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

computer. “You’ve known each other less than a year?”

“I will feel fulfilled if I’m able to help Amelia and Fritz.” I made an effort to speak at a normal volume and at a normal pace.

“How does it benefit you?” The doctor peered over his glasses again.

“Bringing a child into the world.” I pressed the heel of one of my shoes deep into my other foot, hoping the pain would distract me from my self-consciousness.

“You have a son?” The doctor pursed his lips.

“Yes.” My heart rate quickened. I felt perspiration under my clothing.

“How old is he?” He smiled benignly.

“Five.”

The doctor sighed and placed his fingertips together, making the shape of a roof in front of his chin. “Your personal situation, it’s not the typical profile I see.”

I looked down and noticed the hem of my pants was loose.

“So I have to be cautious.” He sighed. “And I expect Amelia and Fritz to be especially cautious. Why don’t you want to have another child of your own?”

“I might one day.”

“Yes?” He collapsed the roof of his fingers down, then brought them back up.

“I loved how my body felt when I was pregnant.” I placed my hand on my abdomen.

“Where did you deliver?”

“Hmmm?” I feared that sweat stains were showing under my arms.

“Where did you deliver your son?”

Breathing in my core, low in my center. I’d practiced my answers. “California.”

“The hospital and doctor?”

“A natural birth center. It was … a midwife.”

The doctor smiled and squinted. “Vaginal?”

“Mm-hmm.” Could he prove that I had or had not given birth before?

“Epidural?” He tapped his fingertips together lightly.

I shook my head. Low breathing in my core. I thought that Amelia might prefer that I have a C-section and be put under so that I’d have no opportunity to bond with the baby.

“Any issues or complications with the prior pregnancy?”

“No.”

He looked down at the paperwork in front of him on the desk. “Did you breastfeed?”

Why was that any of his business?

“I hardly think it’s relevant.” Amelia sniffed. “The baby will have formula just like Natalie did.”

“OK.” The doctor raised his eyes to meet mine. “OK.” He didn’t trust me, but so far he wasn’t standing in my way.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The wheels were set in motion. I was on my way to carrying the Straubs’ baby. The embryo transfer was to take place in the middle of May. The hormones and steroids that I took leading up to it were debilitating. I felt sick most of the time, nauseous and bloated, but the physical side effects weren’t as taxing as the anxiety—the buzzing undercurrent of fear that it might not work. Amelia would lose faith in me quickly if I wasn’t successful. She would move on to another surrogate or birth mother. Her adoration would vanish if I failed her.

I’d had several unexpected visits from Ian since I moved. If he was dropping off plans for Amelia and Fritz, he’d ring my doorbell. At first I found it intrusive. But after a while I kind of got used to it. We’d have coffee or a drink, depending on what time of day it was. He never stayed for very long. Fortunately, he’d stopped asking about Jasper, but I could still see the question behind his eyes.

In early May he came by late in the day and suggested we go to dinner at a pub in Brooklyn Heights. We sat in a booth and ordered hamburgers, fries, and a bottle of red wine. He told me about the estate he was designing in New Jersey. Then he told me about a pied-à-terre he was designing in Rome. We talked about symmetry, asymmetry, light, shadow, focus points.

The waiter delivered our burgers. CNN was playing on a television behind the bar.

“I have to go to Rome next week,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

His invitation was the last thing I was expecting. “No.”

“Just for a weekend.”

I didn’t want to go to Rome. Not with Ian. “I have an obligation.”

“Are there rules about Rome?” He tried to laugh.

I looked down at my plate to put ketchup and mustard on my hamburger, then arranged the lettuce and tomato. “I can’t.”

My “relationship” with Ian, if you could call it that, was supposed to be on a slow track. His request felt like a trick.

“You’re trying to live someone else’s life,” he said, “when your own life could be terrific.”

Ian wanted to believe that he understood me better than I understood myself.

In reality, he didn’t have a clue. Not a clue.

The following day, Eliza greeted Natalie at the front door. My cat was growing used to Natalie’s visits. Natalie knelt on the ground next to her. She stroked her behind her ears.

“My mom says she’s allergic to cats. She used to say she was allergic to dogs. One day my dad brought Itzhak home. He said he’d return him if she sneezed. And she didn’t.”

I hadn’t told Natalie about Itzhak biting me, and I gathered Amelia hadn’t either. I felt it was unnecessary information, especially since the dog’s behavior toward me had returned to normal, and I was doing my best to put the incident behind me.

Eliza purred contentedly and licked her paws.

Natalie walked down the hall toward the back of the apartment. “Your apartment has personality already.” She picked up a framed photo of Jasper at the beach that I’d placed on one of my end tables. The prior evening, I’d chosen to place three pictures of Jasper in inconspicuous places: my bedside table, an end table, and my desk, as if I didn’t want anyone to see them. “That picture was taken at the beach in Venice.”

“How often do you talk to him?” she asked.

“Isn’t he beautiful?”

“He has black hair.” She traced his form in the photo with her finger. “He doesn’t look like you.”

“We have the same nose.” I’d noticed that and been pleased about that trait that I shared with my Jasper.

“Do you miss him?” She traced my form with her finger. She was studying the photo so carefully. Even though