I did not have a picture of Rosie and me with an actual baby. At some level I did not believe in it, perhaps because of my original Lydia-induced fear of being a parent, or perhaps—as Aaron the Marshal had suggested—I did not consider myself worthy. There had been some amelioration of both of these concerns: Lydia had given me provisional endorsement, and Gene, Dave, Sonia and even George had recently provided positive feedback about my worth as a human being beyond the domain of genetics research.

Now I had to imagine the outcome.

It took a deliberate effort of will. I attempted to integrate four images of a baby and my emotional responses to them.

I imagined the pictures of the developing baby on the wall of my bathroom-office. No response. The process of drawing them had definitely had a calming effect, but the recollection of an image of a picture of a generic foetus or even the ultrasound photos did not have any power.

The mental picture of Rosie II, Dave and Sonia’s baby, was not particularly helpful—she was also still a generic baby.

The memory of the older baby that had crawled over me during the Lesbian Mothers Project was more satisfactory. I remembered the experience being fun. I suspected the level of fun might increase with the baby’s age, obviously with some limit. I recalled the fun generated by the LMP baby as being of the same order as that induced by a margarita. Perhaps two margaritas, but not sufficient to motivate me to life-changing actions.

The final image was of the actual Bud. I envisaged Rosie and the bump. I even envisaged it moving, evidence of human life. Minimal emotional impact.

I faced the same problem as I had during the Rosie Project. I was crippled—challenged—incapable of the feelings needed to drive normal behaviour. My emotional response was to Rosie. It was of a very high level, and if I could have redirected some of it towards the baby, as Rosie had apparently done with her feelings for me, the problem would have been solved.

Finally, an official (male, approximately fifty, BMI approximately thirty-two) opened the door.

‘Mr Tillman. We’ve checked your wife’s baggage and everything seems to be in order.’

‘No bomb?’ The question was automatic and, on reflection, stupid. I had not packed a bomb and it was extremely unlikely that Rosie had.

‘No bomb, smart guy. Nevertheless, we have broad laws against inciting an incident and—’

At this point the door opened again—no knock—and another official (female, age approximately thirty-five, estimated BMI twenty-two) entered. Given that I was dealing with officialdom, and probably at risk of some sort of penalty, this was annoying. I was definitely better at one-on-one interactions than situations involving multiple people. With Margarita Cop I had been fine; with Good Cop and Bad Cop less so. With Lydia alone I had made progress; the involvement of Sonia had required subterfuge that inevitably led to confusion. Even in our informal men’s group, the move from one relationship to six had created dynamics that I had overlooked. Dave apparently did not approve of Gene. I only knew this because Dave had told me so directly.

I barely noticed what the new official was saying, because my train of thought had led me to a massive insight. I needed to share it with Rosie as soon as possible.

‘We understand you’ve been subjected to some inconvenience, Professor Tillman,’ said the female officer.

‘Correct. Reasonable precautions to prevent terrorism.’

‘That’s very understanding of you. The flight will be leaving again in approximately an hour, and you and Ms Jarman are both welcome to board. They’re going to hold the Melbourne flight in LA for delayed passengers. But if you’d rather have some recovery time, we can arrange a limousine to your home and fly her business class on tomorrow’s flights through to Melbourne. We’ll upgrade you too if you choose to fly with her.’

‘I will need to consult with Rosie.’

‘You can do that momentarily. But we’d like you to do something for us, in exchange for my colleagues not taking this further. Which they might be under pressure to do, even though we do realise it was all a misunderstanding.’

She put a three-page document in front of me, paced around the room for several minutes, left, and then re-entered, while I read the legal wording. I considered asking for a lawyer, but I could see no serious negative implications in signing. I had no intention of discussing the incident with the media. I just wanted to talk to Rosie. I signed and was released.

‘Will you accept the offer of staying overnight in New York?’ I asked Rosie.

‘I’ll stay. Anything’s better than twenty hours pregnant in economy. I’m going to miss life being this crazy.’

‘You need to call Phil,’ I said. ‘To tell him you’ll be a day late.’

‘He doesn’t expect me till January,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s going to be a surprise.’

37

I had been given a final chance to find a solution. My plan was straightforward, but made difficult by the limited amount of time available. We arrived back at the apartment at 4.07 p.m. Gene was there, and assumed Rosie had returned permanently. The result was an awkward conversation.

At the end Gene said, ‘To be honest, I was expecting Don to come home alone and had an exciting evening planned for him.’

I had my own exciting evening planned.

‘We’ll have to reschedule it. Rosie and I are going out and won’t be home until late.’

‘It’s not reschedulable,’ said Gene. ‘Medical faculty breakup party. Starts at five-thirty, be over by seven. You can have dinner later.’