Over
the years, Lupe had become friends with the mayor, Lewis Alterman.
He was a dapper old man who never married. He had been coming to
dinner a couple times a month and Lupe could tell something was on
her old friend's mind. He seemed preoccupied and their dinners seemed
almost like a job interview.
“Where
do you see yourself in five years?” asked Lewis
“Well
I own my land, so probably here. Maybe I'll expand a bit, I don't
know. I think I'm here for good though, I've been here for almost
fifteen years now...”
“How
is your research coming on? It's always so interesting to hear what
our county's leading freelance scientist is up to!” If Lupe didn't
know better, she'd have thought Lewis was flirting with her.
“Oh,
stop! You'll make me blush! I've been duplicating the molecular
structure of various minerals to see if there's a functional
difference between lab based minerals and those that have been
naturally formed. Then I bring samples of each to the Landgraab
Center in town for correlation and analysis. I've also been doing
horticultural experiments now that we've successfully mapped the
plant genome and I've been able to splice different genes onto seeds
to create new varieties of plants. There's huge commercial potential
in that one... Oh and I've been cloning bugs again. You'd think that
flooding the market with plasma bugs would cause a collapse in
prices, but it hasn't and I'm gonna ride this bubble until it pops!”
Lupe stopped talking to take a bite of spaghetti.
Lewis
appeared thoughtful and then asked her, “How do you discipline your
children? You're so good with them!”
“I
don't really, unless they need it. I am kind, but firm and
unyielding. Kids are mimics and mirrors and they show the world how
they are treated. If they are treated kindly and courteously that is
what they'll put out into the world.”
Lewis
took this in and then let forth with this whammy, “What would you
say your purpose is as a mother?”
Lupe
thought for a little bit before answering taking a couple bites and
drinking her water, “I think my job is to help them meet their
potential and help guide them where they want to go. And to be a safe
place to land when the world gets tough, I guess.”
These
were interesting philosophical questions, but not ones that you
necessarily the conversation one expected to be having with a
bachelor of advancing age. She was concerned that this was a very
formal courtship ritual. There had been rumors over the years linking
him to various citizens, but nothing ever seemed to develop of it. He
didn't seem very promiscuous and flirted outrageously with everyone.
The gossip never got salacious and scandals never seemed to find
their way to him. The man was like political teflon. Then he started
asking her questions about her scientific research and specifically
cloning. It all clicked into place, “You want me to clone you!?”
Lewis
looked embarrassed, “My family line ends with me, Guadalupe. I
never had the finer feelings needed to marry and I couldn't bear to
put a child through a loveless marriage. I'd never be able to put a
wife or family first. I love my career. I love Meadow Glenn!” he
said with such passion in his voice that Lupe felt moved in spite of
herself.
She
listened to him continue feeling like she was in another room, “I
would like a second chance. I hear you have cloned insects and fruit.
The science center and the hospital won't do it. Not even for an
endowment. They say it would be unethical to clone a human even if it
is something I want.” He grabbed Lupe's hands and continued,
impassioned, “Clone me, Lupe, give me a second chance! I am
convinced that you could raise my clone to be a better version of
myself. Someone for whom civic responsibility would not outweigh
personal happiness. Someone who could achieve greatness without
sacrificing their personal happiness! I would see to it that he was
well taken care of.”
Lupe
felt herself wavering in spite of herself, “I need to think about
it.”
Lewis
could afford to be magnanimous, “Please, take all the time that you
need. I just ask that you keep this quiet.” He put on his hat,
grabbed his umbrella and left.
Lupe's
thoughts were spinning. She was happy with how things were now. She
loved her girls and all the chaos they brought with them. Her family
felt complete. At the same time, it was a very tempting offer. She
had analyzed human DNA before and studied it in her lab. She'd
sequenced her own DNA as well as both of her daughters'. She knew the
theory behind cloning a human wouldn't be that different from cloning
the plant and insect life she'd done before, but she'd like to try vertebrates before she jumped directly to people.
She
scoured yard sales and picked up a 10 gallon fish tank. Then she
spent some time fishing to stock the tank. She wanted to make sure
she had a variety of fish on hand to mess around with. She took
samples from her fish and studied them. Then she worked on cloning
them. She sectioned off an area of the tank with fine mesh and put
her fish fry in there to watch. Gradually she took them out to
dissect as they hit different growth stages to make sure they were
developing normally, cross checking with her books on aquatic
morphology. Once she was satisfied that they were normal fish she
celebrated by having a big fish dinner!
She
thought she should move on to amphibians, reptiles, and avians next
which meant a cat. She didn't have the time or inclination to go
hunting down these creatures herself and a cat would bring them
straight to her. So she took the girls to the local animal shelter to
look at cats. Juniper pouted the whole time because she wanted
another dog and Lupe said no. Finally, they agreed on a gray tabby
they named Fish at Hazel's insistence. Lupe set about befriending
Fish, winning his confidence, and teaching him to bring her prey
alive. Fish took to it quite easily and soon Lupe had a steady stream
of small animals to experiment on... as well as far more feathers and
snake skins than she really had a use for.
Cloning
and growing the frogs and toads were easy. She put the artificial
eggs in the fish tank protected by mesh like she had with the fish
fry. Observing their progress was fairly simple too. She could watch
the tadpoles wriggling inside their capsules. Then she was able to
watch them eat their way out and swim in their section of the tank.
They seemed to be developing normally and at each milestone, she
pulled out a specimen and dissected it, checking it against her books
for abnormalities. There were none. Laypeople seemed to think that
cloning was like making a xerox, but it was so complicated. Yes, Lupe
could make a copy of a single cell, but to make a whole life-form!?
The logistics were impossible! Lewis had no idea what he was asking
of her.
Lupe
decided to pay a call to Maru and talk to her about the facilities at
the hospital and what their labs were capable of. Maru called in a
few favors and invited her down to tour their artificial growth
laboratory. As they walked down the hallways of the hospital, Maru
told Lupe all about their advanced medicine initiatives.
“As
you know, the proliferation of cloning technology has allowed for
near infinite stem cells. When there isn't an immediate need, we can
grow new organs for a patient, or even a new hand! There has been
talk of the use of artificial wombs being used in Korea and Japan,
but I can't imagine that the medical community would sanction that!”
“What
do you think they'd need to be like? Hypothetically?” aske Lupe,
knowing Maru loved thought experiments. Maru stopped walking
momentarily, pondering, “Well they'd need to be pretty big, and
flexible. They'd need to be kept at a steady temperature and it would
be hard to administer nutrients. There's some controversy in the obstetrics community over whether movement of the womb is necessary,
some say that it isn't and some say that it is. More important might
be sounds, and being squeezed. We're coming up to the clean room now,
I'll need you to scrub in and put on a clean suit before we proceed
into the lab.”
Once
they were scrubbed and suited up, Maru typed a code onto a keypad
allowing them to enter the laboratory proper. Lupe stopped and stared
down the hallway. On either side of her were rooms filled with
equipment beyond her wildest dreams. In one room, they were growing a
leg in a very large tank and it wasn't the only tank in that room!
Another room Maru showed her was entirely devoted to kidneys. It took
a month to grow a kidney and required a DNA sample to key the stem
cells to. The leg was nearly complete, and had been growing for 3
months. Attaching the lab-grown limb was an experimental surgery,
Maru explained and there had only been 3 successes in the entire
world. However, they had a patient that was willing to try even after
being told the risks and going over the procedure step by step and
the orthopedics team was raring to go. Lab grown fingers had been
done for a long time and midpoint arm and leg attachment surgeries
had been gaining more and more acceptance. However, foot and hand
regrowth and attachment had proven tricky and full limb regrowth and
attachment was still very experimental. There had initially been
great hope for valve replacements, but the time-frames were so short
that they found it best to grow by tissue type rather than
individually.
After
they finished the tour, Lupe's mind was reeling with possibility!
Naturally, she headed to the library to spend some quality time with
Jstor, PubMed, and LexisNexus, looking up everything she could find
about the tanks used to regrow limbs as well as anything tangentially
important. She still hadn't decided whether she was going to do it,
but she thought that it was possible to clone someone. While she was
at it she started looking up artificial wombs using the keywords
“Korea” and “Japan.” Surprisingly much of the research coming
out about recreating the conditions inside the uterus were coming
from places with a high rate of Cesarean births, like Brazil.
However, doctors in Kyoto were the first to regrow a section of the
brain for a patient who'd experienced a terrible accident. For the
next few weeks, Lupe haunted the library from the moment the girls
left for school until her alarm went off telling her to head home for
dinner. Her stack of notes was getting alarming and the librarians
were giving her looks and gossiping about her behind their hands.
Finally,
she felt like she'd amassed enough information and set about
constructing her womb. To test it out, she decided to try cloning a
guinea pig. If it was successful, then she would tell Lewis “yes...”
She refused to think of failing. It was talking to Leah that brought
her back to earth.
“Why
are you messing around with artificial wombs, when you could just
implant the embryo like in invitro? No one would need to know it was
a clone... It's just that you and Lewis had an affair and the baby
looks startlingly like him. He's been coming over a few times a
month, you've been seen at the bistro with him and at fundraising
events... Honestly, Lu, he's overdue for a minor scandal.”
“I've
had that thought, but I can't exactly implant the embryo in myself,
and what the heck would I tell my OB?! 'Gee, Dr Pang, I'd really
appreciate your help implanting this clone in my uterus at the end of
the month?!”
“What
about Maru? She's a nurse practitioner and licensed midwife. She
delivered Guy and Joe.”
“I'm
sure that would go against her medical ethics. If anyone were to find
out she could lose her license!”
“If
you've gotten this far in researching and you're leaning yes, talk to
Lewis about it. I'm sure he knows who to talk to and what to say to
move things along.” said Elliot, wisely.
After
they left, Lupe got on the phone and asked Lewis to come over, she
had things she wished to discuss with him. When he arrived for
dinner, they chatted about the goings on in the town until the
children had taken themselves off elsewhere. Lupe cleared her throat
and put her suddenly sweaty hands in her lap, “I've been giving our
conversation last month a lot of thought and I've been doing some
research and I think it is possible and very doable, however I'm
running into a few hiccups.” Lewis kept his face neutral, though
Lupe thought she saw something flicker across his face, “I can
extract your DNA from a sample and implant it into a stemcell to form
a false zygote and grow that until it becomes a blastocyte under
laboratory conditions, but after that, I'll need to implant it in
something and sadly I do not have the technology to create an
artificial womb within the time-frame required. I could, of course,
implant it into a willing surrogate. Unfortunately, I lack a
surrogate or the ability to implant it myself. We'd need a willing
doctor with experience with invitro fertilization. I can't just walk
into a clinic and say 'Doctor, would you please implant these embryos
in my womb? I made them myself!'”
Lewis
nodded and lowered his head in thought, “I see what you mean and
I'll see what I can do to help you. Would you excuse me? I'd like to
make a call.”
Lewis
stepped out onto the back porch and called a good friend and campaign
donor, “It's Lewis, she said she'd do it, if she could find a
doctor who would implant her with the embryo.”
The
person on the other end of the line replied, “You can't just show
up at the doctor's with a home made embryo!”
“You
and I both know about the skeletons in your closet, doctor, so either
you do it, or you find someone who will do it. It's so hard to keep
my end of the bargain...”
“Ok,
ok I'll see what I can do, but she'll need to come in after hours.”
“But
of course! I will let you know when it's ready.” said Lewis, ending
the call and smiling without warmth. He knew that it wasn't really a
second chance for him, but a do-over for the family. The last of a prestigious family, Lewis wore power like a cloak. People just did
what he told them to and he had no qualms about issuing orders. He
wasn't evil, he'd just put his heart away when he was a child and
then couldn't find it again. He hoped things would be different for
his clone. That he would get the kind of nurturing that nannies,
tutors, and boarding school had never provided. He walked back into
the kitchen to tell Lupe the good news.
Lupe
had not heard the phone call on the porch. She was quite curious about
it and was feeling tumultuous. The whole spectrum of human emotion
battled for supremacy as she waited for Lewis to return. When he did,
she didn't understand what he'd said at first, “Could you repeat
that? I must've misheard you.”
“I
said, I found someone who will perform the implantation. We can
proceed.”
The
cool, calm, and collected scientist took over, “May I take a DNA
sample?” Lewis nodded
his assent after looking around to make sure
there weren't any witnesses. He expected her to go get a cotton swab
and some sort of cup, but she took out something that looked like a
remote control. She hit a few buttons and then he felt a warm
tingling pass over his body as she scanned him, somehow taking a
sample and copying his DNA. He didn't know the exact science of it,
but it didn't matter as long as it worked.
Lupe
thanked him and the two chatted for a few more minutes before Lewis
made an excuse and took his leave. Afterwards neither could remember
what it was they said.
Lupe
took off to her lab at a trot. When she got there, she set up her
microscope and started getting supplies out of the deep freeze and
the autoclave. Then she set to work delicately with the stem cells
and the sample from her handheld analyzer, carefully creating the
conditions whereby it would act like a zygote and begin forming a
person. She prepared ten cloned embryos on the microtiter plate and
set them in the incubator overnight. She wasn't expecting success and
jotted that down in her notes, “I expect to come down here tomorrow
morning and find embryos in various stages of development. I will be
very surprised if any of them make it to blastulation” With that,
she closed her notebook and started tidying up the lab. Then she did
one last walk through of the house before bed to make sure nothing was
out of place and the doors were all locked.
Then
next morning, she was distracted and inwardly focused. She was
humming with anticipation alternating with dread. After waving to the
girls from the front porch, Lupe spotted Hazel's homework on the
table and Junipers lunch on the counter. She shrugged and ran to the
lab. She opened the incubator and pulled out the tray of embryos and
began checking them under the microscope. In her notebook she jotted
down,
Embryo
|
Stage
|
Status
|
A
|
A-zygote
|
Inactive
|
B
|
A-zygote
|
Inactive
|
C
|
2 cells!
|
Active
|
D
|
2 cells
|
Active
|
E
|
A-zygote
|
Inactive
|
F
|
A-zygote
|
Inactive
|
G
|
2 cells
|
Active
|
H
|
A-zygote
|
Inactive
|
I
|
2 cells
|
Active
|
J
|
A-zygote
|
Inactive
|
Lupe's
hands were shaking as she put down her pen. She'd done it! The theory
worked! Now she just needed to call Lewis and the doctor to bring him
the embryos. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of now
cold coffee to steady her nerves and sat on the front porch drinking
it. The sun filtered through the maple tree offering her a dancing
dappled shade and the insects hummed their satisfaction with the
world. The sights and sounds of nature soothed her spirits as they
always had. She took out her phone and made the call, “Good
morning, Lewis! I'm fine, how are you?” Lupe got up and paced the
porch, leaning against the rail to check her hydrangeas. “Four have
survived the night and made it to cleavage. I'm going to call the
doctor and let him know but I thought you shold know.” Having
deadheaded a couple of flower heads, Lupe now started looking over
another bush. “Ok, I just thought you should know. I'll talk to you
later; bye.”
She
took out the card Lewis had handed her before leaving with a number
scrawled on the back and checked her watch. It was 11:45, so she
puttered around the house a bit before calling the number. The voice
on the other end was gruff, “This is Nelson.”
“Yes,
hi, this is Guadalupe Estes, Lewis told me to call you once the
embryos were ready?”
Doctor
Nelson coughed, “Already? That was quick!”
“I
started with ten artificial zygotes, four have made it through the
night and to the two cell stage.”
“Good
ratio, I can take things from here. Come tonight at seven with the
embryos and I will mature them from here. If they can make it to five
days, we'll have a better chance at a live birth. Where are you in
your cycle?”
“I
should menstruate in about two to two and a half weeks.”
“Perfect!”
his voice glowed with approval.“See you tonight, my office is...”
he rattled off the location in the out-patient wing of the hospital.
Lupe jotted it down in her lab notes, then she checked her phone's
calendar. Tonight Hazel went to Shane for their overnight and Juniper
should be ok by herself with the animals while Lupe ran an errand.
That
afternoon, Lupe prepared the small cooler to hold the embryos by
pouring boiling water inside, letting it sit for two minutes and
pouring it out again. This achieved two goals, sanitizing the inside
and warming it up. When Shane came to pick up Hazel, he noticed that
Lupe was agitated, but chalked it up to Floyd's health problems. As
soon as he was out of the driveway, Lupe called out to Juniper, “I
gotta run a few errands. Will you be ok here with Floyd and Fish for
company?” Juniper barely looked up from her assigned reading, “I'll
be fine, Mom. Floyd will protect me.”
Lupe
grabbed the cooler and headed off to the hospital. She felt
self-conscious carrying the cooler through the dimly lit halls of the
out-patient wing, worrying about what she'd say if she ran into Maru
or her husband Harvey. They worked in the main building and it would
be unlikely for them to be here, but she still ran over it in her
head. When she got to the door emblazoned with “Meadow Glen
Fertility Center,” she pushed it open and entered the empty waiting
room. The door at the end to the exam rooms opened to reveal a small,
irritated bald man, “Ms Estes?” Lupe nodded, he indicated the
cooler, “That them?” Lupe nodded again.
He
held the door open and gestured for her to follow him, and lead her
to a lab. Once there, he opened the cooler and pulled out the tray
and checking them under his microscope while clucking his tongue.
Finally he looked up and indicated that she could look. As Lupe
looked through the scope, checking over her embryos her heart began
to beat faster. Only three embryos had remained inactive! Dr Nelson
gave Lupe a nod of respect before saying, “We'll keep an eye on
them here. I'll have my receptionist call you in the morning to set
up an appointment for Monday morning. I'll select the best looking
three to implant with the aim of one making it to live birth. I can
already tell that these are excellent quality. Good work!”
Lupe
watched as Dr Nelson tranferred her embryos to a different tray and
put a label on it with her name, and date of birth as well as Lewis'
before he put them away. Lupe found herself walking down the hallway
with an empty tray. Before returning home, she stopped at the
pharmacy to pick up more of Floyd's vitamins and the supermarket to
pick up more milk and bread since they were running low. When she got
home, Juniper was just where she'd left her reading on the couch with
the dog resting at her side.
Saturday
night they were all hanging around the house when Floyd jumped down
from his bed and started howling. Lupe ran in from the garden and
Juniper ran down from where she was painting as the little dog fell
over. Hazel put her pretend car into park before getting up to see
what was going on. Somehow they all knew that the little dog was
gone. It seemed like a dark shadow had fallen over them and they
cried together for the little soul who had crossed the veil. They
spent Sunday together remembering Floyd and laid him to rest under a
tree in the side yard.
Monday
came and Lupe rushed the girls onto the bus as they groused and
complained that they couldn't possibly go to school as distressed as
they were. Somehow this argument was unconvincing to their mother who
was just as distressed as they were, but had things to do.
Lupe
and Lewis sat together in the waiting room of the fertility clinic
making a pretense of reading while they waited. Lewis hadn't turned
moved his newspaper in at least five minutes and Lupe was apparently
studying an ad for a digestive aid intently. Finally they were called
back by a cheerful, chattering nurse. She gave Lupe a blanket and
directed her to strip from the waist down and have a seat on the
table with the blanket over her lap. Lewis turned his back to allow
her some privacy and turned back around when she said it was ok. He
took a seat in the chair next to her shoulder and took her hand and
tried to look supportive. Lupe started laughing and explained, “Leah
said you were overdue for a little scandal and here we are getting me
pregnant!” Lewis seemed struck by that.
He
honestly hadn't been thinking about the optics of this decision, he'd
always been careful not to give any one person more attention than
any other. He'd been with his share of men and women and never loved
any of them, though he felt a certain tenderness towards all his
lovers. When his sister was still in town she had acted as his
hostess for events, now he either planned them himself or had his
assistant plan them. As society had gotten less rigid there was very
little that he couldn't do for himself. However he'd been paying a
very marked attention to Lupe for the past few years as he courted
her friendship and then ascertained her suitability towards the
cloning project. He supposed that their names must be getting linked
in gossip and now to show up here with her? It probably looked better
than for her to get pregnant and then have a little boy running
around who looked just like him in nine or ten months. They'd never
been bed partners, and his desires seldom ran in that direction
now.
Before
he had time to really begin ruminating, there was a knock on the door
and Dr Nelson admitted himself followed by a nurse with a cart
covered in supplies. They made pleasant small talk as the doctor
directed Lupe to put her feet in the stirrups and he gave her various
drugs to do different things that Lewis didn't want to understand
before he took something that looked like a giant eyedropper under
the blanket. With that he sat up removed his visor and mask to tell
them, “Everything went beautifully! We've implanted the three best
embryos and we'll followup in a few days. If all goes well, you'll be
parents by Easter! Congratulations, Mom and Dad!” He reached out
and shook their hands before turning and leaving with the beaming
nurse close behind them.
Lupe
got dressed feeling a bit sore and weird. Lewis offered to take her
out for a coffee and pastry since he'd cleared his morning and Lupe
agreed. She was worried that she'd made a mistake by pointing out
that they'd now been seen in the fertility center and people might
talk. At the coffeeshop, Lupe ordered a mint tea and a lemon poppy seed muffin while Lewis got an espresso and a biscotti. “You
made a good point at the clinic, today. Let's give them something to
talk about.” Lewis smiled roguishly and laid out a plan for Lupe to
increase her societal involvement and Lewis to play the besotted
attentive father.
Two
weeks later, Lupe was back at Dr Nelson's to confirm pregnancy. A few
days after that she had some bleeding and came back. It was then
confirmed that she had lost two of the embryos but had retained one.
They monitored her closely for the next few weeks and at twelve
weeks, discharged her to her regular OB/GYN.
Author's Note: Pretty sure Google thinks I'm experiencing secondary infertility. Calm down, Google, you're worse than my mother! I
