Harvesting Ashwood Minnesota 2037 (36 page)

“We’ve decided to pull together an organization of families caught up in this awful surrogacy program,” Sarah started. “I don’t mean to be critical of what you and all the surrogate mothers did. You were quite selfless.” She looked at Paul. “We have a friend who is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., quite a powerful lawyer, and he has agreed to help us challenge the Bureau of Human Capital Management’s right to control the lives of these children.”

Paul stood next to her chair. “We don’t expect you to get involved. You have a very full plate. This is a Regan family issue.”

“A few days ago you were telling me that the two of you called me a Regan.” I tried to smile.

“Dear girl, Paul didn’t mean anything.” Apology and love thickened Sarah’s voice. “We will be wherever you and the children need us to be as your family.”

Paul moved behind my chair, put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re a part of our lives, Anne Hartford Regan. I should have chosen my words more carefully. As blood relatives of these kids, we have legal rights that you can’t claim. That’s all I meant. We’re doing this for all David’s biological children born through surrogacy. Sarah and I would like to think you could be the best mother for all of them. With our involvement.”

For a moment the thought of ten children ranging in age from five to ten reminded me of one summer as a Montessori teacher’s aide and the crazy level of activity generated by so many bright students. Paul and Sarah were chasing a pipe dream in challenging the Bureau, but it was theirs to do.

“Shouldn’t you wait for David to return?” Sarah looked at Paul for an answer to my question. “Isn’t this his decision as their biological father?”

“We thought of that, but Sarah feels timing is critical—to call media attention to the rights of the biological families while the story is fresh and politicians want to restore voters’ confidence. Do you think anyone would have voted for our current president if they knew her husband was one of the architects of the surrogacy contract?”

Deep in South Dakota, the ranching Regans were spared from the worst of the big
D
. I knew David spared them the pressure he encountered—economic and patriotic—to accept the chains that accompanied his life. “What sounded right a decade ago might not make sense today. It was a pretty desperate time.”

“Well, that’s the point, Anne.” Paul spoke as if he’d said these very things a number of times today. “Times change. There is a body of court decisions protecting grandparents’ rights in divorces, unmarried couples’ offspring, abandoned children. So now it’s time to look at the rights of biological families of surrogates. Because Tia died without family, our case will be the easiest to file.”

For fifteen minutes Paul covered the key legal questions identified by their lawyers. He walked the room, a confident man on a critical mission. Sarah, ever more tired and pale as the days stretched without David’s return, added her insights. I kept quiet about what I knew of the surrogate contracts, and they didn’t ask for copies of the legal challenges David and I had filed in our early marriage on behalf of the kids. When Paul began to repeat himself, I reminded them that I promised to spend the evening with my kids. We were able to laugh at Paul’s rhetoric and separate with a prayer that Paul’s birthday would bring good news about David.

Passing the dining room, I saw Amber and John decorating Paul’s chair at the breakfast table. Birthdays never passed without notice if kids were present. Monday, the family sang to Paul at breakfast, then honored his wish to hold real celebration until David returned home.

Against Lao’s advice, I didn’t join the Giant Pines’ outing, but stayed behind to witness demolition of the DOE building. The crew helped me dress in protective clothing. I stood respectfully quiet as our little piece of the earth shook for less than a minute and deflated the domed structure. Together Lao, the crew’s chief engineer, and I toured the residence for any signs of damage caused by the implosion. A giant old mirror in our public gathering room had slipped from its brackets and cracked, a light in the dining room lost one shade, and a new crack showed in the foyer.

For the very first time, I slept absolutely alone in the residence, not one child worker or staff person or family member filling its space with sounds. Unfettered from the DOE building, Ashwood seemed smaller, yet more dominant on the estate’s horizon.

Within a few days, life settled back into its regular patterns. The kids chose to talk about David as if he were away on a long business trip. Sarah and I convinced Paul to take a day trip into Rochester for a checkup at the Mayo Clinic. He balked at time away from harvest and their “Stolen Children” class action campaign. Percy Slaxhill, the lawyer handling the case pro bono, grabbed media attention within a week of the original media story, holding a news conference with only one exhibit—a chart displaying the differences between annual income of the couples raising the stolen surrogate children and the earnings of their biological parents. He managed to paint a picture that implied the babies were given to individuals who were not merely powerful, but also extreme wealthy. Washington, D.C., reeled as names were attached to the chart. Milan was right. Heads would tumble.

Fourteen days went past with no new information about David. My ankle improved, the bruising on my chest began fading to yellow with traces of red and purple, my back calmed. Phoebe slept through the nights as her quilt project flourished. I found it harder to find rest.

October began with the final push in the fields, orchard, and gardens. Our harvest broke records, yet left us with less reserves after meeting the increased government quotas. Terrell, Magda, and I debated what to send to market and what to put in Ashwood’s storage.

Andrew marked his one-month anniversary at Ashwood with a bad bout of homesickness for his parents’ house. He and I sat at the pond’s edge and I listened to a young boy’s emotional basket of stories as frogs jumped and squirrels sprang lightly from tree to tree. We both wore multiple layers of clothes, the sun no longer able to keep us warm. I knew I loved my son, felt so grateful that Milan had brought him to our home.

Almost at the end of the sixth week, Milan called during the dead of night to give me the news that David and two associates had been rescued. All three men were weak and fighting infections. At three-thirty in the morning I pulled on a robe and ran to my in-laws’ room to share the news. Together we gathered the children for celebration and prayer. Soon no one in the residence slept as the Regan kids raised their voices in wild joy. The new puppy, Rufus, peed on the floor. We all laughed. Laughing was once again easy.

Chapter Thirty-Three

When we could speak with David, the nightmare came to an end. He was alive, each of us heard his voice and felt connected. He heard about Rufus, spoke with Andrew, wished Paul a belated happy birthday. Each time I spoke with him in the next few days, I kept news from Ashwood light.

Arrangements were made for me to fly to Washington, D.C., to be with David. Strapped into a surplus seat in a military transport, I settled into my thoughts. The constant engine drone distanced me from my daily world, fueled my apprehension about how Paraguay might have changed David. Civilians moved down the walkway first. I hung back, looking through the windows for a first sight of my husband before he could see me.

David stood alone and I rushed to him, no children outpacing me, no bags slowing me. We were like many couples reunited after one of them has been to war—incredibly happy to feel our arms filled with the other’s warmth, yet cautious about how our experiences might stop us from moving further. He was gaunt and favored the shoulder where the DOE chip used to lie so his arms no longer folded around me with the same easy fit. With limited foreknowledge, we avoided touching in certain ways even in this first greeting.

“I’ve been waiting for this minute,” he said into my ear as we stood at the Andrews Airbase. “Sometimes at night I’d try to remember the smell of your shampoo.” Like our new puppy, David sniffed my hair. Tears and giggles came together as I rested against his chest. “What? What? Tell me why you’re laughing.”

“David, right now it feels so good to feel you that my smile turned into a laugh.” His arms tightened. He didn’t join in my lightheartedness. “My God, I’ve been so worried about you.” His arms tightened, and I inhaled the scent of his favorite soap.

“When they told me the chip had been removed I worried about how an open wound would heal in the jungle.” I turned my head against his shirt. “I thought about you at the oddest times, like when we had applesauce cookies or when John had hiccups. And the nights were the worst.”

He kissed me, a rare public display of affection. Our military escort politely indicated that we needed to move into a waiting limousine. David eased himself in with a new stiffness of motion. There would be time to talk about what had happened, what had changed. For these few minutes we were like newlyweds on the way from church to reception, sitting hand in hand and watching a world unaware of how our world had evolved.

I hadn’t been back to D.C. since completing estate management training. “I miss this place,” I said as we drove across the Potomac. “Wouldn’t it be great to take the kids here or to New York City or to see mountains?”

“You’re talking to a man who spends half of his time away from home, Anne. Flying means work for me.” He squeezed my hand, but his voice sounded grouchy. “Anyway, it will be soon enough when the Bureau begins sending Phoebe to education sessions all over the country.”

We would need to uncover the new sensitive topics we had each developed, like my fear of home invasion and the growing rift between Paul and me about Milan. I dreaded discovering David’s new forbidden subjects.

“I’m in therapy of various sorts from nine to noon, work for a couple of hours in early afternoon, then take a nap by doctor’s orders.” His fingers played with mine on the seat. “I hope you’ll be all right on your own?”

“I lived here for years, David. This is kind of a homecoming. No one I know is still here to look up, but I can’t wait to visit the Smithsonian, the Mall, the Capitol. One of my favorite neighborhood places is still open, and I’d like to take you there for breakfast or dinner.” The transport pulled into the JW Marriott near the White House. The penniless estate matron trainee wandering D.C. never aspired to staying in a place this posh.

“Nothing but the best for DOE staffers held captive for over a month in the jungle,” David quipped. “We have a suite on the seventh floor with a sliver of a view of the White House.”

The limo door opened. I stepped out into the Southern autumn air, so different from the coolness settling over Ashwood. These were the streets I wandered when I was pregnant with Andrew. Pedestrians wore the uniforms of their offices, with few in simple civilian garb like us. David eased out, straightened his back with care, and moved to the doors. No time wasted between the safety of the vehicle and the security of the building. No opportunity for ambush.

How odd to see the luggage David carried from Ashwood on a rack in the hotel room perfectly intact. I emptied my bag as he watched from an easy chair between two corner windows. The silence felt comfortable, yet our experiences made us different from the people who kissed good-bye in September.

“I heard the DOE building is down.” David’s statement caught my thought, found me unprepared to answer neutrally. “The investigators believed Peterson brought in restricted chemicals to contaminate the building.”

If he read the report, David knew about the blood on my office wall and the dead men in our work space. “They were good at cleaning small things and creating an organized storage system.” If I closed my eyes, I could still see the empty offices, damaged furniture, broken windows. “Everything else is gone.”

“They’ll rebuild. Supposed to start this week.” He rubbed his chin, moving around a scab. “You and Lao made smart changes in their design.” David watched as I left to place my toiletries in the bathroom, and his eyes followed as I came back into the main room. “I’m off international travel for eighteen months. I had to take a cut in pay for that agreement.”

“I’m relieved.” I sat on the ottoman, rested my hand on his leg.

“How are you doing, Anne? Let me see your wounds.”

“There isn’t much to see.”

“Come on, Annie, I want to see what that bastard did to you,” he commanded.

“There’s not much to see. The bruising is faded.” The room felt airless, his face immobile. “We’ll move on, David.”

“Or die trying.” David shrugged with a slight hitch near his shoulders, a motion of his body I didn’t know.

“We should order lunch.”

“Why don’t we find someplace nearby? It’s a nice day.”

“Let me do this my way today.”

We stayed in and ate spinach salad with almonds and chicken. We ordered wine instead of tea. Washington, D.C., moved about its normal business seven stories below while David told me about the ambush, the long hike into the jungle, the confusion of his captors. At times he’d point to a scar or a bruise and tell me its story. In the late afternoon, he finished.

“I need to sleep,” he said abruptly. “Probably better if I do this alone. Please don’t go away.” He walked around the room, turned on every light, and opened the blinds. While he napped I sent assuring messages to Paul and Sarah and tended to business as a distraction. Our luncheon wine dulled my worries, but not enough.