The Surrogate

by Henry Wall Judith

  During the second semester of her freshman year Joe Brammer started to stop by the dry cleaner’s, and they would visit in between customers. He was thinking about applying for a fellowship that would allow him to study international law at Oxford during his last semester of law school. And he sometimes mentioned his girlfriend, but mostly they talked about their classes, music, current events, and what they wanted to do with their lives. Sometimes he came by just before her shift was over and walked her back to the campus.

  That summer he didn’t come to Mesquite at all.

  Her grandmother was well past eighty by then and no longer strong enough to clean other people’s houses. When Jamie left for her sophomore year at UT, her grandmother cried because she could no longer afford to send her any money. Jamie assured her that she could manage just fine, which she did by working longer hours and counting every penny.

  She was thrilled when Joe dropped by the dry cleaner’s her first week back, and she dared to hope that maybe he wasn’t serious about the girl he was dating. But a couple of weeks later he came by to tell her that he was going to get married. When he left, Jamie went into the tiny bathroom and cried, running the water to muffle the sound of her sobs. She stayed in the bathroom so long that the manager knocked on the door and asked if she was all right.

  Jamie tried to stop thinking about Joe, especially at night while she was waiting for sleep. She knew now that he was never going to fall in love with her. That she was still just a kid to him. But she didn’t have anyone else to take his role in her nighttime imaginings and wondered if she ever would.

  Mid-November it became apparent that her grandmother was not well. Jamie finished out the semester then packed up and came home. When Granny protested, Jamie told her the decision was not negotiable.

  It was strange to see her grandmother’s house unkempt. The only food in the refrigerator was on dishes Jamie recognized as belonging to Joe’s grandmother. When she returned the dishes, Mrs. Washburn hugged her and insisted on pouring her a cup of coffee. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said, patting Jamie’s arm affectionately. “Your grandmother needs you.”

  Jamie spent several days cleaning the little house. In the process, she found a drawer full of unpaid bills and threats to discontinue service from the utility companies. She also discovered that her grandmother’s property taxes had not been paid in years, the mortgage company had begun foreclosure proceedings, and Granny’s bank account was overdrawn.

  When she asked her grandmother about the bills, Granny said not to worry. “I’m expecting a check for thirty-eight thousand dollars any day now,” she explained.

  “Who’s sending the check?” Jamie asked.

  “I won it,” Granny said with a proud smile. “I kept getting these letters promising me a prize if I made a contribution to the war on cancer, so I finally sent a donation. And a nice man called and said I had won all this money. All I had to do to secure my winnings was send a check for eight hundred and seventy-two dollars. My winnings should come any day now.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Jamie said with a sinking heart.

  “And in the meantime, there’s some money in an oatmeal box on the top shelf of the pantry,” Granny said.

  When Jamie looked, there was no oatmeal box in the pantry or anyplace else in the kitchen. Jamie applied for a credit card and used cash advances to cover Granny’s overdraft and pay the overdue bills. She used a cash advance on a second credit card to appease the mortgage company, which agreed to wait six months before foreclosing on the loan. She also got a job at a hardware store but had to quit when Granny could no longer get herself to the bathroom. Jamie told her grandmother that the prize money had finally arrived and began charging groceries, gas, and medical expenses not covered by Medicare. She made monthly payments on the first two credit cards with cash advances from a third.

  With her grandmother all but bedridden, Jamie encouraged her to fill her waking hours with reminiscing and listened while her grandmother dug up old memories—good and bad. Jamie realized how difficult her grandmother’s life had been—being widowed as a young woman and raising her daughter on her own.

  “The best of my life has been the last,” Granny told Jamie. “You have been my greatest joy and my crowning achievement.”

  She died the next day.

  After the men from the funeral home had taken Granny’s body away, Jamie called Ginger, whom she hadn’t seen in years. “I thought you’d want to know,” she told her sister.

  After several seconds of silence, Ginger said, “I know you’re going to miss her.”

  That night Jamie dreamed that their parents arrived just in time to be with her and Ginger at the cemetery when they buried their grandmother next to her husband, who died so long ago that no one except Granny remembered him.

  Ginger arrived the next morning and walked through the house. “Did she have a will?” she asked.

  Jamie shook her head.

  That afternoon, Ginger returned with a rented truck and two burly men. “Some of this old stuff might be worth something,” she said. “I talked to a Realtor about selling the place.”

  When Jamie explained that the house belonged to the mortgage company, Ginger accused Jamie of stealing her share of the inheritance.

  Jamie walked through the house gathering up the things she wanted to keep and carried them out to the old Chevy, which Granny had already put in her name. That night she slept on a mattress apparently deemed too old and lumpy to be of value.

  Ginger didn’t even stay for the funeral.

  A surprising number of people did come, however, including Joe Brammer’s grandparents. “Your grandmother was a fine woman and our dear friend,” Mr. Washburn said with a bear hug. Mrs. Washburn embraced Jamie and kissed her cheek. “We’re going to miss her,” she said, “and you, too.” Jamie knew that the Washburns had purchased a retirement home in Georgia and would soon be leaving Mesquite.

  She stayed in town long enough to scrub the house from top to bottom and settle her grandmother’s affairs. Then she carried the last of her things and Granny’s houseplants out to the car and, taking one last look at the little white house that had been her home for more than a dozen years, drove away with tears streaming down her face.

  She stopped at the cemetery on her way out of town.

  As she stood there staring down at the patch of raw earth, a favorite memory of her grandmother came into her mind. They were doing the spring cleaning and had propped open the back screen door so that they could carry the mattresses and rugs out to the backyard for an airing. A young sparrow flew through the open door and went completely crazy when it couldn’t find a way out. Fluffy little feathers fluttered about like snow as it beat its wings first against the window over the sink and then the window by the table. Back and forth it went. Granny stood perfectly still in the middle of the kitchen talking in a low, soothing voice, telling the frantic little creature that it was a very beautiful bird and that she had always wished that she could be a bird for a day so she could fly high in the sky and better see what God hath wrought. Finally the exhausted creature lighted on top of the refrigerator, and Granny reached out to it. The bird perched on her finger and, still talking softly, she carried it to the door and watched it fly away.

  What Jamie would miss the most was her grandmother’s calmness. It had soothed like a balm.

  “I love you, Granny, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she said.

  She was alone in the world, deeply in debt, and two and a half years away from a college degree.

  But she did have a plan.

  Chapter Two

  BENTLEY ABERNATHY WAS awake when the phone rang.

  He had been staring into the darkness hoping for some indication from his wife’s side of the bed that she might also be awake and possibly receptive to a little middle-of-the-night sex after which he was always able to fall asleep immediately. Brenda had made it clear to him years ago that she did not want to be awak
ened in the middle of the night for sex and that he should go jack off in the bathroom or take a sleeping pill when he was suffering from a bout of sleeplessness. But occasionally she, too, would be wakeful and roll willingly into his arms without expectation of foreplay, her own fantasies apparently having been at work, and they would come together for an immediate, intense coupling followed by a bit of affectionate snuggling as they both fell soundly asleep.

  Even though Bentley was an attorney and not unaccustomed to late-night phone calls from desperate clients, the demanding ring of a telephone in the still of the night was always startling. Always made his heart lurch. And in the span of a millisecond, that first harsh ring precipitated an avalanche of possibilities that had nothing to do with clients. As disappointed as he was in his four spoiled and seemingly worthless children, he realized how much he still loved them when the middle-of-the-night phone calls came and his greatest fear was that something terrible might happen to one of them—something an attorney father could not make go away. The possibilities were many. Automobile accidents topped the list, followed closely by overdoses. Or the fear would resurface that his daughter’s jerk of a husband was capable of abuse. Or one of his sons might have been severely injured in a barroom brawl. Or had driven into Mexico and been murdered by banditos. Or been mugged. Carjacked. Kidnapped. One of his children could be bleeding to death on a hospital gurney or cold and dead on a slab at the county morgue.

  Without his glasses, Bentley did not even try to read the number on the caller ID. He grabbed the phone before it rang a second time. An instant later Brenda turned on her bedside lamp.

  “What’s taking you so goddamned long?” a rasping male voice immediately demanded.

  Bentley fell back on the bed and took in a deep, calming, grateful breath. His spoiled, worthless children lived on.

  “You said to take all the time I needed to find the perfect young woman,” Bentley said into the receiver, reminding himself of the almost impossible list of criteria he had been given.

  “It’s been four damned months, and I pay you a great deal of money to look after our affairs down there. I told you that this particular affair was to have top priority.”

  “It is my top priority,” Bentley assured his caller, carefully keeping any sign of irritation from his voice.

  “My sister says you haven’t found a single girl for her to interview.”

  “That’s because we didn’t want to waste her time with unsuitable applicants. Amanda was very specific about the sort of young woman that she and her husband were looking for. But I can assure you that we have narrowed down the search. In fact, I have a promising candidate coming into the office in the morning.”

  “E-mail me something on her.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  Before Bentley could respond, the caller hung up, and he allowed himself a single “Shit!”

  “God almighty, I presume,” Brenda said.

  “Yeah. I’ve got to take care of something downstairs.”

  Brenda was sitting up. One strap of her nightgown had slipped from her shoulder, revealing a portion of her right breast. For an old broad, his wife was still a looker. Still had a great body. Great tits.

  Bentley took a chance and reached over to pull her nightgown even lower and rub a fingertip around the exposed nipple. He was rewarded with just the tiniest suggestion of a smile.

  “How long will ‘something’ take?” she asked.

  “Five minutes,” he said.

  “Well, I might still be awake,” she said.

  Bentley leaped from the bed. He beat on his chest and let out a Tarzan yell as he went racing across the room. Brenda’s laughter followed him.

  In his downstairs office, Bentley looked in his Rolodex for his secretary’s home phone number and dialed it.

  “Hi, boss,” she said sleepily. Obviously Lenora didn’t need glasses to read her caller ID.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I had a late-night call from Gus Hartmann. He thinks we’re neglecting his sister’s search. Didn’t you say the young woman you have scheduled in the morning looked like the best of the lot?”

  “Yeah. At least on paper and over the phone she seems promising.”

  “I need you to e-mail her file to Gus Hartmann ASAP. He’s at home.”

  “I’m heading for my computer now.”

  “Do I pay you enough?” he asked.

  “For the time being.”

  Bentley thanked her then hurried back upstairs.

  At the top of the stairs, he could see the flicker of candlelight from the open bedroom door. His heart surged.

  Brenda was naked. “I want you to kiss me for a long time,” she said. Her voice was low and sultry.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, taking her in his arms. God yes, he would kiss her. Every inch of her. He was doing just that when the phone rang. “Don’t answer it,” Brenda said. “He’ll just upset you.”

  Bentley shook his head and reluctantly reached for the receiver.

  “There’s no picture. I need to know what this girl looks like.”

  “We’ll take one tomorrow,” Bentley said and hung up the receiver. He wanted to disconnect the phone before returning to his wife’s lovely, warm, delicious body but didn’t dare.

  Gus Hartmann printed out the e-mail and read the report again before putting it in his desk drawer. Then he pushed back his chair and headed for the open French doors. A fountain gurgled pleasantly in the meditation garden, and the soft hooting of an owl could be heard from the grove of pine trees just beyond the brick wall.

  The garden was just as it had been when his mother would come here. A willow draped its branches elegantly over the fountain, and a sculpture of Jesus, his arms outspread, beckoned from the shadows of a stone grotto. The gaslights still came on every evening at dusk. The plantings were kept the same. Not a weed, fallen leaf, or cobweb was allowed to mar the garden’s pristine beauty.

  Gus seated himself on a stone bench where his mother used to sit for long periods of time without moving, seemingly without breathing. He would watch her from the French doors until she realized that he was there. She would smile and open her arms. “Come here, my darling boy,” she would say.

  It was an image he clung to.

  Gus and his sister Amanda had kept the house and grounds of the northern Virginia estate much as it had been when they were children and lived here with their famous parents. And the Texas ranch, too. Both were monuments to another time.

  Gus looked through the open doors at the portrait of his parents that hung above the mantel. What a striking couple they had been. And tragic. An irresistible mix—beauty and tragedy. Even after all these years, people still made their way to the gate of the estate to leave tacky little bouquets of flowers and silly little messages, especially in remembrance of his and Amanda’s mother. Amanda read the messages and had a secretary respond if there was an address. Each address was added to the mailing list for the Alliance of Christian Voters, and the writer was extended an invitation to join the organization and help bring the God of our fathers back to American life and government. If an individual made a large enough donation to the Alliance or a clergyman brought his congregation into the fold, he or she would be invited to a retreat or seminar at Alliance headquarters in Washington, D.C. And depending on the size of the gift, that person might even be invited to a reception or a dinner here at Victory Hill and meet Amanda Hartmann in person. Gus never attended these affairs, but he did sometimes stand in the shadows of the upstairs hallway and watch Amanda receive guests, all of whom seemed to have a pathological need to shake her hand and gush about how important her books had been to them and how much they had enjoyed her appearances on Oprah or Regis and how they remembered her mother with such awe and admiration. Even corporate moguls and those elected to high political office fawned over Amanda, and those who were old enough to remember her father told her what a fine man he had been, what a great president he would
have made. And, of course, there would be a photographer waiting to take each guest’s picture with Amanda. Such photographs were autographed and mailed to the visitor with a personalized letter.

  The only gatherings Gus attended were board meetings and private dinners for a small group of powerful men who had a vested interest in making sure the correct side of the political spectrum maintained a firm control of the nation’s destiny. For, like his father before him, Gus was a political animal. Unlike his father, however, he was not a politician.

  Jason Hartmann had been the youngest governor in Texas history. He was midway through his first term when he married Mary Millicent Tutt, who was already known to millions for her inspirational books and her nationally syndicated newspaper column and her television and radio shows. Their wedding had been a media event. Pictures of the bride and groom appeared in countless newspapers and on the covers of magazines. The accompanying stories usually pointed out that Jason’s gubernatorial election had been financed by his whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking billionaire father, Jonathan “Buck” Hartmann, who had struck it rich wildcatting for oil and claim-jumping in western Texas, and that Mary Millicent was the daughter of Preacher Marvin Tutt, an old-time tent evangelist who died after being bitten by one of the poisonous serpents that he sometimes wrapped around his neck during his hellfire-and-brimstone sermons. In spite of their notorious fathers, the bride and groom were heralded as Texas “royalty.”

  Gus had no memory of the governor’s mansion or his father’s election to the U.S. Senate. His first memories were of the Texas ranch and this house, where his family had lived during his father’s Senate years. Jason Hartmann had been on track to be nominated as his party’s presidential candidate when he was stricken with a malignant brain tumor. Gus had been eight years old at the time and his sister Amanda ten. They went with their parents to the Texas ranch and watched from the sidelines while their father languished and finally died. Their mother became even more beloved as she traveled around the nation bringing millions of lost souls to the Lord and launching the Alliance of Christian Voters as a memorial to her late husband. The Alliance was dedicated to returning the United States of America to its staunch Christian roots. Many of Mary Millicent’s supporters wanted her to run for political office, but she preferred to endorse candidates rather than become one. She’d often told her son that it was the kingmakers who ruled the world and not the kings themselves. But, of course, she realized that political office was out of the question for Gus.