The Surrogate by Henry Wall Judith Page B

she was finishing her second cup of tea. His joy was boundless. Jamie wept as she buried her face against his neck.
    She took him out into the backyard. While he raced around, she sat on the steps of the gazebo and lifted her face to the sun. Fall was in the air, she realized, with leaves just beginning to turn on the trees. It would be spring before she could leave here. Before she could have her life back.
    Ralph came to sit beside her, and she put her arm around his shoulders. “I wish I could get us back to the starting line and withdraw from the race, but that’s not going to happen.”
    Ralph thumped his tail on the step and licked her chin. Jamie hugged her dog and sighed. There was no going back.
    “We’ll get through this,” she promised, planting a kiss on the top of Ralph’s scruffy head. “Less than seven months from now, we’ll be on our way back to Austin. I’ll find us a little house with a backyard near the campus where we’ll be safe and happy and never have to think of Hartmann Ranch ever again.”
    But no matter how much she wanted to forget this time in her life, she knew she never would. And sometimes she would pause to think of this other time and place and the child she had borne here.
     
    Not wanting to push her luck, Jamie had only a bowl of soup for lunch, after which Lester came to drive her to Freda’s clinic.
    “Montgomery says that you’ve made a miraculous recovery,” Freda said. “Climb up on the table, and let me give you and the baby a once-over. I told you the nausea would pass, didn’t I? I told Montgomery that a big, strong, healthy girl like you would bounce back just fine. Matter of fact, I was more worried about Montgomery worrying herself into a nervous breakdown or a stroke than I was about you.”
    When she was finished with her examination, Freda pronounced Jamie “fit as a fiddle.”
    “I’ll call Montgomery and let her know,” she said. “And Amanda. She’s been worried sick about you.”
    “Where is Amanda?” Jamie asked.
    “In Virginia right now. She travels a lot, you know, speaking at revivals and political rallies. She’s a very important woman,” Freda said with pride in her voice. “Some folks say the only reason our dear president got himself elected was because Amanda Hartmann raised all that money and let righteous people know that it was their Christian duty to vote for him. You should hear the woman speak. You can just feel her love for the Lord. It fills up the room and fills up people’s hearts. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it,” Freda said, rubbing her arms. “Course she’ll start tapering off now that…” Freda’s voice trailed off and she turned her attention to making an entry on Jamie’s chart. “Leave a specimen on the way out,” she said, nodding in the direction of the bathroom.
    When Jamie came out of the clinic, Lester was dozing behind the wheel. He awoke and stretched when she got in the truck.
    Back at the ranch house, instead of climbing the stairs to her apartment, Jamie walked to the end of the first-floor hallway and stopped in front of the door to Ann Montgomery’s apartment. She paused a minute, getting up her courage, then tapped on the door.
    “Can I help you?” the housekeeper’s voice asked from behind her.
    Startled, Jamie turned around. Miss Montgomery was wearing her usual navy blue—today’s attire was a double-breasted dress with white buttons. “I want to ask you a question,” Jamie explained.
    “Well, what is it?”
    “If Amanda Hartmann is expecting a baby, do she and her husband still plan to raise the one I am carrying?”
    “Who told you that she was expecting a baby?” Miss Montgomery asked, a frown deepening the creases in her forehead.
    “Freda sort of indicated that she was.”
    Miss Montgomery digested this information, then forced a smile and patted Jamie’s arm. “You need not concern yourself with what is going on in Amanda’s life,” she said, her tone