The Baby

©2003 Angeline Hawkes-Craig
All rights reserved.

Forty years old. Lydia had been through the rounds of Clomid, the artificial insemination, the in vitro fertilization with her own eggs, the same with a donor's eggs. She had contemplated surrogacy and adoption. She had been through it all. Over and over again. For years. Agonizing, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking years. The nursery was still empty. Her arms were still empty. Her womb was empty. Life, itself, was empty.

The electrical hum and buzz of the white light pulsed down on her in a steady blaze of artificial light, but she didn't object. It was the only thing in the stark, sterile room that provided the slightest hint of warmth to her shivering body clad only in a thin cotton hospital gown that used to be yellow. Now, faded and washed perhaps a thousand times, it was closer to the color of parchment and nearly threadbare. Lydia shuddered, feet high in cold metal stirrups. She felt the outline of a metal bolt through the thin fabric covers on the stirrups where her cold, bare feet rested. The room was so cold that her toenails were blue. The paper surgical cover resting over her lower half rustled as she shifted, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard, unyielding table.

Buzz. The light buzzed annoyingly loudly. Its interruption of the silence was no longer welcome, was no longer comforting - just another all-too-familiar reminder of all that was wrong with her body. Buzz. Artificial. Her body wouldn't make a baby like it was intended to do. She had to go from doctor to doctor seeking medical intervention—medical interference—in a process that should have been comforting and natural.

Natural. Nothing in her and Jack's decision had been natural. She had traveled thousands of miles to this "undisclosed" location so she could have one more chance at producing her own child. Some said she was selfish to spend so much money on dead-end treatments and procedures for a biological child when there were thousands of children in the world who needed parents and loving homes. Dammit. It was her decision. Her body. Her life. She wanted a baby. Her baby. She had listened to the feminists and had been a good equal-rights-toting liberal. She had her successful career and now she wanted a baby. Was that too much to ask? Sixteen-year-old crack whores could have babies, for Christ's sake. It was ludicrous. She wanted a baby. The baby. The baby she put off having in the name of success. In the name of financial stability. And now doctors told her she might have waited too long, that it might be too late.

Not if she could help it.

Dr. Ramirez opened the metal door with a loud click and shut it with an equally loud clack that seemed to shatter the solitude of the room. It had only been a click and a clack.

"Ah! Calmer now, I see?" The doctor smiled and looked at her through thick, scholarly glasses.

Lydia nodded.

"Everything is successful. Now we wait to see if the cloned embryos take." He smiled while jotting notes down on his clipboard.

Lydia smiled back and nodded.

"You can sit up now." Dr. Ramirez pointed to her legs with his pen. She shuffled around the table, trying to modestly cover herself with the scanty paper square and worn gown. It was pretty much hopeless. He had seen everything there was to be seen, anyway. Why did she bother?

"You and Jack can return home and call me about any developments." Dr. Ramirez finished jotting with a flourish and looked up, smiling again.

Lydia smiled again, too.

"Thank you."

Dr. Ramirez reached for the doorknob. "Thank science, Lydia," he said, and left with a nod.

Lydia and Jack didn't say much on the flight back. Mostly they just slept. The stress from the whole ordeal was more exhausting than any of its physical demands. Besides, there wasn't much to talk about. Everything rested in fate's hands. If they were lucky, she'd be pregnant with at least one baby girl - her own clone. If she weren't so lucky, they'd be back at square one. Lydia did not want to think about square one now. Or ever again. She had been back at square one too many times before.

Naturally the details of the pregnancy, should there be one, would need to be kept quiet. Cloning was illegal in the United States and most other countries, and they didn't feel like coming under the scrutiny of any government agencies. What was the punishment for being pregnant with your own clone, anyway? Did they send you to prison? Take away the baby at birth to watch and study like a rat in a maze? Or worse—did they force you to abort the baby—somehow—by coercion, or worse? Lydia didn't care to find out, nor did she wish to invite a media frenzy into her life or make her little family the hottest freak show on the front page of the grocery store tabloids and late-night talk shows.

So, they waited.

She was lucky. After six weeks, she was confident enough to run down to the pharmacy and buy a home pregnancy test. Back at home, she hesitated for a minute before peeing on the stick—did the pregnancy test work the same way for a cloned baby? It was positive. She was so excited that she ran down the hall to the phone in the kitchen, called Jack at work, and then burst out crying and laughing at the same time. Jack just kept laughing with her, at her.

"Better call Dr. Ramirez," he said.

Lydia agreed and placed the long-distance phone call shortly after talking with Jack. Dr. Ramirez was ecstatic and gave her the name and address of his affiliate, who would be treating her in the States, participating in their collective work and keeping the whole clone business under wraps. Lydia knew that her pregnancy would be touch and go. These clone pregnancies had a tendency to go really bad really fast.

Dr. Archibald was her new doctor. He was younger than she expected and more scientist than doctor. His bedside manner, quite frankly, sucked, and he treated her like the rat in the maze she had envisioned others treating her child like. Everything had to be monitored. Sometimes cloned babies grew too quickly. Developed abnormally. Sometimes things happened that were so horrific the parents and doctor were left with no choice but to abort the pregnancy for the sake of decency.

She had seen the photographs and read the cases. Dr. Ramirez had made sure that she and Jack were aware of the successes and failures of the program. There were fetuses with six arms, two heads, some that seemed perfectly normal on the outside but had no organs or inner body parts whatsoever - they were like skin babies, hollow like a wet-and-drink plastic baby doll, only these were real babies. She knew the risks. There had been plenty of live babies who were all functioning well throughout the world right now.

The program was relatively new, so the oldest child was only ten. The doctors could only provide medical data to the age of the oldest living clone; after that it was a data-gathering process year by year. Lydia and Jack would be kept abreast of new developments.

Their baby developed normally. Perfectly. Dr. Archibald was very pleased at each appointment. Their baby girl was, so far, one of the latest success stories that would help other childless couples go ahead and take the plunge and try for their own baby. Even the baby's birth went well—six hours—not bad at all!

Dr. Ramirez flew into the country to examine the baby with Dr. Archibald. They let Lydia and Jack remain in the room for all of the tests and procedures. Lydia was impressed that they didn't hide anything from them. Everything seemed peachy.

She marveled at how baby Anna looked just like her as she developed. Jack had to constantly remind Lydia that, essentially, Anna WAS Lydia. Naturally, Anna would look just like her mother at this or that stage or age. But Lydia tried to forget all of that. She wanted to revel in her baby's beauty and pretend she and her little family were just as normal and natural as all of the other families up and down their block.

Lydia found a fantastic daycare program that Anna seemed to thrive in. The teachers and caregivers seemed to genuinely care for the children. Anna liked her playmates and enjoyed the activities. Lydia's adjustment back into her job went smoothly because she knew Anna was content and well cared for while she was at work. Life went on normally.

Until the phone call.

Lydia picked up the phone while rifling through her metal file cabinet for a file.

"Mrs. Render?" the woman on the other end of the phone asked without any form of greeting.

"Uh, yeah, hello?" Lydia propped the phone between her chin and shoulder and continued flipping through the manila folders at a furious pace.

"Uh. Hello. This is Mrs. Keller from Anna's daycare," the voice said clearly.

"Oh, hi!" Lydia shoved the drawer shut with the back of her elbow and sat down in her swivel chair.

"We have a problem. Uh. Uh, we think you should come down here to the daycare as soon as possible." Mrs. Keller's voice sounded jittery, shaky.

Lydia's swiveling came to an abrupt halt. "What sort of a problem?" she demanded.

"We, uh, we really think you should come down here. Now," Mrs. Keller said again.

"What's the problem? Is Anna okay?" Lydia was standing up, reaching for her purse and keys.

"We really think you should come down to the daycare. Now," Mrs. Keller said again, her voice a bit shrill.

Lydia frowned. "On my way."

She grabbed her purse off the desk, knocking papers to the floor, and ran out of her office. Halfway to the elevator, she called over her shoulder to the secretary that she had an emergency with Anna, and then she jumped inside.

Lydia's mind raced on the drive over to the daycare. Damn traffic. "Move!" she shouted at the car in front of her. What sort of problem? Was Anna okay? Mrs. Keller hadn't said what the problem had been. My God! Was Anna dead? Why wouldn't she tell her what the problem was? Lydia jammed the gas pedal down to the floor. She ran two stop signs and prayed no cops were around to stop her from getting to her baby.

When she got to the daycare parking lot, she rammed the car into a parking spot, jerked it into park and ran from the car to the front doors. She flung open the glass door and practically pounced on the front desk clerk.

"I'm Mrs. Render," she said loudly.

Mrs. Keller seemed to have heard her from the other room and appeared with astonishing speed. "Mrs. Render, Lydia? Good. Come this way, please." She grabbed Lydia's elbow.

Lydia looked into Mrs. Keller's face for some sort of clue as to what was going on. Mrs. Keller led her to her office and quickly closed the door behind her.

"Thanks, Tammy. You can go now; and remember, we keep all daycare happenings private," she said to the young woman in the nearest chair, who was watching something behind Mrs. Keller's desk.

Tammy scurried out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

Mrs. Keller walked to her desk and looked behind it strangely.

"Where's Anna? What's wrong?" Lydia couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"Lydia. I don't know what is going on. All I know is I have about four workers terrified out of their wits..."

"What the hell is wrong with my baby?" Lydia demanded, very agitated and very loudly.

Mrs. Keller waved her over and pointed to the floor.

Where there should have been her two-year-old Anna was a child of about ten, with Anna's and her own little pixie face.

"Who is that? Where is Anna?" Lydia was enraged now.

"Mrs. Render. Lydia. THAT IS ANNA! She grew once right in front of two of my workers, and again while she was in here with me waiting for you to get here. I can't explain it. She seems to be a two-year-old in a big kid's body. Frankly, I don't know what to do about this!"

Lydia stooped down to the floor and looked at her daughter. Someone had put a t-shirt on her that hung like a nightgown - long and baggy.

"Anna?" she said softly.

"Mama!" Anna jumped up, a lanky little girl, and attempted to jump into Lydia's lap. The toys she had been engrossed in were scattered all over the floor.

Lydia steadied herself against the desk. She looked up at Mrs. Keller in horror.

"Uh. Okay. Uh. I'll take her home. Sorry for all of this."

Somehow she managed to drag the child behind her and get her into the car. She started to put her into the carseat, but noticing how that wasn't going to work, she buckled her daughter into the seat next to it. Anna babbled on in her happy two-year-old voice, pointing to things through the window, enjoying her new vantage point.

Lydia hustled Anna into the house. She gave her a bowl of crackers and filled her sippy cup with juice. She plopped her in front of the TV and shoved in a video. Anna laughed and jabbered on as usual.

Lydia paced the floor like a caged tiger, then grabbed the phone.

"Jack. It's me. Lydia. Come home. Come home. NOW!" she shouted into his voice mail. She slammed the receiver down then wildly flipped through their phone directory until she came to Dr. Ramirez's name.

She called the number. She got the office clerk.

"I need to speak with Dr. Ramirez. It's an emergency," she said louder than normal.

"May I take your name?" the clerk asked.

"Lydia Render. Look, just get the doctor, please?" Lydia said again.

"Dr. Ramirez is with a patient. I'm going to take your name and number...."

"My two-year-old is sitting in my living room in the body of a ten-year-old! Get Dr. Ramirez NOW," Lydia shouted.

"Two-year-old in the body of a ten-year-old," the woman repeated in a monotone that indicated she was writing it all down. "Oh, my God!" A pause. "Hold on."

A couple of minutes later, an out-of-breath Dr. Ramirez picked up the phone.

"Lydia?" Dr. Ramirez said shakily.

"Doctor. Anna grew from a two-year-old to a, uh, like a ten-year-old in less than four hours at her daycare today," Lydia blurted.

There was a long silence.

"Shit," Dr. Ramirez said at last.

"Shit?" Lydia shouted. "Please tell me you can say more than just 'shit'!"

"God. Lydia. Anna is the third one we've got like this, just this month. God. How is she right now?" he said, his voice quaking.

"She's fine. Watching one of her videos. She acts and sounds like her regular self, but she's all long and lanky like a ten-year-old girl. Her hair. It's long too," Lydia said, noticing the length of Anna's hair for the first time.

A pause.

"How does she look—physically?" the doctor asked slowly.

"What do you mean?" Lydia asked watching Anna watch her video.

"Well, I mean, uh. Does she look normal? Like a normal ten-year-old girl should look?" Dr. Ramirez said somewhat hesitantly.

"Yeah. She looks normal, just older. Well, I haven't looked at her naked or anything yet. I came right home from the daycare. She's wearing a big shirt. I need to find her some clothes," Lydia added the last part absently.

"Lydia. Listen to me. Now, don't panic. I need you to go look at Anna. Naked. All over. Then come back and tell me what you see."

"Uh. Okay," Lydia stammered.

"I'll wait," Dr. Ramirez said breathing heavily. "Go on."

Lydia sat the phone down and walked towards Anna.

"Mama! Doggie!" Anna pointed to the television screen. "Doggie go outside!"

Lydia looked at the screen where a little dog bounced around on the grassy hill. She reached out and pulled Anna's shirt over her head, almost afraid.

She jumped back. Dropped the shirt. Screamed.

Dr. Ramirez heard the scream over the phone line.

The phone rattled and banged. "Doctor? Dr. Ramirez? Oh, my God! Oh, my God. Oh, my God!"

Anna began to cry. Lydia dropped the phone again to comfort her baby. She hastily pulled the shirt back over Anna and drew the little girl to her in a comforting embrace. She rocked her and waited for Anna to stop crying. Then, giving her one of her baby dolls, got her re-interested in the video that still played on the television. At last she crept back to the phone.

"Dr. Ramirez?" she asked.

"I'm still here," the voice answered back.

"Anna has two arms starting to grow on the front of her ribcage. Little hands and everything. Oh, my God." Lydia heard the garage door opening automatically outside. "Jack's home."

"Lydia. Call Dr. Archibald. I'm taking the next available flight. In the meantime, stay calm and keep Anna's routine as normal as possible. And keep her in the house. I'm on my way."

Lydia started to say something, but the phone went dead.

Jack rushed in through the door from the garage. "Lydia? Lydia?" he called as he burst into the room.

Lydia turned around and looked at him. "Jack," she said simply.

Jack waved his hands. "Well? What's wrong?"

Lydia shook her head at a loss for words and stretched her arm out in Anna's direction and pointed. Jack looked at the little girl.

"Who's that?" he asked. "Where's Anna?"

Lydia blinked back a sob. Her voice cracked. "That IS Anna."

"What the hell?" Jack walked closer to Anna, looking from her then back to Lydia. "What...?"

"They called me from the daycare today. In four hours she went from our baby to this little girl," Lydia choked. "Dr. Ramirez is taking the next flight in."

Jack stared at Anna in disbelief.

"It took the damn daycare four hours to call?" he asked in disbelief.

Lydia shrugged.

"How, I mean, what, how did this happen?"

"There's more, Jack. She has two arms growing out of the front of her ribcage."

"What?" Jack jerked his head up and looked at her as if she had just gone mad.

"I'm supposed to call Dr. Archibald. You stay with Anna. I'll go make the call."

Lydia dialed the number and sat down in the sunroom. When she came out, Jack was sitting on the floor with Anna, who was now wearing some of her mother's shorts that Jack had retrieved from their bedroom and knotted up on one side of the waistband to make them smaller. She still had on the t-shirt.

"Dr. Archibald is on his way over," she said quietly.

"Look. I'm going to run to the store. Anna needs some clothes and some sort of diapers. I'll find something. Get her some jammies and some clothes. Socks and stuff," Jack grabbed his keys off of the table.

"Okay," Lydia nodded. Good old practical Jack.

Dr. Archibald arrived with remarkable haste. Lydia suddenly felt very protective of her child, no matter what that child was now.

"Doctor. I want you to remember that Anna is still only two years old. A baby. Just her body is different. Try not to scare her," Lydia held tightly to his arm.

He nodded slowly. "Thank you for the reminder. Is she in here?"

Lydia led him into the room. Anna turned and waved to the doctor.

Dr. Archibald showed remarkable restraint as he sidled up to her and began to talk about the dog in the video. Anna offered him a cracker from her little yellow bowl. Lydia felt like she was going to burst into tears at Anna's gesture. She watched as the doctor began to examine her daughter. He removed her shirt and studied the new arms. He looked at Lydia.

"Can you remove her shorts?" he asked.

Lydia nodded. "Yes. But everything was fine as far as I could see. Jack went to get her some sort of diapers." Lydia eased the knotted shorts down and stopped half way with the shorts falling to the floor on their own.

"Oh, no," Lydia stifled her cry with her hand.

Dr. Archibald sighed, " I was afraid of this." He looked at each side of Anna's hips, from which two small legs with tiny feet had emerged.

"You've seen this before?" Lydia hissed in a whisper.

He nodded. "Unfortunately."

"And? What can you do?" Lydia watched as the doctor turned Anna this way and that.

He looked at Lydia apologetically. "Nothing at this point."

"What do you mean, 'at this point'?" Lydia hissed again.

Dr. Archibald put Anna's clothes back on and patted her on her head. With Anna re-engrossed in her video, the doctor indicated that Lydia should follow him out of the room. The garage door clanged open again.

"That's Jack," Lydia said.

"Good. Let's wait for him." Dr. Archibald sat down in a white wicker chair in the sunny yellow sunroom.

Jack came in with several noisy, rattling, plastic bags and sat them down on the cabinet. He looked in at Lydia and at Dr. Archibald. "I got some stuff for Anna."

Lydia nodded. Jack sat down.

"She's growing two extra legs now," Lydia said flatly.

"Legs?" Jack repeated.

Dr. Archibald cleared his throat. "In some of our cases, babies seem to be developing perfectly normally. Then, without any warning or sign, sudden aging occurs. Usually it is physical. In a few cases, it has been the opposite; the body stays the same but the baby starts thinking and behaving like an older child."

"What do you mean 'usually'? How often has this occurred?" Jack said sitting on the edge of his seat nervously.

"Well. There are a lot of cases that have gone awry. Naturally, we've kept all of them quiet," Dr. Archibald said shiftily.

"How many is 'a lot'?" Jack said while frowning.

"I don't know the exact numbers," the doctor hesitated.

"Ten? Twenty? How many, doctor?" Jack was irate now.

"Okay. Hundreds," Dr. Archibald blurted. "Over the last ten years, Dr. Ramirez and his colleagues have found this cell mutation or multiplication at all stages in the clones' lives. They can't explain it or control it."

"Hundreds?" Lydia repeated, shocked.

"Yes," Dr. Archibald said quietly.

"And all of this has been covered up? How? What happens to the children? Where are they?" Jack looked in on Anna and then back at the doctor.

"Some of the children stay with their parents, a closely guarded secret. Some ... some get too bad. And, well, we have a special home for them."

"A home?" Lydia asked incredulously.

"Yes. In Brazil," Dr. Archibald said. "It's a wonderful facility. Parents visit. Some stay for lengthy periods of time until...."

"Until what?" Jack asked.

"Well, some of the children age rapidly. You see, Lydia was forty when Anna was cloned. So, theoretically, Anna was born with forty-year-old cells. Sometimes the child begins to actively mature to that age in a matter of years. Sometimes the child continues to grow older. We don't know why some don't stop. They just get older and older."

"Until they die," Lydia said matter-of-factly.

"Yes. They surpass their parent in age and continue to age until death. All in a matter of very short years."

"How many?" Jack asked.

"Ten has been the longest," the doctor said gently.

"So, you're telling us we only have Anna for up to eight more years?" Lydia asked, choking on a sob.

"I don't know. Anna has other complications. The children I spoke of only had aging developments. Anna falls into our other group of...." he stopped for a moment.

"Of mistakes?" Lydia asked spitefully.

"I don't believe any baby is a mistake," the doctor said. "You came to us because you wanted a child to love, and you love your child. She is not a mistake."

Lydia was taken aback; the comment seemed out of character for Dr. Archibald.

"I have a daughter too. She lives in the home now," he continued, quietly. "She is like your Anna."

"What do you mean?" Jack asked.

"She has more than the aging complications. She has cell mutation and multiplication," Dr. Archibald said, head down.

"How old is she?"

"Almost five now. She would start school next fall had ... had these complications not occurred." Dr. Archibald shook his head. "It's killing my wife."

"What does she look like?" Jack asked curiously, but feeling bad for prying.

"She has six arms and three legs. We don't know why there are only three legs. Usually they replicate in pairs," Dr. Archibald said, voice becoming distant.

Lydia gasped.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay. I understand."

Lydia wiped away a tear that rolled down her cheek. "What can we expect now?" she asked, looking in at Anna. Her daughter was rocking her baby doll the same way she had yesterday and the day before that, when she had been a baby, herself.

Dr. Archibald shook his head. "Hard to tell. Right now, obviously, she's in the process of developing a second set of arms and legs. If this is the only extra set she develops, she could have the extra appendages surgically removed. We have one child who seems to have stopped with one extra set. Others grow more. Some have duplicated internal organs, mostly without any harm. One child developed four hearts, so three were removed. Successfully, I might add. It seems to be tied to the number of cloned embryos implanted in the mother."

Lydia gulped. "We implanted three."

Jack looked at her, worried, and looked back at Dr. Archibald.

Dr. Archibald's eyebrows rose into a pronounced arch.

"Then I'd say it's pretty safe to bet that Anna will grow another set of appendages. That seems to be the way things have gone in the other cases," he said sadly. "But one can never tell. It's a waiting game."

"What about her mental condition? Will that change?" Jack asked abruptly.

"So far all of the children have maintained an appropriate mental age for the actual number of years they have lived."

Lydia frowned.

"I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse. Some of them know what is going on, then ... that they aren't normal." She choked on the last word.

"I understand completely," Dr. Archibald said softly.

"What I want to freakin' know," Jack began, his voice angry, "is if you and your fellow doctors were aware of these later developments, why did you continue the program? Why weren't we warned about what could happen AFTER we gave birth? We were told about all the fetal and pregnancy-related conditions that could get screwed up. Why weren't we told about the risks that could happen to our child later on down the road?" Jack was shouting now, jabbing the air violently with his finger.

Dr. Archibald sighed.

"In every instance we hope that the clone develops normally, is born normally, and grows normally. Why scare parents with what ifs? With each birth, we hope that we don't have to make this visit again."

"What are the odds of something going wrong, like in our Anna?" Lydia asked.

"So far it's an 85 percent likelihood that something will go wrong down the road, but," Dr. Archibald added quickly, "that's including very mild things, like an extra finger or toe, small things that could happen even in a quote-unquote 'normal' pregnancy."

"So what do we do now?" Lydia put her head in her hands, rested her elbows on her knees, and breathed deeply.

"Dr. Ramirez will suggest keeping her at home as long as possible, watching for any other other sets of appendages. Then it will be up to you to decide if you want to surgically correct Anna, or put her in our home."

"So she can be studied like a rat? I don't freakin' think so," Lydia burst out.

"No. No. We don't do that. We provide a normal environment with loving care for the children. We take every effort to create a home. The only thing that differentiates them from other children is the growth of the extra parts and the rapid aging that most seem to acquire." Dr. Archibald was trying to sound reassuring.

"So, what you're telling us is, you knowingly provided us with a ticking bomb? A baby that would only last two or three years until something went haywire in her DNA or chromosomes or whatever the hell triggered all of this?" Jack was beyond angry. Lydia had never seen him so red in the face. Veins were popping out in his neck under the strain.

"I would never have done this had I known what Anna could become," Lydia said sadly, quietly, ruefully.

"Are you sure about that?" the doctor asked bluntly. "Are you sure you would have traded these past two years for empty arms and a broken heart?"

Lydia began to cry.

Anna came in. "Mo shush," she asked holding up her cup to Jack. Jack smiled at her and took the gangly Anna into the kitchen.

After a year of watching Anna grow yet another set of arms and legs, and aging about four more years, Lydia and Jack had Anna operated on by Dr. Ramirez and his colleagues to remove the extra appendages. It was hard to see Anna in so much pain. Their three-year-old baby was in the body of a young teenager. People assumed she was retarded during the few occasions Jack and Lydia took her out of the house.

When Anna turned five, Jack and Lydia held a private little party for her. Anna had asked for a doll and a stuffed dog. Lydia and Jack obliged their little girl, even though their little girl looked like a college student sitting in a little girl's princess bed.

Lydia hoped they could have a pseudo-normal life with Anna for however long she had left. Even though their little girl was trapped in a woman's body. Lydia did everything she could to make sure Anna's five-year-old life was a happy one.

"Jack?" Lydia called one day from the backyard where she sat watching Anna play in the large sandbox Jack had built for her.

"Yeah?" he called from the garage.

"Can you come here a minute?" Lydia had Anna's hair pulled over one shoulder and was probing at something on Anna's neck. Anna struggled to get away. "Just a minute, sweetie. Let's let Daddy look at this, okay?" Lydia kissed Anna's cheek.

Anna sat down in the grass in front of Lydia.

Jack observed them for a moment, the younger copy of his older wife sitting in the grass before her. What now?

Lydia's face was deeply etched with worry.

"Jack. Look at this," she showed him a baseball-sized mass forming on the shoulder near Anna's neck. It was covered with downy hair and seemed to have an ear shaped formation on one side of it.

Jack looked at it and at Anna. "You don't think...?" his voice trailed off. He already knew the answer.

"I don't think they can fix this one." Lydia felt her heart beating wildly in her chest, smashing against her ribs, squeezing the breath out of her lungs. She could hear the thundering of her own blood booming in her ears and it seemed to drown out all other noise with the loudness of each heartbeat.

Jack pulled the nearest lawn chair over and sat down.

Lydia began to cry.

Anna looked up. "What's wrong, Mommy?" she asked. Her body had aged, but her voice still rang clearly and sweetly, like the child she still was inside.

"Mommy needs to call your doctor," Lydia stroked Anna's hair. "We think there might be something wrong with your neck."

Anna tried to look at the place on her shoulder that was attracting so much attention. "Lemme see," she said, trying to pull her skin down for a better look.

"It's okay, baby. Don't worry about it. You go play some more before it's time to get cleaned up for dinner," Jack smiled at his daughter. Anna went back to her sandbox and began to dig around again.

"Do you want me to call him?" Jack asked quietly, while his wife sobbed.

"No use. We know what he's going to say. She'll have to go live at the home. Brazil! Oh, my God! I can't send her to live so far away all alone! I can't stand it!" Lydia cried harder and wiped her nose on her shirt.

Jack laid his hand on Lydia's shoulder and then went inside the house to make the call.

By the time they boarded the plane, four days later, Anna's bump was almost a fully developed head. It was about the size of a softball and once in awhile they swore they saw it move. Lydia's imagination ran wild. Would it be a head in a lump sort of a way or was there a brain in the head, too? Would it open its eyelids and begin to function? Oh, my God! The horror of thinking about it caused her to break into a crying jag every time. She tried not to think about it.

Anna was dressed in a large baggy jacket to conceal the head. At first she balked and wanted to take it off, but Lydia had to explain that no one needed to see the thing growing out of her until they got to the hospital. Anna had been disturbed by "the thing," as she called it, so she left her jacket on.

Dr. Ramirez seemed shaken and sad.

"This has happened before."

"Was it, was it alive?" Jack asked fearfully.

Dr. Ramirez nodded.

"I'm afraid so. Some have heads that are fully functional ... talk, etc. Most never reach full size, though."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "As if that is supposed to be some sort of relief?" she said disdainfully.

"None of this is any relief, Lydia. We have to think of Anna now."

"And about keeping your projects hushed up, covered up, so you can keep your ass out of prison?" Lydia hissed.

"I'm the only one who can help you and Anna," he reminded her firmly. "I'm the only one who won't treat her like a lab rat and try to dissect her."

Lydia knew what he said was true. Hated it. But knew it was true.

"We have a room ready for her. You can have anything sent that you want. Her bed from home, her furniture, toys, clothes. Whatever you want. The room is hers until, well, until..." the doctor wished he hadn't added the last part of his statement but it was too late to take it back.

Lydia tried not to choke up again, "Until she dies, you mean?"

Dr. Ramirez nodded slowly.

They drove with the doctor to the children's home. It was a pleasant brick building with flowers and a fountain in the center of the parking lot. The nurses and staff were friendly and directed them to Anna's new room. It had a bathroom, a sitting area, and a bedroom section. It was decorated in cheery pink floral paper and everything was ruffled, just as Anna preferred.

"Our rooms are very pretty," the doctor said. "After all, all of our children are little girls."

Lydia felt tears welling up again.

They weren't little girls. None of them were. They were freaks created out of their mothers' selfish desires.

Dr. Ramirez took them to the playroom, where several girls of varying ages were playing with dolls and pretend kitchen centers. They were astonishing to behold. Arms. Legs. Heads. The children were a vast array of duplications, horrific mutations—a sideshow of horrors.

Lydia began to sit down on a nearby floral sofa when she caught sight of a girl, a creature, a child sitting alone in the corner on a little yellow chair. Lydia inspected the girl from the child's heads to her feet. Four heads sprang from where her shoulders should have been. They were each in different states of development. Two were talking with each other. The child looked more like a spider with eight legs all around her pelvis than a human being. Her heads were crying. Lydia cleared her throat.

"Is something wrong?" she asked softly. "Are you okay?"

The little girl's eyes, all of her eyes, welled with big tears.

"The other girls won't let me play," the middle head said, crying softly.

"That's not very nice of them. Why won't they?" Lydia tried not to stare at the horrifying child before her, looking at the ground instead.

"Sydney says I'm a monster," the little girl cried. "She thinks she's so much better than me 'cause she only gots three arms and legs. She's supposed to have a 'peration to get rid of them. Then she gets to go home."

Lydia was silent. What sort of a world did these children inhabit?

"Sydney shouldn't be so mean. I'll talk to her mommy. How old are you?" she asked.

"Six. But Doctor says I'm not done growing yet. Doctor says Mommy had six babies put in her tummy," the little girl's faces smiled.

Lydia suddenly realized what the child meant. Oh, my God! She wanted to scream. Would this child really end up with six heads? Twelve arms? Legs? Good God, what sort of a nightmare had they participated in?

"I have to go now. I liked talking with you," Lydia said, and then nearly ran from the room. Once in the hall, she ran to the drinking fountain and splashed cold water on her face. She'd had three embryos implanted. Would Anna grow another head still?

Through the glass windows in the wall, she could see Anna playing. She was handing a girl with four arms a play skillet. The other girl had a baby doll and a teakettle in two of her other hands. Anna stared a little, but didn't seem to mind.

Jack came down the hall and found Lydia crouched against the wall against the side of the drinking fountain.

"What have we done, Jack? What the hell have we done?"

"Can't go back now, honey. No point dwelling on it." Jack pulled her off the floor.

"Our baby is a monster," Lydia wailed.

"But - she's still our baby." Jack put his arm around her and walked her back to Anna's new room.

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