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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

From time to time out in the community, I’d run into Audrey. Hal had introduced us early on. She didn’t make me feel terribly comfortable, and I understood that. Once I saw her in the grocery store parking lot. She was leaving just as I was getting out of my car, so I walked toward the other entrance to avoid her and make things easier for us both. Food shopping was already miserable enough without adding the unwanted ex-wife encounter. But there she was.

“Hello, Ruth,” she called from the parking lot.

I turned around and feigned surprise. “Oh, Audrey, hi,” I said, stepping down the curb and back into the parking area. “I didn’t see you.”

“Yes, you did.” She simpered and opened her purse, pulling out her keys and a pack of gum. She was digging for something.

“Okay.” I stepped out of the way of cars and up onto a median that separated the parking lot. A safe zone.

“And how are the boys?” She put her keys away, plucked out a cigarette, and lit it. “Is Caleb over his cold?” she asked, exhaling smoke to the side, but the wind blew it back in our faces.

“I think it was just allergies,” I said.

“No.” Audrey shook her head. “Caleb doesn’t have allergies.” She was the only one allowed to diagnose her sons’ ailments, and I had crossed a line.

“Anyway, he seems fine,” I said.

“And Hal?” She looked me up and down as she took another drag. “I know he has a big closing coming up, or has it happened already?”

“It was last week. Went fine.” I hated how Audrey snooped for intel about Hal’s work. When they divorced, she negotiated some deal where she got more alimony if Hal closed a big transaction. Fortunately, the alimony obligation would end when Audrey remarried. Unfortunately, she had no marriage plans on the horizon.

“Well, I’d better not dawdle.” She winked and sashayed away, holding the lit cigarette in her right hand. “Good seeing you, Ruth.” She flicked the ashes and didn’t look back.

I always told Hal about my encounters with Audrey, because I wanted him to know, but also because she would inevitably tell him her version of things in one of their periodic phone conversations about bills to pay or decisions to make. Sometimes she would show up unannounced at the House during Hal’s week with the kids, because she was in the neighborhood or because one of the boys forgot something, or simply because she was having a fit and needed to see Hal.