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little effort to stay connected with my family   —inadvertently abandoning them to the same extent my mother had abandoned us. But even if I had stayed in touch, I doubted they would have sent me mail.
    My right loafer had just touched the third step when Thom reached down and brushed the edge of my sleeve, that simple gesture girding my threadbare hope. Without looking at him, I climbed back to the landing. Thom took my elbow and led me away from that peering office glass and out the double door. We stood on the covered porch next to the cigarette receptacle that had freshly ground ashes clotting the air.
    “You understand. Don’t you, Miss Beth?” he said. “Even if we both keep quiet like we’ve agreed, if students saw us together, they’d assume the worst. And rumors . . . would start.”
    I looked around the campus, buying time to gather my thoughts. The wind had whipped the snow and salt intomeringue. It clung to black branches of the trees marching past the brick buildings with their white columns, towering cupolas, and gilded clocks. Students pressed around us on all sides   —scarfing down sandwiches peeking above tinfoil, poring over index cards jammed with notes, chatting with fellow classmates about weekend plans.
    Even though it had gotten easier, as many of my graduate school classmates were married and therefore not preoccupied with the frivolity of my undergraduate years, I still felt I was trapped beneath a globe depicting only one season. All around me life transpired, seasons changed, people lived and died, yet I remained the same   —stagnant, barren . . . alone.
    “But aren’t we together now?” I whispered. “Aren’t we being seen together now? At the restaurant, you said how much this all meant to you. I thought . . .”
    I knew exactly what I had thought, but I could not voice it. Months had passed since that brisk afternoon Dr. Fitzpatrick led me from the office down to the viaduct overlooking the river swollen with crumpled red-and-brown leaves. We had stood side by side, staring straight ahead in silence, until Thom’s hesitant voice asked if I’d be willing to carry his and Meredith’s child without explaining why Meredith could not carry their child on her own.
    That day I first formed Thom’s name on my lips within his hearing. I had agreed to gestational surrogacy not because I wanted the money, nor because I had overcome the pain of bearing my child only to give him away. I had agreed because I had never imagined that what I thoughtwould bring Thom Fitzpatrick and me together would actually tear us apart.
    Thom now said, “I’m sorry, Beth.” He let his outstretched hand fall down to his side, as if it were a physical extension of the futility he felt. “I should never have asked you.”
    I tried peering through his spectacles to read the meaning behind his words. By the slant of the winter sun, I instead kept seeing my own reflection that was morphed gaunt and featureless by my desperate, watery gaze. “You can’t say that.” My voice trembled with anger, with fear. Pressing a hand to my stomach, I stared up at him. “You can’t. We’re too far in to think of taking words back.”
    Thom nodded sadly and touched my sleeve. Turning, he converged with the throng of students whose white coats and bright scarves fluttered behind them like kites. But even after Thomas Fitzpatrick had crossed the viaduct to the other side of campus, I could still see him. My chest ached watching his ruddy hair and peacoat getting pummeled by the wind. I stood there until my face lost feeling. The belfry chimed the half hour. I remained focused on the hollow sound until I was sure my professor had disappeared from view. I knew then that the phantom promise of love had far stronger coercion than money.

3
    Crossing the parking lot, I heard Thom’s car door slam. I moved faster. I could feel his eyes scanning me until my walk felt ungainly; my head, odd.
    “Hold on,” he called,