Millennium Babies

“She did,” Brooke said. “He was a physicist, very well known, apparently. It was one of those sperm banks that specialized in famous or successful people. And my mother did check that out.”

Your father must not have been as wonderful as they said he was. Look at you. It had to come from somewhere. “Do you know the name of the bank?”

“No.”

Franke sighed. “I guess we have all that we can, then.”

She hated the disapproval in his tone. “Surely others in this study only have one parent.”

“Yes,” he said. “There's a subset of you. I was just hoping—”

“Anything to make the study complete,” she said sarcastically.

“Not anything,” he said. “You can trust me on that.”

Brooke didn't hear from Professor Franke again for nearly a month, and then only in the form of a message, delivered to House, giving her the exact times, dates, and places of the Memorial Day meetings. She forgot about the study except when she saw it on her calendar.

The semester was winding down. The mid-term in her World Wars class showed her two things: that she had an affinity for the topic that she was sharing with the students; and that at least two of her graduate assistants had a strong aversion to work. She lectured both assistants, spoke to the chair of the department about teaching the survey class next semester, and continued on with the lectures, focusing on them as if she were the graduate student instead of the professor.

By late April, she had her final exam written—a long cumbersome thing, a mixture of true/false/multiple choice for the assistants, and two essay questions for her. She was thinking of a paper herself—one on the way those wars still echoed through the generations—and she was trying to decide if she wanted the summer to work on it or to teach as she usually did.

The last Saturday in April was unusually balmy, in the seventies without much humidity, promising a beautiful summer ahead. The lilac bush near her kitchen window had bloomed. The birds had returned, and her azaleas were blossoming as well. She was in the garage, digging for a lawn chair that she was convinced she still had, when she heard the hum of an electric car.

She came out of the garage, dusty and streaked with grime. A green car pulled into her driveway, next to the ancient pick-up she used for hauling.

Something warned her right from the start. A glimpse, perhaps, or a movement. Her stomach flipped over, and she had to swallow sudden nausea. She had left her personal phone inside—it was too nice to be co

Still, as the car shuddered to a stop, she glanced at the screen door, wondering if she could make it in time. But the car's door was already opening, and in this kind of stand-off, fake courage was better than obvious panic.

Her mother stepped out. She was a slender woman. She wore blue jeans and a pale peach summer sweater that accented her silver and gold hair. The hair was new and had the look of permanence. Apparently her mother had finally decided to settle on a color. She wore gold bangles, and a matching necklace, but her ears were bare.

“I have a restraining order against you,” Brooke said, struggling to keep her voice level. “You are not supposed to be here.”

“I'm not the one who broke the order.” Her mother's voice was smooth and seductive. Her courtroom voice. She had won a lot of cases with that melodious warmth. It didn't seem too strident. It just seemed sure.

“I sure as hell didn't want contact with you,” Brooke said.

“No? Is that why your university contacted me?”

Brooke's heart was pounding so hard she wondered if her mother could hear it. “Who contacted you?'

“A Professor Franke, for some study. Something to do with DNA samples. I was to send them through my doctor, but you know I wouldn't do such a thing with anything that delicate.”

Son of a bitch. Brooke hadn't known they were going to try something like that. She didn't remember any mention of it, nothing in the forms.

“I have nothing to do with that,” Brooke said.

“It seems you're in some study. That seems like involvement to me,” her mother said.

“Not the kind that gets you around a restraining order. Now get the hell off my property.”

“Brooke, honey,” her mother said, taking a step toward her. “I think you and I should discuss this—”

“There's nothing to discuss,” Brooke said. “I want you to stay away from me.”

“That's silly.” Her mother took another step forward. “We should be able to settle this, Brooke. Like adults. I'm your mother—”

“That's not my fault,” Brooke snapped. She glanced at the screen door again.

“A restraining order is for people who threaten your life. I've never hurt you, Brooke.”

“There's judge in Dane County who disagrees, Mother.”

“Because you were so hysterical,” her mother said. “We've had a good run of it, you and I.”

Brooke felt the color drain from her face. “How's that, Mother? The family that sues together stays together?”

“Brooke, we have been denied what's rightfully ours. We—”

“It never said in any of those contests that a child had to be born by natural means. You misunderstood, Mother. Or you tried to be even more perfect than anyone else. So what if I'm the first vaginal birth of the new mille

“The first baby received enough in endorsements to pay for a college education and to have a trust fund—”

“And you've racked up enough in legal fees that you could have done the same.” Brooke rubbed her hands over her arms. The day had grown colder.

“No, honey,” her mother said in that patronizing tone that Brooke hated. “I handled my own case. There were no fees.”

It was like arguing with a wall. “I have made it really, really clear that I never wanted to see you again,” Brooke said. “So why do you keep hounding me? You don't even like me.”

“Of course I like you, Brooke. You're my daughter.”

“I don't like you,” Brooke said.

“We're flesh and blood,” her mother said softly. “We owe it to each other to be there for each other.”

“Maybe you should have remembered that when I was growing up. I was a child, Mother, not a trophy. You saw me as a means to an end, an end you now think you got cheated out of. Sometimes you blame me for that—I was too big, I didn't come out fast enough, I was breach—and sometimes you blame the contest people for not discounting all those 'artificial methods' of birth, but you never, ever blame yourself. For anything.”

“Brooke,” her mother said, and took another step forward.

Brooke held up her hand. “Did you ever think, Mother, that it's your fault we missed the brass ring? Maybe you should have pushed harder. Maybe you should have had a c-section. Or maybe you shouldn't have gotten pregnant at all.”

“Brooke!”

“You weren't fit to be a parent. That's what the judge decided on. You're right. You never hit me. You didn't have to. You told me how worthless I was from the moment I could hear. All that anger you felt about losing you directed at me. Because, until I was born, you never lost anything.”

Her mother shook her head slightly. “I never meant that. When I would say that, I meant—”

“See? You're so good at taking credit for anything that goes well, and so bad at taking it when something doesn't.”

“I still don't see why you're so angry at me,” her mother said.

This time, it was Brooke's turn to take a step forward. “You don't? You don't remember that last official letter? The one cited in my restraining order?”

“You have never understood the difference between a legal argument and the real issues.”

“Apparently the judge is just as stupid about legal arguments as I am, Mother.” Brooke was shaking. “He believed it when you said that I was brought into this world simply to win that contest, and by rights, the state should be responsible for my care, not you.”