The Eve Genome

by Joanne Brothwell

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  I lifted my head to glance around the room. My neck was stiff and tender. The room was empty. “What about Eros? Was it on the news?”

  Kalan nodded. “No survivors. They’re investigating foul play. But so far, they’re saying it looks like ‘human error.’”

  My neck gave way and my head flopped down on the pillow. “Where’s Marcus?”

  “He’s fine. He’s getting coffee.”

  I stared at Kalan, to see if he was joking. Marcus stayed at the hospital? For me?

  “Where’s Tait?” I asked.

  A voice behind Kalan answered. “I’m right here.” Tait stepped into the room and went around the other side of my bed. He sat down beside me and grasped my hand. He squeezed it, a little too hard. “I didn’t mean the things I said. You know that, right?” Tait asked.

  “I think you meant it at the time,” I said.

  Tait shook his head, his mouth turned down at the corners. “No, I didn’t. I was angry. Angry at Marcus, for the way he used me. Angry at myself for allowing myself to be used that way. And angry at you, for constantly holding a mirror up in front of me so I had to face who I was. I didn’t want to face the truth about myself, and I wanted someone else to share in the humiliation and self-loathing I had at that moment. I was looking for an excuse to lash out at someone, and you just happened to be the person on the receiving end of it. I’m sorry.”

  “It didn’t take much to make my self-loathing kick in,” I said. “In fact, the self-loathing has been there every day, every second, every moment since I got that phone call.”

  “Adriana, you did nothing wrong,” Tait said. His eyes filled with moisture. “Analiese had her problems. She wasn’t always the best sister, and you weren’t either. None of us are perfect.”

  I choked up.

  “Will you accept my apology? For abandoning you at the worst possible moment? For being a horrible friend? For taking my pain out on my most loyal, trusted friend? Please, forgive me, Adriana. I’m an ass.”

  I chuckled, a strange sound mixed with a sob. “You’re forgiven, dummy.” I ruffled his hair. “Now stop looking at me like that. Or I’m going to start bawling, and I don’t want to do that. Did you know I have killer tears?”

  “Thank you.” Tait looked like he was barely containing his own tears. He glanced back at the door. “Look who else is here, lurking around.” Tait moved aside and Zoe came into view. She rushed to my bed.

  Zoe grabbed my hand and squeezed it, hard. “I came when you called, like you asked.”

  “Thanks.”

  Zoe peppered me with questions about how I was feeling, sometimes the same question over and over in that motherly way, as if she wasn’t convinced I felt as well as I claimed. To prove my point, I sat upright in the bed. It hurt like hell. Maybe it wasn’t just to prove it to her.

  “There. Satisfied?” I asked. She smiled and rolled her eyes.

  Tait’s eyes twinkled. “This is cause for celebration!” He held his hands above his head and spoke in a shrill, nasal tone, one of his many movie voices he liked to imitate. It had a very Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz sound to it.

  “As soon as party girl is ready,” Zoe said in the same high, nasal tone. She did jazz hands for effect.

  I smiled, but somehow, I didn’t think I’d be ready for the party scene for a while. Marcus walked through the door, and it was as if his presence cast a dark cloud over the room. He carried two coffees, one for himself, and one for Kalan. He handed Kalan his coffee.

  “Welcome back to the world of the living,” Marcus said.

  Tait stared at him, blue eyes intense, jaw set. “That’s my cue to leave.”

  Marcus turned his head to the side, his gaze impenetrable. “Whatever you need, sugar.”

  Tait’s nostrils flared and his face flushed hot pink. He didn’t respond, opting to turn his back on Marcus and leave the room. Zoe followed behind him.

  Marcus rolled his eyes and walked around to where Tait had stood moments before. “How’s our special girl?” he asked. How did Marcus manage to look and sound cocky no matter what he did?

  “Marcus, why are you so mean to Tait?” I asked, straight to the point. “He’s obviously in love with you, and yet, you can hardly bring yourself to be polite.”

  “Of course he’s in love with me.” Marcus took a gulp of his coffee. “I’m just adorable that way, I guess.”

  I scowled.

  Marcus laughed. “What? I speak the truth.”

  Kalan shook his head. “Maybe you shouldn’t speak. You’re moderately more tolerable that way.”

  I grasped Marcus’s forearm and pulled him down to me. Face-to-face. I stared him straight in the eye and spoke in a hushed tone, my fingers firm on his jaw. “I know you love him. Stop being such a jerk.”

  Marcus placed his hand on my shoulder and moved in to me so our faces were barely an inch apart. His eyes were hard and imperious. “I am not capable of love, Adriana. Please get that through your head because I’m not going to say it again.” His jaw muscle twitched as he waited for a counterchallenge. I didn’t respond.

  Kalan came around to Marcus’s side of the bed and his presence alone spoke volumes. Marcus stood upright and flashed us a big, fake smile. “See you two kids later.”

  With his typical arrogant swagger, Marcus strode out of the room. The dark cloud lifted.

  “Do you know what I’ve learned from Marcus?” I asked.

  Kalan mouth twisted into a wry smile. “What? That people are selfish and unpredictable? That they can be your enemy one minute and your ally the next, if it serves their purpose? I can’t imagine you’ve learned anything of value.”

  “I’ve learned there are no truly evil people,” I said. “The things we experience, the trauma and pain, it changes us, breaks us, irreparably. It’s the environment that causes us to behave poorly.”

  Kalan’s eyebrows rose. “Poor behavior barely covers the enigma that is Marcus. What about Malcolm? He’s evil personified.”

  I shook my head, and pain speared up through my neck. “Malcolm is an example of insecurity, indifference and ambition, all combined to make a person immune to the idea of morality. He’s not so much evil. He just has a complete lack of concern for anyone or anything other than his preoccupation,” I said. “His indifference keeps him safe, because he doesn’t have anyone in his life to worry about or to lose. But it keeps him from connecting with people. Like Genevieve. It keeps him utterly alone.”

  Kalan chewed on his bottom lip. “So the question is, was he born indifferent or did that part of him develop as a result of circumstances, being around a distant, alcoholic father who never approved?”

  “I would venture a guess that it was the circumstances in his life,” I said. “Have you ever met a child who didn’t respond to love and encouragement? Marcus’s need to push people away is also because of his trauma. He was rejected by your mother, and abused by his adoptive parents,” I said. “We can ask ourselves, would you or I be any different under those circumstances?”

  “Personality plays a part, too. Not everyone with mommy issues turns out to be a freak like Marcus,” Kalan said.

  “True. But doesn’t at least the foundation of our personality come from our genes? And don’t you and Marcus have the exact same genes?” I asked.

  Kalan chuckled. “You’re good. Did you study the Socratic Method, or what?”

  I smiled. “Of course. That was back in the days when I was thinking about going into Law School.”

  “Oh, Christ. I’d hate to be cross-examined by you,” Kalan said. “I’d get mesmerized by your beauty and then forget everything I was going to say.”

  “I would have made a terrible lawyer. But guess what? I think I finally know my major.”

  His brow quirked. “Oh?”

  “I want to know if there are more of us out there, like me, Analiese, your mother and you. And I wan
t to fully understand my mitochondria and its implications. I want to go into Genetic Sequencing,” I said.

  “Isn’t it a little too close to home?” Kalan asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. After all we’ve been through I can’t imagine that studying anything else would hold any interest for me.”

  “I can see why.” Kalan paused, and then opened his mouth again as if he was going to say something. Instead, he closed it.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  His lips pursed together. “You know the embryos are gone, right?”

  I nodded as I felt the familiar stinging in the back of my eyes. It was stupid. “They were never meant to be. I realize that now. They weren’t real people, and my trying to preserve them… It wasn’t about the embryos at all.”

  “What was it about?”

  I swallowed. “Keeping the embryos alive won’t bring Analiese back.”

  Kalan’s lips flattened, pressed together. “You’re right. I’m so sorry you lost her, Adriana. There was unfinished business between the two of you.”

  I blinked back tears. “Isn’t that the problem with life? Or, more accurately, death? We’ll always have unfinished business, things we’ve said, or didn’t say. Things we’ve done, regrets that will haunt us.”

  “I never got to know my mother at all,” Kalan said. “There were so many things I wanted to say to her. So many things I wanted to ask. Now, I’ll never get to.”

  I squeezed his hand. “Maybe one day you will?”

  His head jerked to look at me. “You still believe in Heaven, after all you’ve learned, all you know about genetics?”

  “If we don’t have Heaven, what do we have? A dirt hole? Worms to turn us back into dirt?” I shook my head. “I can’t accept that.”

  “So this is about hope and faith?” Kalan asked. He eyed me with a strange kind of intensity.

  “In the end, hope and faith is all we’ve got,” I said.

  “Wow.” He pushed a stray hair from my face. “I never would have predicted that following the decision to go into genetic sequencing you’d make a declaration of religious belief.”

  “I’m full of surprises, Kalan. Just wait.” I stroked the growth on Kalan’s jaw and savoured the downy softness. “There’s another contradiction I’ve come to grips with.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.” I hesitated. “I have realized through all of this that I need people. I spent my whole life wanting independence, to not need Analiese. When she died, I was lost, directionless. I couldn’t face life without the one person I’d spent nearly every day with, the person who was part of me. I realized then, it was a gift. We were created as one, and even though we’d split apart in utero, we were both one-half of the other. I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t face life without her by my side. I raged against both my need for independence and my weak, crippling need to depend on her.”

  “You are independent, Adriana. Look at what you’ve been through. If you were a weak, dependent person, you never would have gotten through it all.”

  Tears built up in my eyes once again. I didn’t fight them. “But don’t you understand? It’s not about that. I can have it both ways.”

  “I don’t get it,” Kalan said.

  I giggled, a strange choking sound from the tears gathered in the back of my throat. “I need people. I need to lean on others as much as I need to be able to stand on my own two feet. There’s no requirement in the rulebook of life that says we must be able to withstand life’s pressures and pain by ourselves. This is what I’ve come to understand. I’m allowed to need other people, for my survival, and it’s not some kind of weakness or flaw. It’s human nature. Just like our need to rely on the idea of Heaven, despite not having any evidence to prove its existence.”

  “I’m happy you’ve figured this all out—”

  “Kalan,” I interrupted, “What I’m trying to say is… I need you. I need you, more than I wanted to admit out loud. But after everything that has happened, I don’t care anymore. Life’s too short to deny our true feelings. I need you so much, it hurts.”

  Kalan’s whole frame slumped forward, and he gently laid his head on my chest. “I can hear your heartbeat.”

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Heat built up in my cheeks.

  Kalan pulled back to look at me, his eyes glossy. “I don’t know what to say. That my heart is beating so fast right now I feel like it’s going to jump out of my chest? That I feel like running around this room and screaming at the top of my lungs? Words don’t describe what I feel right now.”

  I looked up at him. “Try.”

  “I don’t know what to do, how to deal with these feelings. We’re related. What does that mean for us? I’ve spent the majority of my life thinking only sick, banjo-playing hillbillies were incestuous. People who grew up in the sticks and never left. But now, I’m in love with my cousin. Now I’m one of them.”

  If he didn’t look so dejected, I would have chuckled. “We’re not brother and sister. We’re what—second cousins?”

  He shrugged, his shoulders curled. “Does it matter? We’re still related.” Kalan yodeled the dueling banjo riff from the movie Deliverance. “It’s sick. Isn’t it?”

  It was a legitimate question, not a rhetorical one. “Says who? God? That’s where most incest laws come from, the Bible. But I think we know those Biblical rules were a way to prevent people from marrying and having babies with hereditary diseases. Clearly Malcolm has no such concerns. Hell, that was his master plan all along. Consanguineous.”

  Kalan’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t even hear that man’s name without wanting to punch the wall.”

  I grabbed his hand, which was shaking. “Under normal circumstance, incest is wrong. But we aren’t in this world because of normal circumstances. We’ve never met before. We’re distantly related. And if there is a question of abnormal children, there are ways to prevent that, aren’t there?”

  “You’d give up having babies to be with me?” Kalan didn’t blink as he waited for my response.

  I brought his hand to my lips and kissed his fingers. “I would give up a lot for you. You can’t even imagine how much I’d give up, just to be with you.”

  Kalan closed his eyes, his head dropping down to my chest once again. “Oh, God. How did I get so lucky?”

  I kissed the top of his head this time, the scent of hair like cedar and musk mixed together. “I’m the lucky one.”

  “Adriana, you are my life. All I’ve ever wanted was a family, people to validate me, confirm that I’m real, that I belong. But what I’ve come to realize is that blood isn’t what binds people together. It’s love. It’s sounds cliché and hokey, I know, but I don’t care.” Kalan blinked rapidly. “You are my family now.”

  “Now I’m speechless,” I said.

  Kalan lay down beside me and snuggled in so we were face-to-face. I suddenly wondered what I looked like to him right now, horizontal, in a hospital bed, a white hospital gown on, white hospital sheets. The image of Adriana’s cold, white body flashed through my mind.

  “Do you think Malcolm had something to do with Analiese’s body going missing?” I asked.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind,” Kalan said. “But how it happened, where her body went in the interim, and why it was gone in the first place will bug me until the day I die.”

  “Me, too.” I pushed her image from my thoughts, and focused back on the here and now, on Kalan, on life.

  He stroked my hair from my head all the way down my back. A shiver ran through me. He pressed his lips to mine. It was a gentle, chaste kiss, and all the oxygen left my lungs. I craved more. When Kalan moved away, I pulled him back onto the bed.

  “We’re in a hospital here,” Kalan’s voice vibrated through my lips.

  “Does it look like I care?” I smiled and wrapped my arms around his waist.

  “Not really.” Kalan kissed me again.

 
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  Stealing Breath

  Beware those with the Stealing Breath…

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  Will Sarah succeed in rescuing Evan from the Malandanti?

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  A Twisted Fairy Tale:

  Forest of the Forsaken: The Witch’s Snare

  An eerie adult twist on Hansel and Gretel.

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  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my husband and my children, who patiently listen to the problems of my fictional people. I’d like to give a special thank you to my brainiac big brother, Dr. Doug Brothwell, for helping me piece together science that is way over my head. Thanks to Joanne, Tanjia and Dorothy for giving me insight into what an emergency room situation would look (and smell) like. To Karyn Good, Diane Rinella, Rebecca Florizone, Jefferson Smith and Heather Sowalla who agreed to take a look at an earlier draft and were polite enough not to crush my self-esteem. To Karen Rought, for lightning-fast editing. To Ravven, for her stunningly gorgeous cover art. I have never seen another cover that comes even close.

  And most of all, I'd like to thank my readers. You are loyal, and I am so happy you took a chance on me and purchased my work. Thank you!

  JOANNE BROTHWELL

  JOANNE BROTHWELL lives in the country on the Canadian prairie with her family where her stories are inspired by the dead things that appear at her doorstep on a daily basis.