Caeli Widger - Mother of Invention

“No, I don’t. I’ve already been over and over this with what’s-his-face. I’m not going to stop talking about AG. I’m not going to stop talking about it or writing about it. I’m not going to pretend that something didn’t happen to us. Look at me, Wayne,” she said, jumping out of bed and grabbing a fistful of her hair. “It’s turning gray . Which wouldn’t be so bad except that I’ve also got”—she jerked her index finger toward her eyes—“crow’s feet. Not to mention wrinkles I shouldn’t have for another twenty years. Not to mention a gimpy leg because I broke my leg falling onto grass . You know who breaks their bones falling on soft surfaces, Wayne? Old people. That’s who. I’m not going to shut up about this until I find out why it happened.”

He swallowed with effort. “You’re not sick,” he said. “You’re healthy.”

“So what? I’m starting to look shitty. It’s got to be only a matter of time before I start feeling that way too.”

“Not necessarily.” Irene, despite looking ninety when she was forty-two, hadn’t ever been truly “sick” for a single day. No illnesses, no deterioration of her mind. There were the physical changes, of course—gradual at first, then rapid—but she’d never really been ill. “And you don’t look shitty at all. You look… perfect.”

“Give me a break.”

“Sorry, it’s true.”

“I need to know why this is happening to me.”

Tracy paused. “Okay. I’ll tell you why.”

She tipped her head to the right, something she did when her interest was piqued, a gesture that he found inexplicably endearing.

“What?”

“I’ll tell you.”

“You know something about AG?”

“Yes. I know a lot that I haven’t told you. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

Viv stood silently, her eyes on the floor. He moved one hand back to her cheek, then another. This time, she did not push him away. Let him cradle her face in his palms.

“I’ll tell you everything I know about AG. But I don’t have time right now. If I’m going to get you out of here, you have to follow my directions.”

“You abducted me. Why would I ever trust you again?”

“Viv, please. I’m begging you, okay? Come with me now. And then I’ll tell you what I know about AG, and I’ll get you out of this place. Don’t you want to get out?”

“Yes. Just not on their… terms.”

“I’m offering that to you. Just do what I tell you, and I’ll get you out of here. To your parents, to Weldon, wherever. No one will be that suspicious—we’ve dealt with them.”

“Dealt with them?”

“We’ve been in touch. We’ve kept them from worrying.”

Viv tilted her head at him, quizzical. “I don’t see how that’s possible,” she said. “I can’t disappear for a week and not cause people to worry.”

He fought the urge to take her in his arms.

“You can, actually,” he said. “But if anyone’s skeptical, if you have to explain these last few days, blame it all on me. Play the unstable boyfriend card.”

“It wouldn’t be a play .”

“Say I dragged you on some spiritual quest to the desert. Say I’m loony tunes, that I’m in a cult, whatever you come up with. Say we shroomed and did yoga or something. You freaked out and wanted to go home. So you called for help. Leave it at that. Blame me all you want, feel free to get creative, but don’t use a single detail of the truth. Do you understand me?”

“And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, they’ll hurt you. And the others. And me.”

She did not ask him to identify the pronoun.

“Please come with me now. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but then you’ll be safe. You’ll be free.” He extended his arm to her. “Let’s go.”

Time was moving fast, bearing down on them.

“So you’re not leaving with me? You’re going to stay in this place?”

He breathed out, long and slow, snagged with trembling. “Yes. For now.”

Her deliberation felt eternal.

“Okay,” she whispered.

She lifted her eyes.

He held out his hand and she reached for it.

2021

“Help me understand,” said Tessa to Rita Gupta.

Gupta pushed the red lever of a hot water dispenser and filled her mug. She chose a bag of tea from the colorful array of boxes on the counter and dropped it into her cup. Then she took a seat across the table from Tessa. They were alone in a small break room of East Lobe, with a window that looked out over the topiary garden. At eight in the evening, it was almost dark, and the path lamps had turned on below, lighting the geometric shapes of the artfully pared trees.

“I’ve already explained,” said Gupta, blowing at the steam rising from her tea.

“You’re a renowned obstetrician, Rita. At the top of your field. Affiliated with one of the best med schools in the country. How could you agree to deceiving a patient?”

“I agreed to nothing of the sort,” said Gupta. “I was misled by Luke. Egregiously so. He substituted ultrasound images without my knowledge. They were highly convincing. If he weren’t so repulsive, I’d be impressed with his technical acumen.”

“Are you telling me you didn’t know you were looking at bogus ultrasounds?”

“I am.” Gupta met Tessa’s eyes and blinked slowly: a request for trust. Tessa nodded back. She had a great deal of respect for Gupta. Before arriving in the States to work on the artificial womb, she’d delivered babies in the slums of Mumbai. She’d seen every natal emergency imaginable.

Perhaps she really hadn’t known.

“You have two children, Rita, right? In college?”

“Princeton and Caltech,” Gupta said, brightening. “Twins, actually.”

Tessa had not known they were twins. “Can I ask you a question, from a motherly standpoint?”

“Of course.”

“Because I’m not a mother myself.”

“I’m aware.”

“Would you have used the Seahorse Solution, if you’d had the chance? Back when you were pregnant?”

Gupta looked thoughtful. She took a small sip of tea. “I’m completely committed to the work we do here. But I would never use Seahorse myself.”

“Why not?”

“I loved being pregnant. I remember feeling all-powerful and extremely vulnerable at the same time. On one hand, I was growing an entire life inside me. On the other, I could hardly walk a block without having to rest. My lower back hurt all the time. I gained sixty-five pounds. And yet…” She trailed off.

“And yet?” Tessa prodded.

“Pregnancy was an important time. The bridge from one life to another. I needed the gradualness of the nine months. If it had happened in nine weeks, I would have been a different sort of mother.”

“A lesser sort?”

Gupta considered.

“Yes, lesser,” she said.

“Why?”

“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear. But having a child is a relinquishing of self. For a woman, it’s the beginning of her death. A sort of torch passing, from one generation to the next. Nine weeks isn’t enough to prepare for that. I would have resented my children, I think.”

“And what about men?” asked Tessa. “Is it the beginning of death for them, too?”

“Quite the opposite. It’s the beginning of their freedom.”

“Freedom from what?”

“Their partners, of course. The tedium of married life. Of course, children are a new sort of tedium, but mothers absorb the lion’s share of that. Fathers do the fun part of parenting.”

“You’re making a lot of generalizations,” said Tessa.

Gupta shrugged. “General, and true.”