A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,82

you … what you need,” Elm said. She reached into her purse and took out the envelope with Ronan’s DNA samples. She had to force herself to hand them over, these pieces of her son. And it seemed impossible that this envelope would re-create Ronan, that this doctor had the gift of necromancy. And yet, she clung to the hope that he did.

“I don’t have the cash. I’ll need to … move some things around.”

Michel accepted the envelope. “I’ll get Pierre to drive you back. When you send in the first installment, we will let you know if the DNA extraction is successful. Then we can talk about the next step.”

As the driver wound back through the small towns of the rural countryside, Elm’s relief began to take on a more anxious edge. Where was she supposed to get the money? She could cash in her 401(k), but that would cover only the down payment. Even if she were somehow able to convince Colin that this was a good idea, they would be able to scrape together maybe fifty thousand dollars. They could sell the apartment, she guessed. She clenched and unclenched her fists until the car dropped her off back at the hotel.

There was one other way to get money, but it seemed so farfetched that Elm couldn’t even consider it. Or could she? Presumably, she could do it on the sly. And it wasn’t illegal, exactly. Not the most moral decision, but a victimless crime, like the cloning. And then the decision felt inevitable, a force moving with the laws of nature propelling it forward. It was desperate, yes, but she was desperate. Consideration to decision lasted a surprisingly short time. When she got back to the hotel, she didn’t even put her purse down before she took out the card and dialed the number Augustus Klinman had given her.

“I have a proposition,” she said.

Colin spent more than a minute unlocking the door. It was after ten p.m. Elm sat on the couch watching a Law and Order episode she’d already seen. She’d been back from Paris for two weeks, but had somehow never found the proper time, or adequate words, to tell him the details of her trip.

He stumbled a bit on the entry rug before he noticed Elm looking at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have rung. Were you worried?”

Elm could hear the descending chords in the background, signaling a change of scene. Was the jury back in? Was there a development at the precinct? She fought the urge to turn her attention back to the television.

“I’ve had the longest fecking day,” he said, throwing his jacket on the chair and kicking off his shoes. He came around to sit next to Elm, taking her feet in his lap. She hadn’t changed since coming home from work, and her feet were still stockinged. She wiggled her toes but he didn’t rub them.

He smelled faintly of alcohol and sweat; tired, stale sweat, like being in an airless meeting all day, which was probably what he had been doing before he went to a bar, either alone or with people from work. She didn’t care that he drank, only that it was an activity he embarked on without her. It was another distancing factor.

“What happened?” she asked. Guilty, the foreman said. The television defendant burst into tears, mouthing, Why? Why? at the startled jury. The credits began to scroll on the right of a split screen. The other half plugged the nightly news.

“Can we talk about it in the morning?” he asked, turning to her. His face was so forlorn, so utterly exhausted, that it reminded her of the morning he had arrived in Bangkok, soulless and failed.

“Okay,” she said. Then a pause. “No, you have to tell me now.”

“It’s not bad,” he said. “Can we leave it, Elm? Need a kip. A little pissed, I am. I’ll look in on the beanbag?”

“Just let her sleep,” Elm said. “Tell her you looked in on her and she slept through it.”

In the early morning, Elm woke up to the sound of Colin peeing long into the toilet, and then the hinge of the medicine cabinet where he was probably taking something for a headache. Then she heard the whir of the electric toothbrush.

The bed began to grow cold. Elm stretched, and suddenly, she wanted Colin. “Come back to bed,” she called.

“In a minute,” he said. “I want to shower.”

This was marriage, then, she thought. Sublimated desire, delayed