The Photographer, Mary Carter [the best novels to read .TXT] 📗

me, “it’s been a heartbreaking time for me. I can’t keep track of all the disappointments.” Her syllables came out on top of one another, blurring her speech.

“I understand.”

“Delta, I can’t have my hopes dashed again. I can’t survive if that happens again. I need to know that you will see this through.”

The sound of bells returned and grew slightly louder than before. “I’m honored that you’ve asked me to be your surrogate.” It was an effort to stay in the room with Amelia, because I couldn’t resist watching the scene unfold—watching my dreams come to fruition.

Amelia looked at me in earnest. “Would you like to see my doctor? My OB?” she asked hopefully.

“I have an amazing doctor,” I said. “A brilliant woman.” I tried to conjure up the image of the physician I saw recently at the walk-in urgent care facility I frequented.

“That’s terrific.” Amelia’s expression turned serious. “I want you to know that if you’d like to participate in the child’s life, I would be a hundred percent on board with that.”

I felt warmth in my core. My life was changing. My life was changing.

Amelia stiffened. Something had occurred to her. “What will Ian say?”

I didn’t believe Amelia cared how Ian felt, but I suppose she thought that she ought to care. She wanted me to see her as a selfless person who kept everyone else’s needs top of mind. Or perhaps she was scared he’d interfere.

“He knows where my heart is,” I said. “I hope to have a baby with Ian. One day. He understands that. I dream of Jasper coming back to Brooklyn and living with me and Ian and our baby. Those are the happy thoughts that put me to sleep at night.” I had never even considered living with Ian, and I had no desire to have a baby with him. But I had a sense that the narrative might satisfy Amelia’s desire to understand me and my priorities. In any case, it wouldn’t serve her to delve too deep. She wanted to believe what she wanted to believe.

“And Jasper?” she asked. “How will he feel?”

I felt a burning sensation in my throat, similar to acid reflux. “Jasper knows I love him.” In my mind, I could see Jasper building a sandcastle on the beach, his damp hair clinging to the base of his neck.

Amelia put her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. “I am so grateful, Delta.” Moisture from her tears landed on my shoulder. She lifted her head. With no makeup, her colorless lips had disappeared. “Help me explain things to Natalie. She trusts you.” She whispered loudly, inadvertently spitting in my ear. “I know it’s hard for her, but she has to recognize that I have needs too.”

She opened the refrigerator and took a bottle of white wine out of the side compartment. She poured herself a large glass. I enjoyed wine as much as she did, but I knew she wasn’t going to offer me any, because I was Natalie’s babysitter and now the surrogate for her baby. After Natalie went to bed, I planned to have a small glass, not enough that anyone would notice.

Amelia swirled her wine in the glass and raised it toward the light to observe the streaks, then downed all of it quickly and set her glass in the sink. Several minutes later she and Fritz walked out the door. She hadn’t changed her clothes or even brushed through her matted hair.

After her parents left, Natalie and I played Scrabble and watched The Hunger Games. By the time she went to bed, she’d moved on from the subject of surrogacy, at least for the night.

I awoke to Amelia’s hand on my shoulder.

“Delta, darling,” she said.

I looked up and saw her face inches from mine, so close that it was distorted. I could identify the individual hairs of her eyebrows. I had a strong urge to kiss her. I sat up on the leather sofa in the media room, embarrassed to have fallen asleep. I didn’t sleep very deeply or very much. In my youth, I’d learned to sleep with one eye open, especially when certain members of the family were visiting.

I could feel her breath on my face as she spoke. “Stay downstairs tonight, in the garden apartment. It’s so late.” Bells sounded in my head. I’d intuitively understood that the surrogacy and the apartment were cosmically linked, only I hadn’t known which would happen first, or if the two things would happen simultaneously.

“Our tenant moved out last week,” she explained.

A triumphant refrain from Aida replaced the bells. The apartment’s vacancy was official. (I already knew Gwen had moved out, and, to some extent, I’d orchestrated the move. In addition to occasional puddles on the floor, I’d been rearranging her belongings in subtle but unsettling ways. A month earlier I’d noticed flyers from an open house on the kitchen counter. Then she’d started to pack, and a week later everything had disappeared.)

“Don’t worry,” she said, “we have brand-new sheets and towels. You won’t get cooties.” Amelia’s mood had shifted dramatically over the last three hours. She was a different person. She’d miraculously pulled out of a spiraling dive.

Fritz appeared in the doorway, still wearing his coat. “Please, Delta.” He sounded genuinely concerned.

“OK.” I could smell the alcohol on Amelia’s breath.

“Have breakfast with us in the morning?” Amelia said.

A few minutes later Fritz walked me down the steps, unlocked the garden apartment, and turned on the recessed lights in the front hall.

In a way, I was seeing the apartment for the first time, because now I could allow myself to indulge in my dream. I believed it was only a matter of time before the apartment belonged to me. “It’s stunning.”

“Get some sleep,” Fritz said. His gaze traveled from my eyes, slowly downward. I sensed that he wanted to stay with me. The opportunity was before us. Amelia was so drunk that, invariably, she would have fallen asleep immediately. She wasn’t