Josh and Gemma Make a Baby(12)

“Alright,” I say, and I don’t push our conversation further. Leah still looks a little upset, but she’s always been direct, and if something was truly wrong she’d tell me.

I kneel at the table and hold my pencil over the scrap of paper. I tap the eraser against the sheet and think about what to write.

When I came here today it was my goal to convince Josh to be the donor for my baby. That failed. I failed. But that doesn’t mean I have to give up on my dream.

I can ask him again. Make a top-level presentation on why it would be a great thing for him to be a donor.

Or I can still, you know, ask someone else, or consider the donor database. And, really, what’s so bad about an anonymous donor? Nothing. It’s a great option.

There are no messy emotions with anonymity.

I’ll find some brainiac type that looks like Thor or something. Or maybe an athletic type that volunteers as a mentor or builds houses for people after natural disasters. Or maybe a guy who has grandparents that lived to be a hundred and five. The options are endless.

As my latest Ian social media post said, the only limitations we have are the ones we place on ourselves. I included a gif of a sugar glider—because…flying squirrels. A few celebs shared the post, so I know it was a good one.

I’m not going to give up.

I look over at my sister. Her brow is wrinkled and she’s scrawling on her paper. She presses so hard a little bit of the paper tears.

I pretend not to notice and look back at my paper.

In small, precise letters I write out my resolution and make myself a promise.

Have a baby.

Make a family. Have a baby.

This year, I’m going to follow my heart and make my dream come true.

I drop my folded paper into the bowl with all the other resolutions.

My dad stands in front of the fireplace and pulls out the resolutions one by one and reads them in a loud voice.

There are the usual—get a promotion, lose weight, go to Fiji. I sit on the couch next to Leah and listen to the reading. We all laugh when my dad reads “convince my mom to get a puppy.” Sasha definitely wrote that one. Everyone says “awwww” when Dad reads “convince the woman I love to marry me.” There’s a resolution to start taking night classes at the community college, and another to take dance lessons.

“And the last one,” my dad says. He clears his throat and pulls the final slip from the bowl.

It’s mine. I know it is, because he hasn’t read it yet. I sit as still as a statue on the plastic-covered couch. Slowly he unfolds the paper. I hold my breath.

“Have a baby.”

I wait for everyone in the room to turn and stare at me.

To point, or laugh, or shake their heads in amusement.

My skin prickles with dread at the knowing stares or side glances I’m about to receive.

“Aww, so sweet,” says Mimi Butkis.

“Isn’t it?” my mom asks.

No one looks at me.

No one realizes it was me that wrote it.

I let out a long exhale. Of course no one knew it was me. Why would they?

“That’s it, folks,” my dad says. “Good luck on your resolutions.”

Everyone claps and my dad smiles and sets the bowl down on the mantle. Each of the paper slips has been tossed into the crackling fire. My dad, a romantic at heart, says the words are burned and sent as a wish up to heaven.

I relax back into the couch, grateful that my secret fear of everyone pointing at me and laughing was completely idiotic. No one, not a single person, realizes what I wrote.

Suddenly, my skin prickles with awareness. I look up.

Josh stares at me from across the room.

The side of his mouth turns up in a half-smile.

A flush spreads across my body and I feel the bright red blush that has to be working its way across my cheeks.

Well, I guess there was one person who realized it was me who wrote have a baby.

I hold Josh’s stare, his eyes lock on mine and they remind me of the intensity he had all those years ago when we…

I clear my throat and the blush on my cheeks grows hotter.

Then, he lifts his wine glass toward me in the gesture of a toast, and I swear that he says, “To resolutions.”




He lifts his glass to her. “To resolutions.”

I raise my eyebrows, and he smiles.

“To resolutions,” I say.

Josh nods, like we’ve just come to an agreement.

He drinks his wine and I feel like we’ve just sealed some sort of deal.

Except, I’m not sure exactly what we agreed to.





6





The piercing ring of a cell phone wakes me. I was having a bizarre dream about dancing in a mountain of whipped cream with Josh Lewenthal while I tried to convince him to marry me. He kept saying no. Ugh.

I bolt upright in bed and then groan and grab my head. Oh, ouch, hangover. Why did I drink so much boxed wine? Why?

After the New Year’s party ended, my parents, my sister, my brother and Josh (of course) congregated in the kitchen, washed the dishes, and drank all the leftover wine. My mom convinced me the wine would go bad if I didn’t finish it.

So, I drank it.

Why, Mom, why?

The phone stops ringing and I breathe a sigh of relief. But then almost immediately it starts up again.