The Clone's Mother (22 page)

“Can we step out of the room for a moment, Mr. McBride?”

Joe nodded and followed after Fosdick, with me right behind, treading on his heels.

Once we got to the hallway, he led us into the empty family waiting area.

Lieutenant Fosdick sat down, I realize now, to get us to sit. His red perky hair wasn’t standing up as straight as usual. What he had to say was going to be hard to hear. My stomach tightened and my skin started to buzz.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. McBride, but the body of a baby we believe to be your daughter has been found.”

My hand flew over my mouth to keep a scream from coming out. Joe didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. His sad eyes just stared.

“I’m very sorry. We’ll need you to identify her.”

Joe couldn’t talk. So I tried.

“What…what do we need to do?”

He looked to me like he was glad there was someone who could function. This had to be the worst part of his job.

“She was brought to this hospital.”

“She’s here? Now?” Joe choked out.

“Yes, in the morgue. She wasn’t alive. Probably not for at least twenty-four hours.” I guess he needed to make sure Joe and I understood, so we wouldn’t hope in something that could not be.

“When you’re able, I need you to go to the morgue and confirm her identity. Take your time. The coroner then will call me and take care of the rest.”

Joe didn’t speak.

I couldn’t now, so I just nodded.

“Call me if I can help,” the detective said, then he stood and left us to digest the news.

After a moment of silence, Joe stood.

“Let’s get this over with.” His resolve surprised me. “You’ll come with me?”

I shook off my shock. “Of course.”

Going to the hospital morgue in the lower basement, we plodded like we were trying to move through neck-high mud. It felt like my leg bones were disappearing again. I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. We had to go through the underground tunnel which led to the adjacent building—the one across the street if we were outside.

Just after traversing the tunnel, we came to the department that housed the morgue. As we approached the doorway, the hair on my neck stood up before I even saw him. Carl Schroeder appeared through the heavy door. He looked up, then quickly averted his eyes. But before he glanced away, I saw a wild expression glowing in his pupils. He didn’t look normal, or well.

What was he doing here? Was he checking on the identity too, of this little girl, this child he thought to be the clone of his own Zoe?

He slipped away and I followed after Joe into the morgue.

Since Joe couldn’t think or speak, I explained to the morgue attendant why we were there. He nodded and had us wait in an empty room. I knew what he was doing—going to the giant refrigerator and picking from among all of the bodies wrapped in white plastic one tiny, precious infant girl who never got her chance to beat the odds and have a life of security and happiness.

When everything was ready, he escorted us into another room where a wheeled cart held a bundle of blankets under some warming lights. Joe stopped short when he saw the mound. Then with the effort of a two hundred year-old man, he struggled to take one step after another until he arrived at the side of the dead baby.

Gently, so gently, he lifted the tiny body of his daughter into his arms and snuggled her as near to his heart as he could. He lowered his face into her tiny, fragile body and started to cry, a sob so mournful, my heart shattered all over again.

His knees gave out and he crumpled to the floor, still holding his precious baby to himself. I sank down next to him and wrapped my arms around them both and let the tears spill along with his, and we mourned the lost life of Charlotte.

After forever, Joe’s tears subsided and he sat motionless and looked at his child.

“She is beautiful.” My voice wobbled and nose was stuffy.

“Angelic.”

He waited a while.

“How will I tell Anna? She’ll be devastated.”

“We don’t have to. Not yet. Let’s see what happens, how she recovers, okay?”

“Oh. Yeah. You’re right. Yes. Okay.”

This poor man.

He got up, still clutching Charlotte in his arms, and he left the room to find the attendant.

We found him in an office area off on one side of the larger cavernous room. The man jumped up from where he sat eating his bagel and watching something on his iPhone. He threw the food and phone into a drawer and swiped at the crumbs on his mouth.

“Finished then?” he asked awkwardly.

Joe handed his daughter to him. “Be gentle with her, will you?”

“Oh, yes. Will do, sir.”

Joe gave her a last kiss on her forehead and staggered away in a daze.

“It’s her then?” the attendant said.

“Ah,
ye-ah
,” I answered sarcastically. Like we would have sat in there a half-hour sobbing over another baby.

“Okay. I’ll let the coroner and police know.”

“Can you tell me any more details about how she was found? I didn’t think to ask Lieutenant Fosdick.”

“Some guy was Dumpster Diving for a couple of old chairs and he found her. He thought she was still alive, so he grabbed her, jumped into his car, and got here as fast as he could.”

I shuddered.

“Too bad,” he continued. “We had a decent guy willing to make a difference, and he had to find someone who was beyond hope. Goes to show you.”

I didn’t know what it went to show me, but I knew I’d had enough. I wanted to get away.

So I did. I went back up to see Anna, and hopefully Joe, before I left. He wasn’t there, but his parents were back. I’d let him tell them the bad news. I snuck away before they saw me. Joe had probably gone somewhere to grieve alone. I’d let him.

Before going home, I went to see Mack in his lab. I hoped he’d be in by now. I had to talk to him, to have him put his arms around me and tell me everything was going to be all right.

I got on the elevator to go downstairs. As the doors slid shut, some guy sprinted to get on with me. I pushed the button to close the door faster but a hand came in and knocked the bumper to reopen the doors.

A guy in a lab coat pushing a wire messenger cart rolled onto the elevator.

He broke the number-one rule of elevator riding and looked me in the eye. It was the last thing I wanted today.

“Good morning,” he said.

I mumbled back, hoping my eyes weren’t so red and puffy that he’d stare.

“That was a great dinner, wasn’t it?”

“Hmm.” I shuffled closer to the center of the doors.

“Saturday. The 125th anniversary. I saw you there.”

I glued my eyes to the crack between the doors and barely shook my head.

“Name’s Jerry. What’s yours?” He stuck his hand out to shake mine.

I took it weakly and with hesitation. I didn’t want to.

“Oh, yeah.” I pretended to remember then stared at the numbers above the door.

“Yup, bussed your table. I knew you’d remember.”

He knew? He didn’t know me from a hole in the ground.

“The hospital worked out a deal for employees to help staff the hotel johns, valet, clean-up. Stuff like that. They were short because they overbooked, too many events.”

“Hmm-mm.”
Man
, I wanted out of there.

“It was a great deal. In one night I made more than three days on the job here.”

“Great.” I thought my reflection in the door might show him my real feelings.

“Just finished your shift?”

“Yeah.”
Shut up!

“Don’t you want to get out of here?”

“I have stuff to do.” I did
not
want to be talking to this guy.

“I’d be out of here so fast if I worked nights.”

The door opened. Relief. “My floor.” And I disappeared before he could ask me another question.

There ought to be a law prohibiting elevator chit-chat.

Mack’s lab was down the hall, to the left then to the right. I made a beeline for it and ducked inside before I ran into one more person who wanted to visit and mention they saw me at the dinner. Or sitting on the bus bench.

Inside the lab, one of Mack’s assistants sat hunched over a bunch of beakers, tubes, dishes, and other microbiology supplies.

“Mack not in yet?” I asked him with a raised voice to carry through his concentration.

He looked up from his experiment. “What’s that?”

“Mack. Is he in yet?” Obviously he wasn’t.

“Ah, nah. He’s not coming today. Took a personal day or something.”

He dismissed me from his attention and returned to his beakers before I had a chance to ask any more questions.

“Thanks.” He didn’t hear me.

The disappointment was thick. I’d really wanted to see him. I needed some TLC. And it hurt he hadn’t told me he was taking the day off. I just didn’t know how to do this boyfriend thing very well. Was I expecting too much of him? Maybe I
was
too clingy. Was I going to suffocate him and scare him away? We needed to be together, but everything kept working against us. But I wasn’t going to give up.

Chapter 35

Carl told Ingrid not to disturb him and he locked himself in his office. He’d barely gotten behind his door before the floodgates of emotion opened. He threw on the switch to his stereo, cranking up an old Tom Waits album, hoping to drown out his sobs before they were heard by his secretary.

The pain hit him like a tsunami crashing against a beach house. Deep sobs were waves ripping through his body, threatening to tear him to pieces.

To have seen the little baby in the morgue—his precious daughter, lying still and lifeless, cold and broken—ripped loose the grief he’d never wanted to know again. Her head bruised. Her cold skin, the color of death. The young life he’d worked so diligently to bring back, to resurrect. Now, gone in an instant, without a chance to live the life she deserved.

Carl crushed a throw pillow against his mouth, not only to muffle his howls, but to try to find some comfort, any consolation. His mind catapulted back to the day he’d never wanted to think of again, a day when he clasped another form—a lifeless one—to his face.

Jackie’s car was over the edge, down the cliff. He had pulled in front of her. Just wanted to stop her. Her car careened off the mountain. He stood in shock outside his own vehicle watching. The light was almost gone. Paramedics used harnesses to belay down the cliff to her car.

No one spoke to him yet, as everyone was intent on the challenge at hand. Carl waited, silent, shaking. They lowered a cage stretcher on ropes over the ledge of the road. The firemen were intense, working quickly, as though they still held out hope for Jackie, as if there was a chance to save her.

Carl was in a vacuum. Time wasn’t passing. He was dazed, numb. The firemen and policemen swarmed over the roadside like ants on a disrupted anthill. A minute—or a week—later, the rescuers on the road’s edge began tugging up on the ropes, hand over hand, hauling with more difficulty now than when the empty stretcher had gone down.

He kept staring, unable to process. A new commotion broke out, drawing more men to the ledge. Shouts shot back and forth among the rescuers. Police turned on giant, blinding spotlights, directing them over the ledge, down the cliff.

Suddenly, two wire cages were hastily clipped to ropes and sent over the ledge.

What has happened? Why more stretchers?

The firemen hauling up the first ropes kept pulling them in. Others fed rope out to the new stretchers. Carl was confused, especially when the first stretcher emerged over the shoulder through the barricade. The barricade that Jackie’s car had smashed like a beer can.

Jackie was papoosed in that stretcher. Her neck was encased in a giant collar, her body strapped down tightly.

The heads, then shoulders, of two paramedics popped into sight at the eroded rim of the asphalt at the feet of the firemen who hoisted up the ropes. The firemen offered hands to help the paramedics up the last few feet. The instant their feet hit the asphalt, the paramedics unclipped from the safety ropes and dashed to the helicopter where others were loading Jackie. Once they were inside, the blades turned up to full speed. Everyone on the ground bent beneath the force as the craft lifted in a cloud of blinding dust.

Carl staggered sideways in the powerful blast. Then he refocused, wondering at the sight of the firemen still working, and the policemen pacing back and forth on the road’s shoulder.

Are they trying to retrieve the car now
? he wondered. And what about the other stretchers? It made no sense.

His thoughts remained jumbled. He didn’t know what to do. Then the men started tugging at the ropes, reeling them back in. It couldn’t be the car. What they pulled was too light.

A cage came back up. There was someone in it. The blanket was strapped down over a body wrapped like a mummy. Was someone on the roadside when Jackie went off? Maybe they’d found a body on the hill, a murder victim, or a vagrant.

The other cage followed. Carl’s feet were rooted to the asphalt. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t go over. Couldn’t ask about their identities. It was too extreme to imagine he might need to go over, to find out.

A policeman talked to the firemen, then came over to Carl. His mouth was moving. Carl watched his lips. There was no sound. What was he saying? Why didn’t he speak?
What are you telling me
? Carl’s mind screamed. But his own voice wouldn’t make any sound either.

Why can’t I hear you? What are you saying?

The cop took his arm and pulled him toward the bodies. It surprised Carl that he followed. He thought his legs couldn’t move. They walked over and the officer reached down to the blanket over the first body.

No! I don’t want to see!

The cop ignored Carl, or Carl hadn’t spoken. The blanket came back.

***

Bent over, sitting on a chair, Carl came to his senses in a small room. He saw the gray speckled tiles on the floor between his brown leather loafers. He realized he was in a hospital.

Then he knew what was in the room with him, why he was sitting on a hard chair between two stretchers. It was time. He had to look, had to face what lay on those beds.

With tears washing down his face, he lifted his head and looked onto the bodies of his children, his precious Zoe, his cherished Jack. They both were battered and bruised, broken. Their adored spirits, their exuberant vitality, snuffed out, extinguished. They were gone, lost.

Carl bent over the gurneys, one arm extended over each body of his lost children, and his heart shattered into fragments and poured out of his body in sobs too great to endure. His life, his hope, his reason left him in great torrents. His broken heart spilled from his being.

Then, taking each, one at a time, he held their lifeless forms to his face and howled with grief, their bodies limp rag dolls in his arms. He cried for them to come back to him, to not go away, to not let this be real. He yelled to the heavens, entreating any power that heard him to undo what was done and to return his babies to him. He promised undying homage to that power till the end of his days. If only.

How long he grieved like that, he didn’t know. He found himself on the floor long after, curled in a ball. He looked up. A nurse stood over him, asking him things, things he couldn’t comprehend.

Chaplains? Psychologists? What could
they
do? Could they bring back his precious children? Even God hadn’t done that. How could a hospital chaplain help?

Then she talked of taking away his children. They needed to take them.

“Get out,” he screamed. “Get out! Leave us!” He threw his disheveled head into his hands and more wails broke loose from his chest.

She stood over him and didn’t leave.

“Can I call someone to help you? So you won’t be alone?”

Carl went cold. He kept his head down. Thoughts came tumbling into his brain. Churning, turning. Fleeting ideas began to take form.

If God wouldn’t do something, Carl would do it himself.

There was someone he should call.

He looked up at the nurse. “Yes. Call my brother-in-law. Jim Mackenzie. Dr. James Mackenzie. I need to talk to him, before he comes. I need to prepare him.”

The nurse nodded, looking relieved to finally have something to do.

She brought in a phone. Jim was on the line. Carl told him what to do, what to bring. Then he hung up and told the nurse he wanted to be alone with his children.

She left, now that he was under control.

Then Jim came. He brought his bag of tools. He wanted to know what Carl was doing, at a time like this? Jackie was in the Operating Room, she was having surger—

“Don’t speak of her now,” Carl demanded. “Never speak of her to me again!” The vehemence in his voice stopped Jim. He must have known not to push.

Carl realized Jim may not help him like he wanted. Nothing could get in the way of his purpose.

“Go to the OR then, Jim. You should. Be there. I need to be here now. I’ll come later. When I’m ready.”

“Are you sure?” Jim said, the tears coming now.

“Yes. Go,” Carl told him. “I want a little more time, then I’ll come.”

Jim took time to look at his niece and nephew, to stroke their faces, to kiss them, to say good-bye. Then he left and Carl, relieved at his departure, went to work.

He used the supplies in Jim’s bag to collect the specimens. He drew blood from his children’s cold limbs. He scraped the inside of their cheeks. He gathered all the tissue samples required to do what he planned.

Once finished, he packed away all his tubes and slides and specimens, kissed his beloved children good-bye, and left to return to the laboratory at his own hospital.

He never went to the OR.