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“What don’t you know?” I mutter under my breath. It just flies out of my mouth; I didn’t mean to speak.
“Not a lot,” Mom says. She sounds more worn-out than proud. I look down at my forgotten bowl of ice cream; it’s a green-and-brown soupy mess.
“How did Petra end up in Oregon?” Bet asks.
“Apparently, the clients didn’t want to risk having another baby die on them, so they put her up for adoption.”
“That’s…” Betsey says, her words trailing off.
“Yes.” Mom shifts in her chair.
“So where’s Maggie?” Ella asks. “What’s to stop her from coming back here and trying again?”
“Blackmail,” Mom says flatly. “I have a little recorder in my car that I turned on when I came home that day. You might remember Maggie from TV back when Dr. Jovovich went to jail. She was quoted on the news saying human cloning is unethical and those who were secretly doing it deserved to be punished. Little did they know, she was one of those people.”
Mom takes a breath; I realize I’m holding mine.
“Anyway, she’s kept up that front, and I recorded her saying that she cloned Petra.” She pauses. “That morning you took off, I went to her and played her the recording. I told her never to come near us again or she’d go to jail like Dr. Jovovich.”
Mom waits a moment, maybe hoping one of us will ask about her fate—about Maggie turning Mom in right back. When we don’t, she fills in the blanks.
“If she tries to turn me in, she’ll fail. I have triplets—each with her own Social Security card and identity.”
Suddenly, the license in my purse feels less shiny, because it seems like it was Mom’s idea, not mine.
“You didn’t know we were going to ask Mason for help when you talked to Maggie,” Betsey says. She looks confused.
“I didn’t,” Mom says. “At that moment, I wasn’t thinking of myself. I was thinking of you.”
I can’t help it: I roll my eyes. She sees me but doesn’t say anything. At this point, I’m not sure what she could say.
“Wait a minute,” Ella says, working something out. “If you had a recorder, why didn’t you just end it right after she told you she cloned Petra? Why did you go along with her? Why did you allow us to go along with her?”
Mom blushes. “It wasn’t the best choice I’ve ever made.”
I furrow my eyebrows at her. “What do you mean?” Choice?
“I assessed the situation and didn’t feel like any of us were in life-threatening danger, so…” Mom stops talking just as it hits me. Suddenly, I know why she let us panic, let two of us think we were being kidnapped and the other one go on a wild-goose chase across the country in winter weather.
“She wanted to see Maggie’s lab,” I say disgustedly. “She wanted to see her research.”
The way my mom purses her lips together tells me two things. First, I’m right. And second, no matter what she says, science comes first.
“I’m done talking,” I say, standing up and leaving the living room. Over my shoulder, without looking back, I say it again. “I’m done.”
No one else comes upstairs for a long time. I call Sean and tell him about everything; we talk for a few minutes, but then he has to go because his mom is instituting Quality Family Time after he missed her favorite holiday.
“I could get out of it,” he says, “if you want to come over. Or I’ll come there? I mean, now that she knows about us…”
“She always knew about us,” I say, which makes me feel a little sick. Then, “I don’t feel like I can leave right now. They’re still talking down there; I want the update from Bet and Ella later.”
“But you don’t want to go down and hear it yourself?”
“I can’t,” I say. “I don’t want to be near her.”
“I get it,” Sean says. “Are you sure you don’t want me to ditch my mom? We can talk on the phone all afternoon.”
