Archetype by M. D. Waters Page B

right. It is a lie. I care for him, but I cannot say it is love. Not yet.
    Declan’s smile is wide and amazing and I cannot help but smile in response. “When this is all over with, I want to renew our vows. Will you do that for me?”
    I nod, but my stomach twists uneasily. Still, I affect a smile of utter happiness. I do not need to see a reflection of myself to know it is perfect. “Of course. Anything.”
    Anything to go home.

CHAPTER 9
    D r. Travista does not ask me how I am. He has not asked since that day. Instead, he watches me read the bindings of his books again and again. I will read them until they are in tatters and still have no idea what they are for. It makes no difference, because I only wish to stay far away from the window and the thick layer of snow on the ground.
    “Have you read any of the books I sent you?” he asks.
    I shrug one shoulder. “It seems I am not much of a reader.” She likes them, so I stopped reading to spite Her. If She wants to screw with me, I can screw with Her. “I think I will stick with the gardens and running for now. I like to do those things.”
    “What about the stars? You like the stars. Maybe you have an interest in astronomy. We could manage a telescope—”
    “I only think they are pretty,” I say. I have no interest in studying them. “The mystery of them is what holds my interest.” The mystery of some niggling memory drawing me to them, actually. I feel it is just there, at the back of my memory, trying to dig its way to the surface.
    “That makes sense.” He taps something into his tablet, adjusts his eyeglasses, and then clears his throat. “Declan says you two are becoming close again.”
    Hiding my face to answer would only help the lie, so I give him a glassy-eyed look and smile broadly at him. “Oh yes. I love him very much.”
    “I’m curious. What do you foresee for your marriage?”
    My breath catches, but I do not think he notices. “I do not understand the question.”
    “What are your plans when you get home? When people are married, they have hopes and dreams for a particular future. What are yours?”
    I do not have an answer for this. I have not thought beyond returning home.
    The answer is family,
She says.
Living happily ever after.
    I want to ignore Her, but I need an answer for the doctor and have no other response than the one She has given me. “I would like to have children,” I say.
    This answer intrigues him, and his thick wiry eyebrows rise as he pulls the glasses from his face. “Oh? And how many do you think you’d like to have?”
    Be vague,
She warns.
Specifics will only lead to trouble.
    “I do not know,” I say and fold into the leather chair across from him. The cold leather seeps through my thin pants but only slightly penetrates my sweater. “I have not thought too much about it.”
    Audible clicks time perfectly with the taps of his fingers over the tablet. “Well, I’m happy to report to you that children are very possible. Your tests came back with positive results.”
    This makes my mouth and throat run dry. “There was a question?”
    He sets the tablet aside and crosses his legs. His arms spread over the overstuffed sides of his leather chair. “Well, yes. Fertility is questionable with a majority of the female population, and because of your accident, we feared you would lose the ability to bear children.”
    I sit up, curiosity piqued by only one thing he has said. The other I could come back to later. “Fertility is questionable? How so?”
    He shrugs very slightly. “That seems to be the big enigma for us all. Nobody can seem to pinpoint the exact reason, so they blame it on Mother Nature. Her way of compensating for the overpopulation of our species.
    “Unfortunately, we’d already begun taking the steps to take care of this ourselves. Globally limiting families to one child, and at that time—oh, I’d say this started roughly two hundred years ago—couples could change the sex of their