The Panic Zone

23

Big Cloud, Wyoming

Several days after her breakdown at the county sheriff’s office, Emma sat in Wally Bishop’s office at Silver Range Insurance downtown.

“Thanks to your uncle’s help, we’ve expedited the claims. Never saw anything move so fast.” Bishop made little Xs on the documents he’d slid toward Emma, then passed her a monogrammed fountain pen. “I need you to sign here and here.”

But Emma was looking at the great gray owl mounted on Bishop’s wall and thinking back to last year when she sat here with Joe, updating their policies. All the way home, he’d gone on about how much he liked that owl because neither one of them wanted to hear another word about death benefits.

We’ve got a lot of living ahead of us, Em. But if I go first you can stuff me like that owl.

“Emma?”

Uncle Ned pulled her attention back to the business before her: paperwork for a check for $225,000 for Joe’s life insurance, and one for $25,000 for Tyler.

Emma gripped the pen, took a deep breath, held it and signed for the larger check. When she poised it over the signature line for Tyler’s, she froze.

“Is there a problem?” Bishop asked.

“I can’t sign for Tyler.”

Because I don’t believe he’s dead.

Bishop’s focus shifted to her aunt and uncle, then back to Emma.

“Emma,” Aunt Marsha said. “We know it’s hard but you have to sign.”

“The second one can wait,” Uncle Ned said. “We’ll deposit the bigger check today and deal with the second claim later, okay, Wally?”

“Of course, I understand,” Bishop nodded. “This is never easy.”

On the drive to the bank, Emma said nothing.

She had spent the past few days battling the grief, fear and rage that swirled around her. She was nearing an abyss, slipping closer toward its yawning black jaws.

Was she losing her mind?

“Emma? Are you expecting a delivery?”

Delivery?

Aunt Marsha’s question had startled her.

They had left the bank but every aspect of their time there-sitting in the manager’s office, accepting condolences, dealing with the large check-had not registered with Emma. She had been submerged in her thoughts of Tyler. Now, she recognized that they had returned to her house, and her aunt and uncle were curious about a van that had arrived at the same time.

“Looks like a courier,” Uncle Ned said.

After parking, he went to the driver’s door and signed for receipt of an envelope then passed it to Emma. She opened it to find a large, plain, sealed brown envelope marked “Confidential to Emma Lane.”

She opened it and withdrew a white business letter and immediately recognized the sender’s letterhead.

“What is it, Emma?” Aunt Marsha asked.

“It’s from my doctor.”

“The one who treated you at the hospital?”

“No, I’ll open it inside.”

The letter was from Dr. Glen Durbin, her obstetrician and gynecologist.

Sitting on her living room sofa, she read,

Dear Emma:

Please accept my sincere condolences for the tragic deaths of your husband, Joe, and son, Tyler.

I can only imagine the shock and the unbearable pain and void caused by this unthinkable loss.

As you know, Joe was loved and respected in Big Cloud. He probably helped build half the new houses in this town. He was a skilled craftsman and a good man. Joe was also a supportive husband and loving father, something he proved every minute of every day during the difficult time you faced together, bringing Tyler into this world.

I deeply regret that this tragedy brings me to my required contractual obligation.

As you may recall, I am legally bound to advise you that I have formally alerted Golden Dawn Fertility Corp., of Los Angeles, CA, of the terrible circumstances concerning Tyler’s death so that the company may update its files concerning Donor #181975. (Copy attached).

Emma, please accept my deepest sympathies and know that I also mourn Joe and Tyler’s loss.

You are in my thoughts, Glen Durbin, M.D.

Emma’s hand flew to her mouth and her body sagged.

“What is it, dear?”

Aunt Marsha put her arm around Emma who passed the letter to her. After reading it, Marsha passed it to Ned, who looked up from the page.

“Tyler’s not your biological child?” he asked.

Several moments passed before Emma could answer.

“I’m his biological mother. Tyler was conceived by an anonymous sperm donor from the clinic in California that we used.”

“I never knew this. Marsha, did you know?”

“No one knew that Joe was infertile,” Emma said. “It was something he’d agonized over. After we considered our options he agreed to an anonymous donor, provided we kept it secret.”

“It must’ve been difficult,” Aunt Marsha said.

“It was extremely hard. Joe’s a proud man-was a proud man-oh, God,” Emma gasped. “He did this for me, he ached to have a family but this threw him. He put my happiness before his own. He was so good.”

Emma spent the remainder of the day resting.

She had no appetite for dinner, retreating, as she’d done since the funerals, to Tyler’s room, rocking and thinking.

Dr. Durbin’s letter had pulled her back.

Back to the troubling time when they’d learned the reason she’d failed to get pregnant was because Joe had poor sperm motility. For Emma, the prospect of being childless was the worst thing she’d faced since her parents’ deaths.

“Actually, the chances of Joe fathering a child are about two, maybe three in ten, but you have options,” Durbin explained to them.

After months of anguished consideration, Emma opted to have a child by using an anonymous sperm donor through a private clinic.

To her, a normal pregnancy, over adoption, was the best way to go.

But Joe was reluctant to do anything.

“I wanted you to have my baby, not a baby from another man.”

“This will be our baby, Joe. A man needs to do much more than contribute DNA and genetics to be a real father.”

“I just feel that I somehow failed you.”

“No, this is where we work together to beat this and have a baby, our baby. Please say you’ll do it for me, for us, Joe.”

As he searched her face, his eyes brightened and he smiled.

“All right, if it’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

Dr. Durbin had given them a list of clinics and they picked Golden Dawn Fertility Corp. After some initial telephone consultations and paperwork, they flew to Los Angeles to start the process.

Golden Dawn was a first-class operation located in a gleaming downtown L.A. office building where they treated Emma and Joe with the utmost care.

They first learned how the clinic screened donors.

All candidates were between the ages of twenty-one and forty and came from top universities or top professions. Their health had to be excellent. Their medical and genetic histories were scrutinized. Their blood and sperm samples were subjected to exhaustive testing to ensure they were free of disease, or of any risk due to lifestyle.

They were genetically profiled, their DNA collected. Doctors and psychologists interviewed them for personality traits and their family’s genetic history.

The clinic introduced them to the donor catalogue, which offered general information, such as race, eye and hair color, weight, height, blood type, education.

Joe and Emma were not allowed to see a photograph, or know the names of the donors. However, they provided pictures of Joe and worked with clinic staff to narrow their choices to a donor that not only met their spectrum of choices, but ultimately resembled Joe as much as possible.

“Judging from that catalogue, I think we’ll have a kid who’s going to be a heck of a lot smarter than me,” Joe joked with Emma as they walked on the beach to watch the sun set on the Pacific before heading home.

The whole process cost them about four thousand dollars.

The clinic worked with Dr. Durbin back in Wyoming to time the insemination procedure. When it was right, the vials from donor #181975 were shipped overnight from California to Durbin’s office, where the doctor inseminated Emma.

“Now, Emma, I want you to consider this medical suggestion,” Durbin said privately to her afterward. “You and Joe should make love tonight as many times as you can. Enjoy yourselves because you never know, this could be that one-in-ten time that Joe’s sperm has a successful mission. It just might increase your chances of pregnancy.”

“You read my mind, Doctor.” Emma laughed.

When she returned for her next scheduled appointment her heart swelled.

“Congratulations, you’re pregnant,” Durbin said.

That night, Joe took Emma out to dinner at the Diamond Restaurant. Nine months later Tyler was born and their world had changed.

When she held him, she wept.

When Joe held him, Emma filled with joy because Joe was enraptured.

“Hey, Dad,” she said. “He looks like you.”

“Maybe,” Joe beamed. “But he’s got his mama’s eyes.”

Emma never believed she could be so happy and so in love.

She was living her dream, right up until the instant Joe swerved to miss an oncoming car.

Why? Why did this happen?

Now, as she rocked, she hugged Tyler’s stuffed bear.

Someone had rescued Tyler from the fire. It happened. Didn’t it?

Or was she losing her mind?

The police insisted she was wrong, the insurance company with its check told her she was wrong. Now Dr. Durbin with his letter told her she was wrong to think her baby had survived.

Another nail of reality had pierced her heart.

Emma cried out and her aunt came to help her to her bed.

“It’s very late, sweetheart, you need to get some sleep.”

Emma cooperated as she ached for rest. She undressed and got into her bed, letting sleep take her because when she slept, she could dream.

And when she dreamed she was with Joe and Tyler again.

In her dreams they were driving together near the snow-tipped Rockies, heading for the picnic north of town. There was no crash. They made it safely to their destination alongside the Grizzly Tooth River, the water sparkling like a rush of diamonds.

Joe is crawling after Tyler who is toddling toward her, running into Mommy’s open arms in the beautiful sunlight and they are so happy, so happy the air rings…and rings…until the mountains vanish…then Joe vanishes…and Tyler disappears into the dark void of night that is ringing…like the telephone at Emma’s bedside.

“What…”

Emma sat up and answered the phone, her head spinning.

“Emma Lane?”

She didn’t recognize the female voice.

“Yes.”

“Emma Lane in Big Cloud, Wyoming?”

The voice was ragged, raw with an underlying current of stress.

“Yes, who is this?”

“Listen to me. Your baby is not dead.”

“What? Who is this? What did you say?”

“Your baby is alive. That’s all I can tell you. I’m sorry.”

“Wait!”

The line went dead leaving Emma to scream into the handset.