Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
I read it again, certain I’d misunderstood. But no—the number stayed the same. A quarter of a million dollars for nine months. The ad was sparse, clinical. No photos. No names. Just requirements:Healthy female, 21-35, no history of pregnancy complications, willing to undergo IVF and carry to term. All medical expenses covered. Legal contract required.
At the bottom:Apply here.
My heart was doing back flips in my chest.
“You just getting in?” Mama’s voice cut through from the kitchen. Delphine Renois didn’t ask questions—she made observations that sounded like accusations.
I looked up. She was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame like she’d been holding up that house for forty years and was getting real tired of it. She had a rocks glass in one hand, clear liquid catching the overhead light. Her hair was wrapped in a silk scarf, her face bare except for the lines life had carved into it. She was fifty-three and looked sixty, but her eyes were sharp as ever.
“Double shift,” I said.
“Mmm-hmm.” Ice clinked as she took a sip. “You eat?”
“I’m fine.”
“That ain’t what I asked.”
My stomach was empty, but admitting it felt like losing. I looked back down at my phone. The ad was still there, glowing like a dare.
$250,000.
I could pay off Phillip’s debt—the credit cards he’d opened in my name, the loans I didn’t know about until the collectors started calling. I could get my own place. Start over. Actually start over, not this half-life I was living in Mama’s house, sleeping in my childhood bedroom with posters still on the walls.
Nine months.
That’s all it was. Nine months of my life for a quarter million dollars.
Mama moved into the living room, settling into the recliner that was older than me. The springs groaned. “What you looking at on that phone?”
“Job listings.”
“What kind of job makes you look like that?”
I turned the phone face-down on my lap. But my mind was already moving, already doing the math. $250,000. I could feel Mama watching me, could feel the weight of the house around us—the peeling paint, the water stain on the ceiling from the leak we couldn’t afford to fix, the bills stacked on the kitchen counter.
This house had kept us alive, but it was also a trap.
And I was so tired of being trapped.
“It’s a job posting,” I said finally. “A legal one.”
Mama’s eyes narrowed. “Legal don’t mean safe. And that look on your face? That ain’t the look of somebody who found a regular job. That’s the look of somebody about to do something stupid.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“Yet.” Mama pointed at me with the glass. “That’s the word that’s gonna get you in trouble, baby.Yet.”
I picked up my phone again. The ad was still there. $250,000. I could feel Mama watching me, could feel her reading me the way she’d been reading me since I was born.
“I’m just looking,” I said.
“Mmm-hmm.” Mama didn’t believe me. Mama never believed me when I was lying. “You remember what I told you about things that sound too good to be true?”
“They usually are. But this man is offering 250K, Ma.”
“And you remember what happened the last time you trusted a man who promised you everything?”
