The Surrogate

by Henry Wall Judith

  She looked at her watch, trying to decide how long it had been since she and Ralph arrived at the house. More than an hour. Maybe an hour and a half.

  What was taking Kelly so damned long? She needed her dog so she wouldn’t feel so alone.

  What if he had slipped out of his collar and gotten lost? Maybe the reason Kelly was taking so long was because she was out looking for him.

  By the time the security chief finally arrived, Jamie was frantic. “Sorry to have taken so long,” Kelly said. “A deputy from the county sheriff’s office dropped by for a chitchat.”

  Jamie dropped to her knees, put her arms around Ralph’s neck, and accepted his doggy kisses on her chin. She planted a few kisses of her own on the top of his head.

  “I guess Montgomery explained the rules,” Kelly said. “Miss Hartmann wants you looked after, and I plan to carry out her wishes.”

  “Fine,” Jamie said, without looking up at her.

  She waited until Kelly left before bursting into tears.

  She was homesick for a home that no longer was hers. For a grandmother who was dead and buried. For parents she barely remembered. The only family she had left was a sister who didn’t want her and two nieces she didn’t know. And without being able to tell anyone where she was or what she was doing, she was cut off from her friends. This dear, homely dog was all that stood between her and loneliness as vast as the treeless plain that surrounded this isolated place.

  Chapter Eight

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jamie awoke to a sunlit bedroom and her dog standing on the bed using all the body language at his disposal to tell her that it was time for his walk. She stretched and accepted Ralph’s urgent kisses. “Yes, I know,” she told him. “Give me just a minute to wake up.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to recall a dream. A nice dream.

  About her grandmother.

  Yes, she had dreamed that Granny was sitting in the easy chair in the corner of the room holding Ralph on her lap. Jamie had started to call out to her but realized that Granny and the dog were both sound asleep, so she went back to sleep herself feeling safe and peaceful and no longer alone.

  Jamie smiled. In a very real sense, her grandmother would always be with her.

  “You are a happy dog,” Jamie said, scratching behind Ralph’s ears. “My grandmother would have liked you.”

  With the dog waiting impatiently, his tail thumping on the floor, Jamie pulled on her jeans and sneakers and, with Ralph following, headed down the back stairs. She could hear voices in the kitchen—animated female voices speaking in Spanish as the women went about their work.

  She watched while Ralph carefully inspected the large backyard, which was completely enclosed by a six-foot-high wall and a precisely clipped boxwood hedge. The yard was beautifully landscaped and included a graceful gazebo, a rose garden, and an enormous live oak tree that shaded stone benches and a beautiful life-size statue of a kneeling Christ. At the rear of the yard, a padlocked wrought-iron gate led to the swimming pools and tennis courts she had seen from the airplane.

  Shortly after she had eaten her breakfast, the cook arrived. A slight, unsmiling woman, Anita listened without expression as Jamie explained her food preferences. Midmorning, Miss Montgomery arrived to take her on the promised tour of the house and ranch. At first Jamie thought the woman was wearing the same outfit as yesterday but realized this was a different navy blue suit—less tailored and with looser sleeves.

  Briefly, Miss Montgomery showed Jamie the kitchen and formally introduced her to the “in-house” staff. In addition to Anita, there were two younger women named Rosa and Dolores and an older woman named Teresa. The women each acknowledged the introduction with a glance and a nod in Jamie’s direction, then continued what they were doing. Miss Montgomery explained that the three women assisted Anita in the kitchen and did general housecleaning and the laundry. When the Hartmanns were in residence, other employees filled in as needed.

  Once they were back in the hallway, Jamie asked, “Why are they so unsociable?”

  “They have been told to be courteous but to respect your privacy,” Miss Montgomery said. “Now, shall we continue? This door leads to the basement, where the laundry and storerooms are located—and where we maintain a significant food larder, which allows us to manage when the roads are impassible.”

  “Does that happen often?” Jamie asked.

  “We usually have two or three major snowstorms every winter, and every so often a road will wash out,” the housekeeper said as they entered the great hall.

  In the light of day, the soaring room seemed more welcoming. The morning sun streaming through the magnificent stained-glass windows bathed the room in glorious light. Graceful palm and weeping fig trees in enormous pottery urns filled the corners of the room, and large Native American rugs were scattered about the stone floors. “Mary Millicent used a mixture of southwestern, Mexican, and European furnishings, art, and rugs to decorate the house, and Amanda has kept this part of the house much as it was when she and her brother were children,” Miss Montgomery explained.

  Arched doorways opened into a dining hall and a library, each with a stone fireplace large enough to stand in and soaring windows with leaded panes. The dining room held a massive table large enough to seat a dozen or more. Two walls of the library were lined with books, and numerous handsomely framed portraits and photographs were displayed on the other walls. Standing in front of an imposing painting of Amanda and Gus Hartmann’s grandfather, the housekeeper explained that her father had served as Buck Hartmann’s ranch foreman. “That was back in the days before feedlots, and thousands of cattle roamed free on the ranch. Buck Hartmann spent much of his time wildcatting for oil all over the Southwest. My father pretty much ran the ranch, and my mother was in charge of the house. Buck’s wife didn’t like it here, and as the years went by she spent most of her time in Houston. They had only the one child, Jason, who was born here at the ranch. My father told me that when Jason was born, Buck called all the help together, including the cowboys and field hands. They gathered out there in the great hall, and Buck stood on the second-floor gallery and, holding up his newborn son for all to see, declared that the boy would one day be president of the United States. Jason would have been, too, if he had lived long enough,” Miss Montgomery said with a sigh, looking up at a picture of a handsome young man in western attire sitting on a horse and cradling a rifle in his arms.

  “Jason loved the ranch but came less and less often after he began his political career,” Miss Montgomery continued. “He served first in the Texas Legislature and was governor when he married Mary Millicent Tutt, who was already famous in her own right,” the housekeeper said, pointing to a picture of the handsome couple on their wedding day.

  The next picture they viewed was a framed Life magazine cover from the early 1960s. The black-and-white photograph on the cover had been taken from offstage, capturing not only the woman occupying the center of the stage but a sizable portion of the audience, all of whom were standing, their hands in the air, their uplifted faces filled with rapture. The woman was wearing a white robe, her arms wide, her fingers outstretched, and her face—bathed in a circle of light—tilted heavenward. She fairly radiated energy and power, and every single person in that audience appeared to be under her spell. The words below the picture read: Televangelist Mary Millicent Tutt shepherding in a new breed of Christianity.

  Jamie found the picture disturbing. It made her think of other pictures—ones with a uniformed dictator standing on a balcony and masses of people in the square below with their arms uplifted in salute.

  “Oh, my,” Jamie said. “That’s quite a picture.”

  “Yes,” Miss Montgomery agreed. “Mary Millicent Tutt was the first woman to have a nationwide radio ministry and the first woman to preach God’s word to a nationwide television audience.

  “After their children were born,” Miss Montgomery continued, “Mary Millicent traveled less and devoted more of her time to
writing. She and the children loved the ranch and came here often. After Jason’s death, she founded the Alliance of Christian Voters and began traveling again, but the children spent their summers and school vacations here with me,” she said with a wistful smile as she pointed to a photograph of two children in a pony cart with the ranch house in the background. “Those were good times,” she said, her gaze lingering on the photograph.

  “Where does Amanda’s brother live now?” Jamie asked.

  “Gus Hartmann lives in northern Virginia and is a very busy man, what with the oil company and the Alliance to oversee. We don’t see him here at the ranch as often as we would like. Amanda, too, although she comes more often than her brother.”

  Jamie pointed to a picture of a gloriously handsome youth with unruly golden hair and a beautiful smile sitting on the top rail of a fence. “Is that Amanda’s son?”

  The housekeeper closed her eyes momentarily as though dealing with a sudden sharp pain. “Yes, that is a picture of Sonny,” she said.

  Jamie wanted to see other pictures of Sonny, to ask more questions about Amanda Hartmann’s only child, but Miss Montgomery turned abruptly and walked briskly from the room. Jamie hastened after her. “Does Gus Hartmann know that his sister has engaged a surrogate mother to have a child for her?”

  “I am sure that he does,” Miss Montgomery said. “Gus and Amanda are very close.”

  After they finished touring the ranch house, Miss Montgomery drove Jamie in a pickup truck over the mile or so of gravel road that separated the ranch-house compound from Hartmann City. In her suit and pumps, the housekeeper looked out of place behind the wheel of a truck, but she seemed no stranger to the vehicle and drove with a heavy foot, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

  “Do you live in Hartmann City?” Jamie asked as they sped along.

  “No, I have an apartment in the ranch house,” Miss Montgomery explained. “I was raised in a two-story house that stood where the garage is now. When the south wing was built, Mary Millicent included a spacious apartment for me on the first floor.”

  Miss Montgomery parked alongside the ranch store, which had gas pumps in front and offered a snack bar and a surprisingly wide range of merchandise, including groceries, household items, gardening tools, clothing, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and even toys. As they walked by a mail drop and a bank of post-office boxes, Miss Montgomery said, “According to the contract you signed, any mail you send must go through me.”

  “Yes, I realize that,” Jamie responded.

  As they drove away from the store, Miss Montgomery pointed out a large building that housed the motor pool where Jamie’s car would be kept. Then they drove by the schoolhouse, power plant, and a trailer park with several dozen trailers, each with a small garden plot. Across the road from the trailer park, Miss Montgomery pointed out two bunkhouses where the single workers lived. Behind the bunkhouses was a long, narrow building that housed a two-lane bowling alley.

  Miss Montgomery paused in front of a charming church with arched windows and a small bell tower. “Our people are very devout,” she noted with pride. “Amanda looks after their souls, and Gus takes care of their legal status. After they have been with us three years, they are allowed to bring their families here.”

  “So, most of the employees are Mexican?” Jamie asked.

  Miss Montgomery nodded. “At least two-thirds. The rest are homegrown. But we are one people in our love for the Lord and for Amanda Hartmann.”

  Unable to think of an appropriate response, Jamie viewed the church in silence. The glare of the sunlight on its white exterior and polished windows was blinding.

  Miss Montgomery slowed as she pointed out the medical clinic. “Our nurse, Freda Kohl, looks after folks who live here at the ranch and in the surrounding area.”

  Miss Montgomery explained that Nurse Freda would be taking care of Jamie unless there were complications, in which case she would be taken to a hospital in Amarillo.

  “What if I have to be inseminated a second or third time?” Jamie asked.

  “If that becomes necessary, I will accompany you to Amarillo,” Miss Montgomery said.

  Just beyond the cluster of buildings were a baseball diamond and basketball court, a huge silo, and a stable and corral. Amanda and her husband liked to ride, Miss Montgomery explained. And even though most of the cattle were now kept in feedlots located well away from Hartmann City and horses were no longer needed to work the herds, the ranch still kept quarter horses, mostly for recreational purposes, although they did come in handy during winter weather.

  Before heading back to the ranch house, Miss Montgomery stopped at the greenhouse, where an elderly gardener helped Jamie select three small holly bushes for her balcony that he would transplant into terra-cotta pots and deliver later in the day.

  “Thank you for showing me around,” Jamie told Miss Montgomery as the truck stopped in front of the ranch house.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, her usual stern expression softening somewhat. “I know this must be quite an adjustment for you, and I do want to make things as comfortable as possible. But part of my job is to make sure that you uphold your end of the bargain you made with Amanda Hartmann and her husband.”

  “I understand,” Jamie said.

  After lunch, one of the gardeners helped Jamie unload the things she wanted from her car and carry them upstairs. He also helped her move the sofa and hang her great-grandmother’s mirror before he went back to his usual chores. Jamie placed her houseplants around the sitting room and put her address book, tablets, pencils, pens, and the like in the small desk, which was already stocked with two packages of typing paper. She unpacked a box of books—mostly textbooks and well-read favorites from her childhood—and arranged them on the shelves and put her grandmother’s sewing stand by the chair in the bedroom. She put pictures of her grandmother and her parents on the bedside table. Then she put away her clothing and looked around for a safe place to keep her grandmother’s garnet and pearl ring along with a spare set of car keys, her ATM card, and cash. After ruling out several locations, she removed a couple of the tacks from the sewing stand’s floral lining and slipped the items under it.

  She considered other decorative touches she might add—throw pillows, a wall clock, another plant or two—but decided there was no point in spending money on a place that, no matter how homey she made it, would never really feel like home.

  During her first week, Jamie quickly fell into a routine of walking her dog, swimming laps, and eating solitary meals either in front of the television or seated at the small round table with a book propped in front of her. When she walked, one of Kelly’s security guards walked with her. When she swam, one of them sat by the pool. By the end of the first week, Lester Thompson, the youngest member of the force, was usually the one sent to watch over her.

  With little else to occupy her time, the daily walks grew longer. At first glance, the countryside was boring, but gradually Jamie began to see beauty in fields of wheat and native grasses waving gracefully in the wind and in the splashes of yellow, orange, red, and purple provided by wild-flowers. Often she spotted the various creatures that inhabited the high prairie—jackrabbits, prairie dogs, snakes, lizards, armadillos, deer, and antelopelike animals known as pronghorns. Using her grandmother’s well-worn guide to Texas birds, she began keeping a log of all the birds she saw during her walks. Already she had spotted prairie chickens, wild turkeys, Western kingbirds, a scissor-tailed flycatcher, red-tailed hawks, and a pair of horned larks.

  And there were landmarks along the way. A wooden bridge over the creek. A large pond that a pair of heron called home. And atop a rise about a half mile from the ranch house was a tiny cemetery surrounded by a tall ironwork fence. She would have liked to take a closer look at the cemetery, but Lester had informed her that it was off limits.

  Since the library off the great hall offered almost no current titles, Jamie selected books by the Brontë sisters, Edna Ferber, and Mar
k Twain to begin her reading program.

  And she wrote a letter to the UT distance-learning office requesting enrollment in the correspondence course American History, 1870 to Present, and enclosed a check for the tuition.

  She asked Miss Montgomery what return address she should use and reminded the housekeeper that Amanda knew about her plan to enroll in a correspondence course.

  “Just give your mail to me, and I’ll take care of it,” Miss Montgomery said.

  Two weeks after she had been inseminated, Jamie was awakened quite early by a knock on her door. Before her feet were even on the floor, Miss Montgomery had already unlocked the door and was standing in her bedroom. “I have a pregnancy-test kit,” she said. “The first urine in the morning is more reliable.”

  Miss Montgomery had already read the instructions and went over them with Jamie. Jamie was allowed to urinate in private, but Miss Montgomery performed the actual test herself.

  It was positive.

  “The Lord be praised!” Miss Montgomery called out, clasping her hands and looking heavenward. “I must notify Amanda immediately,” she muttered as she went rushing out of the bathroom.

  Jamie sat on the side of the tub, staring at the purple line across the tiny round opening in the tester. Purple for pregnancy.

  She should be experiencing some sort of emotion—relief or joy or even apprehension. But all she felt was a need to be out-of-doors. She made her bed and called the security office.

  “But I haven’t had breakfast yet,” Lester said with a groan.

  “Neither have I,” Jamie said. “I’ll meet you out front in ten minutes.”

  It was a glorious morning for a walk. Ralph fairly danced along. And she saw what she thought might be a brown-headed cowbird, but it was too far away for her to be certain.