is it possible that Harvey had a kid because Marcus died just like he settled for Donna because his mom did too? it would certainly make sense
that is such an interesting take that i never would have considered on my own. in all seriousness, thank you for bringing it up.
to no one's surprise, i'm sure, i always took for granted that harvey settled for donna because mike was out of the picture and he had no real means of support left (jessica being gone as well couldn't have helped), but certainly his mother's death could be viewed as a motivating factor. at the very least, donna being the one literally delivering the news and the only person around for him to lean on in that moment lays the foundation for it. taking the heavy-handedness of the analogy a step further, sheila going into labor at the altar puts the life-death parallel right at the forefront of the narrative at that time, and harvey just so happening to have his mother's ring with him complements the picture with all the subtlety of a monkey with a hand grenade, if you will.
the timeline for the post-suits era isn't made explicitly clear, so all we know is that marcus died "a few years" before "bat signal" (s01e09), which i'll assume takes place in 2025 (the year it aired), and that harvey and donna have a son who's old enough to have the wherewithal to ask when his dad's going to call (not confirmed whether he's old enough to have the grammatical, spelling, and proofreading knowledge and patience to type out the sentence "Daddy, when are you going to call?" or donna did it for him, but given that suits ended in 2019, the kid is five, six years old at the absolute most, and that's only if donna got pregnant like, the day that they moved across the country). that is to say, purely logistically, yes, it's possible in that there's nothing to specifically disprove it.
as for that being the reason that harvey would have had a child... you know, i don't think it would be the only reason, but i can definitely see it being a big part of harvey's decision, and potentially a rather small part of donna's. rather, i should say i can see donna thinking it's a nice idea, but primarily a good tactic by which to convince harvey to have a kid with her, since as i've said before, i don't particularly think he'd be the driving force behind that life choice. that said, harvey does have something of a track record of wallowing in despair after a life upheaval until he can find something to fill that void (basically his entire career is a distraction from his disastrous upbringing, and we all saw how broken he was after mike left the firm, or went to prison, or moved to seattle, or...); i don't think he's a particularly religious person, especially compared to mike's oft-cited catholic upbringing, but if life in seattle isn't everything he hoped and dreamed it would be (and given how blindly optimistic he and mike were when mike "interviewed" him for the job, i have to imagine it's not), yes, i could absolutely see grief at marcus's death being part of his choice to bring a new life into the world.
and it's my understanding that the larger fandom has more or less decided that the kid's name is gordon, in case you were looking for yet another way to tie him to harvey trying to compensate for a tragic loss in his life without processing it fully.
