The Surrogate (10 page)

“Not really,” Jamie said. “I’m just passing through. I won’t ask you any more questions about the Hartmanns. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”

“You know, we’ve all been mighty curious about you,” Lester admitted. “At first we thought you were going to work for Montgomery—a secretary or bookkeeper, maybe—but it seems like you don’t do much of anything except walk.”

“So, why do people think I’m here?” Jamie asked.

“Well,” Lester said, staring at the road, “Freda says that Miss Amanda invited you to come to the ranch to get away from a mean boyfriend and then you turned up pregnant so she’s letting you stay here till the baby is born. But Miss Amanda is still afraid that the boyfriend might come looking for you, so she doesn’t want you wandering off by yourself.”

“That’s pretty close,” Jamie said.

“You’re just lucky to have someone like Amanda Hartmann to help you get your life back on track,” Lester said.

“That’s true,” Jamie said.

Back in her sitting room, Jamie removed the decorative items from the two rooms, leaving only her books and photographs and the potted plants from her grandmother’s house. She even took down her great-grandmother’s mirror and put it in the closet alongside her grandmother’s sewing stand. She could no longer think of these two rooms as home. Not even a temporary one.

J
AMIE AWOKE IN
the night to the sound of singing.

A thin, quavery female voice was singing a strange song about a woman longing for her “sweet little Alice blue gown.”

Jamie rolled over and looked toward the chair in the corner.

It was empty.

The singing was coming from the sitting room. Light was pouring through the open door. Jamie rose and padded across the bedroom.

The old woman was sitting next to Ralph on the sofa, her hand stroking his back. His tail thumped when he saw Jamie.

Their visitor was wearing a lacy black nightgown that hung loosely over her bony shoulders and chest. Her feet were bare. Red lipstick covered her mouth and much of her chin. A well-worn red leather pocketbook rested on her lap. When she finished her song, she applauded, the loose skin on her underarms waving back and forth.

Jamie applauded, too.

The woman looked at Jamie, apparently noticing her for the first time. She acknowledged Jamie’s applause with a shy smile then let forth a delighted cackle. Jamie remembered that laugh. The first time she’d heard it, she thought she was dreaming. Now she was wide awake, and the woman was obviously quite real.

“I’m Jamie,” she said as she sat across from the woman. “What is your name?”

“I told you last time I was here,” the old woman said. “I’m Mary Millicent, and this is my house.”

“Do you live here all the time?” Jamie asked.

The woman nodded. “Up in the tower. My children are going to burn in hell for keeping me a prisoner in that room with the witch as my jailer.”

“You’re not in that room now,” Jamie pointed out.

“The witch thinks she is so smart, but she’s forgotten that this is my house, and I have a magic key that opens all the doors.” No sooner had she said these words than she gasped and put her hands over her mouth.

Jamie jumped up and rushed to the old woman’s side. “What’s the matter?” she asked, kneeling in front of her.

Mary Millicent took her hands from her mouth. “You won’t tell them, will you?” she asked in a whisper, her gaze darting from side to side.

“About your key? No, I won’t tell,” Jamie whispered back.

“And promise you won’t tell the witch that I was here.”

Jamie nodded.

“Cross your heart and hope to die.”

Jamie solemnly crossed her heart. Then Mary Millicent looked around as though to make sure no one else was in the room. “The witch doesn’t know I can walk,” she whispered. “The nurse, too.”

“You’re kidding!”

Mary Millicent shook her head. “If the witch knew I could walk, she would lock me up or chain me to the bed.”

Jamie sat on the sofa. Ralph gave her a quizzical look, as though asking if he should abandon his position on the other side of Mary Millicent and come sit beside her. With a gesture of her hand, Jamie told him he was fine where he was.

“I added on the wing because we needed more room for all our important visitors,” Mary Millicent said, sitting up straighter and lifting her chin. “We had presidents and senators and ambassadors and even a sultan come here. Sometimes they brought their wives, and sometimes they didn’t. They liked to dress up like cowboys and ride horses and hunt deer and quail, then sit around smoking Cuban cigars and drinking Tennessee whiskey.”

“Tell me about the tower,” Jamie said. “Did you build it to make the house look like a castle?”

“Nope. I built it so I could have a private place. Sometimes I would invite one of the gentlemen visitors to meet me up there. Now the only excitement I have is watching people out the windows. That and making the witch mad,” she added with a chuckle. “I watch you from up there. You and the pooch walk all the time with that boy following you in the truck.”

“Why do they keep you up there?” Jamie asked, not sure if she believed the woman.

“Because I’m a secret,” Mary Millicent said. “They don’t want a crazy old woman going around saying things she shouldn’t say and embarrassing Amanda. She’s on television now just like I used to be. Everyone would notice me when I walked into a restaurant or through an airport. People would come up to me and tell me they’d seen me preach on television, and they wanted me to bless them and to touch my hand. You want to touch my hand?”

“Sure,” Jamie said, taking one of Mary Millicent’s clawlike hands in her own. Her nails were carefully trimmed, as were her toenails. Her hair was combed. She had smelled before, but not now. Obviously someone was trying to look after her needs.

“Do you like me?” Mary Millicent asked, tilting her head to one side.

Jamie started to say that she didn’t know her very well, but the look on the old woman’s face was so beseeching, like a small child in search of a friend. “Of course, I like you,” she said.

Mary Millicent put her head on Jamie’s shoulder, and Jamie put her arms around her. Her skin felt like parchment. Jamie could see down the front of the lacy nightgown. Mary Millicent’s bony chest was flat with no flesh at all. Just baggy skin and two shriveled-up nipples.

Mary Millicent became so still that Jamie wondered if she was falling asleep. “Maybe you should go back to your room now?” she asked. “You don’t want the witch to find you here.”

“Will you sing with me first?”

“What would you like to sing?”

Mary Millicent began rocking back in forth in Jamie’s arms singing a familiar hymn. Jamie closed her eyes. She remembered standing next to her grandmother in church singing the very same hymn. In their simple little frame church.

“What a friend we have in Jesus,” Jamie sang along with her elderly visitor, “all our sins and grief to bear/ What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.”

At the end of the hymn, Mary Millicent kissed Jamie on the mouth, then, clutching her red purse and with Jamie’s help, she shakily rose to a standing position.

Jamie watched the barefoot, frail figure in a lacy black nightgown slowly make her away across the room.

“Good night,” Jamie called after her.

Without turning around, the woman waved a hand, then opened the door just an inch or two and peeked out into the hallway. Apparently assured that the hall was empty, she left, closing the door behind her.

“Seems we have a friend,” she told her dog. “How about you and me going back to bed?”

Before turning off the light, she opened the door and looked up and down the hall. There was no one in sight.

She locked the door, an act she distinctly remembered performing when she and Ralph came in from their evening foray into the backyard. It was a defiant act she performed nightly with Miss Montgomery in mind. Even though she realized the housekeeper had a passkey, Jamie wanted her to know that uninvited visitors were not welcome.

Mary Millicent also had a passkey, it seemed.

She assumed that Mary Millicent’s “witch” was Ann Montgomery. The designation made Jamie smile.

The next morning when she set out on her walk, Jamie wanted to turn and wave to Mary Millicent. She didn’t, of course. Someone might see her. When she reached the road, however, she looked toward the house—at the tower with its many narrow windows. Was Mary Millicent watching her?

After her walk, Jamie took Ralph to the apartment then headed back downstairs to the library. After her conversation with Mary Millicent, she wanted to study the pictures on the wall.

Yes, the pictures were definitely of a much younger Mary Millicent. Such a striking woman she had been—more stately and commanding than her daughter. She and her husband had been a handsome couple—like a duke and duchess.

She stopped in front of the picture of Mary Millicent in a pony cart with her two young children. Amanda was sitting on her mother’s lap with Gus beside them.

Not your usual family, Jamie thought as she studied picture after picture. Not with an oil baron, a politician who almost became president, and three generations of evangelists.

After viewing the pictures for several minutes, she realized she was not alone. She turned around, and there was Amanda Hartmann herself watching her from across the large room. She was sitting on a cushioned window seat, a stack of file folders in her lap. “Good morning, Jamie,” she said. “You’re looking well.”

“I didn’t realize you were here at the ranch,” Jamie said as she tentatively crossed the room.

“I have some things to take care of here, including a baptism and a wedding,” Amanda said with a welcoming smile. “And three of the Alliance board members are coming in tomorrow for a couple of days of hunting. Freda tells me that you’re progressing nicely with the pregnancy.”

Jamie nodded. “Apparently all is well.”

Amanda was simply dressed in jeans and a white cotton shirt. Her shining blond hair was pulled back into a smooth ponytail. She wondered if Amanda would see her mother while she was here. And if she and her brother really had banished Mary Millicent to the tower.

Amanda put aside the stack of files and reached for Jamie’s hand. “Come sit by me, Jamie dear.”

Once she was settled beside Amanda, Jamie asked, “Is your husband here with you?”

“Oh, yes,” Amanda said with a brilliant smile. “Toby and I are seldom apart. He’s out swimming laps now. He wanted me to join him—he’s not only my husband, he’s my personal trainer—but the sun is bad for my skin, and I prefer to swim after the sun goes down. It’s more romantic then, anyway,” she said and actually blushed. “Oh, my,” she said, putting her hands on her red cheeks. “You’d think I was a schoolgirl. Tell me, Jamie, have you ever been in love?”

“Not really,” Jamie said, but then to her surprise she began telling Amanda about Joe Brammer, who came to Mesquite to visit his grandparents and had never been her boyfriend but had been very nice to her. She paused, thinking she would explain that she was a lot younger than he was and that he had fallen in love with someone else. But she changed her mind and said instead, “I probably need to let you get back to your work.”

“Oh, I am always behind with my correspondence, it seems,” Amanda said with a wave of her hand. “Each of our donors deserves some sort of personalized response, but a few more minutes won’t matter,” she said.

“I guess it’s too early for you to show,” Amanda continued, patting Jamie’s tummy. “You look very trim. You’re not dieting or anything like that, are you?”

Jamie shook her head. “I lost weight while I was so nauseated, but I’ve gained all that back and more. I can’t button my jeans. I guess I’ll need to get some stretchy clothes.”

“I’ll see to that,” Amanda said. “I was very worried about you while you were so sick and so very grateful that you had Montgomery and Freda to look after you.”

“Yes, they were diligent.”

“You walk a lot, I understand,” Amanda said. “And swim laps.”

“I was swimming daily before I got sick, but now I mostly take my dog on long walks twice a day. We both enjoy it. And I’ve taken up bird watching.”

“That’s nice,” Amanda said, stroking Jamie’s cheek. “I had forgotten what a pretty girl you are. You remind me of a young Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music.
”

Jamie liked the way Amanda smiled, liked the way she leaned forward as she listened, as though the words coming out of Jamie’s mouth were very important to her. And she liked the warmth of Amanda’s touch. She found herself wanting the woman to approve of her, to
like
her.

“I understand that you’re pregnant, too,” Jamie said.

Amanda’s smile faded. “Freda never should have told you that.”

“You mean, it’s not true?”

“I’m…” Amanda began then paused. “I am much too old for childbearing and having some problems, so I prefer that no one know anything about my condition just now. You know, just in case…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes were downcast.

“I hope everything works out all right,” Jamie said.

“Montgomery tells me that you were worried that I wouldn’t want the baby you’re carrying if I had one of my own. You must put such a silly notion out of your head, Jamie. My husband and I are thrilled about both pregnancies—the one we planned so carefully and the one that caught us totally by surprise. Now, tell me, my dear, other than maternity clothes, is there anything you need?”

“I’d like to borrow binoculars for my bird watching if there’s a pair available.”

“I’ll see that you get a pair,” Amanda said. “Are your accommodations satisfactory?”

“Yes, I am quite comfortable.”

“Now, you would tell me if there was anything bothering you, wouldn’t you?”

Jamie nodded again, this time feeling a bit dishonest. Lots of things were bothering her. She was none too fond of Miss Montgomery, and she was lonely as all get out. A part of her wished she had never signed on for this gig, but she would see it through to the end because that was the sort of person she was and because she was tired of being poor. But she deliberately did not think about the life growing inside of her because she was afraid that if she thought about it and got the least bit sentimental, she might find herself wondering if she wanted the baby to be raised by a televangelist and a man who seemed to have no job or purpose in life other than to keep himself beautiful and to adore and serve his wife. Of course, there was a community of several hundred people on this ranch who also lived to adore and serve Amanda, which had seemed odd to Jamie, but here in the woman’s presence, she understood why people felt that way. At this moment, she would have liked to linger a while longer, basking in Amanda Hartmann’s glow.

Probably weird old Mary Millicent was confined in the tower to keep her from wandering off or getting into mischief, Jamie decided. If she hadn’t promised Mary Millicent that she would keep her visit a secret, she would have asked Amanda about her mother.

“You seemed quite engrossed in the family pictures,” Amanda observed, nodding toward the wall of framed photographs.

“Miss Montgomery told me some of your family history. I find it very interesting.”

“Yes. And sad. My father died in his prime. And I suppose that Bentley Abernathy told you about my son’s accident,” Amanda said, her gaze growing distant, her eyes filling with tears. “I have never felt such despair. I wanted to curse the Lord, but He lifted me up and told me how to survive. I wish you could have known my Sonny. He was so beautiful. So dear. No child ever filled a mother’s heart more.”