I don’t know how I can go from post-coital bliss to tears in five seconds, but somehow I make it happen. I can’t stop it. All the pain I had pushed aside after that day Sam burst into my baby shower and told me Janelle had backed out on us comes rushing back to me. Even though Sam has stuffed the bassinet into the closet and shut the door to the would-be nursery, the pain is still there. The baby we almost had. We were so close.

And now it’s never seemed farther away.

“Abby?” Sam wrinkles his brow, plainly shocked by my tears. “Why are you crying?”

“Why am I crying?” Why does he ask me stupid questions? “I’m crying because…” I wipe saltwater from my face. “This is never going to happen for us, Sam. I feel it. The next adoption is going to take forever and then something will go wrong, and… and… by the time we get a kid, we’ll be fifty!”

I can’t talk anymore because I’m crying too hard. A bubble of snot blows out of my left nostril and I don’t even bother to wipe it away.

“Abby,” he says gently, “you know I want this as much as you do…”

“You obviously don’t.” I glare at him. “Because if you did, you’d be willing to take this opportunity right in front of us. Not turn it down because it makes you ‘uncomfortable.’”

He stares down at his hands. It probably wasn’t fair of me to say that. I know how badly Sam wants to be a father. He wants it badly enough that sometimes I’m surprised he hasn’t left me for a woman with two working ovaries. Yes, I know he’s not that kind of man, but he’s got to at least sometimes be tempted.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I just… I got upset. You’re allowed to veto something you don’t feel comfortable with.” I wipe my swollen eyes and put my hand on his. “We’ll try for the adoption again. It’s fine.”

Sam is still looking down at his hands, his brows working together.

“Sam?” I say.

He doesn’t answer me right away. I don’t know what that means. He sometimes gets quiet like this, and I usually assume it’s because he’s thinking about something math-related. That’s not what he’s thinking about now. Well, I suppose he could be. But probably not.

“I think we should use Monica as our surrogate,” he finally says.

I suck in a breath. “Sam, you don’t have to—”