“Women have babies over forty.”
“That’s true. But our bodies aren’t all the same.”
“If you were, I don’t know, twenty-five, would you have my baby?”
“Yes, I love you. I would, but I’m not twenty-five. Just thinking about it is scary.”
“Why? Tell me what’s scary?”
“I could die and bleed out on the table. It’s not like childbirth is a picnic. It’s so hard.”
“It’s hard. What else?”
“Money and time? Babies cost money.”
“Is there anything else on your cons list?”
“I’m probably in perimenopause?”
“That’s it then?”
“Uh, yeah. It seems like quite enough to me.”
“You’re a good mother. I want you to be the mother of my child. I bloody love you. I can trust you. My child will be safe with you. I’m a traveling musician. You pretty much work from home? If you don’t have any eggs we can deal with that. You don’t know how many eggs you have or if you are in pre-menopause. Money isn’t an issue. I have money. I will make sure you are taken care of. That’s what attorneys are for. Time, you mentioned time. The solution is simple, a full-time nanny. Is there anything else?”
“My age, I don’t know if I can physically have a baby inside me. Will it grow in my womb and live? It’s a lot of strain on the body. I have fibroid tumors.”
“I don’t know what that is. But I already thought about you not wanting to go through nine months of illness and the other stuff. We can have a surrogate carry the baby. People are doing this now. It’s a thing. They put my sperm with your egg and they place the fertilized egg inside a gestational surrogate. She carries the baby for a fee and then gives it to us once the baby is born. It cost less than a house in this neighborhood.”
How did this man know how much a house in Naperville, Illinois cost?
I sighed. “I don’t know anything about surrogacy.”
“There’s not much to it.”
“How do you know about it?”
“I looked into it.”
“You did?”
“I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t have a legitimate reason to say no.” Jagger walked over and wrapped his hands around my shoulders. “I know this is a big step. But I want to do this with you.”
“I’ll be sixty years old with a teenager.”
“But you’ll look forty.”
I rolled my eyes so hard they almost got stuck. “Don’t try to make me laugh. This is serious.”
“I am serious. Your melanin is popping. It’s popping. You look like a queen when you go shopping. Cuz y’all know Black, don’t crack. Black girl magic is where you at.”
Singing Jagger, was not what I expected. Things like this made me smile deep inside my soul. He was so into everything he did. Why would I think he wouldn’t research this and take it seriously? He was far from a slacker.
“Ms. Sweet, don’t look at everything in life as a number or a bloody age. Look me in the eye and tell me you will consider this. I will make it worth your wild.”
“Jagger, I don’t even know what that means.”
“Bands, you will be excessively compensated.”
“Are you offering me money?”
“Of course, you said kids cost money.”
“If I say no, then what?”
“Why would you say no to me?” He leaned in to plant the most seductive kiss on my lips. I had to kiss him back. I loved him too much to be upset. “I’m not going to go out and have a baby with someone else if you say no. I don’t want you to think that. I want a legacy. I want to be a father and I want you to be the mum.”
“This was not apart of my future plans.”
“I wasn’t in your future plans either. But look at us.”
He had a point. I didn’t see any of this coming. I was dating an actual famous person. He was the real deal. I was living a lifestyle that I never dreamed of, first-class, private jets, foreign countries, five-star hotels, designer gifts, and the truck.
“Can you do me a huge favor and just go to a doctor and explore the options? Please do that for me.”
“Fine.” I couldn’t believe I agreed to this.
“A specialist. You go and talk to someone alone. I want to go with you, but it’s best that I don’t. If I come I have to sneak in the back. I have to get the doctor and his staff to sign an NDA. Everyone has a cell phone. It will probably leak."
“Yeah, I understand. You shouldn’t be there.”
“While your sitting in the doc’s office please think about the bloody fact that I am an orphan. This would be the greatest gift that I ever received in his life. Even better than the tattoo, even better than Vicky.”
Better than the guitar his mother bought him his tenth birthday. He was laying it on so thick I couldn’t swallow it. I was choking. It felt like someone had hands around my neck. A baby— he wanted forty-five year old me to give him a baby and he didn’t care how he got it.
I never thought about having his baby. I don’t even think I held an infant in my arms in the last ten years. My middle-aged mind drifted back to the things he said. Things that I disregarded because I didn’t realize they weren’t jokes. He would say things in bed about me stopping birth control. I laughed, haha, tee-hee. He didn’t know that if I stopped taking the pill I would probably bleed to death and the menstrual cramps would be unbearable. I couldn’t blame his age for not knowing all the physical things older women went through. I was sure men my age were clueless too.
I remembered Jagger would see a baby in a commercial and say things like that’s what our baby would look like. I never took him seriously. All
