Authors: Cheri Gillard

The Clone's Mother (33 page)

BOOK: The Clone's Mother

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After heaving a large part of my past into the Dumpster, I sat down on the cement block under the humming power lines, settling Howard next to me, who was blissfully sleeping away his infancy.

I reflected back over the year since I’d first met Nikki and how that had brought me to know Mack. It was hard to believe all that had happened in just that short amount of time. It was already summer again. The cicadas were back in high gear, thrumming their chorus into the thick hot air, which grew more oppressive each passing day.

I thought again what might have become of Nikki. I would always wonder. She and I had a connection. We two had given birth to the only known successful human clones. And hopefully it would remain that no more would follow. Or the attempts. What happened to Sheila was too horrendous to repeat, or even chance.

Mack was putting together all he could gather about what Carl had attempted without him. He planned to turn over all the information to the appropriate people to do with as they saw fit. It was part of the deal he was working out with the authorities. By agreeing to cooperate, he reduced his punishment to a month’s suspension without pay, plus another six months of probation. The relief was huge to learn for certain that Mack never did more than a little cloning after it was banned. I felt a bit guilty for having ever suspected him of doing worse.

Of course, we still didn’t know, and probably never would, what had caused Nikki and me to have success, when no one else anywhere could duplicate the process. And it was probably better that way. No mad scientist could be tempted to use that knowledge to try again.

“Hey, Bright Eyes.”

I looked up and Mack was peering out the back entrance of my building. Today he wore his shiny giraffe tie with a pale yellow button-down shirt and his snug Levi’s.
Mmm, hmm
, he looked good.

“Hi. How’d you know where we were?”

“Ollie told me.”

You see? I wasn’t making it up. The Himalayan talked. “Is he working? I told him to keep working.”

“Hard at work. Has most of the bathroom cleaned.”

“Good.”

He came and settled next to me under the power line tower.

“What’re you doing? Cooking under this radiation?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Nikki, mostly. I sat out here with her when she lived here. It was right after she had Charlotte.”

Mack listened to me reminisce, watching Howard sleep peacefully while I spoke.

“She had the funniest slippers. Big fuzzy pink pig slippers. They clashed a little with her blue hair, but I wasn’t going to tell her.”

“She’s a mystery.”

“The whole thing is.”

“Yup.”

“You know, we both lived here while we were pregnant. Maybe our pregnancies had nothing to do with those meds.”

“Hmm.”

“Maybe there is something in the water. Ever think of that?”

“Very scientific. I’ll take that into consideration.”

“You never know.”

“No, you never know. Wanna go to Gino’s and get some pizza for supper?”

“Sure. Howard’s starving.”

“No, he’s not. He’s sound asleep.”

“Mother’s intuition. You just wait.”

“Okay, but not here. This humming is getting to me. I can’t believe you’ve lived here all these years without growing a third arm or something. You never know what this low level radiation can do to a person’s cell division.”

“Well, maybe I could use a third arm now that I’m a mother.”

“I like you the way you are, Bright Eyes.”

Howard suddenly woke up and began squawking like an angry cat.

“Thanks,” I said over the new noise. Mack stretched over and gave me a sweet kiss. Then I scrambled to grab Howard’s pacifier and try to get it in his gaping mouth, adjust his diaper, and move his hat back over his eyes to block the bright sunshine. “Okay, then,” I hollered over the deafening pitch of Howard’s wailing. “Better hurry and sweep me away to a less radioactive place while you can. The idea of an extra hand is sounding better every minute.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cheri Gillard has been a freelance writer and editor for over twenty years, working for several publishing houses and companies writing or editing projects, books, magazines, and curricula. She is an Indie B.R.A.G. Medallion recipient for her first novel,
Chloe’s Guardian
, Book One in the Nephilim Redemption series.

Before writing, she was an obstetric and pediatric Registered Nurse, but she hung up her nurse's cap when she gave birth to quadruplets. She is also a musician, regularly playing violin with her group, Acoustic Springs, a folk-style band, and in other venues as opportunities arise. She lives in Colorado with her family.

THANK YOU

Alie Benson, for reading and giving your ideas, insight, and for catching what I couldn’t. And taking chocolate as payment.

Spencer Gillard, for all your endless help making my cover. And for answering frantic texts about how to do certain things on software I had no business messing with.

Stephanie Wilcox, Kristin Cunningham, and Terri Gates, for being hand models and tolerating my mania and sudden crazy ideas, and dropping everything so I could photograph your limbs.

Jason, my husband, for playing along when I woke him up at 5:00 a.m. and asked him to let me photograph his hand, and then again when I asked him to meet me on his lunch break to reshoot because I hadn’t gotten quite exactly what I’d needed.

Dear Reader
:

Thank you for reading
The Clone’s Mother
. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review on Amazon?

Check out my other books—from the Nephilim Redemption series,
Chloe’s Guardian
and
Chloe’s Watcher
.

The third book,
Chloe’s Odyssey
, is due for release in the fall of 2016.

Keep tabs on what’s happening with me and my books by following me on Twitter, Facebook, and on my webpage, cherigillard.com, where you can e-mail me directly, if you’d like. I’ll post when the third in this series is due for release, as well as the upcoming releases of several other titles I already have in progress.

Again, thank you for reading my book. If you liked it, please tell a friend. That is one of the greatest compliments you can give me!

Cheri Gillard

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