Eclipsed Hearts

Chapter 6: Reality

The Novara Fertility and Wellness Center looked exactly like its website.

That was the first thing Elena noticed when they pushed through the glass doors on Monday morning how precisely it matched the photographs. The marble floors, the soft ambient lighting, the arrangement of white orchids on the reception desk that looked too perfect to be real and turned out, on closer inspection, to actually be real. Everything about the place whispered money and competence and the particular brand of calm that only came when nothing had been left to chance.

Jade leaned close to Elena's ear as they crossed the lobby, It smells like a five star hotel.

"Stop" Elena murmured.

I'm just saying.

The receptionist looked up with a smile that was warm and professional in equal measure, the kind of smile that had clearly been practiced but practiced so well it had become genuine. She was young and immaculate with a headset resting against her jaw like a piece of jewelry.

Welcome to Novara, do you have an appointment?

We submitted an application online, Elena said, Elena Reed and Jade Carter.

The receptionist typed something, glanced at her screen and nodded. Of course, we've been expecting you. Please have a seat and someone will be with you shortly.

They sat in chairs that were softer than anything in Elena's apartment and waited. The lobby moved quietly around them, a woman in a white coat crossing from one corridor to another, a couple sitting near the window holding hands with the careful hopefulness of people who had been waiting a long time for something, soft instrumental music playing at exactly the right volume. Everything calibrated and controlled.

Elena folded her hands in her lap and told herself to breathe normally.

They were taken separately for the medical assessments, a fact that the nurse explained with a warm smile. Elena spent the better part of two hours being poked, measured, questioned and examined with a thoroughness that felt more like a screening for astronaut training than a medical intake.

Blood work, hormone levels, physical examination and a sit-down with a soft-spoken doctor who asked about her medical history, her mental health history, her family history, her lifestyle. Elena answered everything honestly, because it did not occur to her not to, and because the room she was sitting in was so clean and so calm and so apparently legitimate that dishonesty felt out of place inside it.

When it was over she was shown to a waiting area with fresh fruit and sparkling water on a side table, and she sat there eating grapes and trying to read the expression of every staff member who passed.

Jade appeared twenty minutes later.

Elena read her face before she sat down and felt her stomach drop slightly.

They said no? Elena asked quietly.

Jade dropped into the chair beside her and exhaled. Apparently my iron levels are too low and there's something about my hormone panel they don't like, She shrugged, but the shrug was working harder than a shrug should have to but they were very nice about it, very professional. She looked at Elena. What about you?

Elena hesitated.

El!

They haven't told me yet, I'm waiting.

Jade nodded slowly and reached for a grape. They sat in silence for a moment, the kind of silence that exists between two people who are both thinking the same thing and are not quite ready to say it.

The soft-spoken doctor reappeared in the doorway and smiled directly at Elena.

Ms. Reed? Would you come with me please?

She was eligible.

Every marker, every level, every metric they had measured came back exactly where they needed it to be. The doctor delivered the news with the measured warmth of someone announcing something genuinely good, and Elena sat across from her in the consultation room and felt the information land in layers, first the relief, then the weight of what it meant, then the relief again, louder this time, because relief was easier to sit with than the alternative.

She was shown into a separate office after that, it was quieter, more formal, with a desk and two chairs and a woman in her forties with reading glasses and a leather folder who introduced herself as the contracts coordinator.

The folder was placed on the desk and opened.

Elena looked at the document in front of her.

It was longer than she had expected, several pages of dense, carefully organized text, clauses and subclauses, terms and conditions, the legal architecture of an agreement that had clearly been constructed by people who knew exactly what they were doing. There were things Elena was expected to do attend all scheduled medical appointments, maintain the lifestyle guidelines provided, reside in Novara-approved accommodation for the duration of the pregnancy, comply with all dietary and wellness protocols. There were things Elena was not permitted to do travel without authorization, engage in strenuous physical activity, consume alcohol or any non-prescribed substances, speak publicly about the surrogacy arrangement or the clinic without written consent.

There were pages of it. Dense and thorough and comprehensive in a way that felt, if Elena was being honest, slightly more like a containment agreement than a medical contract.

But then her eyes reached the compensation section.

And everything else blurred.

Furnished private accommodation provided in full for the duration of the surrogacy and a strict-like warning that states "surrogates only"

Monthly living and nutritional stipend of 5000$

Post-delivery compensation upon successful completion of surrogacy, which sums 500,000$

Elena read it three times.

Then she read it a fourth time, more slowly, in case the numbers changed.

They didn't.

Five hundred thousand dollars. Paid in full upon delivery.

She reached for the pen.

Ms. Reed! the voice stopped her hand an inch from the document.

She looked up, the contracts coordinator had not spoken, it was a nurse who had appeared quietly in the doorway, young and efficient-looking, with the clipboard and purpose energy of someone who had somewhere to be.

I'm sorry to interrupt, the nurse said pleasantly, before you sign I just want to make sure you're aware once the contract is executed we ask that you come prepared to stay. It's in clause seven. She tapped the relevant page from across the desk, our surrogates reside on site for the duration of the pregnancy. It's for your comfort and your health, we want to make sure you're not overexerting yourself or dealing with the stresses of daily life during such an important time. She smiled, so what we typically do is ask our candidates to go home first, collect whatever personal belongings they need, tie up any loose ends, and then come back to sign and check in, that way the transition is seamless.

Elena looked back down at the contract and at the number at the bottom of the compensation clause.

Okay, she said, she set down the pen, I'll go home and pack first.

The nurse smiled, wonderful. We'll have your room ready when you return.

Jade was waiting for her in the lobby, coat already on, expression carefully neutral in the way it got when she was sitting on something she wanted to say.

Elena told her everything on the walk to the subway the numbers, the accommodation, the contract, the nurse telling her to go home and pack first.

Jade listened without interrupting, which was not her natural setting and meant she was processing something seriously.

Five hundred thousand dollars? she said finally, when Elena had finished.

"Yes"

And you have to live there, for the whole pregnancy journey?

"Yes"

Jade was quiet for half a block, the city moved around them, footsteps, a delivery truck reversing into an alley with its warning beep cutting through the cold air.

"El," Jade said carefully, does any part of this feel....

Don't, Elena said, not unkindly. I know what you're going to say.

I just think.....

I know, Elena stopped walking and turned to face her best friend. Jade's eyes were worried in a way she was trying to keep out of her voice and failing. Elena softened slightly, I read the contract, It's thorough but it's not! there's nothing in it that's overtly wrong, Jade. It's a legitimate clinic, we checked.

Jade looked at her for a long moment.

I don't want you to go, she said, simply and honestly, the way Jade always said things when she meant them most.

Elena felt the sting of that but swallowed it.

I know, she said, but I have to.

They walked the rest of the way to the subway in silence, not a cold silence, a weighted one. The silence of two people who love each other and are standing at the edge of a decision that only one of them can make.

Back at the apartment Elena pulled her suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and began to pack.

Jade sat on the bed and watched her and did not say another word.

But her eyes said everything.