Alicia asked her husband to repeat himself. ‘Our case has been expedited,’ Leroy said. ‘They want us to fly over now. Tonight if possible.’
‘How come?’
‘I don’t know.’
He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his scalp. He’d been out of the Marines five years but still wore the buzz cut.
‘They said the timeline they gave us was a worst-case scenario. Seems our application advanced faster than expected.’
‘From months to days?’
‘I don’t understand it either, honey. Maybe my military record counted for somethin’. Who knows?’
He crossed the kitchen and encircled her in his great arms. ‘It’s what we dreamed of.’ He kissed her forehead.
Alicia raised her head to look at him. ‘It all seems so sudden.’
Leroy ran his fingers through her long, black hair. ‘It’s been ten years, honey.’
How could she forget?
They’d hoped for a child from the moment they married.
A honeymoon baby, Leroy declared. By the time their second wedding anniversary came around, they were concerned enough to consult a minister and a doctor. But neither the prayers of the local Baptist congregation nor expert medical advice seemed to help. Still childless after four years, concern turned to panic and they started fertility treatment.
Alicia did everything she could. She joined prayer groups.
She left a job she liked because it wasn’t compatible with the treatment. She gave up coffee and chilli because she read they increased the risk of miscarriage. She substituted wild, spontaneous sex with carefully timed acts of intercourse to maximise the chance of conception. Back in the days when they could still joke about it, Leroy said she did the Pope proud, the way she reserved sex for procreation.
Then they stopped having sex altogether. Fertilisation took place ‘in vitro’ and conception via the intervention of medical experts. Alicia gave up every last vestige of pleasure.
Still there was no baby.
For six years she subjected herself to mood-altering drugs and invasive medical procedures, followed by two weeks of symptoms—swollen breasts, hunger pangs, fatigue, irritability—that in a cruel twist could signify either pre-menstrual tension or pregnancy. In her case, never the latter.
Everywhere she looked, other women were pregnant, breastfeeding, pushing babies in prams. Alicia stared at them with such envy she learned what it meant to put the evil eye on someone. She couldn’t bear to be around friends with children. ‘They gloat,’ she told Leroy, who said she was paranoid. What would he know? He had work to take his mind off what was going on around them. Alicia caught the pitying looks and read their implications. Hers was the story told to make others feel better when they were having a run of bad luck. ‘So you’ve been trying to get pregnant for over a year? That’s not so long. I know someone who’s been trying for six years and not even IVF seems to be working for her, poor thing.’
It took thousands of dollars and twenty-seven failed attempts before they finally faced the painful truth that they’d never have a biological child. Even surrogacy was ruled out. For reasons they didn’t understand, God had decided this would be their cross to bear.
Alicia couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to lose a child, when losing the idea of a child hurt this much. There was no public ritual to acknowledge the loss, no sympathy cards from family and friends. It was a death with no body to weep over but her own.
Then Leroy came up with a proposal: why not adopt a baby from overseas?
Domestic adoptions in the US were fraught. Assuming you could get access to a relinquished baby that wasn’t crack addicted, sooner or later, likely as not, you’d have to deal with family of origin issues. It was more cut and dried with inter-country adoptions. You registered with a local accredited agency affiliated with an orphanage overseas. The US agency made sure you met the requirements as adopting parents and the foreign agency matched your file to a baby or child in their care. Once the paperwork was in order and the child given a clean bill of health, he or she would be issued with a passport and an immigration visa for the US.
You could even state a preference for a boy or girl.
‘Boy,’ Alicia had said without thinking. ‘But from which country?’
‘Thailand,’ Leroy said.
Alicia smiled.
Thailand was where they’d met. Leroy was docked in Pattaya on R&R when Alicia stopped off on her way to Koh Samet. Alicia didn’t make it to Koh Samet until they returned to Thailand a year later for their honeymoon. Back then they thought nothing would ever be stronger than their faith and the desire they felt for each other. It seemed fitting that in going back there they might find the one other person they longed for.
A six- to twelve-month wait to adopt a baby seemed like nothing compared to what they’d been through, but it was less than three months since they’d received the photo of the then seven-month-old baby boy who’d been chosen for them. Alicia already thought of him as Jesse.
‘You’re not gettin’ cold feet are you?’ Leroy said.
‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘It’s just I want him so much, it scares me. I couldn’t bear it if anything went wrong.’
‘How could anything go wrong?’ Leroy said. ‘We’ve done all the right things, honey. We’ve just had a lucky break is all. And after all we’ve been through, ain’t it time we got lucky?’
‘It isn’t about luck, my love,’ Alicia said. ‘We prayed for this and at last our prayers have been answered.’
She fingered the ruby-studded crucifix on the chain around her neck, a tenth wedding anniversary gift from her husband.
‘God wants us to have this baby.’
‘Of course he does,’ Leroy said, kissing her again on the top of her head. ‘Now, you want to start packing while I get on the phone to the travel agent?’