Law, Lies, and Love Affairs

We Thought We Were Doing the Right Thing

After Maddie was born, Stephanie had moved to the short style she'd worn ever since, telling herself it was just a more practical, more professional look for a lawyer. But there had been something symbolic sitting in a salon, watching the long hair being cut away. As if she were leaving behind not just her lengths of hair, but a part of herself.

She continued shuffling through the stack of pictures until she came to the one of Maddie looking up at the same figure standing beside her, but this time with short hair and what passed for Maddie's version of a business suit. And very high heels. Just the edge of the sun was peaking out from behind the clouds Maddie had littered across the sky. Stephanie set the drawings carefully down, rested her head on her arms on the table, and wept.

How could it be possible that Samantha was actually gone? Stephanie had been the risk-taker. The one who pushed the limits, ever since they were kids.

But it was Samantha who had come up with the daring plan that had changed the course of both their lives. Stephanie had sat in the restroom stall at the law school and watched as the pink line formed in the stick, and thought no, this can't be happening. There'd only been that one long weekend. They'd used protection.

It was only a month after the carefree holiday she and Samantha had spent in New York City celebrating how perfectly their futures were stretched out in front of them. And now, in an instant, everything had changed.

Stephanie had emailed her professors that she had the flu, and taken the first available flight to Wisconsin, knocking a huge but unavoidable hole in her meager savings. Late that night they sat in the small kitchen in the picture-book cottage-style house Samantha had just moved into and discussed the options. Terminating the pregnancy was out of the question. Even if Stephanie could have done it, it had only been six months since Samantha – who dreamed of a future filled with family – had received the devastating news that, thanks to a childhood illness, she would never be able to conceive. And been unceremoniously dumped by the boyfriend she'd already begun weaving dreams of forever around. Good riddance, was Stephanie's thought. But the irony of Stephanie dealing with an unplanned pregnancy while Samantha was still reeling from her own diagnosis of infertility was almost too much.

"I'm going to have to notify the firm. Instead of living in Paris this summer, I can stay here with you and have the baby. I'll put it up for adoption. You can help me find the right agency, the right family."

"You're sure you don't want to keep the baby?"

"You know I'm not cut out to be a mom. I can't take a baby along when I'm traveling from country to country, working long hours. Remember what it was like with mom dragging us from place to place, never having a real home?"

"It's a little different when you'll be making over six figures in salary and traveling first class."

"A single mom with a baby trying to make it as an international lawyer in one of the top law firms in the world? They can say all they want about being family-friendly, but it's not going to work. Giving her up is the hardest thing I'll ever do. But I know it's right."

"Wait, you already know it's a girl?"

"I just have a feeling."

"I could take care of her for you."

"And how do you think she'd feel growing up, knowing that her mother just passed her off to her sister? That I wasn't willing to change my life for her. And I'm sorry if that makes me a terrible person, but I'm not."