A Superposition of Eigenstates
Kate the sonographer rubbed the gel onto my stomach. I shivered. Was it her hands or the gel that was cold? She wiped her hands on a paper towel and then held the ultrasound sensor aloft.
“Would you like to know the sex of the baby?”
I looked at her and then at Brian. He raised his eyebrows, smiled. I looked at the twin bumps of my belly and my navel. Both protruded more than they used to.
“Yes,” I said.
Kate adjusted the screen and manoeuvred the sensor until a shape resolved itself. “There. Do you see?”
I leaned closer to the screen, trying to see patterns in the blur, and yes, I could see.
“It’s a boy,” Kate said.
[
He was a shy and introverted kid, always reading.
<
He stood apart, always watching, never making friends in his own age group. His contemporaries had all seemed so childish so that when he went to university at age nine he was glad.
-
He was happy to share what he had learned with other children. He wanted to learn from them and play and have fun. Being childish was one of his joys.
>
As part of his doctorate he invented a way to re-grow and graft brain tissue.
<
With insufficient clinical trials, nine percent of those treated rejected the grafts, developed brain tumours and died. He forgot the millions of lives he had improved beyond measure and concentrated instead on those nine percent. His chosen self-medication for his pain was alcohol.
-
He insisted they wait, to be sure. The procedure was perfected and all treatments succeeded. Everyone who received grafts had their dementia reversed. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Medicine but rejected it by saying: “Give it to someone more qualified and with less luck”.
>
He had two children of his own: a boy and a girl.
<
He spent his last decade estranged and alone, hating himself for what he had done and the decisions he had made. He drank himself into unconsciousness every night. It was the only way he could get any kind of rest, but it provided no relief.
-
He lived for the holidays, when his children would bring their kids. His own brain grafts halted and reversed the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease. He enjoyed many more years, and many more holidays with his grandkids.
>
]
I looked at the fuzzy screen, seeing the smudge of a boy. I smiled in wonder. I felt my eyes fill and overflow with tears. I felt pain and mourned for something that I had lost and rejoiced that I also carried my son. A bump moments before and now a solid fact.
I felt guilty for being happy and then angry for no reason I could articulate. I let something go, I felt it go, and I missed it but I did not know what it was.
Brian laughed. “A boy!”
> — <
I leaned closer to the screen, trying to see patterns in the blur, and yes, I could see.
“It’s a girl,” Kate said.
I looked at the fuzzy screen, seeing the smudge that was my daughter. Through the amazed joy I felt a tugging sadness, a nostalgia for what could have been. I shook it off and grinned at Brian.
[
She was a happy, loving child. She looked at the world with bright eyes and saw hope and goodness in everyone. As a young woman she won a scholarship to Oxford studying Humanities.
<
She got into the wrong car at the wrong time. The boy she was with was over the legal limit and crashed the car. He died. She thought she was going to die too. Her internal injuries took months to heal. Her desire to study faded, and her wish to live and love were sorely tested. She no longer had a womb.
In the months it took her to recover from her injuries she dropped out of Uni and retreated into herself. The uninhibited shouting of kids at play outside her window brought her back out again. They saved her. She promised herself that she would give back to as many kids as she could: she would gift them with as much life and love as it was hers to give now that she could no longer create her own.
-
She saw how drunk the boy was and declined the offer of a lift in his car. She was forever sorry that he died in the crash, but was grateful for her education and she vowed to help kids like him to not throw their lives away.
She went to the boy’s funeral. She met her future husband and father to her children there. If not for that drunken fool they would never have met.
>
The children were a handful.
<
She had no children of her own, but brought love and laughter to those that she fostered and adopted. She never married, and, if asked, would have said that she didn’t have time for a partner, what with all the kids.
-
Her husband was kind and gentle and shared her belief that all children should have the as many opportunities as possible. They shared the hard work of adopting, fostering and parenting. She didn’t know how she had managed to be so lucky, and could not think of a world without him.
>
]
Brian looked at me with amazed tears in his eyes and a huge grin.
“Wow,” he said. “A girl.”