Girl One(126)
“Thank you,” I said, taking both her hands in mine.
She shrugged, though a small smile played at the corners of her lips. She looked past me to my mother, and I glanced back, seeing the way my mother had slowed, her face suddenly stricken. “Hello, Isabelle,” my mother said.
“Hello,” Isabelle said softly. “Mother One.”
Isabelle and my mother together. For a second, time slipped and slid, and I saw that old photograph of Patricia and my mother sitting close together. The two of them resurrected, on the edge of everything, nothing yet decided, all of it possible. Then I blinked and Isabelle was the motherless daughter who carried our mothers’ favorite name. The one who’d lost her mother so that we could find mine. Guilt nudged at my edges. My gaze slipped to Fiona, who tilted her head, eyes shut in the moonlight, as if she were praying. She held her stomach with both hands. Outside of the confines of the compound, she looked so young.
“You did the right thing,” my mother said, following my gaze.
“I hope so,” I whispered.
A roar, a crackle. The fire was devouring everything, a patient beast finally unleashed. I pulled back from my mother and I turned, fascinated. All those times I’d seen footage of the Homestead fire on the news and felt the sharp echo of that long-ago loss. Here it was. Happening right in front of me.
I stood next to Cate, and we threaded our fingers together, palms held close, all that power concentrated between us. We waited together, the five of us: my mother and Isabelle standing close, Fiona clutching her belly. We watched the fire blaze, the hectic flames like a sunset. Like a sunrise. Like the world was remaking itself, right here, just awaiting our arrival.
51
December 1970
Dearest Trish,
You said we weren’t talking enough lately, so here’s a nice old-fashioned letter from me to you. I never ever ever mean to neglect you, please believe me. What I’ve been doing with Joseph has taken up my time, but it’s all for you. For us! For our future daughters. I wake up every morning feeling like I’m holding the entire future inside me.
Your turn will come too. I’ll make sure of it. I care for all the wonderful girls here, but you’re my favorite in all ways, forever. My sweet, serious girl. The first to ever believe in me. Even when you barely knew me, you could see into my soul and you knew what this would mean. Not just for you and me, but for every woman.
The baby is fine and strong and healthy, and I’m practically glowing with life. I know you laugh at me, but that’s how I feel. Like the sun herself. Joseph wants us to be careful about telling the world until we have a more “certain outcome” (his words). And I’m trying to be good, Trish. But the secret is bursting out of me every day. If I could stand up and shout it from the rooftops, this is what I’d say: that in April of 1971, my child will be born, and I already know two things. I knew them the first time I felt the baby kick.
One: she will be a girl. Two: she will change the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, thank you to my agent, Alice Whitwham, for always taking my wild ideas so seriously and for helping guide me from the wobbly beginnings to a clear and steady draft. And my gratitude goes to the whole team at Elyse Cheney Literary Associates. Endless and massive thanks to Daphne Durham for instantly seeing the best version of this novel and giving the most incisive (and fun!) feedback to help the story arrive there. It’s been magical to see Josie and friends develop with your guidance. Thank you so much to Lydia Zoells for sharp and amazing feedback, and to the entire wonderful team at MCD for giving this book such a welcoming home.
This idea was originally sparked by a book called Making Sex, by Thomas Laqueur, and I owe a lot to Laqueur’s work for making me think about the history of reproduction and the ways women’s bodies have been treated as afterthoughts in that whole process. I also found incredible insights through Aarathi Prasad’s Like a Virgin. The historical accounts of searches for a child born of virgin birth inspired some of the tests in Girl One, including the skin graft operation. I learned a lot from reading The Genius Factory, by David Plotz, which is about the emergence of sperm banks and the resulting “fatherless” children, and My Life as the World’s First Test-Tube Baby, by Louise Brown. Utopian Motherhood, by Robert T. Francoeur, gave me insight into the views of the changing reproductive landscape in the early 1970s.
I have to thank Franklin Sayre and Janelle Barr Bassett for being patient friends and early readers as I agonized over parthenogenesis for … years! Thanks to Franklin for answering some of my med school–related questions (any mistakes are very much my own).
Much love to my parents. Dad, unlike my protagonist, I’m lucky to have a good father who’s always encouraged my love of reading. Mom, I could never have written a book about mother-daughter relationships without our wonderfully complex and supportive relationship. Thanks to all my siblings-in-law and siblings. To my mother-in-law, Karen, thank you in particular for helping with childcare so that I was able to write!
Huge thanks to everyone who’s taken my writing seriously over the years, including one of my most enduring mentors, Kathryn Davis, whose belief in me as a writer has carried me so far. Thank you, thank you, to everyone who supported my debut. You have my eternal gratitude, and I’m so honored to have such generous readers.
To Miles and August: you’ve never made my writing process easier, but you make life infinitely weirder and sweeter. And finally, my everlasting thanks to Ryan, for being a tireless source of support and insight, for reading endless drafts, and for always being just as curious about the world inside my brain as I am. Having a partner who loves reading, writing, and plotting is a gift I won’t take for granted.