Q

by Christina Dalcher

  Now I’m back in the dining hall listening to the girls, wishing I could stop my ears. Did I know something? No, I didn’t.

  When I pass close to Judy, she stares hard into my eyes. “You should have studied history, you bitch. Don’t you know it repeats itself?”

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  Sabrina mumbles something about Judy not being herself. “She’s sorry. Really.” Judy doesn’t seem to agree, but lets Sabrina lead her by the arm and pull her gently along to one of the long tables, out of earshot.

  The same woman who gave me an earful in the common room last night is here. She calls after Judy, “You tell her, honey.” When she turns to me, she smiles innocently. “Don’t even think about reporting that. We’ll all swear we didn’t hear a thing. Enjoy your meal.”

  Over lunch, while I’m worrying over Freddie and wondering if everyone in the world sees me as a bitch, Ruby Jo talks about the Fitter Family Campaign.

  She shrugs. “They don’t like us mountain folk none too much. It’s funny, ’cause before my mom had me, the FF—that’s what we called them—was pretty strong down in our parts. I mean, they weren’t Q testing back then. It was more like making sure the town didn’t get taken over by Italians. Or gays. Or anyone who wasn’t purebred, homophobic white trash.” She pushes food around her plate as she talks. “Still is, I guess. Some of them don’t give two shits about how smart you are.”

  “Some of who?” I say.

  “Some of the FF people. You know.”

  “No. I don’t.” Since it started, the Fitter Family crap has always been about smarts. Measurable smarts in the form of Q scores. Although when I think back to this morning’s class, I wonder if that’s all they’re about.

  Ruby Jo looks me over and decides I need to be educated. “See, I think lots of ’em are like that, all wanting to be smarter than the next guy, make sure they got little Einstein babies and Einstein boyfriends and Einstein wives. That’s a good one. Einstein babies.” She laughs. “But that ain’t all of it, Elena. You think I left that piece-of-shit town because I wanted life in the big city? No way. I hate the city. If it were up to me, I’d hang out in my little piece-of-shit town, ride my bike, go apple picking, stuff like that.”

  “But you left anyway?” I say.

  “Well, where I come from, people like me don’t fit in so good. I mean, well.”

  It’s not the first time Ruby Jo’s corrected herself. I want to tell her not to worry about it so much, but I don’t. Right now, I’m trying to imagine a place where someone as clever as Ruby Jo Pruitt wouldn’t fit in. Hell, maybe?

  She leans in close, a schoolgirl ready to confess a secret crush on the captain of the football team. “See, the thing is, I don’t like boys so much.”

  “So what? You like girls,” I say. “There’s nothing new about that.”

  Ruby Jo cracks a crooked smile and shakes her head. “Maybe in Washington, but you haven’t spent much time in the sticks.” She nods her red curls toward Judy Green and Sabrina Fox. “You see those two over there? The tall ones who are always sitting together and whispering?”

  “Sure. I saw them. The one with the darker hair lived on my street.” Used to live on my street. Now, Judy Green lives in the girls’ dormitory at State School 46.

  “You see the way they look at each other? The way their hands touch when they think no one’s watching?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Those chicks are in love, Elena. Like with a capital L.”

  Once again, I hear Sarah Green’s voice screaming at me on the street. How did she lose the Q points? Tell me that, El.

  The only answer I have is this: Judy Green didn’t fail anything. No fucking way. And if she didn’t fail, maybe Freddie didn’t, either.

  When lunch is over, I make sure to pass close to Freddie again. This time, there’s less fear and more pleading in her eyes.

  “I want to go home, Mommy. Can’t you take me home?”

  I die a little on the inside.

  Fifty-Three

  THEN:

  I was in the kind of pain I knew from experience I would soon forget, but right now, the pain was an all-over pain, a leviathan of misery that squeezed and worked its way around every part of my body. Malcolm, gowned and gloved in hospital green, told me to push. Again. He’d been telling me to push for hours, it seemed, while a nurse fed me ice chips and patted the sweat from my forehead.

  “Almost there, sweetie,” the nurse said. “Just one more little push and we’ll be done.”

  She said this the last time. And the time before that. Inside me, Freddie was twisting and turning and contorting into position.

  It was hell.

  And then it was over, the fiery torture behind me and forgotten. I was in the now, in a place where the only thing I knew was Freddie’s warm body on mine. I wondered at her size, how eight pounds of human could have grown in my belly, how there could possibly have been room for all this complicated biological material to thrive and live, how any part of me could possibly have opened a door wide enough to let her out into the world.

  At the same time, she was tiny, miniature. I examined each long finger, yet to fatten with baby pudge, unable to fathom how anything could ever be so small and so helpless. So utterly dependent on me for survival.

  An invisible hand reached out and tagged me while I lay in the delivery room. You’re it, El. And I was. I was the bringer of life and the protector of that life, the only thing an eight-pound newborn could depend on, the wielder of those thin marionette strings that had the power to lift my baby up or let her fall. I was everything, all-powerful and all-knowing. If my baby cried, I would soothe her. If she got sick, I would stay up all night and pour cough medicine into her. If she scraped a knee, I would kiss it and make it better. I’d done all of that with Anne, and I would do it all over again, helping her through colic and crushes on boys, making sure no one would ever do her harm.

  To Malcolm, I was still me, still Elena Fischer Fairchild. There was no way to explain to him that I wasn’t, and that I hadn’t been since the day Anne was born. These babies of mine took something when they left me, thin slices of myself, leaving empty spots. Dead spots. I think I died a little when Anne was born, and I think I died a little more this time around.

  With Freddie sleeping on my bare breast, I whispered to her.

  “I’ll do anything for you, baby girl. That’s a promise.”

  When she stirred and stared up at me with those big eyes, those eyes that would be the same size at three and at sixteen and at eighty, that would see all of her life through the same physical lens, I cried.

  They say it’s postpartum depression. Or hormones. Or who knows what. But I knew then what the deal was—a simple matter of trading myself for my baby, should it ever come to that.

  Fifty-Four

  When Martha Underwood marches toward me, I know I’m in trouble. Which means Freddie’s in trouble, and that can only mean I’ll die a little more. But Underwood’s voice surprises me this time.

  “Dr. Fairchild, there’s a call for you. I’ve asked them to ring back so you can take it in my office.” She sighs. “And you can bring your daughter along.”

  My first thought is that Malcolm has changed his mind, that he’s worked something out to keep his family together after all; my second is that Alex actually took some pity on me and made a call to Maryland. But then those two words on the state school letter from last weekend come back to me. Family emergency.

  Oma.

  We follow Underwood out of the dining hall and down the weedy path toward the administration building, Freddie’s hand small in my own.

  “Are we going home?” she says. Her eyes are premeltdown wide.

  I don’t think so, but all I say to her is, “Sh. Just hold on,” and I squeeze her hand in a steady rhythm to soothe her.

  The rain has left a mosaic of puddles and muddy patches for us to dodge as we make our way through the grounds. Freddie trips o
n a ragged tree root, nearly falling flat on her face. A hand that isn’t mine reaches out and catches her by the upper arm. The ring I saw earlier today winks at me.

  “Whoopsie-daisies,” Alex says. Then, hurriedly to Underwood: “That’s for FedEx to pick up. I rang them just now, and they should be here within the hour. Monday-morning delivery, okay?” He gives her a large-format envelope before announcing—a little too loudly—that he’ll be in his apartment all afternoon. That was for my benefit, I suppose.

  When he’s gone, Freddie whispers, “I don’t like Daddy’s friend.”

  Neither do I, but I may need to pretend I do, at least for a few hours.

  We wait in Underwood’s office until two, when my parents are due to call back. She’s brightened up the room for us, turning lights on and even pulling over an extra chair with a few pillows on it for Freddie to sit on. All this sudden kindness should reassure me, but it has the opposite effect.

  “I’ll leave you alone here,” Underwood says when the clock chimes the hour.

  Freddie and I wait, but not for long.

  I pick up the phone on the first ring, dreading what I’m about to hear, hating my husband and every single one of the people who have denied me a final goodbye, hating that Freddie won’t see her great-grandmother again.

  Mom’s voice comes on, and I know something is wrong.

  Fifty-Five

  I’ve known for a long time my grandmother would die. I imagined a tearful phone call from one of my parents, secondhand news from an oncologist being passed along, Oma’s body weakening over months and weeks and days until it gave up. But I also imagined there would be time to adjust, to say goodbye.

  My mother sounds as if she hasn’t slept for a week. “Elena? Are you there?”

  “I’m here, Mom. Is Oma—”

  She changes to a tone that’s less tired and more at wit’s end. “I don’t know. She’s okay, but she’s not okay. Your father called Dr. Mendez, and there’s nothing wrong.” There’s a dry laugh. “Nothing wrong. He had to give her a sedative to stop her ranting, and even then she wouldn’t stop. Kept screaming that I had to call you. I told her we couldn’t, and she screamed some more. Oh, Elena, the woman’s been in her room all day banging that cane of hers on the bed frame. They don’t want to give her anything stronger because of her heart, but I think she’ll kill herself if she keeps up like this.” She pauses, says something to my father, and comes back on the line. “I’m going crazy here. One hundred percent batshit crazy. Oh, Gerhard, will you please make her stop that?”

  Freddie stiffens next to me at the noise, and I mouth an “It’s okay” to her. “Calm down, Mom. I’m sorry I’m not there.”

  “I’m not. You don’t want to be here. She’s been going on and on and on about Miriam’s sister. Since last night, El. It’s driving your father mad. Oh, hell. Here comes your father. Hang on, okay?” As if it’s an afterthought, she adds, “How are you? How’s Freddie?”

  I want to tell her everything, but I bite my tongue. “I’m okay, Mom.”

  “Your father says she wants to talk to you. Just humor her, all right?”

  I follow the sound of my mother’s footsteps as she leaves wherever she is and walks toward the back room. Oma’s voice is thin, but piercing, and grows louder with each step. When Freddie hears her, she reaches for the phone in my right hand. “In a minute,” I say, although I’m not sure I want Freddie to hear her great-grandmother in this state.

  “Are you okay, Oma?” I say.

  “I don’t like to be old. No one listens to old women.”

  I start doing my best to humor her. “I’m listening, Oma.”

  “Your mother had to call Malcolm and lie to him about my heart before he would give us a telephone number for you. You see? I told them it was possible. But no one listened.”

  “Sure they did. And I’m here now. Freddie wants to say hello.”

  “Not now, Leni. After. Now you listen to me. You remember I told you about my friend Miriam,” she says. There’s the slightest of pauses before she says “friend”—almost imperceptible, but it’s there. Without waiting for me to reply, Oma continues. “I’ve been thinking. About my great-uncle.” Another pause. “And about what happened to Miriam’s sister.”

  I’m only half listening. The rest of me is trying to work some patience into Freddie and looking around Martha Underwood’s office, more brightly lit than the last time I was here. It’s because of the desk light, a Tiffany knockoff that shines a kaleidoscope of color onto the wall. “Look at that, Freddie,” I whisper. “Look at those colors, and you can talk to your Oma in a minute, okay?”

  Oma says something to my father in German, then comes back to me. “Miriam’s sister had the epilepsy. You know, those fits.”

  “I know what epilepsy is, Oma.”

  “Yes. Of course you do. A year after I joined the Girls’ League, Miriam came to my house. That was in September, I think. Maybe early October. Not too cold, and I think it was raining.”

  In the background, my father coughs. “Just tell her, Mutti. She doesn’t need the weather report.”

  “I still think it was raining,” Oma says. “Miriam and I weren’t talking then, but she came anyway, alone, and asked my father if she could see me. Yes, Gerhard, it was raining. I remember because Miriam had on her shiny coat and she didn’t come all the way into the house because her boots were muddy.”

  She’s rambling, and now I’m also staring at the colored lights, at the pieces of glass in the fake lamp, at its brass base and the polished wood underneath it. Martha Underwood’s desk is so neat, not a paper out of place. Pencils are lined up like little wooden soldiers, ruled notepads stacked in paper mesas, everything squared off. Which is why my eyes draw automatically to the envelope lying at a casual angle next to the phone. It’s that one thing that isn’t like the others.

  It’s the packet Underwood set down when she went to bring over an extra chair for Freddie.

  The envelope is closed with one of those metal butterfly clasps, the gum underneath the flap dry as a bone, forgotten in Alex’s haste. I know this because, while Oma talks about Miriam’s epileptic sister and how the cellar flooded because of the rain and how Oma herself had to clean up the muck in the foyer after Miriam left, I’ve reached over and picked it up, turned it over, hefted it. I’ve read the address twice, and the EYES ONLY stamp on the front and back.

  And, before I register what I’m doing, I’ve tucked the phone between my ear and my shoulder, pried the metal wings of the clasp open, and slid out the contents. Words fly at me from the first page:

  Petra,

  Per our discussion, here’s the plan. You’ll understand why I didn’t want to send an electronic copy. Too many eyes on us.

  Love,

  Alex

  Oma says something about a doctor and Miriam’s sister, and then something else about how the carrots and potatoes in the root cellar went rotten because of the damp. I don’t know. I’m on the second of several pages.

  GENERATION: zero (between thirteen and fifty-five years); female students and faculty at selected state schools

  TARGET POPULATION: substandard Q, ethnic groups (TBD), congenital or social anomalies, evidence-supported anomalous progeny

  METHOD: quinacrine? (see previous reports on hormone therapy complications)

  RISK TO SUBJECT: light to severe; potential for fatalities

  LIKELY OUTCOME: considered positive; untestable

  COST-BENEFIT RATIO: good to excellent

  “… and Miriam stood there, accusing me, as if I’d done it myself.” Another pause. “Did you hear me, Liebchen?”

  “Yes, Oma,” I say automatically. “I’m listening.” On to page three.

  GENERATION: one (under twelve years); mixed-gender students

  TARGET POPULATION: SEE ABOVE (with exception of progeny)

  METHOD: inheritable mutation via targeted gene drive; insertion method TBD

  RISK TO SUBJECT: negligible


  LIKELY OUTCOME: 80–90% in generation one with geometrical increase over subsequent generations

  COST-BENEFIT RATIO: dependent on insertion method; initial outlook positive

  The clock chimes its quarter-hour bells. Underwood pokes her head in. “Everything okay? Do you need more time?”

  “Just five minutes, please. It’s serious.” I hear myself saying the words.

  And then, Oma. In German. Screaming at me to listen. “I said they sterilized her, Leni. They took her away and they cut something out of her and then they brought her back. Do you hear me? They did all that to Miriam’s sister and then they brought her back!”

  She’s yelling at me in two languages, calling out numbers and years, talking about quotas and doctors competing with one another to meet them. The only numbers I remember are fifty thousand, and one.

  Fifty thousand operations in one short year.

  Somehow, and I don’t think I’ll ever know how, my hands work the papers back into the envelope. Then I drop it on the desk into the pool of colored light, as if holding on to the paper for even one second longer might burn me. I’m already burning with shame for doubting my own grandmother.

  “I hear you, Oma. I hear you.”

  “You need to come home, Liebchen. You and Freddie. You both need to come home before something terrible happens.”

  “Sure, Oma. I know.” I’ll just click my magic shoes, I think, feeling the room start to spin around me. I hand the phone over to Freddie. “Go on,” I say in a dry voice. “Say hello to your Oma.”

  While they talk, it’s all I can do to sit up straight in this chair inside this bright and formal office where a few sheets of paper wait to be mailed.

  My left hand reaches forward. I could take it, I think, this envelope with its evil, bloodcurdling message. I could hide it away and hope no one catches me, and then destroy the hateful thing. But another envelope would take its place, reach its destination, be opened by hands and read by eyes. I could take one page, though. One would be enough if I could deliver it to the right people.