Signing Day

*birth-loans are a type of loan designed to help parents afford the genetic modification of their children.

At the news of their *birth-loan's approval, Hazel orders woodland wallpaper for her nursery. She adds family heirlooms. A worn jewelry box, gifted from a favorite uncle. Her great aunt’s cross-stitch of Peter Rabbit eating a carrot from Mr. McGregor’s garden. Her grandmother’s hickory rocking chair, so inexplicably comfortable despite its wooden frame.

She purchases the crib and the changing table; all else are items that have traversed generations, unaltered generations.

It snows the day Hazel and her husband are to sign the paperwork. Both parents’ signatures are required so her husband works from home in order to drive them. He insists on going together.

Hazel waits in the nursery.

She lifts the lid of the jewelry box. It plays a tinny version of Greensleeves as it reveals a tarnished silver, heart-shaped locket. Her Teddy looks on from the rocking chair with one wiggly eye, a nose rubbed raw, and a frayed hat. She places the locket in the palm of one hand, lifts Teddy from the rocking chair with the other, takes a seat, and hugs him close. He fits the contours of her chest as she rocks him…

… back and forth, back and forth.

Who will this baby be? Hazel wonders.

She knows he will be a he because her husband selected that first. Outside of that, she knows more about who her son won’t be.

She knows he won’t be like her first cousin on her mother’s side, Eddie, whose lactose intolerance meant she always had sherbet instead of ice cream growing up and later became a star at dinner parties for her dairy-free desserts. Nor would he be like her older sister, Mel who suffers from crippling anxiety that leaves her housebound for weeks. Though she always emerges with some newfound literary prowess manifest in the form of a short story or latest novella. Having selected the balance and grace afforded a dancer, Hazel knows her son won’t be like her most hilarious uncle, Jansen, known for his pratt falls at family gatherings. A mistake perhaps, since it was due to one such clumsy misstep that he met his wife, her Godmother and favourite aunt.

Her grandmother’s chair teeters back and forth, back and forth.

Hazel knows her son is slated to have blue eyes, to offset his jet black hair guaranteed to create a “noticeably striking appearance”. Hazel was named for her eyes at birth. Her mother knew her name upon first sight. Their expectant son’s “premium packaged” blue irises do not help Hazel’s naming efforts.

Nails on the floorboards click-clack as Hazel’s shabby rescue mutt, Shayna lolls into the nursery. Shayna spins in a circle, once, twice before flopping down at Hazel’s feet. Her husband isn’t fond of Shayna. He tolerates her. They tolerate each other. Shayna is still her late husband's dog.

Hazel remarried well for a widow her age and is now able to afford her child the privilege she lacks. Still, she imagines having the baby the way her aunt describes it, raw and painful, somehow more earned.

She considers her late husband’s cabin at the base of the mountain, left to her. She’s not told her husband about the property yet. She abides by her mother’s last advice, to trust the voice that tells a woman not to share certain information with a man, no matter the man. This part of herself she keeps to herself, for herself.

Shayna’s tail instinctively gives a little wag. It pats the floor.

It is about a four-hour drive to the mountain. Five hours or so by bus. Perhaps longer given the road conditions, but how long on foot?

Shayna starts to twitch and run in her sleep. She makes a low, muffled would-be bark. Hazel smiles. She's decided that when this happens Shayna is playing catch with her late husband somewhere, on some other plane unbeknownst to them, yet.

She turns her attention to the crib. Its white lining reminds her of his casket. She ups the pace in her rocking chair...

... back, forth, back, forth, back, forth.

If she refuses to sign, the child will be unable to compete in educational institutions and eventually the marketplace. They will be socially outcast and seen as less than. Her husband’s conditions are clear. No birth-loan, no baby. Her prescreened embryos are “lacking” and he is intent on giving his son the best chance in life. Nothing short of which is an option.

Are the embryos even hers still? Or does his financial investment give him an equal claim? An investment he stresses ought to be thought of as a student loan, or mortgage, as a ‘good debt’. In Hazel’s experience, there is no such thing.

Her husband calls up from below. “Come. It’s time.”

Hazel stops rocking.

She eases herself up, replaces Teddy in his groove and pockets her heart-pendant. At the doorway, she turns back, takes in the empty crib, and tells a whimpering Shayna to stay.