PART 1:

For seven months, I thought my wife was carrying a baby for another family so we could finally afford a house of our own. Then I heard her laughing with my boss about the secret behind it all, and before I even stepped through our front door, I was sure my marriage was finished.

My son was inside, too.

Most of my life, I believed hard work would eventually give a man’s family a chance.

I never minded long hours, freezing crawl spaces, or coming home with rust and grime stuck under my nails. Plumbing was not glamorous, but it kept food on the table, and I took pride in fixing what other people could not.

But I could never seem to fix my own life.

Every raise disappeared into rent, groceries, daycare, or another repair on our old minivan. No matter how carefully Renee and I budgeted, our savings account always looked like it was barely surviving.

Renee never blamed me.

That almost hurt more.

She had a way of making every hard season sound temporary. When the landlord raised the rent again, she folded the notice, put it in the kitchen drawer, and said, “We’ll figure it out.”

When the water heater broke three days before Christmas, she helped me mop the floor, kissed my cheek, and joked that we had always wanted hardwood instead of stained carpet.

She carried hope easily.

I carried guilt.

Our son, Eli, had just turned two. Every evening, he pulled me toward the tiny patch of grass behind our rental with his plastic soccer ball under one arm. The poor kid could only run three steps before reaching the fence.

One night, he pointed at the neighbors’ large backyard, where two boys were running through a sprinkler.

“Daddy, I want one.”

I knew what he meant.

“One day,” I told him, “you’ll have a yard so big I’ll need binoculars to find you.”

He laughed like I had already bought it.

From the kitchen window, Renee smiled quietly.

Eight months ago, after Eli had fallen asleep, Renee sat across from me at the kitchen table, both hands wrapped around a cup of untouched tea.

“I signed up to be a surrogate,” she said.

For a moment, I could not speak.

“The agency pays almost seventy thousand dollars,” she continued. “Enough for a down payment.”

I pushed my chair back.

“No.”

“Calvin—”

“No. There has to be another way.”

“I’ve looked.”

“I’ll work more, Ren.”

“You already leave before sunrise.”

“I’ll take weekends.”

“You already miss enough weekends.”

I walked around the table and knelt beside her.

“Renee, you should not have to do this because I can’t make enough money.”

She touched my face gently.

“We’re married. Let me carry some of the weight, too.”

Then she told me the embryo transfer had already been scheduled.

We argued for almost three hours. I suggested loans, overtime, moving farther away, selling the van, waiting five more years. She listened to every idea, then quietly shook her head.

By morning, I knew I could not change her mind.

The months that followed hurt in ways I never admitted.

Renee went to appointment after appointment. Some lasted an hour. Others took half the day. She came home exhausted, her shoulders sore, her hands aching.

Sometimes she fell asleep on Eli’s bedroom floor while reading to him. I would cover them both with a blanket because neither of them had made it to bed.

Every tired smile she gave me felt like proof that I had failed her.

At work, I kept doing useless math in my head.

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