Jenny gasped, then whispered, “Hi, baby girl.” Tears filled up her eyes. Her arms tried to reach for the tiny girl, but of course Jenny’s wrists were still handcuffed.
I can never touch her, Jenny reminded herself. Never. The word “never” seemed painfully cold and heavy enough to crush her. Never.
Jenny gaped as they clamped and cut the cord and cleaned the baby, then weighed and measured her. The baby was tiny, as Jenny must have been when she was born, her eyes clenched shut as she howled and cried. Jenny winced as they stuck her foot for a blood sample.
“It’s okay, baby,” Jenny said. “You’re okay.”
Hearing Jenny speak up, the baby stopped crying for a moment and opened her tiny, crystal-blue newborn eyes. She looked in Jenny’s direction, and Jenny’s heart both melted and fell to pieces. This was her, the little one who’d been stirring in her stomach for so many months. A complete little person with little ears and feet.
“You’ll be okay,” Jenny said again, hoping that was true. She looked around to see if anyone else felt the same awe she did, but the medical staff seemed in a hurry to finish up and get out. The doctor was already stitching her up.
“Name?” asked the nurse who stood by the monitors outside her cube, who now held a digital tablet.
“Name?” Jenny asked, confused.
“The child’s name,” the nurse said, impatient. “For the records.”
“Oh.” Jenny’s mind was a blank. This was the kind of thing she should have spent months thinking about and talking over with Seth. Instead, she’d spent her entire pregnancy worrying whether the baby would live, and whether Jenny and the baby would ever escape this place, and whether she would ever see Seth again.
“What will you call her?” Ward asked. “I’m curious myself.”
Jenny scowled at him. “Miriam,” she said. It had been her mother’s name.
“Last name?” the nurse asked. “Morton?”
Jenny thought about it. “Barrett.”
“Middle name?”
She was at a loss. “Use Morton, I guess.” Jenny watched them lay the baby in an incubator, which looked like a scaled-down version of Jenny’s own cubic cell. “Can I...see her?” Jenny asked the nurse.
“You can’t get too close,” Dr. Parker said. “We don’t know whether she has any immunity to your touch. From what you’ve told us, it’s doubtful. Do you understand what that means?”
“How can we find out?” Jenny asked. “I don’t want to test it by touching her...”
“I’ll see how your blood samples interact, and we’ll go from there.” Dr. Parker nodded at the nurse, who wheeled the incubator toward the airlock door. The tiny baby, now named Miriam, squalled and reached a little hand back toward her mother.
“Where are you taking her?” Jenny asked, trying to sit up, even though the doctor was still stitching her. “Don’t take her away!”
“It’s for her own safety,” Dr. Parker said. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“But so soon?”
“They’re very vulnerable to disease at this stage. Their immune system hasn’t developed.”
Jenny nodded—she might hate everyone around her, but she knew Dr. Parker was right about that. “You’ll be okay,” Jenny said, feeling her throat close up. She said it again and again, as if repeating it would make it true, while the nurse wheeled the incubator away to the steel door set in the concrete wall of the laboratory. Jenny could hear the baby cry all the way out the door.
“When do I see her again?” Jenny asked.
“We’ll see,” Dr. Parker replied, not looking at her.
“Can they please bring her back? Just for a minute?” Jenny asked, but the doctor only shook her head. Jenny pulled at her restraints again. The lower half of her body was still numb and had just been through surgery, and everyone around her wore biohazard gear. She didn’t have a chance of fighting her way out.
Any remaining strength vanished from Jenny’s body. Her head flopped back on the bed, and she closed her eyes and let herself cry and cry, ignoring the final flurry of activity around her, ignoring whatever taunting words Ward said over the intercom. Eventually, everyone was finally gone, all the surgical equipment removed from her cell, and the lights were mercifully dimmed. Jenny lay in the dark, sobbing and aching and already missing the baby with all her soul, until the combination of painkillers and exhaustion finally overwhelmed her and dragged her down into darkness. She felt like she was drowning.