Sing You Home

“I’m a lawyer and a good Christian,” Wade says. “As much as that sounds like an oxymoron.”

“Wade’s being modest,” Pastor Clive explains. “He’s a voice for the pre-born. In fact, he’s made it his life’s mission to ensure their rights and to protect them. He’s very interested in your case, Max.”

What case?

I don’t realize I’ve said that out loud until Wade Preston answers. “Clive tells me you’re going to file to keep your lesbian ex-wife from getting her hands on your child.”

I look at Pastor Clive, and then around the room to see if Reid and Liddy have entered yet, but I’m on my own here.

“What you need to know, Max, is that you’re not alone,” Wade says. “It’s the gay-by boom: homosexuals are trying to pervert the notion of a family as being anything other than a mother and a father in a loving Christian household. My goal is to do for adoptions what the Defense of Marriage Act does for the sanctity of that sacrament-namely, to keep innocent children from being victimized.” He puts his arm around my shoulders, steering me away from a clot of church hens who have come to the coffee urn. “You know how I found Jesus, Max? I was ten years old and stuck in summer school because I failed fourth grade. And my teacher, Mrs. Percival, asked if anyone wanted to stay with her during recess to pray. Well, let me tell you, I couldn’t have cared less about religion at the time. All I wanted was to be the teacher’s pet so that I could be the first one in line for snack that day, because we got served cookies, and there were never enough chocolate ones to go around, and the vanilla ones tasted like-pardon my French-ass. I figured I’d say a few silly prayers with her and I’d cut to the front of that snack line.

“Sure enough, I listened to her Jesus-this and Jesus-that. I pretended to go along with it, but the whole time I was thinking of those cookies. When it came time for snack, Mrs. Percival let me be the line leader. I raced to the snack table, but I might as well have been flying there, I was so light on my feet. And I looked at the tray, and there wasn’t a single chocolate cookie on it.”

I glance down at my plate of doughnuts.

“Here’s the incredible part, Max. I picked up one of those vanilla cookies, which were probably baked out of cardboard and donkey crap, and I took a big ol’ bite, and it was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. It tasted like chocolate and Christmas morning and winning the World Series, all wrapped up into one little dollop of dough. And that’s the moment I realized that Jesus was with me, even when I didn’t expect it.”

“You got saved over a cookie?” I ask.

“Yes, I did. And you know how I know for sure? Because since that moment in Mrs. Percival’s remedial summer class, I have been in a car accident that killed every other passenger but myself. I’ve survived spinal meningitis. I’ve graduated at the top of my law school class at Ole Miss. I’ve sailed through life, Max, and I am smart enough to know I’m not the captain of my own ship, if you get my drift. And because God’s been looking out for me, I believe it’s my Christian duty to look out for those who can’t look out for themselves. I’ve been admitted to practice law in nineteen states,” Wade says. “I’m active with the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption program-you’ve heard of it?”

Only because Pastor Clive told Reid and Liddy about it, after the last miscarriage. It’s a Christian adoption agency that starts before the baby is born and lets people who’ve been through IVF match their extra embryos with families who need them.

“What I’m trying to tell you,” he says smoothly, “is that I’ve got the experience local counsel might not have. There are men all over the country-men like you-who try to do everything right and who still find themselves in this horrible situation. You’ve been saved. Now it’s up to you to save your children.” He looks directly into my eyes. “And I’m here to help.”

I don’t know what to say. I got a voice mail on my phone from Zoe yesterday. She just wanted to know if I’d signed the paper yet. If I wanted to talk more, meet for coffee, ask her any questions.

I kept her message. Not because of what she was asking but because of her voice. She wasn’t singing, but there was a rise and fall to her words that made me think of music.

The thing is, I’ve already fucked up again. I don’t really want to tell Zoe I’ve come to a decision, but I have to. And something tells me she’ll be about as thrilled to have her babies raised by Liddy and Reid as I am to have mine raised by two dykes.

Wade Preston reaches into the pocket inside his suit jacket and pulls out his card. “Why don’t we meet next week?” he suggests. “We have a lot to discuss to get this ball rolling.” As Pastor Clive leads him away to meet some of the other congregants, he flashes that million-dollar smile at me again.

I have six doughnuts on my plate, and I don’t even want to eat one anymore. I feel sick, actually.

Because the truth is: the ball’s been set in motion.

It’s halfway down the hill already.

The night before I am supposed to meet Wade Preston at Pastor Clive’s office-he thought we might appreciate the privacy-I have a dream. Liddy is pregnant already, and, instead of just Reid being in the delivery room, there are dozens of people, all wearing hospital scrubs and blue masks. You can’t make out who anyone is, except for their eyes.

Pastor Clive is sitting between Liddy’s legs and acting as the doctor. He reaches down to catch the baby. “You’re doing great,” he tells her as she screams, pushing this bloody mess of baby into the world.

A nurse takes the baby and swaddles it, and when she does she gasps. She calls over Pastor Clive, who looks into the folds of the blue blanket and says, “Sweet Jesus.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, pushing through the crowd. “What’s the matter?”

But they don’t hear me. “Maybe she won’t notice,” the nurse whispers, and she hands Liddy the baby. “Here’s your son,” she coos.

Liddy lifts up the corner of the blanket draping the newborn and starts to shriek. She nearly drops the baby, and I rush forward to pick him up.

That’s when I see it: he has no face.

Instead there’s just a mottled oval of lumps and boils, a seam where a mouth should have been.

“I don’t want it!” Liddy cries. “He’s not really mine!”

One of the masked observers steps forward. She takes the baby from me and begins to pinch the flesh into false features-a hill of a nose, two thumbprint eyes-as if the baby is made of clay. She gazes down as if it is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. “There,” she says. She pulls off her mask and smiles, and that’s when I see it is Zoe.

I’m sweating when I walk into Pastor Clive’s office to meet with Wade, so much that I’ve nearly soaked through my shirt, and I’m figuring he’ll think either I’m a freak or I have some weird metabolic disorder, when in fact I’m just a little scared to tell him what I’ve been thinking all morning.

Namely, that I may be making a mistake. Sure, I want to help Liddy and Reid… but I don’t want to hurt Zoe.

Wade’s wearing another perfectly tailored suit, this one with a faint silver shine to it that makes him look the way Jesus always does in paintings-glowing, a little brighter than everyone else around Him.

“It’s good to see you, Max,” Wade says, pumping my hand up and down. “I gotta tell you, since I talked with you on Sunday, you’ve been at the forefront of my mind.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well.”

“Now, we’ve got a lot of background to cover, so I’m just going to ask you questions, and you do your best to answer them.”

“Can I ask you one first?” I say.

He looks up, nods. “Absolutely.”

“It’s not so much of a question, really. It’s more of a statement. I mean, I know I have a right to decide what happens to these embryos. But Zoe does, too.”

Wade sits down on the edge of Pastor Clive’s desk. “You are a hundred percent right, at least when you look at this issue superficially. You and Zoe both have an equal gametic claim to these embryos. But let me ask you this: Did you intend to raise these pre-born children in a heterosexual relationship with your ex-wife?”

“Yeah.”

“Yet, unfortunately, your marriage didn’t last.”

“That’s exactly it,” I burst out. “Nothing worked out the way we planned. And finally, she seems to be happy. It may not be what I’d do, or what you’d do, but why should I ruin