Thumped (13 page)

I’VE BEEN WHEELED INTO A SMALL, STERILE-LOOKING ROOM.
I’m connected to more complicated-looking medical equipment than I’ve ever seen before. The room resonates with
beep
s,
boop
s, and
ping
s, all generated from the two lives inside me.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump . . .

I’m hypnotized by the sound of their synchronized heartbeats. To think that Melody and I were once so intimately joined.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump . . .

I’m thinking about my birthmother again, wondering what it was like for her to deliver us. Did she already know she was going to leave us at the hospital? During our last brief and forbidden MiVu conversation I had asked Melody if she ever thought about the conditions that might have led to our birthmother’s decision. And Melody—who has made it a policy not to subject herself to such ruminations—had surprised me by answering.

“With the names she gave us, she had to love music,” Melody said with an uncharacteristically faraway look in her eyes. “And I bet she was around our age, not much older, like a sophomore or junior in high school. And her dream was to go away to college to study music. Maybe even an exceptional college, like Julliard. I like to think that she was one of those singer-songwriters who used to actually sing with her real voice and played guitar, not guitarbot, and way better than I ever will. I bet she was more like you in that way, and it’s sweet that you’re actually living up to your name, and then some.”

I should have modestly insisted that I wasn’t nearly as musical as Melody made me out to be, but I was too taken with the idea that I had somehow inherited talents from my birthmother that Melody had not.

“And she wrote heartbreaking songs about being misunderstood by wanky parents, brainless friends, and boys she loved who didn’t love her back.”

I was afraid to move so much as a single muscle. I wanted her to keep talking about our birthparents in a way that made them feel realer than the conjurings of my own heart and soul.

“Anyway, she knew she’d never be able to go away to college with two babies to take care of. So she did what she did.” Melody had paused, closed her eyes for a moment, then continued. “The irony is, if Surrogetting was legal back then, she could have used us to help
pay
for school.”

Melody failed to mention that we were both born with illegal toxins in our system. Our birthmother was probably not a driven, college-bound musical prodigy, and Melody knew it. She was spinning this perfect portrait of our birthmother not to preserve
her
own idealized image of the woman who delivered us, but mine. What harm would it do if she burnished our birthmother’s image with fantastic figments of her own imaginings?

Like Melody, I too had always imagined that my birthmother was not much older than we are now. But I never believed that our birthmother was perfect. She had to have a troubled mind. Only someone so young and afraid would be driven to do what she did, to carry us for nine months only to leave us with strangers. And yet if she was so young, wouldn’t she have had loved ones to turn to for help? The note attached to our blanket said, “Forgive me, Melody and Harmony.” Not “us” but “me.” That single word has haunted me for years. Why was she just “me”? Why was she alone? Where was her family?

Where is
my
family now?

Oh my grace. I’ve made another terrible mistake. Jondoe is right. Melody, of all people, should be here. She’s the only true family I have. I want to tell Jondoe to contact her, but he’s being asked questions by an intake nurse.

“You’re the birthfather?”

“Yes!” Jondoe beams with pride.

Oh my! That famously radiant smile is going to get us into trouble! It’s having an immediate affect on the intake nurse, who actually blushes and clutches a rubber-gloved hand to her chest. She’s in swoon, but fortunately for us, she hasn’t figured out why. With a sobering jerk of her head, she’s back to business.

“And what are your plans for these babies after they are delivered?”

The legendary smile disappears.

“I . . . uh . . . I . . .”

Jondoe looks my way and silently pleads with to me for the answer. He wants to know for himself—for
us
, really—more than the nurse. And when I say “us” I mean all four of us: the twins, Jondoe, and me. Before I can say anything, Grace approaches my bedside.

“Both babies are in the breech position,” Grace says brusquely. “Did you know that?”

I shake my head.

“Do you know what breech means?”

The image of a mare foaling hind-feet first comes to mind.

“Bottom first,” I say, barely choking out the words.

“Right,” Grace says. “Such deliveries pose serious health concerns for one or both of your babies.” She lowers her voice, gazes at me unblinkingly. “Life-threatening concerns.”

I feel woozy. I know stories of long, excruciating breech deliveries with the most horrific outcomes. I try to steady myself with the memory of breech labors resulting in healthy bundles of joy.

She studies me in a way that makes me nervous.

“May I ask why you resisted the support of a healthcare professional?” Her tone is clipped, like she’s taking it personally.

“I was supposed to deliver all naturally,” I reply, my voice pinched with worry.

“Well, that’s not going to happen now,” Grace says, tightening her smile and clapping her hands together. “You’re going in for surgery.”

“Surgery? I don’t want to be cut open!”

Jondoe hears this and politely tries to disengage from the intake nurse without causing a stir. He smiles at her again, stunning her just long enough to sneak away.

“But you
do
want optimal care.”

“Of course! But—”

“When you came through our doors, you tacitly, but legally, consented to receiving optimal care from the medical professionals at the Keystone Emergency Birthcenter as mandated by the United States government.”

“I did? But—”

“No more buts.” She holds up a rubber-gloved hand. “Your babies are already in a considerable amount of distress and this is the optimal care for such situations. We have a ninety-nine-percent success rate. Your surgeon is already prepping for the procedure.”

“But . . . !”

Is this it? The end I have at once wished for and dreaded for so long? How could the last eight months drag so slowly, and these last few moments fly so quickly? I’m not ready!

“Relax,” she says soothingly. “Let us do the thinking for you. You will be unconscious, after all.”

“Why can’t she be numbed from the waist down, but awake?” Jondoe asks as he flanks the opposite side of my bed. “What about an epidural or another nerve-blocker?”

I’m grateful that he knows more about my options than I do. Grace inhales sharply, glances over her shoulder, and makes eye contact with another woman in white scrubs. Then she pats me twice on my upper arm.

“We deliver hundreds of babies each week. I assure you that this is the quickest and most painless option. You’ll wake up and have your babies! What could be better?”

The more she talks to me, the clearer it becomes that Grace is kind not because she’s an inherently kind person. She’s had to learn how to act kindly because it is the most efficient method for getting her patients in and out of the delivery room. She doesn’t really care about me. She only wants good statistics to report to her superiors here at the Keystone Emergency Birthcenter.

“But what if I don’t
want
quick and painless?”

Jondoe takes my hands in his. “Har—I mean, Mary, why would you ever want such a thing? You’ve suffered enough already just by carrying them.”

Grace is gazing intently at Jondoe’s face. “He makes a lot of sense. You should listen to him. I’d listen to him and I don’t even know him.”

“What if I want long and anguished? What if I want this experience to live with me forever?” I’m wailing now, drawing curious onlookers from far-flung corridors of the birthcenter, and I don’t care. “I can’t just move on with my life and never look back like this—like
they
—never existed. I refuse to forget these girls like my birthmother has forgotten me and my sister!”

The words are barely out of my mouth when the second white-scrubbed woman approaches Grace with her hands behind her back, as if she’s being held captive.

“Prepartum psychosis,” Grace murmurs to this anonymous healthcarer, who, without any warning, brings her hands out in the open and swiftly jabs me with a hypodermic needle in the exact spot on my arm Grace had patted moments before.

“JONDOE!”

In my pain and panic I shout out his name.

And the whole world comes to an abrupt halt.

IT’S A MIRACLE I DON’T FALL RIGHT OUT OF THE BLEACHERS.

Ventura has gotten exactly the reaction she was hoping for. Though I try hard to keep myself together, I’m not doing a very convincing job of it.

“Th-that’s that m-most ectopic thing you’ve ever said,” I stammer.

“Is it? Rilly?” Her eyes are sparkling and her lips are stretched into her fullest smirk. “I know I’m right. Don’t try to deny it. What I don’t get is how you expect to keep this secret going.”

I don’t. That’s what the Mission is all about.

“I mean, like, how are you gonna stop the deliveries from getting their YDNA tests? Not that the results will even be necessary because it’s gonna be for seriously
obvious
that Jondoe isn’t the donor when the twins come out looking nothing like him. . . .”

What?

“And bear more than a passing resemblance to the Chino-Chicano who has been so scammily posing as your platonic best friend.”

Whoa. She thinks . . .

“Those twins are Zen’s!”

And then Ventura folds her arms across her porny chest in triumph.

Breathe,
Melody, breathe
. In and out. In and out. Is this such a bad thing for Ventura to believe? It’s not nearly as janked as the truth.

“First of all, I’m with Jondoe. And second of all, my bump is my business, not yours.”

She laughs, but there’s no joy in it.

“You have about as much chemistry with Jondoe as Harmony does with Ram.”

This is so obviously true that I almost have to applaud her for being the first person to point it out.

“And it’s not about business with you and Zen.” Ventura pauses, smoothes her T-shirt over her flat belly, then looks up at me. “And it’s not that way about Zen for me, either.”

Before I can even process this information, she continues.

“You think the only reason I joined the debate team was just so I could get you all pissy by getting into Zen’s pants, right? Because that’s the type of powertrippy bitch you tell everyone I am.”

I wince. Those are exactly the words I’ve used to describe her. Such trash talk is totally against the bylaws for the Pro/Am Pregg Alliance (“respect each other’s reproductive decisions”), but I can get away with such rule breaking because I’m a top-five trender on the MiNet and Ventura’s popularity is limited to the Princeton Day Academy campus.

“But the truth is, I joined the debate team because I’m an awesome public speaker. Remember that speech I made right before I defeated you—by near unanimous decision—in the election of the Pro/Am President?”

How could I forget? She had singled me out as the only unbumped girl in the room, someone who couldn’t possibly serve as an accurate representation of the group’s commitment to our nation’s reproductive prosperity. It was one of the lowest moments of my life.

“Nearly all of it was off the top of my head. I mean, like, totally made up on the spot.”

If that’s true, then I’m impressed. The girl definitely knows how to talk. The problem is that I am totally turned off by just about everything she talks about.

“I needed more extracurriculars so I decided to put my skills to good use by joining the debate team. Yes, Zen just happens to be the captain. But I would have joined the debate team even if it
hadn’t
been Zen I’d be working so closely with every day. More to the point, I would’ve joined if it
had
been Zen and he was still four inches short of the minimum height requirement. I wasn’t at all interested in Zen that way when I first joined.”

She stops and tosses her glossy black hair over her shoulder. She’s trying to come across as carefree when she is clearly feeling anything but. I should know because I’m gritting my teeth into an unnatural smile not even a sponsor could love.

“But then I got to know him,” she says.

“And?” I ask, unsure of whether I want to hear the rest.

“And Zen and I have more in common than you and he do.”

Her words stab me in the heart. I can’t defend myself or my relationship with Zen because I’m afraid she might be right. What do we have but a history of getting on each other’s nerves for sport?

“You, Melody, are living a lie. You can hate me all you want, but at least I’m honest about my ambitions. I know what I want and I’m coming to you, as one woman to another, to be up front about it.”

And just when I think it can’t get any worse, it does.

“You have him so no one else can have him and it’s not fair,” she says, standing up. “It’s not fair to Zen. And, though I know you could not care less about my feelings, it’s not fair to me, either.”

And as she walks away, I’m left to grapple with her unspoken confession.

Ventura Vida is in love with Zen too.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?”
JONDOE ROARS.

And all at once the whole world starts spinning again, only in the opposite direction and at ten times its normal speed.

“I KNEW IT,” screams Grace, her professional façade shattered. “I’d recognize his smile anywhere!” She looks down at me in amazement. “And this is Melody Mayflower! OH MY GOD! We’re delivering Melody Mayflower’s twins!” She pumps her fists in the air in triumph. “Scrub up, everyone. This is our moment! We’re going INTERNATIONAL! Planet Earth is about to discover the Keystone Emergency Birthcenter!”

There’s a whoosh inside my head and suddenly it’s like I’m looking at the room through backwards binoculars.

I hear a chorus of voices shouting Jondoe’s and Melody’s names. I too need to scream, to urge Jondoe to tell the truth about us. What everyone needs to know if we’re ever going to make peace with the past. It’s me! Harmony Doe Smith! I’m the one about to be cut in half, not my sister!

I can’t open my mouth but it hardly seems to matter. It’s as if Jondoe can read my soul.

“I am who I am,” Jondoe proclaims. “But that stunning girl is
not
Melody Mayflower . . .”

And at that moment another person rushes into the room with a white-coated army trailing not far behind.

“Jondoe! I got your message! I got here as fast as I could. How is Harmony . . . ?”

Ram? It sounds like Ram, but looks nothing like him. The beard is gone and he’s wearing a sinfully snug T-shirt and tight trousers and I’m seeing more of his body right now than I did on our disastrous wedding night. This cannot be Ram. The injection must be taking its hallucinogenic effect.

“Harmony!” cries out Ram.

“Harmony!” cries out Jondoe.

Their voices are overpowered by uglier crashes of commotion. It would be upsetting but the noise barely reaches me now. It’s all far in the distance. I’m floating above the chaos, lifted by a glorious light, rising higher and higher and higher.

I am at peace because I am not alone.

She is with me too, my birthmother, smiling beatifically, waiting to welcome me into His kingdom with open arms.