“I’m going to be a surrogate for my boss,” Melissa announced.
Grant Walker stared at his wife across their kitchen table while their youngest child slept upstairs.
After eight years of marriage and three children, he thought he had misunderstood her.
“Charles Whitmore, your boss?” he asked.
Melissa folded her hands over the blue folder she had carried home from work.
“His wife, Vivien, cannot safely carry a baby, and they asked me to help.”
“They asked you at work?”
“They asked whether I would consider it, and I said I would listen.”
Grant looked at the folder and noticed a gold embossed letterhead bearing the name Whitmore Family Services.
“Did you tell them we have not discussed it?”
“I told them I would make my own decision.”
Grant had never believed he owned Melissa’s decisions, but he knew decisions could carry consequences for everyone living under the same roof.
Their daughter Lily was seven, their son Noah was five, and little Ben had just turned two.
The family had spent the previous winter exhausted by Ben’s ear infections and Noah’s surgery.
Melissa had returned to work only six months earlier, and Grant still remembered carrying her upstairs when a fever left her too weak to stand.
“What are they offering?” he asked.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
The number landed between them like an object neither wanted to touch.
They had been saving for a larger apartment, but their financial trouble was not the kind a single payment would erase.
“What have they told you about the medical risks?”
“A doctor will explain everything.”
“So you haven’t spoken to the doctor?”
“Not yet.”
He put his palms on the table and forced himself to speak slowly.
“Melissa, I am worried about your health, the kids, and the way your boss is asking you to do this.”
“It’s my body, my choice.”
“It is your body, and I will not dispute that.”
“Then why are you making this so difficult?”
“Because we are married, and because the relationship with the man paying you is not equal.”
She stood and closed the folder.
“I don’t need your permission.”
Grant looked toward the stairs, where a nightlight left a pale rectangle on the wall.
“No, but I need to decide what kind of marriage I can remain in.”
Melissa said nothing before carrying the folder into their bedroom.
The next morning, she took the children to school as usual, kissed Ben on the head, and left her coffee untouched.
