Mother Knows Best

by Kira Peikoff

  But if the online chatter I came across is true …

  “Seriously?” Ethan is shaking his head. “That guy is an asshole.”

  I suppress my irritation. Ethan’s influential beliefs about the hazards of biotechnology are a sore spot between us, the kindling for many dinner arguments that until now have been only theoretical.

  “Actually,” I say, “he’s kind of a big deal for fertility patients.”

  “You know he must hate me, right? I mean, how could he not?”

  I flick my wrist. “It’s not like he’ll recognize you.” Ethan’s camera shy; he turned down a national talk show after his article went viral. The result is that only his name carries significance, not his face. And we can easily change the former.

  Still, he makes no effort to hide his discomfort. “Can’t we go to anyone else?”

  “I already scheduled the appointment, since I was pretty sure this cycle was a bust.” I slide my palms into his, interlacing our fingers. “And I guess it’s our lucky day after all, because he’s normally booked six weeks out, but he had a cancellation.”

  Ethan hesitates. “For when?”

  “Tomorrow. We’re seeing him at nine AM sharp.”

  ABBY: NOW

  I’m about to lock my bedroom door when I hear my parents arguing. They’re still in the dining room. I crack open the door and poke my ear out.

  Dad’s voice floats up the stairs. “But she can’t do anything. How could she?”

  Then they must start whispering, because I can’t hear any more.

  I bet they’re talking about me. They don’t want me to figure out the truth about Mom’s cousin. They think I’m going to drop it because I have no other choice.

  But they’re wrong. I can do something, and I will. It’s so unfair how they still treat me like I’m a baby. Like, I stopped believing in Santa forever ago, but Mom still insists on pretending he stuffs my stocking every year, and Dad shrugs because he can’t stop her. She also thinks I’ve never seen an R-rated movie, and that I’m not on any social media because “it’s not safe to talk to people online,” even though I have fifty-six followers on Instagram—almost the whole fifth grade. I can only check it secretly on my laptop because she won’t let me have a smartphone like everyone else. I know she has serious anxiety problems, but I’m too old for the mom filter.

  While my parents are still downstairs, I set my plan into motion.

  I can’t log on to MapMyDNA anymore since they canceled my account and installed this stupid Net Nanny software on my computer.

  But Riley can log on.

  I text my best friend on my lame flip phone what I need her to do:

  Hey, will u order me a new MapMyDNA kit and bring it to school? Will pay u back. DON’T tell anyone!!

  She texts back a row of surprised emojis. What r u up to?!

  Tell u tomorrow.;)

  The kit has a special Q-tip you use to swab your cheek and collect some saliva. You mail it back so the lab can study your DNA. Then they email you a report, for $99 plus tax and shipping. Luckily, I have $145 saved up from my allowance.

  Tomorrow, I’ll tell Riley I’m going to test my mom to find out exactly how she and the stranger named JH0502 are related, because DNA doesn’t lie. If they are cousins, she’ll have to tell me the truth. And then maybe she’ll see that I don’t want to be treated like a baby anymore.

  The only problem is, how am I going to get her saliva?

  CLAIRE: BEFORE

  When Ethan and I arrive at the clinic, on the first floor of a brick building on Central Park West, he stops outside the door.

  A plaque reads in gold script: DR. ROBERT NASH, MD, PHD.

  “I don’t know,” he mutters. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  I rub his back. “Just relax. We won’t tell him who you are.”

  Or else he’ll never trust me.

  I remind Ethan that I booked the appointment under my maiden name—Glasser instead of Abrams—so there will be no reason for hostility.

  “Still,” he says irritably, “you should have let me pick the doctor. I could have gotten us in to the top guy at Columbia.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “But you know this is my area.”

  I snort, pushing open the door. “When you grow a uterus, you can pick the doctor.”

  The waiting room looks more like a spa than a doctor’s office: white leather couches, a glass pitcher of water and lemon slices, a piano concerto piping in through the speakers. There’s one other patient waiting—a woman in her early forties, not visibly pregnant, who keeps glancing up from her phone to stare at the inner door.

  I shiver with excitement as I pretend to read through Fit Pregnancy magazine. My mind is so far away that I don’t notice Ethan offering me a conciliatory smile.

  “That could be you soon,” he says, pointing to the spread on “What Not to Eat During Your First Trimester.”

  “I hope so.”

  A few minutes later, a nurse appears in the doorway and calls me by the name I haven’t used in over a decade. “Mrs. Glasser? Come on back.”

  We follow her past a row of exam rooms to an empty, wood-paneled office. Leather club chairs await us in front of a wide cherry oak desk.

  “The doctor will be in shortly,” the nurse says, closing the door. My curiosity takes over and I wander around the office, while Ethan sits and escapes into his phone. Several framed diplomas from NYU and Harvard hang on the wall in shiny black frames.

  “Top schools,” I remark.

  Ethan gives the credentials a cursory glance. “Great.”

  My gaze sweeps over the gleaming surface of the desk, the new Mac desktop with double monitors, and the matching cherry shelves lined with heavy medical tomes like Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Development of Pre-implantation Embryos.

  “He doesn’t have any family photos,” I note.

  As a journalist for the pop science magazine Mindset, I’m fascinated by people whose work requires strict boundaries. My job is to break those down, probe deeper, unearth any relevant knowledge and illuminate it for the masses. The trick to a good interview is to gain the trust of the person behind the uniform, whether doctor or researcher or CEO, by finding some element of human connection. But some subjects prove much harder to access than others. Especially those with something to hide.

  “Claire.” Ethan sighs. “Sit down before he finds you snooping.”

  I plop into the stiff leather seat a few seconds before the door opens.

  Dr. Nash is taller and younger than I expected—about my age—and undeniably more striking. His features are hard and symmetrical, lending him a certain gruffness despite his neutral expression. At the same time, his unruly black hair gives the opposite impression—that he can be unrestrained, even playful.

  When Ethan and I stand to shake his hand, he dwarfs my husband, who stands a respectable five foot ten. By Ethan’s thin smile, I can tell he is none too pleased to look up at the man he once minimized.

  We exchange introductions. Unlike other doctors who shuffle between paperwork and their computer while patients talk, Nash folds his hands on his desk and smiles politely. His gray eyes seem astute enough to see through my pretense, though I know that’s impossible.

  “So,” he says, “how can I help you?”

  I glance at Ethan, noticing the stamps of our tragedy in his creased forehead and receding hairline. He nods for me to explain.

  “Well.” I nervously clear my throat. “We want a baby, but we need to use an egg donor.”

  My pace slows over the word egg. If Nash notices, he doesn’t show it.

  “You never told me that,” Ethan interjects. “I thought you wanted to try yourself.” His tone betrays a hint of indignation, tempered for the doctor’s sake.

  “I’ve been thinking, and … and I feel like it’s too risky.”

  “How so?” Nash asks.

  I explain briefly about Colton. The faster the saga, the less likely I
am to break down. It’s like skidding over a lake of brittle ice.

  Nash grows solemn. “I’m so sorry.” To Ethan, he says, “I think your wife is making a wise decision not to roll the dice again with her own eggs. We have no way to predict how significantly her next child would be affected until he or she is born.”

  Exactly, I think.

  Ethan furrows his brow. “But I thought you wanted our own child?”

  I do, I want to shout. Of course I do!

  Instead, I say, “I want a healthy child more. And it’s one or the other.” Innocently, I look at Nash. “Right?”

  There’s no slight pursing of his lips, no widening of his eyelids. After years of interviewing, I’m attuned to micro-expressions, but Nash seems even more practiced at neutrality. His expression remains placid.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Ethan leans forward. “But what about doing PGD before implantation of the blastocyst? Since a trophectoderm biopsy can pinpoint genetic abnormalities, you can screen out the most severely affected ones, can’t you?”

  I feel myself stiffen. It’s so Ethan to negotiate, even if it means inadvertently revealing who he is.

  “Spoken like an expert.” Nash eyes him curiously. “What is it that you do, Mr. Glasser?”

  I know Ethan must be thinking, It’s Dr. Abrams, director of the bioethics program at Columbia. But he says, “Oh, I’m a teacher.” He pauses. “High school bio.”

  I release my hostage breath. “And I’m a writer.” Not that it matters, but I feel compelled to gloss over his fib. I fiddle with one of my gold hoop earrings.

  “Your question is valid,” Nash says. “But mitochondrial disease is not a straightforward genetic problem. Mutation levels don’t necessarily correspond to severity of disease, so even if we did try to select for any embryos with lower levels of faulty DNA, there’s no guarantee the child would be healthier. Or healthy at all.”

  It takes all my self-control not to blurt out my next thought: But you can get around that, can’t you?

  Nash stands, smoothing out his white coat, and gestures for us to follow him. “Let’s take a look at you, shall we?”

  I nod. “Sure.” As he and Ethan walk out of the office ahead of me, an idea strikes. I unlatch my earring and drop it quietly on the floor.

  Then I trail them into an exam room and hop up onto the chair’s starchy paper sheet. Ethan sits on a stool while Nash reviews the chart I filled out in advance with my medical history. As he starts to discuss the process of choosing an egg donor, I touch my earlobe and gasp.

  “Shit, my earring,” I interrupt. “I’m so sorry, it must have fallen off. I’ll be right back.”

  I hurry down the hallway back to his office and shut the door. I open his desk drawers and find a stack of Post-its and pens. Scribbling hastily, I write on a neon yellow pad:

  I know your secret. Let me tell you mine. Meet me tonight at 9, the Stone Rose Lounge. I think we can help each other.

  (Thanks to Jillian.)

  Claire Glasser

  I leave the pad on his keyboard and return to the exam room, where Ethan is doing his best to ignore Nash by replying to an email on his phone. I make a show of putting my earring back on.

  “Found it!” I chirp. “Now, where were we?”

  ABBY: NOW

  The week after my text about the new spit test, Riley shows up to first period with an extra bulky backpack. Across the room, she grins at me and flashes a thumbs-up.

  Our desks used to be side by side, but we chatted nonstop, so our homeroom teacher moved us as far away from each other as possible. Now it’s even more fun because we spend the day passing notes instead. We’ll walk past each other’s desks and drop folded squares into the other person’s lap when the teachers aren’t looking. They rotate every period while we stay in the same classroom. But if we want to be extra careful, we’ll go over to our cubbies, where our backpacks sit in labeled bins, and we’ll zip a note into the other person’s bag. Pretty much the whole fifth grade uses this method to pass notes because we’re less likely to get caught than doing it out in the open. (It’s how my crush Tyler told me he liked me: he stuffed a note into my bag with two blank boxes and the question, Do you like me? Yes or no, check one. I checked yes, and now we sit together at lunch sometimes.)

  Today, as class begins, Riley pushes back her chair. While the morning announcement comes on—permission slips due for the upcoming field trip, yearbooks available next week—she heads toward the supply cabinet, passing my desk.

  I pretend to concentrate on my notebook. Mrs. Miller, the art teacher, is sketching at the whiteboard with her back to the class, so she doesn’t see Riley’s fist open over my lap. I catch the folded square and open it under my desk:

  Got the kit! Meet me in the bathroom at lunch.

  As she walks away, I mouth, You’re the best.

  That’s when I notice Sydney, to my left, giving me a dirty look. Ugh. She and I do not get along. It started when I didn’t invite her to my birthday party last year after I found out she called me a dork behind my back. Then she spread a horrible rumor about my mom, saying she hides inside because she has a flesh-eating bacteria. The principal made her apologize, but we still aren’t cool. The latest thing is that she asked Tyler to hang out after school, but he said no to go to my soccer game. She’s been really pissed at me since then.

  Anyway, I have bigger things to worry about. Like, how am I going to get my mom to spit into a tube? I think of what Mr. Harrison, our science teacher, taught us about the scientific method: ask a question, do background research, create a hypothesis, test your hypothesis, analyze your data, and draw a conclusion. But if your whole experiment is a secret, how are you supposed to pull it off in the first place?

  Our next period is science class. I decide to raise my hand and find out.

  Mr. Harrison, a big scruffy teddy bear of a guy, calls on me in the middle of his lecture about the heliocentric theory. “Yes, Abigail?”

  I try to ask my question in a way that won’t make him suspicious. “So, you know how everyone was supposed to think the sun was the center of the universe?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, how did Copernicus and those other astronomers prove it wasn’t?”

  Mr. Harrison raises his bushy eyebrows. “You mean, with what kind of telescopes?”

  “No, like, how did they get away with it?”

  “The short answer is they didn’t. Does anyone know what happened to Galileo, for example?”

  The boy next to me raises his hand. “Didn’t he get arrested?”

  “Worse.” Mr. Harrison becomes very serious. “He was convicted of heresy by the church and sentenced to house arrest for the last nine years of his life.” His gaze returns to me. “Does that answer your question?”

  So much for encouragement. “Um, I guess so.”

  Riley raises her hand with a sparkle in her eye. “But it was worth it, right? Even though he got in big trouble?”

  “Oh, yes.” Mr. Harrison gives us a slow, wise nod. “In fact, I would argue that the pursuit of truth even at grave personal cost is the definition of heroism.”

  Across the classroom, she flashes me a smile.

  Okay, I think. That’s more like it.

  CLAIRE: BEFORE

  The Stone Rose Lounge is a swanky fourth-floor bar with circular leather booths walled in by a sheet of glass that overlooks Central Park South. Waiters wearing bow ties breeze over marble floors carrying nineteen-dollar cocktails to titans of finance and fashion, people whose idea of a perfect night surely doesn’t involve tiny hands or toothless smiles.

  I don’t belong here. Ethan and I rarely go out for date nights anymore. Concentrating on a movie or getting dressed up takes too much effort, and feels too hollow. Posing among these carefree strangers now seems like a betrayal of Colton, as though their cheeriness undermines my loss.

  But this meeting, if Nash even shows up, is the furthest thing from entertainment. I sit up s
traighter, touching the diamond studs I unearthed from my jewelry box. I’m determined to establish my credibility as someone trustworthy and rational, even though I still feel like an impostor of my old self.

  Then again, eighteen months off my antidepressants, I’m still getting dressed every morning, still writing monthly features for the magazine. My colleagues think I’ve recovered admirably. But they don’t know the half of it.

  Sipping my outrageously priced merlot, I cringe about fibbing to Ethan. He thinks I’m grabbing a drink with my editor. That way, if he decides to locate me on Find Friends, he won’t be surprised to see me at a bar. Our shared GPS-tracking app is a bit stalker-ish, but it does come in handy as reassurance when one of us travels or can’t be reached.

  I adjust my low-cut silk blouse, making sure it doesn’t reveal too much cleavage. There’s a fine line between attractive and slutty. A pinch of the former probably couldn’t hurt, but the latter might doom me from the start.

  My heart sinks when I glance at my phone. 9:18 PM.

  He’s not coming. It’s obvious. I peel my gaze away from the entrance and try not to look so desperate.

  He must think I’m a creep. In fact, he’s probably laughing about my stupid note with his wife right now, if he has one. And she’s probably rolling her eyes at my earnest handwriting, invoking our mutual “secrets.” God, how pathetic.