the mood for a Bible lesson.”
She continued as if I hadn’t even spoken. “You know what the greatest commandment in the Bible is, don’t you? Love your neighbor as yourself.”
“Great,” I said sourly. “Good to know.”
“Jesus didn’t make exceptions, Max,” Liddy added. “He didn’t say we’re supposed to love ninety-eight percent of our neighbors… but hate the ones who play their music too loud or who always drive over our lawn or who vote for Ralph Nader or who get tattooed from head to toe. There may be days I don’t really want to love the guy whose dog ate the heads off my daylilies, but Jesus says I don’t have a choice.”
She held out her hand, and I pulled her to her feet. “It’s not love if there are conditions,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”
I looked down at our clasped hands. “I don’t know what to do, Liddy,” I admitted.
“Of course you do,” she said. “The right thing.”
Ironically, we have to sign a contract. That the information Clive received will not be released by the plaintiff or the church, or be discussed with any party in the future. Pastor Clive signs a stipulation that Wade Preston writes on a piece of lined paper. The judge scans it and pronounces me the sole custodian of the three frozen embryos.
By now, there is nobody left in the gallery. They’re all outside, waiting for me to appear on the steps and give them a big smile and thank God for the outcome of this trial.
“Well,” Wade says, grinning. “I do believe my work here is done.”
“So they’re mine now? One hundred percent legally mine?” I ask.
“That’s right,” Wade agrees. “You can do anything you want with them.”
Zoe is still sitting at the defense table. She is the center of a flower, surrounded by her mother, her lawyer, and Vanessa. Angela hands her another tissue. “You know how many of Max’s lawyers it takes to plaster a wall?” she says, trying to cheer Zoe up. “Depends on how hard you throw them.”
I wish I could have done it some other way, but I didn’t know how. Wade would have had something up his sleeve. The truth is, this was never what I had intended. Somewhere along the way, this became about politics, and religion, and law. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about people. About Zoe, and me, and these children we once wanted to have.
I walk toward my ex-wife. Her entourage parts, so that I find myself standing in front of her. “Zoe,” I begin. “I’m sorry-”
She looks at me. “Thanks for saying that.”
“You didn’t let me finish. I’m sorry that you had to go through all this.”
Vanessa moves closer to Zoe.
“They’ll have a good life,” Zoe says, but it sounds like a question. “You’ll make sure of that?” She is crying, now. Shaking with the effort of holding herself together.
I’d take her into my arms, but that’s someone else’s privilege now. “The best,” I promise, and I hand her the legal document Wade Preston just gave me. “Which is why I’m giving them to you.”