Nobody invites us over anymore. Our phones are quiet. No texts; no calls. Fridays go by, then Saturdays and Sundays, and a certain agitation sets in. Gloria fakes not caring. She pretends she’s so excited to see a new movie, or go to a museum show, or eat at a restaurant she read about while our friends all meet up at a park or playground.
And sit while their kids run around.
None of them showed up on time. Them meaning the kids. Some of our friends got pregnant accidentally when we were very young, and the rest of us babysat while they studied for exams, sat at the back of the classroom like fake families during their end-of-semester presentations. Others got pregnant late, almost too late, after tests and thermometers and treatments that wiped out their savings. We cried over their losses at bar after bar, tried to console them by saying maybe this one wasn’t right, maybe next cycle. We toasted and celebrated when the blue line appeared on the test and three months went by—and look at that belly grow!
We went to birthdays and baptisms. We got good at choosing age-appropriate toys and guessing how big an outfit to buy. It worked for a while. Our friends, the parents, waited patiently for us. Occasionally one would say, while we played contentedly with their kids, “You guys aren’t ready yet?”
Gloria smiled like always. I lied more than ever.
Our friends waited and waited. In vain. Our kids never showed up at all.
Not that we went looking.
And so we wound up alone.
I wake up to a screen glowing in my face. My wife’s hand and arm loom behind it. In her eyes is a spark I haven’t seen in years.
“Look,” she demands.
I take her phone and read.
Mommy Time!
I’d laugh, but Gloria’s face tells me this is no joke.
I read carefully, eyes trained on the images and descriptions. At the bottom of the page are the rates. Which are insane. But our situation is dire.
We decide to give it a shot.
We tell our friends we’re dipping our toes in the water, and they’re thrilled. Within seconds, we get invited to the park.
On Sunday, Gloria sits by the door until she hears the bell. She leaps up and smooths wrinkles that aren’t there from her dress. On the doorstep is Gaspar, in a jacket that makes him look like a shrunken adult. He has a book under his arm and Sara, from the company, beside him. She’s holding an iPad that has our contract ready. Gloria signs with her finger, not bothering to read.
“Gaspar, meet Gloria and Tomás, your parents for the day.”
He looks up at us, not smiling. A bit absurdly, he takes off his hat.
“I’ll pick him up at 7:00. Please don’t keep me waiting,” Sara says, and then closes the door.
Gaspar sits in the living room. He seems at ease.
“Are you hungry?” my wife asks anxiously. “Would you like a snack?”
“No, thank you. I just ate lunch.” He’s peering at our art, our décor. Maybe he’s searching for books. “I understand we’re going to the park.”
His speech is so stilted that I wonder briefly whether he’s a robot. Gloria looks at me hotly, begging me to say something. In a tone stiffer than my usual, I say, “We are. Do you like playing games there?”
His face looks like I’d asked if he likes eating worms. I start to debate inventing a migraine so I don’t have to go.
He asks, “What should I call you?”
Gloria and I glance uneasily at each other.
“Your names? Or Mother and Father?”
His formality bothers me. It feels like pity. Like he came here to teach us a lesson.
I’m not brave enough to answer. After all, this was Gloria’s idea. But I couldn’t be more relieved when she says, “You can use our names, Gaspar. Our names are just fine.”
At the park, the Parents greet us too euphorically. Our friends grab Gaspar’s hand, offer him ice cream—he says he never eats sugar—and take him to meet their kids, who eye him curiously from slides and swings. “So cute!” the Parents cry, ruffling his hair and kissing his cheeks.
Gloria and I choose a bench. We watch him.
But he doesn’t run around. Instead of playing, he just stands in the sandbox, no idea what to do. It’s like he failed Childhood 101. He’s clutching his book like a buoy, like without it he’d sink and drown. His face makes no room for innocence. He radiates a solemn calm that seems completely inappropriate around all these howling kids. Kids who’ve called us aunt and uncle their whole lives.
One time, when Clara and Cristián’s daughter Lauri was a toddler, she got confused about Gloria. She started blinking at her, then asked, “Whose mommy are you?”
My wife was unfazed. Smiling, she said, “No one’s, Lauri. I’m not anyone’s mommy.”
Lauri was completely baffled. “So,” she said, much more shyly than usual, “what are you?”
I wish I could say that my wife kept smiling, or that I swooped in to rescue her. But the truth is that I stood in the corner with my wine glass, an uncomfortable audience, until Lauri—three seconds later—got bored and returned to her toys. But some bit of Gloria broke. It was a crack, hardly perceptible. During lunch, she busied herself scooping ice cream for our fake nieces and nephews; after, she sat with them and watched cartoons. When we got home that night, once we were together and alone, she turned to me and asked tentatively, “Are we sure?”
She didn’t need to say more. I understood what she meant.
But it was a strange we.
It made me feel a responsibility I had never thought of. I was sure. I loved our life, loved a version of us that had no room for anyone new. Certainly not someone who’d change our reality completely. I loved our late mornings, our control over our time, my wife’s devotion to her job. It was hard to imagine Gloria getting up to breastfeed three times a night, or giving up her sleep to nurse our eventual child through a cold. But she’d said we in a way that made it a new word. It was a question; a doubt; an invitation.
I don’t remember saying yes. I don’t remember saying anything. Gloria, who’d worn herself out, went to make tea, and I fell asleep. In the morning, our world had changed. From then on, we was a door slamming closed.
No one has fun. Not me, not Gloria, and certainly not Gaspar. He’s got great manners, he asks relevant questions (like an adult would, yes, but relevant), but once we get in the car, silence falls. Everybody seems grateful for it. He occasionally leafs through his book, and I want to tell him to save it for later in case he gets carsick, but no words come out.
Sara comes to get him right at 7:00, and Gloria heads upstairs. Another door shuts.
Water runs in the bathtub.
Eventually I go into the bathroom. Her body seems misshapen underwater. Weak bubbles gather by her sides and drift over her breasts. She looks old. Older than she is. Sad, too. I can tell today was intense for her. Not a good call. I consider suggesting a trip—yes, why don’t we get out of town, ditch our problems for a while?—but before I can, Gloria opens her mouth and stuns me by saying, “Would you mind if we tried again?”
I can’t speak.
She adds, “A girl this time.”
Her name is Amalia, and we keep her to ourselves. We’re not going to the park or sharing her with our friends. Maybe that helps Gloria get up the nerve to ask her to call us Mom and Dad—“but only if it feels okay,” she adds apologetically.
I have to admit that the girl is delightful. She’s not a big talker, but she talks like a normal child. She gets excited when we go out for ice cream and let her order anything she wants, and even more excited when we walk into a toy store. “Only one,” we tell her, anticipating trouble.
But Amalia considers her options and then marches through the shelves, beelining for a doll whose hair color you can change. It costs more than we would have preferred, but she asks, in her perfect voice, “Can we get this one, Dad?”
I don’t get goosebumps or tear up. Still, some bit of me stops working, some piece too small for Gloria to see.
We have a calm week. Gloria’s in a great mood, and we fuck pretty much daily. In the morning over breakfast; in the shower, slipping and laughing. We’re like our old selves. Our selves from so long ago. For a moment, I panic, imagining that Gloria’s gone off her birth control. What if she’s tricking me? But no: here are her pills, here’s the alarm on her phone, here she is taking one every day, punctual as always.
But when I get home on Friday, I hear shrieks.
I open the door to see my wife playing with Amalia, sprinting up and down the stairs like a maniac. Neither of them sees me as they shoot by. For dinner we get a pizza—Amalia’s request—and, after, we curl up and watch a movie together, the little girl between us. Sometimes she glances at us and smiles.
Sara picks her up and wishes us good night. So does Amalia. But as she walks to the company’s car, she doesn’t turn to look at us.
Not once.
For a few days, life seems normal. Gloria works late, then comes home and tells me happily about a new commission—a house in the south—and an end-of-year bonus. My patients have started referring me to their friends. Life is bestowing abundance upon us. We get a reservation at a hot new restaurant; we order a new living-room TV and throw in an Xbox. Gloria scrolls through photos of Amalia on her phone sometimes, looking dreamy but not sad.
According to our kitchen calendar, Teo has a birthday coming. All our fake nieces and nephews’ birthdays are written there. His mom calls to invite us over. She asks us to bring ice—it always runs out—and then, as if casually, suggests that we give the company another shot.
“Wouldn’t it be fun?” she asks, her voice creeping higher and higher. She’s on speaker, and it floats through the kitchen like a ghost.
Gloria is already on her phone. She pulls up Mommy Time! I’d like to say the idea bugs me, but it wouldn’t be true. I genuinely appreciate the suggestion. I want to see Amalia. I want to get her the toy car that caught my eye in the supermarket, the one that goes with her doll. I want to tell her the corny jokes my dad told me. But Gloria’s face is clouding. She keeps tapping the screen, searching the company’s catalogue.
“Is she not available?” I ask.
Gloria says nothing. She puts the phone to her ear and goes out to the balcony. I see her gesturing, starting to shake. It’s chilly out, but I don’t dare bring her a jacket. Our Chinese food arrives, and I go to the door to let the delivery guy in. I look through the paper bag, then pay him in crisp new bills.
When I return to the kitchen, Gloria is inside. Her expression is one I’ve never seen.
“We can see her a different day, sweetie. It’s not important if she can’t come this time.”
And she tells me.
Amalia’s parents—her real parents—more or less demanded she stop working. It didn’t feel right to them.
Gloria’s eyes are sad. While she talks, she digs through the paper bag, faking too much interest in our food.
Slowly the calls and invitations taper. We drop by the park a couple Sundays, no child in tow, and our friends are plainly let down. Some ask if we made up our minds, if we’re ready to try now. Others suggest treatments or tell us it isn’t too late to freeze eggs, that we could regret not doing it down the road. None of these are fun conversations. All of them are the kind where the other person looks at the ground while they talk, or just sends us emails without subjects, emails containing only a link to a fertility center and a sign-off.
Hugs!
Love you.
Gloria talks less and less. Something has left her for good, or is having trouble getting back into her body. On the nights she gets home late, she seems totally shut down. I ask if she’d like to call Sara. We could take another girl to Disney on Ice next month.
But she doesn’t answer me.
While Gloria does the dishes, I glance at her phone.
Amalia isn’t on her lock screen anymore.
Mommy Time!, with its acid-green font, is gone.
Now it’s my turn to say, “Are we sure?”
It takes her less than a second to reply.
