I stare down at the plate of fries, wondering if I should shove them into my ears instead of my mouth so I wouldn’t have to endure the rest of this story.
“That was it,” Mara says, as if intentionally sparing me. “He didn’t mention anything else about it. He flew back to L.A. and that’s when it hit me: Did this man just ask me for my eggs? I didn’t know how to process it. I felt so many things at once. It was shocking and also kind of flattering and definitely overwhelming and even disturbing. I felt a connection with him, sure, but I was imagining more of a mentor/protégée thing. And then I started to wonder, Who is this guy, anyway? I Googled him, dug as deep as I could. I saw the pictures he posted of you two together, and I felt the love there, it was obvious, but these were my eggs we were talking about.”
“Of course. It’s a huge deal.”
“I knew I wanted kids of my own someday. I mean, not anytime soon—I’m only twenty-five—but eventually. I wasn’t sure how that would work. So I started researching what it was all about.”
She watched YouTube videos of donors describing the procedure: the doctor visit; the screening process (Ever paid for sex? Ever taken anti-depressants? Recreational drugs? More than two male partners in the last six months?); the daily hormone injections; the needles in your belly and thighs; the side effects; the ultrasound visits; the abstaining from sex, alcohol, and medication other than Tylenol; finally, the surgery.
The women in these videos were just like her. Some in their teens. Most in their twenties. A few nearing thirty. Typical compensation ranged between eight and ten thousand dollars. The money went to pay off debt, college tuition, daily expenses, even vacations. Many of the women had donated half a dozen times.
Some donors had personal relationships with the intended parents. Most did not. The majority preferred to remain detached from the act, to treat it like a job, albeit one that gave them a feeling of doing good in the world. They all took comfort in the fact that they were helping people. Giving life.
“It was kind of beautiful,” Mara says. “I totally understood why someone would want to do it. But I couldn’t imagine doing it myself. I couldn’t get past the idea of having a kid out there, in the world, existing, feeling, thinking. And what if you guys decided you really did want to move here to New York? The kid would be right around the corner. What would my future husband think about that? As much as I adored Sydney, I had only just met him.”
I can’t argue with anything she’s saying. Had Syd included me in the process—had I made him feel I was ready and willing to be included—I would have encouraged him to take a step back and slow down.
“I sent his next call to voice mail,” Mara says. “His message didn’t say anything about babies or eggs, nothing like that. He was just checking in, saying hi, seeing how I was doing. Part of me wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.”
An entire month went by before they spoke again. It was now April, four months since Syd and I had had our December fight, which, as far as I was concerned, had put our parenthood quest on hold. It seemed to me then, based on what I knew, that Syd was respecting my wishes to slow down a little. The agency was still sending us updated donor lists, but Syd rejected every single one. The plan, in my mind, was still for me to ask Veronica, when I was ready. By April, I knew what Syd had already learned back in January, that Veronica had started dating someone. I didn’t think much of it then. I figured this new relationship, like her previous ones, wouldn’t last long (I was wrong about that). Besides, I needed the extra time. I was so busy with The Long Arm during those months that I had mostly pushed the notion of fatherhood out of my mind.
But Syd, I now know, had never stopped thinking about it. He flew back to New York in April and asked if he could take Mara out to dinner in Manhattan. After some hesitation, she accepted.
“He seemed a little off from the start,” Mara says. “He didn’t have that usual calm about him. We chatted for a good half hour, talking about art, New York, everything, and then, I remember, he just looked at me and took a deep breath and said, ‘Oh, Miss Hallowell…’”
My whole body tightens, bracing for some imminent crash.
“I asked how things were with you two and he started to go into it a little bit. He said you had found a few donors that looked promising. Then he stopped himself. He wanted to say more, I could tell. I encouraged him, made him feel safe, and then he told me everything. He said at first he didn’t have a picture of who the ideal mother was, but that changed when he met me. He said I was a little bit of him and a little bit of you, that I was smart and focused and imaginative and beautiful. I was kind but also edgy. Confident but also self-deprecating. A realist but also a dreamer. No one’s ever done that before, spent all that time thinking about just me and who I am and what I’m made of. It was intense.”
She relaxes a moment, reminding me to do the same.
“He got quiet and then he apologized for spilling his guts like that. He didn’t want me to feel pressured by anything he’d just said. Honestly, I didn’t know how to feel or what to say. I cared about him. I cared about him a lot. But…”
She pauses.
“I really wanted to help him,” Mara says. “I just couldn’t.”
It took her several weeks after their last dinner in New York to gather the strength to tell Sydney that. She called and left him a message saying she wanted to talk. She was surprised when several days went by and she still hadn’t heard back. She decided to check his Facebook page. Everyone was saying such nice things about him. The sorts of things people say when you’re no longer alive.
We’re outside now, Mara pacing alongside the restaurant with her phone pressed to her ear. Her hushed voice suggests drama unfolding over the line. She must’ve checked her call log a half a dozen times back at the table.
I’m standing twenty feet back, allowing her privacy. The parking lot is dusk-covered, the tops of cars resembling rolling hills across a blue horizon. My rental car is here somewhere. I forget what it looks like.
I watch Mara walk, her summer dress falling shapelessly around her. The canvas shopping bag on her shoulder should be carrying groceries, not personal items. Back in the restaurant, she filled in all the pieces I was missing. And yet, I’ve never felt emptier. Yes, he went behind my back. Yes, he “fell” for someone else. But he did it all for us. He loved me until the very end. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
Mara finally finishes the call and strides over with a hearty sigh. “I could use a cigarette.”
“I’d love that.”
She slips inside the restaurant and returns with two smokes and a matchbook, all of which she’d bummed from the bartender, a guy she went to high school with. She strikes a match. The flame dances in the air, clings to the white edge, glows orange.
Now seems like the right time. “I set your painting on fire,” I say.