“How long has it been … since Bill died?”
“You really mean how long has it been since I’ve had sex! Bill passed away seven years ago, so there smarty-pants, now you know. You probably think I’m a sexually frustrated old broad who needs a good fuck.”
“Mazie, I didn’t mean to—”
She laughed, and said, “And you’d be right!” She laughed again. “But, running the ranch alone and raising a son—alone—takes up all my excess energy. Still, holding a young virile buck like that gets the juices flowing again and wakes things up, if you know what I mean.”
“You know, Danny’s always had a crush on you.” I didn’t know why I was sharing this with her. It was all so confusing. Maybe I wanted to redirect his interests and intentions.
“Really? He’s just like my own son to me. I mean we’re known each other forever. But, now that you mention it, I do catch him watching me once in a while. I wonder what he’s thinking?”
I knew exactly what he was thinking, but wasn’t about to share that. “Hey, he’s 18 now and legal and can make up his own mind.”
“Are you saying …?”
“All I’m saying is that he’s a big boy now and can make big boy decisions.”
Mazie shook her head in puzzlement.
She drove me to the clinic and they clinically did their best. They tried to be encouraging, but when I pressed them on my chances, they said very low, a couple of percent chance of success at best. You know what that means: another failure. All because of Melvin’s lousy nonexistent sperm.
*************************
I spent the afternoon dozing, probably catching up on the sleep I had missed.
I also spent the time coming to the realization that it was all over. I would never get pregnant again. That was the new reality and I just had to live with it.
No more false hope, no more disappointments with Melvin, no more costly procedures. It all had to be in the past now.
Danny got home from football practice in the late afternoon. I hadn’t even thought about dinner.
“Why don’t we order a pizza, nice and easy,” he suggested.
A half hour later, we were eating sausage and mushroom at the kitchen table.
“How did it go today?” he asked casually. It was the first time either of us mentioned the elephant in the room.
“Really well,” I lied. “They’re really optimistic.”
“Come on, Mom. Be truthful with me. I’m part of this family too, you know.”
I looked down at the piece of pizza in my hand for a long time, then said, “All right. They’re not very hopeful. There wasn’t enough to make the chances very good. Danny, you have to understand now that you’ll never have a brother or a sister. That’s just how it is.”
“Mom, you have to open your mind to the possibilities. You KNOW if we made love tonight you would get pregnant. You KNOW that!”
“Danny, OK! I DO know that! But it wouldn’t make it right. It wouldn’t make it natural. When I suggested using your sperm, that was one thing. You would have been a donor. And even if we did have a child that way, we would have still been mother and son. What you’re suggesting crosses a line that would redefine our relationship for the rest of our lives.”