The Surrogate Mother

by Freida McFadden

  Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. Our baby. No, it’s not our baby. This fetus inside her is my baby. Mine and Sam’s. Even if she’s using a general “our” to include me too, it’s still inaccurate. This is not her baby. We have a contract. What the hell is wrong with her?

  And why is she sitting so close to my husband? This is a very large couch. She’s got the whole couch to spread out on, but somehow, she’s so close to him, their knees are nearly touching.

  I want this girl out of my house.

  “Anyway,” I say. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it here sooner, Monica, but it’s been great having you.”

  “Well, thanks for inviting me,” she says. “The lasagna was really delicious, Abby.”

  I’ll have to take her word for it. I’ve lost my appetite.

  “Not as good as mine though,” Sam says with a grin.

  Her eyes widen. “You know how to cook?”

  “Uh…” He offers a crooked smile. “I’m… learning.”

  She claps her hands together. “I’d love you to try something you’ve made sometime.”

  “Sure,” he says. “That sounds great.”

  Great, now they’re setting up another dinner? I’ve got to get her out of here ASAP. Before she moves herself in.

  But before I can say anything else, Sam heaves himself to his feet. “Well, it’s late. You should probably get going.”

  My shoulders relax. He’s making her leave. Thank God. But I don’t even have a chance to celebrate before he adds, “Let me give you a ride home.”

  The other night he didn’t want her near his car, but now he’s apparently willing to drive her home drunk. I’ve never seen him try to drive before when he’s had more than one drink. Never. What has she done to his brain?

  “You’re not getting in the car,” I say through my teeth. “You’re way over the limit, Sam.”

  Sam’s ears get red as he realizes what he was about to do. “Yeah, Abby’s right,” he mumbles. “I shouldn’t be driving. Let me call you a taxi.”

  “Thank you.” Monica grabs her purse from the end of the couch. “And Sammy, I’ll text you the time for the ultrasound appointment, okay?”

  He gives her a thumbs-up, and all I can think is, When did they exchange phone numbers?

  And also, Why does she keep calling him Sammy?

  I take a deep breath. I need to calm down. It’s not Monica’s fault I got delayed at work by Miss Oxford. It’s not Monica’s fault Sam drank too much and is acting like an idiot. And it’s not Monica’s fault that she’s more attractive than I thought she was. It’s also not her fault that she’s pregnant with Sam’s seed.

  That last one is entirely my fault.

  God, I can’t wait for this pregnancy to be over so things can get back to normal.

  Chapter 15

  If there were any justice in the world, Sam would have a whopping hangover the next morning. But maybe he didn’t have as much to drink as I’d thought, because he seems fine. So fine, actually, that I catch him whistling in the bathroom while he’s shaving his face.

  What the hell is he so happy about?

  I say as much to him while he’s putting on his tie, and he blinks a few times, surprised. “Uh, I don’t know. It’s a nice morning.”

  “I thought you might be hungover.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I told you I didn’t drink that much.”

  “You were acting like you did.”

  He doesn’t respond to that, but while he’s putting on his shoes, he starts whistling again. I’ve never known Sam to whistle before, but after one evening with Monica, suddenly he’s a goddamn teapot. Did he whistle like this when we were first dating?

  “Do you think Monica is pretty?” I blurt out.

  “Pretty?”

  “Yes.”

  “No way.” He smiles crookedly. “She’s not pretty at all. Just the opposite. She’s really horrible to look at. I didn’t want to be mean or anything, but I had to squeeze my eyes shut all night like this.” He scrunches his eyes closed in demonstration. “I hope she didn’t notice.”

  “Ha ha, very funny.”

  “I don’t know much about women, but I know there’s only one right answer when your wife asks you if another woman is pretty.”

  Fair enough. “You just seemed to be having a really good time with her last night.”

  He lets out an exasperated sigh. “Abby, you’re the one who wanted to have her over for dinner last night. And you’re the one who showed up two hours late. You made me promise to be ‘well-behaved.’ So she shows up and I’m nice to her, and now I’m in trouble?”

  “Well, there’s nice and there’s nice.”

  “It’s not like we were making out, Abby. We were just talking.”

  He’s actually making some reasonable points. So why can’t I get rid of that tight, awful feeling in my chest?

  “She called you Sammy,” I say.

  “So?”

  “It seemed a little… familiar. Also, you hate being called Sammy.”

  “I don’t hate it.”

  “You told me you hate it.”

  He yanks his keys off the dresser. “Fine, I hate it. I hate it and I hate her and I don’t want you to invite her here ever again. Okay? Happy?”

  I lower my eyes. There’s part of me that realizes I’m being ridiculous, but I can’t help it. Something isn’t right. “Are you going to that ultrasound appointment?”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes, I am.”

  I bite my lip.

  “Look, this isn’t about Monica,” he says. “I want to see the baby. It’s my baby too, and I think I should be allowed to go.” He frowns at me. “I didn’t say anything about the fact that you never even told me about the other appointment, but from now on, I want to go.”

  I was afraid he was going to say that. And he’s right—he deserves to be there as much as I do. Or admittedly, more than I do. I’ll be adopting this baby, but it’s his biological child. And I want to share this with him because I love him. I just wish she didn’t have to be there.

  Of course, that’s impossible since the baby is literally inside her.

  “Abby.” His voice softens. “I get why you’re upset, but you shouldn’t be. It’s like you said—this is what we’ve always wanted. You should be happy.”

  His kind words help, but not completely. I take a deep breath, trying to put my finger on the exact source of my misery.

  “She said it was ‘our baby.’”

  Sam wrinkles his brow. “What?”

  “That’s what Monica said when she was talking about the baby. She called it ‘our baby.’”

  “Right. It is our baby.”

  “Yes, but she didn’t say ‘our’ meaning yours and mine. She said ‘our’ meaning, presumably, hers.”

  He shakes his head. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, what if she wants to keep the baby?”

  “That’s what our contract is for, right? We can take her to court.”

  Except what if she wants to keep you too?

  Sam isn’t even thinking that way though. He’s not worried about falling under Monica’s spell. I wouldn’t have worried about it either, except I saw the look on his face when he was listening to that heartbeat. His child is in her womb. That’s got to be messing with his head.

  “Come here, Abby.” Sam holds out his arms and I fall into them, nuzzling my head in his shoulder. Despite everything, being in his arms makes me feel warm and safe. “Don’t worry so much. It’s going to be fine.”

  I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost him.

  Chapter 16

  Monica is having her ultrasound today at two.

  She had to get her blood drawn too and some other stuff, so she ended up taking a personal day. Sam is coming too, obviously, but all three of us will be arriving separately, and then meeting up. It’s an awkward situation, but there’s not much we can do about it. I want to be there for the ultrasound, especia
lly if Sam is going to be there.

  I eat lunch at my desk just to ensure I’ll make it there on time. At one-thirty, I grab my purse and head for the door. But I swear to God, Denise must have cameras in my office to know when I’m trying to leave, because she heads me off before I can get to the elevator.

  “Abigail.” She narrows her ice-blue eyes at me. She’s the only person here who has the ability to make me feel terrible with a single gaze. “Where are you going? You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “I’ve got…” I swallow. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. I’ll be back soon.”

  I’m going to be here till ten o’clock tonight. I just know it.

  “Are you ill?” Denise says the words with utter contempt.

  “No.” I look away. “It’s just an appointment.”

  That’s vague enough. No way can she get an inkling of my arrangement with Monica. In another few weeks, Monica will be resigning, before she starts to show. If Denise found out what we were up to… well, I don’t even want to think about it. It wouldn’t be good.

  Thank God, Denise seems to accept this explanation. In any case, she doesn’t physically stop me from leaving. Which is what she’d have to do to keep me from going to this ultrasound.

  “By the way,” Denise says. “When you get back, I’d like you to catch up with your correspondence. When Cuddles sends you an email, I expect you to answer within twenty-four hours, if not within the hour.”

  “I do.” I glance at a clock on the wall—one-thirty-five.

  “They told me several of their emails have gone unanswered.”

  What? That can’t be right. I’m obsessive about answering all my emails. Missing one—possible. But several?

  I’ll have to check my spam folder when I’m at the doctor’s office.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I assure Denise, then I push past her to get to the elevator. I’m not missing anything else because of her. I’m still upset about that dinner I missed last week.

  I hail a cab quickly outside the building and make it to the hospital in record time. It’s ten minutes to two, which means I’ve got time to spare.

  The waiting area for maternal-fetal medicine is populated with several women in various stages of pregnancy. In the past, seeing a bunch of pregnant women like this would have made me burn with jealousy. I probably would have gone home and sobbed into my pillow, thinking about how unfair it all was. But it’s okay now. I’m part of it.

  Monica and Sam are nowhere to be found—I guess I’m the first to arrive. I settled into one of the plastic chairs to wait. A receptionist gives me a funny look. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  I smile, but it feels crooked. “I, uh… I’m meeting someone here.”

  The woman arches an eyebrow at me. “Meeting someone?”

  “Yes, she’s my…” God, I don’t want to explain this to a stranger. “Monica Johnson.”

  “Oh!” The receptionist’s face relaxes as she smiles in recognition. “Yes, she’s just about done.”

  Just about… done?

  Before I have a minute to mull this over, Sam and Monica burst out of the back. She’s holding a string of black-and-white images, and he’s grinning ear-to-ear. My mouth falls open. What. The. Hell?

  “Abby!” Sam waves at me. “You missed it, but we’ve got pictures.”

  I jump out of my seat and rush over to them. I don’t want to lose my temper in this waiting room, but I’m furious. How did I miss it? I’m on time! I’m early! What is going on here?

  “How could you be done?” I hiss at him. “The appointment is at two!”

  “No,” Sam says patiently. “The appointment was at one.”

  I look at Monica, who is no longer smiling. “You told me it was at two,” I say.

  She frowns. “I told you one, Abby.”

  “You told me two.” Damn it.

  She shakes her head. “I know I told you one. You put it in your calendar—I saw it.”

  Bullshit. I reach into my purse and yank out my phone. I bring up the calendar and…

  Monica ultrasound – 1PM.

  Oh my God, how did I get it wrong? I had in my head the whole day that it was at two. Did I really manage to screw that up? What’s the matter with me?

  “Why didn’t you text me?” I say to Sam, desperate for this to be someone else’s fault but mine.

  He shrugs helplessly. “You’ve been so busy lately with that Cuddles baby food stuff. I didn’t want to bother you. I figured you couldn’t make it.”

  I feel like bursting into tears. I can’t believe I missed the ultrasound. I wanted to be there so badly. And the worst part is that Sam and Monica don’t seem to care in the slightest. I wouldn’t expect Monica to care necessarily, but Sam doesn’t seem to feel all that bad about it either.

  “Everything looked good, they said,” Sam adds.

  I guess that’s all that matters. The point of this ultrasound was to make sure the baby is okay, not for entertainment purposes. “Well, that’s good.”

  He holds up the row of images. “Do you want to see?”

  I snatch the pictures from his hand. My anger fades slightly at the sight of them. The images are mostly black, but in white is an outline of the baby’s face—a tiny nose, a tiny chin, and the curve of the baby’s skull.

  Sam grins at me. “Great, right?”

  “Can…” I look up at them. “Can we keep this?”

  Sam and Monica exchange looks. “That’s mine, actually,” she says. “But they’re printing out a second copy. They just had an issue with the printer.”

  “Oh.” I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that if there’s only one copy, why does Monica get to keep it? After all, it’s our baby. “Our” meaning mine and Sam’s.

  Before I can get worked up, the receptionist calls out, “Mrs. Johnson?”

  Monica smiles at us and walks over to the reception table, where the woman is holding another set of images. She hands them over to Monica. “Here’s an extra copy for your husband.”

  “Thank you,” Monica says.

  “Enjoy! And congratulations, you two!”

  Wonderful. This woman just referred to Sam as Monica’s husband and nobody felt a need to correct her. The best thing I can say about Sam is he’s looking down at the images of the baby and not really paying attention. He probably didn’t hear the receptionist call him Monica’s husband. But still.

  Monica flashes us both a big smile. She’s wearing lipstick again. She’s been wearing makeup a lot more lately, and dressing less like a nun. Today she’s wearing a low-cut black blouse that clings to her breasts. And of course, she’s still barely showing.

  “We should celebrate,” she says. “How about coffee?”

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” I mutter.

  She doesn’t seem surprised or perturbed by my refusal. “What about you, Sammy?”

  No. She didn’t just ask my husband out for coffee without me. That didn’t really just happen. And why is she still calling him Sammy?

  “Um,” Sam says, glancing in my direction, “I actually also need to get back to work.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “I thought you said you were done for the day?”

  “Done with classes.” He smiles awkwardly. “But I’ve got, you know, research.”

  “Oh, really? What sort of research?” she asks with what appears to be genuine interest.

  Sam brightens the way he always does when someone asks him about his research, which doesn’t happen too often in social situations. “I’m studying random integral matrices and the universality of surjectivity and the cokernel.”

  She looks thoughtful. Did she actually understand that? “So what specifically about the cokernal?”

  “Well,” he says, “I’m looking at the probability that the cokernel is isomorphic to a given finite abelian group.”

  “And how about when it’s cyclic?”

  He nods eagerly. “Yes! That too.”

  “Wow, tha
t sounds fascinating,” she says. “I would love to hear more about it.”

  Sam glances at me again. I can tell he’s dying to talk to her more about this, but he doesn’t want to upset me. “Abby,” he says, “are you sure you don’t have time for a quick coffee?”

  That lump in my throat returns. “No, I don’t. But if you really want to go, Sam, it’s up to you.”

  “Oh.” He looks between the two of us, unsure what to do. Except isn’t it obvious what he’s supposed to do? He’s supposed to say “no” to the attractive twenty-three-year-old woman asking him to coffee! Any idiot would know that! I’d like to tell him as much, but I don’t want Monica to see me forcing him to turn down what would probably be an entirely innocent coffee.

  Probably.

  “Maybe just like twenty minutes,” Sam says. “Then I really need to get back to work.”

  “Wonderful!” Monica beams at him. “I know the perfect place.”

  We walk out together to the lobby, then Sam and Monica go together to the coffee shop while I hail a cab. I watch them walk down the street together, getting farther and farther away from me. They seem to be standing awfully close to one another. Isn’t there some rule that you’re supposed to stand at least one foot away from someone you’re walking with? Or did I just entirely make that up?

  All right, I need to stop driving myself crazy. I trust Sam. And that’s all there is to it.

  Chapter 17

  If I didn’t need to go back to work after this lunch, I’d definitely be getting drunk right now.

  Even so, I’m sorely tempted. Shelley and I managed to sneak away to the Mexican place down the block for lunch, and this place has the best margaritas. But I’m already skating on thin ice with Denise—I can’t afford to be performing at any less than my best. Also, if she smells alcohol on my breath, it won’t be good.

  “You don’t look so good, Abby,” Shelley says. “No offense.”

  Shelley is the queen of the “no offense” remarks. The game is you say something super offensive, then mitigate by adding “no offense” (but not really). For example, “No offense, but that dress makes you look like you should be jumping for fish at SeaWorld.” Or, “No offense, but you look like you’re old enough to be Monica’s mother.” But this time, it’s hard to take offense.