Dr. Grind then said, genuinely curious, “Link, when you say unknown element, do you mean Kalina’s unborn child?”
“Yes,” Link said. Link was perhaps the most easygoing member of the project, a man who radiated drum circles and All Things Considered and pot brownies. Dr. Grind, who’d naively assumed he could immediately sense the emotions of his family, quickly scanned the room and thought he could see agreement plain on the faces of at least five or six other parents. And he could feel the haze of confusion give way to a kind of righteous anger, a belief that he had given these people everything and they still weren’t happy. It wasn’t generous or empathetic, but Dr. Grind felt it hardening into fact, a black cloud that turned into a diamond.
“I’m mystified, honestly,” Dr. Grind said, though he was doing everything he could to control his microexpressions, never letting his unhappiness curve the shape of his features into something that could be interpreted as anger. His face was flat and unknowable, but he knew it wouldn’t last forever. “The whole point of the project was to create a larger, more inclusive family in order to be stronger.”
“That’s what we signed up for,” Susan said. “We’ve made strong bonds and we’ve done what was asked of us, no matter how much it worked against our own instincts. But now you’re changing the parameters. You’re asking us to take on another child, even though we’ve been told that we could only have one child for the duration of the study. What happens to Dr. Kwon’s child? Does she get her own set of teachers and caregivers? Do we go back to the sleep room in shifts to watch over the baby? It feels like there are a lot of exceptions that will be made for this child, when our own children were a collective that operated as a singular body. I don’t know that I’m comfortable with that.”
“And that’s what you want me to say to Dr. Kwon?”
Link then said, “We are the Infinite Family. We are the family, Dr. Grind. Dr. Kwon and the other fellows, the caregivers and teachers, Gerdie, even Mrs. Acklen, help facilitate that family. But they aren’t a part of it in the same way.”
Dr. Grind could not bring himself to ask if he was inside or outside that Infinite Family. It was shocking to him, the fact that he had always considered the Infinite Family to radiate outward, not inward.
“This is what I’ll say. I believe that Dr. Kwon is most certainly an important part of the work we’re doing here. Her contributions have been invaluable in so many ways. She is directly responsible for a number of you even being here in the first place. She has found happiness, a child, and yet she wants to continue her work with the project. I cannot think of a good reason to tell her that, because she is having a child, she cannot participate in the same way. There is nothing, legally, in her contract that stipulates that she could not have a child.”
“We’re not telling her that she can’t have a child,” Julie said, speaking up. “We’re saying that if she has a child, she’ll need to move out of the complex and take on fewer responsibilities with the family. I don’t think that’s as cold as you’re making it seem.”
“Here is what we’re going to do,” Grind said, not even bothering to respond to that line of reasoning, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of this room. “If this is a family matter, then you will vote on it. All nineteen of you get one vote. A yes means that Dr. Kwon stays on in her role as a fellow, and we make accommodations for the baby. A no means that Dr. Kwon will move out of the complex and I will change the nature of her work with the project.”
“We’re going to vote right now?” Nikisha asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Grind said. “I need to tell Kalina the decision. I think to draw it out would be cruel.” Dr. Grind reached into a drawer and retrieved a notebook and a box of pens. He tore out nineteen sheets of paper, taking absolutely no care to make them ordered and even, and handed these ragged sheets to each parent. “This will be anonymous. I’ll wait in the hallway. Izzy, if you’ll collect the votes and call me back into the room, we’ll make our decision.”