The fluorescent lights of the grocery store had a way of bleaching the hours together until a double shift felt like one long, humming day. I was 32 then, still living in a studio apartment where the radiator clanged like it had opinions, still tucking tip money into an envelope marked “COLLEGE” in a shoebox under my bed.
I had aged out of foster care at 18 with a garbage bag of clothes and a bus pass. Fourteen years later, I was still trying to figure out what real life was supposed to look like.
My coworker, Marcy, noticed first. She always did.
“Emma, honey, you’ve been on your feet for 12 hours. You’re swaying.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re saving for school at $12 an hour. That’s not a plan, that’s a slow drowning.”
I laughed because if I didn’t, I’d cry into the produce bins.
***
It was a regular customer, a quiet woman who bought the same yogurt every Tuesday, who told me about the surrogacy agency. She said the compensation could change a life and slid a card across the conveyor belt as if she were passing a key.
I sat on it for two weeks. Then I called.
***
The Hollisters met me in a glass office overlooking the river. Richard was tall with silver hair, and his wife, Vanessa, wore pearls that looked older than I was.
They held my hands as if I were already family.
“We’ve waited so long for this,” Vanessa said. “You’re an answered prayer, Emma.”
“I just want to help, and honestly, I want to go to school. This would mean everything.”
“Then we’ll help each other,” Richard said, smiling, though his eyes flicked once to his watch.
I told myself I had imagined it.
We signed the paperwork in a conference room. Mr. Pierce, the Hollisters’ attorney, slid pages toward me with a pen that probably cost more than my rent. He didn’t smile, but lawyers never did, so I let that go too.
***
The first trimester passed in a blur of saltines and overtime.
Vanessa came to the early appointments wearing soft sweaters and perfume. She’d rest a hand on my belly and whisper:
