Free Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner Page A

nightshirt from the floor. Frank was so tired these days. He’d work an eight-hour shift at the scanner, examining the X-rays of carry-ons or beckoning travelers through the metal detectors, dealing with people who screamed and cursed and even spat at him, taking out their frustration with the nightmare air travel had become on the most convenient target. After work three days a week, he’d spend three hours more in a classroom, where he was training to do airplane maintenance. Those were union jobs; the pay started at thirtydollars an hour, plus benefits and three weeks of paid vacation. We’d agreed that the time and money he spent was worth it. By the time he graduated the airlines would be hiring again, but it meant that he left the house before seven most mornings, and on nights he had classes he rarely came home before ten.
    I crept into the kitchen to empty the dishwasher and surf the Internet, looking at surrogates’ stories, pricing home renovations and wall-to-wall carpet and new couches, trying to figure out how to continue the process I’d started upstairs, the marital magic of not only getting Frank to agree to let me be a surrogate but also making him believe the whole thing was his idea.
    I thought about it while I drove Spencer to nursery school, while I swept the floors or weeded the garden or folded a load of laundry, imagining the feeling of being someone who could give instead of someone who was taking. I would picture the look of gratitude on the new mother’s face as I placed the baby in her arms. Oh, thank you, Annie, we can never thank you enough. It would be so different from the look I saw on our pastor’s face when I was rummaging through the church swap bins for winter boots or the one I imagined the credit-card representative wearing when I called to explain that our payment would be late again.
    For weeks, I’d been working on Frank, but carefully, the way I’d learned to do it. Instead of bombarding him with requests or giving speeches, I’d casually slip something into a conversation: “Did I tell you Dana Swede from Vacation Bible School had a miscarriage? It’s her third, poor thing.” He’d give me a look and I’d ladle another scoop of tuna casserole onto his plate and tell him I was baking Dana a pie. When the actress from his favorite TV show was on the cover of People magazine with her baby twin girls—they’d been carried by a surrogate in Minnesota—I snuck the magazine out of the pediatrician’s office and onto our coffee table, where I could be sure he’d see it. When Good Morning America did a piece on military wives making extra money carrying babies, I inched the volume up. When the toilet broke and we had to call the plumber, I allowed myself one small sigh over the bill, and I permitted myself another sigh when the doorknob on the front door came off—again—in my hands, and I’d had to send Frank Junior in through the kitchen window to open the door.
    That was Part One of my plan. Part Two took place in the bedroom every night that Frank didn’t have class. Instead of collapsing on the couch as soon as I’d gotten the boys down and rinsed their toothpaste out of the sink and re-hung their towels, I’d put on something Frank liked—a pair of lacy panties or a tight tank top, the negligee I’d bought for our honeymoon. I’d light that candle and stay up in bed, waiting. Most nights I didn’t have to wait long.
    On one Tuesday morning—a week after the Good Morning America story—I loaded the dishwasher, turned off the TV, and said casually, without looking at him, “What do you think about it? That surrogacy thing?”
    Frank Junior and Spencer were at the table, fighting over the last piece of toast. I put the orange juice back in the fridge, shut the door with my hip, then looked at my husband. His dark-blue shirt, with the TSA patch on the shoulder, was neatly pressed, his shoes were shined, and he was freshly shaved, but he already looked tired.