This is interesting news from a girl who’s studying how to take the sex right out of reproduction. Josephine insists that she’s not trying to create a world without men, contrary to popular belief. “I don’t want to scare anyone away,” she says. “Bellanger is a man, after all, and he’s my biggest inspiration. This is about science, not feminism.”
So if Josephine had the chance to go back in time and work with Dr. Joseph Bellanger—if she was in the same position as her mother, many years before—would she do it? Would she agree to be part of the experiments that made her own mother famous?
Josephine thinks about this for a while. “I’m not sure I’m ready to be a mother,” she says, flipping her long, dark hair over one shoulder. “But I’d love a chance to work with Bellanger as an adult, more than anything. So yes. I’d say yes.”
20
The NO TRESPASSING signs started out small. A modest sign on a tree trunk, discreet, almost quaint. By the time we reached the driveway proper, the signs were cluttered so thickly they felt like a physical barricade. They hung from the low, rustic wooden gate; they were stapled to the trees. NO TRESPASSING. Urgent against what otherwise looked like a scene copied from a rustic promotional brochure. A two-story clapboard farmhouse, weathered white. The Bishops didn’t live on the Homestead grounds. They were on the other side of town, miles away. But its presence seemed to hang in the very air. Leaning out the open window, I recognized a certain quality to the light, a distinct pattern to the birdsong. I remembered.
We parked at the base of a tree, near a broken beer bottle half buried in a tangle of ivy. Brown shards and a torn silvery label. The back of my neck prickled with unease. “The house is still standing, at least,” I said.
Cate glanced backward, and I checked too, half expecting to see the sedan trailing us. But there was nothing, just birdsong, breeze ruffling the trees.
At first I thought no one would come to the door. I was about to return to the car and wait when the door opened. Patricia was small, only five feet, but the imperiousness of her posture made it feel like she loomed over me. Two long fawn-colored braids hung down her back. Her black turtleneck and ankle-length denim skirt covered most of her body. In the background, a dense layer of classical music.
When Patricia’s gaze touched me, she flinched and looked away too fast. She spoke, addressing some nonspecific point beyond the three of us: “You can’t be here.”
I stepped forward, handed her the letter like it was a ticket, admit one. Patricia took it, still without looking at me. I watched her as she read, seeing the message again in my mind: Dear Doctor Bellanger. When Patricia looked up, her face was completely blank. “You need to go,” she said to Tom, then turned to Cate: “You two. Come inside.”
“Well, wait a second,” Tom said. “It’s important for us all to be here.”
Patricia blinked at him, stony. “It’s not important to me.”
I was torn. “We’ve all come a long way—”
“Morrow,” Cate said. “He can sit this one out.”
“Okay,” Tom said. “Of course. Yeah.” He leaned in close, breath stirring the hair at my temple. “Tell me everything, all right? Good luck.”
We followed Patricia into the house. The exterior reminded me fleetingly of the Homestead, but this was where it diverged. The Homestead had been all chaos inside, a disorderly stretch of discarded clothing, soiled cloth diapers, unwashed dishes. This place was obsessively tidy. Dark, staid furniture. Blinds closed tight. The cool, cutting scent of citrus.
Patricia didn’t invite us to sit. She was wandering the edges of the room, reading the letter again and again. I looked around for Isabelle, Girl Two. No sign of her. I wasn’t sure Patricia could hear anything over the heavy throb of music. Cate finally went to the record player, which was tucked inside a bookshelf, and switched it off, the silence ringing.
Patricia couldn’t take her eyes off the letter. “There’s no name,” she said softly, tracing the bottom of the page with one thumb. “That was clever. As if all of us wrote the letter together. But it was one girl’s choice to reach out to Joseph Bellanger. The rest of us never agreed.”
“You didn’t approve of Bellanger joining you?” I asked, my mind racing. This was verification of what Deb had said. Patricia spoke as if she’d assumed I already knew. Then I came back to myself, my actual purpose here. “Patricia, my mother’s missing. Is she here? Has she been in touch?”