“I have something very unusual to ask you,” he mentioned as he took his mother’s portrait down from the wall. He gazed at her for a moment, then almost dropped the frame when her smiling portrait was overlapped by a vision of his mother’s death. “And I want you to know ahead of time that it’s perfectly okay to say no.”
“Up to no good again, Dad?” she said, only half-jokingly.
He nodded, and then frowned as he began carefully wrapping his mom’s portrait.
“Dad, what is it?” Sarah asked.
Adam again hesitated as he took down the portrait of his father. He fought a sudden urge to smash it. “Lyle and I have decided that whichever of us dies first will become our company’s first human clone.”
She studied him for a while, assessing the seriousness of the claim. She was used to hearing outlandish ideas regarding his work, most of them no more than that.
“You know how I feel about death,” he continued. “I mean, except that it means escaping your mother.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “And if I die, I at least want my genes to have another chance at life.”
Sarah remained silent. Her eyes locked on the old family Bible lying on the table among the rubble, waiting to be boxed. The Bible’s brass key hung on her gold necklace that had once belonged to her grandmother of the same name. She rubbed the tiny key between her thumb and forefinger.
“Now, if a woman gives birth to the clone, she’d face all manner of harassment from the public and media, so Lyle and I will have the clones gestated in an artificial womb—”
“Dad,” she interrupted, “if you’re really serious, then I wouldn’t want your clone to be born like that. If I’m still young enough, I’ll give birth to the baby and raise him as my own.”
“I don’t want you to go through all that. Too many people will hate you.”
She squeezed the key. A prayer she’d been making for so long finally coming to pass. “They won’t hate me as much as I’ll love my baby.”
He hugged her. “I’d like my clone to have a mother named Sarah.”
*
“Mom?” I asked, prodding her to answer my question.
She refocused and smiled at me. “I think I’d rather just live on through the lives I touch and through my children.” She kissed me on the head. “Which is one of the reasons I’m so thankful cloning came along when it did. If it weren’t for my dad wanting to be cloned, I never would have had a child. Now I have you.”
“I’ll try to be good,” I said, as my c-father always encouraged me to be for Sarah’s sake.
“I know you will, and I’m grateful for that. It’s nice knowing that what I leave behind will be good for the world.”
I hoped I wouldn’t disappoint her. I was afraid I would.
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13
The next day at school began a new era for me. For the first time, I had friends. Jack started inviting me to sit with him and his friends at lunch. Those friends were lukewarm at first, but after a few days treated me like I was a normal person. Jack seemed very pleased by this.
As for Evelyn, I began flirting with her again and she spurned me as usual, but with the nice difference that she no longer ran away. She also began to praise the short stories I wrote for class. I enjoyed those more than any other coursework, even writing extra stories for the fun of it, some of which Mrs. Slater asked me to read aloud. I did, proud and nervous, while stealing glances at Evelyn. And she’d smile each time.
I began growing more and more dependent on her company and reassurance, needing to see her smiling at me. I was ready to marry her. But who knew I’d have the opportunity to do it so soon?
The Monday before Thanksgiving, Mrs. Slater and the other teachers brought the second grade classrooms together into an assembly to announce a holiday skit. The second graders would be part of a large production put on by the entire school. We were to act out Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith’s “Winter Wonderland.” They would need some couples to stroll through the wintry streets, some kid-sized snowflakes, a bluebird and a new bird, the snowman Parson Brown, and a bride and groom for the good parson to marry.
“I want to be the bride,” Evelyn leaned in to tell Dawn.
I was sitting next to her, of course, and didn’t miss a beat. “If you’re the bride, I want to be the groom.”
“If you’re the groom, I’m not going to be the bride,” she replied coolly, dropping me down a peg, but still smiling.
We all wrote down the roles in which we would be most interested and handed them to the teachers. I can only assume Mrs. Slater overheard our little exchange, because when the roles were announced the next day, Evelyn was cast as the beautiful bride and I as the handsome groom. Jack was chosen to be Parson Brown. Between “Winter Wonderland” and Jack’s upcoming Christmas show, my unlikely stage career was off to a strong start.
“Don’t worry, Adam,” Mrs. Slater whispered to me later on the sly. “There aren’t any words to memorize!”
***
Great-Grandfather Lyle and two-and-a-half-year-old Lily-2 came over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was the first time they’d been over since the talent show argument.
“Anything new going on at school?” Lyle asked, breaking a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to talk to the man who thought I was a stupid sissy. Though fear of talking to him was a larger factor than anger.
“Well,” Mom began, putting down her silverware and folding her hands, “I don’t think you’ll want to go, but you might be proud to hear that Mikey is actually going to be on stage two times next month. He’s going to play a Wise Man at church, and at school he’s going to be the groom in Winter Wonderland.”
I saw Lyle’s face change the moment she hit the word “groom.” Clearly he wanted me to marry Lily-2. But, looking back, I’m surprised he was jealous over a staged marriage during a school skit. Or did he somehow sense that this was something special – that there was, indeed, a real threat to his plans? I thought there was, sure, but a child has no idea how many things change in life as we grow older.
“Well,” he said. “And who’s the lucky bride?”
“Evelyn Green,” Mom said, giving me a quick wink.
Lyle frowned. “That Jewish girl?”
There was complete silence in the room. I knew Mom didn’t like him, but I’m not sure if she had known he was a racist. Actually, according to my clone-father’s journal, Lyle used any sort of bigotry as an opportunity to tear down others so that he and his family could stand taller. Racism and bigotry were tools. And anti-Semitism was a popular one at the time.
In second grade, I knew next to nothing about the recent war or the rise in hate crimes against Jewish Americans, and therefore had no idea what was going on in the conversation except that somehow being a “Jewish girl” was a bad thing in Lyle’s eyes. Which made me hate Lyle even more. But I didn’t say anything.
“Is that a problem for you, Grandfather?” my mother finally asked.
Lyle took his napkin off his lap and laid it on the table. “Well, it’s just that it’s a Christmas play, right? Why would a good Jew want to be in it?”
Mom clutched the edge of the dining table, but her voice was controlled. “For one thing, it is a play, and people can pretend to be anything they want on stage. Secondly, it is not a ‘Christmas play.’ It’s a song about winter and romance. And finally, I don’t like your attitude.”
“Of course it’s a Christmas play,” Lyle said. “They’re married by a parson, not a rabbi. Do they step on a glass after the ceremony?”
“You…” Sarah began, then stopped and regained herself. She gave her grandfather a look of embarrassed disgust. “I guess we’ll just have to watch the play and find out.”
Lyle turned to me. “Do you like this girl, Adam?”
I shrank in my chair. It was clear what he wanted to hear. And perhaps everything that happened afterwards could have been avoided with a
simple lie. But at that moment, I felt like denying Evelyn would be like taking the girl who had held my hand and stabbing her in the back.
Not having the courage to speak, I nodded.
Lyle frowned. “Why don’t you go to your room,” he said. “Your mommy and I have something to discuss.”
“No stay, Michael,” Mom said. “Remember, sweetie, how I was telling you some people like to bring other people down to make them feel better about themselves? Well, I’m afraid Great-Grandfather Lyle is one of the worst in that regard. He’ll find any reason to think everyone is lower than him.” She looked at Lyle. “To make things even more ridiculous, he’s putting down an entire people for their religion when he doesn’t even believe in God. Why are you doing that, Grandfather?”
Lyle twitched and his entire face and neck went beet red. I’d never seen anything like it. It scared me enough to wish I was in my bedroom.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” he answered.
“Oh, I believe you. This has nothing to do with her being Jewish. You’re just trying to find some excuse to make her an unfit bride for Michael so you can make sure he marries Lily.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” he asked. “You know what your mother did so she could be with him.”
“If they fall in love, that’s fine. But I’ll be damned if you’re going to lay that guilt on my son and try to force him to marry someone he doesn’t want.”
“Your son?” he scoffed, and then grinned. “This is coming from the virgin?”
Mom went pale.
“He’s your father, not your son,” Lyle continued, “And he will marry my daughter.”
My mother stood up and leaned over the table toward her grandfather. “He is my son, and he’s going to marry Evelyn Green two weeks from now. Don’t you dare try to tell him who he should or shouldn’t marry.”
Lyle slowly stood up as well. “Very well, Sarah. It’s up to you.”
“No, it’s up to him.”
“It’s up to you to leave it up to him. And it’s up to me to look after my daughter’s future. Which I’m afraid puts us at odds.”
“Then we’re at odds.”
“In that case I’ll be on my way,” he said, beginning to collect Lily-2.
My mom was squeezing the back of her chair over and over. “Grandpa, I’ve let you continue to be a part of our lives out of respect for Mom, and because I felt sorry for the abuse you went through—”
“What?” Lyle blurted, spittle spraying the table. “Sarah, I don’t know what lies your father told you, but my childhood won’t be discussed.”
My mom nodded. “Do you want to discuss my childhood instead?”
His eyes narrowed. “You need to be careful.”
“You’re the one who needs to be careful if you want to be any part of Adam’s life.”
He picked up his pipe and pointed it at her. “Take care, Sarah.”
They stared each other down for a moment, then Lyle picked up Lily and turned to go. Mom didn’t show him out.
There was a long silence after he left. I was frightened. Mom was both scared and angry. She was trembling. She was the bravest person I’ve ever met, but no one knew this. Least of all her.
“Don’t ever be like your great-grandfather,” she said. “Don’t ever be mean to people for no reason or because they’re not like you.”
She started to cry. Out-of-control crying. I’d never seen her do that. I was shocked that Lyle could upset my mom like that. I jumped out of my chair and hugged her, and she hugged me back.
“I won’t,” I promised.
“And don’t feel like you have to marry anyone or do anything you don’t want just because your great-grandpa or anyone else tells you to. Okay?”
“Okay,” I repeated, but with less conviction. I wasn’t sure I could stand up to Lyle like she had.
Mom dried her eyes and grabbed me by both hands, forcing a smile. “You like Evelyn a lot, don’t you?”
“I love her!”
She brightened. “Well, it’s a good thing, mister! You’re marrying her in a couple weeks!”
We both laughed, and for a moment forgot about the ugly scene with Lyle.
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14
The big day arrived two weeks later. Friday the 13th, of course. I was sick with nervousness, my highly uncomfortable little blue suit exacerbating my condition. And then Evelyn came out of the dressing room in her lovely white wedding gown. She looked more beautiful than ever. I gulped, my head swimming. I was really going to marry Evelyn Green. My lonely days were finally over. I imagined taller versions of us sitting at our dining room table with a couple of half-clone children scampering about.
We took our positions backstage, ready to skip out on our cue. The music began as the kids on the stage sang of sleigh bells and snow.
We had a few more stanzas before our entrance. Evelyn and I stood straight ahead, Evelyn watching the performance out on the stage and preparing for our cue, me sprouting gray hairs, sure I’d somehow screw up our entire wedding ceremony. I had to wrestle with both the pressure of getting married and a mounting sense of stage fright. The whole thing would have been so much easier if I’d just been cast as a snowflake. What on earth had Mrs. Slater been thinking?
As the cast sang about walking around their winter wonderland, Evelyn grabbed my hand. One more line and we’d be skipping across the stage. We were standing right at the edge of the curtain. I could see some of the audience sitting in the dark, watching the stage and taking pictures. I didn’t know what an understudy was, but I desperately wanted one.
A group of kids started making a snowman in the meadow, and Evelyn tugged me out onto the stage as they pretended Jack was Parson Brown.
I forgot how to skip. I just kind of awkwardly threw my legs out there in front of me. Evelyn stayed focused despite my herky-jerky movements at her side. My face grew hot, and my hand started to sweat in hers. I hoped it wouldn’t slip out, as I was pretty sure her grip was the only thing keeping me from crashing to the floor in a mangled, pathetic, but dapperly dressed heap. I hoped beyond reason that no one was watching.
Suddenly we were there in front of the snowman waiting to perform our nuptials. Jack’s painted face was examining me with a mixture of laughter and sympathy. Well, mostly laughter. I shrugged. He must have started having second thoughts about asking me to join his Christmas program.
Jack motioned with his arms as if he were posing a question to us, asking whether we were married, and I shook my head no in response, immensely gratified that I’d remembered my “line.” Relishing in my achievement, I began to turn away and lead Evelyn off to the side where we would finish the skit. She yanked me back, jolting my memory. I had one more critical line. We weren’t married yet!
I dutifully wagged my finger at Parson Brown like I was telling him to do his job while he was around. And just like that we were hitched. The only thing more gratifying was that we were finally done with our time in the spotlight. We all sang the closing lines of the song, and the hard part was over. How difficult could the honeymoon be? I was thinking Disneyland…
We were still holding hands as we took our bows. I used that opportunity to pull her close and whisper, “Thanks for stopping me.”
Evelyn laughed. As she would later say, we had merely been reinforcing the universal myth of the reluctant groom and the determined bride. At that moment, she simply said, “Well, I didn’t want to be left standing at the altar.”
I grinned. “Altar” was a pretty unusual word for my vocabulary at the time, but I was sure I’d never leave her at one.
*
Later that night I was surprised to learn from Mom that Lyle had attended the event, leaving Lily-2 with his younger sister, my eccentric and kind Great-Aunt Louise whom Lyle detested but used when necessary. Mom saw him talking with his employee Jacob Marks and his rock-throwing son, Victor. She hoped he was upbraiding his employee for the earlier attack. Lyle didn?
??t reply when Mom thanked him for coming. In fact, she said, he completely ignored her.
That Sunday, Winter Wonderland became one of the first second grade skits to be reviewed by SDNN.com’s theatre critic, the San Diego News Network documenting the first clone’s first time on stage and the first clone to “get married.” Evelyn received praise, but my reluctance to marry her was noted with some well-deserved humor by the critic. A local conservative columnist had another slant – a tongue-in-cheek argument that my hesitation at the altar was an early indication of my sexual orientation, concluding it was proof that either homosexuality was not genetic or that my c-father had been a closet gay.
When our class returned from lunch that following Monday, we found the room vandalized. Anti-Semitic markings had been spray-painted on tables and the chalkboard in yellow, and “Evelyn the Lesbian” was painted in pink on the table where she sat. Her blue-jean backpack had a pink triangle and a yellow Star of David painted on it.
Mrs. Slater called the principal, and we all went to the assembly room while the police inspected the vandalism. Our teacher asked Evelyn if she wanted to go home, but Evelyn said she wanted to stay. Mrs. Slater then told us that the people who had done that were hateful, small-minded bigots. The next day a counselor entered the cleaned-up room to tell us about the importance of embracing diversity and being kind to others regardless of race, creed, religion and sexual orientation. A lot of the kids looked at Evelyn during the counselor’s talk. Evelyn ignored them outwardly, but surely she was aware of the attention she was drawing. She was still carrying the backpack with the Star of David and the pink triangle.
Evelyn’s best friend Christie stopped joining Evelyn for lunch that day. Probably the whole “lesbian” thing bothered her more than the Jewish part. Jack and his closest friends were the only ones still brave enough to join the human clone and the Jewish lesbian at lunch. Everyone else kept looking over at us. Maybe it didn’t help that Evelyn wore her vandalized backpack while eating. We ate in self-conscious silence.