Go Tell It on the Mountains

Chapter 4: Rent a Uterus

“This must be Tony,” Mrs. Ledbetter said as she opened the massive front doors that led into the stately Ledbetter mansion. To call it a house would have been insulting. No residence with eight bedrooms and a pool wing could be properly called a house. More like a small hotel. It was bigger than the facility that housed Tony and his lost friends.

Hello, Mrs. Ledbetter signed to our guest.

Tony looked at this old, severe-faced woman and did not respond. His eyes went wide as he glanced around the foyer at the expensive decorations, the works of art, the priceless rug in the center of the floor, the vases of flowers so casually placed and apparently unaware that it was mid-December.

He adjusted his glasses nervously and turned to look up at me.

This is J-a-c-k’s mother, I signed. She’s been looking forward to meeting you. Say hello?

He shook his head, would not look up at her.

We were interrupted by a visit from Foo Foo, Mrs. Ledbetter’s poodle. I had never met a poodle I didn’t want to step on and still hadn’t. Foo Foo marched right up to Tony, sniffing and yapping and carrying on like the oversized rodent she was.

Tony smiled.

Want to pet her? I signed.

True?

Sure.

He sank to his knees on the foyer floor, which was marble and imported from somewhere or other at huge expense, or so Mrs. Ledbetter had tried to tell me. Apparently it was an important point with her. Tony buried his small fists in Foo Foo’s shiny white fur and smiled. For a moment he looked like Noah, and I felt something catch in my breath.

Jackson smiled.

“Well,” Mrs. Ledbetter said, “at least he likes one person in this house. It’s a start. It’s so beastly cold out there, and there’s a storm moving in. Do come in, boys. Stephen! The boys are back, and they’ve brought…well, I’m not sure what they’ve dragged in this time, but we’ll find out, won’t we?”

“Mom, don’t be evil,” Jackson warned.

“Me?” she asked coyly, smiling with her eyes as she took a drag on her vape pen. “You know I adore children, Jackie. Absolutely adore them. My only regret in life was that I didn’t have more of them so my figure could be ruined even more than it is now. And what mother doesn’t want a horde of children waiting for her to die so they can find out how much money she’s going to leave them?”

“Mom!”

“Not that you would ever do that, dear. Actually, I’ve been thinking about leaving all of my money to Foo Foo. How was the traffic, Jackie?”

“It’s Friday,” Jackson replied, as if this was explanation enough.

“We’re expecting six inches of snow at some point,” she said. “How ghastly! I really must move to Florida, but it’s already inhabited, and I’m not sure I care to rub elbows with the natives. I’ve heard they give you a lobotomy at the state line, which is the only way you can actually be happy to live in such a place, and quite frankly, at this stage in my life, I don’t want a lobotomy. We really should have gone to Goa like your father wanted, but travel is so very tedious, especially at this time of year. And India! Oh, heavens! All those dirty children begging for money as soon as you set foot outside the airport. And the beastly heat! And then, of course, the whole place smells like a sewer. Or a curry. You can never tell. But the beaches on Goa are absolutely gorgeous. Or at least they were back in the nineties when your father and I used to go there. Do come in! Wiley, you’re positively shivering!”

“It’s a little bit cold for me,” I allowed. “You must feel right at home, of course.”

“Only the strong survive in this kind of cold. We may have to send you back to that cesspool of history you come from in a body bag, Willis. I’m checking into it.”

“As long as it’s a heated body bag, Eugene, I won’t mind.”

“It’s not that cold,” she chided me.

“I had to use the blow dryer this morning to unthaw my privates.”

“Those things are ever so handy, aren’t they? Coats and boots over there, if you please. Lunch is almost ready. Stephen? You can tell Lydia to put the lunch out now! I don’t know where that man is. Jackie, do collect your little friend and let’s go eat.”

Jackson leaned down to touch Tony’s shoulder to get his attention. Tony grunted and flinched away from the touch as though Jackson had tasered him. In his haste—his terror—Tony wound up sprawled on his backside.

Foo Foo yipped and yapped.

Jackson glanced at me, frowned.

Are you okay? I signed to Tony.

He bit at his lip, lowered his eyes. I crouched down, slowly put my hand out to touch his knee. I made a “come on” gesture. He got to his feet but kept his head lowered. Foo Foo scampered about at his feet, but he ignored her.

“What in the world was that?” Mrs. Ledbetter asked.

“He doesn’t like to be touched,” I said softly.

But then, as if to prove me wrong, he stood just behind me and took hold of my arm, as if he wanted me to hide and protect him.

“Well, he seems to like you, Wiley,” Mrs. Ledbetter said. “But then most people do once they get past the facial hair. Stephen? Really! Where is that man? I don’t understand why you boys don’t do a surrogacy if you want a child. Start from scratch.”

“I’m not paying thirty thousand dollars to rent a woman’s uterus,” Jackson said.

“Why not? Throw thirty thousand dollars around, and with some of those women, it would be buy one, get one free. Then you’d have a proper family, not something you dragged out of a ditch.”

“Mom!” Jackson muttered.

“Oh, I’m speaking metaphorically again, aren’t I? I understand what you boys are trying to do. You don’t want to make a baby when there’s so many already here who need ‘loving on,’ as your Wilfred calls it. But honestly, boys, just rent a uterus. It’s ever so much easier. Just think about how much fun it would be to shop around for a birth mother. One with a PhD would be particularly attractive, just as long as she doesn’t have buck teeth or bad breath. Now, you wouldn’t want one born in North Dakota because, let’s face it, nothing good ever came from North Dakota. Am I wrong? I’m surprised it’s still a state. It’s still there, isn’t it? The whole state could up and disappear and who would know the difference? Has anyone checked on that lately? But no, you wouldn’t want one from North Dakota. I’d also tend to shy away from certain parts of California. Some of those women open their mouths and all you can hear are seagulls. And I question the judgment of people who live on a major fault line. If the earth splits open during an earthquake, they’ll at least have nice tans and yoga-toned bodies as they plunge to their fiery deaths. But honestly, that’s not the kind of person you want to be the mother of your child.”

She marched out of the foyer and into the entrance hall.