by Beth Martin
“Don’t apologize,” Irene insisted. “You just had a baby. You get a free pass.”
Annette screwed the nipple onto the fresh bottle and offered it to Ophelia. She just kept crying and turned her face away from the bottle. It was too much for Annette, who felt herself sliding closer to her breaking point.
The man accompanying Irene held out his hands and said, “May I?” Annette wasn’t sure if she should trust the sloppily dressed man, but at this point she was ready to try anything. She handed Ophelia to him and watched him take over.
He started cooing and talking to the crying infant as he took her over to the crib. He set her down and tightly wrapped her blanket around her body, pinning down her wriggling arms. Once she was wrapped up, he held her close to him and swayed and danced around the room while continuing to talk and coo at her. After a minute, Ophelia began to calm down and quit crying.
“I’ll take her bottle now,” he said. Annette gladly handed over the bottle and watched as her baby eagerly latched on and started eating.
“You’re a miracle worker,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief for the moment of calm.
“I have one of my own, although he’s thirteen now. You kind of learn what works after a while. Why don’t you and Irene talk while I feed the little miss.”
Irene moved a blanket over on the sofa and took a seat. “Well, now you’ve met Angel.”
“He is a fucking angel. I haven’t had a moment of peace since we got home yesterday.” Annette plopped down on top of the pile of discarded clothing resting on the chair. Angel continued walking around the room and singing while Ophelia drank her bottle.
Irene wrung her hands. She waited a while before speaking. “We need to discuss Ophelia’s conception.”
“I already told you,” Annette said defensively, “I met a man at a club and we went back to his place. There was nothing unique or odd about it.”
“Ophelia’s paternity actually points to Carmen Potts.”
Annette dropped her jaw. “The artist?” she asked.
“Yes.”
This was amazing. Ophelia’s DNA matched that of a truly gifted individual, and not just a really physically attractive person.
Irene continued, “Was there anything suspicious about the act? Did he put any objects inside you, or use any fluids like lubricant he brought with him?”
“No,” Annette insisted. “It was pretty straight forward missionary. The only thing that touched my junk was his junk. He didn’t even bother putting his fingers or tongue down there.”
Irene shook her head. Annette knew her friend was disgusted by heterosexual sex. Irene would never understand that skipping all the other stuff could still lead to an enjoyable time. It was too bad her job probably forced her to talk about something she had never experienced.
“I’m sorry,” Annette said. “The only fluids that were transferred were our own.”
“We’re going to have to track him down,” Irene said. “The man you slept with.”
“Good luck with that,” Annette said with a laugh. “I didn’t even get his name.”
She hadn’t heard a peep from Ophelia for a while, and turned to see what she was up to. Angel continued rocking and bouncing while Ophelia had her eyes wide open, taking in her surroundings. “I can’t believe you got her to be so calm,” she said.
“It takes some practice. Soon you’ll know the ins and outs of your baby’s personality, and you’ll have a few tricks of your own to help her settle down. But babies do cry.”
“Yeah, they do,” she agreed.
“Why don’t you take a break? Take a nice hot shower and wash your hair. I’ll entertain your sweet princess and get her down for a nap, and Irene can run out and grab you some takeout.”
“That would be amazing,” Annette gushed. Angel stayed in the living room as she went into her bedroom and closed the door. She hadn’t changed or showered since she had come home from the hospital.
The warm water felt refreshing on her skin and melted her stress away. She couldn’t hear a sound from outside the bathroom, but knew her baby would be in good hands.
Once she was clean and in fresh clothes, she came back out to the living room to find Ophelia napping in the crib which had the rocking motion turned on. All the clothes and blankets were picked up and Angel was in the kitchen washing dishes.
“Thank you so much,” she told him as she walked into the kitchen.
“Irene brought you a turkey and cheese sandwich, chicken noodle soup, and a frozen lasagna for dinner. She’ll be back later to do some laundry.”
Tears came to her eyes. She couldn’t believe how helpful this total stranger was being.
“I get it; having a baby is hard. It’s even harder when you don’t have any family to help,” he said.
Annette let out a short laugh. “Oh, I have family. They’re just too upset about the conditions surrounding Ophelia’s birth to help out.”
“It’s their loss. Every baby is a blessing.” Annette nodded. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll have Irene bring over some paper plates so you don’t have to do any more dishes. Try to eat something and get some rest while your baby’s sleeping.”
Before she could adequately express her gratitude, he was gone. She opened the take-out container and took a bite of the turkey sandwich. It was the first real food she’d had since Ophelia was born and it tasted amazing. She didn’t even remember finishing the sandwich or walking to the sofa to curl up for a nap.
··OOO··
The AQD meeting felt more like a worship service for a cult. They opened with everyone in the crowd of around thirty people reciting the mission and main tenets of AQD. After that, the president, Aiden Stone, gave a lecture on the importance of purity in the humane genome. He looked like a preacher in his nice business suit, complete with light blue tie and shiny cufflinks which caught the light every time he jabbed his hand in the air, emphasizing some point he was saying.
Jamie leaned forward in her seat, hanging onto every word. Irene did her best not to roll her eyes. Everything Aiden said felt more like sensationalist garbage than scientific fact. She was determined to keep her opinions to herself until they were safely out of the rented elementary school gymnasium and back in the car.
After his lecture, the entire group of people held hands and recited the AQD vision before cheering and retiring to the back of the room. There were card tables set up displaying pamphlets and booklets about the organization and what they do.
Aiden approached them and immediately held out his hand and gave both Jamie and Irene a firm handshake. “I always love seeing new people here at our meetings. I’m Aiden, the president and founder of AQD.”
“I’m Jamie Crow, and this is my wife, Irene,” Jamie said.
“So, how did your hear about the meeting today?” he asked. Aiden was much taller than Irene expected. He had thick brown hair which was graying at the temples and rich brown eyes. He seemed much more friendly and genuine up close than while he was delivering his lecture.
“I met Jared Long when I was in Los Angeles for business,” Irene explained.
“He said AQD could help us find a donor to have a baby,” Jamie added.
“That’s what we do,” he said, grinning widely. “I know genome purity sounds like a bunch of hogwash to most people, but what we’re doing here is really amazing.”
“It does sound a little too good to be true,” Irene admitted.
“We’ve got lots of literature on how we aim to achieve each of our tenets,” he said, waving a hand toward the card tables. “Do read over some of it and let me know if you have any questions.”
“I have a question,” Jamie said. “How do I get a donor?”
“You need to be members first. The pink form is just the information we need to add you to the member roster.” He pointed to the spot on the tables where a stack of pink papers sat. “Once you’re a member, fill out the green questionnaire to be paired with a male donor.
If you both want to participate as female donors, then we need a green questionnaire from each of you.”
Jamie and Irene walked over to the card table and looked over all the papers. “Let’s take a little of everything,” Jamie said.
Irene nodded as she grabbed one of each questionnaire. “And then let’s get out of here.”
··OOO··
The following Monday, Irene read over the AQD literature at her desk. She had been busy all weekend helping Annette and hadn’t gotten a free moment to review all the papers they had picked up from the meeting on Friday.
“What you got there?” Angel asked.
“Jamie wants us to join a cult,” she said. She piled the pamphlets together and threw them into the bottom drawer of her desk. When she looked up, she saw Angel had traded in his sloppy clothing for a button up shirt and slacks. “Wow, Angel. You look like you’re dressed to go to work.”
He stiffly adjusted the cuffs of his shirt. “Ha ha. My wife convinced me that I should treat my job with a little more respect, especially if I ever want to get a promotion.”
“Translation, she wants you to get a promotion,” Irene said.
“Just a raise, really.” He grabbed a pencil from her utensil cup and started twirling it. “We’ve got that meeting starting soon. I heard Victory has something special for us.”
“What?” she asked
“We got a subpoena for Dr. Tanaka’s patient list. I guess it just came in this morning.”
“What?” Irene said, perking up. “How did he get the subpoena?”
“I guess we’ll learn at the meeting.” Angel walked away, still twirling Irene’s pencil between his fingers.
Everyone was gathering in the conference room. Irene got up from her desk and joined them.
The twenty social workers at the Seattle office sat around the long conference table and along the walls, with Victory at the head of the table. He began the meeting the same way he always did, going over numbers of cases and recognizing workers who were meeting and exceeding their goals. This week, the trend in cases had been men’s procedures getting delayed because their doctors were overbooked.
Finally, Victory got to the most pressing matter. “The reason I’m particularly excited today is because I need to form a special task force. The purpose of the task force is to interview a list of men: patients treated by a particular individual, Dr. Patrick Tanaka. We just got his patient list earlier today. There’s a higher incidence of excessive progeny amongst his male patients in Seattle in a timeframe of eight to twelve years ago.
Irene, since you were the first to open an investigation on Dr. Tanaka, I want you leading the task force.” Irene beamed. Not only was she yearning to dig deeper into the case of the Clark baby, but this was also her chance to distinguish herself at the department. “I’ll let you pick who else is on the task force, but I am going to insist Florida is on your team since she has medical experience, and we need to do a physical exam on all of the patients.”
Florida turned to smile at Victory, her deep-red painted lips pulling at the corners. With blond carefully curled hair pulled up into a ponytail, everything about her appearances exuded sensuality. Despite her medical background, Irene knew men would have no problem dropping their pants for her.
“I’d recommend a team of four,” Victory added.
“Would anyone like to volunteer?” Irene asked.
“I will,” Angel said.
Irene surveyed the room. Each of her coworkers looked away or down at the table. No one would make eye contact with her. No one wanted this assignment.
“Elijah,” she said. “You ready for some real work to sink your teeth into?”
He had been trying to hide behind the person next to him. He leaned forward, exposing his round, youthful face and brown, curly hair. “Uh, sure?”
“Then there’s our team of four.”
“Excellent,” Victory said. “That’s the end of the meeting. Get back to work.”
As Irene walked back to her desk, Angel quietly asked her, “Why’d you pick the new guy?”
“Because, you and I have been at this job too long to come up with unique, fresh ideas. He’ll add some new perspective.”
“Or he’ll just be dead weight,” Angel added.
“Come on, let’s get the team together and start talking strategy.”
··OOO··
Annette was shocked to see her mom at the door. Instead of berating Gerry, she stood back to let her into the apartment.
“I just couldn’t stay away from my grand-baby,” Gerry said, setting down her bag and stealing the sleeping infant out of Annette’s arms. Ophelia woke up and immediately started crying.
“Mom, she’s not used to you. Please, give her back.” Annette’s nerves were frayed and the last thing she needed was to hear Ophelia cry even more.
“Oh, don’t fret,” Gerry said, patting the baby’s back. “I brought you some roast. It’s in my bag.” Annette pulled out the soggy box of leftover roast and brought it to the kitchen to set it on the counter. She opened it to find an unappetizing mush of meat and overcooked potatoes covered in a layer of congealed fat.
“Go ahead and eat,” Gerry yelled over the screaming baby. “I’ve got her.”
“That’s okay. I’m not hungry.” Annette dropped the mess into the trash can.
“She’s hungry,” Gerry announced. “I’ll feed her her next bottle.”
“She just ate. She’s tired. You woke her up.”
“I know a hungry cry when I hear it,” Gerry cooed into Ophelia’s wailing face. She pushed past Annette into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle out of the fridge and placed it in the accelerated micro cooker.
“Don’t put it in there,” Annette warned. “I’ve got a bottle warmer specifically for…” It was too late. Gerry turned on the cooker.
After five second the cooker dinged and Gerry reached in for the bottle. In that short span of time, the milk inside had superheated. She quickly let go of the bottle of scalding liquid which dropped, shattering against the marble tile floor. Little shards of glass covered the floor and an entire bottle of wasted milk splashed up onto the cabinets and fridge.
“Why the hell would you use glass bottles?” Gerry asked, tiptoeing out of the kitchen.
Annette couldn’t handle any more crying. The only thing she wanted to do was rip her mother’s throat out. “They work better with the bottle warmer,” she said between clenched teeth.
Gerry cooed at the now red-faced infant as she continued crying. “Your mommy is silly.” As if on cue, Ophelia spit up all over Gerry, covering the front of her blouse.
Annette scooped up her baby from her shocked mother. Ophelia calmed down in her mother’s arms.
“She’d take to me if you hadn’t already spoiled her so much,” Gerry said, looking down at her soiled blouse. She grabbed her bag and left the apartment without saying good bye.
Annette sighed a breath of relief. Ophelia was now quiet with her eyes barely open. She would fall asleep again soon.
··OOO··
Irene wanted to do the first interview herself. She brought along Florida for the physical exam and Elijah so he could observe an interview before conducting one of his own.
“This can’t be the right place,” Elijah said from the backseat. He leaned forward, sticking his head full of brown curls between the front two seats.
“Of course it is,” Florida said. “Didn’t you read the brief about Dr. Tanaka? He only takes on wealthy or high-profile patients.”
“Of course I read the brief,” he said in a high mocking tone as he sat back in his seat. “Why are we starting with a dude who has no kids? Shouldn’t we prioritize the baby-slinging criminals?”
Florida looked at Irene and rolled her eyes.
“We’re going through patients chronologically,” Irene explained. “Mr. Cooper is one of Dr. Tanaka’s earliest patients. This way we’ll be able to identify any trends over time.”
“You know, a computer could also identify any trends,” Florida said.
Irene sighed. “Let me do all the talking.” The car parked at the front door and the three social workers got out.
The huge house looked like it was ripped right out of an historic Tuscan villa. The intricate stone facade was trimmed with espresso colored wood. They walked up to the enormous wooden front door and Elijah pressed on the doorbell.
“Please state your name and the reason for your visit,” a computerized voice said.
“I’m Irene Crow with the Seattle Social Department. With me are Florida Hartford and Elijah Noth. I need to ask Mr. Jonas Cooper a few questions pertaining to an investigation.”
One of the stones of the facade next to the door projected forward, revealing a scanner. “Please present each of your identifications.”
Irene pulled out her device and held it up to the scanner until it made a little beeping sound. Florida and Elijah followed suit. Once all three were scanned, the stone slid back in. The door made a loud metallic clunk, then the computer voice said, “Please enter.”
They pushed open the heavy door and walked into the grand foyer. Every detail of the space looked expensive, from the elaborate crystal chandelier to the mosaic tile pattern on the floor. Jonas came gliding down the curved staircase. He had incredibly dark skin, a smooth scalp, and black eyes. He smiled down at his visitors, his bright white teeth glowing between his dark lips.
“Pat warned me someone from the SSD might be coming, although I didn't expect three of you.” He warmly shook each of their hands. “Please, come with me to the study and we’ll have a chat.”
Elijah was so busy looking around, he had to jog across the entrance to catch up. The study looked like a library trimmed in gold and filled with leather-bound volumes. All the chairs in the room were intricately carved wood with plush velvet seats. They all sat around a low table and Irene pulled out her device.
“May I record our conversation?” she asked.
“You may,” Jonas said, relaxing back into his seat.
“Begin recording,” the device said.