Sing You Home

“We’re all works in progress. But being responsible for that baby’s life doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. What would you wish most for that child?”

“To grow up with a mom and a dad who love him, I guess. And who can give him everything he needs…”

“And who are good Christians,” Pastor Clive adds.

“Well, yeah.” I look up at him. “A couple like Reid and Liddy.”

Pastor Clive comes around the desk and sits on the edge of it. “Who have been trying for years to be blessed with a child of their own. You’ve been praying for your brother and sister-in-law, haven’t you?”

“Of course I have-”

“You’ve been asking God to bless them with a baby.” I nod. “Well, Max. When God closes a door, it’s only because He’s opened a window.”

Only once in my life have I had the same kind of parting-of-the-clouds-so-the-sun-shines-through moment as I have right now-and that was when I was in the hospital and Pastor Clive helped me clear away the smoke and bullshit to see Jesus, close enough for me to touch if I reached out. But now I see that the reason Zoe came to me today was because God has a plan for me. If I am not capable of raising this baby on my own, at least I know he’ll be cared for by my own flesh and blood.

This baby is my family, and that’s where he belongs.

“There’s something I need to talk to you two about,” I say at dinner that night, as Reid passes me a platter of scalloped potatoes. “I want to give you something.”

Reid shakes his head. “Max, I’ve told you. You don’t owe us anything.”

“I do. I owe you my life, if you want to get technical about it, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” I say.

I turn to Liddy. Weeks after the miscarriage, she still looks like a ghost. Just the other day I found her sitting in her parked car in the garage, staring out the windshield at a row of shelves that held power tools and paint. I asked her where she was going, and she jumped a foot, she was so surprised to see me. I have no idea, she said, and she looked down at herself as if she was wondering how she got there in the first place.

“You can’t have a baby,” I state.

Liddy’s eyes fill with tears, and Reid is quick to interrupt. “We can, and we will, have a baby. We’ve just been expecting it to happen on our timeline instead of God’s. Isn’t that right, honey?”

“And I’ve got a baby I can’t have,” I continue. “When Zoe and I got divorced, there were still three frozen embryos left at the clinic. Zoe wants to use them. But I think… I think they should go to you two.”

“What?” Liddy breathes.

“I’m not father material. I can barely take care of myself, much less someone else. But you guys-you deserve to have a family. I can’t imagine a better life for a kid than living here with you.” I hesitate. “In fact, I’ve experienced it.”

Reid shakes his head. “No. Five years from now, you’ll be back on your feet. Maybe even married-”

“You wouldn’t be taking my kid away from me,” I say. “I’d still be Uncle Max. I’d still get to take him out surfing. Teach him how to drive. All that stuff.”

“Max, this is crazy-”

“No it’s not. You’re already looking into adoption,” I say. “I saw the brochures on the kitchen counter. This is the same thing-Pastor Clive says that embryo adoption happens all the time. But this embryo, it’s related to you.”

I can tell, that gets to my brother. We both look at Liddy at the same time.

There’s a piece of me that’s selfish here, I’ve got to admit. A woman like Liddy-pretty, smart, religious-she’s everything a guy could want, everything I’ll probably never have. She’s stuck by me throughout the years, even when Reid got frustrated with me for not living up to my potential, or for just plain ruining my life. If Liddy gets pregnant after the embryos are transferred, it will be her baby-hers and Reid’s-but I have to confess that I like the thought of being the one who can bring a smile back to her face.

God knows I wasn’t able to do that with my own wife.

Liddy, though, doesn’t look happy. She looks terrified. “What if I lose this one, too?”

It’s a possibility; it always is when you are doing in vitro. But there are no guarantees in life, period. The baby who’s born completely healthy could sleep the wrong way and suffocate. The triathlete could drop dead because of a congenital heart defect he never knew about. The girl you thought you loved could fall in love with someone else. Yeah, Liddy might miscarry. But what are the alternatives here? That the baby remains an ice cube for the next decade or two? That it’s born to two women who choose to live in sin?

Reid looks at Liddy with so much hope in his eyes that I turn away, embarrassed. “What if you don’t?” he says.

Suddenly I’m on the outside of a window looking in. A Peeping Tom, an observer instead of a player.

But that baby. That baby, he won’t be.

That night I am brushing my teeth in the guest bathroom when Reid comes to stand in the doorway. “You can change your mind,” he says, and I don’t pretend to not know what he’s talking about.

I spit out the toothpaste, wipe my mouth. “I’m not going to.”

Reid looks uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other. His hands are in his trouser pockets. He barely even looks like the man I know-the one who is always in control of a situation, the one whose charm is matched only by his brains. I realize, with a start, that, although Reid is a golden boy who seems to do everything right the first time around, I’ve just found something he’s not good at.

Gratitude.

He’ll give you the shirt off his back, but when it comes to accepting some good old-fashioned assistance for himself, he is at a loss.

“I don’t know what to say,” Reid admits.

When we were little, Reid made up a secret language, with a vocabulary book and everything. Then he taught it to me. At the dinner table, he’d say, Mumu rabba wollabang, and I would burst out laughing. My mother and father would just look at each other, baffled, because they didn’t know that Reid had just said that the meat loaf smelled like monkey butt. It drove my parents crazy, the way we could communicate outside the boundaries of normal conversation.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell him. “I already know.”

Reid nods, and pulls me into an embrace. He’s fighting tears, I can tell by his breathing. “I love you, little brother,” he murmurs.

I close my eyes. I believe in you. I’m praying for you. I want to help you. Reid has said many things to me over the years, but it’s only now that I realize how long I’ve waited to hear him say this.

“I already know that, too,” I reply.

Mrs. O’Connor’s made doughnuts. She does it the old-fashioned way, frying them up, and sprinkling a little bit of sugar over them. I always look for her name on the church office bulletin board sign-up sheet, to see when she’s bringing a snack to the fellowship coffee after the service. You can bet I’m the first one out of the auditorium sanctuary, so that I get to that platter before the Sunday School kids do.

I’ve loaded up my plate with more than is my fair share when I hear Pastor Clive’s voice. “Max,” he says, “I should have known we’d find you here.”

I turn around, a doughnut already stuffing my mouth. The pastor is standing next to a newcomer, or at least I think he is a newcomer. He’s taller than Pastor Clive and has black hair slicked back with some kind of oil or mousse. His tie is the same color as his pocket square-pinkish, like smoked salmon. I have never seen teeth so white in my life.

“Ah,” he says, reaching for my hand. “The infamous Max Baxter.”

Infamous? What have I done now?

“Max,” the pastor says, “this is Wade Preston. Maybe you recognize him from TV?”

I shake my head. “Sorry.”

Wade laughs big and loud. “Gotta get me a better publicist! I’m an old friend of Clive’s. We went to seminary together.”

He has a Southern accent that makes his words sound like they’re swimming underwater. “So you’re a pastor, too?”