The Surrogate

For a minute Jamie thought the housekeeper was going to put a hand on her arm and took a step backward.

“The Hartma

Miss Montgomery was doing her best to sound sincere. The expression on her face was hopeful.

“Okay,” Jamie agreed. “For starters, what about my address book? You took it, didn’t you, to make it more difficult for me to contact someone? And I’ve completed six lessons from the correspondence course and have yet to receive any sort of grade or comment from the professor. You never mailed them, did you?”

“Perhaps the professor is waiting until you have completed all the lessons,” the housekeeper suggested, her tone less conciliatory than before.

“Am I even enrolled in the course?” Jamie demanded. “Or did you somehow manage to get a copy of the lessons just so you could keep me busy and I’d have less time to ponder the fact that I am being treated like a criminal in a prison? Come to think of it, the check I wrote to pay for the course has yet to show up on my bank statement.”

Without waiting for a response, Jamie turned heel and, with a pounding heart, marched from the room.

Back in her room, she opened a desk drawer and pulled out her copy of the contract she had signed. Yes, if she read the legalese carefully, she could see that she was indeed prohibited from having any contact with individuals or entities not directly involved with her day-to-day life on the Hartma

Probably calling the secretary of the attorney who had drawn up such a document had been a stupid idea anyway. Bentley Abernathy was the Hartma

Even if she wanted to contact a lawyer after the fact and ask about her legal options, she would not be allowed to do so. Moreover, if she told someone that she was carrying a child for Amanda Hartma

But if Amanda pla

Jamie put the contract back in the drawer, wishing she had never heard of the Hartma

The week before Christmas, Jamie woke to the sound of howling wind. She took Ralph into the backyard but decided that she would forgo her morning walk. She looked over the assigned readings for her next correspondence-course lesson, trying to decide if she would bother with them. She didn’t even have copies of the lessons she had completed. She had her notes, however. If she did decide to retype them and complete the additional lessons, she could deliver the completed course in person to the professor in Austin-after she had served out her sentence on this godforsaken ranch.

For now, though, she gave herself over to watching a morning’s worth of mindless television programs.

At noon her lunch arrived. As Jamie placed the tray on the coffee table, she felt a strange sensation in her abdomen. Like a bird fluttering around inside of her.

She put a hand on her stomach. But the sensation had ceased.

She waited a minute to see if it was going to happen again. For several seconds she waited. Maybe it was just her stomach protesting its emptiness. Or a muscle spasm.

She sat down, switched on the television, and took a bite of the turkey sandwich.

Then it happened again.

“Oh, my gosh!” she said, placing both hands over her protruding belly.

The fluttering lasted longer this time, for several seconds. And Jamie knew what she was feeling. It was life.

Of course, the baby had been alive all along, but she hadn’t felt it before. She recalled the word that Mary Millicent and Nurse Freda had used. Quickening.

She couldn’t bring herself to pick up the sandwich for a second bite. She just sat there, staring at nothing.

For a long time she sat there. Not thinking. Not eating. Finally, though, she picked up the sandwich and took another bite. And another. Then she pushed the tray away and headed for the bedroom, where she wrapped herself up in a blanket and lay across the bed.

She slept for a time, waking to the sound of the wind, which seemed even more ferocious than before. An afternoon walk was out of the question. She stretched and was trying to decide what to do with the rest of the day, when it happened again. Movement. More pronounced than before. She imagined a tiny arm or leg moving about. A tiny human being flexing its muscles. She wanted to yell at it to stop. If it was going to start moving around like this, there was no way she could continue ignoring what was going on inside of her.

She buried her face in a pillow and began to cry. She wanted the baby to go away. She didn’t want it moving around in there. But she didn’t want it to die either, and if it went away it would die.

Dear God in heaven, what have I done?

Ralph jumped up on the bed and began licking her face. She put her arms around him and buried her face in his coarse hair. “What are we going to do, Ralphie? What are we going to do?”

Finally, she calmed herself, feeling a bit ashamed that she had overreacted in such a way. It was time for her to face up and grow up. Of course the baby moved. It was supposed to move, supposed to grow, and eventually get itself born. She had put off dealing emotionally with her situation long enough. She was now five months’ pregnant. A small living creature was swimming around in her uterus. A baby. A human baby.

She was not to think of it as her baby. She had signed a contract saying that in exchange for a handsome amount of money, she agreed to forfeit her legal rights to the child. In the eyes of the law, he or she would belong to Amanda Hartma

Unless what Mary Millicent had said about So

Which was too far-fetched to be believed.

Jamie wondered what life would be like for the child she was carrying, other than being raised amid extreme wealth and never wanting for anything. She did not doubt that Amanda and Toby would love the child. She did worry, however, that much of the child’s upbringing would be left to Miss Montgomery or a nursemaid while Amanda, with Toby at her side, traveled about saving souls and raising money for political candidates handpicked by her Alliance. And Jamie wondered how she would feel if the child that she was now carrying followed in Amanda’s footsteps and someday told a national television audience how God wanted them to live and think and vote. Would she feel proud? Or would it make her squirm?

That night, it was Jamie who initiated the middle-of-the-night visit with Mary Millicent. She crept down the hall to the chapel, then she pushed open the hidden door, felt around for the light switch, and climbed the bare wooden stairs to the first of the two tower rooms. A dim light glowed from behind the curtain that divided the room. She slipped behind the curtain and stared down at the emaciated face of the unfortunate young man lying there. All the family riches had not protected him from grave misfortune.