Follow Me

Lena Ross had no mother. At least, that is what she had been raised to believe. A succession of caregivers paraded in and out of her life, none staying long enough to imprint any lasting legacy on her. It was not until this moment, lying on the raised table in the middle of a stark white room, the crisp hospital gown sliding stiffly across her skin, with the doctor’s fingers uncomfortably poking and prodding, that she knew it had not been true. She tried to concentrate on something pleasant. Her husband, the new seedlings starting to sprout in the garden. New life was growing everywhere.

It seemed strange to Lena that even after over one hundred years, there was still no better way to visualize an unborn child. The first few appointments felt tedious and unnecessary as the black blob on the screen felt so distant to her. It did not seem like hers. Today was different, though. It was not until she heard the rhythmic dun-dun, dun-dun of the heartbeat that she felt connected to what was inside her.

“The baby looks normal,” Doctor Matthews announced, without ceremony. This was routine for her. Scientists had perfected pregnancy long ago and solved the problem of birth defects, miscarriages, and infertility. There was no reason to expect that things would be abnormal.

Lena continued staring at the screen with the living being that still looked like a blob but was her baby. Her unknown mother had laid in this same position almost thirty years ago, seeing a similar image. She could not help but wonder what had happened to her. Was she still alive? Was she out there somewhere asking herself the same questions about her child?

“You can get dressed and meet me back in my office. Your husband is waiting there for us,” she continued robotically.

Lena dressed in a hurry. She was eager to leave the emotionless room and doctor. Her husband, Elias, was a much welcome sight when she reached the doctor’s office.

“The nurse said the baby looks okay. How are you feeling?” he asked tenderly.

“I feel fine. It’s starting to seem a little more real now that I could hear the heart beating,” Lena admitted.

“I’ll never understand how we’ve progressed so much in medicine but somehow regressed at the same time where men aren’t allowed in the exam room,” Elias complained.

“Don’t worry; I think they record it so you can watch it later.” Lena squeezed his hand reassuringly.

At that moment, the doctor entered the office and sat down opposite them without saying a word. After a few seconds of silence, she began, “There are a few things we need to go over before the pregnancy proceeds,” she started. “As you know, each woman has the choice when she turns twenty-nine years old to become pregnant or have a hysterectomy. You chose pregnancy, so you will carry the child to thirty-eight weeks when labor will be induced. We will perform a Cesarean section and a hysterectomy simultaneously, so you will have the one child allotted to you by the State. As you progress in the pregnancy, there will be further issues to discuss, but for now, all you need to know is the child is healthy, as expected. Now, would you like to know the sex? You will be informed before the child is born regardless, but you can choose to know now or one week before the child will be delivered.” Doctor Matthews finished the memorized speech she announced to all newly pregnant women.

Lena and Elias looked at one another. They had been ambushed by this decision that had to be made right now.

“I suppose it wouldn’t change anything to know now since we’ll end up knowing beforehand,” Elias suggested.

“I guess so,” Lena agreed somewhat hesitantly.

“The child is a girl.” Doctor Matthews did not look at either one of them when she pronounced that they would have a daughter. “You may leave now. Schedule your next appointment with the receptionist on the way out. There you will also both sign the consent form for the pregnancy to continue, for the Cesarean section, and hysterectomy.”

Lena and Elias got up from the desk after their sudden dismissal.

“Oh, Mr. Ross,”

“Yes,” Elias turned back to face the doctor, Lena hopeful that he would get to see the recording of his daughter.

“There is no need for you to come to the next appointment.” She did not even bother to look up from the computer screen in front of her while telling him that his presence was unnecessary.

****

Two doors down, in a replica of Doctor Matthews’s office, Doctor Harris just finished the same detached speech to Hannah and Jack Baillard, with the only exception being that their child would be a boy. The same confined, stunted excitement filled the two of them as they left the office, waiting patiently behind another couple to schedule their next appointment and sign their paperwork.

“A boy,” Jack whispered in Hannah’s ear. “Did you have any names picked out for a boy?”

“I always liked Killian,” she whispered back, leaning into him, her hand resting lovingly on her growing baby.

****

Clara Baillard paced the well-worn floors of her family home, fingering the silver heart-shaped locket that now felt like a weight in her hand, crushing her with the potential for truth. Her father, the man she barely knew, passed it into her hand as he took his last breath, telling her it was the most important thing he could give her, more so than the house where she currently stood. Two words etched by hand into the backside of the locket, “Follow Me,” taunted her along with what looked like a constellation. Seven points scratched into the surface, connected by curved lines. Her father was gone now, and the house was hers. She had been surrounded by loneliness her whole life, but now she knew that there was more to the story.

As Clara continued to walk, she felt the pattern become familiar, and not because she knew the house so well. Suddenly, she stopped moving. Her finger stopping on one of the points as well. Cautiously, she began again, tracing the line in time with her steps until she stopped again in the next room: seven points, seven rooms on the first floor of their home. The distinctive line between the fourth and fifth points perfectly matched the dining room's strange curve. Her pace quickened now, ending in the sitting room. She could not remember a time when they ever even used this room. A soft layer of dust coated the surfaces of the floor, furniture, and pictures that hung on the wall except for one. It was a photo from Clara’s twenty-first birthday, the day she met Killian.

She approached the picture cautiously as if it might disappear if she came upon it too quickly. She had not noticed she was shaking until she reached out to lift the frame off the wall gently. Her fingers ran lovingly along the edges, smiling to herself as she remembered that night. The first time she saw Killian smile, his laugh, the way she felt when he asked if he could see her again.

A loud clunk woke her from her reverie. The locket had slipped from her hand to the floor as if it was reminding her of her purpose. Her heart fluttered as she flipped the frame over. The words “My Own,” written on the back of the frame hit her in a way she did not expect. Something deep within in her recognized that her answers were right there. Clara pried the backing of the frame from the glass, not caring if it broke. Heart pounding, she separated the photo from the back. And there it was. A faded, folded piece of paper that had been waiting for her all these years. Tears welled in her eyes as she took in her mother’s words for the first time,

My dear Clara, my own,

I hope you will never have to read this, that by the time you are grown, things will be different. You need to know that I never left you. That is the most important thing. I don’t know what you will be told about what happened to me, I don’t even know what will happen to me, but the only way I would ever leave you is against my will. You need to know the truth.

My life changed the day you were born, the day I lost you. You were born into a world of questions while mine were finally answered. I had always been told I did not have a mother. There were no questions beyond that, no hint of an explanation, but I know now that the only way for their plan to work is to eliminate the mothers. They know that a mother’s love is the fiercest and that we would never stop fighting for our child, so we were a problem that had to be exterminated. We provided our one child, and there was no further need for us. We could not be left to influence our children to think any differently from the ways we were raised, the ideas we were forced to believe.

I loved your father, at least I thought I did. I thought he loved me. If you are reading this, then maybe he did, but I will never know. The day you came into the world, I was finally told that none of it was real. My whole life was a lie. Every event was scripted, every person, every encounter was all set to unfold exactly how it did. Girls were raised to be molded and manipulated, while boys grew up learning how to control and bend to the will of the State. He was never mine. He was raised knowing that he would meet me at a specific date and time, that we would “fall in love,” get married, and father a child, a daughter, you. I only saw him one time after that day. We are allowed one meeting with the father after the birth, but never with the child present. He slipped me a photo of you while I gave him this letter. Perhaps there was more feeling there than I give him credit for.

The only motherly advice I can give you now is, Run. I can not tell you where or how, but you have to try. I can not even tell you what the future holds for you because I do not know what it holds for me; that is why you must go. Do not tell anyone. Do not tell any friends you might think you have. If you are married, he can not be trusted. Leave. And do not look back.

I love you more than anything or anyone in this world, even though I have never met you. Be strong, my love, the only thing I consider to be my own, and I am always yours,

Mom

Clara sat in stunned silence. She could not say when her hand had moved absentmindedly to her abdomen, but there it laid now. Her life had never been hers; it never would be hers. Her daughter’s life would never be her own. Could she believe the words of a woman she had never met and disregard the people who had been with her throughout her entire life? She was told her mother had disappeared before she was born, but now here she was—one word repeated in her mind over and over again. Run.

****

Lena laid on the gurney, her now large stomach obstructing her view of the door. She was in another stark, white, sterile room. Another hospital gown, another stretch of anxious waiting, alone, while her husband was kept separate from her. A knock on the unseen door forced her to prop herself up on her elbows to see the woman who now entered, not Doctor Matthews.

“Hello, Mrs. Ross. My name is Greta Marks.” Like all the other doctors and nurses, she was impassive and emotionless, robotic.

“It’s nice to meet you. Are you part of the delivery team?”

“No. I am here to discuss your life to this point and what comes next.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Lena tried to hide the uncertainty from her voice, but it was no use. Her words came out shaky and unsure.

Greta began, “Twenty-nine years ago, your mother was in the same position you are now, getting ready to deliver a daughter, just like you, just like this child will have a daughter and hers after that. Twenty-one years from today, the child Clara will meet her future husband, a man named Killian, just like you met your husband, Elias. Killian will be raised knowing she will be his and that she will bear his future daughter. Clara will never know until the day she has the child that her life mimicked yours, the same as the women of her family before her. She will be raised by her father to believe she has a choice, that her life is hers to live, but it will never be true. She is a child of the State and will fulfill the duties of women of the State.

You will never see Clara, and she will be told you abandoned her once she was born. We will not allow the emotions of women, of a mother, to influence the raising of our children. You will see your husband one final time in one week, where he will provide you with a brief update on the status of Clara before you are moved. You will never see either of them again.”

Greta stopped speaking and did not start again. Lena attempted to absorb what she had just been told. Did they already administer the anesthesia, and this was some horrible dream? Greta continued to stare with empty eyes at the wall directly behind Lena’s head, never making eye contact with her.

“I don’t understand,” Lena stated, more forcefully than she expected. “My husband loves me. None of this can true. None of what you’re saying makes any sense. This is my daughter. My daughter.” Her hands moved instinctively, enclosing her stomach as if she could keep Clara safe as long as she stayed inside her.

“Mrs. Ross, please do not make this harder than it has to be.”

Lena was struggling to get up, her pregnant belly making it much harder. She finally made it to a sitting position when she noticed two men standing in the doorway.

“As you can see, you will not be going anywhere. The State thanks you for your first contribution and look forward to your continued faithful service to the State.” Without another word, Greta turned, leaving Lena with the two men approaching.

“What will happen to me? Please. Please come back!” Her screams were pointless, though, as she heard Greta’s footsteps becoming fainter, not getting closer. The men grabbed her shoulders and ankles, positioning her to lay down again. She could try to fight them off, but in her condition, she would never win. She might hurt her daughter. Her daughter, her last thought as one man administered something in her I.V. and the other began strapping her wrists and ankles to the bed.

“My daughter…”