The Surrogate Mother

by Freida McFadden

  We also discovered that prior to offering to be my surrogate, Monica had been in contact with Janelle and had convinced her the two of us would not be appropriate parents. She was the one responsible for taking away the baby that was supposed to be ours.

  Also, she’s still alive.

  “Yum, yum,” Sam is saying as he holds the little plastic spoon out for David. “Yummy mashed turkey.”

  David gobbles it up like it’s poached lobster. And honestly, it is pretty good. I sample everything Sam makes, because there’s still part of me that doesn’t trust him after Salmonella Surprise, but everything is great.

  “Yum yum,” David babbles.

  Sam laughs. He’s so good with David. He adores him more than I could have imagined. And David adores Sam. It sometimes makes me sad we had to wait so long for this. And we’d still be waiting if not for Monica.

  So yes, Monica is still alive.

  Alive but in a vegetative state. The last time I saw her, she was lying in a hospital bed, breathing with the aid of a ventilator, drool sliding down the side of her chin. Her scalp was crisscrossed with staples. Severe brain injury, they said. Unlikely to have a meaningful recovery.

  I heard recently that she was off the ventilator, at least, but still not eating or talking or walking. She doesn’t know what’s going on around her. Still in a vegetative state. After a year, it would be considered permanent.

  Sam finishes feeding David the container of baby food, and he’s gotten it absolutely everywhere. There’s baby food on his bib, but it’s also on his chubby little arms, his hair, his cheeks, and there’s a glob on his eyelid.

  “How does he always get so messy?” I muse.

  “He takes after you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah.” Sam nods, wide-eyed. “I’m always picking food out of your hair after you eat dinner. Honestly, it’s such a pain, Abby.”

  I smack him in the arm, and he grins at me. Everyone says having a baby kills your sex life, and… well, I can’t say we’re as hot and heavy as we were before. We’re both tired a lot more than we used to be—David hasn’t been the best sleeper in the world. But at the same time, we still make time for each other. We have regular date nights. We still make out on the sofa while David’s asleep in his crib. There are times when having a demanding baby has put a strain on our relationship, but for the most part, it’s made our family complete.

  “Do you want me to give him a bath?” I ask.

  Sam shakes his head. “Nah, I’m on it.” He turns to David. “You ready for a bath, big guy? What do you say?”

  David throws up his arms excitedly. “Ba!”

  That kid loves baths as much as he loves Sam’s baby food.

  Sam lifts him out of his high chair, doing his best to mop off some of the baby food, but it’s a hopeless cause. The two of them disappear down the hallway to our bathroom. I can’t help but smile. Maybe David’s technically got Monica’s genes, but I’ve seen hardly any traces of her in him, aside from his hair. He’s all Sam so far.

  While I work on cleaning up the disaster David left in his high chair, the buzzer rings to alert me there’s a visitor downstairs. I go to the sink to quickly wash the mashed turkey dinner off my fingers before I press the button on the wall to see who’s there.

  “Mrs. Adler?” The doorman’s metallic-sounding voice pipes out of the intercom. “You’ve got a visitor to see you. A Louise Johnson.”

  Louise Johnson. Monica’s stepmother.

  What is she doing here?

  “Send her up,” I say before I can overthink it.

  I’ve spoken to Louise Johnson a handful of times since Monica shot herself. She and Monica’s father agreed to take Monica home when it was clear she wasn’t going to get any better. I’m surprised they did it, after all she put them through when she was growing up. They seemed like nice people, and against my better judgment, Sam offered to let them visit David from time to time. But Mrs. Johnson told me kindly but firmly that they weren’t interested. I was relieved.

  I wonder what she wants. I wonder if Monica’s okay.

  What if she woke up? What if she opened her eyes, sat up in bed, and demanded to see her son?

  Well, that’s very unlikely. They told me Monica would never wake up. No chance, the doctors said.

  But you never know…

  By the time Louise Johnson rings our doorbell, I’ve worked myself into a state of absolute panic. I fling the door open and find her familiar face, with several more gray hairs than before and deep lines between her eyebrows. It must be hard caring for Monica.

  “Hello, Mrs. Johnson,” I say, as calmly as I can muster.

  “Hello, Mrs. Adler,” she replies.

  Apparently, we’re not on a first-name basis.

  “How are you?” I ask stiffly.

  “Fine, thank you.” She manages the thinnest of smiles. “And you?”

  “I’m well.” I swallow a lump in my throat. “How is, um… how is Monica?”

  “The same.” She averts her eyes. “No change.”

  Is it awful that my first thought is “thank God”? Am I a terrible person for not wanting the woman who nearly killed my entire family to be walking around again? It’s a relief that Monica Johnson is one thing we won’t have to worry about anymore.

  But then she adds, “Except…”

  My heart skips a beat in my chest. Except? Except what? Monica is in a vegetative state. They told us it was permanent. That she would never, ever wake up. She is “as good as dead,” the doctors said. Except what?

  I clear my throat. “Except what?”

  “Oh.” She seems surprised by my question. She shakes her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Nothing? Never mind? I want to shake the woman until she tells me exactly what she meant by “except,” but I somehow manage to get control of myself before I do something stupid.

  “So, listen…” Mrs. Johnson lowers her eyes and starts rummaging around in her purse. I flinch, remembering the way Monica pulled a gun from her purse the last time she was here. But Mrs. Johnson isn’t like that—I have nothing to worry about. Although I don’t relax until she retrieves a small, frayed yellow blanket from within the purse. “I was going through some old boxes at the back of the closet yesterday and I found… well, this was there. It was… it used to belong to Monica.”

  I stare down at the blanket as if she told me it’s covered in scabies.

  “It was her favorite blanket as a child,” she sighs. “Even as a teenager, she used to keep it in her bed. It… meant a lot to her.”

  “Oh,” I say, because for God’s sake, what else can I say to that?

  “Look, Abby.” Mrs. Johnson lifts her eyes to meet mine. “I know how you must feel about Monica. I… I’ve gone through a lot of the same emotions. But she gave you the greatest gift you can give a person.”

  I don’t disagree with her.

  “I know Monica would want her son to have this blanket.” Her eyes flit down to the worn yellow fabric, then back up to me. “Obviously it’s your decision, but I hope you’ll give it to him. So that he’s got at least a tiny part of his biological mother with him.”

  He’s already got her blood running through his veins! Isn’t it enough that every time I look at my son, I’m searching for traces of that evil woman? I love David so much, but I can never erase the fact that half his genes belong to her.

  But when Mrs. Johnson thrusts the blanket in my direction, I take it from her. There’s no point in arguing. Let her believe I’ll give David the blanket if it gives her peace. Except the only place this blanket is going is the trash bin.

  Just as I’m closing the door behind me and throwing the deadlock into place, Sam emerges with David, who is now sparklingly clean and snuggled up in a green towel. Sam always brings him to me after his baths because he knows how cute I think he is when he’s all wrapped up like that. David is beaming at me, showing off his six tiny teeth.

  “Who was at the door?
” Sam asks.

  “Monica’s stepmother.” I shudder as I say the words.

  Sam’s face pales in what I’m certain is a reflection of my own. “How is Monica?”

  “The same,” I say.

  Except…

  “Oh.” His shoulders sag. “That’s comforting.”

  “Also,” I add, “she brought us this blanket that used to belong to Monica.”

  I hold the blanket to my nose and jerk my head back at the smell. Monica’s lavender-scented perfume is clinging to it, intermingled with the faint smell of laundry detergent. As if I needed another reason to hate this blanket.

  “Christ, why does she think we’d want that?” Sam also shudders as he holds David tight to his chest. “Get rid of it. Now.”

  “Banka,” David says, pointing to the blanket with a chubby hand.

  “That’s right,” I say. “It’s a yucky blanket and we’re going to get rid of it.”

  I turn to throw the blanket in the trash, but just as my hand hovers over the bin, David’s face crumbles. “Banka!” he wails.

  “No, buddy,” Sam says patiently. “That’s not for you.”

  “Banka!” Tears are running down my son’s face. He’s flailing his body around to the point where Sam is having trouble hanging onto him. He’s quickly growing inconsolable. “Banka! Banka, Mama!”

  My fingers are still gripping the blanket. I step away from the trash and David’s face fills with relief. “Banka,” he pleads with us.

  “Don’t give it to him,” Sam says. “I don’t want it in my house.”

  David’s hand is outstretched, trying his best to reach the blanket. He didn’t even get this excited over the toy truck he got for his first birthday (although to be fair, he liked the box the truck came in significantly more). He’s really upset. All this over a blanket?

  “I’ll just let him have it for now,” I finally say.

  “Abby, no…

  “Within a day, he’ll lose interest in it,” I say. “I guarantee it.”

  Sam is shaking his head, but it’s hard for me to say no to David when he gets like this. He’s my only child and I spoil him. So instead of throwing it away, I hold the yellow blanket out to him. He takes the blanket happily, burying his face in the lingering scent of Monica’s perfume.

  THE END

  Acknowledgements

  Considering that writing appears to be a solitary process, it’s amazing how many people I get help from before I complete a novel!

  I’d like to thank my mother, for being the first person to read The Surrogate Mother, and the first person to say “wow” after reading it. Sometimes we all need a wow.

  Thank you to Kate for plot advice and careful, brilliant editing. I’m very grateful to Catherine for lending me your expertise with the advertising industry and for help with the tricky last scene. Thank you to Rhona for your insightful advice on the cover, and to Zack for marketing advice. Thank you to Jenna for the beta read, and for cluing me in that Christian Louboutin is now trendier than Jimmy Choo. (Who knew?) Thank you to Jessica for your always bitterly honest feedback over the years. Thank you to my other, newer beta readers—Kate, Laura, Sarah, and Liz—your advice and thoughts were incredibly helpful. Thank you to my new writing group for your awesome feedback.

  Also, sometimes you also have to thank people who didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with the writing process. So thank you to my husband, for being a good-hearted mathematician on which I could base my protagonist’s good-hearted husband. (We will all assume you got mono that time through completely innocent means, such as riding the monorail.) And thank you in advance to my father, for not complaining I didn’t mention you in the acknowledgements.

  And thank you to all my readers. You guys are why I do this, so please keep reading!

  Did you enjoy reading The Surrogate Mother?

  If so, please send me an email at fizzziatrist@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. Or consider leaving a review on Amazon!

  Check out my website at:

  http://doccartoon.blogspot.com/

  In the meantime, please enjoy a short excerpt of my new book, Brain Damage…

  Brain Damage

  The light feels like a knife.

  Yellow light inches away from my pupil, jabbing at my eyeball like an ice pick through my brain. I want to close my eyes to block it out, but I can’t. My eye won’t close. Something has wedged it open.

  I try to cry out to protest, but my lips don’t move. While something holds my eye open, something holds my lips shut. Tape, I think.

  “No pupillary response,” a voice announces.

  With those words, my eyelid is released and I am plunged back into blessed relative darkness, marred only by a large green spot in the center of my vision. I want to live in this darkness.

  “No way,” a second voice says. “Are you blind? I got a definite contraction of that pupil.”

  It happens again. My eyelid is yanked open and I see the blurry outline of a face before the light floods my field of vision again. The pain came slower before, but this time it is immediate. I’ve never been a religious person, but I find myself praying that the light will go away.

  Please, God, make it go black again…

  “She had pretty eyes,” a voice comments.

  They are complimenting me in the past tense. That can’t be good.

  “See?” a triumphant voice announces seconds before the light shuts off. “I told you it contracted.”

  “Fine,” says the first voice. “Keep her breathing on the vent for another month or two instead of giving her organs to somebody who isn’t brain-dead.”

  There’s a long pause before I hear: “She’s an organ donor?”

  “Said so on her driver’s license, apparently.”

  Another long pause. The pain in my head is fading and with it, my consciousness. Blessed darkness. Thank you, God.

  “Well, she’s not dead yet.”

  Those words are comforting to me. Something has happened to me, but I’m not dead. I’m alive. I’m still here. Not dead.

  Yet.

  I hear one last remark before I slip away again:

  “Do you think she’s really still in there?”

  _____

  I don’t know this girl, but she is very pretty and her hair is tied back into a blond ponytail. She is young, maybe in her twenties, with a fresh-faced eager look. There are freckles sprinkled across her nose, which make her look even younger and more fresh-faced and pretty. Her smile fills my vision and makes me feel comforted, optimistic.

  “Are you ready to try eating something today, Charlotte?” she asks.

  Who is Charlotte?

  I have no idea who she is talking to. But her eyes are locked with mine. I think she might be talking to me. Yes, she is definitely talking to me. I am Charlotte. That is my name, I think.

  It’s a pretty name. Charlotte. I like it.

  I look down and see there is a plate in front of me. On the plate, there are three mounds of food. They all sort of look like mashed potatoes, but one is gray, one is white, and one is yellow. Multicolored mashed potatoes. I wonder how they do that.

  The girl spoons a bit of the gray material and then lifts the spoon to my lips.

  “Open your mouth, Charlotte,” the girl says.

  I look down and see the badge hanging from the pocket of the girl’s bright purple scrub top. Written in big letters is the word Amy. The girl’s name must be Amy. That’s a pretty name too. Almost as pretty as Charlotte.

  “Come on, Charly,” she says to me. Amy. Her blue eyes are wide and hopeful. “Open your mouth for me.”

  She demonstrates by opening her own mouth. She has a little pink tongue.

  I really want to make Amy happy, so I do what she did. I open my mouth. Amy’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. She’s even prettier when she’s happy, although I’m not entirely sure why opening my mouth made her so happy. “Great job!” she tells me.

  My rewa
rd is a mouthful of gray material on a spoon. It’s not a very good reward. The spoon tastes metallic and bitter, but the food tastes even worse. It almost tastes like meat, but with an odd aftertaste. I don’t like it and I don’t want it in my mouth. I want to spit it out, but I don’t think Amy will like that.

  “Now chew, Charlotte,” Amy instructs me as she removes the spoon.

  Amy demonstrates this one by letting her lower jaw fall slack, then raising it up again, then lowering it again as if I didn’t understand what chewing is. I mimic her movements and Amy looks like she may faint from happiness. Her standards for happiness seem ridiculously low.

  “You’re doing amazing today, Charlotte,” she says.

  Amy’s standards for “amazing” seem ridiculously low too.

  “Now I need you to swallow.”

  I understand what she wants me to do. I mean, I do and I don’t. I know what swallowing is, and I know I’ve done it before, but I don’t entirely know how to do it right now. I’m not entirely sure why.

  I see a little crease forming between her brows. Amy isn’t happy anymore. I want to make her happy, but I don’t know what to do. Whatever it is, I’m obviously not doing it.

  “Swallow, Charly,” she says. “Come on, swallow.”

  I stop the chewing motion. I feel some of the gray material sliding out of the corner of my mouth. Amy allows the food to trickle down my chin before she dabs at my face with a napkin.

  I feel terrible. I want to let Amy know that I am trying my best, I don’t mean to disappoint her. I want to do what she’d like me to do.

  But when I open my mouth to tell her those things, I lose the rest of the food that she placed in my mouth and it leaks down my chin and splatters on a napkin across my chest.