The Cost of Fertility

Doctor Lewis doesn't hate her job. On most days she gets to be a savior. A bearer of good news. The last bastion of sperm for the infertile couples walking through the clinic, each with hopes and dreams that they'll be picked.

On most days. Today was not one of those days.

Doctor Lewis sits on her mostly empty desk and looks at the case file in front of her. The grotesquely huge 'positive' slammed on the page in a bright vivid green screamed that this was good news.

And it was good news. It really was. Subjectively and scientifically, Dr. Lewis looked at the one in a 1.34875 million rare case that meant the delay in the extinction of the human species would be put back for a few years yet.

So why did it feel like her heart was breaking all over again?

It was rare for a doctor to get one of these cases in one lifetime. To be cursed by two seemed like a cruel twisted joke by a universe determined to bring pain down on those trying their hardest every day to ensure life continues.

But she had a duty. A Hippocratic oath to the well-being of all. So enough moping for now. This was going to be difficult, but Dr. Lewis was a professional. She'd had all day to prepare.

A day wasn't enough.

“Sarah.” Dr. Lewis' voice graveled from too many years of smoking cigarettes she'd hid under the clay pot by her office window “Have the FDU officers arrived yet?”

Her receptionist called back through the open line: “Not yet. But the... uh... the patients are here. Waiting. For their... uh... results. Checkups. Results. The uh, results of the checkups.”

Smooth Sarah. Smooth.

“Bring the boy in Sarah. And his mother.”

Dr. Lewis didn't look up from her notes as the pair entered the room, she only noticed that the mother wore expensive heels whilst the boy had plain black shiny shoes with not a hint of a football scratch or a fall to the pavement. These were shoes worn rarely. She'd bet that like most mothers of boys, this woman would be living a fairly lonely life in her ivory tower, protecting the one treasure she could not buy.

Finally, Dr. Lewis did look up at the mother, specifically avoid the scared wide eyes barely overlooking the grand old empty desk.

“Ms. Kanumba. Thank you for coming.” Dr. Lewis had to stall until Sarah confirmed the FDU were here.

She could have left them waiting in the reception, she supposed. She could have never even seen the boy. But she'd made the mother pregnant so many years ago. She'd been there for the hugs, the tears of relief, the gifts for the support over an arduous IVF process that built fragile castles of dreams.

She could have let the terror in the mother's mind build up with all the worse possible scenarios, from overthinking last week's cough she didn't get checked out or fearing the possibility of a million different diseases she'd found and researched overnight.

Dr. Lewis remembered that feeling well. How she wished she could tell this woman her child had cancer.

At least then she'll get to see her child beyond today.

“The Father?” Dr Lewis asked casually.

A shake of the head; “Just us.” The woman was understandably nervous, her body shifting to stand a little closer to the small hands now holding onto her skirt. The tension was electric, giving everyone in the room a silent stasis that made casual conversation almost impossible.

And that's when Dr. Lewis made the mistake of following those small dark fingers, all the way up towards cracked elbows from lack of lotion, to skinny shoulders holding a bright blue t-shirt with a creature from a cartoon Dr. Lewis did not recognize. Why would she? She hadn't had to watch cartoons in over 15 years.

He was so young. Why did they test them so young? 10 years old, and barely able to understand the world around them. It seemed cruel but practical. It was easier to find them young than when they had the presence of mind to speak out or even run.

Emmanuel Ramadhani Kanumba. That was his name. And he looked nothing like Dr. Lewis. He didn't have green eyes. He didn't have wavy tussled brown hair that followed his laugh in the wind. In fact, Emmanuel's dark soft features would see him grow to be a slender gangly youth, nothing close to Dr. Lewis' heavyset stocky northern breed.

No. This child looked nothing like Dr. Lewis. And Dr. Lewis found that she didn't care.

“Excuse Ms Kanumba. If you'd just wait here.” Dr Lewis stood up and popped her head out of the door for only Sarah to see. “Sarah, would you be a dear and go downstairs to check if my next appointment is here? Ms Kanumba wants to leave.”

Sarah's eyes widened with understanding and she headed straight to the elevator door.

Dr. Lewis turned around, 10 minutes is all she had bought. Maybe more if the FDU hadn't arrived and all Sarah could do was notify the Hospital security.

“Ms. Kanumba, your child is fertile. No, don't speak. We don't have a lot of time. The FDU are coming. They will be here soon. I don't know what resources you have Ms. Kanumba, but you have a choice to make today.”

And here Dr. Lewis did something that could cost her her career. She stood aside and left the door wide open. She could not, would not explicitly tell the elegant woman before her what to do. But she could give her a choice.

Only the woman didn't get up from her chair. She didn't stand up to run. Instead, Dr. Lewis saw a scene she'd wished she never have to experience again.

With tears streaming down her face, the mother leaned down and took the confused boy in her arms. Her voice, when it came out, was cracked but lyrical, like an evangelist after a sermon: “I knew it. I knew it. I knew he was special. I've always known you see. He was too good to be mine. Forever.”

Dr Lewis took a step closer trying to clear the way for the exit, but the mother just held her son by both shoulders and looked at him clearly “Mani, I need you to be brave now. You are special Mani. Just like we've always said. You'll save the world Mani. I love you Mani. I love you. I love you.” She held him again, repeating her mantra as if this would make it all ok. As if somehow she could convince herself that there was no choice.

The child was silent. Dr. Lewis understood that he'd been prepared for this day. How could you prepare your one and only child for this? For the very worst? He looked directly at Dr. Lewis, hoping to find answers, but she stayed as mute as him, her confusion reflecting his.

She'd said all she could.

But he wasn't so prepared that his little hands didn't cling on to the very last second to his mother's blouse as the FDU came into the room. He wasn't so prepared that the terror in his eyes didn't force out the tears he'd been told to hold back. He wasn't so brave that as he was marched out of the doctors' office, he didn't scream his mother's name. That Dr. Lewis didn't see the abject betrayal in his croaks as his mother turned her back to him, sobbing uncontrollably into the arms of Sarah, unable to do anything but let her only child go somewhere no one knew, for something no one would talk about.

And then. Just like that. Dr. Lewis was alone again at her desk. A lonely case file sitting on top. The silence raining down like a tombstone.

Dr. Lewis knew what the mother would be going through tonight. She'd been lucky enough to be granted the gift of a child, and one is all she would get. There wasn't enough sperm even for one per woman. Ms. Kanumba had been lucky to even get 10 years with a child. Most saw none.

It was why Dr. Lewis always hoped for a girl for her patients.

If only Dr. Lewis had had enough time to explain to Ms Kanumba what would happen next. The nights of restless sleep. The horror of the empty rooms you can't find yourself filling up again. The pain of the lost toy bringing down a mountain of memories that would wash away any fortification you'd built against the grief.

Of course, it hadn't been a choice. What were the Kanumba's going to do? Runaway? Even with all the money in the world, where could they run with the face of the boy plastered for the whole world to see on every screen, every tablet, every device. The whole world would turn their back on their selfishness when he could provide humanity with at least 10,000 more babies. She would have bought herself maybe a week, maybe two. And that's if they got caught by the authorities. Who knew what Blackmarket hell that boy would have to endure as millions of desperate people used him up for the chance to nurture something other than themselves.

Wasn't it worth sacrificing one in 1.34875 million boys so that the human race doesn't dwindle into obscurity?

Dr. Lewis opened the locked cabinet with a force that almost broke the handle. Her hands were shaking as she took out a bottle of pills she'd long ago told herself she didn't need anymore.

But the cigarettes wouldn't destroy the nightmares. Not tonight.

She sat on her desk and opened a heart-shaped locket the size of her palm. She looked at the photo of a green-eyed well-built boy, with dark wavy hair, and a smile that would make the sun burst in joy. Elliot Lewis. They'd tested them later back then. He'd had 14 years to give his mother all the happiness she'd ever felt. She'd felt very little since then.

What she wouldn't do to have even one more week.

We don't deserve to survive thought Dr. Lewis as her brain succumbed to the sweet release of narcotics.