“Why wouldn’t I be doing it?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I thought you might be working for your church.”
“Well, on Mondays I do,” he says. “They’re one of my clients.” He rubs his jaw with his fist. “I saw a sign outside a bar, saying you’d be singing. You haven’t performed since before we got . . . well, for a long time.”
“I know—I sort of fell back into it.” I hesitate. “You weren’tatthe bar . . . ?”
“No.” Max laughs. “I’m cleaner than soap these days.”
“Good. I mean, that’s really good. And, yeah, I’ve been doing a little singing here and there. Acoustically. It keeps me on my toes for my therapy sessions.”
“So you’re still doing that.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. A lot about you has . . . changed.”
It is so strange, to encounter an ex. It’s as if you’re in a foreign film, and what you’re saying face-to-face has nothing to do with the subtitles flowing beneath you. We are so careful not to touch, although once upon a time, I slept plastered to him in our bed, like lichen on a rock. We are two strangers who know every shameful secret, every hidden freckle, every fatal flaw in each other.
“I got married,” I blurt out.
Since Max hasn’t been paying me alimony, there’s really no reason he would have known. For a second he looks completely baffled. Then his eyes widen. “You mean, you and . . . ?”
“Vanessa,” I say. “Yes.”
“Wow.” Max shifts, sliding centimeters away from me on the stone bench. “I, uh, didn’t realize it was so . . . real.”
“Real?”
“Serious, I mean. I figured it was some fling you had to get out of your system.”
“You mean the same way you were a casual drinker?” As soon as I say the words, I regret them. I’m supposed to be here to win Max over to my side, not to antagonize him. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
Max looks like he’s about to be sick. “I’m glad you told me face-to-face. It would have been really tough to hear that through the grapevine.”
For a moment, I almost feel sorry for him. I can only imagine the flak he’ll get from his new church buddies about me. “There’s more,” I say, swallowing. “Vanessa and I want to start a family. Vanessa’s young and healthy, and there’s no reason she can’t have a baby.”
“I can think of a pretty major one,” Max says.
“Well, actually, that’s why I’m here.” I take a deep breath. “It would mean a lot to us if the baby Vanessa had was biologically mine. And there are three embryos left over from when you and I were trying. I’d like your permission to use them.”
Max’s head snaps up. “What?”
“I know this is a lot to take in at once—”
“I told you I don’t want to be a father . . .”
“And I’m not asking you to. No strings attached, Max. We’ll sign anything you want to guarantee that. We’re not expecting you to support a baby in any way—not with money, or with your name, nothing. You won’t have any obligations or responsibilities to the baby, if we’re lucky enough to have one.” I meet his gaze. “These embryos—they already exist. They’re just waiting. For how long? Five years? Ten? Fifty? Neither of us wants them destroyed, and you’ve already said you don’t want kids. But I do. I want them so bad that it hurts.”
“Zoe—”
“This is my last chance. I’m too old to go through in vitro again to harvest more eggs with an anonymous sperm donor.” With a shaking hand I pull the form from the clinic out of my purse. “Please, Max? I’m begging you.”
He takes the piece of paper but doesn’t look at it. He doesn’t look atme.“I . . . I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
You do,I realize.You just won’t say it.
“Think about it?” I ask.
