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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

But I thought about Nell all the time. And what I’d done wrong. The judge said I’d put the baby in danger, and he gave temporary custody to Hal and Ruth. And somehow it was my fault that Digger had taken her from the cabin. My lawyer argued my side of the story but lost. Our only hope was in the final custody hearing.

My plan was to show the judge how stable I’d become. Returning to school. Getting a part-time job as a secretary for a CPA. Doing research on my future accounting career. And a social worker came to check out my apartment and ask me parenting questions. Hopefully, the judge would see that I’d be a loving and good mom, able to care for a baby by myself.

My lawyer wanted me to bring a counter-lawsuit against Hal and Ruth because of the physical damage to my body. And the emotional pain. He was using it as a negotiation strategy. He said I should protect my rights and expand my options. My counter-lawsuit would give me bargaining power, he said. I wasn’t used to having any kind of power, and I was starting to like it.

Digger was out of my life for good. I was pissed at him, but I was sure he was happy in Florida. He and Deena both signed a paper saying they promised to leave me alone and not come after me for money. And I agreed not to press charges. But I realized I couldn’t hold a grudge against Digger; we’d been friends for so long. And I’d been the one who asked him to get into this whole thing in the first place. I was surprised by my sadness when I found out that one of the fetuses, the one who died, was actually Digger’s. We’d never get married and have a kid together. And that was a loss, in some strange, unrealistic way, the way my younger self would have thought about it. I felt like I had aged ten years in three months.

Sarah and I spent a lot of time together, and she was a good friend to me. She’d had a baby boy and named him Lucas. They came to see me every Tuesday, just like our birth class, but in the mornings. Sarah put her baby boy in my lap and let me hold him, but he was so different from Nell. He smelled different. He had no hair. He didn’t make eye contact with me like Nell did, not that deep stare. I didn’t even think he could see me. I always believed that Nell could recognize me when I held her. We’d gaze into each other’s eyes, and I felt I knew her in a way I’d never known anyone else. But not this baby. He wasn’t mine.