The Only Ones (11 page)

For now, those viables are in the freezers, and I’m in the rec room. Ani and Madhur are in the tank, twenty-two weeks in, and Ani is blinking. I wasn’t feeling so great. Generally it is Rini who calls to say, “Did Inez have her milk Process? Did she have nourishment?” Now she’s forgetting to call. Rauden is getting on my nerves. He can’t give up this toxin business. Nobody ever did a full-term study of the Compatibility anomaly. What if there is a late-term toxin that is going to kill me now? I am like, oh shut up, Rauden. All the things I been exposed to in my life, and I am going to die from Ani and Madhur who are not even born?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Because Ani died in the tank at twenty-six weeks. So Madhur was the only one.

When Rini got the news, she drove down to the Farm and stared at Madhur for a long time, and everyone is worried, here we go with the cheeks but she did not even have fresh blood, just scabs from Chi-Chi. She took my face in her hands. She did not scratch my cheeks. She just looked down at me. Then she unhooked me, took my hand, and we went upstairs to tell Rauden he could only freeze a small piece of what was left of Ani, and she would take it with her. It belonged to her. We burnt the rest, to ashes. We had a ceremony in the woods. Even Rauden went. He seemed really nervous. He wasn’t drunk though. Lucas came back to keep an eye on Madhur and the tank.

Rini took me for a long drive when the ceremony was over, to a hilltop where there was an old farm, or used to be a farm, which was burnt. We got out and walked around and we threw Ani’s ashes in the wind. It was starting to be spring now, but windy. Rini’s skirts and veils were flapping hard. She was ash-white; her lips were practically purple. There were large black shadows and hollows around her eyes. Her hair was dirty.

She turned to me, in the wind. “You must promise me,” she said, and she had to shout for me to hear, “if something happens to me, you will take the child.”

“What could happen?” I shouted back. But, to tell the truth, I could think of things. She looked like death.

“You must promise!”

“Rauden—”

“Rauden would sell the child! Promise!”

Finally I said, “Rini, I don’t think you get this.” I didn’t think I’d be a good mother. The only thing that was worth anything about me was that after all I’d been through, I was still alive, and I didn’t even pass that on to the original Ani who would of been mine.

“No, you must promise!”

She hung so tough that in the end I promised if anything happened, I would take her child. I mean, what are the chances? Right? But everything the two of us said here is going to be a very important environmental factor for what happens, in the end. For now, she brought me back to the Farm, then went back to Toronto to make preparations. Madhur’s birth was approaching. She had to start work on the shady papers.

Rauden was going nuts. “You can’t leave now! It is the last trimester. The birth could be any time!”

“No, I must go.”

So she drove off. When Rini had a plan, ok, maybe she changed her mind. But no one else could change it for her.

Rauden had preparations to make himself. The Port Jervis OBGYN totally disappeared. Rauden and Henry had a bad feeling about him anyhow but thought they should have someone for the birth. Lucas had overseen tank births, but just with livestock, and Rauden himself had only delivered livestock the regular way. Then Janet Delize had a plan.

It seemed her cousin used to be a midwife. That might be good enough. It’s not like all the extra things OBGYNs knew would matter, with the tank delivery. And it’s not like even Lucas knew how this is going to work. None of us did. All any of us knew was that it was the twenty-eighth week and Rini’s child was still alive.

They tried to have Rini show up for the Interview with Janet’s cousin. They couldn’t even get her on the phone. She sent a message she will trust our judgment. It sounded funny. She never trusted our judgment before.

Janet Delize’s cousin had a very wide face and middle, a gray sweater, and a long skirt. Her name was Mariah Delize. She was a little bossy, but we weren’t about to call the shots. If she wanted to call the shots, she could. It’s not like other shady midwives were knocking on our door, you know?

The first thing Mariah did was pray, and she tried to get all of us to pray with her, including Rauden. Rauden refused. Janet and I got on our knees. Rauden got drunk. I heard him shouting at Mariah Delize from the hall. “She’s not the mother. Technically, she’s not even the birth mother. She’s the Original.”

Mariah Delize just shouted back. “I don’t care if she’s the boy next door! I want her at the birth!”

Maybe it wasn’t even a birth.

Mariah Delize went away, then, till the time. Rauden went on a bender. Rini could not be reached. We got messages. We didn’t get a call. Did she get sick? Mumbai had just hit Chicago.

Madhur was drinking, I don’t know, whatever was in there with her.

We had six weeks left, or eight weeks, who knew how to count? No one was exactly sure how we would know the timing, but Mariah thought we didn’t have to know, Madhur would tell us.

Which she did.

One day in May, the tank began to move until the frame rocked on the springs. I don’t know why it did.

Janet watched the rocking and checked her watch. “That’s way early,” she said. It was just like Daisy.

They tried to call Rini in Toronto. They tried her in Ottawa. No one was there. They tried to call Rini’s Mobile. It didn’t work.

When Mariah Delize showed up, the first thing she did was play a tape of women screaming who are doing this the regular way.

Rauden was furious. He didn’t want to attract attention by the screaming. Mariah said shut the door, that’s what it’s there for.

Rauden didn’t trust Lucas, but in the end he called him. He really wanted to get the squeezing right. They didn’t squeeze the tank direct, just some tube which went around the tank and made the whole thing rock harder.

Meanwhile, Rini Jaffur was nowhere to be found.

Mariah and Rauden are looking at their watches, for the timing. Janet just waited on the side. The frames were rocking. The tapes were screaming. I was supposed to be in the other room, listening to the screaming through the wall. I was supposed to breathe deep. I don’t know why the women on the tape were supposed to scream. I don’t know why Lucas and Rauden were supposed to squeeze. I don’t know why I was supposed to breathe deep. I wasn’t the father. I wasn’t the mother. I wasn’t even the birth mother. I was the Original. I didn’t know what that was. I just sat there frozen in my chair, breathing deep, until the phone rang.

It was Rini, on the phone. The vid was dark. You could not see her at all. “Who is screaming?”

“It is the tapes.” I told her the baby was on her way.

Rauden was screaming too. “You make her get her ass here, fast!”

I tried to make her hurry. I told her she would miss the birth. She said something had happened to her. She was in Delhi. Then she hung up.

“In Delhi?” Rauden said. “What’s she doing in Delhi! They’re dying like flies in Delhi. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

“The squeezing is too weak.” That was Lucas.

They didn’t know what to do. Rauden took a chance, give me a shot, what Lucas calls estro. They gave it a little time, then they draw my blood, send it back to the tank. So, my own messages went back to the tank, where Madhur is the only one of all five left. It didn’t work. The walls in her section didn’t change.

Finally, they stopped giving it to me. They just put it right into the track in the tank. It didn’t work. They put it in her section wall.

They drew blood from the tank and put it back in me in case there was a message, which there was, I felt something, in what’s left of my uterus. They had me squeeze what Lucas had been squeezing, which was a ball that went to the tube around the tank. Squeeze each time I felt something. That is good for the baby’s brain, supposedly, but also could help her pop out. The regular way, she is supposed to pop through a regular hole, what Rauden calls cer, cer, anyhow it didn’t work. The regular hole is in the regular uterus, but this isn’t regular anything. It’s liner from what fell out of my uterus in Port Jervis inside a wall that Lucas made a hole in, but it didn’t work. It didn’t stretch enough. They didn’t want to just cut through and pull her out, like what they do the regular way when it doesn’t come out the regular way. They tried everything they could. Mariah just reached her hands right in the tank and squeezed the wall. She had gloves on. You could see the top of the head, with hair, but Mariah couldn’t pull the head through. They didn’t know if I should keep squeezing too, or it might confuse the baby. None of this hurt me. I was glad they didn’t make me try to scream. The tape screaming was already too loud. Finally Rauden said, “Turn that goddamn thing off,” and Janet did, so then I just heard Mariah Delize grunting, and Rauden muttering, “Dear God!” and, “Shit! Shit!” Then I heard Janet say, “That’s not her heartbeat!” It was mine. They had the heartbeat miked, but it was the wrong heart, mine, and when they got it all sorted out, they could tell something was wrong with hers. Finally they just cut right through the track, put their hands in up to the bloody wrists, and pulled her out. She was still alive.

iv

There is some kind of noise.

Static, from the monitor. You can’t hear anything else.

Man, I conked out.

When I woke up, I could see them through the rec room window bending over, from the back. The static is still on.

Now, I don’t know how it worked for you, when you were born. I don’t honestly know how it works for anyone, anywhere. All I’m saying is, what happened now, I never saw anything like this.

They had a little suit for her, white, with arms and legs. It has a picture of, I don’t know, I think it is a duck.

I mean, they cleaned her up first. She was a mess. But, you know, alive.

That I saw.

I only saw what shows through the rec room glass. They don’t think I should get in the tank room too, in case I bond. If I gave milk, they would take the risk. I didn’t give milk. I don’t know why I didn’t give milk. I don’t know why I would of if I did. All I know is, she needs milk from somewhere if she’s going to stay alive. They are putting a really small bottle of, I don’t know, milk Process, in the mouth.

When they were finished, she was still alive.

They put her in a box, what they call dry tank, or incubator, like I had seen those tiny Endangereds in at Larraine’s, that first night. It has glass in front. I have glass in front too, the rec room glass. They put a gizmo over her face so she can breathe. It worked. She woke up two hours later, still alive.

Then they are cleaning her up again.

Mariah says I should hold her, once. Nobody else wants me to hold her. They are afraid I’ll bond.

They would, like, sniff when they held her. Someone was singing.

I did hold her once. I didn’t bond. I gave her back to Mariah right away. I was afraid she’s going to slip right through her clothes, they are so big. Janet said the way she’s eating, they would not be big for long. When she ate, everyone stood around watching her eat.

She was two days old, still alive.

I still slept on the sofa. Rauden still didn’t sleep at all. He was a wreck. Janet too. A tank is one thing. A baby makes noise. Someone could hear her. Someone could figure out what we did. To tell the truth, she didn’t make that much noise. Janet was even concerned, something is wrong with her, she does not cry enough. Mariah Delize said, “What does she have to cry about? What a nice home she has here.”

She was just saying it to keep us from thinking what had happened.

She was three days old, alive, and Rini was gone.

This is not a viable, or embryo, or whatever she used to be. This is a child. A child needs to live somewhere. A child needs a home.

When Rini finally called, Rauden was so furious, he could hardly speak.

So it was me who did the talking. I was angry too. I told Rini, “You missed the birth.”

I don’t know where she is but the vid she came through is really bad. You could hardly see her face. You just see something dark. It goes, “How was it?”

I told the dark thing that is Rini, “Hard.” I didn’t know, compared to what. But I wanted Rini to feel bad she wasn’t there.

“And how is the child?”

“Alive.” I didn’t think she deserved more than that.

“Thank God! Thank God!”

She sounds so happy, I broke down and told her more. I told her the baby had twenty-four bottles. Janet and Mariah Delize did the feedings.

She had fingernails.

Rini says, oh! Bring her to the screen, but Mariah’s sleeping, Janet is out on a break, and Rauden and I were nervous to carry a baby that far. The connection went.

We felt a little better she called at all, but we still didn’t know anything. We all just waited for Rini to call again.

Mariah went home. Janet did all the work now. She didn’t really like me to touch the baby too much, and she thought Rauden would drop it. Janet didn’t seem to get much sleep. Rauden got no sleep, but then he never did. By the time Rini called back, we were all so tense, I didn’t even want to hold the phone. But Rini said she would talk only to me. “You made me a promise,” Rini said.

I was really angry now. “I didn’t steal the child. I didn’t even bond! Was I the only one who made a promise here?”

For a long time, Rini didn’t say anything. Man! Where is she finding these vidPhones? You could hardly see any part of her, everything is so blurry and dark. “That was not the only promise you made.”

Now I don’t say anything.

Now neither of us did. Then her voice goes, really soft, “If something happened.” Now even softer. “Something has happened.”

Remember she used to say, how do I feel? I felt something then. It was not good. “What happened?”

“I found Madhur.”

“Your daughter Madhur?
”

“She is my daughter now.” She had found two older girls in Delhi who had survived Mumbai and Luzon too. The oldest one’s name was Madhur. She had adopted them at once and changed the other one’s name to Madhur too. “I went halfway around the world to make Madhur,” Rini said, “and she was waiting here at home.”