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Part 2: The Clinic Agreement
I set the ramen down on the counter. I couldn’t speak.
Mr. Ellis waited. Then he explained.
Two years ago, before Margaret’s first chemotherapy, her doctors warned her the treatment might make it impossible for her to have children later.
She asked me to go to the fertility clinic with her. She said it was just a backup plan. Just in case. I said yes without thinking twice.
We created three embryos. They were frozen and stored.
The clinic’s agreement was very clear. If Margaret passed away unmarried, she could leave the embryos to her estate. Her parents would likely control them.
If she passed away married, the decision would belong only to her spouse.
Mr. Ellis said, She came to my office six weeks before the surgery. She told me she would never let anyone else decide what happened to them.
She knew her mother. She knew what her mother would do.
Then he read the last part of the will.
Ben, I don’t expect you to use them. Maybe you never will. That’s okay. I just couldn’t let anyone else make that choice for you.
If someday you want to be a father, there’s a little piece of us waiting. If you don’t, let them go gently.
Either way, it’s yours. Because you were always mine.
I sat on my kitchen floor and cried until the sun went down.
That evening, my phone rang. It was Margaret’s mother, Gwen.
Her voice was sharp and shaking. She said Mr. Ellis told her about the will. She said it wasn’t right.
She said, Those embryos are my daughter. All I have left of her.
She said I was twenty-eight. She said I would move on. She said I would meet someone else and have children with her, and Margaret’s embryos would end up in a trash can.
She said, Let me have them. I’ll find a surrogate. I’ll raise the baby myself.
I kept my voice calm.
Gwen, I said, I loved your daughter more than anything. I’m not going to make any decision tonight. I’m not going to make one for a long time.
But Margaret chose me to make it. I’m going to honor that.
She was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said, I’ve already hired a lawyer.
And I’ve already found a surrogate.
Part 3: Three Years
I didn’t sleep that night. I sat in my apartment, surrounded by Margaret’s things, and let myself count.
Three years together.
We met at a friend’s barbecue. She spilled potato salad on my shoes and laughed so hard she snorted.
Two weeks later, she told me she was sick. She said I should walk away while I could.
I didn’t.
One hundred and twelve treatments. I went to every single one.
Seven hospital stays. I slept in the chair beside her bed every night.
Four proposals. Four rejections. Each one with tears, because she wanted to say yes.
Eighteen thousand dollars for the fertility clinic two years ago. She paid for it with her own savings. She never asked me for a cent.
I didn’t know, at the time, that she was planning for a future she didn’t think she’d see.
I thought about the night before her final surgery. She held my hand and said, Promise me you’ll be happy again someday.
I promised. I didn’t believe it.
Then I counted what Gwen had done.
She came to the hospital twice in three years. She said hospitals made her anxious.
When Margaret was diagnosed, Gwen told her it was because she didn’t eat right. When Margaret lost her hair, Gwen bought her a wig without asking and told her to wear it to church.
Margaret told me once, My mother loves the idea of me. She just doesn’t know how to love the real thing.
Mr. Ellis called again the next morning. He said Gwen’s lawyer had sent a letter. They were threatening to challenge the will.
He said, Son, don’t worry too much. The clinic agreement and the will are both clear. Margaret did this very carefully.
Then he said, But I’d be ready for a visit.
That Saturday morning, someone knocked on my apartment door.
It was Gwen.
Part 4: Gwen at the Door
Gwen stood in my doorway in her church dress. She was holding a folder.
I let her in. I made coffee. She sat on the edge of my couch and didn’t drink it.
She opened the folder. Inside was a profile of a young woman. A gestational carrier. Healthy, kind, experienced.
Gwen said she had already met her. She said everything was arranged. She said all she needed was my signature.
She said, I would raise my grandchild with love. I would tell her everything about her mother.
Then her voice changed.
She said, You’re young. You’ll fall in love again. You’ll marry some other girl. You’ll have children with her.
She said, Do you really want to raise Margaret’s child with another woman? Is that fair to my daughter?
She said, Margaret wasn’t thinking clearly at the end. She was on so much medication.
Then she said the thing she had come to say.
If you don’t sign, I’ll fight you in court. And I’ll make sure everyone knows you married a dying girl for her embryos.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because I was twenty-eight and alone and so tired. And some part of me wondered if she was right. If I was being selfish.
I took a slow breath.
Gwen, I said quietly, Margaret was completely clear. She wrote it all out six weeks before the surgery. Mr. Ellis was there.
She married me so I could make this choice. She knew you would ask.
Gwen’s face tightened.
I’m not signing anything, I said gently. Not today. I’m going to grieve. I’m going to see a counselor. And someday, when I’m ready, I’ll decide.
If I ever do have a child, I said, you’ll be her grandmother. You’ll see her. You’ll tell her about her mother.
But you won’t raise her. That was never what Margaret wanted.
Gwen’s eyes filled with tears. She said I was taking the last piece of her daughter.
Then a voice spoke from my open doorway.
Gwen. Stop.
It was Margaret’s father, Hank. He had followed her here.
He stepped inside slowly. He was holding an envelope in his hand.
He said, Margaret left me a letter too.
Part 5: Little Margarine
Hank sat down beside his wife. He opened the envelope with shaking hands.
He read it aloud.
Daddy, Mom is going to want those embryos. Please don’t let her take them from Ben. He’s the only one who loved me exactly as I was. Let him choose. Promise me.
Gwen put her face in her hands and sobbed.
Hank put his arm around her. He said, She asked me to promise. I’m keeping it.
Gwen didn’t fight it after that. She dropped the lawyer the following week.
I started grief counseling. Every Thursday afternoon. For two years.
Some weeks, I couldn’t say a word. Some weeks, I couldn’t stop talking.
My counselor asked me once what Margaret would want for me.
I said, She’d want me to be happy. She made me promise.
Two years after Margaret passed, I sat down with my parents and with Gwen and Hank. I told them I had made a decision.
I wanted to be a father.
I found a gestational carrier through the clinic. Her name was Rosalind. She was a nurse and a mother of two. She said she wanted to help someone the way someone once helped her sister.
The first embryo transfer didn’t work. I cried for a week.
The second one did.
Nine months later, on a rainy morning in April, my daughter was born. Seven pounds, three ounces. A full head of reddish hair. Margaret’s exact nose.
I named her Margaret. But from the first day, I called her Maggie.
Gwen and Hank were in the waiting room. When I carried Maggie out to meet them, Gwen started crying so hard she couldn’t hold her at first.
Then she did. She held her granddaughter and whispered, Hello, sweetheart. I knew your mommy.
Gwen comes over every Sunday now. She brings photo albums. She tells Maggie stories about her mother. The real ones. The good and the hard.
Hank built Maggie a rocking horse in his garage. It has a little brass plate on the side that says Margarine.
Maggie is two now. She laughs exactly like her mother. Loud. Snorting. Impossible not to join in.
Last week, I was making her lunch when she knocked over the butter dish.
She looked at the mess on the floor. Then she looked at me with her mother’s eyes and grinned.
Uh oh, Daddy, she said.
I picked her up and kissed the top of her head.
It’s okay, I told her. Your mom used to make a mess too.
Then I whispered the nickname I haven’t said out loud in years.
My Little Margarine.
She giggled.
And for the first time since that hospital wedding, I knew I had kept my promise.
I was happy again.
