Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

He froze, trying to process what he was seeing.

'What is it?'

'My God.'

'What's wrong?' She had seen something in his eyes.

'Those are eggs.'

'And they're not supposed to be?'

'They can't . . . she's never--' He checked the locks on all the cages, opened Shadow's cage and searched under her hide-in, the water bowl, the paper substrate. Foolishly looking for what he knew wasn't there, a sign that another of the animals had gotten inside with her. 'She can't have eggs, not now.'

'Why not?'

'Because Shadow has never, never once been with a male. Hobarth documented everything meticulously. And she's not even mature. I wasn't planning on putting her with the others until next spring and, even then, that was a dream. I figured two years, but this, uh-uh. There's no way.'

'They don't just lay eggs like chickens or something?'

'No, they need to be fertilized. They must mate to become gravid. No mate, no eggs.'

'One of the others got to her, you think?'

'No. Not a chance. And if they did, what, they locked themselves back in? No. The crazy thing is, I was just thinking how she looked too slim.'

'It's a good thing, though, right? She's not sick?'

'No, she seems healthy,' he said, returning to the eggs. Eight or nine white orbs the size of a cue ball, all but two stuck together in a moist clutch. He was wide-eyed, giddy and a little frightened.

'That's like, what? A hundred thousand dollars?'

'Nadia, it's much more than that,' he said, stars in his eyes. 'This is a virgin birth.'

'Okay,' she said. She didn't understand he meant it literally.

'This is a miracle.' His eyes were full of a hunger that made her step back.

'Really? Wow. I . . . I guess I should be getting home.' She headed for the door. 'Thanks for everything.'

'No problem. Sorry, I'm a little out of it. I need to call someone. Dr Hobarth's going to freak.'

'Okay,' she said. 'Good luck.'

'Yes,' he said. 'You must be some kind of luck.'

He was still laughing when she shut the door behind her.

An untouched female. Nine Boelen's eggs.

'Holy shit.'

11

His hand was on the phone when he realized she still didn't know he'd bought the snakes. She would argue that he was being silly and juvenile. But this wasn't the same as the organic juice pyramid scheme, or the Pre-Paid Legal side business, or any other half-assed endeavor he'd thrown his hat in with over the past five years waiting for his real life to begin. These were different. They were an investment, one he knew would soon pay large dividends. She would understand. Once she laid her eyes on the offspring. But even with the good news about the eggs, he had to catch her in the right mood.

He set the phone down and it rang immediately, startling him to fumble the receiver.

'Hello?'

'Conrad!' A one-word accusation. 'Where have you been?'

He heard her crying and was seized by the idea that she knew he had walked Nadia home and lured her into the garage.

'I was in the yard. What's wrong, Jo?'

'I'm not, I'm not feeling so good. I'm having a hard time staying in class. I keep telling myself it's just nerves but it won't go away. I keep thinking about it.'

'About what?'

'About what? Everything. This, us! I'm living in a hotel in a random city, I don't know anybody. You have no idea what this is like.'

'I'm sorry, Jo. Calm down. I do know what it's like. I'm living in a city where I don't know anyone, either.'

'It's not the same. You're home! You have the dogs.'

'They miss you. We do. A lot.'

She was still on the verge of shouting. 'Have you even thought about this? One week we're living in Los Angeles and now, what, we just decide to move to the middle of nowhere? I don't think this is what we thought it would be.'

'What did you think--? No, skip that,' he said. 'I know what we said it would be. What is it now?'

'I think you need to do some serious thinking.'

Some serious thinking! 'About?'

'About everything.' Her voice had resumed a normal pitch. This frightened him, that she could be nearly hysterical one minute and then go Dr Phil the next. 'For starters, why did we have to leave Los Angeles? No, don't answer me now. I want you to think about it because this is really important, are you listening?'

'Yes.' Talk, don't talk. What do you want me to do, woman?

'This isn't like us, it's too fast, the whole thing. It's like we woke up different people. I know you've been through a lot with your father dying, but I'm sorry. There's more to it. You're not being truthful with me. I know something . . . else . . . happened to you. Something bad. You've always been aloof, but you're different now. Darker. And I'm sorry if that sounds paranoid. But I'm not sorry because it's how I feel, so don't try to blame me.'

This, more than anything about his wife, made his blood jump. The way she dumped everything on him and, whether he deserved it or not, backed it all up by telling him that he could not, dared not, dispute it because this was the way she felt . He equated this sort of haired-out logic with fundamentalists who burned books because they were offended and pissed off at the world. She felt bad; it was his responsibility to change until she felt better.

'--and then there's your career. Because I can take care of myself, but I don't want to take care of you, too. And you shouldn't want me to.'

Wasn't that what married people were supposed to do, take care of each other? And, Christ, he'd just inherited five hundred thousand dollars. What the fuck was this about?

'I'm solvent now. We're ahead of the game here, Jo.'

'It's not about the money, Conrad. You have to do something real.'

'Something real? Like what? Selling more software I don't even understand? Like traveling around the country so much neither one of us is home to so much as feed the dogs, let alone a kid?'

'What has that got to do with anything?' It was an actual screech now. 'You don't think I will make a good mother?'

'No. Yes, of course you will. I'm just saying we're both still in transition here. I'm going to find something else. Just have some patience.' And stop acting like you have it all figured out because obviously you do not.

'Are you going to figure it out?'

'Yes--'

'Because I can't take another diversion.'

'Now wait a goddamned--'

'That's not what I meant. I'm sorry.'

He was fuming. A diversion? They'd moved to Los Angeles for her goddamn career, not his. And the staying home all the time. She said it was nice knowing he was home. She'd even started to call him Mr Mom, for fuck's sakes.

'If you thought the past few years were a diversion, you should have spoken up,' he said. 'Instead, you waited for me, and I changed. I was the one who pushed us to move. Before I came home to find That Fucker Jake standing in the hallway with his dong in his hand. Jesus!'

'Conrad, I don't want to fight.'

'You don't - hey, that's actually funny.'

'I can't. Not here.'

'Then don't.'

'Okay.'

'Okay.'

'But you should know . . .' she said in a condescending tone.

'What?'

'I'm not coming home this weekend.' This wasn't lobbing one over to see how it would play. This was something she knew from the minute she called.

'Why not?' He made his voice cold.

'I don't feel like it.'

'You don't feel like it.'

'No.'

'Fine, then do whatever the fuck you feel like with whoever the fuck you feel like and leave me the fuck alone!'

There was a small tea saucer lying on the kitchen table, next to the cordless phone cradle. When the phone went down like a torpedo, it nicked the saucer and shattered the porcelain into a thousand white slivers, one of which embedded itself in the cheek meat just below his left eye. There was a ringing sound from the shattering and for a second he thought it was her calling back. He reached for the phone, heard silence and threw the phone at the wall and kicked the chair up in the air where it did a neat little somersault and landed almost perfectly straight again.