What good is informed consent, after all, when it’s the killers doing the informing? If they butcher innocent people for a living, how can we expect them to be honest in informing genome donors of the humanity and viability of their victims? And even if the killers refuse to give informed consent, our ethics recommendation doesn’t even pretend to give teeth to the policy. We proposed no enforcement whatsoever, fearful that it would sink the whole effort. What kind of punishment for non-compliance should we expect from those who manage teams of butchers and Mengeles? Who’s going to impose punishment on themselves, simply because we asked nicely? In truth, this panel of pro-life leaders has done nothing but empower President Sayder to perpetuate the shedding of innocent blood, making her look more moderate than she is. She wears us like a rainbow-colored sweater over her blood-stained filth. She needs us, and we have bowed before her altar, linking ourselves inescapably to her appalling agenda.
“I have a clip of two of the four who were posing as federal agents.” I change the topic and, in offering personal information, extend an olive leaf to the man. I open my handheld to the file, and finger through the images to try to find the clip I took of the agents after the shooting. “There were several of them, but I got a few seconds of a man and a woman. They refused to let me take a close look at their ID badges.”
“And, surprise, surprise, your images are missing.”
I furrow my brow. He’s right. They’re gone. This phone hasn’t been out of my possession. How could the file be missing? “I shared it with the police, but I know I didn’t delete it.”
I begin to search the trash file.
“You won’t find it there either. And I suspect the P.D. either lost their copy as well, or won’t return a copy to you.”
I look up at him and see him in a brand new light.
“Expect only defeat and disappointment wielding carnal weapons on a foundation of sand.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but clearly, this messenger is much more than an ordinary mailman.
“Your sister sends word that she could use your help in several southern states. There’s a groundswell of resistance that would break through into enforceable state laws protecting the innocent, but the bravest of leaders are hindered by a blanket of fear the federal government has dropped on them. She said you could help the cause tremendously.”
“My sister said that?”
He nods.
One corner of my mouth turns up at the thought of Tamara’s obsessive-compulsive nature, her self-imposed standards of moral perfection strangely annexed to a judgmental attitude toward every other form of perfection, whether intellectual or physical. She treats the perfection for which most craves as a shackle that hinders our true potential. She’s the oddest mix of self-loathing and liberating joy, of convicting quips and sacrificial service. “Sounds like her.”
He nods. “Things may get worse before they get better, Doc. Don’t be discouraged about that. God’s going to test your faith. Be true to God and you’ll discover that His ways are always best.”
Two snickering men enter the restroom, and I glance at them hoping they do not interrupt.
“Well, I’ve delivered my mail, Dr. Verity. Thank you for your time.” He pushes his hands deeper into his pockets and heads toward the exit.
For five minutes, I’ve been waiting with baited breath to get out of this conversation, and now, for some reason, I’m disappointed he’s leaving. “Wait, wait, sir. Can I get your name?”
“You can reach us through Phil Stephens.” He exits without looking back.
32
THAT CONVERSATION SEEMS TO TRIGGER a change in me, but not for the better. Things began to transpire in my life that I never thought possible.
That night, thumbing through my handheld computer, I cannot find a novel I was reading. I ask Morgan, “Where is my novel?”
She’s painting her nails in the bathroom, complaining about her personal masseuse abandoning her post due to pregnancy leave.
“Hey,” I call out to her. “Where’s my novel? It’s not on my handheld.”
“You need to make up your mind.”
“What?”
She pokes her head out of the bathroom to make eye contact with me. “You were right here two minutes ago complaining that the plot was sagging in the middle. You deleted it.”
I check the trash can of deleted files, and sure enough, it’s there. I stomp into the restroom. “Are you pulling some kind of prank on me? Did I really say that?”
“You’re starting to forget things.”
I restore my novel to the desktop and head into the bedroom. After a few minutes of reading the sagging middle of my novel, I remember. I had deleted the file. It’s like five minutes of my life had been excised as if it never happened.
My mood begins to cloud alongside my intellect. It is as if my conversation with the stranger from Alabama withdrew fifty years of life out of my body. Maybe it is my general lack of purpose after the conclusion of our pathetic political panel, or my relatively meaningless existence in the office of my burgeoning company—whatever it is, something significant is missing from my life.
My fit, muscular body begins to sag over the next several weeks, as my exercise wanes from an increasing feeling of general malaise. I keep reading the same twenty opening pages of my novel before bedtime, as I keep forgetting what I read the previous night. For the longest time, I cannot even recall the name of the man the strange messenger gave me as a way to contact my sister. I have always thought that there was nothing worse than being old in a wrinkled, shrinking, graying body, but feeling old in a young man’s body is no better—there’s actually more shame annexed to the mental handicaps if you look brighter than you are.
After a long night of ten restless hours, Morgan wakes to find me sleeping in the bathtub with my handheld computer in the trash can.
“I need help, Morgan,” I admit over a 10:30 a.m. breakfast. “Something’s wrong.”
She accepts my acknowledgement of weakness with pride. She never quips, “I told you so,” but her facial features seem to scream it at me.
“You were right, babe,” I finally admit.
You’d have thought I had given her a million-amero diamond ring; she was so happy at my heretofore undisclosed humility. She has not seen me so needy since my deathbed experience almost three decades ago. It almost offends me how she appears to thrive in my vulnerability. I have always had a paralyzing fear of mental and physical frailty, but cannot deny that an occasional virus that lands me on my back for a couple days is a sweet thing indeed when my wife dotes on me like this. I wonder about her motive, given her history of approving of my euthanization after I clearly ordered it halted. In that light, her more attentive care could be compared to getting a lollipop from a physician who’s planning to amputate my arm without anesthesia. Nevertheless, her desire to serve her mentally-weakening husband is a positive outcome of my increasing confusion, erratic irritability, and worsening depression, even if her motive isn’t entirely selfless.
Once Morgan’s neuropsychiatrist learns of my confession of mental frailty, she jumps at the opportunity to intervene in my care. It must be a trophy for Dr. Devonaire that her most famous, previously non-compliant patient finally admits he needs her help. She adds me on to the end of her schedule on the very day Morgan calls her.
This time, I listen more than I talk, and assent to her diagnoses and her prescriptions. Although Dr. Devonaire doesn’t exactly gloat in my newfound mental-cognitive deficiencies, she suspects it is further evidence of my worsening microvascular brain disease, and she indicts my stubbornness to receive her SSRI script at the last visit as part of the problem. “You need to know when you need help. Evolution can give us new bodies, but not new brains, not yet.”
By the way she’s glaring at me, she’s challenging me to counter her reference to atheistic evolution. But I am silent, fearful of stumbling over my words and embarrassing myself even further.
In addition to three prescriptions and a predictable bi-weekly appointment with her staff psychologist for counseling, I receive a lengthy lecture on the need for strict compliance if she is to continue to offer me care. At first it seems belittling to be addressed with such sneering condescension, but as I accept my frailty and submit to the need for counseling, I find it astonishingly refreshing.
33
I SIT AT THE KITCHEN island, playing a word game on my handheld computer. It was one of the activities Dr. Devonaire said may improve or, at the least, stabilize my diminishing communication skills.
Morgan pauses her dinner preparation to respond to a text message on a computer screen embedded into the wall in the kitchen.
“Good,” she mumbles.
“What?” I used to be able to shut out the world when I was working, but my attention span is about as long as my average sentences nowadays.
“Oh,” she glances at me over her shoulder as if she was surprised to see me there. “Savannah’s flying down in her boyfriend’s private jet to spend a weekend with us.”
“Is she bringing, uh, Mary Nell?”
The teapot begins to whistle on the stove and she drops a tea bag into a porcelain cup. “No, she isn’t, Ray.”
She pours the hot water into her cup, acting like she’s offended that I even asked.
“Why not?”
At first I think she is not going to answer. Then finally she mumbles a belated response. “I think it’s quite obvious why not.”
“Not to me.”
She responds with her right hand planted firmly on her right hip, exaggerating the slit in her silk nightgown. Her left hand grasps the handle of her teacup like she is tempted to toss the hot liquid at me.
“What, Morgan? Why are you upset? She’s in the last weeks of her life. Don’t you have any natural affection for, uh, um . . . ” My mind goes blank. Ugh! I could thrash my skull against the wall when this happens!
“You’ve grown rather attached to that defective girl . . . ”
“Mary Nell!” I snap my fingers, recalling her name.
“I think it would be in the best interest of all that you grow unattached to her.”
“Why do you keep talking about what’s best for all without, without, uh, without thinking about what’s best for her?”
She huffs at me, drops a sugar cube in her chamomile and, without even bothering to stir it, stomps from the room with an exaggerated hip wag, as if she is letting me know what I am not going to enjoy with my inappropriate inquiry.
I pick up the hardline phone and speed-dial Savannah’s mobile number. My hippy of a daughter refuses to upgrade to a nanophone. She doesn’t answer. I hang up and dial her home. Again, she doesn’t answer. Surprisingly, there’s another voice on the answering machine. I leave a message. “Savannah, call me immediately. It concerns your inheritance.”
Within thirty seconds, she calls me back, but not before Morgan stomps into the room, having overheard my voicemail.
“Shh!” I order her. “She’s calling me back . . . ”
Morgan snatches the phone out of my hand.
“Hey!” I reach for my phone.
She holds it out of reach. “Don’t you dare make this more difficult for everybody than it already is!”
Then she presses the button to hang up the phone and slams it down on the marble countertop.
“There you go again, Morgan!”
She stomps from the room.
“Shouldn’t everybody include Mary Nell?”
“I’m telling Dr. Devonaire about this outburst.” She disappears down the hall toward the bedroom.
“My outburst?”
The phone, thankfully, rings again. I answer. “Hello, Savannah. How are . . . ”
She doesn’t even wait for me to finish my introduction. “What about my inheritance?”
I take a deep breath. I am treading on tenuous ground.
“Has your mother told you what’s been happening to me the past few weeks?”
Her tone relaxes when she realizes that I’m not mad at her. “No. What?”
“I’m developing some strange form of dementia.”
“What?”
“Yes. I’m more confused and forgetful, and the doctors don’t know why. They say it won’t get worse as long as I don’t have any more strokes. My bloodwork is normal, and all the brain scan shows is that some diseased small arteries in my brain are getting more clogged, putting me at high risk for more strokes.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” There’s a hint of satisfying sadness in her tone.
“If this progresses, I think it’s a good idea to be surrounded by those I love. My business has always come first in my life, but I’m changing a bit, for the better, I believe.”
“We’re coming this weekend. I want to introduce you to Argentino, my new beau.”
“You’ve got a new man? What’s the matter with the old one? Uh, what was his name?”
“He was, well, too much like you. All work, no play. This fellow will make for a better long term relationship, and he has the credit to keep us comfortable in spite of his short work weeks.”
I try not to be offended at her comment that her ex-boyfriend was too much like me. “I look forward to meeting him. But the one I am looking forward to meeting more than anybody is Mary Nell.” There is silence on the other end of the line. “I love her. I think about her all the time, Savannah.”
“But what does this have to do with my inheritance?”
I sigh heavily. “To be blunt, Morgan gets half, Louie gets a fourth, and you a fourth. I’m willing to take the portion devoted to my children—you and Louie—and divide it by three, and set one-third of that aside for Mary Nell. So you’d be responsible for twice Louie’s portion.”
“For my daughter?”
“Yes.”
“That would be nice, Daddy. We have already begun an account to save for her college.”
She’s talking about the dupe scheduled to replace Mary Nell in three months. Mary Nell would never be admitted to any college. “No, Savannah. I’m not referring to Mary Nell’s clone. Different brain, different person. I don’t love her, not yet. I will, I’m sure, but I’m talking about your daughter.”
She growls. “Oh, Daddy, why are you doing this?”
“I love her, Savannah.” The thought of Mary Nell’s affectionate hugs moistens my eyes. “Can you blame me?”
“This is a difficult decision, Father.” She sobs for a few seconds.
“I’m sorry, Savannah. I don’t want to make you cry.” I’m stroking a spoiled brat who needs a thrashing more than anything, but with my granddaughter’s life hanging in the balance, I don’t want to upset Savannah more than I have. “She reminds me of you when you were a little squirt. Do you remember being that age?”
“Not a lot of fond memories, Daddy.”
“And that’s my fault, I know. But they could have been worse. Imagine being in your daughter’s shoes, with your momma planning to trade you in—”
“Father!”
“Please, please don’t hang up on me, Savannah.”
“Well, quit, then! You make me not even wanna come anymore.”
“Because I tell you I want her here in my final days? Savannah, I tell you what. You bring her this weekend and we’ll talk some more about the amendments to my will. I’m open to your advice.”
“I’d rather not.”
Mary Nell may not even have a mother figure anymore. Savannah is not just withholding love from her daughter—she’s probably actively spurning her affection. I hope Mary Nell’s not suffering emotionally or physically.
“Mary Nell’s spirit will live on, Daddy. Trust me. I feel right about it.”
My heart pounds with a mixture of fear and rage. She is going to kill my granddaughter because she “feels right about it.
”
“You tell yourself that if you want, but I’m a scientist. There are two people right now—one residing in the Verity wing of the New Body Research Center and one with you, perfect only in her demented Gwampa’s eyes.” Here, Savannah giggles nervously. “One’s a genetically perfect dupe and one’s not. But make no mistake—there are two of them. Sisters.”
A moment of silence. My daughter’s respiratory rate has increased slightly, making me suspect that I have kindled a discomfort deep in her heart. Good. I’ve been there, and without this inward pain, there can be no genuine change.
“Perhaps we could trade, Savannah. You let me see Mary Nell, I’ll let you see her perfected dupe.”
Savannah’s voice bursts with renewed enthusiasm. “You can do that?”
“I can.”
“I’d love that!”
“Is it a deal?”
She sighs. “We were planning on leaving her with a sitter, but I suppose we could bring her.”
34
WE MEET THEM AT A small, private airport. The “green” jet in which they arrive speaks volumes about my daughter’s new man. So committed is he to protecting the environment that he owns a jet designed to run off of hydro-processed algae biofuel, costing fifty times as much per gallon as archaic fossil fuels.
When they finally disembark, Savannah introduces her new man as Argentino Sarsparelli. His name is fittingly affluent, perfectly compatible with his aloof demeanor and his cologne-and-coconut-scented aura of a billionaire playboy. He’s the son of the son of a duke in some withering European enclave—I catch only bits and pieces of Savannah’s elaborate explanation of this spectacle of toned and envied handsomeness.
Savannah has covered the stroller with a blanket. Mary Nell must be sleeping. I kiss Savannah on the cheek and bend down to take a peek at Mary Nell.
“Don’t wake her, Daddy,” Savannah pleads. “Later.”
“Of course.”
“Argentino!” Morgan gives him a peck on the cheek, which he leans in to relish with more pleasure than I would expect him to, at least in my company.
Body by Blood Page 21