Unholy Birth

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Sounds exhausting,” Willy said.

  “It’s meant to be. Actually, it’s meant to make a prospective mother more confident about how her child will turn out than she would be with the man she met and married. Too many women get married too quickly these days and find themselves still discovering things about their husbands a year later, things they are not happy to discover. We eliminate that risk.”

  Willy nodded. I had never seen her look so impressed with anything or anyone.

  “I’m sold,” she said. She turned to me. “Kate?”

  “How soon do I have to make a decision?”

  “Oh, take your time. It’s a life decision. And don’t hesitate to call on me with every question that you have. Of course, we advise you to have a full physical yourself, and we like to see the results. I should say, we insist on it. If you like, we’ll recommend a physician somewhat familiar with our work.”

  “Here?” Willy asked.

  “Well, you would have to travel to our area, but you could be confidant the doctor is doing all the right things. Again,” she said, smiling and turning more to Willy, “we’re taking a risk, too, with our reputation. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Completely,” Willy said. “Failure to conceive, miscarriages, reflect badly on your company. Kate, don’t you have any other questions?” she asked me. I knew she was enjoying this now and also teasing me.

  “Dr. Matthews has made a complete presentation. I think I know enough for now.”

  “Really? I don’t,” she said, which surprised me.

  Dr. Matthews held that smile.

  “How can I help?”

  “You haven’t explained the method, the one you volunteered to assist with,” Willy said.

  “We haven’t gotten to that point yet,” I said.

  “It has to impact on your thinking, Kate. Dr. Matthews?”

  “Yes, I agree.”

  She reached into her briefcase and produced another set of papers. Without speaking, she handed them to me.

  “What is it?” Willy asked.

  I held it up.

  “‘How to Inseminate at Home,’” I announced.

  “You mean, we can’t do it in the rear seat of a Ford?” Willy joked.

  “I suppose you can do it anywhere.”

  “I know,” Willy said. “We’ll have an insemination party, sort of a pagan ritual of sorts. We’ll sacrifice a virgin goat in the backyard.”

  “Very fucking funny,” I said, getting more pissed. She laughed.

  “Good choice of words.”

  “Why don’t I leave you two with it all to discuss?” Dr. Matthews said, closing her briefcase. She rose, smiling. “As I said, don’t hesitate to call me about anything.”

  “Thank you,” I said, rising. Willy remained sitting and then thought about it and rose, too.

  We walked her to the front door. She paused and looked around.

  “I really do like your home. It’s airy and has a nice energy about it. Any child would be happy living here.”

  “A house does not a home make,” Willy muttered.

  “Of course not, but, it’s nice to have one like this as a starting point. You two look like you could handle bringing up baby,” Dr. Matthews added. “Thanks for refreshments and the wine.”

  “We give you wine. You’re giving us a whiner,” Willy muttered with a laugh.

  Dr. Matthews held that soft smile and left.

  “You’re such an idiot, Willy,” I said, still standing in the doorway. I watched Dr. Matthews go down our walk and around to the driveway and her car.

  “If you can’t have fun, why do it? She was pretty impressive, I’ll admit. The whole thing sounds pretty impressive.”

  “Yes, I thought so, too,” I said, holding my breath. Did she mean it or was she setting me up for another burst of sarcasm? “Let me see that Inseminate at Home stuff,” she asked, reaching for the papers. She took them and returned to the living room.

  Our front door was still open so I stepped out. Dr. Matthews was just backing out of our driveway. As she drove off, the lights from the neighbor’s house threw a wedge of illumination into Dr. Matthews’s car and when it moved deeper into the light, another figure took shape. I was pretty sure I saw a man sitting beside her. He looked shorter and heavy in the shoulders. The car moved out of the light and into the darkness, the silhouetted figures lost in the shadows. The car turned and headed away.

  I stepped back inside, closed the door and headed back into the living room.

  “This is wild shit,” Willy said, looking up from the papers. “Did you see this part where it’s recommended you have an orgasm? This is going to make me feel like a father for sure,” she said, smiling. She stopped when she saw the expression on my face. “What?”

  “Strangest thing. I stepped out just as Dr. Matthews was leaving and I swear I saw a man sitting in the car.”

  “A man?”

  “Why would she leave someone sitting out there all that time?”

  Willy thought, sat back, looked at the papers and then up at me.

  “Probably because she thought it would have inhibited us to have some man sitting in on this conversation. Maybe it was her husband.”

  “Did she say she was married?”

  “I don’t remember. No. As I said, she admitted to being bisexual so that could have been her boyfriend, husband, whatever.”

  “Why bring him along?”

  “Maybe they’re going somewhere together now, Kate. Jeez, what’s the big fucking deal here? He’s an understanding son of a bitch who probably thinks it’s well worth sitting out there in the dark in a car to wait for what he thinks is the fuck of the century. Do you have to do this all the time, read some voodoo meaning into everything?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  I sat on the sofa. A long moment of silence passed between us while Willy stared at me.

  “So what are you going to do now, Kate, contact a new sperm bank company because there was a man sitting in a car out there?”

  “I didn’t say I’d do that.”

  “I’m not going through this again,” she warned. “Besides, I liked her. She was…efficient and kind of hip, if I can use that old-fashioned term. Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “You know you can drive someone crazy. You have been eating and breathing this thing for weeks, if not months, having dreams, virtual births, reading every parenting book you could find, and convincing me and now you sit there with that far-off look you inherited from your superstitious grandmother.”

  “I’m okay with it,” I insisted. “I was just making a comment about an odd thing, but you’ve explained it and I’m fine.”

  “Okay. Then all that’s left is for you and I to review the donor list. I’m not so sure I was kidding about the insemination party though. That might be fun.”

  “Like hell. Willy!”

  “Don’t be so damn serious about this. You’ll squeeze all the fun out of it. I’ll make it a small party.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  She shrugged and reached for the donor list.

  “You know,” she said perusing it, “it’s times like this you wish cloning was a real option. Well, what do you prefer, Scandinavian, Western European, Asian, English-Irish, Native American? There’s one that might make sense. We’re surrounded by Indians here. You could go African-American. Wait a minute. Look at this. They actually have an Eskimo donor.”

  “Are you going to be serious about it?”

  “I am serious. Here,” she said, dividing up the pages, “you take these and I’ll take these. Circle the ones you favor on your sheets and I’ll circle mine. Then we’ll compare our lists, discuss our reasons and narrow it down. How’s that for serious?”

  I took the pages.

  “Better,” I said. I rose. “I’m going off to be alone.”

  “Fine.”

  I took the tray, empty glasses and beer bottles to the kitchen a
nd then went out to the patio and the pool after I turned on the outside lighting. There were stars just peeking above the top of the mountain. The pinhead size light of the tram car descended into the darkness. There was barely a breeze, but it was comfortable, cool. Some bats circled the pool, dove and then flapped into the vampire night. I could hear a pack of coyotes making their way east along the wash, yelping with excitement as they chased some desperate creature that could be someone’s stray dog or cat. Nature was at once beautiful and cruel.

  I curled up in a lounge and began to go through the donor list, while Willy the wise ass turned on the CD and put the music through the outside sound system after she had located Eddie Fisher singing “Oh! My Pa-Pa.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. It made me feel better, but I couldn’t relax completely.

  There was something about that male figure silhouetted in Dr. Matthews’s car that wouldn’t let me relax. I put the papers aside for a moment and thought about it, resurrecting the image.

  Maybe it wasn’t a man. It could have been a little heavier-set woman. Maybe I was assuming too much. So what? She had admitted to being bisexual.

  What bothered me?

  Just the way that figure appeared, I thought. He or she seemed to materialize, fade in like a shot in a movie and then fade out, a silent figure, waiting patiently out there the whole time.

  It was just so odd. It had to mean something. But what? What?

  You and your omens and dreams, I could hear Willy saying. If I brought this up again, she would surely change her mind about the whole thing.

  So shut up, I told myself and returned to the donor list.

  4.

  DESPITE THE SIZE OF the list, it didn’t take us that long to cut it to five names between us, three for me and two for her. Without comparing notes, we were on the same wavelength. We wanted a child who would resemble us as closely as possible or as Willy joked, “As near to a clone as we could get.”

  Because of all the information about donor lineages we read, we considered our own. Over the years, we had talked at great length about our genealogies, intrigued with the possibility we would learn more about each other this way. Both our great-grandparents came from England and Ireland on our father’s side. My mother’s people had some German and Polish origins, and Willy’s mother’s people had Dutch and French. I wondered if we should concentrate on someone with a similar genealogy or look for variety to make a more interesting personality? I stayed safe and went for someone with similar genealogy and so did Willy.

  Next, we went for donors who had higher levels of education and were professionals. Willy said it was the snob in us. Of course, we screened out as many of those who had family with even a suggestion of any serious illness experiences and we then went for men who were close to us in age.

  Three days after we had met with Dr. Matthews, we drew out our short list and sat in the living room to discuss each and every one in detail. For a while I thought it might actually boil down to height and weight. Willy naturally favored the one who had the best athletic background.

  “He’s not as financially successful perhaps, or hasn’t the doctorate two of your final candidates have, but to me he’s more well rounded, and according the psychologist, he’s an aggressive personality. We need to balance out your temperament, interests with someone like this. You’re too meek and we don’t want to raise a sissy.”

  “I doubt that we’d raise a sissy with you in this house. You’ll probably have the baby doing sit-ups in the crib.”

  I looked at the profile of the donor she was suggesting. Choosing someone Willy wanted was probably a good political move for our relationship and for her assuming half the responsibility for our child. If I did it all, made the choice, got pregnant, delivered, and took on most of the mother role, Willy would feel estranged.

  “I think you’re right,” I said. I tapped the paper with the name she had chosen as her top candidate. “This donor is Daddy-O.”

  She smiled.

  “I decided I definitely want to be part of the home insemination process. In the old days, people used to call it intercourse,” she said and we both laughed. “I think we’re making a mistake not making something of that day or night. It’s a momentous occasion. How often to we permit sperm loose in this house?”

  “Stop it, Willy.”

  “Not even an insemination dinner with a dozen or so of our friends?”

  “No. This is highly personal and private, only for us.”

  She sat back and thought and then smiled.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ll come up with something highly personal. I have just the idea.”

  I didn’t like the way she said that. What had I unleashed?

  “What?”

  “No comment yet. I have to crystalize my thinking a little more about it, but I promise to make it an enjoyable, erotic experience.”

  “Willy, I don’t like the sound of this,” I warned.

  “Relax. I promise you will enjoy it as much as I do. Call the good doctor. Tell her we have chosen our sperm.”

  The following night, Lois Matthews returned to our house. This time, when she drove up, I stepped out to look at her car to see if there was someone waiting for her again. There wasn’t.

  “Thanks for coming so quickly,” I told her when she extended her hand.

  She was wearing a silky, gold-laced, flesh-tinted camisole with a built-in shelf bra under her white suit jacket. Her pants were form-fitted. I thought she looked smart, but even more beautiful.

  “No problem. I’m glad you two called so soon. I enjoy this trip and love Palm Springs. It’s more pleasure than work for me, believe me,” she said.

  I saw she carried a bottle of wine.

  “You brought us wine?”

  “To celebrate and toast your decision,” she said, handing it to me.

  “Thank you. Come in,” I said.

  Willy emerged from the kitchen carrying a silver tray with three wineglasses and a plate of cheese and crackers.

  “Hey, Doc,” she said.

  “How did you know we’d need the glasses?” I asked, smiling with surprise.

  “Lois told me she was bringing a top pinot noir from Napa,” Willy said.

  “Told you? When?”

  “Will you stop the Inquisition. As the other half of this, I have a right to talk to our sperm pusher. Shall we?” she added, nodding at the living room.

  Dr. Matthews and I followed her. This time Willy sat beside her on the sofa. She looked at the wine when I handed it to her and nodded, impressed.

  “See what she brought?” she asked, turning the label to me. We knew the vineyard and knew it was expensive.

  “I see what it is, Willy. Thank you, Lois.”

  Willy began to uncork it.

  “Now then,” Dr. Matthews said. “Before we start, let me congratulate you on your choice of donor. I always like to try to guess about whom my clients will choose after I meet them.”

  “Don’t tell us you choose him, too,” Willy said.

  “No, not him specifically, but he was one of my top three choices.”

  “We’re that predictable,” I said, not completely disguising my note of annoyance.

  “It’s not a matter of being predictable. It’s a matter of intelligent evaluation, and the two of you looked like you were capable of that.”

  “Hey, Lois,” Willy said, pouring the wine, “you don’t have to stroke us anymore. We’re in, ready to sign, ready to get impregnated.”

  Dr. Matthews laughed.

  “That was a sincere compliment,” she said, “absent of any ulterior motive.”

  “Willy always says every compliment has an ulterior motive,” I said. “Even if it’s just to win a compliment for yourself. Don’t you, Willy?”

  “Do you mean that as a compliment or a criticism?” Willy asked, and she and Dr. Matthews laughed.

  “Let’s get to our toast,” Dr. Matthews said, raising her glass.

  “Kate
?” Willy said, holding out mine. “I assume you want to be part of this since you’re making a small poached egg contribution.”

  “Very funny.” I took the glass.

  “To a wise decision and a successful pregnancy and birth,” Dr. Matthews said.

  We all drank.

  She then opened her briefcase and spread the papers on the coffee table.

  “These are for you to read and sign. They include all the fees involved and what is involved in your physical,” she explained.

  I looked at it.

  “We have a doctor of our own,” I said.

  “He’s just a regular practicing family physician, Kate,” Willy said. “Why not use their specialist?”

  “It won’t cost you any more than it would with your physician, I’m sure,” Dr. Matthews said.

  “I’m not worried about the cost.”

  “So?” Willy said.

  “All right, perhaps,” I said.

  “Good. Now, let’s talk about your menstrual cycle.”

  “A most interesting topic,” Willy said. “Fortunately, our Kate here is as regular as a Swiss timepiece.”

  “That’s terrific,” Dr. Matthews said. “Morgan Patterson believes that is a good indication of a contented woman, someone who doesn’t suffer too much stress in her life.”

  Willy smiled as if she were solely the reason. Dr. Matthews picked up on it instantly.

  “At the risk of being accused of delivering another compliment, might I say you two are one of the most compatible and satisfied of the couples I have met, and I have met quite a few.”

  “Thank you,” Willy said. “Kate?”

  “You haven’t known us that long. How did you come to that conclusion so quickly?”

  “I have a built-in people meter. Am I wrong?”