The Photographer by Mary Carter (best summer books TXT) 📕

was forced to wait for me. I had the critical information before she did.

Afterward, she was invited into the doctor’s office and offered a seat next to me. “So far, so good, Mrs. Straub.”

The look on her face was like someone who had just finished scaling a mountain.

My power was increasing daily. I was carrying a life inside me. I had an indisputable purpose. My value in other arenas—my professional value, my value to lovers and friends, had never had the same gravity. Not even close. Amelia needed me and it was a life-and-death kind of need. I could feel vibrations of anguish and desire radiating off her.

The doctor shook her hand. “Now Ms. Dawn can continue care with her OB.”

Amelia stumbled over her words. “Thank … thank you so much.”

While waiting for the elevator together, she embraced me. “You’re a miracle.” I noticed how chapped her lips were and considered offering her some lip gloss, but thought better of it. I remembered the high-end pot of lip gloss on her desk in her home office. I doubted that she’d want to use my brand of lip gloss. Neither would she want my germs.

A sick feeling threatened me, but, just as quickly, it subsided.

Amelia drove me back to Brooklyn in her silver Mercedes SUV and insisted that I join her for lunch at her house. Occasionally I allowed myself to acknowledge why she adored me so much. Of course, it was because of the baby. It wasn’t real love. Or was it? I understand why some women get pregnant to secure a husband or hold on to the one they have. It’s the ultimate power.

I rested on the sofa in the great room, and after a few minutes she brought me a turkey sandwich and a glass of ice water and placed them on the iron coffee table. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “My dreams are coming true. I want the same for Ian.”

“Of course,” I said.

“So Fritz and I called him.” She sat down next to me. “We told him he should start his own firm.” Amelia smiled with what seemed to be considerable effort. “And that we’d support him.”

“Wow.”

“And that you were his strongest advocate in making it happen.” She beamed.

I took a bite of my turkey sandwich and swallowed.

“I guess … he was overwhelmed or agitated,” she said, “especially anxious regarding his mother’s health.”

“I’m sure he’s grateful.” I chewed on a piece of ice in an effort to quell my nausea.

“Well … we’ll miss him.” From her tone of voice, it sounded as though she were speaking of someone from the distant past.

I noticed that I was extremely warm. I removed my sweater so that I was only wearing a tank top. No one would have known that I was pregnant. My stomach was still practically flat. Amelia studied my body. I could tell she was in love with it, in an odd, objectifying way.

There were times when I thought Amelia might view me as being in service to her—as her inferior. Surrogacy isn’t entirely dissimilar from prostitution. I have no ethical problem with prostitution. It’s a class problem. I’d slept with a guy for money twice, in a hotel room in Florida. He was a loser. So fucking him for money made me into a double loser. Then I left Florida and came to New York.

Amelia probably felt as though she were paying me indirectly—with her love and attention, with the time I spent with Natalie, and with the under-market apartment. But she might not have realized that I no longer needed payment.

She moved down to the end of the sofa next to my feet. She removed my socks and pressed her thumbs into pressure points on the arches of my feet, my heels, and my toes. At first, I was surprised that she would debase herself so. But then it dawned on me that she believed her actions were in service of her child. So there was an element of ego and self-preservation in her behavior. “Some pressure points really support the body’s immune system and strengthen it,” she said, “allowing the baby to receive all the nutrients and vitamins that it needs.”

Her fingers were resting on the faint scar from Itzhak’s bite. She didn’t seem to notice it.

Natalie appeared in the doorway with her camera in hand and snapped a photo of us. “Is Delta sick?”

“No, I’m fine.” I sat up on the sofa.

“Natalie, the baby’s healthy so far.” Amelia looked from Natalie to me. She clasped my hands. “What a mitzvah.”

“Mitzvah means ‘good deed,’” Natalie explained to me.

“What’s your favorite boy’s name?” Amelia asked Natalie.

“BoBo.” Natalie opened the refrigerator door and looked for a snack.

Amelia frowned. “Sweetheart…”

I wanted Amelia to drop the subject. It was obvious that Natalie was not going to engage.

“Do you know if it’s a boy?” Natalie opened a kitchen cabinet and rummaged through it.

“A sixth sense,” Amelia said. “I like the name Emilio.”

“Did you forget about the ‘evil eye’?” Natalie asked.

“I’m not naming the baby now,” Amelia said. “Just getting ideas.”

Natalie pulled out a box of saltine crackers.

“This baby,” Amelia said, “will change everything in our lives.”

Over the last few weeks, I’d continued to research surrogacy laws in New York and had confirmed what I already understood to be true. If a surrogate changes her mind and wants to keep the baby, the genetic parents don’t have a lot of recourse. Even if the Straubs and I’d had a written contract, it would be worthless. That meant I would have the power to make my position in the Straub family permanent. My leaving would not be an option. I planned to bring the subject up in the right way at the right time. I would make sure Amelia understood that I wasn’t trying to take anything away from her. Amelia, Fritz, and I would be partners on an exciting journey. We would raise the child together.

Natalie took a bite of a saltine cracker.

“I feel like it’s a second chance for our