Read The Surrogate, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book one for Free Online Page A

mean to go on and on like that about my parents. I don’t know why—”
    “Don’t give it a second thought,” Mrs. Green interrupted. “We were getting to know one another, remember? Anyway, let me come right to the point. As soon as you left, I sat there for a while, all by myself, thinking and going through the files of the couples I’ve been working with. I rely a lot of intuition, you know, and something told me that this one couple might be a perfect match.”
    Hannah gulped and asked herself if she had heard correctly. She’d been back from Boston for barely four hours. Part of her, the part that saw all the beaten-down housewives in the supermarket and drove by their drab homes every day, said that the news was too good to be true. Nothing would come of it, because nothing came of anything in Fall River. But here Mrs. Greene was calling to say she actually had a match in mind. Not just a match, a perfect match.
    “Are you there, Hannah?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” She noticed Teri wiping down a nearby table long after it was clean, just so she wouldn’t have to move out of earshot.
    “Is it a difficult to talk where you are?” asked Mrs. Greene.
    “Just a little.”
    “Then I’ll make this as quick as I can. I’d really like you to meet this couple, Hannah. I can fill you in on them later. For now, let me say that they’ve been very picky about the surrogate mother they’re looking for. But they’re nice, sincere people, who view this relationship very seriously. And I can’t discount that intuition of mine…well, do you think you’d be interested in meeting them?”
    “What about the other things we talked about?”
    “What other things?”
    “Um …” She looked over at Teri, who had now decided to wipe down the red vinyl seats. The snoop! “The other…steps.”
    “Oh, you mean the medical tests and all that.”
    “Yes.”
    “They’ll still have to be done. Unless you’ve changed your mind for some reason or other.”
    “No, I haven’t.”
    “Good! I hoped as much. Because I just hung up from talking with them. The long and the short of it is that they can’t wait to meet you. ‘The sooner, the better,’ they said. How is tomorrow for you?”
    “I’m working lunch tomorrow.”
    “After work then. You tell me the time.”
    “Well, I work a double, actually.”
    “I beg pardon.”
    “Two shifts. Lunch and dinner. I come in at 11 so I won’t be through till about midnight.”
    “My, my. Well at least we know you’ve got stamina!” Letitia Greene laughed gaily. “Why don’t you tell me what day is good for you?”
    “Friday’s possible.”
    “Two o’clock, say?”
    “Two o’clock on Friday is fine.”
    “Very well, then. We’ll meet right here in the office on Revere Street. You won’t get lost this time?”
    “Oh, no. I remember the way.”
    She had barely put the phone back on the cradle, when she sensed Teri standing behind her. She turned to see the older waitress nodding her head knowingly.
    “So the guy couldn’t even let twenty four hours go by without making another date?”
    Hannah started to correct her, then thought better of it. The best way to keep Teri quiet was to tell her what she wanted to hear. Besides, if things worked out with Partners in Parenthood, she was going to have to get used to telling a few white lies now and then. “You’re right,” she answered, looking away. “He said he can’t live a single day without me.”
    “Good for you, doll,” Teri cheered. “It’s about time.”

1:8
     
    For Hannah, Friday was a long time coming. The hours at times seemed to crawl by and she did her job at the Blue Dawn Diner in a trance. Teri, drawing on a wealth of personal experience, naturally ascribed Hannah’s preoccupied state to the nascent love affair and constantly passed on helpful advice about men and how to keep them interested without “giving away the store,” as she put it. Hannah played along with the charade.
    She went