BooksBarbecue
Back The Surrogate
Chapters (65)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Part One
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Part Two
  39. Thirty-Four
  40. Thirty-Five
  41. Thirty-Six
  42. Thirty-Seven
  43. Thirty-Eight
  44. Thirty-Nine
  45. Forty
  46. Forty-One
  47. Forty-Two
  48. Forty-Three
  49. Forty-Four
  50. Forty-Five
  51. Forty-Six
  52. Forty-Seven
  53. Forty-Eight
  54. Forty-Nine
  55. Fifty
  56. Fifty-One
  57. Part Three
  58. Fifty-Two
  59. Fifty-Three
  60. Fifty-Four
  61. Fifty-Five
  62. Fifty-Six
  63. Acknowledgments
  64. About the Author
  65. About the Publisher

Hal was ready for us to read and sign this surrogacy agreement, an agreement which, as an additional bonus, he, a real estate lawyer, was quite proud of having written himself. The conference room heater whizzed and rattled into action and caught our attention. I laughed nervously as all three of us turned and stared at the heater vents at the base of the floor.

“Geez, Hal, the heater,” I said, teasing about the rackety old utilities in Hal’s office building. “Should we take cover?”

Cally didn’t laugh at my joke. She didn’t seem to mind the noisy heater. But I wanted everything to be smooth and easy. Why couldn’t we have a warm and quiet heater, a heater that worked?

“It’s fine,” said Hal. “They tell me they’ll be fixing it soon.”

“It’s already winter. It’s November,” I said, stating the obvious.

Ignoring me, Hal continued, “Shall we review the TSA?”

“Yes,” Cally and I said in unison. Here was something we could agree on: the preliminary small talk had been torture.

Hal pushed a copy of the contract toward each of us and pointed to the title. “This is the traditional surrogacy agreement,” he said. “Actually, hold on.” He leaned back in his chair and reached his long frame toward the door, opened it, and called out, “Pat, will you come in here and bring your notary stamp?”

Cally and I exchanged glances, and I wondered if she’d ever been an administrative assistant. I’d been a temp for two summers during college. Not terribly qualified as a steno, I’d patched together a few skills to make it through. Fast handwriting (but not shorthand, like Pat), fast typing (thanks to a typing class in junior high), and excellent proofreading (thanks to reading lots of books).

Pat returned with her stamp, pen, and steno pad. Hal asked her to sit in on our meeting to take notes but also to be a witness. In case, I guessed, there were ever a legal dispute over this.

Our team had just gained another member.

Five

Digger

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2002

Night

Driving to the hospital at eleven at night, in the snow, was not exactly my idea of a good time, but when Cally called and asked, I said I would. Even though she had dumped me. And we hadn’t talked in almost a year.

Cally and I had been making each other crazy on and off for five years. But that’s what we did. We fought, made up, fought, made up. It was like coats of paint, and it had been that way forever. Since we met, really. In high school.