Judith Wall - The Surrogate

Jamie tried to pass the time reading and walking but was growing more restless with each passing day. Her spirits rose, however, when her Social Security card arrived. She could get a driver’s license now and buy a car and look for a job. She looked in the phone book for the nearest tag agency.

After lunch, with Billy in his sling, she hiked over to Classen Boulevard.

The agency was quite busy, and Jamie took a number and the required form and headed for the waiting area. She filled out the form then watched as those ahead of her had their picture taken and then a few minutes later received their driver’s licenses. It took her a while to realize that these people were also being fingerprinted. Jamie tried to remember if she’d been fingerprinted when she obtained her Texas driver’s license. Or perhaps at some other time in her life.

She really could not remember.

She left before her name was called. On the way home, she stopped at a pay phone and placed a phone call to the tag agency in Mesquite, Texas. She told the woman who answered the phone that she was a reporter doing a survey for a story. Did the state of Texas fingerprint those applying for a driver’s license?

The answer was yes.

No matter what name she used, if she obtained a driver’s license, she could be traced through her fingerprints. She slumped against the wall, discouragement washing over her like a tidal wave. What other obstacles were waiting for her?

She felt like a hunted animal in the middle of an ever-tightening circle of native beaters with a man on horseback waiting to take the perfect shot.

Late that afternoon, when Ruby climbed the two flights of steps to tell Jamie she had a pot of homemade vegetable soup on the stove and cornbread baking in the oven, Jamie didn’t have the heart to decline her invitation to dinner, which even included Ralph.

Except for the picture of Amanda on the refrigerator door, Jamie liked Ruby’s homey kitchen, with a rocking chair in the corner, a herb garden on the windowsill, and a television on its stand with Jamie’s old friend CNN often flickering on the screen. It was on now with the sound muted.

She sat with her back to the refrigerator. The soup and cornbread were delicious, and she accepted seconds. She was explaining how she hoped to find work in a day-care center so she could keep Billy with her when she realized that Ruby was no longer listening. Something on the television screen had captured the landlady’s attention.

Jamie glanced at the screen.

It was Amanda Hartmann. Holding a baby.

Jamie felt the blood rush from her head and for an instant felt as though she was going to faint. She grabbed hold of the edge of the table to steady herself and closed her eyes.

“Would you look at that!” Ruby exclaimed as she grabbed the remote and turned up the sound.

Jamie could hear Amanda’s voice praising the Lord for the miracle that He had brought her. She opened her eyes. Amanda was standing in front of a door. A very handsome paneled door with a brass knocker. A beaming Toby Travis was at her side. There was a close-up of the baby’s face. Then suddenly the picture changed to a female news anchor at her desk. She explained that these were the first pictures of the internationally revered evangelist Amanda Tutt Hartmann and her baby, Jason Tutt Hartmann. The baby had been born three days earlier. In an effort to protect the family’s privacy, the birth was only now being announced from their home in northern Virginia. The news anchor went on to recall the death of Hartmann’s son after an accident involving an all-terrain vehicle on the family ranch in the Texas Panhandle. Then the woman smiled and said that the sports news would be up next, following a commercial break.

Ruby pointed the remote at the screen and muted the sound. “Praise the Lord!” she said. “I’ve been so fearful for Amanda. She was too old to be having a baby, but the Lord helped her through, bless her heart. After what happened to her son, she deserves this baby. She surely does,” Ruby said, nodding her head in agreement with her own words.

“I heard Amanda’s mother preach back when I was still a young woman,” Ruby continued. “In Dallas. My mother and I went down front to confess our sins and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal savior, and Mary Millicent put her hands right on my forehead,” she said, placing her own hands where Mary Millicent’s had been. “And Lord, did I feel the power! It went all through me, and one of the ushers caught me when I fell right over backwards. I’ve never forgotten the feeling of all that power just taking me over and scrubbing me clean. And sometimes when I really need it, I can close my eyes and feel it again.”

Ruby sighed and brushed tears from her eyes.

Jamie rose and busied herself with carrying dishes to the sink. “Don’t bother with that, Janet,” Ruby insisted. “Do you feel all right? You look a little peaked.”

Jamie smiled as brightly as she could. “Just tired,” she said, picking up Billy in his carrier. “Thanks for dinner. The soup was delicious.”

Amanda with a baby. What did it mean?

Jamie kept asking herself that question while she waited for sleep. Was she safe now?

Something had not been right about that seemingly joyous televised picture in front of the beautiful doorway. Amanda’s voice seemed half a register too high. And the way she held the baby seemed stiff. Was it really her baby or just a stand-in until her brother brought her Sonny’s baby?

When Gus was informed that the official report had been filed, he went to his computer and used his agency password to access it. The suspect had been located. In Oklahoma City. From the calls she had been making to Houston, they had known for several weeks that she was someplace in central Oklahoma. Then one of their Oklahoma City-based agents recalled seeing a girl in a park that fit Jamie Long’s description. She and the baby were living on the third floor of a rundown apartment house in central Oklahoma City.

That evening Gus met with Felipe and handed him a handwritten list of salient points, which he would memorize then destroy the list before leaving the room.

“My first priority is the baby’s safety,” Gus said, drumming the desk with his index finger to emphasize his words. “I want him out of that apartment before you kill the girl. She is to disappear without a trace along with the mutt. I want it to look as though she bolted in the night with the baby and the dog with absolutely no indication of what actually transpired.”

Felipe nodded.

“You have someone lined up to bring the baby here?”

Felipe responded with another nod.

“I don’t want anything left in that apartment that identifies the girl as Jamie Long or would link her to me or my sister,” Gus said.

Once they had gone over the entire plan, Gus leaned back in his chair and looked past Felipe into the meditation garden. His bowels were starting to churn. He sometimes wondered if his conscience was located in his colon. In fact, he’d had loose bowels off and on ever since he realized what Jamie Long’s eventual fate would be. If he didn’t love his sister so damned much, he could hate her, but out of this whole fiasco had come Sonny’s child.

Gus rose from his seat abruptly. “Check in when you get to Oklahoma City,” he told Felipe as he hurried toward the john, tightening his sphincter with all his might, but already he could feel it starting.

ONCE AGAIN JAMIE found herself at the downtown bus station. She had planned to buy a ticket to Seminole, which was southeast of Shawnee, the town where she had made her last phone call to Mrs. Brammer, but discovered there would not be a return bus to Oklahoma City until morning.