To Cuddle Amy

NANCY KRESS

Nancy Kress is one of the major SF writers of the last two decades, well-known for her complex medical SF stories and for her biological and evolutionary extrapolations in such classics as(1993), Beggars and Choosers (1994), and Beggars Ride (1996). In recent years, she has written two science thrillers, Oaths and Miracles (1995) and Stinger (1998), the SF novel(1998), and last year published Probability Moon (2000), the first book in a trilogy of hard SF novels set against the background of a war between humanity and an alien race. In 1998 she married SF writer Charles Sheffield. Her stories are rich in texture and in the details of the inner life of character and have been collected in Trinity and Other Stories (1985), The Aliens of Earth (1993), and Beakers Dozen (1998). She teaches regularly at summer writing workshops such as Clarion, and during the year at the Bethesda Writing Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She is the “Fiction” columnist for Writers Digest.

Beggars in Spain Maximum Light

“To Cuddle Amy” is a tiny SF horror story with a sit-com tone. It appeared in Asimov’s. It is an interesting contrast to Michael Flynn’s story, “Built Upon the Sands of Time.” There were a number of stories published last year about the anxieties of parents and children in the coming era of genetic engineering that is creeping up on us, but none better than this one.

Campbell entered the living room to find his wife in tears. “Allison! What’s wrong?”

She sprang up from the sofa and raged at him. “What do you think is wrong, Paul? What’s ever wrong? Amy! Only this time she’s gone too far.

“This time, she…she… the police just left….” She broke down into sobs.

Campbell had had a lot of experience dealing with his wife. They’d been married almost forty years. Pushing down his own alarm, he took Allison in his arms and sat on the sofa, cradling her as if she were a child. Which, in some ways, she still was. Allison had always been high strung, finely tuned. Sensitive. He was the strong one. “Tell me, sweetie. Tell me what happened.”

“I…she…”

“The police. You said the police just left. What did Amy do now?”

“Van…vandalism. She and those awful friends of hers… the Hitchens boy, that slut Kristy Arnold… they…”

“They what? Come on, honey, you’ll feel better if you tell me.”

“They were throwing rocks at cars from the overpass! Throwing rocks!”

Campbell considered. It could be far worse. Still… something didn’t add up here. “Allison—why did the cops leave? Are they going to arrest Amy?”

“No. They said they”—more sobbing—“couldn’t be sure it was her. Not enough evidence. But they suspected it was, and wanted us to know… oh, Paul, I don’t think I can take much more!”

“I know, honey. I know. Shhh, don’t cry.”

“She just throws away everything we do for her!”

“Shhhhhh,” Campbell said, but Allison went on crying. Campbell gazed over her heaving shoulder at the wall, covered with framed photos of Amy. Amy at six months, asleep on a pink blanket in a field of daisies. Amy at two, waving her moo-cow, a toddler so adorable that people had stopped Allison in the street to admire her. Amy at seven in a ballet tutu. Amy at twelve, riding her horse. Amy at sixteen in a prom dress, caught in a rare smile.

Amy, fourteen, came through the front door.

Allison didn’t give her daughter a chance to attack first. “So there you are! You just missed the cops, Amy, telling us what you’ve done this time, and it’s the last straw, do you hear me, young lady? We forgave you the awful school grades! We forgave you the rudeness and ingratitude and sullen self-centeredness! We even forgave you the shop-lifting, God help us! But this is over the line! Throwing rocks at cars! Someone could have been killed—how much more do you expect us to take from you? Answer me!”

Amy said angrily, “I didn’t do it!”

“You’re lying! The cops said—”

“Allison, wait,” Campbell said. “Amy, the cops said you were a suspect.”

“Well, I didn’t do it! Kristy and Jed did, but I went home! And I don’t care if you believe me or not, you bitch!”

Allison gasped. Amy stormed through the living room, a lanky mass of fury in deliberately torn clothes, pins through her lip and eyebrow, purple lipstick smeared. She raced upstairs and slammed her bedroom door.

“Paul…oh,Paul… did you hear what she called me? Her mother?” Allison collapsed against him again, her slim body shaking so hard that Campbell’s arms tightened to steady her.

But he felt shaky, too. This couldn’t go on. The sullen rudeness, the fights, the breaking the law …their lives were being reduced to rubble by a fourteen-year-old.

“Paul…” Allison sobbed, “do you remember how she used to be? Oh, God, the day she was born…remember? I was so happy I thought I’d die. And then how she was as a little girl, climbing on our laps for a cuddle…oh,Paul, I want my little girl back!”

“I know. I know, dearest.”

“Don’t you?”

He did. He wanted back the Amy who was so sweet, so biddable. Who thought he was the best daddy in the world. The feel of that light little body in his arms, the sweet baby smell at the back of her neck….

He said slowly, “She’s fourteen now. Legal age.”

Immediately, Allison stopped sobbing. She stood still against him. Finally she said, “It isn’t as if she’d be without resources. The Hitchenses might take her in. Or somebody. And anyway, there are lots more like her out there.” Allison’s lower lip stuck out. “Might even do her good to learn how good she had it here with us!”

Campbell closed his eyes. “But we wouldn’t know.”

“You’re damn right we wouldn’t know! She doesn’t want any part of us, then I don’t want any part of her!” Again, Allison leaned against him. “But it isn’t that, Paul. You know it isn’t. I just want my little girl back again! I want to cuddle my lost little girl! Oh, I’d give anything to cuddle Amy again! Don’t you want that, too?”

Campbell did. And the present situation really wasn’t fair to Allison, who’d never been strong. Allison’s health was being affected. She shouldn’t have to be broken by this spiteful stranger who’d developed in their midst in the last year. Allison had rights, too.

His wife continued to sob against his chest, but softly now. Campbell felt strong, in control. He could make it all right for his wife, for himself. For everybody.

He said, “There are three embryos left.”

Three of six. Three frozen vials in the fertility clinic, all from the same in-vitro fertilization, stored as standard procedure against a failure to carry to term. Or other need. Three more versions of the same embryo, the product of forced division before the first implantation. Standard procedure, yes, all over the country.

“I’ll throw her out tonight,” he told Allison, “and call the clinic in the morning.”