My chest heaves and my shoulders shake. How the hell did this happen? You never did anything to anyone. I can think of about five hundred people who deserve what you got more than you did. Why am I watching you get lowered into the ground when three years ago, I put the ring on your finger? Tell me I got hit in the head and I'm in a coma somewhere, and I'll open my eyes any second and you're gonna smile at me and say “You silly little man, stop being such a bitch.”
    Please. Please open your eyes. You're so pale and shrunken and empty. It's so bright out, like the planet wants to reassure me that your warmth has been absorbed by Mother Earth herself, but this blue ball in the middle of isn't worthy of you. You're not dead. I can't live without you. You can't be dead. Your casket thuds into the earth as our children, your pallbearers, brave enough to do what I can only sob at, and that impact jars something in the four of them. Jon, our oldest—Johnny--drops to his knees and bawls like a baby. Martin's so stoic by comparison: tears silently streak down his face, and grief masks the rest of it. Daniel drops to a knee, head down, praying with fists clenched and lips blubbering. Mommy's little boy will never get over this. And Frederick never saw eye to eye on you with many things, but today he wails loudest of all, kneeling to kiss your casket before climbing out of the hole. Our little premie was never supposed to make it this long, but his stubborn-as-a-pmsing-badger personality kept him breathing and pissing you off. I don't know what hurts most: that I'm not with you, that I can't stop thinking about my own pain, or that I can't help the boys with theirs. You can't be dead. We need you.
    I've got a bouquet of white lilies in my hand. They were—they are—your favorite. I almost hit your headstone with them when I throw them, but the tears make me overshoot a bit. Dawn Kimberly. Beloved and Never Forgotten. If I had the money, you'd've had the tallest, grandest headstone in the whole damn cemetery. Sadly, that kind of ostentatious bullshit is saved for the rich assholes, not some geneticist who just gets by. The wind catches on your bouquet slightly, letting the tips of the flowers flow like your hair used to.
    The boys take turns depositing their own bouquets—also white lilies—for you. They walk up together, then wait single-file, knowing that they'd never do it if they tried to do it alone. As each comes down the hill, I hug them. When the chemo failed you, too scared to sleep at night because you were afraid you wouldn't wake up the next morning, the anguish in your eyes didn't hurt me as much as the boys' eyes do when I hug them. Try as I might, these scars I'll never be rid of. And worse, I'll never rid them of it either.
    The wind caresses us as we group-hug, our grief silently shaking us. Watching them cry just makes me cry harder. And they need me to be stronger than them, and I hate myself for it. Why?
    Our first drive home without you passes without incident, without words. I can hardly see on the way home, and you'd be so disappointed in me for wishing what I did. When we get home, the boys and I sit on the sofa and just...decompress. As they lean on me for comfort, I brood, and wonder if they should know of my burden.
    Before you started becoming symptomatic, I took samples, and hid them in the lab. You were sleeping, and no one else ever knew, and I wondered if I could save your body the stress of more child-birth by simply cloning more kids. You always said children were your greatest joy in life, and I wanted to give you as many as possible. Because your smile was my greatest joy. You made me feel like I could solve AIDS and Parkinson's at the same time, if you just smiled when I needed it most.
    Three days later, it all fell apart. The lethargy, the bruises, the hints that that wonderfully sexy indomitable fighting spirit was fading. I didn't have the gall to tell the boys, and we ran you to ER while they were in school.
    And you were so fucking brave when he told you. When I learned that in three months, the life I'd spent three years building was likely over. You just nodded, and said “We'll see.” Your tone was quiet, assured, as if he'd done nothing more than offer you a cup of coffee. I knew that tone well. To me, it meant that leukemia could bring everything it had, and that you'd kick its ass.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Stop. I'm gonna be ok, baby. I'm gonna be ok.” You cradled me on the hospital floor, using energy you shouldn't have had to as I quietly sobbed. But you know how we sometimes lie to ourselves to disguise truths we're not ready to face? I just had a feeling that even you couldn't come back from this, no matter how much I begged, no matter how much the kids needed you.
    Three months later, you're in the ground, and I hate that feeling more than I hate myself. The universe is punishing me, the sadistic son of a bitch, all because I wanted to surprise you. I took something from it, and it took everything from me.
    The boys in the lab tell me that we can't clone children from you. Not exactly. What they tell me is both worse, and more wonderful than anything I could've anticipated. The DNA is too perfect a match for them to be considered children. Yet if I so choose? They can bring you back. They can bring back a multitude of you, just in case something goes wrong.
    But the kids can't learn of this, not yet. They still cry themselves to sleep at night, waking up from the nightmares of grade-schoolers and mid-schoolers, asking if Mommy's ever coming home again. So I call the lab boys, and tell them to start a couple prototypes.
    Weeks, even months pass. I lose almost all hope, throw myself into raising the kids as best I can—when the tequila and my self-hatred don't leave me on the floor at 3 am, that is.
All I've got left is them, at least until I close my eyes and the world goes away, and my life comes back. When you gently scold me for being a fool, telling me you can't stay, that the kids need me more than the bottle does. I always wake up with fingers grasping towards fading hope, a hope that gets slighter and slighter.
    The phone finally manages to out-ring my head, one morning, when I'm face-down in my own vomit and wishing to the universe I wouldn't have woken up. “Get down here. We've done it. Goddammit, Mike, we've done it!” I almost forget to wash my face before racing out the door. I do forget to call the babysitter, but girls as young as she is don't pay much mind to addicts like me. The stench and crazed expression on my face don't entice her to pay any greater attention, and she scurries inside my—our—house like she'd seen Satan's hitman.
    I rev the car, not bothering with a seatbelt or any of the usual traffic bullshit. Honking horns serenade me as I duck and weave like a demented spider, and it's only my contract with the Police Department that keeps those soulless bastards from trying to pull me over. They learned a long time ago that if they need me for something, they give me leeway on certain things. I'd say seeing you for the first time in 6 months is reason for extra consideration.
    As soon as I see the lab, I slam on the brakes and run out of the car as soon as it stops. I may have grabbed the keys, but who's counting? I bolt up the stairway, heart pounding, and I can't stop myself from smiling. Dawn...
    Kelly Genetics greets me as I open the door. Lawrence greets me like the puppyish guard-dog that he is. “Sir, it's with great pleasure that I give you...”
    I stop, and the world stops with me. It's you. Oh thank God, it's you. I take you by the hand and kiss it, pulling you in for the kiss of our lifetimes, and I'm so excited I'm shaking. “Oh god. Oh god, Dawn, I missed you so much.”
    You recoil, spitting on the floor, looking at me with disgust. “Dawn? Just who the hell do you think I am? And who the hell are you, asshole?” I blink, reversing like I've been slapped. Because I have been slapped: is it amnesia? Did cloning just wipe your memory? The only problem is, the you I remember would've never talked like that.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sweetheart, it's me, Mike. Remember? I proposed to you three years ago. We've got the four kids--” I drop to a knee and take your hand in mind, pleading with my eyes for you to remember.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kids? Us? You were inside me? God, how gross. Where am I, and more importantly, how the hell do I get out of here?” You pull your hand away like I spat on it, take a few steps backwards, and put your hands on your hips, sulking and petulant.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You? What about me?” Behind me, there's—there's another you? This one's dressed completely differently from the first, and has a slight Southern twang to her voice. She looks at me, scoffs, rolls her eyes, and tugs at Lawrence's shirt sleeve. “If y'all wouldn't mind lettin' me out of here, I'd love to be gettin' on down the road.”
    Lawrence looks at me apologetically, shrugs his shoulders. “Um...I think we fucked up.”
    I contemplate hitting him, but that would add pebbles to a boulder-sized problem. We brought back the woman of my dreams, but we couldn't bring back her personality, her soul. We brought back her body, but we couldn't bring back the sound of her voice.