by R. R. Banks
“Don’t try to turn this around on me,” I said, a warning note in my voice. “Don’t you dare. You lied to me. You should have just been honest with me. How could you let me go through all of this? Why did you even agree to go along with the contract? Just to save face?”
“I can’t do this, Richard.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t do this. I can’t stay here. I can’t be a mother.”
“You’re telling me this now? Rue is pregnant! She’s in her second trimester. We’ve signed contracts, written checks. This isn’t just an idea. There’s a real baby now.”
“I know that. That’s why I can’t do it. I thought that I might be able to change my mind. I thought that maybe as we went along I’d see what you saw and start feeling what you feel. I thought for sure that when I saw the ultrasound I would connect with the baby and be excited, but that’s not what happened. When we were at the doctors’ yesterday and I saw the ultrasound---” she shook her head as if just the thought of it was horrifying. “It terrified me. I wanted to just get the hell out of there and never look back.”
“What are you saying?”
I knew exactly what she was saying, but she needed to say it. For once, she needed to be accountable.
“I want out. I don’t want this.”
Without saying another word, I turned and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rue
I barely had time to process the front door crashing open before I saw Richard stalking down the hallway toward me. His eyes burned into me, an intensity in them that left me breathless before he even touched me. I started to say his name, but before I could, his mouth was on mine. His arms wrapped around my waist and he scooped me off of my feet, kissing me with a possessiveness that seemed to reach down into my soul and touch something that had never been discovered. I clung to him, not caring what brought him here, not caring about anything. I couldn’t deny myself any longer.
Richard held me to him and sank to his knees, tipping me back so that I lay across the kitchen floor. We tore at each other and for a moment I wondered if I was dreaming again. This was dizzying, overpowering, and I couldn’t bring myself to believe that it was real. In an instant, though, Richard had tugged my pants away and plunged his fingers inside of me. I cried out, knowing that this was utterly, undeniably real. As his fingers explored my core, coaxing my arousal upward, I reached down and pulled off my shirt, exposing my breasts to him, not wanting anything between us.
He reciprocated, and I could finally see his body. I ran my hands down his chiseled muscles and he leaned down over me again, catching my mouth again. He tore his mouth away from mine and reached down to grab his pants. I saw him fish in his pocket and come up with a condom. He tore it open and rolled it down his cock in record speed, and suddenly he was inside of me. My body was only just ready for him and I screamed out at the intensity of the sensation of him filling me. Richard didn’t slow down. It was as though all of the need, all of the tension that had built up between us had reached such a fevered pitch that it could no longer be controlled and all we could do was let it burn.
I gave myself over to the power of his thrusts, luxuriating in the feeling of our bodies together. He dropped his head down and caught one of my nipples in his mouth, sucking it in and encircling it with his tongue. I gasped at the feeling and arched up into him. Richard tucked his head into the curve of my neck and shoulder and continued to stroke deeply, his grunts shivering across my skin and his sweat mingling with mine. Suddenly his sounds grew desperate and he thrust into me hard one more time, roaring as simultaneous orgasms slammed over us. My body clenched down on him, drawing him deeper and milking him, seeking as much of him as I could bring into myself.
****
Richard
I felt the plane touch down, jostling me out of my sleep. In the first few seconds that I was awake I wondered if I had imagined it all. Had I just made it up? Was I going to look down at my phone and see a message from Flora complaining that I hadn’t done something at the house before leaving? Had I dreamed of Rue, imagined what it would feel like being pressed deep inside her on the kitchen floor?
As the plane glided to a stop, though, I knew that I hadn’t imagined it. It had been real, every moment of it, and I couldn’t help the smile that spread over my lips thinking about it. Rue’s body had been sweet and compliant, ready to accept me, wanting me as much as I wanted her. I hated that I had only gotten to spend such a short time with her before leaving. We had been sitting on the same floor, not trying to hide our nakedness from one another, eating cold leftovers, when my phone rang, and the sound of Ellery’s voice had brought me back to bitter reality. I had to go to the office for a presentation and gather up the papers I would bring on my trip with me, then pack and get to the airport in time for my flight. Leaving Rue had been the most difficult thing that I had ever done, but I had to do it. There were things that I needed to do, and I couldn’t just turn my back on them because I wanted to do nothing but explore every inch of her body in every room of her house.
Could I?
Five hours later I was pulling back into Rue’s yard. Lights were burning in the windows, so I knew that she was still awake. I let myself in and made my way to the living room where I found her curled up on the couch beneath a blanket, her face calm and peaceful under the flickering light of the TV. I touched a kiss to her lips and her eyes fluttered open.
“Richard,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I didn’t want to be away from you,” I said. “Not yet.”
She opened her arms to me and I folded into them, taking my place on the couch so that she sprawled across my chest. I ran my fingers down her back and tried to figure out what she was watching.
“What are they making?” I asked.
“Pies,” she said dreamily.
“They don’t look like pies.”
“They’re full of meat.”
Everything felt calm, contented, like this was the way that it was always supposed to be. She knew now that Flora was gone, though I hadn’t told her the full story of what happened. I didn’t want her to feel betrayed or taken advantage of. For now, all that she needed to know was that Flora was not a part of my life any longer. The peaceful quiet was suddenly broken by a whooping sound in the distance followed by what sounded like a low explosion.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“Probably just some of the guys doing target practice.”
“At night? That doesn’t seem wise.”
“They want to make sure that they can still hunt even if they went blind.”
She said it in complete seriousness, as though it made all the sense in the world.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you come back here?”
She pressed on my chest to lift up so that she could look at me.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Why did you come back here? Why did you leave your apartment in the city to come back here?”
“It’s my home. It was going to be foreclosed on. I needed to save it. That’s why I agreed to be a surrogate.”
“It was?” I asked, stunned.
“Yes,” she said. “I needed the money.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“No one ever asked.”
“Yes, they did. That was literally one of the first things that Ellery asked you during your initial interview. You just said that you had reasons for needing the money. Then you seemed to have a panic attack when he walked out of the room. Maybe that should have tipped me off that you weren’t telling the total truth.”
Her eyes narrowed at me.
“How did you know that?”
Heat burned across my cheeks.
“I was watching you through a hidden camera,” I admitted.
“You were what?”
“I wanted to make sure that I was gett
ing the full picture of each prospective applicant.”
“So, you spied on us? You let us think that we were alone and then you watched us?”
She sounded horrified, and I knew that she was justified.
“Look,” I said, trying to deflect the situation. “That’s not the point. I wish I had known that this was your motivation all along. I could have just bought it for you.”
“I didn’t want you to.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my responsibility, not yours. Money doesn’t always just automatically fix everything. My family earned every day in this house, and I wanted to earn it, too. If you had just paid for it, it wouldn’t have had any meaning.”
I tried to understand, but I couldn’t, so I pushed the thought aside.
“Now that you’ve paid for it, though, what are you going to do with it?”
She tilted her head at me.
“Live in it,” she said.
“Always?” I asked.
“That was kind of my plan for the foreseeable future.”
“Look, you don’t have to do that. And you don’t have to drive so far just to come to the medical center. Let me get an apartment for you in the city. You can live there, be close to everything, and it will make it much easier for all of your appointments especially when the baby gets closer to coming.”
“I don’t need you to get me an apartment,” she said.
“But it will be so much better than this.”
I knew as soon as I said it that I shouldn’t have. I was right back in the position that I had been in on Thanksgiving and she was looking at me with the same disappointment and pain in her eyes.
“Don’t you have a plane to catch?” she asked, standing up from the couch and disappearing into the bathroom.
I heard water rushing into the tub and I knew that I had been dismissed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rue
Dear Baby,
You’re a girl. A girl. I can’t stop saying it enough. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve thought of you for so long as just “the baby”, but now I know that you are a little girl. You are going to be so incredibly beautiful. I hope your hair is like your daddy’s. More than anything, though, I hope that you are strong. I hope that there is a little bit of Grammyma in you somewhere. Even if you never know it, she will be there to carry you through, to help you know that you can do anything. Don’t be afraid. Don’t ever be afraid. Even when something scares you, face it down and refuse to be afraid. One day, you will know the difference. At least I hope that you do.
I wish that your daddy had been able to be with me today when I found out. He was supposed to be. His trip was supposed to end last week, but it didn’t. Something delayed him, and he doesn’t know when he’ll get back. I’m sure that I could have rescheduled the ultrasound so that he could be there, but frankly I didn’t want to. He’s so used to getting his way all the time and expecting the world to just mold to him and change anything to work around him. I’m not going to do that. Unfortunately, I worry that you are going to be waiting for your daddy a lot in your life. He would never do anything to hurt you, and I bet he wouldn’t even understand why you were upset, but that’s just the way that his mind works. There will be many times when you have to wait, and I wasn’t going to let that start now.
This was for us.
I can feel you moving. It’s the most incredible feeling. I thought that it would be hard and that I would know for sure what was happening, but it’s more like bubbles. I asked Kathryn about it, thinking that it might be something wrong or that I could do something about, and she just smiled and told me that it was you making yourself known. Now all I want to do is press my hands to my belly and feel you. Soon you’ll be able to hear my voice. Try to remember it, OK? Tuck it away in your heart somewhere so that it’s always there.
Love,
Rue
****
I still hadn’t written the baby a letter about what happened with Flora. I didn’t know how to put it into words that wouldn’t need to be censored before she was allowed to read them. I knew that one day, if she ever got a chance to read the letters that I was writing to her, that she would see me mention her mother and ask Richard. It would be up to him what he told her about Flora, their relationship, and where she had gone. I didn’t need to be a part of that.
I was just filling a glass with cold water, needing to cool off even though it was only still spring, when I heard the front door open. I was expecting Norma to come by that afternoon with a quilt that I had found in an old cedar chest and asked her to mend, so I called out to her. The voice that came back to me wasn’t hers.
“What do you want to do?”
I turned and saw Richard coming into the kitchen.
Dammit. This man has got to stop startling me in my own house.
“What?” I asked.
I turned the rest of the way toward him and saw his eyes lower to my stomach.
“You have a belly,” he whispered, coming toward me. He lowered himself to his knees in front of me and rested his hands on either side of the small, but distinct swell that had developed in the last few days. “I can see her.”
“You know it’s a girl,” I said.
“Yes,” Richard said, getting to his feet again. “Ellery told me. I tried to get back here for the appointment. I really did. But I couldn’t. I missed it and that kills me. I never want to miss anything ever again, and I don’t want you to, either. So, tell me, what do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you want to do?” he repeated. “Anything. Pick something.”
I thought about it for a moment.
“Ride a Ferris wheel,” I said.
“What?”
“I want to ride a Ferris wheel. The closest carnival to here never had one and I’ve never been to the big state fair. I’ve never gotten a chance to ride a Ferris wheel, and pretty soon I won’t be able to for a while.”
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Now?” I asked.
“Why not? I’m offering you the world, Rue. Why wait?”
****
Dear Baby,
Can you hear the train? There are few sounds in this world that I love quite as much as the sound of a train at night. It cuts through everything and reassures everyone who hears it that no matter what they are facing, life keeps going. Everything keeps going. I haven’t been back to Grammyma’s house in almost two months. Your daddy told me that he was sending a crew to make sure that my plants get watered and my mail gets brought in, but somehow, I don’t think that’s really the truth. Considering no one ever sends me any mail, all of my bills are sent straight to my email, and I don’t have a single houseplant to my name, I think that that was his code for he’s sending in a crew to do all of the renovations that I told him needed to be done to the house. I told him that he didn’t need to do it, but there seems to be no stopping him. Suddenly he is driven to take care of everything. I finally relented and let him get me an apartment, not that I’ve been using it. I wouldn’t let him get one in the expensive buildings, though. I chose a simpler place near Tessie. It’s just a few minutes’ drive to the medical center. Your daddy spent days making sure that it was perfectly furnished and decorated. Could this be nesting?
Before we left he said that he was offering me the world, and it certainly seems that he is trying to do just that. I left the house with nothing but my purse, but now I’m toting three suitcases and have had to send home some of the clothes and shoes that I’ve collected during our travels. Anything that I can think of that I want to do or see, he makes it happen for me. He checked with Kathryn to make sure that it is still OK for me to fly and as soon as she approved it, we were on his private jet zipping to anywhere that I mentioned. In a single weekend we ate meals in nine states and on both coasts. We cuddle in front of a roaring fire at a ski lodge one day and the next were spread out in the sand of a private beach
. We have visited every state. I got my passport and on the same day we were in Mexico exploring the ruins and then the next in Canada looking at the falls. I suggested we try hiking the Klondike Trail, but after telling me that that was the wrong Gold Rush trail, Richard suggested that piling on a hundred pounds of equipment and hiking over mountains might not be the best for me at this point. I’ve seen and done more in these weeks than I would have ever thought that I would be able to accomplish in five lifetimes.
There’s only one thing missing. One thing that he hasn’t offered me. He’s giving me the world, but what about his heart? I want to tell him that I love him and that I want us to be a family, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. Not unless I know that he feels the same way. What if all of this is just one big adventure, his one chance to be impetuous and frivolous before he has to settle down to raise you? I can’t imagine living even a single day of the rest of my life without the two of you…but what if I don’t have a choice?
Love,
Me
****
I slid the letter into the folder that I had been keeping in the satchel that I now carried everywhere with me. I couldn’t bring myself to sign it “Rue”. It didn’t feel right anymore. I glanced over at Richard where he lay sleeping on the lower bunk. He had complained that this was the least luxurious sleeper car that he had ever traveled in, but that hadn’t seemed to stop him from falling asleep as soon as he laid down. I tried to be as quiet as possible as I changed into one of his shirts and slipped into the bunk beside him. I didn’t want to disturb him. I knew that our traveling was coming to an end soon. He couldn’t avoid his career forever and in a few days, I would be at the point in my pregnancy when I would need to see Kathryn every two weeks rather than once a month. It was time to settle down again and I wanted Richard to get as much rest as he could before the stress of real life came back down on top of him.