I opened the envelope with hands that did not feel like mine. Inside were papers from a fertility clinic in Phoenix. And the first thing I understood was that my own name was on every page.
“Before you came back from the hospital that last time,” Mike said, “we still had two embryos frozen. Ours. Yours and mine. The doctors said you could never carry again. I could not watch you lose another. But I could not throw them away either.”
Jenna was crying now. “I told him I would carry them, Laurie. I begged him. I said let me do this one thing. The transfer was in April. I drove to Phoenix so you would not have to know until it was safe. Until it was real.”
I looked at my sister, at both her hands resting on her belly, and the room went very quiet.
The baby she was carrying was not a secret between her and my husband. It was mine.
“We did not tell you,” Mike said, and his voice broke, “because you have had your heart broken four times. I could not let it happen a fifth time. If something went wrong, I was going to carry it alone. If it went right, we were going to hand you your own child.”
Jenna wiped her face. “I stopped answering your calls because I could not lie to you on the phone. You always know when I am hiding something. So I hid everything.”
I crossed the kitchen and knelt down in front of my little sister and put my hands over hers, over the baby, our baby, and I felt it move.
Mike came and stood behind me with his hand on my shoulder. “She is due in three weeks,” he said softly. “A girl.”
We did not paint the guest room beige anymore. We painted it the color of morning. And the little knit hat from the nightstand drawer finally had a head to keep warm.
Jenna stayed through the birth and long after. When they laid the baby in my arms, my sister looked at me and said the same thing she said on the porch. “I did this for you.” Only this time I understood that it was the bravest gift anyone had ever given me.