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Cindy and I pick through the shelves together, scanning the ID numbers on the tanks.
“There,” she says. “Okay.” She shoots me another hard look. “Help me get this down.”
We lift it together. It’s heavier than I would have thought. Cindy crouches over the tank and does something to the top. It pops open to reveal a group of metal canisters.
She traces the labels on the tops of the canisters, double- and triple-checking. Then she lifts one of the canisters out of the liquid nitrogen and grabs a towel from one of the shelves to wrap around it.
“Here. Here you go.” Cindy drops it into my hands with all the fervor of a woman who wants to live.
“My father had these made without my consent when I was sixteen years old.” I can’t stop staring at the canister. “He took a sperm donation from the man he chose to be my husband, and while I was put under for another surgery, they stole my eggs. And had these embryos made. That way, they wouldn’t have to count on my cooperation with the pregnancies if I resisted.”
Cindy’s mouth drops open.
“I know. Fucking horrifying, right?” It is horrifying, but it’s not even the most horrifying thing to happen to me. “I need a bag, Cindy. These won’t fit in my purse.”
She moves quickly to a table at the end of the room and digs around underneath it until she comes up with a black duffel bag that’s covered in a fine layer of dust.
“Take it,” she whispers. I unzip it and put the vial of embryos in while she watches.
Back out in the hallway, she locks up the COLD STORAGE room again. I stay behind her on the way back to the waiting room. Cindy goes back behind her desk, just like this was any other appointment.
“Thank you,” I tell her, playing my part. “For all your help today.”
Her hands are shaking, and she’s crying. I feel her eyes on me all the way out of the building.
“What’s that?” Elliot eyes the duffel bag. The wheels are already turning in his mind, no doubt.
“Something I’ve been meaning to pick up.” I give him a rueful smile. “If you don’t mind, I need you to take me to the cemetery in Colma. Holy Cross. Can you do that?”
He can. Thirty minutes later, he leaves me silently at the entrance to Holy Cross and drives away, a deep, brewing suspicion on his face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
AVERY
It seems like a million years ago that I was last unlocking the heavy, gold-plated doors at the Capulet mausoleum. Of course it wasn’t, but it still feels like it happened in another lifetime. The memories of Will fucking me here, hard and raw, angry and hot, already have the slow fade of time on them.
But it hasn’t been that much time in the grand scheme of things. A couple of months. I was planning to pay my respects to my dead family after Nathan and I went to church on Sunday, but then Will was there, and we had to make a quick exit.
This is the first time in years that I’ve been here all alone, though. Maybe the first time ever. It was a convenient spot to meet Will once a week, but that was the point: we were always here, together.
It’s eerie being here on my own.
My breath catches in my throat when I lift the canister out of the duffel bag and place it on the altar at the far end of the solid marble mausoleum.
In the clinic, I was surrounded by possibility. Here, I’m surrounded by death. And it’s different now, bringing these future lives here. Bringing these embryos here feels like a unique kind of funeral.
A bittersweet loss.
I’m so sorry somebody did this to you,I want to tell these little microscopic lives.I’m so sorry somebody made you in a lab against my will. Against Joshua’s will.They weren’t even made in a moment of love, or passion, or simple lust.They were made by a stranger in a cold, sterile laboratory–which would be fine, and worth it, if they’d had the chance to one day end up loved. But these embryos weren’t made out of love or longing.
They were made as an insurance policy.
As leverage.
As a failsafe.
How fucking coldblooded is that?
