Bunnatine picks her up. Such a heavy little kid. Her nose is running and she still smells like fudge. No wonder she had a bad dream. Bunnatine says, “Shhh. It’s okay, baby. It was just a bad dream. Just a dream. Tell me about the dream.”

The Lesson

The fight starts two days before Thanh and Harper are due to fly out to the wedding. The wedding is on a small private island somewhere off the coast of South Carolina. Or Alabama. The bride is an old friend. The fight is about all sorts of things. Thanh’s long-standing resentment of Harper’s atrocious work schedule, the discovery by Harper that Thanh, in a fit of industriousness, has thrown away all of Harper’s bits and ends of cheese while cleaning out the refrigerator.

The fight is about money. Harper works too much. Thanh is an assistant principal in the Brookline school system. He hasn’t had a raise in three years. The fight is about Thanh’s relationship with the woman who is, precariously, six months pregnant with Harper and Thanh’s longed-for child. Thanh tries once again to explain to Harper. He doesn’t even really like Naomi that much. Although he is of course grateful to her. Why be grateful to her? Harper says. We’re paying her. She’s doing this because we’re paying her money. Not because she wants to be friends with us. With you. The thing Thanh doesn’t say is that he might actually like Naomi under other circumstances. Let’s say, if they were stuck next to each other on a long flight. If they never had to see each other again. If she weren’t carrying Harper and Thanh’s baby. If she were doing a better job of carrying the baby. They have chosen not to know the gender of the baby.

The point is that liking Naomi isn’t the point. The point is rather that she grow to like—love, even—Thanh and, by association, of course (of course!) Harper. That she sees that they are deserving of love. Surely they are deserving of love. Naomi’s goodwill, her friendship, her affection, is an insurance policy. They are both afraid, Thanh and Harper, that Naomi will change her mind when the baby is born. Then they will have no baby and no legal recourse and no money to try again.

Anyway the cheese was old. Harper is getting fat. The beard, which Thanh loathes, isn’t fooling anyone. Thanh has spent too much money on the wedding present. The plane tickets weren’t cheap, either.

Naomi, the surrogate, is on bed rest. Two weeks ago a surgeon put a stitch in her cervix. A cerclage, which almost sounds pretty. How did we end up with a surrogate with an incompetent cervix? says Harper. She’s only twenty-seven!