Chapter 6: Terms and Conditions

Eleanor didn't sit down right away. She stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up at Elena and Diane like she was assessing a property she was considering buying.

"Well," she said. "Since we're all here, we might as well do this properly. Diane, go home. This doesn't concern you."

"Eleanor—" Diane started.

"Home, Diane."

Elena watched Diane's shoulders fold inward, watched her actually turn to go, and felt something in her chest tighten with anger on Diane's behalf. "She can stay," Elena said. "This is my apartment, and my pregnancy. I decide who's in the room."

Eleanor's eyebrows rose slightly, the first real reaction she'd shown. "Interesting. All right. Diane, stay, if you insist on being spoken to like that."

Diane sat back down, silent, eyes on her own hands.

"Let's speak plainly," Eleanor said, finally climbing the last two steps to stand in front of them. "I fund this arrangement. All of it. I want that fact established before we go any further, so nobody in this conversation is confused about the actual power dynamic."

"I understood that part," Elena said. "Diane told me."

"Good. Then you'll understand this too." Eleanor folded her hands in front of her. "I want weekly check-ins with Dr. Cole's office, copied directly to me. I want you seeing him twice a week in your third trimester instead of once, at my expense, obviously. And I want you to move into the guest house on the estate for the remainder of the pregnancy, so you're somewhere I can actually monitor."

"No," Elena said.

"I'm sorry?"

"No. To the guest house, specifically. Everything else, we can discuss."

Eleanor tilted her head, like a woman encountering a vending machine that had failed to dispense correctly. "You understand I'm not asking your permission. I'm informing you of the conditions under which this continues to be funded."

"You can inform me all you want," Elena said. "I'm still not moving into your house."

"Elena," Diane said quietly, a warning.

"No, I want to hear this," Elena said, not taking her eyes off Eleanor. "Explain to me why I need to live on your property to carry a baby that's already growing exactly the way it's supposed to."

"Because things go wrong," Eleanor said, and for a second, something genuine flickered under the coldness — old grief, maybe, from whatever had happened with the last surrogate. "Because I've watched this exact situation fall apart before, and I am not interested in watching it fall apart twice because nobody was paying close enough attention."

"Then pay closer attention through appointments. Through Dr. Cole. Not by moving me into your house like I'm livestock you're keeping an eye on."

Eleanor's jaw tightened. "That's not what this is."

"It's exactly what this is." Elena stood up from the step, needing to not be looking up at this woman anymore. "I signed a contract. I did not sign away where I sleep, who I see, or how I live my life for the next six months. That clause doesn't exist. I made sure of that."

"You struck Section 14," Eleanor said. "Yes. I heard. My son did that without consulting me, which is a conversation he and I will be having separately. But there are other ways to ensure compliance that don't require a signature."

"Like what? Threatening me?"

"Like funding," Eleanor said simply. "I can stop paying for Dr. Cole's services tomorrow. I can stop the monthly allowance. I can make Diane and Richard choose between this baby and their financial independence from me, and you already know which way four years of desperation will make them lean."

The silence that followed felt physical. Elena looked at Diane, who wouldn't meet her eyes, which was its own answer.

"You'd really do that," Elena said. "Pull funding from your own grandchild over where I sleep at night."

"I'd do it to ensure this pregnancy is protected the way I believe it needs to be protected," Eleanor said. "Call it whatever you'd like."

"I call it control," Elena said. "And I'm not interested in being controlled. I've spent my whole life being told what to do by people who thought they knew better — my father, before he died, teachers, a system that decided what I deserved before I ever got a say in it. I am not doing that again. Not for forty-five thousand dollars. Not for anyone."

"Then perhaps," Eleanor said, voice going very flat, very quiet, "you should have thought about that before you signed."

"I did think about it," Elena said. "That's exactly why Section 14 is gone. I read every line of that contract because I knew someone in this arrangement would try to find the smallest crack to control me through. I just didn't expect it to be you showing up on my doorstep at ten at night."

Something almost like respect moved across Eleanor's face, gone as fast as it came. "You're sharper than the last one."

"I don't know who the last one was," Elena said. "But I'm guessing she didn't have anyone to fight for."

Eleanor's eyes flicked, briefly, toward Elena's stomach, then back up. "No. I don't suppose she did."

The quiet stretched long enough that Diane finally spoke, barely above a whisper. "Eleanor. Please. She's not wrong."

Eleanor turned to look at her daughter-in-law like she'd forgotten she was there. "I'll think about the guest house," she said finally, though nothing in her tone suggested actual flexibility. "But I want the increased appointments. Twice weekly, starting next week. That's non-negotiable, and Dr. Cole will confirm to me personally, every time, that you attended."

"I can agree to that," Elena said. "Because that's about the baby's health. Not about where I sleep."

"Fine." Eleanor stepped back down toward her car, then paused, half-turned, the streetlight catching the sharp lines of her face. "You should know something, Ms. Hart. I don't lose fights I decide to have. I simply choose, sometimes, not to have them yet."

"Then I guess we'll see which one this turns out to be," Elena said.

Eleanor didn't answer. She got into her car, and the headlights swept once more across the courtyard as she pulled away, leaving Elena standing on the steps with her heart pounding and Diane staring at the empty street like she'd just watched something she couldn't take back.

"She's not going to let this go," Diane said quietly. "Whatever you think you just won tonight — she's not going to let it go."

Elena looked down at the envelope still sitting on the step where she'd left it, court records inside it she hadn't even had the chance to read yet.

"Neither am I," she said.