The Surrogate (9 page)

A
FTER THE DINNER
dishes had been cleared away, Amanda announced that she was a bit weary from her travels and would not be staying for coffee and dessert. “I’ll leave you men to your business,” she added.

As she stood, the men scrambled to their feet. “Please join me in prayer,” Amanda said, reaching for the hands of the men on either side of her. Somewhat clumsily, the others around the table followed suit.

She lifted her face and carefully composed it as she always did when she prayed, knowing that people could not resist a peek or two in her direction. She barely closed her lids in order to avoid unsightly creases at the corners of her eyes.

“Dearest Lord,” she began, “please bless the efforts of these good men as they endeavor to make our beloved country the most Christian nation on earth. Like me, they dream of a day when every American is a believer; when no unborn child is murdered; when every child is raised in a Christian home; when lawmakers, educators, businessmen, judges, and all others who influence people’s lives ask for your guidance in all that they do. We praise thy holy name and ask these things in the name of your beloved son, Jesus.”

The men joined her in saying “Amen” before hastily letting go of one another’s hands.

Amanda walked around the table to kiss her brother good night. In her bare feet, she was considerably taller than he was; in heels, she towered over him. He would always be her little brother in age and in stature. Her feelings for him were both sisterly and motherly. She loved and trusted him completely. He had always attended to the things she cared nothing about, which had allowed her to concentrate on her ministry and her son.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“Yes, my darling,” she said, softly stroking his face with her fingertips. “I’m just a little tired.”

“Are you okay with the changes we talked about tonight?” he asked.

“Probably. Let’s have breakfast together in the morning, just the two of us.”

Gus nodded.

Amanda bent down to kiss his cheek. “I love you,” she whispered.

“And I you,” he whispered back.

She felt everyone’s eyes on her as she left the room. Admiring eyes. She smiled to herself. The evening had gone well. Of course, there had been some talk of having the president not run for reelection, using a manufactured health problem as an excuse, and having the younger and more articulate vice president take his place on the ticket. The president had overstepped himself at times. No question about that. But while the vice president made a great show of his Christian faith, his eyes did not glow when he spoke of the Lord. And on two occasions she had heard him blaspheme.

She stopped by the kitchen to thank the staff for another lovely dinner party, calling each person by name and wishing God’s blessing on them all. Then she put her arm around a young sari-clad woman known as Randi who had been working at Victory Hill for only three or four months and guided her out into the hall. “Are you with child?” she asked the girl.

With downcast eyes and a shy smile, the girl nodded.

“You’re married to one of the groundskeepers, aren’t you?” Amanda asked.

Again the girl nodded.

“Are you both happy about the baby?”

“Oh, yes, madam. We are very happy. My mother will take care of the child so I can keep working.”

“You shall have six weeks off with pay when the baby is born,” Amanda said.

The girl grabbed Amanda’s hand and kissed it. “You are the kindest lady I have ever known. My mother says you are a saint.”

“No, no,” Amanda said with a smile, stroking the girl’s smooth brown cheek. “Not a saint, dear. Just a woman who loves the Lord. Is this your first child?”

“Yes, madam. Our first.”

“Tell me, Randi, can you keep a secret?”

“Oh, yes!” Randi said, her beautiful dark eyes wide.

Amanda stepped closer and whispered, “I, too, am expecting a child.”

Randi’s eyes immediately filled with tears.
She knows about my Sonny,
Amanda realized. But of course she would. Everyone knew. Sometimes Amanda wondered if God had planned Sonny’s accident to make her a more sympathetic spiritual leader. Or to test her. She had to believe that Sonny’s accident was part of God’s plan; otherwise she would not have been able to continue. She would have had to curse God and dissolve her ministry. But that would mean she would have had to stop being herself. To stop being the person she was born to be. It had taken her countless hours of prayer and meditation to cleanse her heart of doubt.

Amanda understood that all those people who claimed that she had healed them had in truth been healed by opening their hearts and minds to the power of prayer. Sonny could no longer do that. It had taken her a while to understand why God had left him so, but with knowledge came peace. And with peace came God’s reward—her beautiful Toby and a plan for the future.

“Oh, madam, I am so happy for you,” Randi was saying, once again kissing Amanda’s hand. “I will pray for you and your baby every day.”

“And I will pray for you and yours,” Amanda promised, embracing the slender young woman.

Amanda slowly climbed the stairs to her spacious suite on the second floor, her fingers trailing along the curving banister. Her mind shifting gears from the dinner gathering and the pregnant kitchen worker to her husband. To Toby, who was waiting for her.

She had primed him earlier in the evening, telling him just what she was in the mood for. She chuckled to herself. Toby was such an obliging boy. And he loved their sex games as much as she did.

How wonderfully smooth the wood felt under her fingertips. Like satin. Like the skin on Toby’s back. Toby was her Adonis. When they were in Madrid, she had taken him to the Prado for the express purpose of showing him Titian’s painting of
Venus and Adonis.
“There you are,” she had said, pointing to the gorgeous youth, with Venus’s arms wrapped around him, drawing him downward toward her nude body.

“I think she’s trying to seduce him,” Toby said.

“I think she probably succeeded,” Amanda said.

Toby leaned close. “Your body is much better than hers,” he had whispered.

Amanda smiled, remembering how they had playacted the scene that night in their hotel room. She was the pagan goddess; he was the undefiled young boy. And when she was satiated, she had curled her body next to Toby’s and silently thanked God for bringing her this beautiful young husband.

Once, Toby had asked her what God thought of such games. She had assured him that God had given them vivid imaginations to make their physical life fulfilling and keep them from sin.

With her free hand Amanda reached inside her dress to caress her breasts. Climbing each step became an erotic act. A step higher, a step closer. She could feel her body opening. Feel the moistness gathering between her legs.

The bedroom was aglow in candlelight. Toby was waiting for her, lying facedown on the bed, his wrists handcuffed to the headboard, the leather whip waiting on the bedside table. As soon as she entered the room, he lifted his head and began to whimper. “Please don’t whip me,” he begged.

Amanda unzipped her red dress and stepped out of it, revealing her nude body underneath. She stepped into a pair of stiletto-heeled boots and tied a black velvet cape around her neck. “But you’ve been a bad boy, haven’t you, Toby?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve been a very bad boy. A very, very bad boy,” Toby said.

Amanda picked up the whip. “And tell me, what happens to bad boys?” she cooed.

It was well past midnight when Gus placed his call to Ann Montgomery. But her voice was alert. “Gus,” she said immediately. “How are you, my darling boy?”

Gus felt a smile tug at his lips. Good old Montgomery, he thought. His mother might have gone loony in her old age, but Montgomery never changed. He counted on that. “Not so good,” he admitted.

“Tell me,” she said.

“You were right. It looks like Amanda plans to pass off the baby that Jamie Long is carrying as her own—as the rightful heir to the family ministry and the family fortune. We had guests for dinner tonight, and Amanda made a great show of only nibbling at her food and not drinking anything alcoholic.”

“I believe that the baby Jamie Long carries truly
is
the rightful heir to all things Hartmann,” Montgomery said.

Gus sat up straighter in his chair. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“I believe that she is carrying Sonny’s child.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Is it?” Montgomery asked.

Gus drew in his breath. “What makes you think such a thing? Did Amanda tell you?”

“No, but I know my Amanda. She was at the ranch the night before the insemination procedure was done on Jamie. She flew in, then turned right around and left first thing the next morning. She said she needed to pray at Sonny’s bedside.”

“Did she bring someone with her—a doctor or technician?”

“Nurse Freda was with her,” Montgomery said.

“Are you saying that she…”

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.”

Gus rubbed his forehead, trying to think, trying to decide what the implications would be if what Montgomery believed could actually be true.

“I’m not sure about the legality of harvesting sperm from an unconscious man,” he said, “but I don’t suppose anyone is going to arrest Amanda for somehow managing to have that done. After all, Sonny is her only child.”

“Probably not,” Montgomery agreed. “But I assume that the contract Jamie Long signed with Amanda and Toby specified that he would be the natural father of the child. If the true circumstances of this child’s conception were ever to become known, the contract could be declared null and void, and Jamie could be awarded full custody of the child.”

Gus picked up a letter opener and stabbed at the blotter on his desk. He already had some idea where Montgomery was going with this and didn’t want to hear it.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Gus,” she continued. “If Jamie ever realizes that the baby she is carrying is Amanda Hartmann’s grandchild, she is certainly not going to give up her parental rights to the sole heir to the Hartmann family fortune.”

“But there is no way for her to know that,” Gus insisted.

“At this point, Jamie thinks that Amanda
may
be pregnant. But she does watch a lot of television and is bound to hear that Amanda has put the word out that she herself is expecting a baby. Then, when Amanda and Toby end up with just one baby to raise—one that Amanda claims is her natural-born child—Jamie will wonder what happened to the baby that she had carried and delivered. What if she hires a private detective or starts snooping around herself? What if she finds out that Amanda doesn’t have a uterus, and Sonny was still alive when he was taken from the hospital in Amarillo? What if the girl demands that she and Toby and the baby undergo DNA testing? What if she sues to get her baby back?”

“Then I would make sure the judge awarded custody to the baby’s grandmother,” Gus said, rubbing his forehead, wanting desperately to reject Montgomery’s line of reasoning.

“Perhaps,” Montgomery allowed, “but in the process, Amanda would be exposed as a fraud.”

Gus drew in his breath. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

“Don’t be blasphemous,” Montgomery said, her voice stern. “Your mother and I raised you better than that. I want this baby, Gus. It’s
Sonny’s
baby. And you will want it, too, when you think about it. This baby is a gift from God.”

Gus stared at the lighted statue of Christ in the meditation garden. For years he had been telling himself that he was going to have the damned thing carted away. But his mother had put it there. And moving it would upset Amanda.

Gus had always found it strange how easily devout people were able to convince themselves that the evil things they wanted to undertake were somehow the will of their one true God. If there were a God, Gus knew that he or she would have to spend all his or her time weeping.

Being an atheist meant that he was unable to rationalize or pray away evil. He had to look it square in the face and acknowledge it for what it was.

He wished that he had never insisted that Bentley Abernathy send him a photograph of the girl. Wished that he had never seen Jamie Long’s lovely young face.

Gus shook his head in an attempt to refocus his thoughts.

“And what about Toby? Does he know what’s going on?”

“I really don’t know,” Montgomery admitted, “but he’s nothing more than a lap dog. He’ll believe whatever Amanda tells him to believe.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to manage this,” Gus said.

“The Lord will provide,” Montgomery said.

B
ENTLEY SELDOM SAW
Gus Hartmann in person. Mostly the man existed for him as a disembodied voice on the other end of a telephone. He had to remind himself at times that the authoritative utterances of this extraordinarily wealthy and powerful individual came from a man who stood no higher than Bentley’s chest.

When Gus called, everything else was put on hold. The conversation was transferred to speakerphone, and Lenora hurried into his office to take notes.

This time Gus had called to discuss issues dealing with real estate. He wanted to purchase the mineral rights for several tracts of land in the Texas Panhandle. But his main concern was the county road that crossed the Hartmann Ranch. The road’s official designation was Rural Road 12 but locally was known as Hartmann Road. It continued north of the ranch for thirty-two empty miles until it eventually intersected a state highway. Buck Hartmann’s original landholdings were all to the east of RR 12, but with additional acquisitions to the ranch over the years, the road now divided the Hartmann property almost in half.

Bentley doubted if more than a few dozen vehicles a day traversed the gravel road, which was used mainly by other county residents and an occasional hunter. Gus complained that Hartmann City had become a stopping place along the road, with people expecting to buy gas and soft drinks at the ranch store.

“Why is this an issue?” Bentley dared to ask.

“Privacy,” Gus’s voice had boomed over the speaker. Bentley reached over and turned down the volume.

“I’ll cede the county land along the western boundary of the ranch and reimburse whatever it costs to build a new segment of the road there,” Gus continued. “I want this taken care of, Abernathy. I told the county commissioners two years ago that I wanted this done. You remind those yokels that I pay more goddamned property taxes than anyone else in the county and that Hartmann Ranch is by far its largest employer. You remind them that Hartmann money built their high school gymnasium and put a new roof on the schoolhouse. And let them know in no uncertain terms that I want this project implemented immediately. You let them know that the only reason my sister and I have hung on to the ranch is for the privacy it provides. I want to maintain tighter security around the ranch house, and I can’t do that if there is a public thoroughfare passing right in front of it. And you remind them that Hartmann City is not a ‘city’ at all. It is
private property.
We’ve had people driving onto
our
property looking for Amanda and expecting her to heal their lumbago or pray with them. And reporters come snooping around. I had to install a security fence to keep people from driving right up to the ranch house and knocking on the door.”

“I understand,” Bentley said in his most conciliatory voice. Then he made eye contact with Lenora and added, “I’ll tell you what, Gus, Lenora and I will fly up there. I’ll talk to the county commissioners at their next meeting, and Lenora would like to see Jamie Long.”

Lenora nodded her approval.

“Why does she want to see the girl?” Gus demanded.

“Well, Lenora became quite attached to Jamie and is concerned about her. She has tried to call the girl numerous times but has never gotten through to her. And Jamie has never responded to her letters.”

“I’m not even sure she’s still there,” Gus said flatly. “If she is, I’m sure she’s fine.”

Lenora frowned and leaned forward, ready to add something to the conversation. Fearful she might say something that would annoy Gus, Bentley shook his head at her.

And to think that only a couple of months back, he had actually been thinking about ending his association with the Hartmanns and cutting back his practice, Bentley thought with a sigh. That had changed when his wife found a rundown Victorian mansion out near Round Top and decided that she had been put on this earth to restore it, a project that would cost a king’s ransom.

Of course, he could protest all he wanted to, but in the end, Brenda would get her derelict mansion, which would take away any hope he had of ever ending his association with the Hartmanns.

At least the old house would keep Brenda busy for years.

The correspondence course was a godsend. The textbook was well written, the supplemental readings fascinating. Jamie immersed herself in American history. When she finally had the first two lessons ready to mail, she felt elated. She addressed a manila envelope and put the lessons inside. She left the envelope unsealed, certain that Miss Montgomery would feel it her duty to make sure she hadn’t violated any rules, and slid it under the housekeeper’s door. To celebrate, she called Lester. “I want an extra-long walk this afternoon,” she told him.

“Don’t you get bored with all that walking?” he asked.

“Not really. I experience something new every time we go out.” Which was true, Jamie thought. Only yesterday, she had watched an armadillo ambling down the middle of the road as though it didn’t have a care in the world and not minding at all that Jamie, her hand firmly on Ralph’s collar, was following along behind it.

She had learned to listen to the ever-changing music of the prairie—the sounds made by animals and insects, the whisper of the prairie grasses waving in the wind. And she admired the ever-changing palette of color as the sun traversed the sky and slid behind an occasional cloud.

The daily walks also had led to a deeper awareness of her own body—a different sort of awareness than when she was on the track team. Running was all about pacing and required intense concentration. With walking she was able to relax and enjoy the feel of her muscles working in concert as she strode along. Sometimes she would take a deep breath just to feel her lungs fill and expand and to relish the health and youth and strength of her own body. The muscles in her legs were almost as firm as they had been when she was running track and working out almost daily. She sometimes wondered if walking had become an obsession with her. Or was it simply a coping mechanism that helped her deal with isolation and loneliness? And with fear? She was sailing in uncharted waters. The changes in her body went further than the muscles in her legs and the capacity of her lungs. She could no longer button her jeans, and there was a firmness to her belly that had nothing to do with the underlying muscle structure.

“Actually I have a specific destination today,” she told Lester. “I asked Freda about any points of interest I might visit on my walks, and she told me about an abandoned farmhouse a few miles north of here. Do you know where it is?” she asked.

Lester said that he did and would be out front in fifteen minutes.

Ralph’s tail started wagging when Jamie got her hiking boots out of the closet. “So you think you’re going to go with me?” she teased.

She and Ralph made their way down the main staircase and headed for the front door. Lester hadn’t arrived yet, so she and Ralph sat on the front steps. Freda’s pickup truck with its camper-shell clinic was parked under the portico, a seemingly daily occurrence. Jamie assumed that the nurse came to visit Ann Montgomery. In spite of the difference in their ages, the two women seemed to be close friends. Probably it was their devotion to Amanda Hartmann that brought them together.

A visit with a friend would be nice, Jamie thought. Or a letter from one. Without knowing her current address, Jamie realized that her friends and sister would not be writing to her, but she wondered why she hadn’t heard from Lenora. Other than her correspondence course, the only mail she had received were her monthly bank statements, which were being mailed to the ranch by the anonymous “third party” and opened by Miss Montgomery before passing them along to Jamie. Such measures seemed ridiculously extreme to Jamie, but then, as Lenora had pointed out more than once, privacy was a major issue with the Hartmanns.

When Jamie saw Lester’s truck approaching, she stood. He pulled up beside her and rolled down the window. Jamie could hear Vince Gill singing “A Little More Love” on the truck radio.

Lester turned down the radio. “I have to be back by noon, so you’re going to have to ride at least part of the way.”

“I’ll walk first—for an hour,” Jamie said, glancing at her watch then heading down the drive. Lester turned up the radio. When Vince finished his song, Reba began pondering “Is There Life Out There?”

Jamie jogged a bit to get ahead of the radio. She liked Reba but didn’t want the distraction.

She slowed as she approached the main gate, waiting for Lester to activate the opener. As soon as the gate swung open, she and Ralph headed north.

She walked down the middle of the empty roadway. Ralph ran excitedly from side to side, sniffing clumps of prairie grass and frantically digging up gopher runs. She wondered what he would do if he actually caught a gopher.

At the end of an hour, Lester honked at her, and she and Ralph rode the rest of the way. “There it is,” he said, pointing toward a mailbox hanging crookedly on a fence post. The name on the box was “McGraf.” At the end of an overgrown lane she could see a listing barn, a windmill with a missing blade, and a stone chimney jutting out of a rooftop.

“I want to take a look,” she told Lester as she reached for the door handle.

“No way. I’d lose my job if you fell down an old well or through a rotten floor.”

Jamie started to protest but decided she didn’t want to get Lester in trouble. Disappointed, she stared at the desolate scene. “Why did the McGrafs leave?” she asked.

“Actually there are several deserted farmhouses on the ranch,” Lester explained. “Word has it that Mr. Hartmann paid the back taxes on the farms and had the occupants evicted. The McGrafs didn’t get very far, though. They loaded up their truck and drove off right before a blizzard hit. No one knew they were missing, so no one went looking for them. It was a week or so later when some hunters spotted the truck out in the middle of a field. Mr. McGraf and the missus and three kids were all packed into the cab of the truck. Apparently they lost their way in all that snow and ice and froze to death.”

“How horrible!” Jamie said. A family had tried to make a living here and failed. But they shouldn’t have had to pay with their lives.

“Yeah,” Lester agreed. “Every few years something like that happens. Sometimes a farmer gets lost on his way back from his own barn. Weather gets that bad sometimes.”

She imagined the family members taking what they could fit in the back of an aging truck and leaving the rest to be scavenged by drifters over the years. Had Gus Hartmann given them a deadline, threatening to send the sheriff to evict them, or had they simply not realized a blizzard was on the way?

“So this property is part of Hartmann Ranch now?” Jamie asked.

Lester nodded. “I guess it’s all right for me to tell you since it’s public record. All the Hartmann land used to be on the east side of the road, but now they own several thousand acres along the west side.”

“Why do they need so much land?” Jamie asked, taking in fields that had once been cleared but were now covered with prairie grass and scrubby mesquite trees. Obviously, Gus Hartmann had no pressing use for the land when he made the McGraf family leave.

Lester shrugged. “My dad says that owning a lot of land makes rich folks feel safe or something like that. Kind of like owning an island, I guess. Instead of being surrounded by water, or by walls like the movie stars in Hollywood, some rich people surround themselves with a sea of land. Except what’s the point if they never visit their safe place. Gus Hartmann hasn’t been to the ranch since I started working here. And Miss Amanda has only been here once since she married the greenhorn.”

Jamie took a last look at the deserted homestead as Lester turned the truck around and sighed.

“You feeling okay?” he asked.

“Just a little melancholy. Those poor people. By now Mr. and Mrs. McGraf should have had grandkids running around the yard.”

“Yeah. Or maybe the Lord was ready to call them home,” Lester said. “Maybe they’re living in a whole lot better place than they had back there and not having to work so damned hard to put food on the table and shirts on their backs.”

“So we shouldn’t grieve when people die?” Jamie asked. “Or question the circumstances when their deaths seem so unnecessary?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Lester said. “I leave stuff like that to Miss Amanda.”

They rode in silence for a time. Then Jamie asked, “Would you really lose your job if I got hurt?”

“Yep. And this is a damned good job. Better than any job I’d have working in Alma, that’s for sure. I’ve got health insurance, a retirement plan, and two weeks’ paid leave a year. And I live in one of the bunkhouses for nothing. Miss Amanda takes good care of her people.”

“I saw Amanda the other night on television,” Jamie said. “She was amazing.”

“Yeah, whenever one of her revivals is televised, all the Hartmann City folks gather at the church to watch on the big screen. Everyone who works on the ranch thinks the world of Miss Amanda.”

“What about Gus Hartmann?” Jamie asked as she stroked her dog. “What do people think of him?”

“Everyone respects him, but he doesn’t know everyone’s name like Miss Amanda. When I was a little kid, he used to come to the football games in Alma with Amanda’s son. Mr. Hartmann is a short little guy.
Real
short. Sonny Hartmann went to a private school back East, but when he was at the ranch, he’d drive into town and hang out some. You’d think a rich kid like that would be a snob, but he wasn’t. Sometimes he even played pickup basketball at the school yard. Shame about what happened to him. Everyone in town was real tore up over it. But you know what? I’m not supposed to talk about the Hartmanns. It’s a habit, I guess. Folks who live here on the ranch are more interested in the Hartmanns than they are in movie stars or football heroes or the president in Washington, D.C., but we all signed a paper promising not to talk about the Hartmann family to outsiders.”

“A confidentiality agreement?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Lester said. “But since you’re living here now, I guess that kind of makes you one of us.”