“You’re unique. Why shouldn’t you be?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
How much could she tell him? If he understood, just enough, maybe it would end it.
“I want my wine.”
“I’ll get it.” Before she could comment, he’d stepped back inside. She took the moment to align her thoughts. No point in wishing for more time to prepare, she told herself.
“I don’t need you to do things for me,” she began, when he came out with their wine. “It’s important to me that I do for myself.”
“The wine? Seriously?” He took his own to the porch steps, sat. “Manners are important, too. Simple courtesies. My mother’s a very capable, independent woman, but I’d’ve gotten her glass of wine. From what I’ve seen, what I know, you’re as capable as they come. That doesn’t mean I can’t do you a courtesy.”
“It’s stupid.” A little lost, she looked down at the cloth,turned it in her hands. “I hate being stupid. And it wasn’t what I was going to say, anyway.”
“Why don’t you sit down here and say what you’re going to say?”
She hesitated, then signaled to Bert that he could go into the yard, and sat.
“I am capable of most things, but I don’t believe I’m capable of maintaining a relationship.”
“Because?”
“When my mother decided she wanted a child, she researched donors.”
“So she wasn’t involved with anyone.”
“No. No one she wanted to procreate with.”
Procreate, Brooks thought. That was a telling word.
“She’d reached a point in her life where she wanted a child. That’s not accurate,” Abigail decided. “She wanted an offspring, and she had very specific, very detailed, requirements for the donor. My mother is a very intelligent woman, and naturally she wanted to produce an intelligent…offspring. She required high intellect, good health, including family medical history. She had physical requirements, in appearance and body type, stamina.”
“I get the picture.”
“When she’d determined the donor, she scheduled the conception date, through artificial insemination, to correlate with her own personal and professional calendar. Naturally, she arranged the finest prenatal care available, and I was born through a scheduled cesarean section, and proved very healthy, of the proper weight and size. She had, of course, already arranged for a nurse, so I was given excellent care, and tested and examined regularly to be certain my development was strong.”
The birdsong, so happy, seemed out of place, as did the sudden jeweled whirl of a hummingbird toward a pot of scarlet dianthus.
“Do you know all this because you found out, or because she told you?”
“She told me. I always knew. The knowledge was part ofmy education. Education, along with my physical health, were priorities. My mother is exceptionally beautiful, and she had some disappointment in that while my features are pleasing enough, my coloring good, I didn’t reach the level in appearance she’d hoped for, but I made up for it with intellect and motor skills and retention. Overall, she was very satisfied.”
“Oh, baby.”
She hunched in when he put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“You’re just going to have to swallow that one.”
“I’m telling you this so you understand my basic genetic makeup. My mother, while satisfied with me on the whole, never loved me or wished to. She never accepted I might have my own goals or desires or plans. Hers, for me, were again very specific and detailed. For a very long time I thought she didn’t love me because I was lacking in some area, but I came to understand she simply didn’t love. She has no capacity or aptitude for love, and no skills at displaying affection. Factoring genetics and environment, I also lack the capacity. I may not have the skills for relationships, but I understand emotions and affection are primary needs in developing and maintaining them.”
Brooks thought, What a load of crap. But he structured his response more carefully. “Let me get this straight. Because your mother’s cold, selfish and appears to have all the finer feelings of a sand flea, you’re genetically predestined to be the same.”
“That’s very harsh.”
“I can be harsher.”
