Mal was accustomed to the flea-bitten cats and skeletal dogs that crossed her path, but when she saw the vulture perched on the guardrail she had to stop and stare. The last vulture she had seen of this size was back north, a flock of them gorging on a bison carcass — this one must have gotten separated from its flock in migration.
She watched the bird preen for a while, admiring its hooked beak and ragged, dusty feathers — she had always liked vultures, especially the one from the stories Baba told her as a child. Clover whined from her hip, disgruntled at her mother’s slowed pace. The sunburnt head swivelled to peer at them with suspicious eyes, and it abruptly took off, riding the thermals off the bay and quickly rising through the pollution layer. Hopefully it was flying back north, where there were plenty of bison carcasses to eat and slightly cleaner water to drink.
Clover whined again and kicked her with her blunt little feet. She walked for another twenty minutes to the bridge that led to Bayonne before she paused for another break, craning her neck to see if the barricade was still standing on the other side, shielding her camera and child from anyone that might be craning back. Bayonne had once been shared territory, with intermingling populations of Midtowners and Untouchables, but once the war started proper the Midtowners were evacuated, the islandwide atmosphere was destroyed, and the land fell under heavy policing and surveillance. Most Untouchables fled south to Delany, but many stayed, clinging to the lives they had built as they rigged their homes with internally generated atmospheres, dying early deaths from the polluted air anyway — now it was a place for Midtown to dump its trash and take potshots at Untouchable territory.
From here, she could see more of Midtown itself, the bright shine of its air bubble piercing through the pollution and her poor eyesight. It was like a lighthouse, both warning and beckoning to the land of false sunlight, clean air, safe water — or maybe like a sunrise, back when the sun was still visible through the smog. She stood on her toes, trying to see farther, and an amplified voice coming from the other side of the bridge warned her to keep moving, or be detained.
The pavement turned once more to broken, cobbled cement as she turned into the market district that straddled the divide between Baron and Silver Lake. Even with an important errand she took some time to wander, easing back into the culture of the city as she showed Clover the old stomping grounds — the half-condemned building where she had attended a kind of school, the community kitchens where puffball mushrooms featured in every possible dish, the steps up to the destroyed town hall where bands liked to play to a free audience. Everything was where she had left it, except for Yuen-Fa’s place: it shifted locations every two years to stay ahead of Midtown’s interference, and often the only way to find it was to follow someone who already knew the way.
“You lost?”
She glanced over. The woman sitting on the stoop wasn’t wearing a snorkel, holding a lit cigarette and squinting distrustfully — not at Mal’s face but at her chest, where Clover was pawing at her camera. “Hard to say,” Mal replied easily, circling her arms more securely around her daughter. “Do you happen to know the way to Yuen-Fa’s place?”
“Where do you come from?”
It wasn’t a strange question to ask newcomers, and yet Mal found herself shrinking back. She hadn’t changed so drastically to warrant the distrust — she was still an Untouchable. “North,” she finally answered. “Akwesasne.”
“They must feed you well up there. You and the wee one have bellies.”
“Thank you.” Her shoulders relaxed at the sincere if flatly-delivered compliment, but only slightly. “The bar — do you know where it is?”
“Two blocks south, two blocks east.”
Mal nodded and quickly moved on, waving halfheartedly over her shoulder. It felt as though everyone was looking at her now, scrutinizing her differences as though she had never left Kawehno:ke. She liked the way she looked, the way her extra weight filled out her clothes, but not when it drew attention, not when eyes lingered and kept her from melting into the background as she once did. Hopefully Proxima’s population would be as undiscerning as the city’s had once been — but even if it wasn’t, she would adapt. She had plenty of experience with being the odd one out.
She spotted a young couple carrying crates of glass bottles down into a cellar stoop and followed softly behind, side-stepping the distracted bouncer and entering into a large, crowded room. Between the bodies of taller patrons, she could see a group preparing to perform onstage, but she would have to get on a chair to see anything more definitive. She tucked Clover against her shoulder as she moved through the crowd, feeling calmer than she had in weeks. She had her first glimpse of Gwenh in a place like this, though she only remembered the evening in halves: she recalled that she was with Tai-Song but not what they were talking about, the melody of the song playing but not the lyrics, Yuen-Fa’s unimpressed grimace as she flatly told her no, you can’t have any ____, now beat it before I call your parents. Once the highly-anticipated shoegaze band had arrived onstage, every moment then became seared into her brain: Gwenh taking centre-stage with a Welsh inflection that was low and raspy and perfect for every song, Goose playing the lead with fingers that moved like lightning even when stumbling over the melody, Sulien keeping the rhythm with his bass and stamping foot, and Rowan bashfully hiding his face as he played back-up, showing the most skill by a country mile.
In the present, there was a hand softly tapping her shoulder and a voice in her ear, the words lost to the noise around them. She turned around, hoping to see a friend, and was mildly disappointed with the unfamiliar crowd-goer smiling down at her — brown skin and a bleach-blond undercut, a winning smile and crinkled eyes, advertising sex for hire with the hammered-copper disc sewn into the collar of his high-necked shirt. He was striking in the way most of his coworkers were, aiming to be memorable with distinctive fashion and make-up: even if he scored no jobs today, he would be easy to describe if someone were to come looking for him at the Soft Spot Parlour.
She gestured to communicate that she wasn’t interested, readjusting her hold on her daughter — he glanced down and then winced in panic, hands raising in apology, and he was gone before she could forgive the transgression. She shrugged and turned back to her path, edging her way along the wall toward the bar: a four-tall- and twelve-long stack of milk crates lashed together with zip-ties, topped with a long sheet of laminate flooring, and decorated with good-luck charms, love-locks, and ceramic medallions painted by the local children. Yuen-Fa was busy arguing with someone at the far end of the bar, a member of war-command: there was a gun slung over the woman’s shoulder, and every other word was coded Mandarin, interspersed with rarer Arabic and Polish. Mal climbed onto one of the bar-stools, not bothering to try following along — for now she settled Clover in her lap and wrestled her out of her snorkel, looking over to the stage in vague interest. Four kettle-drummers were warming up, and a lone guitarist was replacing his embroidery floss strings with fishing line. Clover squealed in excitement as one of the drummers tapped a quick and loud refrain, garnering scattered laughter from the room.
The snorkel that Mal had been trying to disassemble one-handed was plucked from her fingers as a smooth-toned voice spoke in slow, testing Cantonese, “You know, I was getting a little sick of all that peace and quiet.”
She looked over to Yuen-Fa with a toothy grin, answering back in her shaky grasp of the language, “I could tell — you could all use some more excitement in your lives.”
“And someone to track all their road dust into my bar,” Yuen-Fa replied in English, seeming satisfied as she pulled the snorkel off of Mal’s face and took it apart, laying the filters out to dry under a heat-lamp. Her wavy hair was longer now, fringing over her forehead and curling over her nape; she had stopped hunching her shoulders like she used to, and all in all she seemed more confident, more at home in her body when living as a woman. Among the things that had changed, her style had not — she was wearing her favoured tight black pants, a baggy orange jacket over a white top, and had painted thick black stripes on her cheeks; somehow, it suited her even more on the upside of forty. “You’ve heard my news?”
“Congratulations on your coming out,” Mal replied dutifully. “What’s the word for ‘big sister?’”
“Ze Ze — or Gaa Ze.” The stud in her left eyebrow glinted as she tilted her head to the lump in Mal’s arms. “Who’s this?”
“Clover, my daughter.” She hoisted her up onto the bar, waving her little hand. “Clover, this is Auntie Yuen-Fa.”
Her eyes lit up. “She’s just as cute as you were,” she cooed, reaching over to stroke her thumb between Clover’s eyebrows. Clover cooed back, lurching forward to grab onto Yuen-Fa’s hand. “Your dad had one of those backpacks, too.”
“Cradleboard,” she corrected. Clover cooed as she was lifted back into her mother’s lap, kicking her feet excitedly. “Careful, my girl, we don’t need an accident today—”
“Oh.” Yuen-Fa’s demeanour had changed on a dime. She glanced around anxiously and reached out to tap the camera around Mal’s neck. “You should cover that up.”
“I will, I will; one of Goose’s drones just about gave me a heart-attack—“
“I’m not talking about drones — three weeks from now, that won’t matter. I’m talking about the people you have to share the ship with.”
“What?” Clover perked up as the drums began in earnest, wriggling around in her lap with a gleeful shriek. “What do you mean?”
“Your photos have been trickling into the Database for a few years now. People might get the wrong idea if they see you carrying around a camera.”
“Why would someone upload them?” How was any even better question — to pull together a body of work so far-flung in single negatives was a lot of work for a largely nonexistent reward. “Are they connected to names, or biometrics?”
“Not yet, but it’ll only be a matter of time once the Database gets up and running like it used to. If that happens—“
“I get it.” She tugged her blanket out of her pack and wrapped it around her shoulders, hiding the rest of herself from view — her camera had never been the enemy before. “I hear you’re running the whole operation.”
“That I am.” She bit her lip in her small way, too quick for anyone but family to parse. “Hoping to see us off?”
The drums kicked up in energy, and she quickly grabbed Clover to keep her from tumbling out of her lap. “I was hoping you could save us a spot, actually.”
Yuen-Fa ducked behind the bar to retrieve a thick green binder stuffed to bursting with homemade paper. “Niña was online for an hour before the spots were snapped up, you know — I’m hearing that a seat is scalping for at least twenty-six million in Midtown, one last fuck you before the Vultures leave us in the dust.”
“Sounds like they want us to steal their tickets.” Pinta’s seats had been horrific at four hundred thousand, but at least people outside of Midtown had the slim chance of securing passage. Twenty-six million would be an uncomfortable stretch even for Midtowners — whoever was scalping tickets was making enemies of everyone in the city to go along with their mountains of cash.
“I tried setting up a meeting with the big one to see if he could part with his share, but he wouldn’t come to the table.” She stabbed the paper to end her sentence, letting out a breath before setting the binder aside. “I think his assets are fair game, at this point.”
She hummed in agreement, glancing over at the binder: she didn’t want to disparage Yuen-Fa’s organizational skills, but her system seemed like it was a cup of chaos waiting to spill. “How can I help?”
Her face crumpled in relief. “A-Song’s run off.”
A small part of her deflated, hoping for something a little more important than tracking down the village idiot, who was probably sleeping off a hangover in the gutter. “Really?”
“I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks now, and I’m getting worried.” She swept back a wayward curl from her sweaty forehead — the false atmosphere’s constant circulation meant nothing if the air was pure heat. “He had been acting strange, ever since you left. Withdrawn, drinking, smoking at all hours; it’s been a year since I kicked him out and his room still reeks.”
“Reminds me of how I’ve been.”
“Ah, you’re fine — that fresh air up north has done you good, I can tell.”
“If you say so.” She glanced at the closed door behind Yuen-Fa wonderingly — Tai-Song had sworn up and down that he’d move out the minute he had his ducks in a row, but it was all talk. He must have done something inexcusable if his sister had seen fit to toss him to the curb. “What did he do?”
Yuen-Fa sighed, eyes deep in anger and regret and frustration. “He was sleeping off whatever he took, when some idiot came in here talking about the war-drone Goose pulled out of the dump. He was out the back and trying to break down Goose’s door before I caught up to him, the little—“ She growled and snatched up a rag to begin polishing up the laminate countertop. “The only good thing to come out of all this is that he’s cleaned up his act lately — I didn’t like that he was working for Vultures and giving them security upgrades for basically nothing, but the work was good for him. But he’s gone and disappeared, and I don’t have the time to go looking for him while I’m running everything else.”
Mal nodded dejectedly, hiding her grimace behind her hand. “Okay — if you’re that worried, I’ll find him.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I guess — he still owes me money, anyway.”
Yuen-Fa grimaced sympathetically. “I know it’s not what you want to be doing. If you’re up for a mystery, you could also sniff out the cousin I never knew I had — they’re on the Database, but I haven’t been able to track them down.”
“New arrival?” That was a little more interesting, at least — she was good at finding people.
“Must be. I know every Yeung in this city, and not one of them is called Zed.” Before Mal could ask if this surname index had anything to do with why she left Hong Kong — now that she was grown and a mother, now that she might finally hear the truth — Yuen-Fa threw down her rag and reached for the bowl of ginger rounds she kept on hand for her stomach. “If A-Song’s got a secret kid, I might actually kill him.”
“Huh.” She hadn’t consider that as a possibility, and it made her skeptical: Tai-Song had never wanted kids, and it was hard to imagine him stepping up even if he sired one. She took a deep breath, and nodded. “Who saw him last?”
“Dom and Willow — the three of them had some kind of spat before he ran off. They’re fighting in Bay Ridge right now, but I’m forcing them to have dinner with me at the end of the week. You’re welcome to join.”
“That’s too long to wait — I’ll head over there tomorrow.” Clover abruptly lost steam as the song ended, sagging against her chest with an adorable yawn.
Yuen-Fa winced. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“When am I not?” She laid the cradleboard on the bar to lace her daughter back inside, now that she wasn’t likely to make things difficult. “Don’t answer that. Do the front lines still speak Polski?” Her Arabic was stronger, but that was third-phase; for second-phase operations she needed Polish. It was lucky that Dominik and Willow were front-liners, not strategists — her Mandarin was the weakest of anyone she knew.
Yuen-Fa rolled her eyes. “Of a kind — have a lot of reason to speak the lingua guerra, up north?”
“I remember enough.” Clover sighed happily as she was swung onto her mother’s back. “I’m staying at Goose’s place, if you need me.”
“I have a spare room here, if you need it. No, wait, Adam is still sleeping there— I can give you my bed?”
“You’d be up half the night with me and the baby,” Mal gently reminded her, turning away. “Let Adam have the room, he needs it more. I’m happy staying with Goose.”
“Well, if anything changes, you know where to find other digs. Oh, would you mind delivering a few notes while you’re around?”
Mal halted, her head tipping back minutely, thumping against the cradleboard yet again. She rubbed the tender spot as she turned back to the ominously tall stack of messages, scrawled on paper and fabric and whatever else could hold ink. It would take the rest of the day to deliver them all, but if Yuen-Fa was asking her, there was probably no one else available; it made no difference that Mal felt like delivering messages was busywork was for annoying children. She took the messages and the glass bottle of lukewarm water beside them — all that Yuen-Fa could spare for payment — and drained it before she reached the threshold.
***
Mal’s next stop was the crematorium, located on the corner of a cemetery that had been filled over two hundred years ago. She took the long way around the low stone fence, staring out over the dusty plain of graves as she walked — the monochrome tableau seemed as boundless as ever. As youngsters, she and her cousins were tasked with keeping this graveyard and all others tidy; the circuit would take them all day, and after the work was done they would return here to play tag amongst the ancient graves as their parents worked the furnaces.
The crematorium was fifty feet from where the wrought-iron fence once stood, churning out plumes of smoke despite the late hour; the turns of the calendar season were always busier, the sudden changes in air pressure and humidity often triggering dormant and deadly illnesses. Jay, her uncle, was napping on the bench beside the building’s front door. Time hadn’t changed him all that much: he was still tall and broad, his long grey hair was still gathered in a thin ponytail at his nape, he was still filling the same shape in her life that he always had — and though he and Baba were fraternal twins, they still looked more alike than not, from the lines on their cool-olive faces to the way they both quietly slept upright.
“How’s it going, Uncle?” she called as she approached.
He grumbled sleepily, arms crossed and chin on his chest, “Talk to Sabine, I’m on break.”
She kicked his foot. “Uncle Jay!”
He lurched awake mid-snore. “Is that you, Munchkin?” He was on his feet with open arms before he remembered himself, and backed away: it was impolite to touch the living while caring for the dead, and his shift wouldn’t end for another three hours. “Oh, look at you — all that fresh air and you’re still knee-high to a grasshopper, eh?”
She grimaced, holding out the first of the messages. “How are our friends?”
“Poor conversationalists, as always.” He sat down again to read the note, gesturing for her to sit beside him; he glanced down at her well-worn sneakers as she sat on the edge of the bench and took some of the strain off of her back. “Don’t you have moccasins by now?”
“In my bag.” Her current footwear, a pair of tennis shoes with unevenly-eroded soles, would last her for the rest of her time on Earth. The moccasins she had worn most days in Akwesasne could well be the last pair she would ever have, and they were too precious to wear here, where they could be shredded by broken glass or damaged from the bay’s oily water. “I’ll wear them on Proxima.”
“Mm.” He was already distracted, flipping through the messages with a pinched brow. “Your cousins didn’t believe me when I said you’d come back, but I knew you would.”
It was nice to be proven right, she supposed; she had been back for a day and already her uncle knew her better than most people up north. “I bet I could still surprise you.”
“Not a chance, Munchkin.” He threw a fond smile her way, still flipping through the messages. “None of you kids can. I’m all-knowing, and I have eyes on the back of my head.”
“Would you drop some money on it?” She carefully maneuvered Clover off of her back, biting her lip to hold back a smile — it wasn’t often that she could get one over on family, being the youngest.
“No, and it’s not because I’m wrong—“ Mid-sentence he looked over at the cradleboard across her lap. The note fluttered to the ground as he eagerly leaned forward, just barely keeping his hands to himself — if it was impolite for an undertaker to touch the living in between handling the dead, it was pure taboo to even think of holding a child. “Alright, savour this moment, because I’ll never say it again: I was wrong.”
She snorted, propping the cradleboard on her knee and gently rocking side to side. “Uncle, this Clover — my daughter.”
“She’s beautiful.” His eyes crinkled as Clover’s head turned to the side with a sleepy whine, his voice made even sweeter by his smile. “Those are Wren’s ears.”
“I saw that when she was born — she had a lot of hair, too.” She gently patted back the loose strands of black hair, coaxing a wavy curl around her finger. “I think I’ll be able to braid it soon. What do you think?”
“Maybe in a few years, but you know how the twins never much liked having their hair braided — don’t be too disappointed if she doesn’t care for it.”
Luckily, the pull of her mouth was hidden behind her snorkel. Braiding was the one thing she could pass down without a shadow of a doubt, and she didn’t like to entertain that it might not be welcome — not when she could push the troubling notion away and change the subject. “I’m learning Kanien’kéha for her, too. I’m stuck at the elementary level, though.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that either — the twins turned out fine, and I only ever knew the lullabies.” He waved his hand and awkwardly shifted in his seat. “Wren was the one who wanted to know all of that. I didn’t even know our clan, before se and your dad went and found out — you get your nosiness from him, you know.”
She wrinkled her nose. Baba loved to tell the story of Mal’s father whisking sem away to Kana’tsioharé:ke, all on a thin wisp of a memory that ser and Jay’s mother’s mother had been born there — and finding a thriving Wolf Clan with plenty of stories to pass down, and many elders who fondly remembered Great-Grandma Kes and Great-Grandpa Zachary.
Mal would never have that — being born to an Onón:wat father and a Two-Spirit Baba with no mother in the mix, she didn’t align with any clan, and neither did Clover. She had forgotten how much it bothered her when Jay was so flippant about these things, but fighting about that again would only sour the reunion.
Jay sighed, seeming to hear the argument implied in her silence. “Maybe I’d feel differently if I grew up in Akwesasne or Little Caughnawaga — I don’t know. I’m here, you’re here, we’re finally headed for the stars. Shouldn’t we be looking forward, not back?”
She couldn’t articulate exactly why she hated his perspective — it wasn’t as though a lack of traditional teachings had rendered Jay unkind or dishonest, but she rankled at how easily he dismissed them. “Maybe.”
“Don’t worry so much about the details right now, in any case. You’ve got a good few months before she starts talking back, so enjoy it while you can.” Clover whined in her sleep, smacking her lips and babbling through her repertoire of almost-words. His eyes crinkled in a fond smile. “Assuming she hasn’t already started. Has she said anything yet?”
As much as she wanted to claim otherwise, her genius baby hadn’t yet mastered speech. “Dad says she called him Rakhsó’tha once, while I was out of the room. I’m not sure I believe it.”
“Always a clown, River.” He reached out to touch one of the tassels on the cradleboard. She resisted the impulse to push his hand away; it wasn’t quite taboo, but it was certainly pushing the line. “Did he make this?”
“Clover’s other grandparents — they’re really incredible artisans.” She trailed her fingers over the intricate carvings on the back, the love that went into every stroke of the chisel. “I’m raising her alone, before you ask — a friend of mine donated to the cause, and we agreed that they’d be a family friend, nothing more.”
“Mm. And you’re happy?”
“I am.”
“Then that’s all I care about. I won’t bore you with all the trials of single parenthood, but you can always come to me if you need help, or advice.”
“I know.” She had always admired him for his resolve, when Auntie Emmeline left; Mal had been just shy of ten when they lost Louis, Emmeline and Jay’s third child, and a month later Emmeline had packed up and gone back to France. Jay had never chosen another partner.
“And where are your parents? We ought to have a family dinner, like the old days.”
It was easier to stare at the craftsmanship of the cradleboard than make eye contact as she quietly admitted, “I left them in Kawehno:ke. They didn’t want to go. They didn’t want me going, either.”
“You made the right call, leaving anyway.” He gazed over the cemetery that would soon cease to be his responsibility, eyes hard and grim — she remembered a time when he only had love for this place and all of its burdens. “Your grandmother had this philosophy: think about how your actions will affect the next seven generations, and do right by them. I can say that there won’t be another seven generations, not on this planet: all things must die, and She’s no exception.”
“Mm.” Baba was motivated by the same philosophy, and yet se had chosen to stay. What did that say about her, or sem, or Jay?
Jay sighed. “You don’t know how hard it was for your parents to stay behind — I’m glad to have been in your life, but you would have had such a better time up there. You’re lucky that Clover’s old enough, now.”
“I know.” Pinta had been weeks from launch when her parents found out they were expecting, and the cryogenic freezing process could not reliably maintain a fetus. Clover was just past the viability threshold for infants. “I’m just going to miss them.”
“It’s hard to leave everything behind, but it’s the right thing to do. There has to be something better than all of this.”
“How can you be sure?” She agreed with him, of course — she just wanted to know how he articulated it to himself, how she might go about doing the same. It would be hard to convince her daughter of it, when she came asking why her mother had taken so many things from her.
“Because it can’t possibly be worse.” His voice was harsh and cutting, and she flinched away from its bite. “Sorry, sorry, just a tough day. Bad luck to be moody in front of a baby.”
She didn’t comment on his questionable sense of good luck or bad — she had her own superstitions that she wouldn’t budge on, after all. “What are the twins doing?”
“Etienne is staying behind.” He didn’t sound happy about it, and his fingers drummed against his knee. “He’s thinking of heading west. Apparently, there’s some Native settlements and caravans out there.”
“Whole cities, actually.” Thousands, at least — it was a shame that she would never see them all, would never find out if this new age of indigenous self-determination would succeed where everything else had failed. If things were different, she might have liked to join Etienne on his travels. “He’ll be okay, wherever he goes: no one’s that interested in starting a war right now.”
“He’s discovered the ethical quandary of colonizing other planets, you know — I’ve never known that boy to care about anything besides his bikes, and now he’s talking my ear off about how leaving is irresponsible, like I wasn’t part of the first moral panic.”
“Well, it’s not a coincidence that we call them Niña and Pinta, Uncle.” Pinta in particular was coined by the anti-Proxima movement of her grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ day, one whose legacy amounted to a sarcastic name-scheme and not much else. The ship itself had actually been called the Ellison, after the family that had proposed the original plan.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Just ignore me. I want my kid here, he wants to be there — not much I can do about it, besides complain.”
“You’ll still have Sabine and me,” she gently reminded him. “And now Clover, too.”
“And I’m very lucky for that.” He pulled down his snorkel to take a long drink from his water bottle. His eyes narrowed slightly as he spotted the strap hanging from her nape. “Still carrying that around, are you?”
She resisted rolling her eyes, and pulled her blanket higher over her neck. “Yuen-Fa already told me about the photos.”
“Then you should have gotten rid of it by now.” His furrowed brow softened with a sigh. “I just don’t see why you still carry it around, Mal. There’ll be no film on Proxima.”
She swallowed her automatic response, a constant drumming in her head: if I don’t take these pictures, how will anyone know what it was like for us? “We’re not on Proxima yet, Uncle. Besides, Dad and Baba trusted me with the responsibility—“
“And I didn’t like it then, either — who sets a ten-year-old loose with a camera?” He shook his head and replaced his mask. “You can’t carry on as you did before, Mal, not when you have a child to think of. Get rid of it quick, is my advice.”
“I understand.” Her voice was sharper than she had ever used with her uncle. She had to turn away and take a minute to compose herself — but composure danced out of her reach, too wounded by his distrust. Finally, she pulled the cradleboard onto her back and stood up, careful to avoid knocking her head again. “I have to go. I’ve got messages to deliver, and I promised Goose that I’d be back by tonight.”
Jay stood with her, mouth pursing in regret. “Why don’t you let me deliver them?” he cajoled. “You shouldn’t have to run all over the city when you’ve got a baby to worry about.”
She huffed out a sigh and let him take the messages — her stubbornness was only so powerful this late in the day, and it was the closest she would get for an apology. “I still have to go.”
“You don’t have to stay in that place if you don’t want to.” He was painfully earnest, and she couldn’t stand to hear the pity in his voice, or see it in his eyes. “We have enough space if you want to stay at the house—“
“I’m staying with Goose.” Despite her antsy temper, despite the less-than-ideal reunion, she continued to linger, longing to hug him goodbye. “You’ve heard about Tai-Song?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve told Yuen-Fa time and time again that she needs to let him crawl back on his own — she’s only encouraging his behaviour.”
“Well, I can’t afford to wait, so I’m going to go and find him tomorrow. Would you like to watch Clover while I’m away?”
His eyes lit up, and he was nodding before she finished her sentence. “Of course, of course — come by anytime.”