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Chapter One

Stella

“Mamí, what is it?”

I hand my iPad, second phone, and paperwork to o ahead without ,” I whisper into my cell phone as I step into the hallhile Todd, my assistant, is already halfway to the conference room

It’s a little after 4 pe fund where I’ve worked for the last four years, are usually as quiet as church when trading closes I don’t want anybody overhearing a personal conversation

“It’s Tina”

The tone of sme out Is she okay?”

“Will called” Then a pause that tellsto like whatever she’s about to say next “They had to rush her to the hospital She had another e”

“Oh God” Heart lodged in throat, stosince I’ve never been the type to hang out at the proverbial water cooler Or, as it happens at Spitzberg and Co, the espresso machine Their curious expressions pull me out of my daze “Do you have a number for the hospital?”

“There’s more––they had to perforue and the language she always reverts back to whenever she gets overly emotional “Stella––”

My mother’s voice sounds underwater, drowned out by the thousand rando in my head I stumble into an empty office adjacent to the hall and collapse in a chair My ar the phone to my ear

“I’ve gotta go I’ll talk to you after et another word in

I’ I sit in that e at the darkened screen of ure out what to say that doesn’t sound patronizing under the circus hollow and trite

What I do know is by the tie to make the most difficult call of my life, the sun has already set and every cubicle on our floor is empty All that re in s twice before my cousin’s husband picks up

“Hi, Will…how is she?”

“I’ a baby,” I casually announce, my eyes directed atwith both hands It’s to savebecause what I really want to do is drop the mic and run out of the room But I’m not about to do that Not when I’ve spent the past ten days coachingthis conversation

One phone call That’s all it took to alter the course of my life forever, a course that had been meticulously planned since I elve

Not that it’s completely out of left field I’ve alanted a baby, always picturedemphasis on the words nebulous future because it wasn’t supposed to happen for another three years

It must also be said that I never pictured anext to me––the problematic part of the baby equation I had yet to work out––which is probably why, for all intents and purposes, this baby was an abstract concept until that phone call

My cousin, Tina, has always beencareer at the FBI Adoring husband who also works at the FBI Watching those two champion each other would make even the most hardened cynic believe that you really can have it all

Then, out of the blue last year, she gave up her career to start a fa ti joy in her work What she hadn’t toldfor a while and had already suffered a e, which she was convinced had been caused by the stress of juggling her career and personal life

I knew plenty of wo to argue if those were her beliefs That road was littered with landmines that could very well blow up in my face, so I kept my opinions to myself

In the end, it didn’t e she was forced to have the hysterecto the choice out of her hands And if there’s one thing harder than having tono choice at all

A few days after the dreaded phone call, I drove to DC and listened to her not cry, not rant and rave at the injustice of it all, but calmly state that it was her indecision, her fear of what it said about her as aa baby

“Don’t wait, Stel” Sunken in and glazed over, her eyes were barely recognizable “Buy the china you said was too expensive, take that trip to Bhutan to see that monastery you told me about, and don’t wait for a h desperation in her voice to scare the crap out of me

This was a woman that once took a bullet in the line of duty Desperation was a foreign word to her So, yes, I was rattled

It was her regret that changed everything Tina’s regret was ht a fear I could feel down to the bone

In finance we call it an inflection point, a change in direction on a trading chart, where the curvature alters from concave to convex or vice versa

Note the syn? Maybe

Regardless, the clock was ticking And when I say ticking, I mean it felt like Father Time had strapped a belt of C-4 explosive around my waist that was ready to detonate at anyme barren and alone for all eternity

Note that time is a man And not just a man, he’s a father Coincidence? I think not

Across the small kitchen t

able, lances up from the NY Tis Filled with suspicion, her dark alreen ones, the ones that are the exact saifted to us by our father Actually, strike that, our sperm donor You can hardly call a man that made only brief appearances in your life a father

“You’re pregnant?” the enforcer asks in her lilting Spanish accent Even though she sounds only mildly curious, her eyes narrow

I e, earned an MBA fro two jobs, and make decisions that risk millions of dollars on a daily basis and my mother’s stare can still make me run for cover

“Not yet, but I’ on it”

When I don’t elaborate, does ation? No, not her style Instead, she pushes the horn-rilasses that have slipped down her slender nose back up, and waits me out One minute turns into to into three

“I’ to be thirty-four in a few months,” I say with a note of exasperation I didn’t expect to hear in my own voice “I don’t want to wind up…” Childless? Alone? Clinging to my career for comfort and safety? “I don’t want to waste any more time Look at what happened to Tina”

My mother’s eyes widen “Tina could have died if she didn’t start bleeding That turessive It was God’s will that she live”

God’s will…I don’t think Tina sees it that way

“I’ve made up my mind”

“And how are you having a baby with no husband?”

“It’s 2018 I need sper ument to bed once and for all”

It defines logic in every way but Mercedes Donovan is a hardcore ro, stalwart of a mother is a romantic You would think life would’ve cured her of that affliction a long tio

My father drove trucks for a living He would leave for weeks on end, coain Over the years, the tier, and his time home shorter

Whenever et him on the phone, which was rarely, he wouldhome, and why he hadn’t sent anyother women and possibly other kids with it I’ll never know for sure though

After surviving that experience you would think she’d never ain Alas, no She still holds out hope that I’ll find a “nice man and settle down” For both our sakes she needs to stop watching the Hallmark Channel

“Sperusted, there’s no doubt about how she feels “You are going to one of those sperm places?”

“Sper to get Jeff to agree to do this with me”