Chapter 24: Starting Over

IT WASN’T MY FINEST HOUR. I’d wanted a child ever since we got married and Elizabeth kept rejecting the idea with a “Not Yet.” Then when I couldn’t have children, she’d become insatiable and determined to have a child. In the worst way.

“So, that’s why you wanted Evelyn and Jack to live here under our protection,” I sighed. “So you could seduce Jack and have his baby. How are you going to explain that to Evelyn? She trusted you.”

“You horrid animal!” Elizabeth snapped, going from sweet to harridan in 0.2 seconds. “I would never cheat on you! You unfeeling clod! If I’m pregnant, it’s yours.”

“How can it be mine? Doc! Are you saying the virus is spontaneously reversing itself?” I demanded of Dr. Simpson.

“Kindly refer to our daughter as ‘she’ and not ‘it!’ What kind of father are you going to be?” Elizabeth shouted.

“You’re sure it’s a she already? How do you know?” I yelled back.

“You wanted a daughter. Of course we’ll have a daughter.” A daughter. That was different than having a baby. Yes, I’d always wanted a little girl. I thought about baby Lily and me being her Uncle Ramsey as we danced around the room.

“For that matter, you said only if she’s a daughter, too. But how can we be sure?” I asked. I was definitely softening. Who really cared if the baby was mine or Jack’s? It wasn’t like I was being shorted in bed and Jack was in space.

“I’m not far enough along yet to get an ultrasound. We just need to have faith,” she said. I got near enough to pull her into my arms and hold her.

“I am going to be a terrible father, aren’t I? The first thing I do when I find out is accuse my wife of cheating. I know you wouldn’t cheat on me. I’m terribly happy we’re pregnant.”

“Oh, Ramsey, what are we going to do? They’ll have you tied up like Jack and Sheila will be collecting from you.”

“You are the only one who is going to collect anything from me. In fact, maybe I should make another deposit right now.”

“Oh, Rams, I love you.”

“I love you, Elizabeth.”

“Excuse us,” Doc Simpson said. “We should run a couple of tests.”

“I already peed on the stick,” Elizabeth said dreamily.

“I meant on Ramsey. I take it you gave him the invigorator I gave you,” Simpson said.

“The invigorator? You mean that piss and vinegar concoction you’ve been working on? I’ve never taken that,” I said.

“Well, that’s not exactly true,” Elizabeth said slyly. “I couldn’t get you to take it over Thanksgiving when we were in DC and everything was crazy. But then you and Jack came home and we celebrated the next weekend.”

“I remember getting sick that weekend.”

“I doctored your drinks with the solution,” Elizabeth said. “It worked.”

“You had to have been giving it to him for at least thirty days for it to potentially work,” Simpson said. “I’ll have to run tests on all my experimental subjects.”

“I knew I’d only get one chance, so I gave him the whole bottle that weekend,” Elizabeth confessed.

“You poisoned me?” I said.

“It just made you a little upset,” Elizabeth defended herself. “It was no worse than the kind of hangover you had the day after Jack left.”

“I felt like I was going to die,” I moaned.

“I’m surprised you didn’t,” Simpson said. “That had to be a near-fatal dose. Elizabeth, you should only dispense drugs according to the doctor’s instructions.”

“But look! It worked!” Elizabeth said. “We’re pregnant. He isn’t dead. We can have as many babies as we want!”

I gave a sperm sample—with Elizabeth’s kind help. Simpson went directly to his lab and verified my sperm was viable. Estimating the times of administration of the invigorator, time for sperm to mature in the epididymis, and the beginning of Elizabeth’s hormonal swings, Dr. Reynolds determined the fetus was only a month old. That meant we could keep the conception secret until Simpson managed to administer the superdose to his other experimental volunteers and repeated my success.

Now that Evelyn knew her husband was safe and orbiting, she moved back into their apartment to happily tend a growing Lily. She had spatial phone sex with her husband each day. He faithfully put at least one vial of sperm a day into the cryogenic chamber. As a special precaution, Simpson collected a vial of my sperm (with Elizabeth’s assistance) each day and placed it in cryogenic suspension as well. It didn’t seem to affect my ability to deposit more with Elizabeth on a regular basis.

Mattie continued to live in the guest room as happy to help redecorate ‘the baby’s room’ as she was answering my email in the basement office. And we actually made progress on my book while I continued to write local stories for the Orlando News. I still cringe each time Ed’s dark shadow falls across my desk.

“When are you going to break the big story,” Ed demanded.

“Yeah. About that, Ed. There are problems,” I started to explain.

“My office. Now,” Ed said as he walked away. Over the office door the world population counters continued to go down. I followed Ed inside.

“Chief, I don’t want to get caught up the way Jack was. If we break this before the invigorator is available to a mass market, I’d be the only subject on earth, just like Jack was. We don’t want to go through that,” I said.

“Mmmhmm. FDA.”

“They don’t even want to talk about it. Simpson is a backwater quack who hasn’t even received government funding for his research—their words, not mine—and they aren’t about to waste time testing all the solutions every crackpot in the world comes up with.”

“So, release the recipe.”

“Simpson wouldn’t get anything out of that.”

“What’s more important? His bank account or the human race?”

“Depends on who you talk to. If it was tested by the FDA and released through a pharmaceutical company, they’d make billions.”

“And how much would Dr. Simpson make of that? The great cures of the world like insulin and the polio vaccine were given away.”

“But they were tested and approved.”

“So, once people start making their own, the government will jump in and test it, too.”

“I’ll talk to Simpson.”

Doc Simpson was more than amenable to the prospect. He’d seen enough of what happened to Jack that he wasn’t eager to step into the public spotlight. Surprisingly, it was Mattie who solved the issue.

“We have the internet,” she said. “And Mr. Smith has the newspaper. If you can show successful impregnation and viable sperm in more subjects than Mr. Smith, you can simply release the data and the recipe in the newspaper and on the internet. From what you’ve described, a talented cook could mix the invigorator up in a blender. Drink it down and everything is back to normal.”

“What she says is true, Ramsey,” Simpson said. “The ingredients are all available in a grocery store.”

“Do you want this all associated with your name?” I asked. “There could be some kickback.”

“No. I do this for humanity, not for myself. Besides, if it’s misused or overdosed, there is a high possibility of death. That should slow things up a bit and I don’t want my name associated with that.”