Child Z

CHAPTER 1 - LEONIE

A nurse with bouncy brown curls entered reception through a windowless door. When she called Zane's name, he stood up and identified himself. Then he turned to his wife. "Guess this is it," he said, smiling to cut the tension. "Need anything before I go?"

Leonie shook her head. The only thing she needed was a child.

As she watched Zane leave, she imagined the nurse locking him inside a sterile room with nothing but his right hand and a plastic cup. Leonie stifled a laugh at the thought of her husband fumbling to take aim. Did the clinic supply sexy magazines, she wondered, or did they leave men to their imaginations?

Knowing Zane, either way, a couple minutes would suffice—a brief bout of friction for that moment of bliss producing half the instructions for a new human life. Leonie's job was to supply the other half of those instructions, and doing so would be anything but blissful.

As she waited for the doctor, she spotted a recent issue of Sim Kids Discover on the coffee table. The cover showed a little blond girl holding a bouquet of daisies. The child was adorable—an American Girl doll come to life—but Leonie's long struggle with infertility meant she couldn't look at other people's children anymore without feeling bitter and broken.

A male physician in teal scrubs entered reception, called out Leonie's name, and escorted her to a room where she was told to sit down in a padded chair. Once she was seated, the chair reclined as if she were in a space shuttle preparing for liftoff.

The doctor commented on the ongoing drought in Colorado before hiding his face in a surgical mask failing to contain his beard. His attempt at polite conversation did nothing to soothe Leonie's nerves.

Someone assisting the doctor prepped a tray of surgical instruments while the doctor—still rattling off statistics about the drought—gently spread Leonie's legs apart and strapped her calves into cold metallic stirrups.

"Egg retrieval should take fifteen minutes," he said. "Try to relax."

It was comedic to think of relaxing under these circumstances, but Leonie was unable to laugh with so much at stake. Her blood panels, ultrasounds, disease screenings, and those nauseating rounds of Folliclear had been in preparation for this moment. It was time to harvest her eggs.

Under light anesthesia, Leonie's mind drifted toward the void. Stuck in her stirrups, she felt nothing. She floated outside her body and watched the scene from above, feeling for a moment like her own guardian angel.

She emerged from her stupor to see the doctor smiling inside his mask.

"Have you started yet?" she asked groggily.

He chuckled. "It's over! Everything went well. We retrieved twelve eggs."

A dozen eggs, Leonie thought. Like at the store. She pictured a cardboard carton, two rows of bleach-white shells. She pictured an egg frying sunny side up in a skillet and found the idea disturbing. What was an egg but the stolen embryo of a chicken?

Zane was back at reception when she got there and handed her a bottle of water.

"Are you in pain?"

"Not really," she said, feeling bloated but stable. "I'm just tired."

Zane took her hand, and the physical contact steadied her nerves. His palm was soft and warm. His dark eyes, as they focused on hers, welled up with love.

From his pocket, he took out a wedge of orange-flavored chocolate. "I always come prepared," he told her, a loving smile running into his black-stubble cheeks.

She nibbled at the chocolate to show her gratitude but was feeling queasy. The chemical-clean scent of the clinic, reminiscent of shampooed carpets, was positively gag-worthy. She needed fresh air.