Unexpected Fatherhood
It was nearing sunset now, coming way too soon as it did every October. The sky was a vivid orange as the light filtered through the trees in Prospect Park.
Ryan passed by the park’s grand playground, a place he hadn’t been before. He remembered another playground being here, a smaller, modest one. The new swings were sleek, composite arches made of some sort of new material. Squares for hopscotch were now screens embedded in the concrete, with its numbers shimmering and changing colors. Even the ice cream vendor was now a drone able to drop it right in your hand rather than running up to a truck with a pocket of cash.
When he saw her sitting on a bench near the mycelium slide, he suddenly felt a knot tighten in his stomach. The last time he had seen her was three years before, when she kicked him out in a rage. Then radio silence. She had blocked him from every website and every number.
And now he had come crawling back to her after a two-line message.
Irene looked exactly the same. Her dark hair was in her signature bob and she was still bundled up in a wool coat with the collar popped despite it being a warm day. Her elegant posture made him more aware of how he was slouching, so he took a beat to make sure he looked his best before getting her attention.
“Irene,” he greeted her, his voice sounding rougher than he intended.
“Hello Ryan,” she said, her tone uncertain. Her eyes looked analytical, looking him over like a judge watching a defendant. He ran a hand through his hair nervously.
“So, it was unexpected that I’d hear from you after all...,” he started, throwing his hands into his pockets to keep them from shaking.
“I’m fine,” she looked down at an empty spot on the bench. He took the signal, still making sure to leave a foot of space between them.
The air was thick with unspoken words. He looked out on the playground at all the children running around in bright colorful coats, laughing and screaming. It was like seeing a swarm of beetles flying around a carcass. Ryan decided not to share that metaphor with her.
“So, how’s work?” he cringed as he tried to make some small talk.
“Challenging, but fulfilling. We’re working on a new epigenetic sequencing for prenatal risk mitigation,” she murmured. He noticed how she was rubbing her hands together.
“Right,” he still didn’t know exactly what she did. “Still doing freelance graphics. Still in the same old place.”
She then turned to him and he felt the tension only grow more intense. There was definitely a reason she had wanted to see him today, but he couldn’t really understand what it was.
“Do you remember that awful haircut you got in that last summer? In ‘27?” she asked him in a serious, hushed tone.
“Yeah, the auto-trimmer went berserk. I had to wear a beanie in August.”
“Well, I kept a lock of it. Part that had been buzzed off. I placed it in a little specimen box.”
“You told me it was for blackmail material,” he responded. Why was she bringing up that little joke now? It felt ominous.
“That joke had a purpose. You know what my work is.”
“Sort of.”
“You know what became possible after the RTA.”
Of course. Tabloid headlines about celebrity bio-theft, social media in an infinite cascade of debates, and a growing paranoia for early relationships.
In Vitro Gametogenesis. IVG.
“Taking any somatic cell, like a hair follicle, and revert it,” she explained like a professor. “Reprogram it into an induced pluripotent stem cell. Then you turn it into whatever you want. A gamete. A sperm cell.”
Ryan’s felt his body grow nauseous. The cheerful playground atmosphere started growing louder and the colors more intense.
“Irene, what are you talking about?”
Rather than answer his question, she pointed to a small boy now going down a slide. He couldn’t be more than three. His moppy, curly brown hair was bouncing up and down as he slid down. The same kind of mop that Ryan saw in the mirror every morning.
She hadn’t just kept a small memento. She had harvested him.
The boy landed on the padded ground and started chasing after fireflies which had started appearing at dusk. He leaped for them, still too small to reach.
Then he turned towards them and smiled. It looked just like Ryan’s own.
He felt a deep sense of violation, a boundary crossed that he didn’t even know he had to protect.
“His name is Matty. He just turned two and a half.”
She paused.
“And he’s yours.”
The words hung in the air. Now that she uttered them, they felt real. Heavy.
The nausea Ryan felt only grew worse. He watched this boy stumble and laugh with a terrifying fascination. He had become a father and he hadn’t even known it. Now he had to figure out how to explain this to his parents.