Or until they don’t.
Is it too much to ask that the people I care about stay safe? Stay alive?
I blink, and they’re out.
“A little bit of everything,” I say. “Too many things I can’t have.”
31
PEACE IN PIECES
WHEN I WAS four years old, all I wanted was my mother.
I’d wake in the middle of the night, thirsty, and she’d bring me water. I’d wake up scared, and she brought herself.
Once, though, I woke up alone. I called out into the darkness, and no one answered. I pulled the covers up to my nose, too frightened to leave my own bed, too frightened to close my eyes. Eventually fear gave way to sleep, and I woke with her curled up beside me in bed, our noses touching.
When I was seven, all I wanted were hairpins. My mother sat me down in front of her mirror, smoothed my hair out so it looked exactly like hers, and tucked the pins in all the right places. She pulled bright threads out from the hems of two of her camisoles, teal and red, and wrapped them tightly around the pins so they were more than just plain metal: something special just for me.
At eight, I wanted answers: Who is my father?Whereis my father? Why are we two instead of three?
My mother gave me a question instead.Would we still beusifwe were three instead of two?I still wondered, for a long time—never stopped, really—but her words tamed my desperate need to know into mere curiosity. Things would be different with him in the picture. Maybe better, and maybe not. Not the same as what I had, though, and Ilovedwhat I had with my mother.
At twelve, all I wanted was space. Our walls felt like they were closing in, people’s words felt electric, my skin felt too thin.
My mother gave me space, too.
At fourteen, I craved knowledge. Skill. To be important, and helpful, like my mother the commander—like everyone who’d traded life on Earth for this permanent mission on the station. The very day I mentioned it, my mother set up a time for me to meet with Dr. Safran. I’ve returned to his lab every day since.
Today, I want
and hope
and wish
and fear.
But my mother is not here.
Who would I be if we were still two instead of one?
32
THE LIGHT THAT BLINDS
I SLEEP IN the lab, on my stool, rest my head on the island. Its cool, hard surface is no comfort; my back grows stiff from being bent in an unfamiliar position all night long.
When I wake, it’s to the sound of fists pounding at my door: the sound of a voice that yells and won’t let up.
I don’t move. I don’t have to, for one, to see that it is Akello Regulus making all the noise. Akello, and no one else, at just after six-morning. It’s very possible he might shatter my door with the sound of his voice alone, with his fists thrown in for good measure.
If I open the door, nothing stands between us.
I meet his eyes from where I sit, and very purposefully hold his gaze. His fists fall to his sides now that he has my attention. He stops shouting, though his words ring in my ears to fill the silence anyway:LIARS! Liars, ALL of you!
I buzz Leo. He picks up at once. “Linds?” His voice is full of sleep.
“Can you... could you come down to Portside?”
