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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

“Nothing.” I closed my eyes and leaned back. My cheek touched the cold leather headrest. One of these days, I thought, I should quit my lonely habit of going silent when I’m hurt. Hal wasn’t curious enough to ask me how I felt. He wasn’t perceptive. Or aware that I was sad. Had he really not known that I wanted to hold the baby longer? And that he shouldn’t have handed her over to Cally like that? He would have made a terrible journalist, I thought. And I wondered whether he was any good at parenting. If I’d misjudged him. Maybe this had been a mistake. I turned my head to peek at Hal. He was tapping on the steering wheel like a drummer, playing some song in his head. This was one of his habits of which he was not aware.

“Can you please stop that tapping?”

“Sure,” he said, and started whistling.

We seemed to catch every red light on the way home. I peeked at each intersection, vaguely recognizing the places we’d driven past so many times. They looked different now. Empty parking lots ready for tomorrow’s shoppers. I couldn’t think of a single thing I needed to buy. Nothing that I wanted in any of these stores.

“I can’t wait to call the boys,” Hal said. “And bring them over to meet their new sister.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, trying to sound like I was excited for them. “But Jake’s up north snowboarding, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” said Hal. “But when he gets back, he’ll be so excited.”

I wasn’t sure about that. Neither of Hal’s sons seemed particularly jazzed to be getting a half sibling. They weren’t thrilled with having a stepmother. To be fair, this whole thing had been foisted upon them, and it’d been rather a whirlwind. Hal and I had met, dated, married, and had a baby all in the span of five years, which is fine if you’re in your thirties and your stepkids are toddlers. But when you’re fortysomething and your husband has teenagers and an ex-wife, things are more complicated. Things take more time.

Hal’s boys had been fighting tooth and nail to get out of being there for the transfer ceremony. So when Hal informed me that Jake had a big snowboarding competition on the same weekend, I wasn’t surprised that Hal had given Jake permission to miss the ceremony.

And I wasn’t upset.

Nineteen

Cally

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2002

Morning