The Surrogate

Chapter 10

After calling the car company with the number Archibald gave her for her own use, she had the driver go as fast as he could over the Manhattan Bridge. Sailing toward uptown to his place on the Upper East Side, Esther had only been there hours before, but now it felt different to go under these circumstances.

Her mother-in-law was happy to watch the classic movie channel by herself. Sending Archie a message from the car, he stood on the steps by the back entrance as the driver pulled up. Worry lingered in Archie’s eyes. His body tensed with expectation. Running his fingers through his hair, he fussed with his rolled up sleeves on the pinstripe shirt he wore. Esther thanked the driver as he pulled away and disappeared into the evening air.

“You need to talk?” Archie asked with a strained tone of voice.

Esther nodded, following him through the service entrance and into his den off the master bedroom where he spent his time. Esther had never been in this one room. It had been his father’s when they were young, but now it seemed to be Archie’s secret little retreat.

The fireplace was one of the last working chimneys in the house, and a small fire filled the room with a certain warmth. The dark red room glowed like the embers lighting their faces, but in contrast the blue of Archie’s eyes felt unnerving. They stared at Esther as they gave her sensation that he was bracing for the worst news. Archie left his turkey sandwich and drink untouched on a rolling cart in the corner of the room. A novel by Tolstoy was left open on the side table by one of the leather chairs. A filled teacup billowed steam at the little table for the chair’s twin.

Esther sat, sipping the floral-scented tea a housekeeper had obviously made for her. The cleaning crew came by and wiped away any memory of yesterday, but this small gesture made her feel at home again in the grand house. It was just as she liked it with a touch of honey for sweetness. She had left a similar cup behind as she dashed over to confess to Archie. However, it did not soothe her anxiety. Nothing would be able to do that.

Archie knew Esther too well. Her own worries were quickly transferring to him as Esther gathered her thoughts.

“Before you ask, the baby is fine. I’m fine too.”

With a serious tone, Archie replied, “Well, that is obviously not true.”

Esther sighed deeply, setting the cup back on the little matching plate. She looked up at the fireplace mantle where old childhood photographs sat in gilded frames. Images of them at holiday parties together. A photo of him skiing in Switzerland as a younger man. A picture of Archie and his father on the day he received his MBA, but in the center was a slightly larger picture of Archibald as a toddler, sitting in his mother’s lap at their seaside Cape Cod home. He was wrapped in a towel, and she was laughing with him. Their matching eyes shone, and she remembered why Nora was so beautiful. Much like Archie, their souls radiated like starlight, and their eyes sparkled even on the darkest days. Esther recognized the picture from Nora’s obituary.

“Archie, do you remember my mother’s funeral?” Esther finally began as she decided that was the best starting point for this conversation.

Archibald nodded. “It was lovely, and even in black and burdened with grief you looked beautiful. You did such a wonderful job with the ceremonies. I wish I had been there for you more.”

Esther smiled at him softly, but it did not last. “I had stolen the dress from my mother’s closet, and I might still have it. Anyway, I have to admit I don’t remember much of it anymore. Looking back, I feel like a blackout drunk as I try to remember the events of those couple weeks. It’s all a blur, but I do remember our day together.”

“I remember that clear as day,” Archie mused in an almost whisper.

“What do you remember?”

“I don’t want to cross any lines with you, Esther.”

Esther sighed deeply. His comment said it all. However, she needed to know more. She had to hear this before she could explain anything else. While the truth about Grace kept her heart racing, Esther knew that this conversation had to be paced properly. Spitting out her main reason for being here would be like an avalanche collapsing on them both. She did not have the emotional energy for a natural disaster like that.

Archie mulled it over in his head for a quiet moment, and finally began in measured and soft words, “Seeing you again was like finding an oasis in a desert. I had been going through some shallow and foolish romances, and those women had only made me miss you more. After all those years, I still wanted you with me. I had kept tabs on you through friends and such. Not stalking you, but it was easy to ask Mom on the phone about how you were. Margaret was always so proud of you, and so was my mother. You were always a piece of home because you and your family were there when it mattered. If I looked at any highlight or dark moment of my family’s life, you were always a step behind me, and I had tried to capture that in my childish ways when we were young.”

Archie stood, adjusting the watch on his wrist as he began to shuffle his weight on his feet. By the look in his eyes, Esther could see that there were a million memories going through his head. Still, only one memory really mattered to her. The trouble was that those myriad of memories all lead to this one last day of their past.

Archie finally continued after a long pause. “When we reconnected, I knew I wanted to be selfish again, and it has always been easy for us to fall on each other thanks to our history. When I got back from China, I realized why you had refused me before. I finally knew why I needed to disappear again for a long, long time.”

“Why?”

“I met Josh.”

Archie looked at her with a sobering expression. Something inside of Esther dropped, she was not horrified or in disbelief, but it felt as if the world suddenly shifted and nothing would be the same again. It was like a flashing explosion in deep space: silent and sudden. However, the missing pieces of her life were coming together as quickly as Esther had realized the gaps in this story of hers.

Esther opened her mouth to speak, but she fell short of any phrase and instead began to stammer with, “I- I-…”

Esther stopped, hoping Archibald would just explain. He continued to pace in front of the fire, letting the glowing light illuminate his outline. It made it harder for Esther to see his face, which she could tell even in the dim room that he just exuded stress as he worked on finding his own words.

He finally said, “It was about a week after the funeral, and I was thinking about you. I wanted to call you up and jut check in on you. I had no idea about you reconnecting with your boyfriend. I assumed you were still single because to be fair I have never been one to ruin relationships like that. I’m not an animal, but it did strike something in me when I heard his voice on the phone. I flew down to Atlanta to speak with him in person, knowing that I wanted to view some properties anyway to purchase in the city’s downtown. It all seemed convenient enough, and it seemed easy to ward him off of you.”

“Ward him off of me?” Esther repeated with an incredulous tone.

Archie looked down at his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets adding, “I’m not proud to admit this part, Esther. I was poisoned by my own hubris. I had just spent a high with you, secured a foothold in Shanghai, and bought a new apartment for myself all in one week. I was drunk on my own success, and it lasted until Josh told me the news of your engagement. Sitting at some restaurant my secretary had picked, he explained to me that you had refused him, and you asked for a return when he went to give you his condolences in person. I had no clue you two were so involved. I had never tried to keep tabs on your relationships to know how serious you had been about him.”