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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

“I can’t see my watch,” he said. Digger wore a watch and never took it off. Not to shower, not to sleep. Not when he lifted weights. Never. His watch was as much a part of him as the mole on his left thigh or his oddly shaped ears that I thought looked like a greyhound’s. “It’s too dark. Why do you care?”

“Come on, you can see it.” I knew the hands glowed in the dark.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said, rolling over in bed and sitting up on one elbow. “It’s two-forty-five, okay?”

“Thank you. That’s about what I thought.”

“Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Yes,” I said. The baby leaned back, coughing and then smacking her lips. I pulled her wiggly body up to my shoulder and stood, pressing her against me enough with one arm so I could lean down and wipe off the rocker cushion. I’d felt something there, like a screw or a nail or a hardened piece of food. I thought about the story of the princess and the pea, which my dad used to read to me. The story he especially liked, because I was his Little Pea. And he told it whenever I was picky about whatever it happened to be, like not wanting my cheeseburger to touch my fries, or not wanting the seat belt pulled too tight, or not wanting calamine lotion on my mosquito bites. I grew up thinking it was better not to complain about my pet peeves, because I didn’t want to be like the princess and the pea. Once I asked him if that was why my mother left us. He’d said, No, Caroline, my real name, the name he used when he was serious. I’d wanted to believe him, but I wondered if he was only trying to protect me.

I sat back down on the rocker, and the cushion felt nice and soft. No pebbles or peas. I leaned back and rocked with Nell at my shoulder, and I closed my eyes. She was gurgling and smushing her face on my neck, like she was trying to rub an itch. And then she burped, which surprised me and made me smile. It was the smallest little poof of a belch I’d ever heard. I opened my eyes and felt my other breast filling up and aching, the left one. She’d already sucked on the right breast, and the hospital nurse had told me to keep it equal, to even them out. But my own breast was telling me now, so I leaned forward and lowered the baby back down under my T-shirt. I stuck her face up against my left breast; she smacked her lips a few times like she wasn’t ready, but then took hold of the nipple. Relief!