Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell (21 page)

“There’s a problem with the ovaries,” Abigail Rickover says. “I’m seeing it in the carriers. It’s the fertility drugs. Pump them into a woman forever and
something
is bound to go wrong.” I don’t see why anything has to go wrong.

“Trouble,” Nancy says. “There’s a woman suing. One of our mothers. Over the Cushing egg implantation. She says she thought we were using
her
egg because that’s what we told her. We’re in the soup.” How did she find out? “Her lawyer is Vincent D’Angelo,” Nancy says.

Nancy and I never make love any more. I wonder why I don’t care.

You can’t prove it, I say. There’s absolutely no way. “I don’t have to prove it,” Vincent D’Angelo says. “I just have to convince a jury. That’s a horse of a different color.” The vest on his three-piece suit can’t keep his stomach from spilling out over his own belt. He has gotten fat on cases like ours. Go ahead, I tell him. Try all of your tricks and you
still
won’t be able to prove it. “Wait and see,” Vincent D’Angelo says.

Our new lawyer in Boston is Betsy Bokamper, a small bird of a woman, with a small thin nose and an even smaller voice. I like her strength right away.

“We are killing the goose that lays the golden egg,” Nancy says.

“I just thought you might want to know who’s hearing the case, Miss O’Kell,” Vincent D’Angelo tells me over the phone. “It’s your old friend Judge Benning,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

I ask Abigail Rickover what would happen if we gave the Tomgirls the mildest fertility drug on the market to nurture nature along. “Load these little girls up with drugs?” Abigail Rickover says. “It’s too dangerous. They’re too young. And you can’t do it without parental consent.”
That
won’t be a problem, I say.

“Miss O’Kell? You’re an O’Kell, okay?” Vincent D’Angelo says over the phone. “Why would I want to settle with an O’Kell? You’ve got more money than God.”

I tell Nancy to destroy all records that describe the source of the eggs. “I’m way ahead of you,” she says. In the  end, we are all Cushings in this town.

All of a sudden it feels like I am going to be spending the rest of my life inside a courtro
om, defending The Good Egg in front of Judge Benning. Justice really is blind.

“And how are you, Miss Bokamper?” Judge Benning wants to know. “I can see your private practice grows more lucrative by the client.” Betsy Bokamper says: “From your lips to God’s ears, Judge.” Judge Benning leans forward with both palms down on his desk. “Were it that simple, Miss Bokamper, I would never stop whispering to Him on your behalf. But for now I must reject your motion for dismissal. When it comes to our friends the O’Kells, I am obliged from past experience to give Mr. D’Angelo every benefit of the doubt.”

If you’re replacing genes in dogs, I ask Abigail Rickover, then why can’t you do it in people? “We need permission,” she says. “There’s a government review board. There’s a whole process we need to follow before you can put genes into people.” I tell her it’s time for us to lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.

The Tomgirls gather around me on the benches down by the canal on a spring day full of light and warmth. “Big Mother,” Odette says. “Tell us about Kate Briody. Again.” I tell her there’s nothing I would rather do.

“Allyson is cramping all the time,” Abigail Rickover says. “I’ve stopped her injections. We’ve taken this about as far as it can go.” How can you be sure? I say. “Women weren’t meant for this,” she says. I say our women are different.

“I just called to tell you how rich you are as of today,” Charles Evans says. “You may hate his guts, but that brother of yours is a financial genius.” Go ahead, I say. Make my day.

You can depose me till I’m blue in the face, I say to Vincent D’Angelo outside the courtroom, and I’m still not going to change my story. “No records?” he says. Why would I need records? I say. They were the mother’s eggs. Period. End of story. The only record we have is the mother’s name. “You’re not half as smart as you think you are, Miss O’Kell,” he says. “And one day you’re going to make a mistake. It won’t even have to be a big one.” Don’t hold your breath, I tell him.

Sex with Nancy is obligatory, boring, a chore. Where did our love go?

Betsy Bokamper approaches the bench. “My client assures me there are no such records at The Good Egg, Your Honor,” she says. “I don’t know that there’s much more to say. I move once again to dismiss, and I ask the Court to consider sanctions against Mr. D’Angelo to dissuade him from any such frivolous suits in the future against my client.” Judge Benning says: “We have a problem, Mr. D’Angelo.”

“All clear, Miss O’K,” Sliv says. “There’s nobody in this town that I don’t know personal. I got you covered.” I tell Sliv he is the one person in this life that I can trust.

In the courtroom in Boston, Betsy Bokamper whispers to me that it’s all over. “It pains me no end to do this, Counselor,” Judge Benning says. “But the case is dismissed. Mr. D’Angelo? I should warn you
never
to pursue such an action against The Good Egg again without cause or this Court shall have no choice but to hold you in contempt.”

“Congratulations,” Vincent D’Angelo says to me over the phone. “But you and I both know this is a reprieve, nothing more. It won’t be long before we can do DNA tests to show who belongs to who. It may take ten years. Or
twenty. But it’s coming. If you don’t believe me, just ask your own expert, Abigail Popover or whatever the hell her name is. It’s only a matter of time before we nail you all to the wall. Have a nice day, Miss O’Kell.”

“The frozen eggs are going to run out,” Nancy says. “We don’t have any other eggs of any kind. What will we do?” Hold the fort, I say.

October 22, 1987

For some reason Diana asks me down for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s been so long since I left the last town along the canal that I hardly know how to get to the city.

November 27, 1987

The Christmas trees along Park Avenue are lit up as far as the eye can see, and Diana’s doorman remembers me. “Hello Sister,” he says, and I don’t want to disabuse him of my holiness. I wonder about his Christmas tips. I wonder what Diana and Luigi will give him, or whether Luigi even lives here any more. The elevator door to the penthouse opens into the apartment where Diana is waiting. “Luigi is dying,” she says.

“We are going to do everything we can,” Diana says. Of course, I say. I ask if there’s anything I can do. “He has AIDS, Eleanor,” Diana says. “He is going to die a horrible, horrible death. There’s nothing we can do about it. There’s nothing
anyone
can do about it. And there’s no reason to pretend otherwise.”

“We’re running out of eggs,” Nancy says. “And I’m worried about the carriers, their ovaries, their health. I’m worried about
everything
, Eleanor.” I say time is on our side. “How can you say that?” Nancy says.

The Tomgirls are old enough right now to produce Cushing eggs. Their bodies are ready for children today, tomorrow, forever. There’s no time like the present. There’s no time to lose.

Diana is growing old agelessly, the way women in fashion always try to do. Since the news of Luigi’s demise she’s become alive again, a woman with a reason for being. She says AIDS is an epidemic among the male homosexual population, and that it’s all that she ever thinks about, even when she’s at
Imagine
. She is on AIDS committees all over the city, chairing at least one and doing most of the work for the others. I’ve never seen her so happy.

“We have to stop,” Nancy says. “We are running out of eggs. The fertility drugs are nothing but trouble. We have no choice.” Oh yes we do, I say.

I bring Tomgirls together without The Tommies at the Briody & Daughter Bake Shop. I tell them all about motherhood, about the way to be midwives to each other, to our movement. We are all selfish, I say. We are born that way. But now we have to be selfish for each other. We have to want something bigger than any one of us can have alone. That’s why I came to this town, I tell them. That’s why we’re all here. To make something greater than ourselves. That’s why I need all of you. I tell them there’s nothing stopping us now.

“This Tom,” Luigi says. “He is bad man. I know he is brother to you but he is bad bad man.” Tell us something we don’t know, I tell him.

“We have to pull the plug,” Nancy says. “We have no choice. The new studies connect cancer of the ovaries to the fertility drugs we’ve been using.” These things happen, I say. “Don’t you see what it looks like?” Nancy says. “It’s like you’re blowing up their ovaries
on purpose
. Can’t you see that?” I tell Nancy appearances can be deceiving.

When I look at the Tomgirls walking along the canal today I don’t see young girls any more. I see beautiful, bounteous creatures bursting out of their own skin. They are all long-legged and fertile, with a red glow to their cheeks and hair like the colleens of old. They like to play and tease and scamper. When I look at the Tomgirls, I see history in the making.

“He has become a saint,” Diana says. “My unfaithful homosexual playboy husband has become a saint. Saint Luigi of AIDS.” It’s never too late, I say.

“We’re done, Eleanor,” Nancy says. “We can’t use the fertility drugs any more. We are
completely
out of eggs. We’ve got women out the door at the Lying-In and we can’t help any of them. I’ve sent them all home. What are we going to do?” I don’t tell Nancy we are going to start from scratch.

If I get the Tomgirls pregnant before they are legally independent they can’t  run off on their own because I am still their guardian. Until they turn 18, they can’t do anything in this life without Big Mother’s permission.

July 20, 1988

“Don’t even think about it,” Allyson says. Sorry? I say. “You will be,” she says. I say I don’t follow. “I know what you’re planning with the Tomgirls, with my Odette. I’m not blind. And it’s not right. You won’t get away with it. I won’t let you.”

I tell Nancy the Tomgirls are fully capable of carrying a child to term. “What’s the point of that?” she says. Nancy has no idea what it means to be a Cushing, to be an O’Kell.

“I don’t know,” Abigail Rickover says. “I just don’t know.” By not saying no to the Tomgirls, I know her answer is yes. Abigail Rickover really has no mind of her own, like she has been genetically engineered to have no second thoughts.

I am showing Odette how to pleasure herself. Alone. She has trouble finding the right spots, the right touch. She asks me to show her, and I keep showing her until she starts to hum louder and louder, until she is gasping and gnashing her teeth. “Show me again,” Odette says.

“They’re having a special dinner for Luigi,” Diana says over the phone. “A benefit. At Newport! At the Hall of Fame! We are so thrilled!”

I am their guardian, I tell Nancy. Need I remind you there is no law against impregnation? “What about rape?” she says.