Shane said she’d call Helena after a week or so, because she needed to think about it some more and talk it over with Jenny since the child would be in her house.

“We do have foster parents that have roommates, so please don’t let it worry you. It’s an adjustment but it’s not terribly bad,” Helena assured her. Shane just shrugged, and it made me laugh.

“Alice says she wants to carry the baby instead of foster this time,” I said before I realized the words were leaving my mouth. Both of them looked at me funnily for a minute before Helena nodded.

“We spoke about it in Hawaii. She wasn’t sure then, but she did seem to be leaning toward carrying her own child. I think it’s a great idea, when she’s ready.”

I nodded. “Yeah, we’re still working on the whole “ready” part. She says there’ll never be a perfect time, but I think I’d like her to wait awhile before we try anyway. And honestly I have no fucking idea how to even go about it. I mean, how the hell do you choose a donor, anyway? I don’t want to be like Bette and Tina and just randomly decide on someone. That seems sort of weird to me…but then again I don’t really know of anyone that would do it. And I really, really don’t want to have to ask Harrison to do that.”

“I don’t know, he might be a good idea,” Shane said thoughtfully. “He’s healthy. He’s not exactly stupid. Not too bad.”

“I just don’t know if I could do that,” I sighed. “I love Harrison but having him as the father of my child is a little weird to me. I’ll think about it though.”

I did intend to at least consider it, but at the moment I was more concerned with Alice being ready to have another child than anything else. She was doing really well and seemed a lot better off since she’d come back from Hawaii, but I knew she was still having some issues. She wouldn’t really talk about them with me, though, and just claimed that she was working on it and that it was going to be all right.