Chapter 12: Seasons of Repair
Repair did not arrive as a single holiday grace. It arrived as seasons of ordinary contact that did not require me to pretend.
Fall meant a virus and a midnight call; I stayed on the line while they waited at urgent care, no performance of grandparental rescue beyond listening. Winter meant Christmas in their living room with a video call to the agency’s voluntary “thinking of you” channel for carriers who had opted in; we did not know if Noah’s carrier saw it. We did not demand to know. Spring meant Noah’s first deliberate steps toward me, and the way my body forgot the folder for a full minute while my hands reached for a stumbling child. Summer meant a heat wave and me teaching Daniel my late husband’s trick for calming a furious toddler with a wet washcloth on the wrists. Useful knowledge. Untheatrical.
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The counselor tapered us to as-needed. We used as-needed twice—once when Daniel’s mother-in-law from Megan’s side made a cutting remark about “bought babies,” once when I snapped at Daniel for soft-pedaling a developmental appointment in a group chat. Both times we returned to the rule: complicated news gets a preface. Both times the repair was clumsy and sufficient.
I stopped telling the full story at my book club. Not out of shame—out of refusal to let Noah’s life become my anecdote. When a friend pressed, I said, “Surrogacy. Family learned late. We’re fine.” Fine was a public word. Privately I still had nights when the hallway whisper returned and I had to sit up and turn on a light. The light always worked. So did naming: That was a handoff. That was a lie about labor. That was a baby. That was my son being afraid. That was me, still here.
