Girl One(39)

This felt pointed. Before I could defend myself, Tom was talking.

“Oh, I agree,” he said. “One hundred percent. Personally, I’ve always wondered if Bellanger’s work has been less kosher because it involved women’s lives. That is, women’s independence.” He glanced back at her, hopeful, looking for praise. “My mom raised me singlehandedly.”

“Oh yeah?” Cate asked. “Shit dad?”

“Never even met the guy. Total deadbeat. As far as I’m concerned, there are a lot of kids out there without a father, you know? One way or another.”

Cate’s voice relaxed just slightly. “Your mother must’ve gone through a lot.”

Tom nodded and shrugged at the same time, apparently embarrassed that he’d said too much. “I’m trying to be thoughtful,” he said. “With this book. Respectful. Just so you know.”

I couldn’t resist a little barb: “How does figuring out Bellanger’s real murderer factor into your plans for the book?”

“All part of figuring out who Bellanger really was,” Tom said, unfazed.

Cate piped up: “Just don’t forget that we’re human beings with actual lives. I have people to protect.”

“What exactly do you do?” Tom asked. “You’re some kind of doctor?”

“I help women. Whatever that means to them.”

“Just like Josie’s in med school,” Tom said.

“Well, I’m a little less interested in the publicity side of things,” Cate said. “You were appearing on every damn talk show for a while there, Morrow.” I wanted to say that it had been a reasonable number—just three programs—but I bit my tongue. “So you’re following in Bellanger’s footsteps, huh? Experimental embryologist. Just like him.”

“Just like him,” I echoed, defiant. Cate cultivated a nonchalance about Bellanger that verged on hostility. It rankled me, a nagging defensiveness. It wasn’t the first time I’d considered that this devotion hadn’t been passed down to all nine of us. I knew my role as Girl One, the oldest, the favorite, put me in a unique position.

“Watch out,” Cate said. “I’ve seen med school turn people into real assholes.”

“Exactly the kind of thing an asshole would say,” I shot back.

Cate waited a second, then threw her head back, her big, full laugh bouncing around inside the car. “Okay. You got me, Morrow. But I’ve seen what can happen. People in Goulding don’t always have the money for doctors. Or they’ve been hurt by them. After the Homestead, my mother started helping. She knew which herbs could soothe a sore throat or ease postpartum depression or kill a flu. People need an alternative.”

“I never realized your mother had any medical training,” Tom said. “That’s fascinating.” I noticed a shift in his voice now, switching into the glossy interview tone he’d used with Deb, like he was stepping closer with a magnifying glass. “Did she train with Bellanger at all?”

“Not that she told me.”

“So did she—do you—ever work with pregnant women?”

“Why do you ask?” Cate was cool, cautious. She caught the prying note too.

“Because of where you come from. Because of who your mother is. Was.”

“Yes, Thomas,” Cate said. “My mother helped pregnant women. She taught me how to deliver a baby when I was sixteen. I help however I can now that she’s gone. Sometimes it’s delivering a baby for a woman whose last doctor tried to convince her she was too weak to do it on her own. I’ve seen women who’d been traumatized by forceps or so drugged they couldn’t remember anything.” I thought of the look the woman had given my belly before giving me directions to Cate’s home. “And sometimes it means ending pregnancies, if that’s how I’m needed. At its best, what Bellanger accomplished was supposed to be giving women choice and control. That’s what I’m doing too.” She gave me a quick look. “And I hope it’s what you’re planning on doing, Morrow.”



* * *



When we stopped that night, Tom slept in the car, volunteering his duties as a sentinel, leaving the single bed to me and Cate. I lay on my side, watching the thin curtains, imagining a silhouette rising. A struck match: a knife blade.

“Are you planning to fuck that guy?” Cate asked, like she’d been having this conversation in her head for a while and had finally decided to let me in. She rolled over. Even in bed, she wore that necklace, the curves catching the light. “Is that what’s happening here?”

“No. Come on. Tom’s a—a colleague.”

“You have a boyfriend, though? You seem that type.”

I considered telling her about Dr. McCarter, the closest thing to a boyfriend I’d had for a while. “Well, I’m not a virgin,” I said instead. “I’m not my mother.”

Cate barked with appreciative laughter. “Let me guess. The boyfriend: Mike or Joe or Jason. He’s an understanding guy. He forgives you for your past. Or maybe he gets off on it.”

“Just because men are like that with you—”

“Men aren’t any way with me. And I’m not any way with them.” My heartbeat settled in my throat. Cate shifted, turning over onto her back, and I glanced sidelong at the shape of her, stretched long under the covers. “I knew I was gay from when I was a little girl. The idea of being with a man never even occurred to me. My mother didn’t have too much time for dating, but she only ever brought women home. All of us should be lesbians, scientifically speaking. We were made without men. What do we want with them now?”