Chose

by O M Faure

  The door opens. The aroma of coffee spreads in the room as my mother deposits a small tray on the nightstand and closes the door behind her.

  The rest of the day passes in a daze. I have a thorough look at the drugs and explain everything to my mother, prepare a pill dispenser and leave all the phone numbers prominently displayed for her.

  As the day draws to a close, I kiss Dad goodbye and he squeezes my forearm, tapping it gently with unspoken words of affection.

  We’re nearing the airport when my mother finally speaks up, breaking the silence of the ride.

  ‘You stole him away from me.’

  I must have misheard her. She looks at the road intently.

  ‘From the moment you were born, I ceased to exist for him. You stole all his attention and love away from me.’

  I have no idea what to say to her, so I stay quiet.

  ‘You were the sun to him. From the day you appeared, his life started to revolve around you. He likes me. But he loves you.’

  ‘Mom, I don’t think—’

  She cuts across me, ‘Just be worthy of it, DeAnn.’

  I close my mouth and look at her profile.

  Can she really believe what she’s saying? I understand now why she was so sad throughout my life, why she never really warmed to me. But even if it’s true, what could I possibly have done about it? I could hardly avoid being born.

  We reach the airport and I get out of the car. She stays seated, as usual. I pick up my suitcase and walk to her window. Our eyes meet through the glass, then she drives off, leaving me alone on the sidewalk. Slightly abandoned.

  Then I snap out of it. She can’t abandon me. I’m a self-sufficient 42-year-old woman. I’m a renowned geneticist, I own a bay-view condo and I have a life to go back to.

  I shake myself awake and walk toward the terminal, catching floating strands of my character as I go, weaving them back into my tapestry, thread by thread. Strength, conviction, determination, intelligence: catch, weave. Catch again.

  When I land in Baltimore, the tapestry is nearly whole again. A gap here and there betraying the strain of the weekend, but definitely, recognizably me.

  It’s time for a change in my life.

  7

  Olivia

  London, United Kingdom, August 2016

  * * *

  Bruises are blossoming on either side of my belly button like strange butterflies, their dark purplish wings moving slowly under my skin. There, in the soft, plush sanctuary of my womb, my child is hesitating, wondering if this will be the right place for his soul to come into the world.

  I trace the contours of the injection stains and imagine little Max assessing us, deciding what kind of parents we will be, as his infinitely small shape hovers. Maybe he will latch on if I remain very still and send him all the love I can muster.

  ‘I can’t do this.’

  Rain is pouring outside. Martin is at the foot of our bed, looking out of the window, fully dressed.

  ‘Sorry – what?’ I say.

  ‘I can’t bear the weather, Mousey. I’m moving back to Malta.’

  Being in London is obviously making Martin miserable. I’m asking too much of him. I love him so much.

  ‘It’s just for six months,’ he pleads, his eyes welling up.

  My heart clenches with compassion. He’s trying his best. I should find it in my heart to let him go, if he needs it so badly.

  ‘OK, Bear, if it’s so important for you. But why?’

  ‘I need to go because you’re pregnant. So you’re going to start puking and you’re going to get fat and I don’t want to be here for that. Also, it’s summer in Malta and I want to be at the beach.’

  I spend another two weeks trying to convince him to stay.

  The Two-Week Wait.

  Every twitch, every cramp, every spot at the bottom of my knickers is perhaps the embryo implanting.

  Every craving, every hot flash, every swelling is the pregnancy starting.

  Every thought, every hope, every action is aimed, taut and quivering at my dream; Max’s blond curls shining in the sun, Max’s laughter pealing like a wind chime’s tinkle, Max’s hand in mine, small warm and perfect.

  Then the day comes.

  Negative.

  Hands shaking, I fight to open the second pregnancy test, my sweaty palms slick on the plastic packaging.

  Negative again.

  I take the test six times and decide it doesn’t mean anything.

  Until finally, my period comes.

  Cramps, like the muffled grumblings of a storm, wake me up in the night. Then pain’s hot poker jabs at my insides and, finally, the reality cannot be denied, as I get up in the dark, blindly groping towards the bathroom.

  Blood flows.

  Dark red and velvety.

  I fall on the cold tiled floor, hugging my knees, and crumple into the most compact ball of misery I can manage. I sit there, no tears left in me. Just emptiness.

  Game over.

  Martin leaves for Malta a few days later. Two days in, he texts: it’s over.

  And so, sometimes God says no.

  No to your most fervent prayers, your hopes, your dreams.

  I’m left in London, on my own, inhaling chocolate, cakes and sweets like there’s no tomorrow. Because there is no tomorrow.

  My life has imploded.

  I’ve just spent the last four years on a diet, drinking no alcohol, saving, planning my entire life around the IVF cycles. I’ve gradually cut off all my single friends who partied too hard or who simply didn’t have kids, because I thought of myself already as a mother. I got closer to the ones who did have kids but I never belonged in that circle either. I’ve slowed down my career on purpose in order to have a manageable schedule for when the baby came. But he never did.

  This was the only goal I could not attain by sheer force of will, hard work or smarts. The one goal that depended on my body and God. Neither one saw fit to grant my wish.

  Now I find myself with a mediocre career, no man, no child, significantly less money, old and fat from all the hormone injections.

  Time to eat Nutella with a spoon. Time to binge on TV series and whinge to my friends about an outcome they all saw coming two months into this relationship.

  Wasn’t I meant for bigger, better things? I feel like an actress who received the wrong part. This isn’t my life. Heck, this isn’t even the right movie.

  I can see all the decisions along the way that led me to this point and yet it makes no sense that I am here. I have no idea what to do next. What am I for? Who am I for? I make no difference in anyone’s life and if I died right now, I’d barely leave a ripple behind me, on the surface of my friends’ lives. I’m clinging on to a borrowed desk, pretending that my job serves a purpose, but helping a law firm to get richer has got to be one of the most pointless ways to spend a life.

  Maybe I should simply continue with the mysterious job interviews. I haven’t got anything left to lose, to be honest. I couldn’t possibly be successful in the Cassandra Programme, though. The usual berating starts in my head without me even noticing: ‘I’m a middle-aged spinster who’s overweight and out of shape; the last thing they need is me on some field assignment. I failed at everything, I can’t even manage to find a boyf…’ The familiar record skids to a halt.

  I barely have one or two years left to meet another man, go through the whole rigmarole of dating again and then get to the point where we can try for a baby. Oh God, oh God, oh God, what if I’ve missed the boat? What if I remain childless forever?

  The singsong voice chants inside my head, as it usually does, except today it doesn’t sing about everything turning out OK. Today, it starts singing in a loop: ‘I want to die, I want to die, I want to die, I want to die, I want to die, I want to die.’ On and on from the moment I open my eyes in the morning until my head hits the pillow at night and I surrender to merciful oblivion.

  8

  DeAnn

  Cambridge, United Kin
gdom, September 2016

  * * *

  ‘Ahem.’

  The college porter is wearing a black suit and a bowler hat. A bowler hat, for Christ’s sake. He looks at me with all the disdain usually reserved for tourists and cockroaches.

  ‘I’m here for an interview.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘DeAnn Carpenter.’

  He disappears inside his lodge and reappears a minute later at the window, looking at a large, leather-bound ledger.

  ‘Yes…’ He pauses. ‘You appear to be on my list.’ He sounds surprised.

  I snatch the visitor’s badge and keys from his hand before he changes his mind, and drag my suitcase through a long corridor, then up a stone spiral staircase to a small spartan room on the first floor. A desolate twin bed of the industrial metal-tube variety is huddled against a wall smallpoxed with Blu Tack. The rest of the furniture consists of a rickety nightstand and a scuffed desk/chair combo, and yet the room feels crowded, as it’s 150 square feet at most.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ Sighing and cursing under my breath, I unpack and change into tight black jeans and a bright green silk blouse. I know better than to mistake tonight’s dinner for casual networking; this is part of the selection process, of course. I put on my large emerald ring and my green Louboutin pumps and look at myself in the spotted mirror above the sink. Everything is in place; my modern battle gear. You need to be perfect to show strength. People don’t respect the weak, so I make a point of always appearing collected, polished, immaculate. The skin-tight jeans hug my thighs nicely. I’ve worked hard to tone them, so I’m pleased to see the results looking good.

  As I step into the hallway, Woody comes out of his room, a few doors down. He sees me and saunters over, trying to ingratiate himself to me with a few oily compliments but I can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re competing, so I give him a polite smile and keep quiet. His keen face is turned up toward me as I’m taller than him to begin with and the heels aren’t helping.

  We get to the reception room and even I have to admit that it looks impressive; antique wood paneling covers the walls and the ceiling’s exposed beams curve inward like the inside of a ship. Tall mullioned windows let in the fading light of the sunset, while logs burn in a stone fireplace.

  A few tables are laid with white cloths and elaborate place settings. Woody is still prattling on and I let him follow me as I locate a waiter and order a glass of Rioja.

  Most of the others have arrived and are mingling with the Programme recruiters. Andrew Catterwall is already talking to Olivia, sitting on a sofa by the fire. Her unruly red curls stand out against her pale freckled skin. She’s sitting with her feet turned inward, hunched over with her arms crossed, as if protecting her middle.

  I think idly about how stunning she’d look if she straightened up, wore heels and crossed her legs. A good tailored dress would do wonders to showcase her hourglass figure, but her clothes are baggy and gray, she’s not wearing enough makeup and a little silver cross hangs around her neck. One of those do-gooders who can’t wait to pop out six kids, then. I bet she’s overemotional and always gets dumped because she’s too obvious about wanting to get married. I can’t stand her type. Her chirpy friendliness grates. Maybe she does it on purpose, to look harmless, and the worst part is that it seems to be working; Andrew laughs at something she’s just said.

  Canapés start circulating and I join the group by the intricately carved fireplace, careful to sit as far as possible from that douchebag, Frank. He’s looking pleased with himself, speaking loudly to Aileen in his irritating cockney accent. I’m pretty sure he banged the bimbo back in London. Stupid girl, you should never mix business and pleasure and she got played. Frank, I bet, knew exactly what he was doing.

  Dinner starts and I find myself seated between Adam and Karim, listening distractedly to their conversation as I really couldn’t care less about sports. I use the time to look around and assess the other contestants.

  Woody spends his evening trying to brown-nose everyone from the Programme and mostly ignores the other candidates. Probably a technique that worked for him at the UN, but I’m not so sure it will be very effective here.

  Whatever else the Programme is, it’s a professional team and a well-oiled machine. I get the distinct impression that every move we make is under scrutiny. The food is better than I’d have expected from a British kitchen and the conversation flows easily among the contestants.

  Slightly red in the face, Frank becomes much too loud and his hands start to wander. Aileen looks increasingly alarmed, her bony arms making small jerking motions as she tries to evade the unwanted groping. Theodora and Andrew exchange glances, he gets up and smoothly asks Aileen to get him something from the office, leaving Frank thwarted but none the wiser about his faux pas.

  Across from me, Björn is talking in low whispers with Critchlow, as Andika quietly listens in. These two are the most capable looking. They don’t wear fatigues or uniforms but their demeanor gives them away. I wonder about the diverse range of candidates. What sort of person are they looking for? How can we all qualify if we’re so different?

  Apparently, we’ll go through a day of interviews tomorrow and a day of physical testing on Sunday so I imagine we’ll find out soon enough who they’re looking for.

  The first morning is broken up into short exercises and passes quickly. They’re testing us individually to learn whether we’re able to find threads between seemingly disparate groups of information. Analytical reasoning, logic, deduction. Once I spot that this is what they are looking for, each test becomes easier. We take the Myers Briggs personality test (INTJ, no surprise there), IQ tests, logic tests – and I fly easily through it all.

  In the afternoon, we’re tested as teams. They put us through thirty-minute simulations and pair us up to evaluate who works best with whom. The exercises range from responding to an armed kidnapping to working together to convince another team to do something for us.

  My strong personality and independence don’t sit well with the men. The pairing with Frank is probably the one that goes worst. We’re instructed to build a wooden catapult with Ikea-type instructions, but we both try to take control and end up arguing about how to do it and run out of time. He’s so disappointed to fail that he starts throwing insults and racial slurs at me. I manage to keep my anger in check only because Olivia comes by, and, under cover of helping me pick up the various pieces to put them away, whispers ‘two-way mirror’ in my ear. Startled and puzzled as to why she would help me, I nod and leave Frank to his rant, walking calmly away from him.

  Surprisingly my fire alarm test with the Good Samaritan goes really well as she easily submits to my leadership but makes sensible suggestions. Olivia follows my instructions without quibbling, so we arrive first.

  At the end of the day, we’re given a fifty-page brief and two hours to prepare a presentation. We must all do it together. My idea of hell on earth. They all sit around a large conference table, arguing while Björn, Olivia and I behave sensibly. It seems we’re the only ones to know that we’re being observed. The others think we’re alone and that the presentation is the actual point. It isn’t, of course. I’m starting to feel like a lab rat.

  Olivia very subtly ends up convincing everyone to go her way. She does it almost unconsciously, just by asking kindly and using the connection she’s established with each person. God, she’s irritating.

  I sit apart from everyone, on a leather sofa, as they come up with the presentation’s content, and I let them muddle through for a while. Eyes semi-closed, I observe the group’s dynamics. When they’ve all exhausted themselves arguing over nothing, I swoop in and shed light on a couple of the key points they’ve overlooked. They all look at me, surprised; I guess they thought I was sleeping.

  From that point on, the group starts arguing about who will present, all keen to look good and to take credit. I suspect none of it matters, though. Miss Goody Two-shoes ends up getting everyone to
agree reluctantly to equal speaking time.

  When the time is up and the interviewers come back in the room, we take turns presenting our group’s conclusions. Björn is too succinct and leaves out crucial nuances. Woody is too verbose and goes off on a particularly cringe-worthy improvised tangent at one point. Frank makes a few inappropriate jokes, the kind that no doubt usually get raucous laughter from his trader colleagues, but they fall flat here.

  Andika gives a military-style debrief. Adam delivers an efficient but uninspiring presentation. Karim gets lost in the fine points of theory, his thin arms flailing about as he gets more and more stressed.

  So Olivia and I stand out, explaining things well, adding relevant information where necessary and stopping short of giving too many details. Her legal background probably means she’s accustomed to giving talks to senior management and I, of course, am very comfortable as well, having to interact with the board of my hospital on a regular basis.

  As, we’re given a free evening. I excuse myself and return to my room’s blissful silence and spend the rest of the evening reading the biography of the molecular biologist Francis Crick, which, appropriately enough, is set in the mediocrity of middle-class England.

  With a start, at 10 p.m., I remember that I haven’t checked my work emails all day. I decide to have a look at them really quickly to deal with any emergencies and end up working until 1 a.m.

  9

  Olivia

  Cambridge, United Kingdom, September 2016

  * * *

  Last night was lovely. Most of the candidates ended up in a pub down the road and as I wake up in the snug little room, I smile, remembering Woody’s funny antics and Adam’s botched karaoke attempt. His song is stuck in my head and I hum it as I get ready. I feel inexplicably happy. I guess I’m always on the chirpy side, but this experience is giving me hope. Hope that my life may change, that I could become something I’ve never imagined I could be.