“Like my father, she’s probably cemented into her ways,” I offered. “My mother likes to say, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ Of course, she won’t say it in front of him.”
“Oh, if I ever called Elizabeth Davenport an old dog… I’d have to leave the country, not just Wyndemere,” she said, her eyes bright. She giggled as if we were already conspirators.
After she ended the tour of Wyndemere, we both agreed we were tired enough now to go to sleep. Dr. Davenport came quickly down the hallway when he heard us walking toward our bedrooms.
“You two going to sleep?”
“Yes, we are, Harrison. It’s been a long and trying day, and so sad now, too,” Samantha said. She took his hand, and he hugged and kissed her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said, releasing her and turning to me.
“Parker will be taking you to the hospital and then Dr. Bliskin’s office at nine in the morning,” he said.
“And me, too,” Samantha said.
“Yes, of course. I’ll be in touch throughout. He’s going to expedite all the tests we need.”
“How’s Elizabeth?” Samantha asked.
“She’s asleep. My mother puts on a good act, but she’s a bit more vulnerable than she’d like to be. In a way, it’s better for the two of you to be busy tomorrow.”
“What about the funeral?” Samantha asked.
“I’ll get the details to you tomorrow.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry that this is your introduction to Wyndemere. However, I’ll be taking time off now, and I’ll do what I can to make everything run smoothly.”
“I can return to New York and come back,” I suggested.
“Oh, no!” Samantha cried. “We have everything planned, down to the month our child should be born, or close to it.”
“It’s not always that specific, Samantha. Things might take a while,” Dr. Davenport said softly.
“I don’t think so, Harrison.” She looked at me. “Everything is too perfect. You’ll see.”
He smiled. “You might be right,” he said, touching her cheek.
I had no doubt that to keep her happy, he would move heaven and earth to make it so. I wondered if I would ever find a man who looked at me the way he looked at her. It was as if she was the sun, the very source of his health and happiness.
However, this man hadn’t even had a moment to mourn, I thought. He was hiding his sadness to avoid making her sad.
He turned to me. “Are you all right? It’s been something of a whirlwind for you. I didn’t anticipate all this so soon.”
“Yes, I’m fine, but I am tired.”
“Of course. Have a good night’s rest,” he said.
“I’ll wake you,” Samantha promised after she hugged me. “We’ll have breakfast in the little alcove off the kitchen. It gets the morning sun. It’s not going to rain tomorrow, is it, Harrison?” she asked, practically demanded.
“I don’t think so.”
She looked down the hall. “Is he…”
“No, he’s been taken to the funeral parlor.”
“Good,” she said. “Oh. I didn’t mean good.”
“I know, sweetheart,” he said. He glanced at me.
It was obvious she meant that she didn’t want to think about what had happened, but I didn’t believe it was because she was unfeeling. Death frightened her because it had visited this house, a place I easily understood to be her fortress. The grounds, the servants, and her doting husband all provided her with the walls that kept her safe from the tensions and turmoil of the outside world.
“Maybe you should give me something to help me sleep,” she said, “like you did for your mother.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Good night, Emma.”
“Yes, good night,” Samantha said.
I watched him walk her down to her room and go in with her before I entered mine. The bedding smelled brand new. With the oversized, exceedingly soft pillows, I easily imagined I was going to sleep on a cloud. Despite what had happened and how strange I still felt being here, the emotional turmoil inside me and the traveling pushed me to near exhaustion. I think I fell asleep seconds after closing my eyes.
But I didn’t sleep through the night. The sound of someone sobbing woke me. When I listened harder, I thought I heard voices. I rose and went to my door. Peering out toward the sound of sobbing and voices, I saw Elizabeth Davenport in a robe. Dr. Davenport, also in a robe, was embracing her and trying to get her to go back to her bedroom.
I glanced toward Samantha’s room, but all was quiet. When I looked back at Dr. Davenport and his mother, I thought he looked in my direction. I closed the door softly and returned to bed. I really didn’t know these people. What was happening wasn’t my business. Their grief was still quite raw. Samantha had welcomed me to her world with open arms, almost the way someone might welcome a long-lost close and loved relative, but I was still a stranger, someone feeling more like I was imposing on their grief instead of sharing it.
When I closed my eyes again, I started to think about my parents and Julia. The Davenport family was seriously diminished; mine was in a state of limbo. Tomorrow, when the time difference permitted it, I would have to call. If my father answered, I would plead with him not to immediately hang up. If Julia or my mother answered, I would tell the “good lie” and say I had a role in a regional theater show. Hopefully, they would believe me, and I could call them periodically until I had delivered the Davenports’ baby and returned to New York.
With so much money, I could afford a quick trip back to England and try to win back my father’s affection and convince him to approve of my efforts to develop my career. Time can heal. Despite how angry he was, it surely had cooled to the point where he might regret being so furious as to cut me out of his and my mother’s lives. My absence hopefully kept him awake at night, too. If people who were meant to love each other couldn’t forgive each other, who could?
I fell back to sleep and slept so deeply that Samantha indeed had to wake me in the morning. I felt her shake my shoulder and opened my eyes to see her standing there in the exact same silk robe I had.
“Harrison said I should wake you. After breakfast, we’re going right to the hospital to get your blood tests and… let me remember… something called an EKG and a chest X-ray. Then we’ll go to Dr. Bliskin’s offices for the important tests a candidate for surrogate mother must take.” She recited it all like something she had just memorized.
I sat up and looked at the clock. I might be able to reach my mother, I thought.
“I have to call home. They might try to reach me in New York and not understand why I’m never there now.”
“Oh. Of course. Call them. I’ll come back in an hour,” she said.
“How is your mother-in-law this morning?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Harrison didn’t say before he left, and she’s shut up in her room.”
Her relationship with her mother-in-law must have been cool even before this, I thought. Why wouldn’t she want to offer her sympathy and companionship?
She opened the closet. “You should probably wear something like this.” She reached in and took out a short-sleeved multicolored T-shirt dress. “It’s easy to get in and out of when you’re at the hospital and the doctor’s office. I’ll wear one just like it. These sandals are perfect, too.”
She laid the dress over a chair and the sandals at the foot of it even though I didn’t say I would wear it. Then she started out, pausing at the door before opening it.
“I don’t like talking about it too much. I don’t want to think my baby will be any different from any other, but Dr. Bliskin had prescribed a fertility drug for me so I could produce more eggs, and I did. Don’t you hate thinking of it as eggs inside you? I haven’t eaten any since.
“Anyway, just like normally, Harrison’s sperm has to fertilize successfully. If all goes well with you this morning, the embryo will be transferred to your uterus as soon as five days a
fter we get your results, maybe even three. We can declare you’re pregnant with our baby soon after that. I’m sure you want to get it all started as soon as possible, right?”
“Yes,” I said. I was thinking, however, that even after all the tests I took, I still had to make the final decision. Dr. Davenport had left that possibility open. Samantha would be devastated if I backed out. She wasn’t even going to consider the possibility.
“Harrison was going to find time to explain this timetable to you before we left for the hospital, but I told him it would be more comfortable for you if I did. He’s too… scientific when he talks to people. I told Dr. Bliskin that, and do you know what he said? He said that’s Harrison’s way of avoiding being too emotional. He can be very emotional, despite the act he’s putting on for you and the act he puts on for his patients,” she said. “Late last night, he returned to my bedroom for me to comfort him.”
Probably after he dealt with his mother, I thought, but didn’t say.
“He was closer to his father than he is to his mother. Anyway, forget about all that. Let’s have a good breakfast. I already decided that after all your tests and your doctor’s visit, we will go to one of the best restaurants in Hillsborough for lunch.”
She opened the door and paused again. “You’re all right, right?”
She had rattled off everything with barely taking a breath and hardly looking directly at me the whole time. It was truly as if she had rehearsed her speech in this room many times. Surely, she had in her own mind.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said. I know I sounded unsure, because I was, but she ignored it, smiled, and left.
As soon as I rose, I called home. The phone rang so long I was sure it would go to the answering machine.
However, just before it would have, Mummy said, “Hello.”
“Mummy, how are you?” I quickly asked, happy it was she who had answered.
“Oh, Emma. Are you calling to tell us you’re coming home?”
I could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had lied to my mummy, if they even qualified as lies. Most of them were half-truths. It was always easier for me to live with my father’s disappointment in me than it was to live with my mummy’s. His reactions were solely crusted in anger; hers were layered with pain. When she discovered I hadn’t told the whole truth, she acted as if I had stuck a needle in her finger. Rather than shout and bawl me out, she looked like she would cry, and then I would feel so terrible that I would cry.
I couldn’t see her face right now, but I could easily envision it.
“No, Mummy. I have a part in a show outside of New York City.”
I knew this was weird, but in my mind I was treating it that way.
“I’m letting you know I won’t be at my apartment and my telephone number.”
“Oh,” she said.
“If the show’s successful, I’ll be in it for months and months, maybe close to a year. It’s a big opportunity. Important people come to see these shows.”
“Months and months,” she repeated, as if she had to stuff the words into her ear. Then she took a breath and said, “Mrs. Taylor was taken to hospital yesterday. She had a bad fall and was nearly unconscious.”
“I’m sorry. Is she going to be all right?”
“Your father says she won’t be able to live alone anymore. He spoke with her son. They’ll be putting her place up for sale. Your father hates the idea of new people next door. You know how he gets used to things,” she rambled on. “He hates changes.”
“I know.”
“So you’re not coming home,” she said, as if she was confirming it with herself.
“Not for a while, as I said. It’s why I came here,” I added. I knew I was rationalizing, committing one of my father’s declared deadly sins, but I was still convincing myself what I was doing was still part of my plan.
“He’s not been himself,” she added, seemingly out of the blue. “He’s never forgetful, but everything annoys him more these days, and he gets distracted. Julia’s not seeing that man anymore. I don’t know why. She won’t say. I don’t think your father liked him.”
“That’s why,” I said quickly.
“Poor Mrs. Taylor,” she said. “She’ll wither like an apple on the branch. Dreary days, dreary days.”
She was wandering from topic to topic to avoid discussing what I had told her. The silence that fell between us was painful.
“I’ll call you again, very soon, Mummy,” I said, swallowing down my tears.
“I won’t tell him you did,” she said.
I waited a moment to see if she would ask any questions about my show, causing me to embellish my lie, but she didn’t, perhaps because she was too frightened to ask.
“Mind yourself,” she said, and hung up.
I stood there for almost a minute, holding the receiver. A part of me was screaming to get my clothes on, ask to be taken back to New York, and arrange to return to England. I was on the verge, tottering. Then I looked at the dress Samantha had chosen for me, again thought about the money and the opportunity doing this would give me, and went to shower and dress.
Close to an hour later, Samantha returned. For a moment, I was speechless. She wasn’t just wearing the same kind of dress; she was wearing the exact color and the same sandals.
“We’ll look like twin sisters,” she said.
“Why did you buy two exactly the same?”
“Oh, often I do when I really like something, two pairs of the same shoes, two of the same hats, and yes, two of the same dress. I hate when I can’t wear something because it needs cleaning or has a tear. Whatever.” She laughed. “I’m so spoiled, and now, for a while, so will you be.”
Would I? Did I want to be?
We went down to breakfast. Mrs. Marlene looked like she had been up all night. While Samantha rattled on about what we would do once we were free after the medical exams, Mrs. Marlene continually glanced at me. Our eyes often met and we exchanged knowing glances. I thought and felt Mrs. Marlene agreed that Samantha’s exuberance was coming from her nervousness and her desire to ignore what had happened at Wyndemere.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Mrs. Marlene fully understood why I was here and what I was about to do. How much had Samantha and Dr. Davenport actually shared with her? Did she approve? Disapprove? Would she ever tell me? I had no doubt she would worry about losing her position if she said anything negative about it to Samantha. Dr. Davenport had made it clear I was not to do so.
When it was time for us to leave, Samantha lingered beside me until Mrs. Marlene left the room. I had the feeling she didn’t want me to talk to Mrs. Marlene or Mrs. Marlene to talk to me without her present. Was it always going to be like this? Or was she just going to be this worried about me talking to anyone until I had completely agreed and had the embryo transfer? Even if that were true, would I be any different if it was I and not she who was having this done? Probably not, but I couldn’t see myself doing it unless it was the only way I could have a child.
Parker was waiting for us. All the way to the hospital, Samantha was obviously filled with more trepidation than I was. In a real sense, she was going to be having these tests, too. If I failed, she failed, at least for now.
When we arrived at the hospital, it was clear that Dr. Davenport was something of a hero there. Everyone moved quickly to get me processed. At times, I felt like this was more of an emergency than a routine examination. Even Parker looked surprised when we emerged much sooner than he had anticipated. We got back into the limousine to be brought to Dr. Bliskin’s office.
“There was one book I confess I read from cover to cover,” Samantha said as we drove on. “Once Harrison and I decided we wanted a child now.”
“What was that?”
“It’s called My Mommy Brain. You don’t have to read it, though—I can tell you everything,” she said. “And I’ll be right by your side should you have any of the symptoms.”
“What symptoms?�
��
“Nothing to be afraid of. A woman’s personality has to change a little if she’s pregnant, don’t you think? For you, it’s only going to be nine months. For me, it’s the rest of my life.”
Didn’t she think I might have a baby of my own someday?
“I’d like to read that book, too,” I said. “Who gave it to you?”
“My husband.” She thought for a few moments and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll give it to you after you’re pregnant.”
I wondered about it.
“Did your husband give it to you before or after you decided to do this?”
She smiled. “I really don’t remember,” she said, but I thought she said it just a little too quickly.
Something in that book might have frightened her. After all, how many women were going to deliberately seek out a surrogate to carry their own child? Surely, this was not Dr. Davenport’s intent when he gave the book to her. Perhaps he felt responsible, however. If my theory was right, he was the one to introduce her to all the medical possibilities because he feared he had ruined their chances to have a child.
When I thought about this, the part of my father in me wondered if I should have asked for more money. Chances were that I would have gotten it. But as strange as my father might find it, I would have felt guilty afterward, and certainly after meeting Samantha. “You be quiet,” I told the Daddy inside me. “Not everything in this life is measured in a profit-and-loss statement.”
TWELVE
Dr. Bliskin had his offices in a beautiful, new modern building off the main street of Hillsborough. The lobby was paneled in a pretty Wedgwood blue with slightly darker blue marble tiles. The room was softened by a half dozen cheerful paintings of idyllic country scenes. There was an array of cushioned chairs and two matching settees. Magazines, most about motherhood and childbearing, were stacked neatly on a center table. The receptionist was behind a glass panel that she slid open the moment we stepped into the lobby. Before we even reached her, she was smiling and informed Samantha we should go right in. Two pregnant women, one quite a bit further along than the other, looked up, curious and annoyed.
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