April 12

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Tobias Eaton nervously checked on the chicken roasting in his oven. His hands were clammy, and the sight of the small birthday cake resting on the counter made his stomach knot up. It was his wife's twenty-sixth birthday, and he was waiting for his in-laws to arrive for dinner.

Tobias' in-laws were not the cause of his unease, not really. Max and Veronica Scott had never been anything but loving and supportive to him. They were the parents he never had, and his first inside look at what a loving marriage should be. Tobias' own parents were a nightmare. His father, Marcus, was abusive. His mother, Evelyn, numbed her pain and disappointment with alcohol and pills until the day her husband went too far and killed her.

Tobias was barely seventeen when his mother died and his father went to prison. The whole town knew his story, and he'd hated the way people looked at him and talked about him. His best friend's mom, Hana Pedrad, took him in and cared for him as her own until he graduated high school. But even with Hana in his corner, Tobias had been terrified when he fell in love with Lauren. He didn't think any girl would ever want to be with a guy from his background, and certainly no father would want his daughter with a guy like Tobias.

But Lauren was incredibly sweet, and by the end of their junior year in high school, Tobias was completely in love with her. Even when they were just friends, she always had a compliment or word of encouragement for him, and he soaked it up like a sponge.

The summer they were seventeen, Tobias had a job at an electronics store in the mall. Lauren, who also worked in the mall, began stopping in to chat when it wasn't busy. One day she asked him if he could help her with a problem with her laptop. He agreed to look at it, and they exchanged phone numbers. After some texting and casually hanging out, Tobias got up the nerve to ask her out, and Lauren eagerly accepted.

As it turned out, Lauren didn't need help with her laptop at all. In fact, her father was the COO of a successful mid-sized tech security firm, and he could disassemble and reassemble a computer like a sharpshooter with a rifle. Asking for computer help had been Lauren's way of breaking the ice, an excuse to trade phone numbers and start talking - and it was all her dad's idea!

Lauren was unusually close to her parents for a seventeen-year-old girl. She was an only child, and she and her parents had moved a lot before settling in their upper-middle-class Chicago suburb for Lauren's high school years. She talked to them about everything, and it was no exception when she and Tobias began seeing one another.

Max and Veronica had given Tobias a chance because Lauren loved him. Once they got to know him, they loved him, too. Max and Tobias both loved computers and technological innovation, the Chicago Bears, and action movies. In Tobias, Max found the son he'd never had, and Tobias found a father-figure. Veronica, who loved to cook and bake, found Tobias an appreciative audience for her skills, and a sweet young man who was protective of her little girl.

Tobias and Lauren went to homecoming and prom together their senior year. Veronica bought matching frames for their senior portraits, and hung them together in her home. Tobias bought Lauren a promise ring for her high school graduation gift, and they applied for the same colleges. When Tobias was offered a scholarship to one of their top choices and not the other, Lauren declared that was where they both would go.

Tobias proposed to Lauren during the summer between their junior and senior years of college. She was a marketing and graphic design major, while Tobias studied computer science. They planned a June wedding, just five weeks after graduation.

Their wedding was the best day of Tobias' life. The only girl he'd ever loved stood beside him in front of God, her family, and all of their friends, and pledged her life to him as he did the same to her. She was stunningly beautiful in her strapless gown, and wore her light brown hair in loose curls that framed her face. Her blue eyes had never sparkled so beautifully. Tobias knew that if he lived to be a hundred years old, he would never forget his gorgeous bride on their wedding day, or the absolutely soaring feeling he had when she said, "I do."

After the honeymoon, Tobias and Lauren moved into the house that her late grandmother had left for Lauren in her will. It was in Chicago, closer to the city center, and was a remnant of a bygone era. The house was huge, and no longer fit in the neighborhood that had developed around it. But it had a lot of character and history, and they did their best to fix it up while building their careers.

By that time, Max and Veronica had moved to Phoenix. Max's company was bought by a larger security firm, but they'd wanted to keep him on. Lauren took the change well. Her parents had moved several times when she lived at home, so she wasn't surprised when Max's career took them on another adventure. Tobias struggled with it more than his wife did. Max and Veronica were the first real parents he'd had, and having them move to the other side of the country was hard.

Around that same time, he and Lauren decided to start a family. They both loved children, and spent a lot of time around their close friends Zeke and Shauna Pedrad's growing crew. "Uncle Tobias" and "Auntie Lauren" loved babysitting little Zoe and Oliver. As two only children, Tobias and Lauren wanted at least three children - the family of siblings and happy chaos neither of them had growing up.

For months they eagerly anticipated the day when Lauren would find out she was pregnant, but month after month, nothing happened. Eventually, they saw a team of specialists, who ran a gamut of invasive and awkward tests on both Lauren and Tobias. They determined that Lauren had very few viable eggs, so if the couple wanted to conceive, they would have to do so using in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.

Young and optimistic, Lauren and Tobias rolled with it. After all, the doctor hadn't said they couldn't have kids, just that their conception would have to be clinical. Reality set in when they saw just how much IVF would cost.

To make their dream come true, Lauren and Tobias sold her grandmother's house, and took out a mortgage to buy a home in a suburb with good schools for their future children. They used the proceeds from the sale to make a down payment on the new house, pay for the IVF, and start a savings account for the many things they would need for their children.

IVF was not as easy as it sounded. There were tests and screenings for both of them, but especially for Lauren. She had to go on several medications, including one she had to painfully inject into her own thigh, to stimulate the production of eggs for harvest. On retrieval day, Tobias had to give a semen sample at the clinic while Lauren went through the far more invasive experience having her eggs harvested.

Less than a week later, they went back to the clinic for one of the created embryos to be implanted in Lauren's uterus. With her diminished egg availability, they were able to create only seven viable embryos. The doctors implanted one, and the other six were frozen for another attempt if necessary, or for more children down the road.

After a few days off to rest and encourage the embryo to implant, Lauren went back to work. They had to wait nearly two weeks after the procedure to find out if it was successful.

They never found out.

Five days after the implant, Lauren was driving home from work when a drunk driver sped through a red light and crashed directly into the driver's door of her car. The first responders said that she'd died on impact, and Tobias felt like he had, too.

Eight months after his wife's death, Tobias was still reeling. He went to work every day, mowed the lawn of the suburban home they'd bought for their family, and ate enough to stay alive. His surrogate mother, Hana Pedrad, still stopped by at least once a week to check on him. Zeke and Shauna also stopped by. Zeke tried to get him interested in life again, but Tobias just didn't know how to live without Lauren. He grieved hard for his wife, and for the family life and future that were taken from him.

Then one day Max called to announce that he and Veronica were coming back to Chicago to celebrate Lauren's birthday with Tobias.

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The doorbell rang, and Tobias swiped at his eyes and forced himself to smile as he opened his door. "Max, Veronica," he said around the lump in his throat. "It's so good to see you."

Veronica was already in tears, and immediately threw her arms around her son-in-law. Their hugs were long and emotional. When you lose someone you love, everyone wants you to feel better. They mean well when they encourage you to go on with your life and look for things to be happy about, but they don't really get it. Only someone who truly shares your loss understands that sometimes you just have to let yourself feel everything. Max, Veronica, and Tobias understood one another. They never told each other to "buck up" or try to be happy. They just allowed each other to hurt when they hurt and feel what they felt. The first birthday without the birthday girl was the kind of day with a lot of hurt and tears.

Eventually, the tears subsided, and everyone made their way into the great room. Tobias' house was a four-level split. The ground floor had a small foyer with a built-in storage bench and a coat closet. From there, one walked into the great room, which had a kitchen in one corner, flanked by the dining area and a sitting area. The sitting room side had stairs - a half flight up to three bedrooms and a bathroom, or a half flight down to the family room, home office, and another bathroom. From the family room there was another half flight staircase that led to an unfinished basement level with the laundry and utilities.

"You haven't changed a thing in here," Veronica said, and Tobias wasn't sure if she was complimenting or scolding him.

"I really don't know what to do," he confessed. "This house was meant to hold a family. Lauren set it up with our wedding gifts, her grandma's dining room furniture, and the things we bought together. I haven't changed anything because there… there just isn't anything I want. I can't have the life we planned for, but I'm not ready to walk away from it, either. In all honesty, in the eight months since she died, all I've done is go through her clothes and personal effects with you last time you were here. Other than that I just keep it clean, shovel the snow, and mow the lawn."

The timer beeped, and Veronica waved Tobias away and pulled the chicken out of his oven. He grabbed a bottle of white wine from the fridge, and three glasses from the cupboard. They worked together to bring dinner to the table before Max brought up his daughter again.

"I know we can't help but feel the heaviness of this evening," he said. "Trying to celebrate Lauren's birthday without her feels... It's just impossible, and I'm not sure I can breathe. But I just want to say that in her twenty-five years, Lauren had a full life. She was well-loved by her friends, her extended family, and most of all, by the three of us. She was the light of our lives, and we were lucky to have her."

"Amen," choked Veronica, holding up her glass. "I only wish she had… well, I wish she had lived a nice long life, but other than that, I just wish she had lived to give us a grandchild - a little piece of herself to keep for the future."

Tobias nodded. He'd wished that many times. They would never know if the first IVF implant was a success, but he liked to imagine that it was, and that Lauren and their child were together in heaven.

Their fertility journey was something Max and Veronica knew all about. Lauren had been very open with her parents about their struggles, and the steps they were taking to have a baby. They had been wonderfully encouraging through everything, and had even sent a generous check to contribute to the cost of the IVF treatment.

Over dinner the three of them shared stories and fond memories of the woman they all loved so much. The wine flowed, and so did the conversation. They shed a few tears, but they also laughed together. When the food was gone, Veronica insisted on clearing the plates while Tobias got the little birthday cake and brought it to the table. He handed Max a knife and spatula, and asked him to do the honors.

"Happy birthday, Baby Girl," Max said as he cut the cake. "Being your father was a highlight of my life."

Tobias felt a pang that was more than just the grief over losing Lauren. He actually felt jealous of Max. He knew the older man was hurting as bad as he was, but at least he'd had the chance to raise his daughter, and he grieved with his wife by his side. Tobias was just… alone.

"Honey, can I ask you a personal question?" Veronica started as they took their first bites of cake.

"Of course," Tobias said. He wasn't the open type like his late wife, but he'd grown used to the way she communicated so freely with her parents, and had learned to be part of it.

"Do you still have embryos frozen in a lab somewhere?"

Tobias stopped. He hadn't really given any thought to the other embryos. "I guess so," he answered cautiously.

"Would you ever… I mean…" Veronica stammered and hesitated a few times. "Have you ever thought about having a child anyway?" she finally asked.

Tobias looked like a deer in the headlights as he stared at Lauren's mom. "I… I've never thought about it," he said. "I mean… That would require a surrogate or something, and then I'd be a single dad with a full-time job. I don't know how I could do that."

Max cleared his throat. "We don't want to pressure you, or even influence you," he said. "We love you just the same if you never do anything with those embryos. The idea of having a baby without Lauren is crazy in some ways, and we know it wouldn't replace her. I think Ronnie just wants you to know that it's an option for you. Those are your embryos - your potential children. If you wanted to have a baby - a family - you still could. That's all."

Tobias thought about what Lauren's parents suggested. His wife's death had left him so empty. He was only twenty-six years old, but he felt like he had no future. The idea of raising a child - Lauren's child, gave him a spark of hope that he hadn't felt since the police came to his door with the awful news of her death.

That night when Max and Veronica retired to their hotel, Tobias did a little digging online.

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Tobias saw Max and Veronica several times during their weekend visit, and they didn't talk about the frozen embryos again. But Tobias couldn't stop thinking about them. It was like Veronica's reminder brought them front and center in Tobias' mind. He and Lauren had six potential children waiting for their father to determine their fate, and it weighed heavily on him.

On the last night his in-laws were in town, he joined them for dinner, and couldn't help but bring up the subject that was so much on his mind.

"I've been thinking about the embryos," he said over the salad course. "I hadn't given them really any thought since Lauren died, but now I can't stop thinking about it. I have the house where we planned to raise a family. I have a good job. Surrogates are expensive, but I have Lauren's life insurance in savings. The only thing that's really stopping me is the fact that I work full-time, and doing it on my own would be hard. I'd have to put the baby in daycare and juggle all the sick days and doctor appointments with my job responsibilities. I know Hana would help some, and Zeke and Shauna, but they're not exactly next door. It's one thing when life happens, but this is a very deliberate choice. Can I make that choice knowing I'd have to do it alone?"

Veronica took Tobias' hand in her own, and grinned at Max, who nodded at his wife.

"Son," Max addressed him gently, "one of the reasons we came to Chicago this weekend was to look at condos and townhomes. I'm announcing my retirement next week, and we'd like to move back here where we can be closer to you."

Tobias inhaled sharply.

"We weren't sure if we wanted to get a condo in the city, or a townhouse in the suburbs - closer to you," Veronica added.

"We'd pick the suburbs for sure if you decided to raise one of your children," Max added. "Nearby grandparents are a lot of help, and we're still young enough to keep up with a little one."

Tobias chuckled. "You know, most people move somewhere warm when they retire, not the other way around."

"We're selling the house in Phoenix and getting a condo or trailer down there, too," Veronica said. "They're building some new units right by Dad's favorite golf course. But we want to live here; Chicago is our home, and you are our family - with or without a child in the picture."

"Thank you," Tobias said sincerely. "I've always said that I hit the jackpot when it came to in-laws. After my own parents… Well, I never thought I would have this. And the way you've stayed so close even after Lauren died… it's amazing. I love you both so much."

"We love you too, son," Max said, patting Tobias on the back as Veronica dried her tears.

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His in-laws went back to Phoenix, but Tobias couldn't go back to the barely surviving existence he'd had before their visit. The idea of their children waiting in a lab just wouldn't leave him alone. He knew that if he were the one that died, Lauren would have chosen to carry at least one of their babies. She would have found a way to go on with the life they had dreamed of.

Tobias began looking at his life and their home differently. He researched small SUVs to replace his well-used older compact. When he ran errands, he noticed babies. Had there always been that many kids around?

Tobias watched a live stream of Max's retirement announcement and had a bottle of scotch sent to celebrate. With the bottle, he sent a note.

Max,
It feels good to have a reason to celebrate again. Congratulations on your retirement.
Tobias

That night, for the first time in nearly nine months, Tobias went to bed with a smile on his face.