Coda Books 06 - Fear, Hope, and Bread Pudding (MM)

ready for bed.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    “I’m fine. Are you excited about going to Salzburg tomorrow? It’s a lovely place.”
    “What’s the deal with the bread pudding?”
    “It’s where they filmed parts of The Sound of Music , you know, although I don’t think the Austrians particularly like being reminded of it.”
    “Stop avoiding the subject and talk to me.”
    “I have no idea what you mean.”
    “Yes, you do.”
    His shoulders fell and he sat down heavily on the bed. I’d never seen him so lost or so defeated. “I can’t, Jonny. If I try to talk about it, I’ll start blubbering, and neither of us wants that.”
    “I’d prefer you crying to shutting me out.”
    He looked down at his hands. He took a deep, quavering breath. “It was foolish of me, wasn’t it?” he whispered.
    “The bread pudding?”
    “No. Well, yes. That too. But that’s not what I meant.”
    “Then what?”
    “Thinking I’d ever get to be a father.”
    The change of topic threw me. It took me a second to redirect my thinking. “It’s not foolish. Thomas told us it might take a while.”
    “He did, but somehow, I didn’t believe him. I thought for sure somebody would choose us.”
    “We knew a gay couple wouldn’t get top priority.”
    “But we have everything else going for us.”
    Yes, we had a life most people would envy, but this was one case where money couldn’t get him what he wanted. Not by itself, at any rate. I sat next to him on the bed and pulled him into my arms. He came reluctantly, but at least he didn’t pull away. “Maybe we’ve limited ourselves too much.” At the time we’d made the decision, it had made sense to me, but I wasn’t sure it did anymore. “There are babies all over the world who need parents. Maybe it’s time to consider other options.”
    “You mean something overseas?”
    “Maybe. Or we could reconsider surrogacy.”
    “I don’t know what to do anymore. I wish somebody would just give me the answer.”
    I kissed the top of his head. “We’ll be home again in eight days. As soon as we’re over the jet lag, we’ll call Thomas. We’ll tell him we’re ready to discuss other options.”
    His head moved on my chest as he nodded. “Okay.”
    I wished there was something I could do to make him feel better. A way to lighten the burden he felt. But the truth was, we weren’t suffering in the same way. He wanted nothing more than to be a father, and although I’d come to share his desire, it was different for me. I didn’t long for a child so much as I wanted to make our family complete. To see my father with a grandchild and to see Cole happy. At that moment, it felt as if it would never happen.
    But the next morning, everything changed.

Part Two:

Interlude in Munich

Chapter Five

    I DREAMT of Christmases past, and of Carol. I was lounging in my rickety old recliner, and Carol was on the floor in front of me, trying to put together a bicycle. It was Jon’s present from Santa. I knew it was a dream, not just because Carol was in it, but because we weren’t in our Phoenix home. We were in the condo in Munich, with the winter festival bright and loud outside the window. Our Christmas tree was at least ten feet tall, and it listed dangerously to the side, twisted and curved like something out of that Dr. Seuss cartoon Jon loved so much. Carol was in front of it, and I worried it would fall on her, but I was afraid that if I said anything, if I tried to warn her, she’d disappear again. She’d slip through the void to the other side where I couldn’t reach her.
    I desperately wanted her to stay, so even though I knew it was a dream, or maybe because I knew it was a dream, I sat very still. I concentrated on dwelling there with her as she bent over the instructions for the bicycle.
    “Dad! Dad, wake up!”
    For half a second, I waited for my young son to clamber over me into bed. I waited for him to curl up next to me in his dinosaur-print footy pajamas. It’s not quite morning yet, son, I wanted to say. Go back to sleep. Santa may not have come yet.
    “Dad!”
    He’d always been persistent. My eyes opened seemingly without my consent, and for a moment, I wondered who the man standing over me was. Certainly not my son—the one for whom Carol was quietly assembling a two-wheeled bicycle with a Spiderman banana seat.
    “What time is it?” I asked. It was still dark in the room, and he was mostly in shadow.
    “It’s five o’clock. Listen, we got