“I’ll never give it to you,” Con repeated.
“You will.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard. But you’re not selling me so far.”
“Well, we haven’t gotten to the good part yet,” Abigail said with the tease of a born storyteller.
“What’s the good part?” Con asked, wary but curious.
“Where we make your dream come true.”
“You have nothing I want,” Con said.
“Your original said that too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Cabigail returned from the kitchen with a floral tray and set out three mugs and spoons, a teapot, milk, sugar, and a small plate of cookies. It was all so peculiarly civilized. Pouring water into the first cup, Cabigail stirred in milk and sugar, fussing over it until it was just so. Then she placed it with a ceremonial flourish in front of Abigail. Abigail lifted the cup to her nose with both hands and breathed it in.
“Chamomile. How apropos.”
Cabigail prepared the other two mugs and slid one in the direction of Con. Con left it untouched; even if she liked tea, she didn’t trust Cabigail enough to drink anything she made. Pockmark and his team hadn’t died of natural causes.
“She doesn’t drink tea yet,” Abigail reminded her.
“True, that’s true,” Cabigail said, then asked Con if she would like something different.
“I’m fine,” Con said. “What is happening here?”
Abigail took a tentative sip. “Do you remember the last time we saw each other?”
“My father’s funeral.”
“How is the tea?” Cabigail asked.
“Perfect,” Abigail replied, then to Con: “That’s right. Your father’s funeral. September 7, 2022. Antoine D’Arcy was the most stoic human being I’ve ever met. The weight he bore. I honestly couldn’t say which was the more unforgiving taskmaster—the US Army or your mother. I don’t know anyone who could have taken it for as long as he did. And he never said a word. Never complained. Did his tours and carried the weight. In many ways, he was her anchor. The one thing keeping her from indulging her demons. I was heartbroken when he was killed in that absurd war.”
“Is that why you made a scene?”
“I made a scene?” Cabigail said, glancing at Abigail, who rolled her eyes. “Is that how the family tells it? Be honest, in your lifetime did anyone ever start a scene with your mother?”
Con had to admit she had a solid point. One of the risks of being anywhere in public with her mother was the high chance of drama. Con couldn’t remember a single time that her mother wasn’t feuding with someone in the family or at her church. Even as a little girl, she understood on some level that her mother was always the instigator. It was certainly that way between the two of them. She remembered once, without a trace of irony, her mother demanding to know why God cursed her with such a combative child.
“So, what set her off?” Con asked.
“I told her that I was sorry that I wasn’t in time,” Abigail said and sipped her tea. Each time she did, Cabigail nodded approvingly.
“In time for what?” Con asked.
“To save your father. Vernon and I founded Palingenesis in the spring of ’19. We made huge strides in the intervening three years. The dream of human cloning was within reach. I could see the way forward. All I needed was time and funding, both of which I knew Vernon would get me. He is a genius with such things.” Abigail paused to reflect and take a big drink from her mug. “I think I always had Antoine in the back of my mind. That I’d be able to give soldiers like him a second chance. But I was too late.”
“That’s what the big fight was about?”
“It was foolish of me. I was aware Mary had become more seriously involved with her church. I knew she disapproved of my work. But I hadn’t really been home in years, and it wasn’t until that moment at the funeral that I realized that I had become the enemy. So, I left and never came back. We have that much in common at least,” Abigail said, clearly hoping to find common ground. When Con only stared her down, she kept on with her story. “But five years later, when Palingenesis won its first contract with the DoD to provide clone backups for key military personnel, I thought of your father. It was the proudest moment of my career. Just goes to show you what a na?ve fool I was.”
“Na?ve how?”
“Scientists are trained to find answers. Locked in a laboratory, the real world has a way of becoming an abstraction. All that matters is solving the puzzle. Real-world applications are someone else’s problem, but I had this fantasy that my work would be used to help give working-class people in high-risk professions a second chance. People like your father. I never stopped to think of the billionaires who would line up, eager to buy themselves more time. But Vernon did. He always knew that our work with the military was only to gain a toehold. His leaking the news to the Times and the Post? A stroke of genius.”