Father doesn’t address the question I threw at him before I ran out the kitchen door this afternoon. Perhaps, like mustard, it is irrelevant to him. I don’t think it is irrelevant to Lily. She had been conspicuously absent all evening. She helped make dinner but didn’t join Mother and Father in eating it, instead excusing herself and going to her room. ‘You need some time alone together,’ she said.
As he pokes at the fire, Father explains in detail more than I really want to know the tedious process of saving bits of my skin and growing it in the lab and combining it with other specimens until the required amount was achieved. He moves on to the technology of brain scans, what he and his team have learned just from my experience and the implications for future patients facing similar problems. As long as he is in doctor-scientist mode, he is talkative and in charge. When he veers into father mode, he stumbles and looks in many ways like a mirror image of Mother. He ages. Who is this Jenna Fox who has so much power over them? I feel like a weak, unsure ghost of her. Maybe a replica. I search for some portion of her strength.
Father leans back in a chair opposite Mother and talks of the challenges of uploading. I am poised on the middle of the sofa between their chairs. The scientific complexities don’t matter to me as much as the human ones do. When will we talk about that?
I cut into his safe, doctor mode.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I ask. ‘The minute I woke up? Didn’t I deserve
to know?’
His head drops momentarily. His chest rises. Mother’s eyes close. ‘Maybe we should have, Jenna,’ he says. He stands and paces near the hearth. ‘I’m not saying we did everything right. Damn, it’s not like there’s a manual for this sort of situation. We’re groping our way through this. It’s a first for us, too, just like it is for you. We’re—’
He stops his pacing and looks at me. ‘We’re just doing the best we can.’ I hear the catch in his voice, and it knifes through me.
Mother opens her eyes and the lioness returns. They are a tag team. When one is spent, the other takes up the fight. ‘We know this is hard on you, Jenna. It’s hard on us, too. Someday you’ll understand. Someday, when you have a child of your own, you’ll finally understand what a parent will do to save their child.’
‘Look at me! I can never have a child!’
She softens. ‘We saved an ovary, darling. It’s preserved at an organ bank. And a surrogate mother won’t be a problem—’
God! Bits of me have landed everywhere. It would be funny if it wasn’t so horrifying. I stand abruptly, judging whether to leave or stick it out. ‘Please, can we stay with one issue at a time? I asked a simple question,’ I say. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? You didn’t forget. I remember that much about both of you. Details don’t escape you. I’ve lived with details for years.’ I look directly at Claire. ‘I won’t even bring up the fact that I am two inches shorter now—acceptable ballerina height—another detail I know wasn’t an oversight. So let’s just go back to my original question. What took you so long?’
‘Listen very carefully,’ she says. Her face and voice are hard. ‘Every ounce of our breath was sucked out of us. For days we didn’t breathe. Literally, that’s what it felt like. And every time I looked at you, I was afraid to look away again, like my eyes were the only thing anchoring you to this earth. It was unbearable every time I looked at you, but I couldn’t look away either. So, if we didn’t do everything just right, understand it’s not just you who’s been through hell.’
Stalemate. It’s true. I read it on their faces. The years and the lines I’ve added.
‘But you’re right. There’s more,’ she adds. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore, but weeks ago we couldn’t tell you because we weren’t sure what your mental state would be. Judgment, specifically. There are a lot of people who have laid their lives and careers on the line for you, Jenna. We had to be careful. If you slipped and told someone, you would not only jeopardize your future but theirs as well.’
How can I argue with this? But how can I handle any more weight of being the perfect Jenna, now not just for Mother and Father, but for people I don’t even know? When does it end? I lean my forehead against the mantel and close my eyes.
‘And for the record,’ Father says, ‘your mother had nothing to do with your being two inches shorter. It was a decision based on mechanics, ratio, and the limitations of balance. A few inches shorter would have been even better, but two was the perfect compromise.’
Perfect. A shorter, more perfect Jenna. How wonderful.
Careful, Jenna.
There’s still more. It speaks to me. Somewhere, winding inside, pieces are trying to come together, synapses trying to form, a complete story trying to connect within. Four hundred billion extra neural chips trying to put together what the old Jenna never could.
Mother’s hand is on my shoulder. ‘Please, for all our sakes—especially yours—you mustn’t say anything to anyone.’
I nod, unable to speak. Father reaches out. He pulls me close, squeezing, and I melt into his shoulder, letting his arms circle me like a warm, tight blanket.
Hold On
‘Do you hear me, Jenna?
I’m here. I won’t let you go.’
I dreamed I was riding my bicycle. My first two-wheeler, the training wheels gone.
But Father’s voice was all wrong.
‘Hold on, Jenna. For me, Angel. Please.’
Tight. Desperate.
I open my eyes. Father has turned away.