Opened it.
The first thing I saw was her photograph.
And I stopped breathing.
Her eyes hit me first. Dark brown, almost black in the lighting of whatever DMV or clinic photo this was. But it wasn’t the color that caught me—it was what lived behind them. Peace. Intelligence. Something deeper than surface-level pretty. The kind of eyes that said she’d seen some shit but hadn’t let it break her completely. The kind that made you want to know what she was thinking, what she’d survived, what made her look at the camera like that—like she was daring it to see her for real.
Then I noticed the rest of her.
Damn.
Truth Renois was a curvy girl. Not in the way people said it to be polite or careful. Thick in the way that made you look twice. Full-figured. Curvy in places that made your hands itch to touch. Thick thighs, wide hips, a softness to her body that looked like comfort and heat and everything a man wanted to sink into after a long day. The kind of woman who filled space just by existing. Who walked into a room and made people notice.
Amai had picked a BBW.
I didn’t know why that surprised me. Maybe because Amai usually went for the slim, polished type. The kind of woman wholooked good on his arm at business dinners. But Truth? Truth looked like she belonged in somebody’s kitchen, laughing over a pot of gumbo, her body pressed against yours while she told you to stop distracting her.
I flipped to the next page.
Name:Truth Renois
Age:27
Address:1234 N. Dorgenois St., New Orleans, LA 70119 (Seventh Ward)
Occupation:Certified Nursing Assistant, Magnolia Gardens Nursing Home
Marital Status:Divorced (finalized two months prior)
Ex-Husband:Phillip Dimitry, 29, logistics coordinator
I kept reading.
The divorce had wrecked her. Phillip kept the house in Metairie, kept the car, kept everything that mattered. Truth walked away with debt and a credit score in the low 500s. No savings. No assets. Living with her mother, Delphine, in a shotgun house that had been paid off in 2014.
She had three sisters—Saroya, Raven, Honor. All of them still in New Orleans. All of them broke in that generational way where you survived on love and stubbornness and plates of food passed between houses.
I flipped to her medical history.
Clean bill of health. No major surgeries. No chronic conditions. But there were notes in the margins—Amai’s handwriting, precise and controlled:
“Hormone sensitivity—monitor closely.”
“Injection site reaction—sent Dr. Chen.”
“Emotional resilience—high. Practical. Asks the right questions.”
I stared at that last line.
Asks the right questions.
That’s what had caught Amai’s attention. Not just her body or her bloodwork or her ability to carry a baby. It was her mind. The way she didn’t flinch when he walked into a room probably.
I kept flipping.
There were psychological evaluation notes from the fertility clinic. Dr. Beaumont’s assessment:
“Patient demonstrates strong emotional regulation despite recent trauma (divorce, financial instability). Motivated by practical concerns (financial security, family support) rather than emotional attachment to pregnancy outcome. Low risk for boundary violations. Recommended for surrogacy arrangement.”
