AFTER RETURNING TO her bed and spending the next hour trying to fall asleep, Jamie had given up and crept down the hall, past the chapel, down the stairs. The night was moonless, and the library’s soaring windows admitted only a lesser degree of darkness. She could just make out the silhouette of the dictionary stand. Jamie felt around on the shelf below the dictionary for the leather-bound atlas she knew resided there and carried it back to her room.
Sitting at the desk, she carefully drew a replica of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and their environs, showing each town and road. She put a dot where she thought Hartmann Ranch would be and a line that represented Hartmann Road, which eventually connected with U.S. Highway 54, then angled its way across the northwest corner of the vast Texas Panhandle before crossing into the narrow strip of land that made up the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Once her task was done, she carefully folded the paper and put it in an envelope, which she taped to the bottom of a dresser drawer. Then she carried the atlas back downstairs.
Back in bed with her thoughts, she asked herself just what that little excursion had been all about. Of course, it was always nice to have a better geographical perspective on one’s location. And she was going to drive away from this place at some point in the future and would need a map to guide her.
But she was months away from leaving the Hartmann Ranch-unless she changed her mind about staying.
She tried to put her situation in perspective. How much would it matter if Sonny Hartmann was indeed the father of the child she carried?
The following morning, the aroma of freshly cut evergreen greeted Jamie before she reached the top of the staircase. An impressively large Christmas tree was awaiting decorations in the middle of the great hall. She was aware that the month of December had begun, of course. More than a week ago. When she had turned the page on her calendar, she decided that the only significance she would attach to the month was that midway through it she would reach the halfway mark of her pregnancy. But there was no escaping the season, she realized.
She and Ralph were waiting on the front steps when Lester arrived. “It looks like rain,” he announced.
“I know, but I just have to get out for a little while,” Jamie said.
She jogged down the lane toward the road then waited while Lester pointed the remote opener at the large metal gate. She wondered just how much electrical current ran through the fence. Ralph sometimes scooted under with no ill effect. Maybe only the top part was electrified.
As soon as the gate had swung open a few feet, she and Ralph went through and headed north on Hartmann Road.
Ralph ran ahead of her like a beast possessed, flushing out a jackrabbit then racing back and forth across the road in search of other prey. Jamie trotted along after him. Her body was no longer sleek, but it felt good to push herself a bit. When her life was back to normal, she would enjoy getting back into shape.
Back to normal. That was all she wanted. To be away from this place. To put this time of her life behind her.
As she jogged after her exuberant dog, her breath condensing into white clouds, she willed herself to stop thinking about Sonny in the tower and her missing address book and her growing disquiet with her entire situation and tried instead to imagine what her life would be like after she left Hartmann Ranch.
She would run a couple of miles every day and work out three or four times a week at the student fitness center. After nine months of solitude, it would be wonderful to be in such a busy, bustling place, filled with other young, athletically inclined people like herself. Maybe a guy would invite her to play handball. Or maybe she would invite him. Afterward they would walk over to the union together for coffee.
Thoughts of this imaginary guy occupied her mind for a time-until he started to turn into Joe Brammer and tiny bits of ice began to strike her face. The sleet promised during last night’s weather report had arrived. She continued on, struggling against the biting wind until the sleet began to come in sheets. As she turned to wave at Lester, she lost her footing on the frozen ground and slipped into the drainage ditch that ran along the side of the road. Almost immediately Ralph was beside her licking her face, and the truck was sliding to a stop on the road above her. “Are you all right?” Lester yelled as he jumped out of the truck.
“I’m fine,” Jamie said.
Lester grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “You need to watch where you’re goin’, girl,” he said, brushing dirt off her coat. “Kelly will have my hide if anything happens to you.”
“I am fine,” Jamie repeated, pushing his hand away. “Your concern for my well-being is touching.”
She climbed out of the ditch and headed for the truck, her head ducked down to protect her face from the sleet.
Lester maneuvered a tight U-turn and headed back toward the ranch. “I still want to go to Hartmann City,” Jamie said.
“I don’t have clearance to take you there,” Lester said.
“Clearance!” she said angrily. “You take me to the store right this minute or I am going to get out and walk over there. I don’t want to go back to the ranch house. I am sick and tired of the damned ranch house! I want to go to the store and walk up and down the aisles and drink a cup of hot chocolate. Is that too much to ask, for God’s sake!”
“All right. All right,” he said.
Silence filled the cab of the truck as Lester drove to Hartmann City.
At the store, Jamie wandered around a time then sat on a bench and drank her cup of tepid vending-machine hot chocolate while Lester visited with the cashier. After Jamie put the cup in the trash, she walked over to the pay phone. Lester and the cashier were both watching her.
There was no slot for her coins. A sign on the front of the phone said PHONE CARDS ONLY. She walked over to the cashier. “I need to buy a phone card,” she said.
“We have to go,” Lester said, taking Jamie’s arm.
“But I need to make a phone call,” Jamie said, jerking her arm away.
“I can’t let you do that,” he said.
On the short drive to the ranch house, she didn’t bother with conversation. She watched glumly while Lester put the truck in gear and headed for the stretch of gravel road that separated Hartmann City from the ranch-house compound. As they approached the security gate, he fished around in the compartment in the door, patted the pockets of his jacket, and felt in the crevice between the seat and the seat back. Then he leaned forward and felt under the seat. “Damn!” he said. “What have I done with the remote? Do you see it anyplace?”
Jamie scrunched down in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. It was his problem, not hers. She had wanted to think that Lester was a friend of sorts, but she had no friends at Hartmann Ranch.
He pulled to a stop in front of the gate, got out, and looked behind the seat. Then he slammed the door, walked over to the intercom, and pressed a button. Jamie watched while he conversed with someone at the security office and the gate began its slow opening arch. Lester continued talking. Probably he was telling on her. The bad girl who tried to make a phone call. Or maybe he was reporting the lost gate opener.
“I probably dropped the damn thing when I had to pull you out of the ditch,” he said as he got back in the truck. “I’ll have to drive back there and look for it.”
“You didn’t pull me out of the ditch,” Jamie reminded him. “I got myself out.”
Once through the gate, Lester drove a little faster than usual, using speed to sooth his frustration. Just before reaching the circular drive to the ranch house, he braked abruptly, and the missing opener came sliding out from under the seat. Jamie glanced at him to see if he had noticed, then surreptitiously dropped one of her gloves on top of it.
When the truck came to a stop, Jamie made a show of looking for the missing glove, then bent over and scooped up the glove and opener together.
Even as she performed this act, she wondered what exactly was motivating her. Perhaps it was just that the opportunity had presented itself. Most likely she would never have any use for the device, but if at some future moment in time she found herself needing to open a gate and drive a vehicle through to the other side, it would be good if she had the means to do so.
“Come on, Ralph,” she said and jumped out of the truck without a thank-you or a good-bye. Before opening the front door, she thrust the opener in her pocket.
When she entered the great hall, she found it abuzz with activity. Boxes of decorations were scattered about the room, and the house staff and gardeners were busy decorating the tree and hanging garlands. Someone had set a boom box on a table, and Elvis Presley was singing “White Christmas.”
Miss Montgomery, wearing a heavy white sweater over a navy dress, was overseeing the decorating. She offered a small nod in Jamie’s direction but did not invite her to join in. Everyone else avoided eye contact with her as she self-consciously wound her way among the boxes on her way to the stairs. She was not a member of the ranch family. She would not be included in their Christmas celebration.
Jamie wondered if Amanda and her husband would celebrate Christmas at the ranch. And Gus Hartmann.
Jamie would be curious to see Amanda. Would she be wearing maternity clothes, or had the problem she’d alluded to during her last visit brought an end to her pregnancy?
If she really had been pregnant in the first place.
As she climbed the stairs, the sound of Elvis singing about glistening treetops and sleigh bells in the snow filled the vaulted space of the great hall. She’d never experienced a white Christmas, which probably wasn’t an unusual occurrence in the Texas Panhandle, but Jamie couldn’t bring herself to care one way or the other if she woke up to snow on Christmas Day. She wished there were some way to banish the day from her calendar. She thought of melancholy prisoners in their jail cells on Christmas Day longing for their families and better times. That’s how it would be for her. Except that she didn’t have a family to long for. “Oh, just stop it!” she told herself as she and Ralph walked past the chapel. Ralph looked up at her. “Not you, sweetie,” she said, bending to stroke his head. “I need to stop it. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s self-pity. I have my health and my darling dog,” she said. Then, thinking of Sonny Hartmann, she added, “And a future.”
Back in her apartment, she put the remote gate opener under the lining of her grandmother’s sewing stand alongside the other items hidden there. Then she picked up the phone.
Listening ears or no, she had an almost pathological need to speak to someone from the outside world. And Lenora had encouraged her to call if she had any concerns. Well, she had some now. Of course, maybe all she needed was to hear how stupid her misgivings sounded when she said them out loud. “I need to make a call to the office of attorney Bentley Abernathy in Austin,” she said.
“I have no authorization for you to make a long-distance call,” the man’s voice said.
“How do I get authorization?” Jamie asked.
“You need to speak with either Chief Kelly or Miss Montgomery.”
Jamie put down the phone then fumed for a while, walking back and forth and working up a head of steam. Then she headed back downstairs, anger coursing through her veins, ready for a confrontation.
Square-shouldered, she made her way through the boxes and bustle. People with startled faces were stepping to one side, allowing her to pass. When she reached Miss Montgomery, she said, “I need to speak with you.”
Jamie had expected a reprimand. Instead the housekeeper nodded. “Let’s go into the library,” she said.
Jamie followed her. Every eye in the room was on them as they crossed the hall.
In the library, Miss Montgomery closed the heavy double doors. She turned and, wearing an uncharacteristically benevolent look, said, “I understand that you tried to make a phone call.”
“My, word certainly travels fast around here,” Jamie observed.
“I know you are upset, Jamie, and you have every right to be. I am so sorry. I should have explained things more carefully.”
Taken aback by the woman’s unexpected apology, Jamie studied Miss Montgomery’s face, trying to judge her sincerity. “I was told that I had to have permission to make a phone call,” Jamie said. “Okay, I request permission to make a phone call. I want to call the secretary in the legal office where the contract with that all-important privacy clause was created. She already knows who I am and why I’m here.”
“The contract states that you are not to have any outside contacts while you are here at the ranch,” Miss Montgomery said. “Surely you can understand that. Nowadays so many telephones are equipped with caller ID.”
“But Lenora already knows that I’m here,” Jamie insisted.
“But someone else might be listening on the line. I’m sorry, dear, but I just can’t allow it. I should have reminded you that communication of any sort violated the contract, but I didn’t want to upset you-not in your condition. Pregnancy is such an emotional time under usual circumstances, and your circumstances are unusual.”
For a minute Jamie thought the housekeeper was going to put a hand on her arm and took a step backward.
“The Hartmann name is so well-known, Jamie,” Miss Montgomery continued. “Surely you can see how careful we must be. But instead of making friends with you, as I should have done, I have isolated you. That was cruel of me. I can see that now. Could we just start all over again? I will be completely up front with you from this time forward.”
Miss Montgomery was doing her best to sound sincere. The expression on her face was hopeful.
“Okay,” Jamie agreed. “For starters, what about my address book? You took it, didn’t you, to make it more difficult for me to contact someone? And I’ve completed six lessons from the correspondence course and have yet to receive any sort of grade or comment from the professor. You never mailed them, did you?”
“Perhaps the professor is waiting until you have completed all the lessons,” the housekeeper suggested, her tone less conciliatory than before.
“Am I even enrolled in the course?” Jamie demanded. “Or did you somehow manage to get a copy of the lessons just so you could keep me busy and I’d have less time to ponder the fact that I am being treated like a criminal in a prison? Come to think of it, the check I wrote to pay for the course has yet to show up on my bank statement.”
Without waiting for a response, Jamie turned heel and, with a pounding heart, marched from the room.
Back in her room, she opened a desk drawer and pulled out her copy of the contract she had signed. Yes, if she read the legalese carefully, she could see that she was indeed prohibited from having any contact with individuals or entities not directly involved with her day-to-day life on the Hartmann Ranch. No contact at all. Lenora had said as much when they went over the contract, but Jamie had not understood how absolute her isolation was going to be.
Probably calling the secretary of the attorney who had drawn up such a document had been a stupid idea anyway. Bentley Abernathy was the Hartmann family’s attorney. His job-and that of his secretary-was to look after the Hartmanns’ interests. Jamie realized that she should have hired her own attorney and had him or her look over the contract before she signed it. As it was, she didn’t have anyone looking after her interests. Not anyone at all.
Even if she wanted to contact a lawyer after the fact and ask about her legal options, she would not be allowed to do so. Moreover, if she told someone that she was carrying a child for Amanda Hartmann, she forfeited her right to all that money, which was the whole point of her entering into the arrangement in the first place.
But if Amanda planned to pass the baby off as one to which she herself had given birth, security became an even greater issue, Jamie realized. Probably Amanda wanted to make sure the surrogate mother of her child didn’t call some tabloid and offer to sell her story for more money than Amanda planned to pay her.
Jamie put the contract back in the drawer, wishing she had never heard of the Hartmann family.
The week before Christmas, Jamie woke to the sound of howling wind. She took Ralph into the backyard but decided that she would forgo her morning walk. She looked over the assigned readings for her next correspondence-course lesson, trying to decide if she would bother with them. She didn’t even have copies of the lessons she had completed. She had her notes, however. If she did decide to retype them and complete the additional lessons, she could deliver the completed course in person to the professor in Austin-after she had served out her sentence on this godforsaken ranch.
For now, though, she gave herself over to watching a morning’s worth of mindless television programs.
At noon her lunch arrived. As Jamie placed the tray on the coffee table, she felt a strange sensation in her abdomen. Like a bird fluttering around inside of her.
She put a hand on her stomach. But the sensation had ceased.
She waited a minute to see if it was going to happen again. For several seconds she waited. Maybe it was just her stomach protesting its emptiness. Or a muscle spasm.
She sat down, switched on the television, and took a bite of the turkey sandwich.
Then it happened again.
“Oh, my gosh!” she said, placing both hands over her protruding belly.
The fluttering lasted longer this time, for several seconds. And Jamie knew what she was feeling. It was life.
Of course, the baby had been alive all along, but she hadn’t felt it before. She recalled the word that Mary Millicent and Nurse Freda had used. Quickening.
She couldn’t bring herself to pick up the sandwich for a second bite. She just sat there, staring at nothing.
For a long time she sat there. Not thinking. Not eating. Finally, though, she picked up the sandwich and took another bite. And another. Then she pushed the tray away and headed for the bedroom, where she wrapped herself up in a blanket and lay across the bed.
She slept for a time, waking to the sound of the wind, which seemed even more ferocious than before. An afternoon walk was out of the question. She stretched and was trying to decide what to do with the rest of the day, when it happened again. Movement. More pronounced than before. She imagined a tiny arm or leg moving about. A tiny human being flexing its muscles. She wanted to yell at it to stop. If it was going to start moving around like this, there was no way she could continue ignoring what was going on inside of her.
She buried her face in a pillow and began to cry. She wanted the baby to go away. She didn’t want it moving around in there. But she didn’t want it to die either, and if it went away it would die.
Dear God in heaven, what have I done?
Ralph jumped up on the bed and began licking her face. She put her arms around him and buried her face in his coarse hair. “What are we going to do, Ralphie? What are we going to do?”
Finally, she calmed herself, feeling a bit ashamed that she had overreacted in such a way. It was time for her to face up and grow up. Of course the baby moved. It was supposed to move, supposed to grow, and eventually get itself born. She had put off dealing emotionally with her situation long enough. She was now five months’ pregnant. A small living creature was swimming around in her uterus. A baby. A human baby.
She was not to think of it as her baby. She had signed a contract saying that in exchange for a handsome amount of money, she agreed to forfeit her legal rights to the child. In the eyes of the law, he or she would belong to Amanda Hartmann and Toby Travis. Biologically, she was the mother, however. And Toby was the biological father.
Unless what Mary Millicent had said about Sonny was true.
Which was too far-fetched to be believed.
Jamie wondered what life would be like for the child she was carrying, other than being raised amid extreme wealth and never wanting for anything. She did not doubt that Amanda and Toby would love the child. She did worry, however, that much of the child’s upbringing would be left to Miss Montgomery or a nursemaid while Amanda, with Toby at her side, traveled about saving souls and raising money for political candidates handpicked by her Alliance. And Jamie wondered how she would feel if the child that she was now carrying followed in Amanda’s footsteps and someday told a national television audience how God wanted them to live and think and vote. Would she feel proud? Or would it make her squirm?
That night, it was Jamie who initiated the middle-of-the-night visit with Mary Millicent. She crept down the hall to the chapel, then she pushed open the hidden door, felt around for the light switch, and climbed the bare wooden stairs to the first of the two tower rooms. A dim light glowed from behind the curtain that divided the room. She slipped behind the curtain and stared down at the emaciated face of the unfortunate young man lying there. All the family riches had not protected him from grave misfortune.
She pulled back the covers, lifted one of his hands, and placed it on her belly. “Is that your baby in there?” she whispered.
Then she leaned forward and softly kissed his lips.
He had been greatly loved, she thought as she backed away from the bed. Perhaps she would have loved him, too, had she had a chance to know him. She wondered if, in spite of being the heir to a vast fortune or maybe because of it, Sonny Hartmann had also known what it was like to be an outsider.
She climbed the stairs to Mary Millicent’s room. Once she had reached the top, she stood for a time, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. The sound of soft snoring reached her ears. She waited until her eyes adjusted and she could make out the outline of the bed, then tiptoed across the room. “Mary Millicent,” she said, leaning over the sleeping form.
When the old woman did not respond, Jamie felt around for her hand. “Hey, Mary Millicent, it’s Jamie, the girl from downstairs.”
“I know who you are,” Mary Millicent said in a hoarse whisper. “Did the witch see you?”
“No,” Jamie said, turning on a bedside lamp. “I wanted to tell you that the baby moved today.”
“You came all the way up here to tell me that?”
“Well, yes,” Jamie said, helping the woman to a sitting position. “You asked me if I had felt any quickening, and I thought you might be interested to know that it had, indeed, occurred.”
“Well, it was bound to happen unless the baby was dead,” Mary Millicent said, struggling to swing her legs over the side of the bed. Jamie helped get her situated and extracted her bunched-up nightgown from underneath her hips.
“So, this is where you live,” said Jamie, taking a look around the room. Like the room below, a pair of narrow windows was set in each of the room’s eight sides. The floor was bare wood, and the walls were painted white. A rack of clothing and a chest of drawers stood by the stairwell railing. A shelf held a large television set. In the middle of the room was a round mahogany table with claw feet and two matching chairs. On the other side of the bed were a sink, a portable toilet, a trash can, and a rectangular table that held a box of adult diapers, a large plastic container of wipes, a stack of towels, and another of washcloths. Jamie was surprised to see an old-fashioned wood-and-wicker wheelchair parked by the head of the bed. Then she remembered Mary Millicent’s claim that Miss Montgomery thought she could not walk. The nurse, too.
“Do you really use the wheelchair?” she asked.
Mary Millicent nodded. “All the time.”
“Well, aren’t you the sly one!” Jamie said.
“You got it, sister,” Mary Millicent said with pride, and offered Jamie a high five.
Jamie sat on the bed beside the old woman. “How long have you lived up here?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Could be one year or a hundred for all I know. They started putting me up here just when there were guests in the house-after Amanda got all upset when I showed up at a dinner party wearing just a hula skirt. I think someone really important was there-like a king or a movie star. Then I was sick for a long time and couldn’t move or talk, and for a long time after that I was too weak to walk. But when I got stronger again, I jus’ kept on pretending to be weak. Sometimes when Amanda and Gus are here, they have one of the Mexican gardeners carry me downstairs so I can have dinner with them in the dining room. I like having men carry me. I like the feel of their muscles and the smell of their sweat,” she said with a sigh. “Sometimes I reach down and pat their pee-pee. You should see the look on their faces when I do that. They don’t know if they should scream or laugh. I miss doing it with a man. I miss it a lot.”
Jamie listened to Mary Millicent’s outpouring in open-mouthed wonder. She didn’t know if she should put her fingers in her ears or laugh out loud. When Mary Millicent finally stopped, Jamie said, “You are one outrageous old woman.”
Mary Millicent put her hands on her hips. “Well, what of it?”
Jamie had to laugh. What of it, indeed? She put a hand over her mouth, fearful of making too much noise, but continued to laugh, her shoulders shaking with mirth. And then she stopped abruptly, putting a hand to her belly. She grabbed Mary Millicent’s hand and placed it under hers. “Can you feel it?”
“Yep. Feels like the kid has the hiccups.”
“Isn’t that just wonderful?” Jamie said in awe.
“Not particularly.”
Jamie put her arms around Mary Millicent Tutt Hartmann, retired evangelist and outrageous old lady, and said, “Oh, but you’re wrong. Baby hiccups are wonderful, and so are you.”