She got back in the car and started the motor. Then, absently stroking her dog, she sat there for a time, trying to decide what to do. She was exhausted and desperately in need of sleep. The stitches in her bottom hurt like hell. The baby was whimpering, and soon she would need to nurse him again, longer this time. Maybe she should get a motel room here in Guymon.
But she had used her ATM card here. Twice. She could be traced to this town. Gus Hartmann’s henchmen might already be on their way. Jamie recalled a movie in which an on-the-run Julia Roberts discovered that her bank account had mysteriously vanished, leaving her without funds. Even though Jamie realized that she would be leaving an electronic trail by using her ATM card, she hoped to remove all of the money from her account before anyone had a chance to make it disappear. By then she would be far away from the town in which she made her withdrawals.
She needed to keep going. Needed to put miles between herself and Guymon. Needed to find other banks and withdraw the rest of her money before it vanished like Julia Roberts’s had done. Of course, she was probably being paranoid. Probably Gus Hartmann could not simply pick up a phone and make her money vanish. But just in case he could, she needed that money and whatever she got for selling her car to live on until she had a Social Security number and was able to find a job.
She closed her eyes, trying to will away the headache that was planting itself inside her weary brain.
The next thing she knew her head was jerking back. And she realized that she had dozed off while sitting in the car beside a gas pump.
She could see a road sign indicating that Liberal, Kansas, was straight ahead. She would go there, withdraw more money, and then decide where to go next. She drove behind the service station. She let Ralph run around a bit then fell asleep again while she was nursing Billy.
During the drive to Liberal, when she felt herself starting to nod off, she would pull over onto the shoulder of the two-lane highway, get out of the car, inhale the cold air, swing her arms around for a minute or two, then get back in and drive a few more miles.
Finally she crossed the state line. Liberal was just ahead.
A large stone monument announced that she had arrived in the town. She continued driving until she reached the downtown, where she pulled into the ATM lane of the Bank of America and withdrew $500.
Then, at the Community Bank, the words “Invalid PIN” appeared on the screen.
Very carefully she entered the number again. Then she punched “enter.” And the same words appeared on the screen.
“Oh my God!” Jamie whispered as goose flesh rose on her arms. Her worst fear had been validated. Any notion she had harbored that she had misjudged the entire situation vanished. Some ominous and seemingly omnipotent power had closed her bank account, and the electronic word of that closure had reached all the way to Liberal, Kansas.
She looked around, half expecting men with carefully trimmed hair and wearing overcoats and mirrored sunglasses to appear suddenly and pull her from the car. They hadn’t arrived yet, but they would.
She rested her forehead on the steering wheel. What should she do?
She couldn’t just sit here like a sitting duck. She needed to hide. And get rid of her car. ASAP!
The driver of the car in line behind her gently tapped on his horn, reminding her it was time to move on. For an instant, Jamie couldn’t remember how to drive.
Push in the clutch, she told herself. Put the car in gear.
She followed the curving drive to the street. Left or right? She turned right and drove hesitantly for a block then pulled into a parking space.
Ralph pushed his head under her idle hand, and she absently began to stroke him. She couldn’t take a bus or a train with a dog. And she couldn’t hitchhike in frigid weather with a two-day-old baby.
What would she do with her possessions if she abandoned her car? She hated to give them up. They were all she had left of her past.
But they were only things, she told herself. They weren’t worth losing her baby. Or her life.
She toyed with the idea of renting a car. But she would have to show her driver’s license. How long would it take for the transaction to be traced, for the men in mirrored sunglasses to be looking for a specific rental car with a specific tag number?
Then a hopeful thought crossed her mind. Maybe the computer at the last bank had malfunctioned. Maybe she should try another bank.
She pulled out of the parking space and made a U-turn on the wide street.
She pulled into the ATM lane of a third bank. Her hand was shaking as she inserted her card and punched in her PIN.
Once again she was informed that she had used an invalid number.
She had to get out of Liberal, Kansas. Now.
She left the bank and headed back toward the highway. When she reached the intersection, she hesitated. Anyone pursuing her probably would expect her to continue heading north, putting as much distance and as many states as possible between herself and the Hartmann Ranch.
She turned south. Once she had crossed back over the state line, she stopped at the first service station and bought an Oklahoma map. She wanted the anonymity provided by a large city, and Oklahoma City was the largest city in the state. She would use only the least traveled roads to get there.
But first, she had to find a place to sleep for a few hours. Her vision was starting to blur. She was weak with exhaustion, probably from all the blood she was losing. She needed to change the pad again. Needed something to eat.
She went through a tiny community whose only businesses seemed to be a convenience store and a tavern. Then she spotted a sign that said COTTAGES FOR RENT.
She pulled into what was left of an old-fashioned tourist court—four cottages and a row of empty foundations. A crooked sign with the word OFFICE was nailed on the side of a frame house. Jamie climbed up the steps and knocked on the door. An elderly man in filthy overalls opened the door. “Twenty dollars’ cash in advance,” he said. Jamie returned to the car for a twenty-dollar bill, which she exchanged for a key to cottage 2.
She parked the car behind the cottage so it would be out of sight from the road and carried the baby and a few things inside. She watched from the door of the cottage while Ralph raced around the bare foundations then called him inside. She fed him and filled a bowl with water. After changing her baby, she nursed him once again, not because he was crying but because she needed him to let her sleep.
She had promised herself a nice long shower but didn’t have energy left even for that. She drank the bottle of orange juice and ate the banana-nut bread that Mae the midwife had given her, then crawled into bed with her baby and her dog, which probably wasn’t recommended in Mae’s booklets. But first she needed to survive and then she would worry about the rules for child rearing.
She kissed the baby’s forehead and his ears and hands. “I love you, baby Billy.” She felt as though her heart had grown to enormous proportions in order to accommodate all the love she felt for this tiny infant.
With her cheek against the top of his downy head, she used the few minutes she had before sleep claimed her to think about the phone call with Joe’s mother. She replayed the conversation in her head, considering its implications.
It could be weeks—or longer—before the Brammers heard from Joe.
He wasn’t married.
He had searched for her.
His mother thought he had been waiting around for her to grow up.
What did mothers know about such things, though?
Jamie knew, however, that she was going to cling to Mrs. Brammer’s words like a lifeline. Maybe she was setting herself up for disappointment, but she was going to allow herself to hope. What she had to do now was survive until Joe returned from his travels.
The baby woke in the night. Jamie changed him then wrapped them both in a blanket and leaned against the headboard to nurse him. He was getting lustier about the nursing, and her breasts suddenly were much fuller. Painfully so. Sh
e worried that she had an infection or that the milk ducts were becoming clogged. She definitely needed to read those booklets, but they would have to wait. Right now the best she could do was fly by the seat of her pants.
She slept a few more hours. When she woke it was dawn. She put on her coat and took Ralph outside for a few minutes, then fed him and set out a bowl of water. Then she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, took a deep breath, and cut her hair, leaving about four inches all over her head.
She had also planned to dye it, but the directions revealed a far more lengthy and complicated process than she had anticipated.
The water in the shower was freezing cold, but she was desperate for a shower. She hurriedly soaped herself and rinsed. When she turned off the water, she could hear Billy crying. She dried quickly and pulled on some clothes. “There, there, there,” she cooed as she picked him up.
Her breasts were as hard as rocks, but their swollen state did not seem to impede the flow. Billy was obviously getting something out of them.
When he finished nursing, she changed him and sponged the cord stump with rubbing alcohol as per Mae’s instructions.
She loaded up her possessions, baby, and dog in the car then pulled up in front of the convenience store and, keeping the car in her line of vision, bought coffee and a packaged pastry.
Billy slept for three hours, which took her as far as the town of Shattuck. She pulled into an empty church parking lot to nurse him and let Ralph out. Then she bought gas along with snacks and water bottles for the road and once again took up her meandering route eastward.
It was evening before she reached the outskirts of Oklahoma City. She pulled over to consult the city map that was printed on the back of the state map. She wanted to be close to the downtown and the inter-city bus station it would offer. Eventually she found herself in a neighborhood near a large hospital complex where formerly large gracious homes had been divided into apartments. Within walking distance were a park and a small commercial area that offered a grocery, bakery, drugstore, and service station. It was almost dark by the time she parked in front of a brick dwelling with an APARTMENT FOR RENT sign in a window.
She pulled the knit cap over her much shorter but still blond hair, lifted her baby out of the infant seat, and went inside. The word “Office” was written in magic marker on the first door. Jamie knocked and a seriously overweight woman with graying hair opened the door and stepped out into the hall. She introduced herself as Ruby Duffy.
“You got a husband?” she asked Jamie.
“No, ma’am. It would be just me and the baby.”
Jamie followed behind the woman as she laboriously climbed to the third floor and unlocked the door to an apartment on the backside of the building.
The apartment was bleak. Jamie took in the dingy windows, worn linoleum, stained sink, and mouse droppings in the corners. The double bed took up so much room in the tiny bedroom that the two bottom bureau drawers wouldn’t open all the way. The minuscule kitchen was an alcove off the living room. The living room’s only furnishings were a sofa and chair, both upholstered in cracked brown vinyl, and a battered coffee table. The bathroom was no bigger than a closet, and the only closet was so shallow it offered only a row of hooks on the back wall from which to hang clothes. But the apartment was cheap and the water that came out of the hot-water faucet was actually hot.
Mrs. Duffy announced that she required a month’s rent in advance.
“I have a dog,” Jamie said.
“No dogs,” the landlady said and started for the door.
“He’s a very good dog. Could I just bring him in and let you meet him? You’ll see what a nice dog he is.”
Mrs. Duffy frowned. “You want me to meet a dog?”
“Just to see how well behaved he is,” Jamie said. “Please. I’ve come a long way, and I just don’t have the energy to look further.”
Mrs. Duffy cocked her head to one side and regarded Jamie and then the baby. “How old is the baby?” she asked.
“Three days,” Jamie said.
“Where’s the father?”
Jamie hung her head. “He’s not in the picture,” she said.
“He the one that put that bruise on your forehead? I don’t want someone like that showing up here and causing trouble.”
Jamie touched her forehead. “No,” she said, revising the story she had been about to tell. “I tripped and fell. The baby’s father doesn’t know anything about the baby,” she said, thinking of poor dead Sonny.
The landlady looked dubious. “You have a job?” she demanded.
“Not yet. But I have enough money to tide me over until I find work.” Jamie leaned her cheek against her baby’s head. “Please,” she begged. “I am exhausted, and it’s getting late.”
“If you’re planning to write a check, you won’t be able to move in until Monday morning—after I call the bank and make sure it will clear.”
“I can pay you in cash.”
Ruby stepped a bit closer and touched the top of the baby’s head. “Three days old,” she said reverently.
Then she stepped back and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Okay. A two-hundred-dollar security deposit for the dog. Up front. There’s parking behind the building. Don’t leave anything inside of your car if you don’t want it broken into.”
She followed the woman back down the stairs to her apartment, which was more spacious than the one Jamie was renting. Even so, two oversized recliners, a big-screen television, and an enormous rolltop desk filled up the entire front room. Ruby Duffy had to turn her body sideways to get to the desk.
Jamie paid the rent and deposit and signed the lease as “Janet M.Wisdom.” The name was only temporary, she told herself. Someday she hoped to reclaim her own name, but for now she was grateful for Janet’s.
She put Billy in the baby sling and, with Ralph following at her heels, began carrying her possessions up the three flights of stairs and dumping them in the tiny living room, which turned out to be a seemingly endless job. She took several breaks, once to nurse Billy, and others to simply sit and catch her breath. Her stitches hurt and every muscle in her body protested that she simply could not take another step. When she had the interior of the car emptied, she decided that the things in the trunk would have to wait until tomorrow. At least there was nothing visible to tempt thieves.
Then she loaded the baby and Ralph back into the car and drove to the nearby grocery store to buy a few groceries, mouse traps, and some cleaning supplies.
She made up the bed, got the baby settled, and ate a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk before walking down the hall to the pay phone.
She stood there for a minute, coins in hand. But maybe this call wasn’t such a good idea. What if the phone was tapped?
It couldn’t be, she told herself. No one knew that she was here. But what if Mrs. Brammer had let something slip to a friend or neighbor? Or her husband had? Maybe their phone was the one that was tapped.
Jamie felt as though she was going to pass out if she took one more step. Maybe she should wait until tomorrow to call Mrs. Brammer.
Instead, she loaded up the baby and the dog in the car one last time and, keeping to residential streets, drove to far north Oklahoma City and placed her call from a drive-up pay phone near a service station.
“Mrs. Brammer, it’s Jamie. I’m sorry to be calling so late.”
“Jamie, thank goodness!” Mrs. Brammer said. “I’ve been waiting all day for you to call. Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a phone number where you can be reached?”
Jamie hesitated. “No, and please, you must not tell anyone about me,” she added. “Except your husband and Joe, of course.”
“Are you in hiding?”
“Yes. I am in hiding. I haven’t broken any law,” she hastened to add, “but I am in trouble. Serious trouble. Do you have any idea when Joe might call again?”
“Not really. It cou
ld be tomorrow or several weeks from now.”
Jamie ended the call by saying that she would try to call again the following Thursday evening.
She drove home by another route, getting lost on the way. Almost an hour had passed by the time she returned her car to the parking space in the alley behind the apartment house. She waited for Ralph to relieve himself before going inside. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to climb the stairs. Just one step at a time, she told herself.
She drank another glass of milk, fed the baby, and then at last was able to take a shower. A long, hot shower. Even though the bathroom was dirty, it was the most wonderful shower she had ever taken in her life.
She put on one of the flannel nightgowns that Amanda had given her, picked up her baby, and crawled into bed with him. Ralph jumped up on the bed and curled up at the foot. “We’re home,” she told her baby and her dog. Then she began to weep. She wept because she was more exhausted than she had ever been in her life and every muscle in her body felt as though it were on fire. She wept because she was lonely and faced an uncertain future. But mostly she wept because she was afraid.
So very afraid.
The next morning, she finished unloading the car and dyed her hair. The results were discouraging. Her hair not only looked as though it had been trimmed by a lawn mower, it was now a flat shade of brown that made her skin seem sallow. She wanted to cry, but she had already done enough of that.
Her aching body begged her to leave the cleaning and settling in for later, but she had been raised by a woman who believed that rest was allowed only after the chores were done. And it was such a small apartment.
Her grandmother used to say that scrubbing was good for the soul, and it did prove to be good for her spirits as she scoured away years of grime and mouse habitation and polished the two windows until they gleamed. Cleanliness gave the shabbiness a genteel quality that reminded Jamie of the little house in Mesquite.
“You mean that you couldn’t find a single person in Guymon, Oklahoma, or Liberal, Kansas, who remembered seeing Jamie Long?” Gus demanded.
The Surrogate Page 23