Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I study the sharp angles of his jaw, his straight nose, and the perfect angles of his eyebrows which are neither bushy or unmanageable and identical in shape to Lucia’s.
I’ll never forget lying on that cold table, my feet in stirrups, a fluorescent light stinging my eyes overhead.
“All right. Time to make a baby,” Dr. Wickham said as he perched on the rolling stool at the foot of the exam table and his associate handed him a long tube full of donor sperm. It wasn’t exactly magical. Definitely not romantic. And of course it wasn’t how I imagined starting the journey to motherhood. The doctor told me to lie back and relax—impossible, but I tried. Thirty seconds later, it was over. Ambitious Athlete’s unfrozen seed was officially inside of me. The rest was up to my body.
We did a natural round, no hormones necessary since I’ve always had an impeccable twenty-eight day cycle. The doctor told me I had a fifteen to twenty percent chance of it working in any given round, and not to be disappointed if it took two, three, four, even eight rounds.
But she took the first time.
Nine months later, I held Lucia in my arms, my mother and sister beside me, each of us weeping tears of joy—save for Lucia who was simply hungry.
I’ve occasionally daydreamed about meeting her donor someday, but in these scenarios it’s always when Lucia is older. Maybe she does a DNA test and discovers a half sibling or two. They meet up. Her biological father is there. That sort of thing. And in these daydreams, I’m there, too—but only because I want to thank him for the beautiful gift he gave me.
Running another search on Fabian, I glean that he has no children of his own. Only a string of relationships with young, beautiful, international models. A deeper search shows he wasn’t making headlines until closer to his mid-twenties. His life before that is a mystery, save for a one-paragraph personal life summary on his Wikipedia page.
Fabian Catalano was born in Chicago, Illinois. After attending Wakecrest University on a tennis scholarship, he moved to California to train under famed tennis coach Reed Cartwright. His parents are the late Grace (DuBois) and Gianni Catalano. He has never been married, is currently single, and keeps a primary residence in Los Angeles.
That’s it.
Mere scraps.
I spend the rest of the afternoon combing through various interviews he’s done on talk shows—and I stop when I get to the one where the invasive, chatty blonde host asks if he and his then-fiancée (who happened to be his long-time coach’s daughter) had thought about how many kids they wanted to have after they tied the knot. And before he had a chance to answer, she rattled off some witticism about how beautiful their babies would be.
Fabian scoffed, going off on the woman for assuming that every couple who marries automatically wants children. After that he yanked the microphone off and stormed off stage while the host gathered her composure.
This particular interview took place a mere two months ago.
It’s impossible to know when he donated his sperm. I can only assume it was during his college days. Maybe he needed some extra cash? Men that young aren’t necessarily thinking about the long-term repercussions of their actions.
I re-read the letter one last time, letting the realization sink in that he had recently requested the remainder of his sample be destroyed.
Tightness floods my chest when I think of my daughter someday knowing who he is and having her heart broken when she sees this interview. The man clearly has no desire for children. Which is fine. That’s his prerogative. But if a nosy little interview question about babies sets him into a hot-headed rage on a television set, how would he act if his own daughter were to someday reach out to him?
I glance at the file cabinet, and I decide to tuck this entire day into the recesses of my mind.
We never needed him anyway.
And we never will.
Chapter 2
Fabian
* * *
“Hey, you have time for a phone call?” My new assistant, Taylor, sashays across my private tennis court.
While everyone in my camp assumes I hired her because she’s got perky tits and a tight ass, I simply chose her because she’s young and malleable. There’s nothing worse than hiring someone’s used assistant and having to break them of all their old habits. This one’s fresh out of college, and this gig is officially her first job.
I have hope.
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I nod toward my coach on the opposite end of the court. “I don’t know, Taylor. Does it look like I have time?”
I almost feel bad biting her head off like that, but this is how she’s going to learn.
That and I’ve only reminded her six separate times since she started last week that my court time is sacred.