The Offering (11 page)

After a delicious Christmas dinner and the subsequent cleanup, all of us went in search of places to sleep for a few hours. Marilee had nodded off during dessert, so Gideon carried her into one of Mama Isa's guest rooms and Mom and I followed. Gideon dozed
in an overstuffed chair while Mom, Marilee, and I lay down on the bed, covered with only a thin quilt. I knew Yanela and Gordon would sleep in the master bedroom, while Amelia and Mario would nap in the living room. Tumelo and Elaine actually went home to sleep, but they only lived a few blocks away. I never knew if or where Mama Isa and Jorge slept. They were always awake when I went to bed and awake when I woke up.

We didn't need a rooster to wake us at sunrise on Christmas morning; we had Marilee. She ran from room to room, banging on doors and announcing that Santa had come once again. I emerged from the guest room with rumpled hair and bleary eyes, but the house shone with bright lights and glowing candles. Fragrant pastries and fresh-brewed coffee beckoned us to the kitchen, where Mama Isa stood in her holiday apron, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed.

Maybe, I mused, she never slept at all on those holiday nights. Or maybe she was energized by the Spirit of the holiday.

After filling a plate with the bounties of Mama Isa's breakfast buffet, I tried to prepare Mom for the traditional Lisandra gift exchange. The extended family rarely gave expensive presents—tradition dictated that we draw names, then find something inexpensive, funny, or especially appropriate for the recipient.

With our plates in hand, we moved into the living room and settled on the sofa or pulled kitchen chairs into a circle near the Christmas tree. Tumelo, Gideon's father, began the exchange by calling my name and asking me to open my gift—a
tostonera,
as it turned out, a hinged wooden device used for flattening plantain chunks so they could be deep fried. I knew what a
tostonera
was, of course, since we sold them in the grocery, but I played dumb and wondered aloud if the gadget was some sort of musical instrument. I tried flapping the device as if it were a castanet, but my efforts only elicited howls of laughter from Gideon's mother, Elaine, who had probably been gifted with a
tostonera
in her younger days.

Her laughter made me smile. Elaine and I had never been close, and not even five years of marriage to her son had managed to crack the ice between us. I had always sensed that she didn't think I was good enough for Gideon, and while that might be true, Gideon didn't seem to care that he'd married beneath his mother's standards.

I had drawn Mama Isa's name, and spent days racking my brain for the perfect present. I finally found a garlic slicer in a kitchen store—and since Cuban chicken calls for loads of garlic, I thought she'd appreciate it. The gift wouldn't be particularly funny, but if anyone could put a garlic slicer to good use, she could.

After opening my gift, Mama Isa spent a full minute staring at the shiny silver tube.
“¿Qué es?”
she finally whispered to Jorge.
“¿Puedo ver a través de él?”

“
Esto es un
garlic slicer,” I hurried to explain. “You put a clove in the bottom part, snap the two sections together, and turn. Sliced garlic comes out the other end.”

She gave me a sweet, tolerant smile. “
Muchas gracias,
Amanda.”

The other women asked to see it, probably out of sheer politeness, and I sat, my cheeks flaming, as Gordon passed a wrapped present to Mario.

I snuggled closer to my husband as Mario made a big fuss over the beautiful package Gordon had given him. The old man beamed, a twinkle in his eye, and the older folks snickered when Mario opened the box and pulled out a pair of candy cane boxer shorts. Mario tried to smile, but a flush colored his face. Beside him, Amelia's chin quivered and she lowered her gaze.

My heart twisted for both of them. Grandpa Gordon wouldn't have known about their infertility; he had undoubtedly bought the boxers as a gag gift. Unfortunately, those randy shorts were the last thing Mario wanted to exhibit in front of the family.

“Gideon.” I nudged him. “Quick, take your present to Yanela.”

Bless my husband for not asking why. As Mario stuffed the shorts back in the box, Gideon leapt up and with great fanfare
presented a gift to his grandmother—all in an effort to draw attention away from the miserable couple next to us.

“For you, beautiful Abuela”—Gideon fell on one knee in an exaggerated display of gallantry—“because without you, none of us would be here.”

Smiling, the old woman absently touched the mound of beautiful black and silver hair piled on the back of her head, then accepted the box—another gift I had chosen after days of frustrated shopping. With glacial slowness she unwrapped the paper, smoothed out the wrinkles, and finally removed the lid.

“Oh!” She lifted the hair ornament I'd ordered from an online site, then her gaze slid around the circle and met mine.
“Que hermosa.”

I'd bought her a
temblique,
an ornate hair ornament typically worn by women in Panama. I had no idea whether Cuban women ever wore such things, but since Latin American culture pervaded the Caribbean, I hoped she'd at least know what to do with it.

Yanela murmured something to her husband, then smiled at me again. “I wore one of these at my wedding.” She pressed the delicate, feathery ornament to her heart. “Beautiful.
Muchas gracias, mi querida niña.
”

As Yaritza and the other women admired the
temblique,
Mom jabbed her bony elbow into my ribs. “What is that feathery thing? It looks like something you'd sew on an overdecorated nightgown.”

I thought about ignoring her, but didn't want to be rude. “It's an ornament,” I whispered, watching Jorge deliver a gift to Amelia. “You wear it in your hair.”

“Awfully fussy, isn't it?”

“It's
supposed
to be a little over the top.”

My mom harrumphed. “Gaudy is more like it. I can't imagine ever wearing anything like that.”

“No one's asking you to, are they?”

Why did Mom have to comment on everything, and why did her opinions have to be right? I sighed and slipped my arm around Marilee, then caught Gideon's sympathetic gaze.

While I celebrated the holidays with my mom and Gideon's family, Simone and Damien observed Christmas at home in France. Natasha called to explain that the couple had gone home for the holiday, but were due to return to Florida the next week. Because Simone had to be involved in all the steps to harvest eggs for in vitro fertilization, they'd probably rent a hotel suite for as long as it took to establish a pregnancy.

“Apparently the grape harvest is finished so this is a good time for them to be away,” Natasha told me after setting the date for my first appointment with the reproductive endocrinologist. “They've had bad luck in previous situations, so they're hoping everything will work out this time.”

The first Monday after Christmas, when most of the world went back to business as usual, Gideon and I went to see Dr. Harvey Forrester, the RE who would be taking care of me and Simone as we prepared for the embryo transfer. My husband and I sat in the doctor's office and listened to his explanation of the procedure, then shook our heads when he asked if we had any questions.

When the doctor looked down to write something on my chart, Gideon leaned closer. “If you need a daily shot in the backside,” he whispered, a teasing note in his voice, “I don't think I'll mind watching.”

“Down, boy,” I countered, patting his arm. “The doctor said we can't fool around until
after
we get a positive pregnancy test.”

I had lowered my voice, but apparently I didn't lower it enough.

“Speaking of pregnancy tests”—Dr. Forrester looked up and nodded at the nurse waiting nearby—“we have to draw blood for the preprocedure beta test. We have to make absolutely sure you're not pregnant before you begin the hormone injections.”

While the nurse tied a rubber strip around my upper arm, Gideon stood and walked to the wall, where he pretended to study diagrams of fetal development. A memory flickered through my
mind—he had also turned away from the sight of a needle when I went into the hospital to have Marilee. Could my warrior husband be nervous about needles?

“All finished.” The nurse capped the blood-filled vial and carried it toward the doorway. “This will only take a few minutes.”

I held a cotton ball on the tiny spot where the syringe had broken my skin. “Why couldn't I have peed in a cup?”

“Because urine tests aren't nearly as reliable as blood tests,” the doctor said. “But let's go ahead and talk while we're waiting for confirmation.”

I shot Gideon a questioning look as he sat again, but he kept his gaze on the doctor.

“I'm giving you prescriptions for an estrogen patch, progesterone cream, birth control pills, and Lupron,” Dr. Forrester said, “as well as a handy little calendar to help you remember when to start and stop each. You'll take Lupron for the first seventeen days, birth control pills for the first four, then on the ninth day you'll begin to wear the estrogen patch, which you'll use for the rest of the month. On the eighteenth day we add progesterone to the mix to stimulate the lining of your uterus.”

I squeezed Gideon's hand. “Sounds complicated.”

“It'll all make sense when you look at the calendar.” Forrester's gaze darted toward Gideon. “You, sir, might have to help your wife, at least in the beginning. She'll need the Lupron shot in her tummy twice a day. Do you think you can handle that?”

“Stab a needle into her
stomach
?” My brave husband, who had rappelled from helicopters, climbed mountains, and seen countless battle injuries, went slightly green. “I'm not sure I can do that.”

“Just pretend I'm one of the guys in your unit,” I suggested, knowing he had handled far more dangerous things than needles. “If you can use a thorn to stitch up Snake's arm, you can stick me with a tiny needle.”

His square jaw tensed. “Snake is not my
wife.
Somehow it seems different when it's you.”

“Remember what you always tell your men,” I reminded him. “You don't have to like it, you just have to
do
it.”

The doctor grinned and held up a thin syringe. “The needle's not big. But the shot is important because we need to stop your wife's current cycle in order to sync her hormones with the egg donor's. Once we get you two on the same page, so to speak, we can proceed with the embryo transfer.”

Dr. Forrester transferred his gaze to me. “As we shut down your current cycle, you may experience symptoms of menopause—maybe a few hot flashes and night sweats.”

I made a face. “No one mentioned that.”

Forrester chuckled. “Don't worry, it won't last nearly as long as actual menopause. After the donor's eggs are harvested, we'll give you estrogen so you'll bounce back to normal in no time. We'll restart your reproductive engine, as it were.”

“Doctor?” The nurse thrust her head into the room. “That test was negative.”

“Not pregnant.” Forrester smiled at me. “Very good. We have a green light to proceed.”

The doctor peeled a protective wrapping from another syringe, thrust it into a small bottle, pulled back on the plunger, and filled it with a small amount of clear liquid. After squirting a tiny bit through the needle, he extended it toward Gideon and me. “Which one of you wants to do the honors?”

I blanched. “Can't you do the first injection?”

“I'd really like to be sure you can handle it.” Forrester lifted a brow. “So? What do you say?”

I turned to Gideon and gave him my best helpless-female expression. But for the first time in my life, my husband didn't melt.

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “You have to learn how to do it. I may not be with you every day.”

I pressed my lips together, hating to admit he had a point. If he went out on a mission, I would have no one to administer the shot.
For an instant I considered asking Amelia to do it, then I remembered that I'd be rubbing more salt in her wounds.

“Oh, give me the stupid thing.” I took the syringe from the doctor, lifted the hem of my blouse, and thrust the thin needle into the small roll of fat at my belly.

Gideon looked away, his hand tightening on the chair's armrest. “Is it over?”

Dr. Forrester laughed. “It's over. She passed with flying colors.” He slanted a brow in my direction. “How did this tough guy handle the birth of your daughter?”

“He stood by my head,” I answered, grinning. “So he wouldn't have to look at anything but my face.”

“You didn't have to bring that up.” Gideon gave me a weak smile. “But I think I proved my point. You can do lots of things without me.”

“That's what
you
think.”

“We'll want you to come into the office once a week or so for the next month,” the doctor said, propping his elbows on his desk, “for blood work and an ultrasound to make sure a sufficient endometrial lining is developing. But you're young and healthy—I don't foresee any problems.”

I exhaled in relief. “That's good to hear.”

“Let me get some information for you”—Dr. Forrester moved toward the door—“and we'll get you on your way. Be back in a moment.”

Gideon and I sat in silence, then he leaned toward me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You didn't mention the needles when you were trying to convince me this would be a good idea.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “But I love you, beautiful girl, and I think what you're doing is a generous and incredible thing. Trouble is, thinking of your generosity and incredibleness makes me want you—”