pushed at the same spot, focusing the tension toward the only point in the entire world that mattered right now. The pressure in her mouth spread into her skull, seeped through her temples, and pounded against her ears, filling them with the rushing void of a seashell that silenced everything else inside the room. It brought the Komodo kings back to her mind—what the roar of the sea must have sounded like as it rose to meet them, then the cold press of water that welcomed them into the nether region between life and death. The hatchling was crossing paths with them now, trying to find his way out of his egg and into the world, fighting to be born.
At that moment, the crack in the egg ripped open.
The entire room shouted. Meg’s jaw stung from the sudden release, and she grabbed someone’s hand, squeezing the palm into pulp.
A long slice of shell, the size of a carrot, fell off the egg and revealed the underside of a wet jaw and part of a foreleg. The jaw moved, glistening under the incubator lights like a pearl, and thrust itself up through the hole. Suddenly his whole head was visible, a yellow and green crown no longer than two inches, and his slatted eyes blinked open.
“It’s a boy!” someone said, and a giddy excitement filled the room. People laughed and hugged one another, pushing forward for a better look at the zoo’s newest baby. Meg took it in, dumb with surprise. Were these the same people who grumbled alongside her every day, bitching about management, long hours, low pay, and the humiliation of being replaced by little pieces of plastic? It was as if they’d collectively shed some itchy, brittle skin and slithered out into the summer sun, as unrecognizable as the crazy pounding of her own heart.
Without warning, Antonio swooped over to wrap her into a huge bear hug and twirl her around. The antiseptic on his clothes stung her eyes and pricked tears into their corners. She protested and shoved him off, grabbing the chart out of his hand so she could look away and dry her eyes.
“April ninth,” she said as she wrote down the date.
Antonio looked at his watch. “Five-fourteen.”
For a split second, they both paused and stared at each other. It was there—in that flash of knowing between them, the first time in the history of the Zoo of America that Meg Yancy and Antonio Rodríguez shared a moment in which neither of them sneered or poked or flat-out tripped the other one for the hell of it—that time split open. Only a handful of people in the world had ever witnessed a birth like this. It was the beginning of a life that shouldn’t be. No one inside or outside of this room was ready for Jata’s babies, but here they were anyway, severing everything in her life into the distant, messy before and the impossible, triumphant now.
Meg and Antonio grinned at each other, then he grabbed his chart back, scribbling like mad. She bent down toward the hatchling, who’d shimmied out of the rest of the deflated shell and lay flanked by the two eggs that hid his sleeping brothers.
There was a hypnotic glaze over his black eyes, that cloudiness born from the inner war between determination and exhaustion. She knew that look. He was gathering his strength. He was getting ready to change everything.
5 Hours after Hatching
I t was ten at night when the second egg started cracking. The zoo closed at six, and usually all the staff except for maintenance punched out by seven. Everyone had packed up and left the nursery while Meg watched with a fierce—but quiet—satisfaction, eager to finally be left alone. Zookeeping would be so great if it weren’t for all the people.
At five foot two, Meg was a tiny blast of a woman who usually prowled the grounds with the military stalk of a disillusioned lieutenant assigned to a remote and hostile outpost. Most of the visitors shied away from her, though she could never tell if it was because of her attitude or just her face. She scraped her hair into the same
At that moment, the crack in the egg ripped open.
The entire room shouted. Meg’s jaw stung from the sudden release, and she grabbed someone’s hand, squeezing the palm into pulp.
A long slice of shell, the size of a carrot, fell off the egg and revealed the underside of a wet jaw and part of a foreleg. The jaw moved, glistening under the incubator lights like a pearl, and thrust itself up through the hole. Suddenly his whole head was visible, a yellow and green crown no longer than two inches, and his slatted eyes blinked open.
“It’s a boy!” someone said, and a giddy excitement filled the room. People laughed and hugged one another, pushing forward for a better look at the zoo’s newest baby. Meg took it in, dumb with surprise. Were these the same people who grumbled alongside her every day, bitching about management, long hours, low pay, and the humiliation of being replaced by little pieces of plastic? It was as if they’d collectively shed some itchy, brittle skin and slithered out into the summer sun, as unrecognizable as the crazy pounding of her own heart.
Without warning, Antonio swooped over to wrap her into a huge bear hug and twirl her around. The antiseptic on his clothes stung her eyes and pricked tears into their corners. She protested and shoved him off, grabbing the chart out of his hand so she could look away and dry her eyes.
“April ninth,” she said as she wrote down the date.
Antonio looked at his watch. “Five-fourteen.”
For a split second, they both paused and stared at each other. It was there—in that flash of knowing between them, the first time in the history of the Zoo of America that Meg Yancy and Antonio Rodríguez shared a moment in which neither of them sneered or poked or flat-out tripped the other one for the hell of it—that time split open. Only a handful of people in the world had ever witnessed a birth like this. It was the beginning of a life that shouldn’t be. No one inside or outside of this room was ready for Jata’s babies, but here they were anyway, severing everything in her life into the distant, messy before and the impossible, triumphant now.
Meg and Antonio grinned at each other, then he grabbed his chart back, scribbling like mad. She bent down toward the hatchling, who’d shimmied out of the rest of the deflated shell and lay flanked by the two eggs that hid his sleeping brothers.
There was a hypnotic glaze over his black eyes, that cloudiness born from the inner war between determination and exhaustion. She knew that look. He was gathering his strength. He was getting ready to change everything.
5 Hours after Hatching
I t was ten at night when the second egg started cracking. The zoo closed at six, and usually all the staff except for maintenance punched out by seven. Everyone had packed up and left the nursery while Meg watched with a fierce—but quiet—satisfaction, eager to finally be left alone. Zookeeping would be so great if it weren’t for all the people.
At five foot two, Meg was a tiny blast of a woman who usually prowled the grounds with the military stalk of a disillusioned lieutenant assigned to a remote and hostile outpost. Most of the visitors shied away from her, though she could never tell if it was because of her attitude or just her face. She scraped her hair into the same
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