to talk as married couples and life partners do, even though I hadn’t felt like a partner for some time. “El?”
“I heard you,” I said.
“So? When are you going to do it?”
It.
This single word covers all kinds of sins, from backseat gropes after a high school dance, to putting the dog down when he’s too old and too needy, to taking a fetus from a woman’s belly. Sex, euthanasia, abortion. All conveniently collected under the umbrella of It.
Our conversation took turns, doubling back on itself, coming full circle. An hour later, Malcolm hadn’t budged from his original position, or really said anything other than reminding me of what we discussed, of how utterly selfish it would be to bring a baby into the world only to watch her struggle and suffer while she tried to claw her way to a level she couldn’t possibly attain. He showed me pictures of the future, reminding me of Q scores and college admissions boards, of how no one would want a girl with a lower-than-average quotient.
“She’ll end up with nothing,” Malcolm said. “Or she’ll get someone like that kid who used to follow you around in school. Jack something.”
“Joe,” I corrected. “He was a nice guy, you know.”
“Nice doesn’t cut it anymore, El. Q matters. You know that.”
I did, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to think about Joe, or what happened afterward. I didn’t want to think about more tests and more Q numbers and the possibility of ever doing that again.
Malcolm rose from the table, taking the rest of the plates into the kitchen. Our conversation was over, and I sat alone reading through a long list of pregnancy management services on the back of the Q testing literature while Malcolm, who was supposed to be my partner in all things, presterilized dinner dishes with his back to me.
And there were no more postdinner talks. The next morning, I drove into town for my appointment at one of the Genics Institute’s prenatal clinics. It was well before they rolled out WomanHealth, before Petra Peller took things to a new level. Behind a dozen or so women, walls of green and yellow, verdant and sunshiny colors, set off posters of perfect families—perfect hair, perfect bleached teeth, perfect skin. Nowhere in the room were photographs of babies, only of grown children, and the usual stacks of pamphlets advertising formula or offering free samples of diapers were noticeably absent.
Everything from the decor to the reading material was targeted at women who would never see the inside of a delivery room.
And then there was the chatter:
“If they tell me its Q is one-hundredth of a point lower than nine-point-five, I’m getting rid of it,” said a pale woman behind her mask of painstakingly applied cosmetics. “Just like I did the last time.”
“Thank God it’s so quick now,” said the twenty-something next to her. “Wouldn’t it be great if manicures were that fast?” They both laughed.
As they traded phone numbers and emails, insisting their five-year-old whiz kids really must get together for a playdate one of these days, the door behind the receptionist’s cubicle swung open. A woman walked out, clutching an envelope close to her rather ample midpregnancy bosom. She had wisps of gray curling around her temples and faint feather lines at the edges of her lips. Easily forty, I thought. Maybe older. Ms. Perfect Makeup and Ms. Manicure looked her up and down, following the woman as she crossed the waiting room and exited hurriedly through the street door.
“What was she thinking?” Ms. Makeup said. “At her age.”
“I wouldn’t even try it after thirty-five,” the other one came back. “No way.”
“They’re saying now that even thirty is too late. I was reading this article the other day, and—”
“Saw it. Way too much science for me.”
I’d read the article, too, because Malcolm had left the magazine open on my pillow one night. A subtle hint and convenient timing, given we’d had yet another postdinner talk about the geometric decline of a baby’s Q score as the mother’s age increased.
The women stopped their conversation long enough to