Inconceivable Read online

  When they got to the fifteenth candidate, the carousel began again with the first donor.

  Carly asked, “How many was that?”

  Sean reached over now, tapped the screen, and counted profile pictures with his finger. “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen… It looks like fifteen.”

  Carly said, “What’s this blue folder in the corner?” She looked up at Dr. Chang.

  The doctor said, “The blue folder is a special segment of your applicants.”

  Sean said, “Why are they in their own folder?”

  Carly said, “Yes, what is the blue folder?”

  Dr. Chang said, “They’re not better applicants in any way. They’re just ones who also checked the box indicating that they would be willing to conceive by natural methods.”

  Carly said, “What does that mean?”

  Dr. Chang said, “Not artificial insemination.”

  Sean was having trouble following. “Not done in a laboratory? Done where?”

  “Natural insemination can be done anywhere,” Dr. Chang said.

  Carly said it again, her voice curling up higher as she struggled to comprehend. “Natural insemination?”

  Dr. Chang was having trouble communicating, and she didn’t seem like the kind of woman who had that trouble. She smiled, said, “You know. The old-fashioned way.”

  Sean jolted, turned to regard Carly, saw her face frozen in half-surprise. Her mouth was open and the corner of her lip was raised in a smile.

  She repeated: “The old-fashioned way?”

  Dr. Chang laced her fingers together again and eased back in her leather chair. She said, “There are couples who look for that.”

  Sean was still having trouble keeping up. “These couples look for what?”

  Carly said it for him. “A natural conception.”

  “I know you’ve indicated along the way,” Chang said, “that you wanted as many natural components to this process as you could.”

  Sean said, “Yes, but…”

  “I did,” Carly said, that half-surprised mirth narrowing to one of concentration.

  Sean asked her, “What are you thinking?”

  Carly tapped the blue folder.

  Now they were looking at six applicants. Instead of statistics, Carly used her finger again to indicate on the screen that she wanted to see their faces.

  Now they were both looking at the faces of six handsome men. Two Latino, two black, one Asian, and one white guy who Sean figured must be some kind of Eurasian.

  Carly studied their faces.

  He asked her again, “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Carly tapped the screen again. Now she was looking at the face of the first man, a handsome Latino guy with a goatee and a thick head of hair brushed back from his face. She touched the man’s jawline on the screen, her finger tracing down to read his stats.

  Sean said, “A natural insemination?”

  “You know how I feel…”

  “Yes, but are you prepared for this?” Was he prepared for this?

  “I don’t know,” she said, and swiped her finger to the next applicant.

  Sean watched, stomach twisting as Carly regarded six impressive men that she would consider conceiving with in the old-fashioned manner. His heart was fluttering and his fingers were locked together in tight scissoring, his thumbs working around each other with nervous tension. The old-fashioned way?

  He asked Dr. Chang, “What does the old-fashioned way entail?”

  Dr. Chang said, “That’s entirely up to the two participants,” paused then and added, “And you, of course. But it usually involves a two day window on Carly’s dates provided by the examination.” She turned to regard the readouts sent to her by Gonzalez.

  Sean said, “The 15th and the 16th. Eight days from now…”

  Carly still flicked through the screens and seemed more focused than ever, her face very close to the monitor. She was looking at one of the black men.

  Dr. Chang said, “So for two days The Administration arranges with whoever you may have obligations to be absent, to be sequestered—”

  “Sequestered where?”

  “At your home. Or wherever you might choose. As long as the donor agrees as well…”

  “In our home?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you wish, and it’s all right with the donor. For two days he’ll stay and make sure that conception is likely to have been achieved.”

  “The old-fashioned way?”

  “The old-fashioned way,” she agreed. She wasn’t smirking, showed no humor. She treated it very seriously. He still wasn’t sure. “You mean this man would have intercourse with Carly?”

  Carly said, “What do you think of this one, Sean?”

  He watched Dr. Chang for another heartbeat, forced his eyes to look at the monitor. Carly’s thin graceful finger pointed the face of a handsome black man. She said, “Look at this, he’s a war hero, too. You love stories about war…”

  In an Ottobot on the way home, Sean stared out the window while Carly’s knees bounced with nervous tension. She said, “You’re not saying anything.”

  “What’s there to say?”

  “We’re in this together.”

  He sighed, and while he still felt funny about the whole situation, as he still spied out the window he reached to the side until he found Carly’s hand blindly and held it.

  She stroked his knuckles with her thumb. She said, “We can cancel it.”

  “You don’t want to.”

  “You know how I feel, Sean.”

  “I do.”

  Her thumb tapped at the back of his hand. “Hey. How do you feel?”

  Still looking away, he said, “I want you to be happy.” He let his voice get thin and high at the end of the sentence. He wasn’t sure.

  She said, “It makes me happy, Sean. I didn’t like the examination. I didn’t like that wand being put inside me. It was so… clinical.”

  “Yes, but…” He couldn’t even say it.

  “What? Say it…”

  “There’ll still be something put inside you,” he said and he couldn’t hide a bit of anger in his voice as he turned to look at her and lock eyes.

  She said, “We can cancel it,” and she patted the back of his hand.

  He said, “No, we don’t have to. I just need some time.”

  She said, “Maybe if you meet him…”

  “We’ll meet with him. We will, I just…”

  She said, “I understand. You know that I’ve always wanted this to be a natural process. Everything is so medical these days.” She shrugged looking out the window. Pedestrians walked with their faces down regarding their devices, toxic rain beat on their plastic umbrellas and the streets were lit with the flashing screens of LCD advertising.

  He said, “I agree.”

  “It’s what I want, Sean. I’m not joking. I am serious. Natural conception has meaning…”

  He tried to push images out of his head and just concentrated on his wife’s sweet face. He put his other hand over hers again, and now he stroked her knuckles. He said, “I want what you want. We’ll do it if that’s the way you want our baby conceived.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Should I want that?”

  “Don’t you think it’s beautiful?”

  “It is. Is it not beautiful to have it done by injection at the clinic?”

  “No, Sean, that’s beautiful too. It would give us our baby. But say it again…”

  “Say what again?”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  “To have the conception done by injection at the clinic?”

  She gave him a warm smile. “Or you could be there with me, in our home, holding my hand…”

  He smiled too, hid his face from her and looked out the window. She was right…

  3

  Sean and Carly arrived at the restaurant first and watched out the window for their potential donor to arrive. They
were in G-Kong, a stylish Cantonese restaurant at the border of Chinatown where it met the Arts District. The first floor of the massive restaurant was a bustling food market with exotic imported products, fruits and vegetables, and extensive aquariums with all sorts of fresh fish that could be butchered on site.

  They were seated in a booth on the second floor, a window behind them looking down over the traffic on Hudson Street with its towering liquid-crystal displays, and twinkling diodes run on strings, crossing back and forth over the street, running from the lampposts. Sighting their dinner guest would be difficult if he came from the sidewalk below. Nevertheless, they both watched over their shoulders down to the intersection, waiting to see a beautiful Citizen A coming along from the north.

  Carly sighed now, softly said, “What if he doesn’t like me?”

  “His file said he had 20/20 vision, Carly,” he said, giving her a warm and caring look.

  “I’m a C, Sean.”

  “What does that say about me, Carly?”

  “You’re not a real G, Sean ... just because, you know ... the genes ... you’re a C—you look like one and you know it. You’re like me,” she said, and she put her hand on his forearm.

  “Carly, don’t be silly. He’d be crazy to reject us. He knows you’re a C, and he agreed to meet us. He wouldn’t waste his time...”

  She muttered, “Maybe he wants a free diner.”

  “Baby,” he laughed and ran his fingers over her cheek. “He’s an A. An engineer for The Administration. He doesn’t need us to buy him a dinner.”

  “Not a couple of dumb old Cs,” she said and leaned on him, exaggerating sullenness.

  He laughed and put an arm around her, gently shook her as she lay against him in the booth, both of them facing into the busy restaurant now.

  “Oh, shoot, Carly, Carly,” he said, sitting up straighter and urging her to do the same.

  The stairs from the foyer to the second floor were double-wide, running in the centre of the building, and there, emerging between two poppy red columns bobbed a head of close-cropped hair; a black man, well-dressed, his roaming eyes giving him away as someone looking to meet with another party. It had to be him.

  When he mounted the steps and turned, it was obviously Hollis Beaumont. He was large, and impressive, and handsome. Tall, maybe six-and-a-half feet, wearing tight gray slacks, black shining shoes, and a black dress shirt under a black suit jacket. He had a stylish mustache extending like bird wings below his sharp nose, down past the corners of his plump lips.

  “Oh, my God,” Carly side and he felt her hand grip his thigh under the table.

  “That’s got to be him, Carly,” he said, feeling a rising anxiety as well. Sean raised his hand timidly and got Hollis’s attention.

  “That’s definitely him,” she gasped, narrowing her eyes to scrutinize his face.

  The man nodded and gave them a wide, white-tooth smile that gleamed in the dim restaurant.

  “Oh, man, Carly, it is him—it’s him, he’s coming over here.”

  “I know, I know, I see him,” she whispered and lowered her gaze to the table.

  “Should we stand? Carly, should we stand?”

  “You stand. I think I sit.”

  “Okay, Yes, you’re right. You’re right, you stay,” he said, and worked himself out of the booth, standing now to greet their guest.

  When he was close, Hollis was intimidating. He had a friendly smile and a nice face, twinkling light in his hazel eyes—but he was massive; a head taller than Sean. When Sean extended his hand in greeting, Hollis’s grip dwarfed his.

  “I guess you’re Hollis,” he said, “I’m Sean. Sean York.”

  “Hollis Beaumont, Sean, very nice to meet you,” Hollis said, his voice even deeper than Sean had anticipated.

  They continued to shake hands, Sean having trouble breaking eye contact, but he did finally, gesturing then with his free hand toward Carly and saying, “And this is my wife, Carly.”

  Carly was too nervous to remain seated, squirming out of the booth now and standing and holding a hand for Hollis to shake. She looked so tiny next to him. He took her fingers between thumb and forefinger and gently shook. She whispered, “He-hello, Mr. Beaumont,” her small voice lost in the din.

  “Just Hollis,” he said with a smile, reading her lips, “Hi, Carly, I recognize you from your pictures.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, your eyes, and that hair color.”

  “Do you like my hair?” she said, running her fingers to tuck her lustrous light blonde locks behind an ear.

  “I do,” he laughed, a warm and pleasing—and very masculine—sound.

  Sean said, “Well, please, come on and join us, we can have some dinner, we’re supposed to get to know each other.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea, he said. You haven’t ordered?”

  Sean said, “No, just some sparkling water,” as Carly got back in the booth, Hollis following after her, and him coming around from the other side to pinch her at the booth’s apex.

  Carly said, “It’s so strange to meet this way, I wish it was under different circumstances.”

  Hollis rested his forearms on the table, put his fingers through each other, and regarded her, his smile pulling up one cheek. He said, “And how would that be?... Better circumstances...?”

  “I don’t know,” she said timidly. “Just not so weird.”

  Hollis tilted his head and narrowed his eyes to regard her. He had handsome eyes, sloping and narrow with long black lashes. He said, “You know, I like the way we’re meeting. I think this is a profound way to meet.”

  Carly gasped. “Oh, I didn’t mean …”

  “Don’t worry, I understand. It’s a little awkward. I feel it, too. But it must be worse for you than me.”

  Hollis lay one of his huge hands over top of hers and she gripped his thumb with her thin white fingers. It was a wonderful and friendly gesture, but seeing her being consoled by this powerful man stabbed Sean’s heart. But then again—this was the genetic product they were looking for. A handsome, smart, capable and caring human being.

  Hollis continued: “It’s perplexing for me, given the decision I have to make—but I admire you for making the choice you are. I think this is an amazing thing. That’s why I enlisted. I knew that I would qualify, and I think that it’s a powerful program.”

  Sean said, “Oh, I do as well. Wholeheartedly—I mean, obviously, since we’ve committed ourselves to it—but I really do think it’s something all of us, society, should strive for. I know it’s not mandatory—that they only provide incentive but I think what The Administration offers is very generous.”

  Hollis said, “I agree.”

  Sean said, “And you work for The Administration?”

  “I do. I’ve worked for them now for seven years.”

  Carly said, “You’re an engineer?”

  “That’s right. A systems engineer.”

  Sean asked: “What kind of work do you do for them?”

  Hollis smiled and said, “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Sean chuckled, impressed. He held Carly’s other hand and gently squeezed it. “Classified? That must be pretty exciting.”

  “We do good work,” Hollis said, his eyes lowered to read from the menu.

  Carly said in a tentative voice: “We believe in The Administration. Believe in its programs.”

  Sean agreed: “We do. And we believe in the Many Stars…”

  Carly backed him up: “If we blur race, we blur disparity.”

  “Racial purity is conflict,” Sean repeated The Administration’s mantra.

  Hollis let Carly’s hand go and returned to the menu. He said, “I read that you, Sean, have a license to procreate with your wife.”

  “Yes. I qualified to mate with her. However, I’m a Citizen G—”

  “Not really, though,” Carly said to Hollis.

  “I’m A Citizen C, but I have something deep in my genetic history. I’m a carrier for
—”

  Hollis said, “I know, I read your file.”

  “My genetic... glitch... wouldn’t be transferred to our baby. That’s why I was awarded a permit.”

  “No,” Carly agreed, saying to Hollis, “We could have a healthy baby.”

  Hollis said, “But, generations from now...”

  Sean said, “Three generations from now, if our children’s children’s children met a mate they loved, but... were a bad genetic match...”

  Carly squeezed Sean’s hand. “They could pass it on.”

  “So you’re choosing to eliminate it now,” Hollis said.

  Sean said, “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “We want the best for our baby,” Carly said.

  Hollis sighed then raised a hand, waving to their waitress who hurried to the side of the booth. He ordered for the table, asking for Pine-patterned Egg, Congee, Choy Sum, Zhaliang, and a Razor Shell Hotpot—doing it in rapid-fire Cantonese for the waitress then breaking off in English for Sean and Carly’s benefit.

  Sean squeezed Carly’s hand tightly and when she looked to him he shot his gaze into hers, his face held in tense questioning. He darted his eyes to Hollis for her, indicating he wondered how she thought it was going. She bit her lip and shrugged slightly, shaking her head. She didn’t know.

  Hollis turned to Carly as the waitress nodded and darted swiftly to the kitchen. “And you wanted a natural insemination?”

  “I did. I do. If... if you were... willing.”

  Sean said, “Hollis wants to know why, Carly.” He turned to Hollis, said, “Carly wants as natural a child-birth as she can. Like her—”

  “But we believe in science,” Carly interrupted.

  Sean stammered. “Oh, no. I mean, yes, of course we do. We’re not hippies or witches or anything.”

  Carly lay her hand on Hollis’s big wrist and his eyes lowered to where she touched him. She said, “I think there is an intangible bond when the birth is biologically natural, despite what science says. And Sean and I will say it a million times: we want the best for our baby.”