Girl One(33)

“I’ve never seen this one,” I said, like it was a rare collectible. After so many years of memorizing every available Homestead photo, finding a new one was a thrill. I recognized the room they were in, one of the many communal spaces, the wall wild with framed prints and photographs. There was the cut-off edge of a Time magazine cover, a patchwork of women’s portraits. It tugged at a memory. The year American women had been collectively recognized as Person of the Year.

Next to the Time cover, a framed copy of the tawdry, glaring headline that had announced my birth to the world (“MAD SCIENTIST CLAIMS BACHELORETTE’S BABY HAS NO HUMAN FATHER!”). I’d learned to read when I was four, taught by the Mothers, and I remembered sounding out those syllables, not realizing that I knew the people in the headline. That I was the fatherless baby, Bellanger the mad scientist.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked.

“My mother was forward-thinking.” Cate winked. “A nicer word for ‘paranoid.’ People were always trying to buy shit from them back in the seventies. The clothes off their backs. So my mother went through and took photos, letters, whatever, to save them from museums or some weirdo’s sock drawer. But that’s not what I wanted you to see.” Cate plucked something loose, scanned it, and handed it to me. “Maybe it’s your mother’s?”

It was plain notebook paper, yellowy and brittle. I clutched it delicately, afraid the paper might crumble into dust. The writing was loose, with traces of grade school cursive—the lopsided curlicues of a’s and d’s—but it was definitely my mother’s, the same writing I’d seen on receipts, to-do lists, overdue checks. The same writing that came from my own hands.

The date was listed primly at the top right, like a reflex from an etiquette guide. November 10, 1969. A relic of my mother’s life before me. My mother in an undocumented state, the lost years before I’d taken residence in her womb as a lone, moony egg.

Dear Doctor Bellanger:

We are reaching out because we’re huge fans of your wild and wonderful brain! We have some questions for you that are of utmost importance and would love a reply if you are amenable to answering them. You may contact us, if you would like, at the below P.O. Box address. We are not scientists or doctors or anything of that sort but we would really appreciate a response. We promise it will be worth your time.

I could see ghostly eraser lines that hinted at a diligent writing process, going through multiple revisions. Dr. Bellanger; November of 1969. Eight months before my infamous conception in July of 1970. “We,” I said, touching the words on the page like they could transmit this hidden history through my fingertips. We. Us. Plural pronouns, scattered all over the page, a collective voice rising out of the past. Before this, I’d only seen our mothers as given context by Bellanger. “Deb was right. Our mothers knew each other already.”

“Yup. Bellanger was the last to join the Homestead, not the first.” Cate sat on the edge of the bed, stretching her legs, pointing her toes. Flecks of grass still striped one shin.

“But I barely ever saw a photo of our mothers together without Bellanger there too. And after his death, we all just scattered. He was our—our nucleus.”

“Nucleus,” Cate repeated. “Pretty fancy.”

I ignored this. Heat rose into my face. “If our mothers knew each other already, if they were friends, or colleagues, or whatever was going on, wouldn’t they stay close?” But even as I said it, I remembered Deb’s words: She drew us together, the nine of us, and then she tore us apart. Cate watched me as I worked it out, feeling more and more flustered, my voice rushing ahead of me. “Yeah, I don’t get it. Bellanger wasn’t famous until he created us. How did they know about his—” I consulted the letter. “His ‘wild and wonderful brain’? Jesus. My mother never showed any interest in science. I would’ve known. This is crazy.”

This had been the topic of plenty of think pieces written about the Homestead. Much was made of the fact that women who’d never even completed a college-level biology course would now grace the covers of Scientific American.

“You seem pretty upset by this, Morrow.”

“Maybe it’s old news to you. But it’s— Look. I’ve met Emily now, and Bonnie, and you. Every one of your mothers told you about the Homestead. My mother shut me out of it. She just didn’t trust me. And it’s okay. We weren’t close, that’s all.” I was stumbling along, trying to make it sound casual, hide my hurt. “I had to learn everything from Bellanger’s letters—”

“Oh right,” Cate said. “Your letters. My mom mentioned those.” She shifted. “Can I be blunt, Morrow?” That little lizard gleamed at Cate’s throat as she idly twisted it, back and forth. “You say you aren’t close to your mother, but here you are, hundreds of miles from home, in a stranger’s house, trying to find her.”

I brushed this away, impatient. “Anyone would do that.”

“Nah. No way. A lot of people would let the authorities deal with it. This little road trip of yours isn’t exactly standard procedure.” Cate gestured at the notebook. “Where’d you find it?”

“Oh. Uh, inside the clock.”

“The clock? Funny place to keep something. How did you know to look for it?”