Part 22 (2/2)

It was over.

Her mother had no reason to hate her anymore, her father had no reason to be afraid, and Grady could stop talking about buying diapers and cheese and formula. As suddenly as she'd found out, it was over. And so Mary just sat there, dumbly staring at the toilet, wondering what it was she was feeling. She'd been terrified of being a mother, but that didn't mean she hadn't wanted it. She hadn't really thought about it much, but it was dawning on her that she wanted it more than anything. America's New Woman would frown on her, but she hadn't really wanted to go off to college, to start a career, to be ambitious and daring. There was no romance in it, no life, just go, go, go, deposit the check and report back in the morning. But to fall in love, to have that ring pushed onto your finger while he knelt there before you, to stand in the narthex of a church dressed all in white, every eye in your world on you for the briefest and most eternal of moments, to live in the world of Happily Ever After.

But it was over.

The father was a stoner who picked up a set of sticks and banged around once in a while, and maybe he'd someday be immortalized on a compact disc and maybe he wouldn't, but either way he wasn't even close to a man, and she doubted he ever would be. And just over the rim of a f.u.c.king toilet was the tissue that bore their genetic imprint; but just like their union, it was dead and small and unfinished. And she was just sitting here, empty. And the emptiness was worse than death.

Mary wanted to get up, wanted to flush the toilet, rush to her bedroom and cry, wanted to do a lot of things, but she only sat there, the minutes clicking away like hours, the hours like years, until Grady knocked on the bathroom door.

And a new future was born.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Where Sarah Was.

1.

Sarah thought: Years have pa.s.sed and the world has changed, but I have not.

But that wasn't exactly right, was it? She had changed, her sense of the world and of the people that populated it had deepened, and her sense of herself had grown, but physically she looked a perpetual thirty, even though more than a century had ticked away. To the people she shared her days with, she had changed very little. And the only way she had been able to evade the obvious question was to keep on moving, just as she had as a child.

The more things change . . . .

She'd worked as a seamstress, a moons.h.i.+ne runner, a nanny, and now as a bartender, but she could only work in one place for so long before people started wondering if this strange and quiet employee had found in Florida what Ponce de Leon had not. If it would have made a difference, she would have been happy to explain that she hadn't found the Fountain of Youth any more than the old Conquistador had. (In his search for the magical elixir, the short b.a.s.t.a.r.d had only found, ironically enough, a sunny place for the old to relax until they died.) No, she'd just been born different. Among them, but not of them.

And really, when you got right down to it, the world hadn't changed much either. Oh, eras had come and gone, technology had been redefined and redefined, social mores had been erected and then eroded, but people had by and large remained the same. Although many seemed to feel that the human race was continually moving into the light of science and reason, they had really only buried their superst.i.tions beneath layers of jargon and rhetoric, beneath the sands of physics and the delight of escaping the planet to set foot on the moon. Sure, their knowledge had grown, but their sense of themselves had not.

Yesterday, in a place called Dealey Plaza, a man who had dreamed of the moon had been killed. Murdered.

A coup.

And so it was in all countries, in all cities, during all times. Humanity wanted what no one could ever really gain, the power to control the hearts and minds of the ma.s.ses, but power, in a very real way, even among her own kind, didn't really exist, or if it did it was so fleeting as to be a vapor one struggled to find in the air as if floated away.

Caesar was dead.

She'd kept the bar open normal hours, and although many patrons had imbibed excessively, the place had cleared well before closing. She'd cleaned up, then gone upstairs to sleep.

But this morning she felt somehow different. No doubt the world would mourn for a time-although many would secretly throw parties, of that she was certain-but it would soon revert to its habit of slow erosion. The change, as was the case in all true changes, lay within her.

Sarah had lived in North Florida for the better part of two decades, and sooner or later she would be forced to outrun those old cries (the words had changed over the years, but not the fears behind them.) She'd caught wind of a small community of Spiritualists farther south, and she'd been thinking about it for awhile. So she tossed her clothes into a bag, locked the bar's door behind her, and walked to the bus station, hoping she wouldn't run into anyone she knew before stepping on, and while she walked she thought, The king is dead. Long live the king.

Sarah disembarked and made it to a cafe before deciding to turn back.

The cafe had six tables, which were arranged in a circle. An old man stood behind a counter, popping his dentures out of his mouth, then re-swallowing them in some sort of time-pa.s.sing game. Behind him was a handwritten sign that announced that he made the best burger in Central Florida. A long cooler sat to the right of the counter; in it were tubs of homemade ice cream. She smiled at the old man, who proceeded to swallow his teeth and bid her a good morning. ”h.e.l.lo,” she answered, strolling closer to the counter. ”I've just moved to town, and I was wondering-”

”Moved?” asked the old man, licking his gums.

Sarah nodded. ”Yes.”

The old man looked down and around, then said, ”Moved, huh.”

She stared at him, then understood. This was a closed community, threatened by a vastly different outside world. ”Actually,” she said, ”I'd like to have my palm read.”

He nodded, seemed to relax a bit, popped his dentures out, then swallowed them again, pointing down the road outside. ”Go to Earth Cathedral. Palmists in there.”

”Who should I ask for?”

”Monty Greer.”

Sarah stiffened. ”Monty . . .”

”Yeah, Doctor Montague Greer.”

At first, Sarah had no idea why she'd fled. Perhaps she was frightened of thinking back to the last time she'd seen Montague. It had been a long time since she'd thought that far back. She wasn't sure she was ready.

The cabbie drove her to downtown Simola Straight and dropped her off. She saw a pub named the Tin Lizzy and strolled in, ordered a gla.s.s of water and just sat there, almost too stunned to think. But in moments, all thoughts of Ca.s.sadega and Montague Greer would go away.

In moments, Jimmy Lieber would walk in.

When Sarah married Jimmy, a sense of foreboding came over her. She might live another ten years, or sixty, for what it was worth, but she certainly didn't feel like it. Even as they basked in their happiness, she couldn't shake the portentous thought that things were winding down, that the book of her life was soon to end. And she hadn't been able to tell Jimmy, good old six-pack Jimmy, the stories that populated that book, which was certainly sad, because it was, on the whole, a good book. But she knew that Jimmy couldn't accept the narrative that had joined her years, so she had invented a past she was certain her husband could digest. Beyond this invention, Jimmy hadn't pried. He'd only loved her.

Sarah had been alone so long that married life did not come easily to her. Jimmy hadn't wanted her to work, so she'd stayed home and taken care of their modest place, waiting for her husband to return each day. Which he did, unfailingly, at half past five every afternoon. Although the morning and afternoon were lonely hours, once five thirty rolled around, she couldn't keep the smile off her face. Jimmy wasn't perfect, but he was a good man, a kind man, an attentive man. They shared a bottle of wine and dinner every evening, and made love every night. Life, for the only time Sarah could remember, was whole and complete.

Then came the month she didn't bleed.

It was during her pregnancy that Sarah began to think of the past. Here she was, about to have a child, and it was frightening to believe that the boy might be plagued with her race's separation from humanity.

For the first time in decades she thought back to that night, the night of the fire. Daniel had shown her a picture of her people's migration, then had begun to paint-in maddeningly broad strokes-their history, but that evening had been cut short.

Doctor Greer, the old man had said. Doctor Montague Greer.

It couldn't be the same person. Couldn't be.

<script>