DETECTIVE SANDERS' SURROGATE

CHAPTER 3

LANA'S POV

I rushed into the hospital, bearing in mind that the kind of news Dr Presley had just broken to me wasn't the type to be spoken about, over a call. On getting to his office, I halted my steps, taking in a deep breathe, and straightening the crease on the satin material blouse I had on, as if that was necessary. You couldn't blame me! I was not only nervous, but scared of myself. I already knew this was a kind of offer I shouldn't give a second thought to, but then, here I was in front Dr Presley's office to have a discussion about that. Without thinking further or knocking, I turned the door knob and pushed the door open only to see what made me close the door with great speed. What the hell did I just see in there? Dr. Presley didn't seem like that kind of man to me.

I walked away from the doorway and made my way to the long bench just a little distance away from Dr. Presley's office. With shaky legs, I sat on the only remaining space at the edge of the bench, as a good number of people had already occupied the rest of the bench. 'Was I supposed to wait, or should I just go back home?' I asked myself a lot more questions as I sat on the bench and patiently waited for the patient to exit his office. Were they going to be done anytime soon? But then again, how could they be up to such things and leave the door unlocked? Thinking about it again, I hadn't actually informed him that I was gonna be coming to the hospital to see him. Some minutes passed and finally, the door opened to reveal Dr. Presley. He wasn't the person I had been expecting to see walk out of the office, but I could make do with that.

Just as I was about getting up from where I sat, he turned to the corner and spotted me. He signaled me to come with him and with red cheeks, I walked up to him; who was already walking back into his office. Wait a minute! Was he expecting me to go into the same office the woman he was just aggressively banging was? How much more embarrassing could the day get? With a low sigh, I made my way to the door and this time, I made sure to knock before going in. That was the first mistake I had made today, and I wasn't going to repeat it. On getting in, I looked at Dr. Presley's face and he looked every bit flustered and embarrassed, unlike the woman who held her head up high. Taking a closer look at her, she looked to be in her mid fourties and had this grayish silvery hair. In all honesty, she was beautiful.

"Ermmmm....." I started and paused to lick my lips nervously. "I'm so sorry for barging in without knocking." I muttered.

Silence. That was the present state of the office. We all just shared glances at each other without anyone actually saying a word. Finally, he let out a low sigh before speaking up.

"Lana, I'm sorry you had to witness such an embarrassing scene." He chuckled, probably trying to make the atmosphere feel less dense. In all honesty, the only way he could achieve that was by asking the woman to excuse us. I was still thinking to myself when he said the next thing. "My wife tends to get very uncoordinated whenever she misses me." Wait a minute! Did he just say 'wife'? She was his wife? Thank goodness! He wasn't cheating. I didn't know why I felt so relieved, but I felt a whole lot better knowing it was his wife.

"I'm sorry Lana." The woman spoke up, making me suprised. "Amos is hardly home due to the nature of his job, so..... You know the rest I guess." She chuckled, unsure. Stupid me should have just nodded in understanding, because I truly understood. But then, I had to be extra by shaking my head 'no'.

"Oh my! You don't?" She laughed. "Okay! Let's just say a lonely woman got horny and...."

"That's enough!!" Dr. Presley and I yelled in unison. Oh my goodness! This woman was definitely the open minded type, which was a huge contrast to her husband. After another long minute of silence, he spoke up.

"Lana..." He gave a tight smile. "I didn't think you were gonna come after hanging up the call on me angrily." Angrily? Was that really the right adjective for my reaction at the time? Was I really angry?

"Angry?" I slowly dragged out my question.

"Of course, you were." He gave that understanding smile that made me feel a lot better. If I was indeed angry and hung up the call, then I was actually rude. Thankfully, he didn't seem offended.

"I'm sorry.... I was just..." I paused, and looked at his wife. Was she okay listening to what we were saying? It was as if she quickly got the message in my expression and spoke up.

"It's okay if you don't want me here. I understand it's quite unprofessional." She said, standing up to leave.

"Not at all!" I rushed out. "I didn't mean it that way. I didn't know if you were okay listening to us." I explained, making her flash a half smile.

"And moreover, the discussion at hand is far from being professional." Dr. Presley added, making his wife look at him in confusion. "I think I'm about convincing the young lady to do something that might be against her faith." That seemed to prick his wife's interest as she sank back into the chair beside him.

"Don't tell me you're advising the poor girl to have an abortion, Amos!" She accused, making me burst into laughter. If only she knew that opposite was the case. Her husband was actually advising me to get pregnant. I looked back at the couple exchanging funny expressions on their faces. "That's very wrong and you know it. The child may be unwanted, but it's wrong to take a life when you can't give one."

Dr. Presley looked every bit flustered as he tried explaining the actual situation to his wife. "Mira, that's not it, I promise."

"Then what is?" She asked.

"He actually wants me to get pregnant." I blurted, making her look at me in shock before turning back to her husband.

"Amos." She said in a voice so low. The next second, she had tears in her eyes. Oh my! Had I said more than I should have?

"Mira... that's not the case, I promise." He pleaded in a strained voice, turning towards her and trying to take her hand in his, but she quickly pulled away. Now I was very sure there was more to this. How a quick trip to the hospital to see how I could be of help in saving my sister's life had ended up with me, trying to figure out the issue between my sister's doctor and his wife, was beyond my reasoning.

"Then what is it? I....." She was still talking when he cut in.

"It's not about us, Mira. It's not about us, I swear." At his statement, she seemed to become calmer and weakly nodded for more explanation. "Her younger sister is a patient of mine, and she suffers from cancer. Due to lack of money, we haven't been able to carry out some chemotherapy courses on her sister to enable her get better. Maisie's situation only gets worse as the days go and there's still no hope of getting the money for her chemotherapy. So..... just yesterday, I stumbled upon an opportunity that would enable her raise quite a lot of money. That was surrogacy."

"Oh no!" She finally reacted and thankfully, it was just the way I had. I wasn't the only one who thought the idea was a bad one. She quickly cleaned her tears with the back of her hand, before turning to me.

"Lana?" She called. "Are you okay with this?" She asked. What had made her cry so much? That wasn't really the matter at hand though, so I pushed it aside.

"I don't even know." I eventually replied after a long minute of silence. "I mean, this is a very big opportunity for me. God knows that as an undergraduate, I could never get a job that would pay me as much what would cover Maisie's health bills. Now there is something that could fetch such amount of money for me, but it's a compromising one. Maisie is the only family I've got and I really can't lose her. She's so young and still has so much life ahead of her, so much dreams to be achieved. I would be selfish to actually have what it takes to give her a better life and deprive her of it. It's just carrying a child for 9 months right? I should be able to handle that." I nodded slowly, suprising myself at such decision. It was a rash decision, but for Maisie I would do so much.

I looked at Dr. Presley, expecting him to say something, but he seemed quite locked. Was there a problem I wasn't seeing?

"Dr. Presley?" I called.

"Look, Lana you can't just accept it." He said, suprising me. That wasn't what I had been expecting him to say.

"What do you mean? I thought you...."

"Yes, I did. But now, I just realized I didn't really tell you the details of the job."

"What else is there?" I asked impatiently. Now I had somehow gotten the courage to do these, I wanted us to go through with the plans immediately. The earlier, the better, for the sake of Maisie's health.

"What's there is that you have a lot more to give than just your womb. Look, it an unusual situation. This isn't the type of case where a couple are trying to have a child, no. This is different. He is unmarried and suffers from prostate cancer, but wants to have a child before a surgery is carried out to remove his prostate gland."

"So?" I asked.

"So, he has no wife to give the ova! You wouldn't donate just your womb, you would be donating your ovum as well." I went calm, trying to perfectly understand the meaning of what he said. If I got him quite well, what he meant was that I was going to be donating my egg for the procedure. That practically makes the child...... Mine. The child would be mine.

"The child would be mine!" I yelled in accusation. "And I would still have to sell it." I whispered the last part, making cold shivers run down my spine. Same cold shiver ran across my skin, giving me goosebumps as I stood and ran out of his office. No, this was all too much. It couldn't be God who had provided this opportunity. It had to be the devil. I ran all the way to the parking lot of the hospital, where I sat on a pavement and began thinking about what Dr. Presley had said. I couldn't even consider giving my baby away. Here I was, thinking of how it was going to be possible to give away a child I had carried for nine months, worse still, mine. It was impossible. I couldn't do this. I couldn't do this to my child. This meant I was going to be selling my own child. God forbid, I wouldn't.

Why did my life have to be so pathetic? Why wasn't I born with a silver spoon? Why did I have to struggle to make ends meet, and have to be faced with so many temptations? Now, I had to choose between my child and my sister. No, it hasn't come to that. It hadn't come to that because I wasn't going ahead with this plan any longer. However this offer came, more achievable and less abominable ones would come. I jerked in shock the moment I felt a hand on my shoulder. I quickly turned to see a familiar woman, looking at me with so much concern all over her features. I tried to remember where I had seen the woman before, but my memory failed me.

"My dear, you are still crying just like the last time we saw." She said, patting my shoulders in support.

Like the last time we had seen? Who was.... Oh! She was the woman at the diner who gave me a ride to the hospital. I felt so embarrassed that she had to meet me again me in a condition no different from the last time she saw me. I wondered what she was doing in the hospital again?

"Why are you here?" I asked, beating her to whatever she had to say to me.

""Well.... this is a hospital right?" She chuckled lightly. "My son is ill, so I'm here most of the time."

"He isn't getting any better?" I asked, and she looked like she was caught between nodding in agreement, or shaking her head 'no'.

"Not really. It's a little complicated, you see."

"What about you? I still meet you crying again? No good news yet?" She asked.

"Well..." I also found myself caught between shaking my head in disagreement, or nodding my head 'yes'. "Not really." I finally let out. "It's a little complicated." The moment I realized I had given the exact reply as she did, we both burst out laughing. After a while, we calmed our breathe. "I'm caught in between doing something that I deem wrong, and saving my dying little sister. I have to do the former to achieve the latter, and I quite confused."

"I guess that at the moment, you have convinced yourself you cannot go against your principles, huh?" She asked, and I nodded.

"You may really not understand the level of wrong I have to do. But I really believed it was an opportunity to save my sister, before I got to known how wrong it was gonna be." I muttered.

"I can't tell you to go against your beliefs and do something that isn't right. But I believe that if it indeed is an opportunity you should take up, you would receive a sign. Or maybe, a better opportunity might present itself. Be open minded dear." She gave me another pat, before walking away and going into the hospital like we hadn't just spoken some seconds ago. With a sigh, I cleaned off my tears and made my way back home. I was going with her last statement. To be open minded to more opportunities. Anything could happen, just like this one did.