In theory, Kamala could have said no if she wanted to.
She could have objected, Olga and Lila could have told the sperm bank where they could stuff their sample, and life could have just gone on as normal. Maybe every now and again the situation could have come up as a bad inside joke shared among the three of them, but by and large, the Pataki-Sawyer home could have remained just the three of them.
But would it have been the right thing to do?
Sibling or not, it wasn't like the hands of time were somehow going to freeze or slow down. Senior year was going to come and go, the tassel was still going to be turned, the motor board cap was still going to be tossed, and Kamala would still be giving Olga and Lila one last hug in the foyer of some dorm that would be her living space for the foreseeable future.
And it wasn't like time was marching for her and her alone. Even without the two women making a solid and eloquent case for being mothers again, their daughter knew deep down somewhere that to deprive them of this milestone while they still had love and stamina left to build their family further would be selfish and cruel.
"Olga. Lila." She said once the car had been parked outside their home. "I know I kinda blanked out there for a minute, and yeah, this was some news to take in…but, if you've been a godsend to me, I know you can be a wonderful mom again to another child. So, yeah. I support this decision."
The two women smiled and pulled their daughter in for a group hug. The elder 2/3rds of this triangle shed silent tears of joy over their daughter's maturity and willingness to take the high road over such an earth-changing decision. But in the stillness of the night, Kamala found herself stirring as the full gravity of her blessing began to sink in; gravity which only appeared to weigh down on her more and more as the seasons changed and the PSATs became an increasingly tepid memory.
Lila would be the one to undergo insemination, and the pregnancy process went without a hitch by all accounts. With each trimester, the redhead woman's body swelled as the child continued to grow within her, and each visit with the OBGYN ended with better news than the last. And while she and Olga chose to keep the gender of their child secret until the delivery date, all evidence seemed to point toward the Pataki-Sawyer family welcoming a son.
"A boy." Olga said to her wife gleefully. "A son of our own."
"I've got to text Kamala the ever so wonderful news." Lila said.
"One step ahead of you my dear." Olga said planting a loving kiss on her wife's forehead.
But as Kamala read the text from her mother detailing the recent development, her emotionless face furrowed into an uncharacteristic scowl.
As much as the pregnancy itself was going swimmingly, Kamala's attitude was the one factor where all the problematic elements seemed to concentrate. The front she had put up in trying not to feel bugged by the timing of it all was starting to show fissures and crumbles. The girl who began eleventh grade as something of a rough-around-the-edges but overall gregarious and witty young woman known and loved by her classmates suddenly became withdrawn and aloof; her once exceptional grades began to dip noticeably into above-average territory, and on more than one occasion, her 'friendly fire' wit would take a sudden turn for the acerbic and cruel.
Yet through it all she gave the same six word response. "I'm fine. No really, don't worry."
It wasn't like her peers were ignorant of Kamala's life story, far from it; she was always an open book about her pre-Hillwood exploits and rarely declined to answer any questions about therapy, poverty, abuse, etc…, they just made the mistake of thinking that it was all in the past and that she had made the effort to not let it give her (all that much of) an edge.
Little did anyone know however that the worst was yet to come.
After another sleepless night slowly wrestling with herself over what life would hold with a younger sibling to fill the void as she left for college, Kamala quietly got up for a drink of water. From the stairwell, she heard chatter coming from the kitchen. While Kamala could easily make the voice out as that of her mother Olga, it was still a series of inarticulate blahs in her voice and tone. Quietly, she crab-walked down the steps until she could perfectly make out the nature of her mother's insomnia.
"But that's the thing Arnold." Olga said. "With Lila's due date being in the middle of July, our annual trip to Spencer Beach is most likely going to be put on hold…and as much as she'd been a trooper, I know this is going to shatter her heart…"