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Back The Surrogate Save as PDF
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

He said he would try to get the court order, but it might take a day. He would try a local lawyer here in Duluth who could get it faster. He said we’d need to do DNA testing to prove I was the mother, and the test would also show who was or wasn’t the father. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that, but of course it had to happen. But first the police and Social Services would have to find the baby and take custody of her. And I was pretty sure they were at Deena’s.

While I was on the phone, Sam got up and said he had to go to work. “Hang on,” I said. “Can you go to Deena’s and see what’s happening?”

Sam nodded as he swung his coat on. “I was already planning on it.”

I got a warm feeling inside.

“I’ll go check it out,” he said. “And I’ll see you later.”

I looked at Vera, and she was beaming, as if she and Sam had silently passed some batons of their own. I finished my call with the lawyer, leaned back, and exhaled. This was my team, and Nell was my child. I knew it, and they knew it. I’d follow my lawyer’s advice and my doctor’s orders, and I’d get my body as healthy as it could be, so I’d have the best chance possible to be Nell’s mom.

Part Three

Fifty-Two

Ruth

FEBRUARY 2003

The next time I saw our daughter, she was not as I remembered. She was different and so was I. Worlds had passed between us, or maybe I saw her through different eyes. She was two months older and so much bigger. She seemed to have traveled to a place I’d never know and she’d never tell me about. Maybe I saw her through Hal’s eyes, with all that he’d been through, but she was further away even than that. Maybe I saw her through Cally’s eyes, the eyes of a parent, after watching Hal flounder in his helplessness. Jake had come out of the coma, but he’d lost the use of his legs. It was devastating. It would take years for him and us to adjust to the new reality. And maybe I’d suffered my own form of paralysis. Maybe my spirit was simply too weak to hold Elizabeth now, too weak to lift her up and take her away from there.