When You Least Expect It Read online

  But at daybreak, just as the first fingers of light were stretching into the room, I woke up with something sharp jabbing me in the side and something else waving disturbingly close to my face that—after I started awake—I belatedly realized was a foot. The two younger kids had relocated to our bed—or, more specifically, to my side of our bed—at some point during the night. Rose had fallen asleep upside down in the bed, with her feet on my pillow. Luke was lying across his sister, his legs looped over her back and his knee lodged firmly in my side. Both of them were snoring softly. I gave up on sleep at that point and headed downstairs to make pancakes and extra-strong coffee.

  But, tired as I now was, I had a feeling my inability to focus on pitching my books had more to do with my and India’s conversation the night before.

  Adoption.

  I hadn’t lied to India. I did think we should look into adoption. I just didn’t have any idea how we were possibly going to afford it. After three rounds of IVF, we were broke. We already had a large second mortgage on the house, and my career was not exactly taking off at the moment. Actually, India didn’t know that. I hadn’t told her about the low earnings statements I’d received from my publisher a few weeks earlier, figuring she had enough stress to deal with—but I was all too aware of it. And I knew adoptions weren’t cheap. A college buddy—Dave, who when I knew him was famed for his ability to eat four pizzas on his own in a single sitting—and his wife had adopted a little girl from Russia two years ago, and when I ran into him at our ten-year college reunion, he’d said that the process had cost about forty grand.

  Forty thousand dollars. Needless to say, we did not have forty thousand dollars. In fact, we owed more than that to the bank. A lot more.

  But the expression on India’s face when she broached the subject of adoption—a mixture of relief, elation, and desperate hope—had stopped me from bringing up our strained finances. She’d been through too much over the past few years. Month after month of disappointment, followed by first a grim infertility diagnosis and then the IVF failures, had taken a toll.

  I wanted kids, too, of course. I always had. But for me, it was more of a hazy, indefinite future goal. I had vague images of wearing scrubs in the delivery room while I reminded India to breathe and, later, cheering from the sidelines of my kids’ soccer games. For India, it went deeper than that. She longed for a baby. And Rose was right, India would be an amazing mother. She’d always loved kids. She’d even chosen to have her photography studio specialize in children’s portraiture.

  So if adoption was the only way for us to have a baby, I was all for it. I just didn’t yet know how the hell we were going to swing it.

  A crowd of women, all wearing matching neon pink T-shirts emblazoned with MIDDLE EARTH BABES in black block letters, approached. I sat up straighter, and smiled at them. Most of them ignored me, although one of the women—in her fifties, with heavy blonde highlights and a large handbag slung over her shoulder—peered at my sign through a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

  “Jeremy Halloway,” she said out loud. She examined me. “Is that you?”

  “It is,” I said.

  “You look different in person than you do in your picture,” she said. She studied my author photo again. “Oh, I see what it is. You have more hair in the photograph.”

  Feeling somewhat deflated, I tried to laugh it off. “At least I don’t get carded anymore.”

  Ignoring my joke, she picked up one of my books and began to page through it.

  “That’s the sixth book in my Future Race series,” I explained.

  “Do you have to read the first five to understand what’s going on?”

  “No, each book is written to stand alone. But the first five books provide the backstory,” I said.

  She held the book up. “Are you giving these out for free?”

  “No. You have to buy it. But I’ll sign it for you,” I said, holding up one of the Sharpie pens I’d brought with me that morning and had yet to use.

  “No, thanks,” she said, dropping the book onto the middle of the table, rather than returning it to the top of the stack. She helped herself to a handful of Kisses and, without another word to me, turned away and hurried off to catch up with the rest of her group.

  I returned the book to its place and moved the bowl of Hershey’s Kisses back from the edge of the table. If people kept insisting on taking handfuls, I would run out before lunchtime.

  ———

  “Hey,” I said as I walked in the garage door, which opened onto the kitchen.

  “Hi, honey,” India said. She was standing at the counter, chopping an onion into a neat dice. “How was SciCon?”

  “I sold three books,” I said.

  “That’s all?” India asked sympathetically.

  “Your Hershey’s Kisses were a big hit.”

  India opened the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of Amstel Light. She popped the caps off, handed one to me, and then clinked her bottle against mine.

  “Did you get the kids home in one piece?” I asked.

  India nodded. “They were so sticky, though. Especially Luke.”

  “He did pour nearly a whole bottle of maple syrup on his pancakes,” I said.

  “Maybe I should have made him take a bath before I brought him home.”

  “Or thrown him into the pool.”

  “Mimi didn’t seem to notice. Then again, she said she had three martinis last night and was still feeling pretty fuzzy,” India said, grinning.

  “Did they have fun in South Beach?”

  “They had a great time. She said to pass on her thanks a million times over for watching the kids.” She picked up her knife and went back to dicing the onion. “I told Mimi what we talked about last night. You know. About how we were considering adoption.”

  “You did?”

  “Do you mind?” India glanced up at me.

  “No, it’s just I didn’t know we were at that point yet.”

  “What point?”

  “The telling-people point,” I said.

  “It wasn’t people. Just Mimi. Oh, and my mom.”

  “Your mom?”

  “I dropped off her tent on my way home from Mimi’s,” India explained.

  “Why does your mom own a tent again?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think a friend gave it to her,” India said vaguely. “You know, back when Mom was talking about driving across country. I think she was planning on camping out along the way. Nothing ever came of it.”

  “I’m shocked,” I said dryly. Georgia, India’s mother, was a sixties-era hippie, and a present-day flake. She wore caftans, wrote poetry, and was overly fond of wine.

  “Anyway, Mimi knows an adoption attorney,” India continued.

  “Why? Is she planning on getting rid of one of the kids?”

  “No, but she knows everyone in town. Or if she doesn’t, she knows someone who does. Anyway, she gave me this lawyer’s name and number.” India held up a yellow Post-it note with Mimi’s scrawled handwriting. “I was going to call him for an appointment.”

  I blinked. “Oh,” I said.

  India frowned, causing three vertical lines to appear on her forehead. “Is that okay? I thought we decided we wanted to look into this.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said quickly. “Make an appointment. We’ll go talk to Mr. Baby Lawyer Man.”

  “You’re not going to call him that, are you?” India asked. “Like the time you called my gynecologist Dr. Crotch. To his face.”

  “You thought that was funny,” I said.

  “I did. Dr. Seagle didn’t,” India said.

  “I’m pretty sure Dr. Seagle has never found anything funny in his life.”

  “You’re probably right,” India conceded. “Anyway. Are you sure you’re cool with this?” She lifted the Post-it note again.

  I registered the hope shining on India’s face. “Yes. Definitely cool with it.”

  India turned
her face up to mine. I leaned forward and kissed her. “I’m so glad we’re doing this. It just feels right. Don’t you think?”

  What could I say?

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  India and I first met on the beach. I had brought Otis, who was at the time a six-month-old bundle of fur and energy. I’d learned the hard way that if I didn’t take him out for a long run every morning, he’d get back at me by eating my furniture. He’d already gnawed his way through a coffee table and two of the four legs on my sofa. So I’d bring him to the beach, unhook his leash, and let him bound up and down at the water’s edge in a blur of black and white fur. This wasn’t technically allowed, so we always went early, when the lifeguard stands were still boarded up and the beach was more or less deserted. Besides, Otis never bothered anyone. He loved to chase the waves and then turn tail and run when they came back at him.

  I was sitting on the sand, drinking coffee out of a Dunkin’ Donuts cup and watching Otis play, when he turned too quickly, lost his balance, and fell, snout first, into the sand. I laughed, and then turned when I heard someone behind me laughing, too. A woman. My first impression was of her hair—kinky blonde curls rioting out of control. Her grin was wide, her eyes crinkled up at the edges, and her nose was on the snub side. She was wearing a faded T-shirt and denim cutoffs, and her bare legs were long and tan. Then I noticed the camera with the long, professional-looking lens strapped to her chest.

  “Damn, the paparazzi found me again,” I said. I put a hand up, pretending to block a shot of my face. “When are you people going to stop harassing me?”

  She laughed again. But she lifted her camera up after all, aiming it at Otis. She took a few shots and then walked over to where I was sitting. “He’s gorgeous. Is he a puppy?”

  I stood up, dusting sand off my bottom. When I first adopted Otis, a few of my friends kidded me about dogs being chick magnets. I’d laughed it off at the time, but was now quickly gaining appreciation for the theory.

  “Yeah. He’s six months old,” I said, trying to remember if I’d brushed my teeth that morning before leaving for the beach. My mouth tasted of coffee. I hoped it was strong enough to mask any residual morning breath that might be lurking there. I could smell her perfume, or maybe it was just her shampoo, light and faintly floral.

  “Is he a border collie?” she asked.

  “There’s some border collie in there, but he’s not a purebred. Just a mutt,” I said.

  We stood and watched Otis run, barking, at a trio of seagulls who were strutting along the beach. They took off in alarm well before he got anywhere near them.

  “The great hunter,” I said dryly.

  Otis turned back, grinning, and loped toward us. He ignored me and headed straight for the blonde, jumping up on her with large sandy paws.

  “Otis! Get down!” I ordered.

  Otis ignored me. Obedience was not his strong suit. The woman just laughed and petted his damp, sandy head. Her fingernails were short and unpolished. For some reason, I found this incredibly sexy. It was probably because the last girl I’d dated—who’d turned out to be a complete pain in the ass—used to file her long nails into talonlike points and paint them the color of dried blood.

  “It’s okay, really. He’s a sweetheart,” she said.

  Later, I liked to tell India that this was the moment when I decided I was going to marry her. It’s a lie but not terribly far off from the truth, which is that this was the moment when I developed a massive crush on her. Hell, she was a pretty blonde with a goofy grin, and she liked my dog even when he was filthy and badly behaved. Who wouldn’t get a crush on her?

  “This is Otis,” I said, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

  “Yeah, I figured that out when you called him Otis,” she said, smiling at me over Otis’s shaggy head. He fell back and leaned shamelessly against her legs while she bent over to pet him. She looked up at me. “I’m India, by the way.”

  “India? That’s an unusual name. Is that where you were born?”

  India laughed. “Knowing my parents, they’d be more likely to name me after the place I was conceived.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Luckily, India continued. “No, my parents were major hippies back in the day. I’m lucky they didn’t name me Moonbeam or Star.” She smiled.

  “I’m Jeremy,” I said. I nodded at her camera. “Are you a photographer?”

  “Actually, no, I direct porn films,” she said, without even pausing. “I’m just out here scouting locations for my next film.”

  I gaped at her, and she laughed at me. “Tell me you’re not that easy,” she said.

  “Sadly, I think I am,” I said sheepishly.

  “It’s okay. You have a great dog. That makes up for a lot,” she said, and grinned up at me again. Her eyes were squinting against the sun, and I again noticed that her smile was slightly lopsided. It was the sort of smile that was impossible not to return.

  The adoption lawyer, Mike Jankowski, had an office in a tall black building in downtown West Palm overlooking the Intra-coastal Waterway. He was in his fifties, with thick silver-streaked hair, a sun-reddened face, and a protruding stomach. He wore a short-sleeved tropical print shirt that made me instinctively wary of him.

  “Call me Mike,” he said jovially when he came out to the reception area to greet us.

  Mike ushered us back to a conference room, where India and I sat side by side at a long table, our backs to the window and its water view.

  “Can I get you anything? Coffee, soda, water?” Mike asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “Water, please,” India said.

  I was suddenly incredibly thirsty and wished I had asked for a drink, too. I’d always thought you were supposed to refuse in these types of situations, that it was offered more as a courtesy than with any actual intent. Before I could ask for a Coke, though, the lawyer left. I wondered if India would mind if I shared her water.

  I could tell she was nervous. She sat with her shoulders hunched forward and her hands clasped in her lap. Her eyes were open wide, and she was blinking rapidly.

  Mike returned to the conference room. “My assistant will bring your water right in.” He looked at me. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”

  “If you have a Coke, that would be great,” I said.

  “Sure,” the lawyer said, and left again.

  India gave me a slightly exasperated look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Why didn’t you just ask for a drink the first time he asked?”

  “I wasn’t thirsty then.”

  Mike returned and took a seat across the table from us. “You’re interested in a domestic adoption,” he said.

  “I think so,” India said, glancing at me. I nodded encouragingly. “To be honest, we’re just starting to look into adoption.”

  “There are a lot of factors to consider. So many it can be overwhelming,” Mike said.

  “Yes,” India and I said together.

  India hesitated. “I’ve heard that it can take a long time to find a birth mother,” she said.

  “It depends. There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but I’d say that normally it can take anywhere from nine to eighteen months,” Mike said.

  India let out her breath. “That seems like a long time,” she said. “I mean, I know you don’t have a nursery full of babies here in the law firm—”

  Mike chuckled. “No, I don’t. That would make things easier, wouldn’t it?”

  “I just didn’t know it would take so long,” India said.

  “It might not,” Mike said. “It all comes down to the birth mother. One who thinks you two are the perfect adoptive parents could walk in here tomorrow. Or it could take quite a bit longer. There’s no science to it. All I can say is that for a standard adoptive couple—and by standard, I mean there aren’t any other issues we have to deal with—the average waiting time is usually around nine to eighteen months.”

  “Wou
ld you mind telling us a bit about your background?” India asked.

  While Mike outlined his experience (extensive) and the services that he offered (finding a birth mother, taking care of the necessary paperwork, clearing any legal impediments that might spring up along the way), Mike’s assistant came in with the drinks. She placed the bottle of water in front of me and the glass of Coke in front of India. India, who was listening intently to Mike, didn’t seem to notice the mistake, and took a sip out of my soda. When she put it back down, I quickly switched our drinks and then guzzled my Coke.

  “Do you have any questions?” Mike asked, after he’d been talking for what seemed like an inordinately long time.

  India looked at me expectantly. I tried to think of something intelligent and insightful to ask.

  “Can you give us a basic overview of the process?” I asked.

  India gave me an approving look. Excellent. I was acing Lawyer Interviewing 101.

  “First you’ll fill out a placement profile for me. It has a number of detailed questions about your tolerance for various situations. For example, if you want to work only with birth mothers who don’t have health issues and whether you’re comfortable staying in touch with the birth mother after the adoption is finalized,” Mike said.

  “What do you mean by ‘staying in touch’?” India asked quickly.

  “Almost all private adoptions are open these days. That basically means that the birth mother knows who you are, and vice versa. Some birth mothers want it stipulated in the contract that they will get updates and pictures. Some even have it written into the adoption contract that they will be allowed to see the child at set intervals,” Mike explained.

  India and I exchanged a nervous look.

  “But other birth mothers prefer not to stay in touch. They find it easier to move on with their lives that way. And you get a say in it, too, of course. If you’re not comfortable with continued contact, you can choose to work with only a birth mother who doesn’t require it. These are all things you should think about when you’re filling out the questionnaire.

  “Your next step is to have a home study, where a social worker will come to your house and talk to you, and make sure that you’ll provide a safe and suitable home for the child. And, finally, you’ll create an adoptive-parent profile, which is basically a way to sell yourselves to potential birth mothers. It should tell who you are, the sort of life you lead, why you want to be parents, and will include photographs of the two of you,” Mike said. “But before we get to all of that, the first decision you have to make is who you’re going to hire to facilitate your adoption. Of course, I hope you choose to hire me, but I understand that this is an important decision, and you might want to talk to other attorneys or adoption agencies before making your choice.”