by JA Schneider
In the hall, ignoring Tricia’s suggestion that he go take a nap, Blair mentioned the fetus.
“Doing well,” he said.
Jill wasn’t sure why she was surprised. “Oh, you’ve seen him?”
“Of course. First chance I got. Wheeled a newborn to the nursery, knew he was next door with the preemies and went to look.” Blair shook his head. “He’s looking good. Makes you wonder what took so long.”
That got Tricia’s attention. “Come again?” she said, raising a brow, jabbing an elevator button. Jill was staring at Blair too. There was no one around and the elevator was stuck two floors above.
“Oh come on.” Blair gestured dismissively. “Really, I’m not impressed. So somebody finally made a prosthetic uterus…it’s been theoretically possible for years. Just took a crazy rule-breaker like Arnett to finally do it, put in a human embryo getting nutrients healthier than most mothers take in…what’s the big deal?”
The elevator arrived, empty, and they got in. All of them were quiet for moments, staring at their slightly distorted reflections on the polished steel doors.
Tricia finally shot Blair a conflicted glance. “I’ve had that thought,” she said. “I suspect a lot of doctors have.”
Just going back to this subject sent Jill’s heart into a dive. She looked at them both, her face tense. “It’s not just the prosthetic uterus,” she said. “Arnett also claimed the fetus would have a longer life, more immunities, higher intelligence-“
“Arnett was nuts,” Blair interrupted. “The fetus will just be like any kid.”
“That’s what David said.”
“Oh, David said, now I feel really validated.” Blair scowled. “It so happens that Ganon and Simpson suspect the same. Ganon told me they studied Arnett’s lab notes and other wild claims. They don’t believe any of it’s going to add up.”
“Great!” Jill said, too brightly. “So he’s just going to be a regular kid.”
Blair pressed his lips together. Seconds passed, and his expression went a little blank. “Give me a few years, maybe less.” He seemed almost to be talking to himself. “I dream of achieving every extra Arnett said he pulled off. Snip inherited disease right out of an embryo’s DNA, give kids just starting out longer lives, more disease resistance, immunities…” His gaze focused again, and he looked back at them. “I mean, hell, when you put all that effort into your life, even a hundred years is too damn short.”
Jill was hating this conversation. “And you really think Ganon’s going to let you beat him to it.” It wasn’t a question.
The elevator stopped. An exhausted-looking medical resident got on, barely looked at them, and got off on the third floor.
The discussion resumed. “Ganon’s just a politician stuck with his blastocysts,” Blair said determinedly. “Ditto Simpson. I dream of finding where they’re going wrong.”
Jill pulled in a long, weary breath. “Oh Evan, that’s how all researcher talk. Until they get further, and realize that the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”
Tricia wasn’t looking disposed to humor him. “The pro-blem,” she said tersely, “is even if you or anybody achieves all that extra wonderful stuff, Arnett will still get the credit. The one who did it first, obsessed the media, paved the way. Next genius won’t get…I mean, by then, it will be old. No frenzy, it’s been done, ho hum. Hey, the first man on the moon got all the attention. Later moon landings accomplished more and didn’t come close to the hysteria, the headlines.”
Evan Blair just stood, glaring at the elevator doors.
“Finish med school first.” Jill so wanted to change the subject. “Jeez, I thought I was in a hurry.” She felt a deepening chill. In her mind saw Arnett again, and horrendous media glare, unwanted attention, and HI D over and over. None of this would have happened if…oh God. She thought back to the O.R., and David trying to grin as the football-thrower goofed around, let off steam. He didn’t talk about it, but how could thoughts of HI D not be weighing him down?
The elevator doors opened to the first floor, its noise and bedlam. Tricia, checking her watch, kept saying “The clinic! The clinic!” and tugged at Jill while, above the din, Jill heard Blair ask something that sounded like “bigger money in high school?”
“What?” she said. A technician yelling into his phone and pushing a surgical cart had passed between them; then Blair stepped close again.
“I said,” he resumed, “The shit shoveling got better when I was sixteen. Want to see how I made bigger money in high school?” He gestured with both hands. “Hey, I’m not all big, driving ego, y’know. I happen to love kids, maybe because I never had much of a childhood.” He smiled, warming to his new subject. “Ever been to the Infant School?”
“Sure. Just once-“
“Actually I meant the older kids. Infant School ‘grads’” – he air-quoted - “three and four-year-olds in the room just beyond. Ever been there?”
“No.” Jill’s face cleared as curiosity took hold. Tricia was impatiently step-stepping away toward the arch that led to the Gyn clinic. Jill told her, “Go. I’ll catch up to you.”
An exasperated look, and Tricia hurried off. Blair seemed glad to see her go.
“There’s going to be an after-school party for the preschoolers,” he said. “See, at sixteen I discovered I could make kids’ birthday parties - and I wasn’t no clown, I did, well…”
He actually grinned. “You’ll see if you come. Around five? I’ve been volunteering down there. Now I’m trying to train others to do what I can’t anymore. No time. Had to take on extra nurse nights. Need the damn money.”
Jill said hesitantly, “I have to spend four hours in the clinic…” She cocked her head a little, feeling more curious. “What’s your special talent?”
“You’ll see! Wait…come to think of it, you may find one of my, ah, trainees, doing it when you come. They so overcomplicate it, but the kids seem to love it. The clinic winds down around five anyway. Please come?”
18
Routine exams, pregnancy checkups, and post-delivery checkups. By the second hour of her second day back since the crisis, Jill almost got used to “Oh! You’re her?” from patients. She even diplomatically ducked an overweight guy demanding to have her examine his “man titties.”
Jim Holloway dealt with him, then came back as she poked through a sterile table outside one of the curtained cubicles.
“Things have been kinda weird,” he said uncomfortably.
She straightened, thinking Nooo. It had been so good to be busy, have her mind a little free of worries…of gnawing reminders of HI D.
Her eyes met Jim’s.
“Some of today’s women were scary,” he said, grimacing. “They demanded David, with nothing specific they wanted looked at except their bodies. Two got mad at me. I came into their cubicles, they got all excited, then – bam! Probably because David and I look alike.”
It was true. Both were tall with longish dark hair, although Jim was skinnier.
“This will wind down,” Jill said lamely.
Jim needed to vent more. “Two others asked me to inquire about David fathering a child for them. I explained that wasn’t how it worked. One of them still begged to see him, got mad when I said he wasn’t here, and said she’d be back!” He looked like he wanted to run for cover.
Jill inhaled. “I don’t think it’s nutty women we have to worry about.”
The sick worry iced back. It had been there all along, draining her. Several times she’d thought – rather yearningly - of what Evan Blair had said about a kids’ party and fun and balloons. Now she just…wanted to go there. A few minutes of escape. Get away from this.
And what was that special talent Blair kept hinting about?
Jill looked past Jim to the rest of the clinic. “Patients are thinning out,” she murmured.
He turned his head, then looked back, nodded. “Yeah and thank God. Plus Phipps has come down for the last hour. A delivery he was helping with came fast
er, right down the chute, so he’s free - to come here, ha ha.”
Jill called David, no answer, left a message on his voicemail, then called the nurses’ desk. A sweet-sounding student nurse told her he was with a patient, and worried.
“In labor six weeks too soon, one of those high risk pregnancies, patient’s hysterical so he’s with her, hovering.”
One of those high risk pregnancies, patient’s hysterical…oh, for just a few minutes’ break from stress and crisis. Balloons! I need balloons! Red, yellow…maybe there’ll be ice cream?
Minutes later, Jill was rushing past closed office doors, a long stretch of blank wall, and then a long glass window with the shades down and the muffled sound of babies within. When Goofy, Mickey, and Donald Duck appeared waving on the last door, she was there. Below Goofy and friends were the words, Infant School of Madison Hospital Medical Center.
She smiled at Goofy and company for a minute, calming a bit, reliving sweet old memories from her irretrievable past.
Then she straightened, blinking, remembering Stryker’s scolding when he ordered her to visit this place the first time.
“The babies you will see there are the children of habitual aborters; of couples pronounced elsewhere as incurably infertile. They are also children who would have had birth defects were it not for the prenatal diagnosis and treatment received at this hospital.”
She took a breath and opened the door to bright colors, toys crowding blue carpet, and maybe twenty babbling babies and toddlers crawling, squirming, climbing, sitting. She stepped in and looked around. Corinne DeWitt, the school’s sixtyish blond, angular-faced administrator, was nowhere in sight, but the same sweet-voiced “teachers” crouched individually over the little ones and talked, smiled a lot, punched toy buttons, and gesticulated.
Whatever those babies and toddlers were doing, they were mostly all ahead of their month-by-month development schedule.
Near Jill was a light-haired ten-month-old, lying on his back and operating a pulley. A teacher in a bright red sweater kneeled over him and smiled extravagantly as her happy voice called out: “Pull down the blue donut, no darling, not the red donut, the blue donut…that’s right. Now make the red ball go up, oh, yes, and hit that funny little clown in the orange hat. Ye-e-s, just like that! Oooh, isn’t that funny?”
The ten-month-old thought it was a riot, and chortled with delight.
Jill had seen this done before, almost creepily verbatim: the clown took his comic little dive, the baby was thrilled with himself, and repeated the process.
The difference this time was that the red-sweatered “teacher” looked up and smiled at her.
“Hi,” she said, “I’m his mom. His name’s Derek.”
Jill raised her hand and waved. “Hi Derek.”
Derek grinned back and floppy-waved. Jeez, socialization skills off the chart.
Corinne DeWitt had told her, “A baby does what he or she wants to do. They’re not getting forced or programmed; just given the opportunity. It beats too much time in the crib, or getting pushed around passively in some stroller.”
Jill frowned, rethinking that and wondering about it, as Derek’s mom got to her feet and extended her hand. “I’m Geena Wills,” she said warmly. “I leave my job early two days a week for this.”
“Derek’s doing great,” Jill said, admiring him as he played with the pulleys on his own.
Geena Wills thanked her, and a shadow fell over her face.
“He would have been born with a heart defect,” she said simply. Then pointed around. “And that baby would have been born with hydrocephalus, and that cutie’s an IVF miracle after four years of infertility, and that one-“
“Chicken…chicken…chicken…” A twelve-month-old girl was watching, rapt, as a mechanical voice repeated the word with the image of a strutting chicken on a small screen. The tot’s frowny little face was the picture of concentration as she studied the chicken. Jill had seen her last time. This time she wore a red bow in her scanty dark hair.
“Hey Latisha, remember me?” Jill said, kneeling before the child, then smiling back up at Geena Wills. “She used to be in love with a horse.”
“No horse!” Latisha protested. “Tziken, tziken!”
“That’s because of the Pinkies in the next room,” said a voice behind her, and Jill looked up.
Pinkies?
A harried-looking black woman in her early forties was pulling her protesting four-year-old from the room just beyond. She, too, introduced herself to Jill, her free hand struggling with her older child.
“Leela Reese.” Her handshake was warm. “It’s my turn to pick them up. Boy, did I not luck out. Henry here doesn’t want to leave the party. I didn’t know about any party.”
She cocked her head to the noisy area just beyond opened double doors. They’d been closed last time; Jill had barely noticed them. Now, through them, she saw happy, yelling pre-schoolers chasing balloons and streamers and running around like rabbits.
“Actually I was headed that way,” Jill said.
Leela Reese hadn’t heard her. “Come Tisha,” she said sternly, bending. “You have to leave Mr. Chicken.”
“No! Want tzicken!” Latisha yowled as Henry pulled at his mother’s arm, hollering, “Wanna go baaack!”
Other parents were arriving too to pick up their little ones. A woman in jeans and a headscarf smiled and hoisted her baby. A gray-haired man came for an almost-two-looking girl, who wasn’t keen either on leaving her big-piece puzzle. “I’m grandpa,” he said, smiling and grappling with her. “I’m helping. Oof, I’m too old for this.”
He smiled at Leela Reese. “They hate leaving, don’t they?”
“Oh-h yeah.” She rolled her eyes at him, exhaled, then leaned closer to Jill and Geena Wills. “I was so obsessed with getting pregnant, didn’t know about the guilt you feel after you have them. Like now, Henry wants – stop it, Henry! – and I have to get home and catch up on paper work, phone calls for the talent agency I run. Couldn’t do it last night, Tisha had an earache and was screaming, and…”
Her voice suddenly faded as Jill noticed something.
Henry was wearing toddler jeans and a navy blue Yankees polo shirt. And stuck to his shirt, just below his shoulder, was a little pink feather.
Jill went cold.
She stared, then reached down to pick the feather from the squirming child’s shirt.
“What’s this?” she managed, seeing again Lainey Wheeler describe her rapist with a little pink feather in his ski mask.
Leela Reese had managed to scoop up both children. “Oh,” she said, stressed, squeezing the squirmers. “The Pinkies shed. I guess they let the kids pet them. Well, nice meeting you, we gotta jet.”
Jill stood holding the little feather, her heart pounding, as Leela headed out.
19
Through jostling, scampering preschoolers, Jill entered the party batting away balloons and gripping the feather. Her thumb and index finger were numb from pinching it so hard. Kids ran and charged, crawled through giant, bright-colored cylinders, or jumped, jounced, and squealed in a Bounce House.
Her mind raced in confusion. Her heart thudded sickly. The kid clamor made it worse.
Near the large room’s center she saw Corinne DeWitt, holding a red balloon and talking with Evan Blair, who looked up and smiled delightedly when he saw her. Had he been watching the door? Jill had seen him seconds before he saw her. Saw too how his glance shifted around as he spoke. He seemed to miss nothing.
“Hey, look who’s here,” he called expansively, raising a hand. Jill went to greet him and DeWitt, who got emotional.
“So glad you’re safe and sound,” she said, shaking hands tightly with her dyed blond hair bobbing. “I saw it all on TV. Awful, awful!”
“But they’re safe and it’s over, thank God.” Evan Blair grinned. “Want some ice cream, Jill? A go at the Bounce House?”
“No thanks.” She jerkily held up the little pink feather. “What’s
this?”
“Oh, those shedding chickens,” DeWitt said, her exasperated features showing no trace of irony.
Evan smiled. “They’re puppets. Ventriloquism puppets. That’s what I was hinting about. In high school I did kids’ ventriloquist parties. The kids loved them and I loved them; they paid a lot of bills.”
Jill stared at him, dry-lipped.
“Surprised I have a lighter side?” he asked, smiling. “Watch, I’ll show you.”
He turned, clapping his hands, loudly calling, “Hey, who wants to see The Barnyard Bunch again!”
Head-splitting shrieks of joy as he strode to a large, black-draped box, reached behind it, and pulled out a rabbit dummy that lunged for his face and bit his nose; thrashed and wriggled and wouldn’t let go. “Ow! Oh! Leggo my nose!” he wailed and writhed comically. Kids rushing to sit before him didn’t notice his arm in the dummy. They just laughed and screeched harder, balloons and Bounce Houses forgotten.
He finally got the rabbit to let go, reached into the box again, and sat on a chair behind the box with a farmer in overalls dummy on his knee.
“I want to complain,” he told the dummy, who was frowning at him. “Your rabbit bit my nose.”
The kids howled uproariously.
The dummy’s head turned to them. His large, scowling eyes looked conspiratorial, and he rasped. “Think I should sick my rooster on him?”
More kid laughter, giggles.
“Aw c’mon, Chubbs,” Evan complained.
“It’s Mister Chubbs to you!”
Squeals and laughter as the farmer’s head swung back crossly to Blair. “To you it’s all balloons and ice cream,” he scolded. “Some people around here have to work. So if you’ll exskeeeyuze me, it’s five o’clock, time for milking.”
“But, but-“
“You’re really annoying, you know that? ‘Fraid I’m gonna have to send my attack chickens after you.”
“Attack chickens?”
“Beats dogs. Chickens don’t have fleas.” Wild giggles as farmer Chubbs peered down into the box. “Come on out, girls. Got a fella here who don’t – s’cuse me – doesn’t know his manners.”