I pulled her into a tight embrace, and we stood there, the same exact height, our heads nestled onto each other’s shoulders, our bodies shaking as she cried. I swallowed back my tears; I couldn’t stop smiling. My gratitude was fierce and huge and it filled every part of me. Our identical heartbeats were pressed together. As I’d gotten older, my mother and I had become more and more distant. By the time I’d left for Chicago, we’d rationed our physical contact to a quick peck on the cheek or a functional, fleeting touch to catch each other’s attention. This felt like making up for lost time.
Of the nine women who’d given birth at the Homestead, only three were still alive now, my mother among them. I wanted to drink her in. It was the first time I’d met Margaret Morrow as she really was.
“You’re a fucking idiot, Josephine.” My mother pulled back too soon. She grabbed my face in both her hands and shook me. Her tearstained face was terrified. “You shouldn’t be here. You have to get out now.”
* * *
My mother’s fierceness scared me. The sheer desperation on her face. “I was hoping—I was praying every day—that he wouldn’t bring you here,” my mother said. “The things he plans to do to you—”
“But I came here to find you,” I said.
“—And then you show up here by yourself. Just saving him the time.” She glanced toward the door, her face haunted. “Why are you here? He refused to let me talk to you. Did he change his mind, or…？”
“I’m here to get you out. But you have to tell me, Mom.” The word Mom felt so right, clicking my world back into a recognizable pattern. “What was he planning to do to us?”
She searched my eyes. “He didn’t tell you. Of course not. That fucking coward.” She exhaled heavily. “Joseph wants to find the others. All of you Girls. Bring you back together again, on his terms. He’s fixated on the fact that you’re returning to his work, Josie. It hurts his pride to see you getting all the attention. I don’t think he predicted the possibility that you would displace him. He thought we’d just vanish once he abandoned us. And now he wants you to be the next phase of his experiment.”
My blood ran cold. Not the scientist, then, but the guinea pig.
My mother continued, “He’s been trying on the women here and it hasn’t worked. There’ve been so many losses. So much blood and pain. Terrible problems. He can’t do it.”
My lower belly cramped, an awareness of my dormant uterus. The size of a fist. His offer to make me his successor had been an empty ploy—his brusque examination of Isabelle, sizing up her body, was closer to the truth. It’d been a long time since I’d been the subject. That Bellanger would do this to me—that he saw me as a means to an end, saw me no differently than the men in Kithira had—
“But Fiona,” I managed. “She’s pregnant. It worked with her.” Half a question.
“Yes,” my mother said, urgent. “Exactly. Fiona’s pregnant, and only Fiona. He’s convinced that he can only create virgin births in certain bodies. Our bodies. The nine bodies he lost. And how does he get those bodies back? Through—”
“Through the daughters,” I finished for her.
“Exactly.”
I’d seen our mothers’ past resurrected in our identical bodies over and over during the past few weeks. The heartbreak and disgust hit me so hard that for a second my own body was heavy around me. Bellanger hadn’t wanted my brain or Cate’s heart. He only wanted what lay inside us, all the tangled hope and beautiful fearsomeness of our interiors. I knew how much people wanted to control what we held inside ourselves, and how much people feared it running wild.
I’d feared it too. I’d wanted to control it too.
“Why did you never tell me about him, Mom?” I heard my childhood self creep into my voice, that old sadness and earnestness. “I know everything now. If you’d just trusted me sooner—”
“Joseph had such a hold over you. He was cradling you in his arms before the umbilical cord was cut. That was the first time I really thought: What have I done? I was so na?ve.” Her voice dropped lower. “I hurt those women. The Mothers. I brought a wolf right into our midst. The guilt nearly drove me crazy sometimes. What he did to Patricia Bishop, especially…” In the flickering light of the votive candle, she flushed. “He was so cold to her. He was jealous of her, knew how important she was to me. Bellanger took every opportunity to make her feel excluded.”