Caeli Widger - Mother of Invention

From the grass beneath her chair, Tessa’s phone chimed. She leaned over and picked it up, grateful for the interruption, hoping the message was from Peter. She hadn’t heard from him in days.

But the text was from Vivian Bourne. Tessa was surprised; she’d emailed Viv weeks ago and heard nothing back.

Tessa, sorry for the delayed response. I’ve been tied up with finals, ugh. Hope texting you here is OK, I don’t use email much. Thanks for your offer to visit Seahorse. I’d love to take you up on it. I graduate next month and plan to head to my parents’ in SoCal for the summer. Maybe I could come to Seahorse at the beginning of June, before graduation? Let me know what logistics are like on your end and again, thanks for the generous offer.

“Everything okay?” said Kate.

“Just fine,” said Tessa. “Remember how I talked to you and LaTonya and Gwen a few weeks ago about the college student who might be visiting?”

“The AG woman?”

“Yes.”

“Of course. Whatever happened with that? We were all so curious to meet her.”

“Good news.” Tessa waved her phone in the air. “She’s coming to visit next month.”

LindsEE!: so I went to an estatician (sp???)

VivversOC: esthetician.

LindsEE!: she said sun damage and recs collagen and retinol creams. And also sunscreen duh. I spent like $200!!!!

VivversOC: did u tell her ur age?

LindsEE!: yep. She seemed surprised, I could tell she was trying to be polite. She goes “oh you seem really mature” nice try lol

Stoph1: Viv you there?

VivversOC: yep hey.

Stoph1: so I did your assignment I tried “interviewing” my mom and guess what???

VivversOC: ?

Stoph1: surprise surprise, just like ur mom and Linds’ she says she just can’t remember. That it was just so long ago and all that matters is that she got me out of it

VivversOC: did you record the convo?

Stoph1: yep

VivversOC: send it to me

Stoph1: ok. u know what’s weird tho?

VivversOC: what?

Stoph1: my mom never 4gets ANYTHING

VivversOC: have a serious q for the 3 of u.

Stoph1: hit us

VivversOC: I’ve been doing some writing abt AG. Like personal essay type stuff for my creative writing workshop.

Stoph1: surprise surprise, it’s yr fave topic

LindsEE!: shut up stoph

VivversOC: and my prof suggested I should try to pub what I wrote. So I sent it out to a few places and it got accepted.

Xavey: hey congrats! Who’s publishing?

VivversOC: Thanks. Well… it’s ARTERY

Stoph1: no f’n way!

LindsEE!: WOW!!! Like a bazillion peeps read that every day. Myself included. CONGRATS!!!!

VivversOC: I know, I’m excited. The thing is, they want it to be a big feature with photos. It’s gonna be part of their “UNSILENCED” series. No pressure but I’m just wondering if u guys would be willing to participate

LindsEE!: like have our pics & names in it?

VivversOC: yep. Closeups of your skunk patches and skin creases and all. I know you guys think I’m paranoid but if there is something up with us related to AG that is being overlooked by society I think we should speak up, don’t u think? Like why do we all have the same weird physical pat

VivversOC: hello, why is no one answering me?

2021

“Evening, Roger.” Luke ushered Dr. Milford into his office.

“Good evening, Dr. Zimmerman.” His nightly jab at Luke. It bothered the older doctor, Luke knew, that Luke—who did not even have a bachelor’s degree—simply referred to him by his first name and not Dr. Milford . But Luke did not care for titles, especially in casual settings. They created false hierarchies. If Milford disagreed, so be it.

Roger Milford took his usual seat beside Luke at his desk and produced the white tablet on which he kept the charts of Cohort One. He cleared his throat. Everything about Milford, it seemed, was dry.

“The Cohort hits day fifty-two tomorrow. The equivalent of thirty-three weeks conventional. Nervous system developments are now happening very rapidly. We’ll begin twice-daily exams starting tomorrow. Do you want to be briefed on each of those, or is a nightly overview of both appointments sufficient?”

“Twice daily,” said Luke. “I’ll leave room on my calendar.” He felt the doctor bristle beside him. He knew Milford would have preferred to simply brief him daily on the Cohort’s progress, rather than actually sharing the charts, but Luke didn’t want to see anything less than his doctors did. If it were up to Luke, he’d have attended the actual obstetric exams, but Rita Gupta had argued that it would make the Cohort too uncomfortable.

“Okay,” said Milford, with zero enthusiasm. “Understood.”

Sometimes the doctor seemed to forget just how much Luke was paying him.

“Let’s sync up,” said Luke, nodding toward Milford’s tablet. Luke liked to view the Cohort’s charts on one of his large desktop monitors. “Lavek first.”

The image that filled the center of his screen was revolting and awesome: Kate’s baby, swimming inside her, limbs tangled, shadows of bone visible beneath the face, digits fully formed. Her fetus floated in a golden nimbus of light, one tiny hand pressed to a cheek. Luke felt the familiar expanse in his chest, an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.

Milford droned through the numbers, unmoved.

“Head-to-toe length: 16.1 inches. Weight: four pounds, five ounces. Heart rate, activity level, breathing motion, muscle tone, amniotic fluid—all normal.”

Luke leaned closer to the ultrasound image on his monitor to closely examine the fetus’s head. He touched his finger to the screen, tracing its shape, which was smooth and round at the top. It was the same shape as millions of other babies in millions of other wombs at this very moment and, according to Milford’s team, would remain round at birth. Unlike the natural AG babies, the children of the TEAT Trial, per Luke’s decree, would not have cranial abnormalities. Luke did not want the new generation to suffer such a stigma. The Seahorse team had already proven, in the animal trials, that they could accelerate other species without creating a cleft in the skull. The birth of Cohort One’s babies would verify they could do it in humans, too.

“Okay,” said Luke, leaning back from the screen. “Sims next.”

LaTonya’s baby was smaller than Kate’s, but also normal, and sucking his thumb.

“Excellent,” said Luke. “Moving on.”

“Ms. Harris,” said Milford, bringing up Gwen’s chart. Luke watched the image leap onto the screen, then fought not to look away.

“It’s a battle for limited resources in there, huh?” he said to Milford. “Little warriors from the get-go.”