Children of Eden
Page 27
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“Right,” she says, nodding decisively. “He’s in his room. Go on, but be quick.”
I’d rather not, but with Ash watching, I should pretend there’s at least some normal feeling between us. I knock softly at the bedroom door, but when I don’t get an answer I just push it open slowly.
He’s in striped pajamas, perched tensely at the edge of the bed. “You’re still here,” he says.
Oh, Dad, even now, even at the end, you can’t just lie and pretend to just a little bit of feeling? Not a good luck, or an I’ll miss you, or anything?
Nothing. So I steel myself and say coldly, though with a tremor in my voice, “For another minute, anyway.”
He nods, looking down at his knees. I search for anything—sadness, anger—but his expression is unreadable. Mostly it seems like he’s waiting. He’s been waiting for sixteen years for me to conveniently disappear from his life, and now, if he can just hold out a little longer, he’ll get his fondest wish.
“Okay then, Dad,” I say, swallowing hard. “Good-bye.”
I wait. Nothing except the crease of his frown deepening between his brows.
So I leave. Leaving him is the one thing I’m truly glad of in all this mess.
IT FEELS SO weird going out through the front door like a regular person. Mom glances at me like she’s expecting me to be in shock at being outside for the first time in my life, so I do my best to look awestruck, to gawk at everything from what she imagines is a new perspective.
She leads me to the small arched outbuilding that holds our tiny car. I’ve read that back before the Ecofail, cars were huge monsters that ate fossil fuels with a gluttonous appetite. They actually burned gasoline, with engines that ran by caging explosions. They were violent juggernauts that thundered through the world by the billions like vast migrating herds of some destructive creature.
We still use the word “car,” but the few that exist in Eden (almost all in the inner circles) are nothing like their namesake. Our water-fueled vehicle is an elegant deep-pink egg with a shell so thin we can see the world around us in a rose-colored haze. It reminds me of Lark’s glasses.
We sit in comfort in the center, as Mom switches the controls to manual. Usually, you tell it where you want to go, close your eyes, and listen to music until you’re there. Like the bots that zip through the city, Eden’s cars are programmed to avoid collisions, and are usually completely autonomous. Few people use the manual option. Of course, Mom doesn’t want a record of where we’re going.
I have to keep it together, I think as I stare out at the fleeting scenery, the landscape that, after a couple of nights out, now seems almost familiar. It is slowly sinking in how serious this is. Not just that it is the end of everything I know. Suddenly, the danger feels real. Before, when I snuck out it was scary, sure, but there was always an edge of excitement to it, like when I played laser hunt with Lark. Sneaking out was a challenge, and getting home again with adventure and experience under my belt was a victory.
Now, though, someone is apparently actively hunting me. This just got real.
I reach over and take my mom’s hand, leaving her to drive with the other. She flashes me a quick, loving look, then fixes her eyes back on the road. It’s about 3 a.m. and the streets are virtually deserted. Even the cleanbots are recharging. Still, she has to be careful. An accident would be disastrous.
“Out in the world at last,” Mom says, squeezing my fingers as she maneuvers down one of the radial streets, away from the green glowing eye of the Center. “And you didn’t even have to knock down the courtyard walls to do it,” she jokes. “I always knew, right from the start, that it was going to be hard for you. But now my strong-willed little girl is growing into a strong-willed woman. Rowan, I am so proud of you.”
She speaks the words very distinctly, as if she’s trying to burn them into my memory.
“And now you’re finally going to get the freedom you deserve.”
“But the price!” I say.
She shakes her head. “I . . . we would have spent anything to help you have a normal life. Luckily we can afford it.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know,” she says softly. “But there’s always a price, to every decision. I’ve paid a heavy price since the moment you were born, a price of guilt at the life I’ve forced you to lead. And your father . . .” She breaks off, and I notice for the first time that she has my habit of clenching her jaw in moments of extreme emotion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her upset until the past few days. She always seemed so calm, so stable, so happy . . . though I wonder now whether she kept her equilibrium at home to make things easier for the rest of us.
“What about my father?” I ask sharply.
“It’s . . . nothing.”
Of course I can tell from her voice, from the play of muscles in her jaw, that it is the very opposite of nothing. “We only have a little while longer, Mom. You owe me honesty.” I see her wince a little. “He hates me, and I don’t know why. Is it just because I’m an inconvenience? An obstacle on his path to greatness?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she begins, and I can tell she wants to lie. But finally she says, “He doesn’t hate you, Rowan. He hates himself.”
In a halting voice she tells me what she herself only found out a few years ago, when my father was drunk and tired and weak and too crushed under the burden of his guilt to keep the secret any longer.
When my dad found out that Mom was pregnant with twins he took it upon himself—without asking her, without telling her—to try to abort one of us. During what was supposed to be a routine prenatal check he used a modified ultrasound device he created to try to destroy one of us.
Did he pick his victim at random? Did he let chance decide whether Ash or I would be a first child, an only child—or no child at all?
No. He wanted a son.
When there were billions of people still crawling on the planet, men and women weren’t always treated equally. Ash and I used to laugh about that when we studied ancient history together. Imagine, anyone thinking women were lesser than men! Here in Eden, I believed that kind of prejudice didn’t exist.
Dear old Dad, though—he wanted a child created in his own image. He wanted a boy to mold like him, to follow in his footsteps, to become a great doctor or politician.
I’d rather not, but with Ash watching, I should pretend there’s at least some normal feeling between us. I knock softly at the bedroom door, but when I don’t get an answer I just push it open slowly.
He’s in striped pajamas, perched tensely at the edge of the bed. “You’re still here,” he says.
Oh, Dad, even now, even at the end, you can’t just lie and pretend to just a little bit of feeling? Not a good luck, or an I’ll miss you, or anything?
Nothing. So I steel myself and say coldly, though with a tremor in my voice, “For another minute, anyway.”
He nods, looking down at his knees. I search for anything—sadness, anger—but his expression is unreadable. Mostly it seems like he’s waiting. He’s been waiting for sixteen years for me to conveniently disappear from his life, and now, if he can just hold out a little longer, he’ll get his fondest wish.
“Okay then, Dad,” I say, swallowing hard. “Good-bye.”
I wait. Nothing except the crease of his frown deepening between his brows.
So I leave. Leaving him is the one thing I’m truly glad of in all this mess.
IT FEELS SO weird going out through the front door like a regular person. Mom glances at me like she’s expecting me to be in shock at being outside for the first time in my life, so I do my best to look awestruck, to gawk at everything from what she imagines is a new perspective.
She leads me to the small arched outbuilding that holds our tiny car. I’ve read that back before the Ecofail, cars were huge monsters that ate fossil fuels with a gluttonous appetite. They actually burned gasoline, with engines that ran by caging explosions. They were violent juggernauts that thundered through the world by the billions like vast migrating herds of some destructive creature.
We still use the word “car,” but the few that exist in Eden (almost all in the inner circles) are nothing like their namesake. Our water-fueled vehicle is an elegant deep-pink egg with a shell so thin we can see the world around us in a rose-colored haze. It reminds me of Lark’s glasses.
We sit in comfort in the center, as Mom switches the controls to manual. Usually, you tell it where you want to go, close your eyes, and listen to music until you’re there. Like the bots that zip through the city, Eden’s cars are programmed to avoid collisions, and are usually completely autonomous. Few people use the manual option. Of course, Mom doesn’t want a record of where we’re going.
I have to keep it together, I think as I stare out at the fleeting scenery, the landscape that, after a couple of nights out, now seems almost familiar. It is slowly sinking in how serious this is. Not just that it is the end of everything I know. Suddenly, the danger feels real. Before, when I snuck out it was scary, sure, but there was always an edge of excitement to it, like when I played laser hunt with Lark. Sneaking out was a challenge, and getting home again with adventure and experience under my belt was a victory.
Now, though, someone is apparently actively hunting me. This just got real.
I reach over and take my mom’s hand, leaving her to drive with the other. She flashes me a quick, loving look, then fixes her eyes back on the road. It’s about 3 a.m. and the streets are virtually deserted. Even the cleanbots are recharging. Still, she has to be careful. An accident would be disastrous.
“Out in the world at last,” Mom says, squeezing my fingers as she maneuvers down one of the radial streets, away from the green glowing eye of the Center. “And you didn’t even have to knock down the courtyard walls to do it,” she jokes. “I always knew, right from the start, that it was going to be hard for you. But now my strong-willed little girl is growing into a strong-willed woman. Rowan, I am so proud of you.”
She speaks the words very distinctly, as if she’s trying to burn them into my memory.
“And now you’re finally going to get the freedom you deserve.”
“But the price!” I say.
She shakes her head. “I . . . we would have spent anything to help you have a normal life. Luckily we can afford it.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know,” she says softly. “But there’s always a price, to every decision. I’ve paid a heavy price since the moment you were born, a price of guilt at the life I’ve forced you to lead. And your father . . .” She breaks off, and I notice for the first time that she has my habit of clenching her jaw in moments of extreme emotion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her upset until the past few days. She always seemed so calm, so stable, so happy . . . though I wonder now whether she kept her equilibrium at home to make things easier for the rest of us.
“What about my father?” I ask sharply.
“It’s . . . nothing.”
Of course I can tell from her voice, from the play of muscles in her jaw, that it is the very opposite of nothing. “We only have a little while longer, Mom. You owe me honesty.” I see her wince a little. “He hates me, and I don’t know why. Is it just because I’m an inconvenience? An obstacle on his path to greatness?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she begins, and I can tell she wants to lie. But finally she says, “He doesn’t hate you, Rowan. He hates himself.”
In a halting voice she tells me what she herself only found out a few years ago, when my father was drunk and tired and weak and too crushed under the burden of his guilt to keep the secret any longer.
When my dad found out that Mom was pregnant with twins he took it upon himself—without asking her, without telling her—to try to abort one of us. During what was supposed to be a routine prenatal check he used a modified ultrasound device he created to try to destroy one of us.
Did he pick his victim at random? Did he let chance decide whether Ash or I would be a first child, an only child—or no child at all?
No. He wanted a son.
When there were billions of people still crawling on the planet, men and women weren’t always treated equally. Ash and I used to laugh about that when we studied ancient history together. Imagine, anyone thinking women were lesser than men! Here in Eden, I believed that kind of prejudice didn’t exist.
Dear old Dad, though—he wanted a child created in his own image. He wanted a boy to mold like him, to follow in his footsteps, to become a great doctor or politician.
