The Surrogate, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book one (10 page)

1:18

The image of the tiny hand laid up against the tiny head wouldn’t leave Hannah’s mind. Nor would the idea that she would hold that hand and cradle that head one day. For a while, anyway.

Why hadn’t she been shown what she now knew were sonograms? She was bothered by the secretive behavior of Jolene and Dr. Johanson, huddling over the television monitor, examining pictures of the child in her belly. It seemed like such a violation of her privacy. The child was Jolene’s, true, and she had every right to see it. But didn’t Hannah, too? They were all supposed to be going through this experience together. And the very first pictures of the baby had been deliberately kept from her.

Hannah was reminded that, nice as the Whitfields were to her, she was there to do a job for them. And the job was happening inside her body. How could she possibly be expected to separate herself from the feelings she was experiencing?

Every night, she went to sleep with the baby in her thoughts and every morning, before she’d even slipped on her robe and slippers, her first thoughts were for the unborn child. She would speak to it, whenever she was alone or Jolene was out of hearing range, and she started imagining that it was answering. All day long, the little messages went back and forth. “You are loved so much.” “You are loved, too.” “You are precious to me.” “As you are precious to me.”

Jolene never mentioned the visit to the doctor’s office, but she was increasingly preoccupied with “appearances.”

Later that week at dinner, she brought up the subject of people talking and what could be done about it.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Marshall insisted. “This is our child. Hannah is providing us with special and loving assistance. She shouldn’t have to deny that.”

“I not saying she has to deny anything. I’m saying why does every Tom, Dick and Harry have to know our business. You know what gossips they are in this town. Our close friends, well, that’s a different story.”

“You’re making too much of this,” Marshall insisted. “People will say what they’re going to say. Anyway, don’t you think they should be aware that this kind of service is available?”

“Service?” Hannah thought to herself.

Jolene was not persuaded. “So what does she say at the library when she’s checking out a book and the librarian asks her when the baby is due? Or the gallery. Think of all the people who’ll be at my show. What does she tell them?”

“She says December.”

“And what if someone asks about the father? Does she say, ‘Oh, it’s that nice Mr. Whitfield, who lives on Alcott Street.’ Imagine!”

“I give up, Jolene. What do you suggest?” Marshall’s irritation was showing.

Jolene opened the lid of a small jewelry box and placed it on the table. Resting in a nest of black velvet was a gold wedding ring. “This will answer so many questions, believe me. She can say her husband is overseas and she’s staying temporarily with us. Well, why not?”

“I don’t want Hannah to do anything she’s not comfortable doing.”

“It will be like a game. A play, and Hannah will be the leading lady. It’s only a ring, Marshall.”

He leaned back in his chair, reluctant to get dragged into an extended argument.

“What do you think, Hannah?”

“I don’t know. Is it really necessary?”

“You two!” Jolene said. “What harm can it do? A silly little ring! And if it shuts up a few meddlers…Oh, just try it on, Hannah. Do that for me, at least.”

Hannah took the ring out of its case and slipped it on her finger.

“It even fits!” crowed Jolene, her delight so manifest that Hannah didn’t dare take it off.

1:19

And still Hannah continued to dream of the little head that would one day rest on her breast, the little hand that would grasp hers, and those little feet, which even now begun to kick and would kick off the soft white blanket in the white crib in the blue nursery. She would bend over and tickle those feet, then tuck the soft white blanket around the tiny body and—

No! Jolene would tuck in the blanket. Jolene would tickle the feet. Hannah made herself think of something else. There was nothing to be gained from these daydreams.

She wandered aimlessly around the house. Jolene’s mini-van was gone from the garage. There was nobody around. She went upstairs, took a sweater from her bureau and draped it over her shoulders. Fifteen minutes later, she was sitting in the back pew of Our Lady of Perpetual Light.

A few people, mostly older women, were already there, seated near the confessional, into which they disappeared, one by one, only to emerge minutes later and kneel at the altar rail, where they quietly recited the Hail Marys the priest had given them as penance. They didn’t kneel for long, so their sins couldn’t have been that serious, Hannah concluded. Not as serious as the one she couldn’t put out of her mind.

And thinking about a sin was almost as bad as committing it. The nuns had taught her that much in Sunday school.

She watched the last woman leave the confessional and kneel before the altar. Father Jimmy would come out of the booth next. But it wasn’t Father Jimmy, who appeared. It was an older priest, 60 or so, sturdily built, with a ruddy complexion and a shock of silver hair. He stopped briefly to talk to one of the parishioners.

Swallowing her disappointment, Hannah made her way to his side and waited quietly until he finished his conversation and directed his attention to her. Up close, his face looked authoritarian, the rough-hewn features conveying an impression of rigor and strength. His bushy eyebrows were silver, too, which made his dark eyes stand out.

“Excuse me. Is Father Jimmy here today?”

“You mean for confession?”

“No, I just wanted to talk to him.”

“I believe he’s in the rectory. Can I be of help?” His rich, sonorous voice seemed to rumble up from his feet.

“No, no. I don’t want to bother him. I’ll come back another time.”

“You won’t be bothering him. That’s his job. Why don’t you come with me, Mrs….?”

Hannah had a moment of confusion, until she realized he had seen the wedding ring.

“Manning. Hannah Manning.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Manning. You’re new here, aren’t you? I’m Monsignor Gallagher.”

The rectory, a two-story clapboard house with white shutters and a wide front porch, was in keeping with the rest of the neighborhood, if less grandiose. Monsignor Gallagher showed Hannah into the parlor. The furniture was on the dowdy side, but the room was immaculate, the wood polished to a high shine. The absence of knickknacks and other signs of daily habitation indicated that it was reserved for official occasions. A graying housekeeper materialized to ask Hannah if she would like a cup of tea, and, receiving a negative answer, returned to the kitchen.

Monsignor Gallagher said, “If you’ll take a seat, Mrs. Manning, I’ll get Father James. Or Father Jimmy, as you call him. You and everybody else, it seems.” Midway up the staircase, he stopped and added. “I hope to see you often in the future. Naturally, the invitation extends to your husband, if he so wishes.”

“Thank you, I’ll tell him,” said Hannah, blushing faintly.

Father Jimmy looked surprised, but pleased to see Hannah, when, minutes later, he bounded into the reception room.

“How are you? Everything all right?”

“Fine, fine. I just asked the Monsignor if you were around, and before I knew it, he was leading me over here.”

“He likes to take charge. It’s a good quality if you’re going to run a parish.”

“I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. I just wanted to talk. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No, I was playing around on the computer. Web surfing. We can talk outside, if you’d like. It’s a beautiful day.”

A cool front from the north had staved off the stifling heat that usually gripped Massachusetts in late August and lawns that would have long since been scorched by the sun remained green and fresh. Midway between the rectory and the church, the shade from a pair of maple trees fell over a stone bench. Hannah sat down at one end, the priest at the other, as if both were adhering to some unspoken rule about the acceptable proximity of priest and parishioner, when the latter was young and attractive.

“I’ve been having some disturbing thoughts is all,” said Hannah. “I thought it might help if I discussed them with somebody.”

The priest waited for her to continue.

“Thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking. Wrong thoughts.”

“Then you’re right to want to talk about them.”

“The problem is, I promised I wouldn’t. I don’t want to break that promise. It’s so complicated. You’ll think I’m a horrible person.”

“No, I won’t.” He was struck by the confusion that had come over her all of a sudden. “You’re concerned about betraying a confidence, is that it?”

“Sort of.”

“Something about this confidence is causing you distress?”

“Yes,” she said, the misgivings about divulging the details evident in her wrinkled forehead. He was aware of how little experience he had dealing with people his own age. Older women and young children came to him for absolution, but the difference in years made him less self-conscious about his role, and their sins were invariably trivial. Hannah Manning belonged to his generation. He felt his inadequacy acutely.

“If you want to talk to me in the form of a confession, it will go no further than here.” he suggested. “I am bound by the holy orders not to reveal anything you say. So you wouldn’t be betraying anyone. Perhaps that way, I could help you find the… the peace you deserve.”

The words sounded lofty even to his own ear, almost pompous. He meant them, but realized he had to talk simply - from the heart, not the head. How did one do that?

Hannah read the signs of perplexity in his broadly handsome face. “Do we have to go inside the church?”

“No, we can do it here.”

“But I thought…”

“The confessional affords people anonymity, that’s all. It’s up to you.”

“I think I’d rather stay here.”

“I’ll be right back then.”

He went in the side door of the church and returned with a purple stole which he placed around his neck, as he sat down on the bench. Averting Hannah’s eyes, he made the sign of the cross and blessed her. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

The response, filed away in Hannah’s mind since childhood, came to her automatically. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been seven years since my last confession. These are my sins.” Here she hesitated. “I…I want something that is not mine.”

“And what is that?”

“This baby. I want to keep this baby.”

It was a struggle for Father Jimmy to contain his surprise. Why wouldn’t she keep it? Was she ill? Was the baby somehow jeopardy? No one had ever come to him before to talk about an abortion.

“Is someone telling you that you can’t?” he asked.

“It doesn’t belong to me. It’s not mine.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“The woman I introduced you to, Mrs. Whitfield, it’s her baby. I’m a surrogate mother. I’m having the baby for her and her husband.”

“And what about your own husband?”

Hannah lowered her head. “I’m not married. They gave me this ring to wear.”

“I see.” But he didn’t. What was he supposed to say now? What did the church say about surrogate mothers? He didn’t have a clue. Silently, he prayed for inspiration, for a response that wouldn’t make him appear as unprepared as he felt.

“When did…these feelings begin?”

“A couple of weeks ago. I don’t know how to explain them. I sense this person growing inside of me. I feel its heartbeat. I hear its thoughts. I want it to be mine, but I have no right. The Whitfields have tried for so long to have a child, they would be devastated if I kept it. That’s what Mrs. Greene said. They’ve had the nursery ready for months.”

“Who is Mrs. Greene?”

“The woman who arranged all this. She runs an agency, the agency I went to.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“Not yet. At one the first interviews, she told me I had to be sure of what I was doing, because she didn’t want her clients put through any more pain. They’ve been through enough already, she said.”

He tried to picture the situation, the participants, the odd ties that bound them together. He remembered the Bible story about King Solomon, who had to decide which of two women was the rightful mother of a child they both claimed was theirs. It didn’t seem to apply here.

In the silence, he could hear a couple of kids on skateboards, scraping the sidewalk, as they sailed by on their way to town.

“Are you getting paid for this?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hannah mumbled. “I suppose you think that’s wrong, too.”

“No, I don’t. I think, well, I think the feelings you are having must be very natural. Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if you weren’t having them?”

“I love this baby. I really do.”

“As well you must, Hannah.” Simple, he cautioned himself. Direct. Tell her what you really believe. “Every moment you carry this child, you should love it, let it know that the world it is entering is a place of joy. That is part of your job. Part of my job, too. Part of everyone’s job. Nobody owns God’s children. Parents have to let their children grow up and leave home and become adults. But they never stop loving them. Just because you have to let this baby go, doesn’t mean you will stop loving it, either.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You can, Hannah. You will. What you’re going through must be common to surrogate mothers. I think you should ask Mrs. Greene for counsel. She must have dealt with this situation before. Are you comfortable around her?”

Hannah nodded. “She’s very nice. She has a child through a surrogate mother herself.”

“She can sympathize with all sides then. Surely she doesn’t want you to be miserable. Go to her. Talk to her. Listen to what she has to say. But promise me, you’ll come back and see me.”

“I will. Thank you, father.”

Father Jimmy felt a surge of relief. Hannah seemed less distraught to him now. Some of the gentleness had come back into her face. If he had accomplished that, perhaps he had not failed entirely.

He accompanied her out to the sidewalk and was rewarded with a shy smile. But all afternoon, he couldn’t stop asking himself if he’d given her the proper advice or, indeed, if his advice was worth anything at all.