Harvesting Ashwood Minnesota 2037 (37 page)

Later a special dinner of lobster and filet was set up for us in our suite on a table with linens and candles. We decided to dress up. I pinned my hair high on my head, glad my natural auburn color still had shine, wore make-up and a midnight blue dress he liked. My city look, the kids would say. While we waited for dinner, we spoke about our kids’ adjustment to Andrew and life in general at Ashwood. I shared pictures and stories.

“Tell me about my parents’ Stolen Children campaign.” David leaned back in his chair, ginger ale filling his wine glass. Chardonnay, not a good label, gave me an artificial sense of well-being.

“So you know about the scandal?”

“I was briefed during the return flight. Damn rude shock. Are you getting pressure from the Bureau to have the case dropped?” He leaned forward, picked up a roll. “I’ve been called by four highly placed DOE officials. And I’m supposed to be off-limits.”

“Did you understand that the issue is about mismanagement of the entire surrogate program—from what happened to surrogates like me to stealing embryos like yours?” His eyes narrowed, suggesting I was bringing a new perspective to the story. “You didn’t say how you feel about all of this.”

He stopped buttering a roll. “Betrayed. Knowing my children were taken and hidden from me definitely changes how I approach life and this job.” Like his father, David threw off powerful energy as he spoke about these children.

“It’s been difficult talking to our kids about this—first I had to explain Andrew’s arrival, and then the media story about the embryos began. We may be the only couple caught in both parts of the Bureau’s fiasco.” I sensed a lack of empathy when I mentioned Andrew and suspected David felt reparation had been made with returning my son. “If it wasn’t for his parents’ deaths, Andrew would be as stolen from me as your children. And I carried him for an entire pregnancy,” I added. “It might seem like all has been made right, but I feel deeply mistreated.”

As if weeks of isolation now placed David on his own emotional island, his thoughts and words focused on his feelings.

“No one will tell me anything about my three children who were not covered in the investigative report. I don’t know where they live or what they look like. All I’ve been told is that there are four boys and two girls, all enrolled in the gifted offspring program.” He licked his lips, shook his head. “I wish to God they had normal intelligence and were not of interest to the fucking Bureau of Human Capital Management.”

“David, your father blames Milan for the cover-up.” Creases above his right eye suggested I missed a step. “Milan says he was not aware that all the children he guardians were Regan offspring until he was notified that an investigative journalist had started working on the story. He had suspicions as the children began developing similar physical features, but nothing else. Your parents won’t believe him, called him a complete phony.”

He whistled low. “You believe Milan?” I nodded. “I think you’re right. He’s saved our butts and intervened on Phoebe’s behalf more than once. I think he’s got our family’s well-being at heart. Especially when it involves you or Phoebe.”

I reached out to touch his hand. “No one from the Bureau has talked with me, and I have no legal rights as far as the six Regan children. Your parents felt they needed to start action on behalf of their rights as grandparents.” He didn’t respond to my touch. I sat back.

David pulled back his hand, copied my action and sat tall in this chair. “You and I are meeting with a public relations and media consultant tomorrow. I intend to be in the middle of the legal activity.” He picked up his glass. “Agreed?”

“I’ll totally support you with the understanding that I want what’s best for the kids.” I spoke softly, aware that David might find my words disloyal. “They could be with terrific parents and have very good lives that this lawsuit would change.” He closed his eyes. I hoped he didn’t close his ears. He didn’t challenge what I said, so I continued. “If I could be sure we were looking out for the children, not just for what we adults want, then I’m with you all. Horrific wrongs were done to all of us. I just can’t universally accept that the kids would be better off at this age becoming part of their biological families and living with people they’ve never met along with a gang of other traumatized kids.”

David’s lips curved into a small smile, an almost sad acknowledgment that what I said was true. “You’ve always understood kids. I don’t want to hurt anyone either.” His hand moved back and forth across the table edge. “But I do want my kids to know who they really are and to be compensated for what was done to them. Maybe they could be released from gifted-offspring work commitments or given the opportunity to become active members of their biological families.”

His words sounded exploratory while his face remained assertive. “I don’t know what should be done, but I won’t let the government decide that without my rights also being acknowledged.”

“The oldest kids involved are older than Andrew—almost twelve years old. I’ll support the lawsuit only if we protect their rights.” I held up my glass as if to salute our common interest. “But I warn you that right now your father and mother are on the romantic road, with the goal of having all their grandchildren brought together for your mother’s seventieth birthday party on the family ranch in South Dakota.”

He raised his glass and we clinked hotel stemware. He put his down, rose, and took my glass away. “I want us to have a baby, Annie. A free child like John who won’t be part of all this educational and institutional bullshit. Maybe two.”

He pulled me to my feet. “Let’s make our second free child now.” We left lobster and candles as he led the way to the bedroom. I felt conflicted, desiring David but anxious about the aura of power he exuded. He closed the door, locked it from within, and turned to me like a man afraid of losing what was standing beyond his hands.

David ignored the pins that would loosen my hair and pulled at my dress. He used no words, wanted me naked faster than the dress would fall, was on top of me. I struggled at first, then accepted his passion and tried to meet his rhythm. He climaxed quickly, a low groan filling the room.

His arms spread on either side of my head, his face lowered to the bed. I lay trapped under his body, still in my dress, one foot dangling off the bed. His weight, a familiar quilt in our regular lovemaking, became heavy in this odd mating experience. David rolled away, pulled me next to his body, him lying on his injured shoulder. Within five minutes I heard the normal deep breathing of his sleep. Candles still burned in the other room. I had no inclination to sleep.

David gave a muffled protest as I eased out of his hold. He turned on me, eyes wide open. “No,” he said and rolled us over.

“No,” I echoed. “Give us some time.” He backed off. I relaxed. “Just sleep. I need to clean up, wash off my makeup.”

He mumbled something and rolled back to his side, eyes closing while his body remained tight. Moving carefully from the bed, I removed my dress, hung it in the closet, pulled on the hotel bathrobe. In the living room I turned off the lights, picked up my dinner plate, and sat at the window, where I stared at the city while I finished my meal.

When his sleep moved into a second hour, I showered and put on comfortable clothes before curling up on the uncomfortable hotel sofa to think about how our individual experiences of captivity might change our relationship. Around ten I stored the extra dinner rolls and fruit in my suitcase and called room service to have the table removed. I thought of sitting in the hotel lobby to watch those with social engagements wander in and out. While I finished the wine, my thoughts became caught on how life might have been had we lived here—where we would work and live, where the children would attend school.

I fell asleep on the sofa, like a child watching out the front window for Santa. After twelve I awoke and returned to the bedroom. David slept on the floor wrapped in blankets and a sheet from the bed, back against a wall. The surface wounds I thought well-healed showed me nothing of my husband’s real injuries. I made myself a nest of pillows on the king-size bed, covered myself with the bathrobe, and ever so gently rocked myself to sleep.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The road to emotional recovery has fewer milestones than a healing cut, even one that’s deeply infected. The next day, David and I worked with the publicist comfortably, as we had worked with other projects in the past. Tia may have fought the hijacking of her babies just on the principle that someone stole her property. David entered the fight as a father deeply concerned about the abuse of his children’s rights.

Our evening turned hellish. David wouldn’t eat, walked our suite incessantly as a storm developed. The sky darkened and large raindrops splattered on our window. At seven o’clock, he insisted I join him behind the locked bedroom door. He undressed, stalked me around the room until we called it a night. Once again he made love to me with a rhythm that I couldn’t join. I slept with him in his floor nest.

On the fourth night, as his medications began to take effect, we stayed in bed, awake, my arms tight around his tensed body. I returned home on the fifth day after wandering Washington alone by day and managing David’s ever-changing mental landscape by night.

Four weeks passed before David called me back to accompany him home. He took public transport to the airport to meet me. We spent a day in the city, visiting the White House and eating at a seafood restaurant. The next morning we boarded a DOE-chartered flight to Minnesota. Sweat formed on David’s forehead as the plane landed. He hesitated as the door opened. But he walked off on his own, one hand in mine.

He’d left alone on a warm September day and he returned with me on a cloudy, cold November afternoon. He tired quickly as the kids’ excitement rolled along and the puppy barked and his parents waited for their turn to feel David’s arms around their shoulders. Only I knew that David’s Pentagon therapist had contracted with Dr. Frances to stay at Ashwood and add him to her private clients.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, we held a small birthday party for both Paul and Phoebe. That morning David and I found his father sitting on the wooden foyer bench. Since the estate invasion, he always looked tired. This year I insisted he take the fields’ quiet season as a time of rest. He chose to use his energy to further the Stolen Children cause. Finding us together, Paul began to complain.

“Our attorney wants to be released. His law firm doesn’t know if they can afford to run without his billable time for the next two to three years.” Paul sighed, then coughed. “Some of our group may not be alive to see this thing resolved, and our grandchildren aren’t getting younger. What the hell is it going to take to shake sense into these bureaucratic idiots?”

“We knew that this could take years of court filings,” I said as I sat down next to him. “What’s upset you this morning?”

“I woke up feeling old. I woke up and realized I’d never know what all my grandchildren look like. I don’t care if they don’t ever see this old puss of mine, but it eats at me that I wouldn’t recognize them on the street. It just got me down.”

“You two find Sarah and wait in our family quarters.” I stood. “Don’t you dare go into the dining room or kitchen or you’ll wreck the birthday surprises.” I went to find holographic images Milan sent months earlier with strict confidentiality provisions. The little red-haired girl would surprise all of them. I hoped they would understand that these were six unique individuals, not rubber-stamped Regans.

David and his parents waited, totally unprepared for what I carried. “Paul, I know how you feel about Milan, but he took a significant risk to share something with me. Nothing about what you are going to see can ever be discussed outside this room. Do I have your word?”

Paul blustered about Milan and not wanting to give his word to a government lackey, now too frequent a tirade. “It’s simple, Paul. Either you play by the rules or I go back to my office.”

“Shut up, old man. I want to see what Annie has,” Sarah said. Paul sat down.

They accepted the confidentiality agreement with their thumbprints. I handed over the holograms-six snippets from the lives of six youngsters living in five very different households around the country. The tears and exclamations that followed sounded like a family welcoming a newborn home. Everyone, including Paul and David, hypothesizing about these children’s futures based on less than two minutes of images.

Sarah finally stood, hugged me. “You dear, dear daughter. This is Paul’s greatest birthday gift. How smart you were to hold these for just the right time.”

“I don’t want to give them back,” Paul said. “Let me keep them in our room for a few days.”

As stubborn and crafty as my father-in-law proved himself in this battle with the Bureau, I couldn’t take that risk. I held out my hands. David handed the storage cube with the six images to me.

“Actually, I think I’m the one who is the most thrilled,” he said. “When I asked Annie to support my involvement with this lawsuit, she pointed out that this needed to be about what is best for these kids. I didn’t want to understand what she was saying.” He paused. “But it is worth a hell of a lot to see that their lives look good. Not that I’m ready to give up fighting to be part of their lives, but I feel assured that Milan is exerting a good influence and that they are doing well.”

“Before I leave to put these away, I have one more thing to say.” Paul looked like he wanted to disagree with David. Sarah had tears in her eyes. They all listened to me with different threads of thought coloring their receptivity. “This needs to be kept among this group of adults for at least the next month.” Sarah’s sadness appeared to lift, and she jostled Paul’s arm. “I’m pregnant.”