Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Because that was where this all started, wasn’t it?
Prejudices about life and what it means, the certainty that living is always better than not, that more life is always what you want, no matter what and at any cost. And it isn’t true.
I knew it, and Dot knew it, and Moth and Maisie knew it.
Maybe you had to be near the end of your life before you understood what was valuable about it and what wasn’t.
Or maybe you just had to be willing to listen.
Life was holy, yes, sometimes, but it wasn’t the only thing that was.
No matter how hallowed the moment, however, I still had to pee.
I always had to pee.
“Don’t die while I’m gone,” I told Moth and Maisie.
When I got out of the bathroom, a man in a suit and tie was shaking the vending machine.
“Oh no,” I said. “Did it eat your quarter?”
He laughed. “It ate my two dollars and two quarters.”
If you live long enough, vending machine inflation will appall you.
“What did you want? I have snacks in my purse.” I started pulling out options. “Granola bar, gum, crackers, M&M’s—”
“You’re prepared.”
“I’m a mom.” I shrugged. “And I’m planning to be here for a while.”
“Me too,” the man said. “I’ll take the crackers.”
“Do you want some protein with that? A nice cheese stick?”
“Sure. I love protein. I’m Michael.”
“Hi, Michael, I’m Pepper.”
“I know who you are.”
I would never get used to this. It made me nostalgic for the days when everyone made a bad pun about my name.
“Are you here with a loved one?” I asked gently.
“I’m here to talk to you, actually.”
My heart stopped.
“Anti or pro?” I said when I recovered.
“Pardon?”
“Anti-abortion or pro-abortion? Or anti-abortion but pro the right to have one? Or do you want me to be a spokesperson? Product, clinic, or cause? Or will you take me to Hollywood? Represent me in a network bidding war for a ninety-minute sit-down? You should know that I’m not planning to write my memoirs, but I used to be an English teacher, so if I change my mind, I have all the skills required to do it myself.
You should also know that it’s incredibly inappropriate to do this here. ”
“Do what?”
“Whatever you’re doing. These are hallowed halls. I’m here to say goodbye. Everyone here is here to say goodbye.”
“That’s why I came, actually.”
“To let go of a loved one?” Had I jumped down the throat of a man going through the worst of it, merely looking for a snack and a kindred spirit in his hour of need?
“To develop a drug.”
So, no then.
“You want me to represent your drug?” I said.
“No.” He ran a manicured hand through manicured hair. “I want to sequence your genome.”
I backed away from him.
He stepped toward me. “I mean no harm.”
“I disagree.”
But he laughed and held up his hands. “No harm. Not to you or anyone. That’s the rule, right? First do no harm?”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Me? No. But I think doctors can do a lot of harm, don’t you?”
I nodded in spite of myself.
“What we do at Phymore Pharmaceuticals is harm reduction. Harm reduction, pain reduction, reduction of illness, reduction of days spent doing what you’re doing now.”
I looked down toward where I could only assume my toes still were. “Gestating?”
“Visiting a dying loved one.”
“You’re reducing dying?” I’d hoped to sound sarcastic, but he grinned broadly.
“That we are.”
I sighed. Whatever was coming, the only thing to do was listen, say as little as possible, then walk away when it was over.
But Michael surprised me. “We saved your life, you know. Protocol 183? That was us.”
I put a hand on the vending machine to steady myself.
Did you thank someone for something like that, eradicating your cancer?
Or did you give them Dr. Kim’s perspective—maybe it was Protocol 183, maybe it was something else, maybe it was random, so no one got the credit.
But nor did anyone get the blame, certainly not Michael who wasn’t a doctor and couldn’t have been involved in a drug trial forty-three years ago when he probably wasn’t even alive yet.
He was … what? A salesman? A henchman? The nondescript, nonthreatening white guy with a nice jawline they sent to persuade old ladies to give their bodies to science?
At least they were asking, where so many others were using it without permission.
And though it was clear that what they wanted with my body was to sell it—a pharmaceutical company may not be a brothel, but it’s not as far off as we like to imagine—perhaps I had a responsibility here.
Protocol 183 had worked for me. Or something had. Maybe knowing what could help people.
“You may have cured me,” I allowed. Close enough to the truth if not quite there. “Other people in that study were not so lucky.”
“Which is another thing we’re trying to reduce,” Michael said smoothly. “Patients for whom the trials don’t work.”
“So you want my … genome because I survived the trial?” It occurred to me suddenly that perhaps he’d come in person so as not to leave a paper trail.
“Because it saved you,” he insisted. “And because it led to this.” He waved at my belly.
Everyone waved at my belly. My belly stood for so much, more and more every day—whatever you wanted, it seemed.
“At Phymore, we’re for life. More life. Not like the anti-abortion lobby.
We want to help people not just live, but live longer and better.
And part of that is we want our patients not only to have more life but to have more loved ones. To make more loved ones.”
“Make more?”
“Children, grandchildren, family—these are the cornerstones of our society.”
He didn’t want to cure people. He wanted to make more people. He wanted me to enable more people to make more people.
“All right?” the vending machine asked, but a moment later, Moth stepped around from behind it. “You’ve been gone for yonks. I’ve come to check you’re okay.”
I had no idea what a yonk was, but I was so glad to see him I teared up.
“I’m okay.” I reached for his hand. “This is Michael. From Phymore Pharmaceuticals.”
“Ahh,” said Moth.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“See, here’s a great example.” Michael indicated Moth with a warm smile.
“It’s so important to have companionship, to have love.
” He wasn’t grossed out by the idea of old people having sex.
Mind, he’d probably made a fortune enabling them to do so.
“Single people don’t live as long and aren’t as healthy as people in families.
But not everyone’s ready to start a family when their body says they are.
With your help, we could extend that time for would-be moms and dads, let them wait till they’re ready, let them choose for themselves rather than their bodies or anyone else choosing for them.
We want more life. You can help us—help everyone—achieve that. ”
“By extending fertility?” Moth asked.
“Yes, but not only that.” He turned back to me.
“Your body wasn’t just able to get pregnant.
It was healthy enough to get pregnant and to support you both.
That’s remarkable. Extended fertility means more life, not just more new life, more life period.
” He paused then added, “Hasn’t everyone been telling you you’re a miracle? ”
“Yes. Everyone.”
“And it’s irritating, right?”
“Yes,” I said through my teeth. “Very.”
“Very,” Michael echoed, “because they want to make a point, not a person. And the only miracle they care about is that one.” He pointed at my belly again. “But that miracle is limited to you. We want to share it with the world.”
“Sell it to,” Moth corrected.
“Pardon?”
“You want to sell it to the world. Fertility is big business, isn’t it? You’d as soon do away with biological clocks and sell people the opportunity to procreate whenever they’re ready.”
“Yes, isn’t that wonderful?”
“I’m not sure it is,” said Moth.
I still wanted to believe the argument he’d made before I got up to pee that children who lost their parents young could be okay.
I still wanted to believe the argument he’d been making for months that the elderly and retired are especially well suited to parenting.
But the situation-you’re-stuck-in-isn’t-as-bad-as-it-seems arguments are never the same as the go-ahead-and-seek-it-out ones.
“We’d just like some samples,” Michael said, “from both of you if possible, to run some tests, gather some data. We would compensate you handsomely of course.” Eyes back to the belly.
“We can help you leave a legacy more significant than a medical footnote. Children are expensive. They can’t eat miracles. ”
Why did everyone assume Moth and I were poverty-stricken? Between us, we’d worked eighty years. Retirement and fixed income aside, surely we were likelier to have savings than a couple of first-year teachers no one would blink about expecting a baby.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” I said.
“You can.” He reached a hand toward me. He sounded almost longing. “You know you can.”
“Perhaps.” Sometimes grammatical virtuosity is useful only for irritating one’s ex-husband. Other times it truly comes in handy. “But I will not.”