Ahead of Time

Nancy Manther

Description

Sometimes dreams can come at a price. Polly Andover's dream of becoming a mother challenged her in ways she had never imagined possible. Medical science helped her miracle happen, but had she known ahead of time how it would change her life, would she have made the same choice?

Sujets

• Women
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 20 janvier 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456630089
• Langue: English

Extrait

Ahead of Time
 
A Novel
 
 
by
 
Nancy Manther
Copyright 2018 Nancy Manther,
All rights reserved.
 
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-3008-9
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
 
 

For Judson and Makayla…
…and all the other angels
Table of Contents
Polly
Emma
Michael
Polly
Emma
Michael
Polly
Blaine
Emma
Polly
Blaine
Emma
Polly
Michael
Blaine
Emma
Polly
Michael
Emma
Polly
Blaine
Emma
Michael
Polly
Blaine
Emma
Michael
Polly
Emma
Blaine
Michael
Polly
Emma
Michael
Blaine
Polly
Emma
Michael
Polly
Emma
Polly
Michael
Blaine
Emma
Polly
Michael
Polly
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
For More Information
 
Polly
I’m finally a mother. It’s something I’ve wanted to be for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl I used to play “house” with my friends and always had the most kids—seven of them. Granted, they were imaginary, but I had named them and kept track of their ages and every detail about them. Of course any problems that my imaginary children had, were also imaginary and I was able to solve them by the end of the play date. There was nothing I couldn’t handle; somehow I still believed it could be that way. My parents had made it look so easy when they were raising my little brother and me, I assumed it would be that way when I had children as well.
Now here I am, snuggling with this tiny, squirming bundle of joy. She is absolutely perfect. She has ten exquisitely formed little fingers and ten equally perfect little toes and the most beautiful, big blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Her head is nice and round, not misshapen the way lots of newborns’ heads are, and she has a generous amount of dark brown hair. My mom told me while I was pregnant that I was going to have a baby with lots of hair because I had such bad heartburn. I’d love her just as much if she were as bald as a billiard ball (my dad’s words, not mine) because she is my little girl; my little Lily Rose. I already love her more than I ever thought possible. Everyone always says that, but it’s not a cliche; it’s really true.
Blaine is still warming up to the idea of being a father. Last night when Lily was born, the doctor asked him if he wanted to cut the cord. The topic had been covered in our childbirth classes, but we had never discussed it. Blaine always fled from the room or changed the subject if I ever brought it up. When my doctor stood there offering the scissors to him, Blaine just looked from him to me in horror and said, “No!” with a little too much feeling. Even though I’d just pushed another human being out of my body and was a tad preoccupied with the miracle of it all, I was hurt and mortified. How could he say that? It wasn’t that he didn’t want to do it that bothered me—lots of people might be squeamish about that—it was his tone. He sounded appalled and disgusted by the idea of cutting our baby’s cord and as a result, cut me to the quick. As it was, instead of watching Lily make her entrance into the world by my side, he hovered near the door of the birthing room in a cold sweat, ready to bolt. Instead of feeling closer to him than I ever had before, it seemed that he found me repulsive, that he couldn’t get far enough away from Lily and me. So much for perfect moments.
 
Lily’s birth was the culmination of a somewhat complicated process. It was a joyful experience for me, but apparently not for Blaine. I shouldn’t be surprised and I’m not—just deeply disappointed. You see, Blaine told me from the beginning that he didn’t want children. He said that his parents had been cold and distant while he was growing up and he had no reason to think that he’d be any different. I, however, am an eternal optimist and did everything in my power to convince him that he’d be a fantastic father. I wouldn’t have married someone who wasn’t good father material, would I? I also didn’t believe that being a bad parent was genetic; it was more of a learned behavior. As long as he was aware of it, I thought that would be enough to make him Father of the Year. After all, being a parent was my destiny.
“Polly,” he said one evening after I’d pulled out all the stops—sexy lingerie, wine, his favorite meal—to convince him, “I’ve told you, I don’t want to have children. I’m sorry we don’t agree about this, but that’s the way it is. No amount of alcohol or sheer lace will make me change my mind.” He lifted his wine glass to his lips and drained it of its contents.
I looked at him and sighed. He always took my breath away no matter how much he frustrated me, which is how I wound up marrying him before we’d discussed our expectations about practical details such as parenthood. There’s a good reason for that: Blaine is gorgeous. Tall, well-built and blonde, he’s Hollywood good-looking. When Blaine looks at me with those deep blue eyes of his, I melt every time. His smile is intoxicating, as is the dimple that appears in his left cheek when he smiles really big. Unfortunately those dimple sightings are a rare thing because Blaine doesn’t smile very often. No, he’s far too serious for that.
I reached back and took the clip out of my hair, letting it cascade around my shoulders like a silky, mahogany cape. Blaine loved my hair and I knew that unleashing it while wearing my latest purchase from Victoria’s Secret could have a very potent effect. Leaning toward him, letting just the right amount of cleavage show, I arranged my lips in a seductive pout and said, “Oh, sweetie, come on. We’ll make such beautiful babies—”
“Polly!” It was a reprimand, an admonishment, as good as a slap across my face. “We will not make beautiful babies because I had a vasectomy five years ago.”
Stung, I backed away from him, pulling the white cashmere throw from the back of the sofa, clutching it around my shoulders. Tears sprang to my eyes; tears of humiliation and shame to start with, and tears of disbelief and anger to follow.
I did the math in my shell-shocked head.“You had it done when you were only thirty-five? While you were married to Meg?”
He strode across the living room, breathtaking in his self-righteous arrogance. When he stopped in front of the fireplace, he turned and blew out the candles on the mantle. The wax splattered into the air and dripped onto the marble below in a reckless splash of apricot and sage.
“Yes, I did.” My fairy tale hopes for a happy little family were impaled on his barbed-wire gaze. “It was the reason for the divorce. Meg desperately wanted children. Apparently she felt a little betrayed.”
I sat there, speechless. I desperately wanted children. I had just turned thirty when we’d gotten married and could hear my biological clock ticking louder and louder. Had I told him that during our whirlwind courtship? I couldn’t remember. Had he told me he didn’t ever want children? No, he’d barely mentioned that he’d been married before, but I wasn’t surprised by that news. A man as attractive as Blaine, with a successful career as a corporate attorney, was unlikely to make it to the age of forty without lugging some relationship baggage with him.
All the oxygen seemed to have been sucked out of the room as the candles on the end table extinguished themselves in quiet defeat. The room became blurry as tears ran out of room in my eyes and began to slip down my cheeks.
“That would do it.” I wiped the tears away with my fingers and then a question occurred to me. I always have to ask just one more question. “So, even though Meg wanted children, you went ahead and did it anyway?”
He ran his hands through his thick blonde hair and said, “I’d already had it done.” He looked at me with a mixture of amusement and pride.
“How did you manage that?” It kept getting worse.
He shrugged. “Meg had gone out of town for a week with her sisters.” There was a slight pause and then, “You know the saying, ‘It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?’” His mouth curled into a wry smile.
The barbecued ribs and cheesy potatoes I’d eaten for dinner were threatening to make a return appearance as my stomach churned and rumbled. I had to remind myself to breathe at all, let alone deeply. My hands were in my lap, balled up into two, white-knuckled fists, ready for a battle that had already been fought without me.
“Well, Blaine, that would have been nice to know ahead of time, but I still would have married you, because I love you.” The words materialized from somewhere deep inside me, possibly within my aching heart.
He turned to look at me so quickly I thought his head was going to unscrew itself from his neck and roll across the room. Getting a vasectomy seemed like an effective but extreme way to get out of a marriage. Was he hoping history would repeat itself?
“And I love you,” he managed to mumble. I couldn’t tell by his tone whether he was relieved or disappointed by my declaration of love. Either way, the lack of conviction in his voice made the knife twist.
I had decided to let it be for the moment, but not long after, while Blaine was still feeling remorseful for his deceit, I’d brought up the subject of in-vitro fertilization or IVF. Whether it was guilt or just wanting to make me stop nagging him, eventually he agreed to the procedure. I was convinced that since he’d married not one, but two women who had strong maternal instincts, he must have had some latent desire