by Remember Me
his laboratory. I don’t want the device to run the risk of being taken apart. I’ll rent a storage shed
to store the equipment in until I feel it can be operated again.”
“Sounds wonderful, Ray,” assured Alice. “Tomorrow we’ll call our parents and tell them
the good news. We’ll figure out the legal arrangements later on. Won’t the kids be surprised to
find out they have a new baby sister. She and Helen will practically grow up together. Have you
given her a name yet?”
“No, dear, I haven’t.”
“How about Margaret?” suggested Alice.
“That’s a wonderful name, dear.”
The sound of the phone ringing in the background drew the couple out of their content
trance. Ray looked at the clock on the wall and realized it was for him. Only the hospital would
call at this late of an hour. He left the young child in his wife’s care and walked to the kitchen to
answer the phone.
“Hello, this is Dr. Drake.”
“Hello Dr. Drake,” began the voice on the end of the line. “This is Nurse Abbot from
labor and delivery. A patient of yours checked in just a few minutes ago and she’s pretty far into
labor. I’m guessing that she’ll deliver within a few hours. She’s in some pain and wants you to
come down. She’s a younger girl, we thought you might want to come on in.”
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“What’s the patient’s name?” asked Raymond, trying to regain his sense of reality.
“Ms. Laura Donathon. She’s here with her aunt. She says there is no father, and she’s
really shaken up. We’re working with her, but she seems really set on you being here with her.”
“Oh yes, my young patient. I promised Laura that I would stay with her through the entire
labor. I know how nervous she is. I’ll be down as soon as I can. Tell her I’m on my way, please.”
“Yes, doctor. Sorry to wake you at such a late hour.”
“That’s all right, Nurse Abbot. I was awake anyhow. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Ray returned to the room where his wife held the sleeping child in her arms. She looked
up at him with a warm smile, and he realized how lucky he was to have such an understanding
wife.
“Was that the hospital?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he answered. “It seems my young patient has gone into labor. I told her I would
be there the minute she needed me. I had better head down there and calm her. Will you be all
right?”
“I’m pretty used to having new babies in my home. I think I’ll manage just fine.”
“We’ll have to figure out how we’ll handle Edward’s funeral. I don’t want his widow to
find out about this, but we really need to be there.”
“I’ll call my sister this morning,” Alice responded. “We’ll leave all the kids with her
during the funeral. Edward’s wife hardly knew us. She won’t ask very many questions, I’m sure.
You go help that little girl deliver her new baby. Margaret’s going to need some other children in
this town who are her own age.”
Margaret woke up around two o’clock in the morning. She checked the clock on her
nightstand and climbed out of bed. The house was deathly quiet at the late hour, and she knew
now was the opportune moment to search through the files her father had locked up.
The evening had given Margaret time to think things over carefully. Amy was right,
Margaret felt better now that she had put the experiment out of her mind and thought about her
life with her parents. She could find no faults in the job they had done raising her. She had no
complaints.
Realizing the sincerity of their love, Margaret wondered even more where she had come
from, and who her real parents were. She hoped that the answers would lie in the files in her
father’s office. The suspense of not knowing drove her mind into a frenzy with intrigue.
Margaret tiptoed down the hallway, to the stairs leading to the main floor of the house.
As she passed her parents room, she placed her ear on the door to make sure they were both
asleep. She clearly heard the sound of her father snoring through the flimsy wooden door, and
then continued her trek downstairs.
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Margaret reached the study and shut the door securely behind her. In less than a minute
she had turned on the small reading light and opened the drawer which contained the information
about the experiment. She read over the books more carefully this time, looking for specific
information.
She studied some of the journals her father kept of her once he had taken her into his
home. The manner in which he wrote everything surprised her as she looked through it. Before
long, she grew to understand her father’s feelings for her much more clearly.
He had written the observations he made in a very personal and caring style. The journal
seemed less like scientific research and more like detailed notes that a father had taken of his
child. Through the words he had written down, Margaret could tell that he was very proud of her
and the accomplishments she made. He wrote the entire work from the standpoint of a father, and
the words brought tears to her eyes as she realized the mistake she had made in her earlier
judgment of the situation.
After a while, Margaret stopped and looked up at the clock on the wall of the room.
Surprise overcame her as she realized that two hours had passed and she still had no information
about her real parents. She placed the books her father had kept to the side and started back
through Dr. Penn’s journals.
Margaret went through the books much more carefully this time. She found the section of
the books where she located the first pictures of the child, and began working back, searching for
the information. She found the information in a lone paragraph from the section describing her
father’s first role in the experiment.
It amazed Margaret to learn that her father had supplied Dr. Penn with the child for the
experiment. The beginning of the section described in detail that both Dr. Penn and her father
realized the ethical questions that would arise from the procedure they would perform, and that
they accepted full responsibility for their actions. Margaret gained a new perspective of her
father as she realized the risks he had taken with his career to bring her into the world.
The section describing Margaret’s parents was only a paragraph long and not very
descriptive. It didn’t list the names, but did refer to a patient number kept by the clinic where her
father worked. Margaret read the entry several times in disbelief.
“...The patient has opted to abort the fetus she carries at this point in time. This will be
the third abortion the patient has had performed in the past two years. Both of the previous
abortions were performed under the care of Dr. Raymond Drake without complications, and the
children were judged as healthy during the post examination of the aborted fetus.
The mother of the fetus was sedated using a heavy tranquilizer and pain killers, and the
procedure listed below was performed to transfer the child to the Artificial Uterus. The mother
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has no knowledge of this experiment or the procedure that was performed during the period of
her unconsciousness. It was performed without her consent. The child was removed from her
uterus as promised, but using a procedure which would not sacrifice the life of the unborn
child...”
Margaret’s hand froze up as she finished reading the section and the book fell from her
grasp. She sat perfectly still as a coldness came over her body. Anger again filled her heart, as it
had earlier in the day. This time, however, she didn’t direct it towards her parents, but at the
mother who had carried her for two months.
Pain shot up her jaw as she realized she was grinding her teeth tightly together. She
picked up the book and studied the patient number carefully. The file that listed the numbers, and
the names they corresponded with, sat at the beginning of her father’s files and she pulled out the
keys to learn her original mother’s name.
Margaret walked over to the file cabinet containing her father’s patient files and pulled
out the first document. He updated the files twice a year and sorted them by number. She ran
through the list of numbers quickly, locating the number from the notebook without any
problems. The name Heather Alexander seemed to glare back at her from the page.
Margaret returned the document and opened the file cabinet corresponding to the
beginning of the alphabet for the patients’ files. Alexander was one of the first few files she came
across.
Margaret returned to the desk with the file and opened it up on the desktop. She heard a
creaking noise in the supports of the house and realized that somebody in the house had caused
the noise. She held perfectly still for some time before she shrugged it off as her father tossing in
his sleep.
She decided that she would return all the files from the experiment in some kind of order
so her father wouldn’t notice she had gone through them. Margaret didn’t want to rush herself
throwing everything back in its place, in the event that her father awoke and came looking for
her. She set her real mother’s file aside and carefully organized the other books she had spread
out across the floor.
With the cabinet back in order, Margaret locked up the drawer and returned the key to the
desk. She pulled open the files of Heather Alexander and began sorting through the series of
documents.
The file contained many papers describing Heather’s health. Margaret figured out from
the dates on the papers that Heather was her father’s patient for about three years. The files
supported what he had written in the experiment about Heather, she had gone to Dr. Drake for
three different abortions.
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Margaret paid particular attention to the writing about the third abortion. The documents
looked almost identical to the first two. The only difference was in the way her father referred to
the last procedure. Instead of referring to it as an aborted pregnancy, he wrote that he had
removed the fetus from its mother with her consent.
Margaret pulled out a piece of scratch paper and wrote down some of the information in
the files. She thought it odd that even with the procedure he had performed, he wrote it up so that
it all seemed completely legitimate from a legal standpoint.
Margaret searched through the documents until she located a section she found
particularly interesting. Her father had taken some notes from a pre-abortion screening he had
done with Heather. She read carefully, picking out specifics from the file.
“... Heather exhibits no feelings for the child she is carrying. I asked her several questions
about the father of the child. She told me the child was a product of a one night affair she had
shared with a football player. The only information she could give me about the father was a
number that he wore on his jersey. It was the number “87.”
I asked her if she had contacted him to tell him about the pregnancy, and she expressed a
strong desire to keep the issue to herself. She seems completely unwilling to even consider
keeping the child. I asked her at this time if she didn’t think she should at least try to contact the
father and tell him about her decision, but she denied my request.
I also explained to the patient, the negative effects that might occur to her body if she
kept having repeated abortions. I strongly advised her to use birth control on a regular basis so
that she wouldn’t keep getting herself into this sort of situation. I fear that these advisements
were taken lightly.
As a last attempt, I told her that I would not be able to perform the abortion on this day
and would have to make an appointment for later in the week. I hope that by giving her some
more time to think about her decision, she might fail to show up for the procedure. However, I’m
sure my hopes are in vain and will plan on performing the procedure as asked at a later day in the
week...”
Margaret sat in the chair feeling sorry for herself for several minutes before she
remembered what her friend Amy had told her. Her best friend had a sense of things. Her insight
had amazed Margaret many times before, and she hadn’t failed this time either.
She remembered the advice Amy had given her earlier. “...Don’t judge them until you
know the truth. Maybe your real mother died and they removed you to try to save your life. If
that’s the case, then your dad might have saved your life...”
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Amy was right, Margaret’s dad had saved her life. She realized that now. Her mother was
alive though, and she knew nothing about the daughter she decided to abort. Margaret thought to
herself for some time. In a sense, something did die the afternoon of the abortion. It was not
Margaret, however.
Margaret sat back in the chair and finished writing down the notes she had taken. She
looked through the rest of the file and found that Heather had returned only one time after the
procedure for a follow-up visit and then her father had never heard from her again.
Margaret looked through the files for one last bit of information. She found Heather’s
address listed on the first sheet in the file. She knew it had probably changed in the past eighteen
years, but figured it was the only bit of information she had so far to try to track the woman
down.
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Chapter Eight
Margaret arrived at Amy’s house after school got out. She knocked on the door and
waited for her friend to answer. The afternoon air felt hot, and reminded Margaret that even Deer
Hollow experienced summer heat. Margaret didn’t enjoy extreme heat. Amy’s mother opened
the door and invited her inside the house.
“Good afternoon, Margaret, please come in. Amy still hasn’t made it home yet, but I
expect her any moment, you’re welcome to wait for her.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Jensen,” answered Margaret.
“My name’s Laura.”
“Sorry,” Margaret apologized. “I got out of school a few minutes early and there is
n’t
anyone home at my house right now. I thought I would take the chance that Amy got out of class
early too. With the last week of school, a lot of teachers let us out early.”
“Yes, Margaret, I remember those days of high school, but Amy had to stop by the office
to talk with her counselor. It might be a little while before she gets home. You’re welcome to
come out in the kitchen and wait with me, I’m in the middle of making some cookies for dessert
tonight.”
“All right, Mrs. Jensen,” answered Margaret, seduced by the smell of food in the house.
She followed Amy’s mother into the kitchen and sat down at the table. From the temperature in
the room, she judged that Laura had spent most of the afternoon cooking.
“Please, call me Laura,” urged Mrs. Jensen. “I know I seem really old to you, but I don’t
feel old enough to be called Mrs. Jensen by anyone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So, are you getting excited to graduate?” asked Amy’s mother.
“Not really,” answered Margaret. “I don’t think the reality has hit just yet. It doesn’t feel
very different than the end of any other school year. I have so many plans for summer that I
don’t really stop to think that next year I won’t be going back.”
Laura walked over and handed Margaret a warm cookie from the cooling racks on the
counter. Margaret loved Laura’s kitchen. Laura had bought this house because of the kitchen’s
size and redid it to fit her passion for cooking. Laura designed the room to allow plenty of
sunshine inside.
The solid oak cabinets and white tile floor gave the room a bright and cheery appearance.
Laura’s husband had put a large bay window along the wall of the adjoining dining room, and
the view of Laura’s flower garden was spectacular during the summer bloom. He told her that if
she spent all her free time in the kitchen, she ought to have the most beautiful kitchen she could
get, and she did.
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“You’ll be surprised the difference you’ll feel once you have your diploma in your hand,”
Laura explained. “It’s only three days from now, then public education is all behind you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Laura had her apron over the shorts and T-shirt she wore while lounging around the