I knew that I had to do something with it. I felt that if nothing else, I would do something. Her voice told me, "Do something. For once. Please, put those down. Would you try not dragging that across the ground, do you know how much it's worth?"

I sat in her studio. There was no way for anyone but me to tell which pieces were complete. Which ones were unfinished. Before she died, she'd asked me to clean. All of her supplies were in the right places. Not a one tube of acrylic was missing its cap. I sat on her stool, facing the concrete wall where she'd projected her sketches. I ran down the options.

1) I could inseminate it. I could use my sperm. I could use someone else’s sperm. 

2) I thought, what if I save it? What if I could make some money, fly to Europe and have it cloned. Copy the DNA. I thought, she would have wanted a replica of her. I don’t know much about cloning. I’m sure she would have trusted me to research it.

I collected all the paintings. The ones she was working on, the finished ones, ones she’d torn off the frames and rolled up. 

I spent a few days away from the studio. I’d hid all her remaining work at my apartment. A few of her friends called to get the details of her passing. Her agent rang me and asked after me, how was I holding up. Then she inquired about the status of a commissioned piece. I lied. I said it was unfinished. I told her I would send her the sketches, "Maybe the client wants another artist to complete it." I said

"It could be a memorial, I said. 

I said in retaliation, "She would have thought it was a good idea."

I thought, I’m going to need a woman to carry this child, no matter what I do to get it growing. But I was the one the egg was entrusted to. I was the only one competent enough to care for it. I called on the lab where the egg was kept. The woman in the white skirt had large ankles. 

She asked, "Where could you possibly take it?"

"I'm capable." I said, "I'm doing this."

The woman made no move to stop me. I took possession of the egg and brought it home to my apartment. 

That night, I slept very little. In the early morning, the sun only half way up my window, I got out of bed and went to the freezer. I removed the egg from its container and placed it on the cutting board to thaw. Before it was completely unfrozen I took it up with a spoon and put it in my mouth. Though the egg itself was microscopic, the ice around it was the size of a once-a-day multivitamin. The solution was obvious. It was, after all mine. I choked it down with a glass of orange juice and went back to bed to wait.