After a long and uncharacteristically quiet dinner — during which Jay and Etienne were not speaking to each other, leaving Sabine, xyr partner Ifedimma, Mal, and Clover to carry the sparse conversation — Mal finally extracted herself and her daughter from the table, holing up in the nursery to contend with Goose’s detailed instructions on how to modify her radio.
It took twenty minutes, not including the incremental breaks to close her eyes and breathe deeply, dispelling the frustrated urge to throw it all in the garbage, but she managed to get everything in place. Once all the wires were connected, she flipped on the radio and adjusted the antenna, and had to pause to take another deep, steadying breath: the static noise sent her right back into that freezing bathroom in Midtown, and the tightness in her chest lingered even after she came back to the present.
The tether between microphone and radio didn't allow her to stray further than five feet away as she paced in tight, nervous circles with Clover balanced on her hip, sending exploratory pings through the microphone held loosely in her hands. She braced for disappointment as she pressed the button in three-second intervals, thumb aching with the pressure — between her lack of expertise and the sheer number of wires and converters involved, there was no guarantee that the signal would even reach the edge of the city. Even if it got as far as Kawehno:ke, there might be no one home to answer.
The call picked up with a sharp click. “This is River, based in Akwesasne. Who am I speaking to?”
Clover perked up and squealed in delight as Mal hurriedly sat down, turning up the volume and clearing out the static from the transmission.
"I repeat: this is River, based in Akwesasne — is anyone there?"
She sniffled, cleared her throat, and pressed the button on her side. “Hi, Dad. Can you hear me?”
“Mal! Oh, shit—" Something clattered on his end, like he had sent his chair and everything on his desk flying in his shock. The open mic caught his cursing for a few seconds before he settled down. “Okay, okay, coming through loud and clear — how are you? Are you safe?”
She nodded, before she remembered that he couldn't see her. She'd forgotten how much she hated talking over radio, hated not being able to see someone's face, hated how both sides had to stiltedly time their responses instead of talking over each other. “We’re good, we’re safe. Say hi, Clover.” Clover babbled as she tried to grab the mic. “She wants you to stop being stingy with your gravy recipe.”
“She can have it when she’s eighteen. Are you keeping out of trouble, little one?” Clover whined glumly in reply, turning her attention back to Mal’s buttons. “Isn’t that just the way? Hang on, I gotta talk to your Istá for a minute — still there, my girl?”
She nodded again, and hurried to add, “Still here.”
“Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Something's changed.”
She bit her lip — her parents had always gotten the most of her meagre supply of honesty, but what good would the whole wretched story do now? She didn’t want to admit that she had gotten herself captured, that she had endured all threats of danger and violence for a mission that was doomed from the start, that she had been too late to save Tai-Song, and had left Gwenh behind yet again. “Kaia’s here. I wasn’t expecting them.”
Dad's long pause was astonishingly guilty, for how nonchalant he managed to sound when he finally spoke. “Oh, really?”
She rolled her eyes. “Did you send them?”
“No, no, it's just— they were going to follow you regardless, and Baba and I wanted to make sure they wouldn't accidentally wander too close to Midtown, looking for you.” He paused, and cleared his throat. “I know you had your reasons, but—“
“I’m glad you told them.” She would tell him why, one day, but the simple fact that she was grateful would have to be enough, for now. She couldn’t bear to think of what might have happened, if Kaia had been just a few days late. “I’ve been acting like a child. It wasn't right for me to leave everyone behind like that.”
He didn’t answer right away, though he kept the call button pressed on his side, enforcing some silence while he gathered his thoughts. Instead of probing about her sudden change of heart, he gently asked, “Do you want us to come down there?”
“I—“ She jerked her head in another thoughtless nod before clearing her throat, rocking Clover in her lap as she whined. “You won’t make it here in time.”
“Let us worry about that. Would you like us to come down?”
"I don't know." She had never felt so useless in her life, unable to make a decision even when there was only two possible choices, incapable of answering a simple yes-or-no question — where was the person she had been in the MEC, capable of at least pushing through the uncertainty? “I’m sorry, I just don’t know—“
“Hey, hey, you don’t have to know, it's okay.” His voice was soft and soothing, and she desperately wished that her parents could indeed fold space and time to be with her right at this moment. “We'll be there soon, okay? We’ll set out as soon as we can find some transport — me and Baba don’t have the gumption to walk all that way like you kids, but we'll figure something out.”
"I rode on a boat, for a while." Her eyes were overflowing, tears pouring down her cheeks, thankfully leaving her voice mostly untouched. “Is Baba home?”
“Soon, se’ll be here as soon as se can.” She heard a frenzied tapping on the other end as he pinged the second microphone, the one that connected to the radio in Baba's work-gear. "Se's been roped into helping smooth down the roads, and you know how things go when Logan's in charge. And it's been so chilly lately, Kaia's mother had to stop by and make sure we knew how to work our wood-stove. She was so worried about offending us, I had to tell her, 'Vi, you know we'd be dead on the side of the road without you, just show us how to unblock the chimney!'"
Mal snorted in the pause he left for laughter, content to sit back and let him talk. After a few more anecdotes on the comings and goings of Kawehno:ke and her many interesting characters, he turned the direction of conversation back over to her:
“So, is our little one speaking in full sentences yet?”
Clover responded to the question with a string of babble. “Not yet. She’s eating some solid food, though — she likes puréed pears the best. Right, my girl?” She chattered in prim agreement, gesturing in a manner she had definitely learned from Jay. “She says ‘And squash, too.’”
“Good, good, and how’s she sleeping?”
“Pretty well, she only wakes me up once or twice a night. Uncle tried to sleep-train her, while I was— while I was away, but it didn’t really take.”
“Well, I told Jay that we don’t let babies cry it out in my family, back when you were a baby. His mind must be going, if he’s forgotten that argument.”
“Be nice, Dad. He’s putting me up with a bed while I’m here.”
“Mm." A single syllable somehow carried gallons of skepticism. "I hope he didn't grill Kaia too badly, you know how he can be with new people.”
Her stomach turned, and she hurried to change the subject. “Sabine taught Clover a song — she has the melody down perfectly, just listen.”
Clover perked up as Mal hummed the tune of the old French lullaby, joining in with an approximation of the words; after a few seconds, she got bored and turned back to trying to climb over Mal's shoulder.
“That’s all for now, I guess. She needs to save her voice for opening night.”
“Of course, of course, I’ll be in the front row throwing flowers." On the other end, the house’s kitchen door squealed open, boots stomping against the mud-mat. "Oh, I think—"
“Is she still there?” Clover squealed at the sound of her Grampa's voice, wriggling closer to the microphone to say hello. "I tried to get away fast, did I miss her?"
“She's still here, come quick—“
“Move before I bowl you over, then!" The mic caught the noise of a brief scuffle over limited chair-space, before Baba breathlessly came back on the call. "Baby, how’re you doing? Are you eating?”
“A lot better now — and we're both eating tons.” She hitched her daughter up against her chest and kissed her cheek. “Can you sing a little more for Rakhsó’tha and Gramps, my girl?”
***
An hour later, the static eventually began to overwhelm the transmission, and the conversation ended with a hasty farewell and a promise to set out soon. Mal turned the radio off and carried Clover's snoozing body over to the crib, humming idly as she laid her down for the night, gently petting back her hair to kiss her forehead. She glanced over at the door as it opened, framing a silhouette defined by stark, blue light, and froze down to her breath. She stared at Render’s paper-thin figure with raw, petrified eyes, trying to think of where she could hide, trying to make herself do anything but stand there and panic — and then Jay said,
“Mal, can you come out here for a minute?”
She blinked, returned to the present where the light from the kitchen was soft and amber, where the silhouette was tall and broad, and nodded her head. Jay turned away, leaving the door ajar, and she took an extra few seconds to steady her breathing and slow down her heart before following. Sabine and Ifedimma were washing the dishes, speaking quietly amongst themselves: Sabine's face was drawn and sad, and xe leaned xyr head against Ifedimma's when she offered, pressing xyr cheek against her close-cropped natural hair. Mal didn't know Ifedimma at all, her being a new addition in her years away from the city, but she had spent dinner making Sabine laugh like a chipmunk and pulling silly faces for Clover's entertainment, so Mal was inclined to like her already. Etienne was nowhere to be found, having left as soon as dinner was over.
There were two mugs waiting on the table, one filled with coffee and the other with tea that she already suspected was inferior to the Kawehno:ke blend. She took a sip out of politeness as she sat down, and set it aside. “What’s up?”
He sat down across from her, expression uncommonly reserved. “I need you to get serious about leaving.” His voice was quiet, not quite beseeching, but close.
“I am serious.” The knee-jerk lie was obvious even to her, and under the table the muscles in her thigh began to nervously flex and twitch. She slipped her hand into her pocket to steady herself, fingers brushing the last of her strawberry candies — she forced her fingers away, reminding herself that she was saving it for Gwenh. "We have time, Uncle."
“Not much. Niña could be done fuelling at any moment in the next week; I need to know that you’re not going to choke, when the time comes. Are you even packed?”
She most definitely was not: the list of things she couldn't live without grew longer by the day, scattered throughout the city, and wouldn't fit in a suitcase besides. She bit her lip, glancing back at the nursery door, and shook her head.
"I'm trying to be patient with you, Munchkin, but there's just no time—"
“I think I want to stay,” she finally admitted, speaking at a whisper, half-hoping it would be lost underneath the clatter of washing dishes. The promise of a better life on Proxima seemed so ephemeral and weightless, accountable to no one if it turned out to be hollow. She wanted something as solid as the ground beneath her feet, the kind of promise that Kaia could stand to believe in. She wanted the kind of promise that she could have a hand in keeping, not just dumb luck and chance.
“That’s not an option.”
For a moment, all she could do was stare at him in shock. “What?”
He shook his head definitively, expression unchanged, as though it was already a done deal. “I’m not going to let you make the same mistake that I— that your parents did.”
Her knee began to bounce. “My parents are happy.”
“They would have been happier on Proxima. Doesn't Clover deserve that?”
“You don’t know that for sure—“
“I know my own family,” he told her sternly. “Clover deserves better.”
Her fists clenched against her thighs, voice beginning to shake with anger. “I decide what’s best for her, not you.”
“Mal—“ He cut himself off with a harsh sigh. “You trusted me to care for her in your absence. Do you really expect me not to step in, when you’re making the wrong call?”
“It’s still my call." This felt like the end-stages of a nightmare, rapidly spiralling out of control — but the front door was where it always was, so she was most definitely awake. "For the first time in my life I feel like there might be a place for me here, on Earth. Doesn’t that matter to you?”
“Believe me, Mal, I understand—“
“You wouldn’t be arguing with me if you understood—”
“You’re overwhelmed, and you need to calm down—“
“Speak to me like an adult, Jay.” She didn’t remember standing, but she had risen out of her chair at some point, clawing back some of the height disparity. "I am not a child anymore, Uncle. My obligations do not start and end with what will make you happy." Despite her steady voice, her fists were tightly clenched and shaking — the candy that had somehow migrated into her left hand would surely crack under the pressure. “It’s no wonder Baba wanted to leave.”
The background noise suddenly ceased, like the silence after popping a balloon. Sabine turned to stare at the two of them, face slack with shock, looking like xe might intervene; Ifedimma had her hand on xyr shoulder, trying to communicate something to Mal with just her eyes, but whatever she was trying to say was lost in their lack of familiarity.
Jay's demeanour had changed on a dime, his voice low and angry: “I’d like you to think long and hard before you continue that train of thought, Mal.”
She scoffed and stepped away from the table, pushing in her chair. “Goodnight, Uncle.”
"Where will you go? Back to Kawehno:ke?"
"Maybe."
"You were miserable there." His voice had turned desperate. “And do you really believe that Kaia followed you all this way, only in the name of friendship? The minute they arrived, they tried to take your daughter from me, they’ve been badgering you to stay — if you go back there, things will only escalate. They’re overstepping their bounds, and I don’t trust them. ”
“Well, I do. There’s a reason I asked them to help me have Clover, before anyone else.”
“And what if they decide that they want more than what you’re willing to give? What if they want to get married? What if they want custody of Clover, and they’re willing to manipulate you to get it?”
“Oh, like you?”
His mouth closed with a sharp clack of his teeth, eyes narrowed and angry. “I just want what’s best for you both. Being with Kaia isn’t it.”
“No shit, that’s why they’re rounding second base with Goose right now.” She shook her head with a sigh. “I know you think I’m making the wrong choice, but it’s mine to make. I wouldn't be staying if I didn’t think there was a chance of Clover having a good life here.”
“Then why were you so eager to leave, when you came back home?”
“Because this isn’t my home, Gwenh was still dead, and I thought it was my fault.” She turned away from the conversation, heading back to the nursery to gather up her things. Despite her assertion to the contrary, Kaia and Goose were almost certainly not in the throes of heavy petting, but hopefully they wouldn’t mind sharing a bed — she and Clover would be needing a place to crash in the next thirty seconds, and she was well past her floor-sleeping days. She paused with her hand clasped around the doorknob, and turned back to the room. “I'm sorry that we have to say goodbye like this. I'll miss you all very much — I'll make sure everyone gets to say goodbye to Clover before we head out."
There was an edge of begging in Jay's voice, as he interrupted Sabine and Ifedimma's quietly returned sentiments. “What kind of life will Clover have here, Mal? Be honest with yourself: what are you going to do, when you realize that you’ve made a mistake and it’s too late to fix it?”
Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. There are more places to go besides here and Proxima, she wanted to say, the world is such a big place, there's room in it somewhere for us. Instead, she opened the nursery door and stepped through, leaving the it ajar as she called over her shoulder, “I’m going to do the best that I can. Don’t you dare say that you could do better.”