Page 38 of Say My Name

Amelia finishes closing her folder, and Elena pulls back.

The attorneys explain the final procedural steps. Our counsel will retain the executed agreement, the employment recusal takes effect immediately, and any clinic forms remain separate from the company. Then they leave us with our copies. When the door shuts, Elena releases a long breath.

“It’s done,” she says, the words a quiet exhale. I can only nod. Done for her. Just beginning for me.

She sounds relieved. The tightness she carried into the room is gone. She checks her folder once more before sliding it into her bag with the care she gives every document that protects something important.

The pages give her a procedure if I mishandle my authority at work, a voice in every parenting decision, and a way out of the conception plan if she changes her mind. I wanted every protection for her. With the risks codified on paper, I can see everything the agreement makes possible.

I have kept the idea of a family vague for years because wanting one means depending on a choice I can’t make alone. Elena has made that choice with me.

We leave the conference suite and step into the elevator. She presses the lobby button, then faces the mirrored doors, holding her bag against her side.

I stand beside her and tell myself to keep this clinical.

The rule should be simple. We begin at the clinic. We make responsible decisions, protect her career, and prepare to raise a child together. She has agreed to co-parenting, medical disclosure, and a future full of shared obligations. She hasn’t agreed to dinner, a kiss, my hands on her, or anything else the natural-conception clause lodged in my head.

Then she looks at my reflection.

Her eyes travel from my face to my shoulders. They pause at my waist and dip lower. A faint flush returns as she catches herself and lifts them to mine.

I don’t know exactly what she’s thinking. I know it has nothing to do with the clinic.

Her arm rests against mine. There’s plenty of room for either of us to move.

Neither of us does.

CHAPTER 7

Elena

The contract says nothing about Dominic carrying my nephew around on his shoulders.

Considering the attorneys found room for travel authorization, preschool tuition, and what happens if one of us wants to move more than fifty miles away, it’s a significant oversight.

Two weeks after Dominic and I signed eleven pages agreeing to have a child together, I stand in my parents’ backyard watching Theo hold fistfuls of Dominic’s hair and demand that he go faster.

“I’m walking,” Dominic tells him.

“Walk fast.”

“Your father gave me strict instructions regarding the safe transportation of his children.”

Cliff looks up from his place beside the grill. “I told you not to let him steer.”

“I’m steering,” Theo announces.

“That’s the problem.”

Dominic catches Theo’s leg when he leans too far to the side. He doesn’t flinch or ask my brother to take his four-year-old back. He keeps one hand secure around Theo’s calf and carries him across the yard as if having a small, loud person attached to his head is a normal part of his afternoon.

Maybe it is. Cliff and Dominic have been friends since they were college roommates, and Dominic has been part of our family gatherings for years. He sends Sophie and Theo birthday gifts, remembers what they’re interested in, lets them climb him whenever they visit from New York.

I’ve always seen it. But now, with our clinic appointment looming, every easy, familiar gesture feels charged with a different kind of promise.

“Uncle Dominic.” Sophie hurries across the grass with several sheets of paper pressed to her chest. “I need you.”

Theo tightens his grip. “I need him.”