by Cat Rambo
The story masks itself as a guide to the garden through the seasons, but detail after detail of life post-Apocalypse sneaks in: clouds of ash, acid rains, vegetables stunted and misshapen by fallout. At the same time it’s the heartbreaking story of two survivors becoming a single person, and how that one person continues, even after the other is gone.
But for Grace
Hal Y. Zhang
Promise to tell no one,” Vivian said. “Absolutely no one. Serious.”
“I promise,” replied Rachel, equally grave. “So spill.” Vivian had been acting weird since yesterday. It must be quite a secret because she always told Rachel everything immediately. Probably Kevin related—maybe her parents found out?
“I’m pregnant,” Vivian whispered. The grass under them rustled as if struck.
“What?” There was no way Rachel just heard that. “You can’t—how—Polonaise?”
Polonaise was their codename for Kevin, in reference to the Chopin piece Vivian was working on. This way when their parents spied on them, they would only hear wholesome discussions on how the Polonaise had tricky fingering.
“Yeah,” said Vivian, face gray and tight.
“Did . . . you guys use protection?”
Vivian nodded minutely. Rachel, still saving her first kiss for someone special, could not fathom how this could have happened. And Vivian didn’t even tell her when they did the thing?
“Couldn’t you have just done anal?” Her voice squeaked in embarrassment. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell me. But are you sure?”
Vivian nodded again. “My toothbrush congratulated me on my baby yesterday morning because there were traces of HCG. The same hormone they use for the urine tests. Maybe two to three weeks along. I deactivated it and bought two stick tests from the Arco. Both positive.”
The mere image of Vivian peeing on a stick in a dingy gas station bathroom was disturbing enough. “What did you tell your parents?”
“Accidentally short-circuited the toothbrush and debate prep went over time. But they can read my face so well.” She gripped Rachel’s elbow. “What am I going to do, Ray?”
Rachel pulled her in for a hug, then up on their feet. “We’re going to make a plan.”
They’d made plenty of plans over the past four years, always in the back corner of the school library, ever since they found out they shared nontypical birth stories and many other things after an awkward biology class (Rachel, born to Taiwanese immigrant parents as one of the first bagged preemies in the United States, and Vivian, born to Chinese immigrant parents via secret surrogate). Instant best friends and switching off 1-2 in every class.
“We need a codename.” Vivian flopped down on a chair among ancient computers.
Rachel could think of at least ten things of higher priority, but if it made her feel better, why not. “How about an acronym? Like Baby . . . Extraction . . . Excursion? No BEEs allowed!” She wagged her finger in her best Asian parent impression.
Vivian smirked. “Bee it is. We have to blackout all digital communications.”
“Of course.” Vivian’s parents monitored her online activities religiously, putting their electrical engineering PhDs to questionable use, and Rachel’s probably did too. “And destroy all papers. Eat them in a pinch. Are you going to bag the bee?”
“What else can I do? Get disowned and then killed by my parents?”
Conceiving was obviously out of the question. “Well, can’t you try something, I don’t know, a bit less . . . legit? Miscarry by punching your belly a few times?” She started typing on the dusty keyboards but was stopped by Vivian’s hand on her wrist.
“No,” Vivian sounded sure. “I don’t want to do it halfway and damage the baby. And what if I’m found out?”
There was the rule-following Vivian that Rachel knew and loved. If only you were this careful with Kevin. News of women arrested for attempting abortions were static background noise, as ubiquitous as petty thefts. Rachel never imagined they would become pertinent.
She typed in a completely different query. “Okay, here it is. Individuals who are not able to care for their child can extract the fetus to be implanted in an artificial womb at a state-run facility for a subsidized $995 fee,” she read from the screen. “How are we going to get that kind of money?”
“My cousin, maybe,” Vivian said. “The one who runs the shady Chinese college essay business that my parents hate. He won’t tattle. I hope. I’ll ask for cash.”
“The biological mother will first undergo a screening for suitability before the procedure,” Rachel continued. “Both biological parents must cede all rights to the child and agree to make no attempts to contact them. They may register a short renouncement message and contact details in the database. The child is a ward of the state until adoption and can view the message at age eighteen and may choose to contact the biological parents if they wish.”
“And what if no one wants them?” Vivian’s voice quavered.
Rachel patted her on the knee. “They’re in the state home until they get adopted. But don’t worry, your baby’ll be fine. I heard Asian babies are really popular, and you got a perfect SAT score. They’ll be snatched up in an instant. Now call the number and get an appointment for the screening.”
“No, that’s not fine at all.” Vivian looked like she was about to burst into tears, but she sighed and reached for the blocky red phone. They sat through two generic on-hold songs before she lost it.
“This is so stupid,” she argued, plastic headset strangled against her shoulder. “The world’s already overpopulated—why force so many more babies to exist without giving them good homes?”
Rachel sensed a headache of a debate coming on. “But abortions were just as complicated, weren’t they? You still had to do the two visits, and the psychological evaluation, and go to the funeral . . .”
“None of that stuff needed to be there! In China you just go in the hospital and come out baby-less, like my grandmother. Here you can’t even get one and have to jump through all these hoops. How is this God’s plan?”
Rachel bristled. Religion was just about the only thing they significantly disagreed on. Vivian thought Rachel was brainwashed, but wasn’t Vivian also indoctrinated by her militantly atheist Mainland parents? “It’s not God, it’s the nine people on the Supreme Court.”
“Just one person, really—Cormorant was the swing vote who thought he should save all the babies, right? Or maybe that guy we learned about who convinced all the evangelicals that abortion is a political issue.”
“My pastor had a sermon against abortion the other day.” Rachel shrugged. “But his Bible quotes weren’t very persuasive. I’m totally fine with it.” That wasn’t strictly true—her feelings were complicated, though Vivian’s case was obviously okay because her life and safety depended on not having the baby.
“Don’t dead babies go to heaven automatically?” Vivian was in one of those rare moods, nothing like her usual Lincoln-Douglas poise. “If someone says to me, hey, you can either get a million dollars right now, or play a really hard sim game for eighty years and maaaybe get a million dollars if you beat it and eternal damnation if you lose, who wouldn’t choose the first option?”
Rachel was saved from answering by someone finally picking up the phone on the other end, but she had to watch Vivian’s face crumple as the call went on. “May 8th? Is there anything earlier? Okay. Thank you.”
She hung up, eyes suspiciously bright. “The earliest appointment is in a month, on a Tuesday! And that’s just to determine if I’m eligible. How am I even going to get there?” They had no credit account, which meant no taxis, no autocars.
So strange, seeing her unflappable best friend like this. “Don’t worry. Take the bus. Look, it’s every hour and thirty percent on time so leave early. We’ll think of some excuse for your absence. Practice your best innocent face.
Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”
“親愛的主，感謝你賜下豐盛的飲食.” Rachel’s father said grace. “求你保佑Rachel長大成人的旅程從high school到Columbia.”
“阿們,” Rachel murmured and reached for the spicy beef, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. It was just college, not a Biblical trial.
“Debate 準備好了嗎?” Her mother jabbed her chopsticks into the fish. A trick question, because you could never be done preparing.
“I’ll prepare more,” she mumbled. Who cared about the stupid debate when her best friend had to get a baby out of her?
“你為什麼心不在焉?” Rachel raised her eyes to see her mother’s, hard and suspicious. Crap. She could only think of one convincing reason.
“I just found out Vivian has a boyfriend.” Sorry, Vivi.
Her parents’ simultaneous jaw drops were hilarious. “Who?”
“Kevin.”
“哪個Kevin? Math Club?”
“No, Science Olympiad. Kevin Tang.”
“你看看，我說的吧!” Her mother crowed triumphantly. “她以為考上Harvard就可以隨心所欲.”
“It’s not like that, Mom.”
“You be careful of Vivian, okay?” Her father shook his head. “No dating for you.”
“I know, I know.” In five years they’d probably be asking her why she wasn’t married. The relief on her parents’ faces made her feel ill. They always went on and on about how much better Vivian was, but now they were grateful for their stodgy salutatorian, who didn’t get into Harvard but also didn’t get in any boy’s pants.
Rachel finished the last bit of rice and suddenly realized the perfect parent management strategy for Vivian, who was terrible at lying and close to breaking soon. She’d have to tell her in person tomorrow. And she’d pray for her again tonight, though Vivian wouldn’t like the thought of that. Have mercy on those who doubt.
“这是去钻石吧吗?” An elderly woman came up to Vivian with a full shopping cart just as she was about to board.
“不是.” Though she had no idea what the bus route was, so for all she knew it went to Diamond Bar. Vivian pointed to the bus sign and tried to reply in her crappy Mandarin. “那个 . . .”
The woman stalked off, disgruntled, leaving Vivian with regret and no time. She ran onto the bus, the first one she’d ever been on, and pushed dollar bills into the machine, sitting down with a thundering beat in her ear.
A rectangle burned on her thigh. She took out the fake doctor’s note, which her teachers didn’t even ask for, and ripped it into small pieces. As the bus lurched down Huntington Avenue, leaving her familiar bubble of boba and sim cafes, she counted the passing streets as she had been counting the days of the month, a starving city inside a siege, her heart flitting weakly: fight or flight. Was it the secret or the baby that was burning her up from the inside?
Forty minutes later she exited somewhere on Whittier Boulevard in front of an unmarked building, right between ENVIOS DE DINERO and PESCADO FRESCO. She gulped and pulled open the opaque glass door.
The inside was just as dark, though she could feel a twenty-megawatt spotlight on her. The receptionist, clearly on her sim, pointed to a row of clipboards with one glittery nail without even looking at her.
Vivian began filling out the endless form, sneaking looks at the other inhabitants while avoiding eye contact. She was definitely the youngest one, and the only Asian. Someone was talking on the phone in Spanish, and despite the highest grade in her Spanish Language AP class she couldn’t understand a thing.
Her cheeks burned. The other people were probably here because they didn’t get sex education, or had a hard childhood, or were raped. What was her excuse? She had a nice life, insanely strict parents, knew how babies were made, and shouldn’t have done it in the first place. And yet it happened.
No point brooding now. She took out the folder of essays-in-progress from her backpack. Still ten more to go. Soon these will be distributed to rich kids in China paying for college admission essays penned by Ivy League students, 100% guaranteed.
‘What is a principle you hold dear, and why?’
What would admissions officers like to see Chinese students answer? Freedom? Sure, then she could tie it in with both family and society. She scrawled some beats, making sure the sentences didn’t flow too fluently:
‘My favorite quote: “Give me freedom or give me death” . . . hmm, maybe too cheesy.
‘My family expects me to follow their dreams, but I have my own dreams of studying $major at $school.’
‘I was born in the wrong place. Though I’ve been submerged in Chinese culture since birth, I most admire the Enlightenment and the founding principles of the United States: all men (and women) are created equal and are free to pursue their dreams.’
Funny how many rules and laws she’d broken in the past month without blinking an eye just to get in this room. Now she understood how people entered a life of crime. One single desperate tipping point was enough.
“Vivian”—she recoiled, caught red-handed, then realized it was only the doctor, squinting at his forms—“X-U-A-”
“Here.” She stood hastily, her backpack knocking into the wall. He took her into a generic exam room.
“By law I have to show you the 3D model of your baby and the heartbeat. If you still want to proceed, we have to schedule a further appointment.”
“Okay.”
He began reading the long list of required questions.
‘Do you understand the child inside you is alive and will grow to become a person after extraction and implantation into the artificial womb?’ Yes.
‘Are you aware the child will become a ward of the state until adoption?’ Yes.
After a while Vivian let herself drift on his soothing baritone. In another world he could be a voice on the radio, narrating a sob story on someone down on their luck trying to get a baby bagged while she was slouched in her bed writing an extra credit essay though she already had 105% in the class because Vivian played games and life until she found every single hidden coin.
‘Do you consent to yield all rights and privileges to the child?’
‘Do you agree to never attempt to contact the child and their family?’
Yes. Yes. Yes.
If they wanted to write a real test, they should have flipped some of the questions. ‘Would you rather murder your baby? Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Are you a monster?’
“Are you ready?” She nodded.
He applied the cold gel and scanner. All she felt was numbness. Boy or girl? Boy, of course, so he would have zero chance of this happening to him.
Of course, it could be neither. There were always more possibilities. Her mind roamed wild in the twilight space between sleep and wake:
‘Huh, all the pregnancy tests were wrong and you’re not actually pregnant.’
‘You have a giant cancerous tumor and we need to get it out right now.’
‘Our equipment might be malfunctioning because it’s showing a baby dinosaur inside you.’
‘The sun’s just exploded. Just wait eight minutes and it will all be over. Would you like some juice?’
“Here’s the baby,” the doctor said.
On the screen was a 3D model, lumpy and weird. It didn’t look particularly like anything to Vivian, let along a human. Was this supposed to make her want to keep them?
“You’re about ten eight weeks along. This is the head.” He pointed to a gray dried prune. Something stirred in her—had to be lunch, right?—and she resisted the urge to puke.
“Girl or boy?” she rasped.
“Too early to tell.” He lifted the scanner and the model vanished into static. So there was another possibility, after all.
“Would you like to proceed with the procedure?”
“Yes please. As soon as possible.”
“The next slot . . .” He scrolled on a computer probably older than her. “is June 14th, 8 am.”
Graduation day. She paled.
“Do you have anything earlier? Please?”
He looked at her for a moment. Vivian could hear a buzzing grow and grow as he turned around and clicked so slowly she might explode. She twisted her hands in her pockets. Maybe she could bribe him, or offer to write a hundred glowing reviews—
“I might be able to fit you in Saturday the 19th. At noon. Show up on time.”
The buzzing popped into a dull hum, and she could breathe again. “I will. Thank you. Thank you.”
“这是什么电影? So good you have to go after school? 在Harvard可不能懒散啊.”
“I know. It was a documentary about the California debt crisis. Rachel thought it would help us for the debate.” Vivian probed the shape of the lie with her tongue. Was it casual enough?
Across the table her brother Jason was cramming rice noodles into his mouth, swinging his legs joyfully because none of the attention was on him. Hiding failed math tests was much easier than hiding a baby.
Her dad cleared his throat. “Debt crisis? I tell you solution. Stop feeding all the black and brown people. “
Jesus Christ. She squirmed in her seat as he launched into his favorite story about the lazy people asking him for handouts on his way to work.
“And stop raising their babies.” Vivian twitched, but he didn’t notice. “California spend ten billion dollars bagging a hundred thousand babies every year. All drug babies. Come out of bag, go straight to prison. Crazy Christians.”
Which brought him back to Rachel. “No more movie, okay? You are valedictorian, Rachel loser. You will meet many better people at Harvard. She always has stupid idea, like movie.” Her mom nodded emphatically in agreement.
Only four more months, she told herself. Four months and a baby.