Mother Knows Best Page 5

  He glares at me. “You know better than that.”

  “I thought I did. That’s why I came to work for you. But what’s the point now? We’ve gotten this far, we know it works—”

  “In mice!”

  “Which is why the next step has to be a clinical trial or it’s all for nothing.”

  “But it’s illegal.”

  “So why are we still testing it?”

  He purses his lips, saying nothing.

  I hope my use of the word we isn’t lost on him; I’ve innovated the methods just as much as he has; to hell with our titles. Our collaboration deserves as equal a billing as Edwards and Steptoe, or Watson and Crick, or any of the famous scientific duos. The cynical side of me wonders if he’s figuring out how to take credit for my contributions.

  It’s practically standard operating procedure for an older male scientist not to acknowledge a subordinate woman’s accomplishments, going back to how Watson and Crick failed to credit Rosalind Franklin for her help in discovering the double helix, and now her name is nothing but a footnote in history.

  Sure, Nash has heaped on the praise, but he probably still thinks of himself as the pioneer deserving all the glory. Or else how could he come so close to getting rid of me?

  Steaming, I grab my cell off my desk. Then, with my back to him, I tap the VOICE MEMOS icon and touch the big red RECORD button. If he ever threatens to fire me again, I won’t make it so easy.

  I turn around to face him, holding my cell to my chest. “Well? Why even bother?”

  “Because,” he says quietly, “it’s too good to give up.”

  “So don’t.” I step closer. “We can do this. That woman gave us the perfect opening. We take her eggs, carry out the DNA transplant in the lab with no one watching, and implant one back in her. Just like a normal IVF patient.”

  “No.” But the force of his denial is undermined by the excitement in his eyes. “It’s still crazy. And we would need a healthy egg donor, so that’s another person, another liability.”

  “Not if I do it,” I hear myself say. “Then it will just be the three of us.” I smile up at him with the satisfaction of a losing player cinching the win. “No one else will have to know a thing.”

  ABBY: NOW

  I get home from school to find Mom and two men from the alarm company going around inspecting all the windows downstairs. She tells me they’re upgrading the security system, putting in new sensors and cameras. All I care about is that she doesn’t follow me upstairs.

  In my room, I eagerly unzip my backpack, where Riley stuffed the testing kit. My pink permission slip for the end-of-year field trip falls out with it. The whole fifth grade is going to Storm King, an awesome outdoor sculpture park, if Mom lets me go. She can be weird about big group outings, as if I might get lost or kidnapped or something. But she’s not about to come, that’s for sure.

  She knocks on my door. “You okay? You ran up so fast I thought you were going to trip.”

  I shove the kit under my bed and open the door.

  She’s standing there in her usual sweat pants, her hair in a ponytail, no makeup under her eyes. A worry line cuts across her forehead. I don’t get why she’s so stressed. It’s not like we live in Afghanistan.

  “I just have to study. I have a big math test tomorrow.”

  “Since when are you so eager to start your homework?”

  I shrug. To distract her, I hand her the permission slip, addressed to MR. AND MRS. BURKE. “I need you to sign this.”

  “Please,” she says.

  “Please. We’re going to Storm King. It’s gonna be really fun.”

  She frowns. “How many chaperones will be going?”

  “I don’t know; why don’t you volunteer?”

  My annoyed tone must send a message, because she backs off.

  “That’s okay.” She grabs a pen from my desk and is about to scribble her signature when something makes her pause. She flips over the pink square. Then she lets out a horrified gasp.

  “Really, Abigail?”

  “What?”

  She crumples it up and throws it at my feet. “I don’t know what to say to you right now.”

  I unfold it to find a handwritten note:

  My mom’s a crazy bitch.

  CLAIRE: BEFORE

  As I climb the stairs of the 116th Street subway station on my way to meet Ethan for dinner, my cell lights up with a voice mail from a 212 number.

  “Mrs. Glasser, this is Rob Nash. Please call my office as soon as you can.”

  I stare at the phone in shock. The memory of him walking out on me at the bar still makes me cringe. I have never felt like more of a fool.

  Ethan and I have hardly spoken since that night, because when I came home, I announced that I’d changed my mind about trying IVF.

  What? He was dumfounded. Right after we met your favorite doctor?

  Of course, I couldn’t tell him Nash had been a total letdown. Instead, I said I wasn’t emotionally ready to gestate a random donor egg.

  The shameful truth is that I don’t think I could love someone else’s baby as much as my own. I realize how embarrassingly regressive this makes me, like a liberal person who harbors racist prejudices. But I can’t help it; blood matters. The last thing I want is to be a surrogate womb for Ethan’s child with another woman. And if the child wanted to find his or her “real” mother one day, I know it would kill me.

  Staring dumbly at Nash’s voice mail on my cell, I realize I’ve stopped on the subway stairs. Commuters are grumbling in my wake, elbowing past me in an endless irritable chain. But I don’t move. Instead I call him back right then and there, pressing my volume all the way up.

  “That was fast,” he says. “I just called you five minutes ago.”

  “I didn’t think I’d hear from you again.” I rush away from the station to a secluded spot under the eaves of a campus building.

  “When’s the soonest we can meet? Face to face.”

  Against my better judgment, excitement creeps into my heart. “About …?”

  “Let’s talk when you get here. I’ll be in my office for another hour tonight, or tomorrow until—”

  “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

  I leap into the air like a teenager invited to the prom.

  On my way back to the subway, I send Ethan a careful text: So sorry honey, but just found out Eva’s dad passed suddenly. Need to go be w/ her tonight.

  Eva is my work friend at Mindset whom Ethan barely knows. There’s no way he can verify the details.

  His text pings back: Sorry to hear. Typing dots show up, break off, come back again. Then: Are you avoiding me?

  Don’t be silly, I tap quickly. See you at home later. As an afterthought, I add a red heart emoji and a kiss face. It’s the closest we’ve come to actually kissing for a week.

  Is this what our marriage amounts to now?

  I fear that we are drifting further and further apart. It isn’t just our shared trauma. It’s our profound philosophical divide. Ethan sees the world like a bystander, ready to accept nature’s whims, while I see the world like an editor, ready to correct nature’s mistakes. I can’t stand the way he thinks, and vice versa, but the love we shared for Colton overwhelmed our differences. Now, a second child might be our only hope.

  OK, he finally writes back. No kiss face. I wait for a full minute on the subway stairs, hating that our intimacy is reduced to a cartoon icon. But nothing comes.

  * * *

  Twenty-two minutes later, I arrive panting at Nash’s office. It’s after six PM and his staff is gone for the day, but he closes the door anyway. The secretive move sends a thrill through me.

  He gestures to one of the leather club chairs as he sits at his desk. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

  “Of course. What’s going on?”

  He presses his palms against the wood and regards me earnestly. “There are serious unknowns. You have to understand that.”

  “Oh
my God.” I feel a euphoric grin tug at my lips.

  But he doesn’t crack a smile. “I can’t guarantee the child will turn out normal. We’ve never seen a human baby born from the DNA of three people.”

  “But haven’t your animal trials proved safe? No deformities?”

  He nods. “That’s why I’m willing to risk it—if you are. But you could still spend the rest of your life dealing with the consequences.”

  “I understand.”

  “I need you to be physically and mentally up for this. Are you sure you can handle it?”

  A stinging sensation unexpectedly flares up along my wrists—a visceral memory burned into my flesh. I grip the chair, willing it to go away.

  “Absolutely,” I tell him. “No question.”

  The sting recedes. I focus on feeling a new baby kick inside me, those first butterfly flutters of life that compare to no other thrill in the world. My own baby, and Ethan’s. And—

  “Who will the other mother be?” I ask, but as soon as the word mother leaves my mouth, I want to take it back. “The donor, I mean?”

  The woman with the perfect mitochondria will supply merely thirty-seven genes. The other 20,000 or so will be passed down from me and Ethan. She doesn’t deserve recognition on my level. I vow never to think of her that way again.

  “My postdoc.” Nash isn’t fazed by my correction. “Jillian’s young and healthy, and most importantly, discreet. We need to keep this within the smallest possible circle.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Wait, so you trust her now?”

  “I trust her not to sabotage her career. If it works, it could wind up being the biggest fertility breakthrough since IVF.”

  “And you trust me?” I hold his gaze without flinching.

  “I could be wrong, but I don’t think you’re undercover FDA.”

  “Actually …” I joke.

  He pretends to wipe sweat off his forehead. “I wish I could laugh.”

  “So how does it work?”

  “The records will show you’re a normal IVF patient for insurance purposes. There will be zero evidence. The mitochondrial transplant is a one-hour procedure in the lab. And there’s no way to prove it once you get pregnant, unless you submit to specific prenatal tests.”

  I barely hear the last part because I’m stuck back on the word pregnant. The whole thing sounds like either a Disney fantasy or a dystopian nightmare. But I’m willing to chance it.

  “I won’t discuss it with a single soul,” I promise.

  “Other than your husband, obviously?”

  “Even him.” Especially him. “The smallest possible circle, right?”

  “Okay.” Nash seems surprised. “If you’re comfortable with that.”

  I lean in. “I’m not a religious woman, but I do hold one thing sacred above all else: the memory of my son.” A familiar closing sensation thickens my throat. “I swear on Colton’s life that this stays between us.”

  Nash extends his palm across the desk. I’m thinking he wants to shake on the deal, but instead he clasps my hand gently in his own. “Then let’s make him proud.”

  ABBY: NOW

  I cringe as Mom’s eyes fill with tears. The note makes me look like a horrible person:

  My mom’s a crazy bitch.

  I’m going to kill Sydney tomorrow. I bet she wants to get me in trouble so I won’t be allowed on the field trip. That way, she can hang out with Tyler alone. If she gets her way, I’ll make him swear to ignore her.

  “I didn’t write that,” I tell my mom. “Why would I do that?”

  A disgusted noise rumbles in her throat. “You’re allowed to hate me, but you’re not allowed to lie.”

  “I don’t hate you!” I kick my backpack in frustration. “And I’m telling the truth, okay? God.”

  She crosses her arms. “So, you want me to believe that someone went into your backpack when you weren’t looking and wrote an extremely cruel note in bubbly handwriting? Just like yours?”

  I plop down on my bed. “Pretty much.”

  “Well, that makes much more sense.” She stomps over and sits near my feet. “I’m not leaving until you admit you’re lying.”

  “I’m not! This is so unfair! When have I ever lied to you?”

  “Let’s see.” She touches her chin in pretend thoughtfulness. “You don’t secretly check the Instagram you’re not supposed to have? Or fake a stomachache sometimes even though you haven’t been sick for years?”

  I lick my lips to hide my guilty smile. “How did you know?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Fine.” I slide under my comforter and roll away from her.

  “Abigail.” She uses her warning voice. “I’m ready for your apology.”

  “I told you,” I say to the wall. “I didn’t write it.”

  “Then who did?”

  I throw off the blanket and sit up. “The girl who hates me, okay?”

  “Someone hates you?” She frowns. “You never told me that.”

  “Because she said mean stuff about you. I didn’t want you to know.”

  “About me? Why?”

  I chew my fingernail. “Since you don’t, like, show up to stuff. I mean, no one ever sees you get out of the car.”

  She’s speechless and a little embarrassed. I wait for an explanation. Something more than her usual “I’m not a social person” or “I have anxiety issues.” What are you so afraid of? I want to ask. But I don’t have the balls.

  “Kids at your age can be such bullies,” she finally says.

  I shrug. “Yeah.” I pick up the stupid pink slip and study the writing. “It’s definitely not mine. I don’t do a lowercase a like that.”

  She gives me a weird look that makes me shiver. It’s like she’s trying to recognize me but sees someone else.

  “Hey.” I wave a hand. “I didn’t do it. Okay?”

  She sighs. “If you want to punish me, I get it. I know I’ve been preoccupied.”

  “Mom, for the last time, it wasn’t me!” I’m almost screaming at her, but I don’t care. “Do you think I’m, like, evil or something?”

  “Okay, okay. Calm down.”

  “You know what? You’re right,” I say loudly. “You have been checked out and it sucks. Sometimes I feel like you’re not even here.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I haven’t been feeling well.”

  Normally this would annoy me, but I find myself bracing. “Are you okay?”

  She waves a hand. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  A tense silence follows. I don’t believe her, and she knows it. But she says nothing. After a few moments, I lift my backpack onto my lap.

  “Well, I should start studying.”

  “Okay. Dinner’s at six.” She jumps off the bed and walks to the door without giving me a hug or even a second glance. I can’t help feeling like she wants to get away from me.

  Then it hits me: that troubled look on her face?

  It seemed a little like fear.

  CLAIRE: BEFORE

  NINE MONTHS TO GO

  For three uncomfortable weeks, I have been pumping myself full of hormones to stimulate my ovaries to release a bunch of eggs, and so has Jillian. Today, at last, is the big day. Nash will take our eggs out in separate parallel surgeries. Then, while I’m back home sleeping off the drugs, he will perform the secret mitochondrial transplant and mix our hybrid eggs with Ethan’s sperm.

  As if I don’t have enough to stress about, a screening test on Ethan’s sperm came back low. Apparently, it was from a mild prostate infection, so Nash prescribed him antibiotics, which should have worked their magic by now. Ethan’s not too worried—he feels good.

  We’re aiming to get around a dozen healthy embryos. In five days, Nash will pick the single most viable one to implant inside me. Then we’ll hope it sticks. Though hope is an understatement. People hope for good weather. I’m aching like a lost sailor aches for land.

  I wish I could put faith in God,
or destiny, or whatever spiritual force comforts others. Yet I’m far too rational—this is going to be an odds game. At my ripe old age of almost forty, they aren’t great. The live birth rate is only fifteen percent, and that’s with stone-cold normal embryos.

  Ethan is also clinging to our small island of hope. After I told him I had decided to try IVF after all, using my own eggs and “praying for a miracle,” his attitude toward me transformed. His distant moodiness and halfhearted pecks disappeared. He started spooning me again in bed. But, I asked, wasn’t he terrified of having another child like Colton? God wouldn’t give us what we couldn’t handle, he told me serenely. We will love him or her no matter what.

  I could only nod in response, too afraid that opening my mouth would start a fight I could never win. His attitude is an outrage, an excuse to do something totally reckless. To risk burdening a child with a lifetime of suffering, only to blame it on “a master plan we don’t yet understand,” is a sickening evasion of responsibility. But to argue with him is to acknowledge our moral divide, which would impugn his whole career.

  It’s easier to shut up and do things my way: protect our baby from both of us—my defective genes and his defective thinking. I came perilously close to walking away before. But this second shot at parenthood has inclined me to give him another chance. It helps to remember the night he stayed up with Colton reading the final Harry Potter book in a marathon six-hour stretch, because another day with our son was not guaranteed. Ethan was no doubt an incredible dad, if not my perfect soul mate, and that has to count for something.

  * * *

  In the waiting room at Nash’s clinic the morning of my egg extraction, Ethan draws me close. “You nervous?”

  The procedure requires me to undergo sedation while Nash inserts a hollow needle through my vagina, up to my ovaries, to get the goods.

  “Nah.” I shrug. “It’ll be done in 20 minutes.”

  “Brave girl.”

  I smile coyly and lower my voice. “Your part will be way more fun.”

  “I’m not going to touch a thing in there. You think they ever clean that DVD player?”