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Chasing Goodbye
(On Spec, Summer 2003) |
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"Ms.
Hunter, can you hear me?" I
startle into the present, the radiating warmth of the stasis-gel cupping my
naked body. My skin, still
sensitive from the hair removal, stings with the heat.
"Yes,"
I say, my voice hollow on the mask’s com, "yes, I can hear you." Scattered whispers and tense bursts of laughter rise over the dead hum of the machinery. A child cries and my heart dry-heaves. # Aruna sat at her toy table in the kitchen while I peeled oranges and sliced a nut loaf for our breakfast. I loved our early mornings together, which always included a long snuggle while I read her a story. Then I'd walk her to the dayschool in my section's compound and kiss her goodbye. I'd meet my friend, Holly, in the poly-dome park, with its amazing view of Eddie Crater sweeping down and away from the city. We'd grab a coffee there and walk the twenty minutes to the agriculture lab where we worked. Just after 0600 someone buzzed the door. I checked the monitor on the kitchen counter. It was Adrian, a big wrapped present under one arm. I keyed the com. "What do you want?" I said to him. "I know it’s early, Ria, but can you let me in? I brought––" Aruna jumped up from her table. "Daddy!" she called out, running around the counter. "Daddy! Daddy!" I lifted her up to see the monitor. "Is that my little Apricot?" Adrian said, grin cracking wide on his face. He waved at the camera, at Aruna. "I brought you a present, sweetheart! For your birthday! You're going to be three years old, honey! Such a big girl!" "Oh, Daddy, a present!" She clapped her little hands. Then Adrian's mouth tightened. "I know her birthday's a month away, Ria," he said, "but I'm going up to Elysium to do a three-month relief shift at the hospital there. They're short on trauma nurses." I hesitated, deciding, then shrugged. "Okay." He wasn't supposed to show up at the apartment except to pick up Aruna for his two-weekends-a-month, but I knew that he'd won the Elysium bid through Holly's partner, Ellen, who had bid on the same job, so he was being honest, at least about that. I set Aruna down and she ran to the door. "Hurry!" she said to me, swinging her arm around and around. I keyed the lock and Adrian stepped into the living room, sweeping Aruna up in one arm and hugging her as she squealed. He crouched and set the big present on the floor, then he slipped his hand over her nose and mouth. She went limp in his arm. My heart staggered. I grabbed at her, but all in one motion he stood and punched me in the chest, knocking me backward. Two men in coveralls shoved through the doorway behind him. I lunged for the security alarm, but one man wrenched my arm up behind my back while the other banged a spray-needle into my shoulder. # "Ms.
Hunter, we need you to relax, to just float on the gel until we get these limb
scaffolds clamped." I
breathe to soften my muscles. "There...that's
better." It
always comes back in the dark, so I sleep with the lights on. I dread the thought of stasis-sleep. They say we will dream,
and this terrifies me. # I woke, suffocating, in the dark. I tried to throw open my mouth for air but it was taped shut. The chair I was taped to rocked and I almost went over. Fighting panic, I breathed through my nose, tried to calm myself. Vomit rose in my throat but I choked it down. Then I remembered Aruna, flaccid in Adrian’s arms, and started screaming through the tape. After some time I heard a phone buzz. My computer took the call and I thought: thank God, they simply left me at home. It's the dayschool, asking after Aruna, but they'll check my work com next. The phone again. Holly, calling from work, wondering where I am, the dayschool called.... I willed her to send someone to check on me. I yelled for help again through the tape, my muffled voice hoarse. Aruna! I jerked my arms against the tape, over and over. Then I wriggled the chair back and forth toward the computer console on the desk, thinking I could activate the alarm from there, maybe bang it with my head, bring compound security to my door in minutes. The chair tilted. Automatically, I tried to fling my arms out for balance, wrench my body in the opposite direction, but it didn't help. Over I went, my cheek slamming against the edge of the desk, surprise and pain arcing through my head. I came to, my cheekbone throbbing. I was on my side on the floor, pain stabbing across my back and down to my right elbow, which was pinned under the edge of the chair. My right hand felt wooden, cold; the fingers of my left hand tingled. I began to cry. The door sounded. I yelled through the tape, frantic. Then I heard the door unlock. Sweet, dear Holly must have sent security to look for me. # The Eddie police began a search. Holly left work, walked me home from the police station. Made us tea. "Why did I let him in?" "You've let him in before," Holly said, "and he hasn’t caused any trouble since you were granted custody. He's been nothing but the perfect ex." Numbness spread. "But he said he'd take her. That's why I sued for sole custody with no visitation." I wiped my nose, then blew it. I got custody, but he got visitation. "He said that he didn't care what the court decided, that he wouldn't stand around while I cut him out of Aruna's life." "He cut himself out, not you," she said, shaking her head, "by bringing her back late all those times before the court case, scaring you to death, taking her up to Pathfinder City without telling you." She sipped her tea. "Have you called your folks?" I wiped my nose again. "Just my mom. I tried to get my dad, but he's surveying somewhere in the northeastern quadrant. His company will have him call as soon as they track him down." My computer chimed. I started, sloshing tea onto the table. Holly fingered the pad on the wall behind her and the monitor on the desk spun to face us. Detective Forrest smiled across the room at me. "Hello, Ms. Hunter," he said, then his smile widened. "We found her! They're on a flight to Earth. Witnesses confirm a white male and a girl-child matching their graphics boarding the flight at 0705." My stomach tightened. "He’s taking her to his parents in Euro. They have money; they know people. I'll never find her there!" Panic swelled in the back of my throat. Holly took my hand in both of hers, stroked my fingers. I started shaking. “The flight to Earth is three months long—" “No, Ms. Hunter, we can intercept the ship,” Forrest said. "A patrol boat is en route, and so we should have them in custody sometime this evening." He smiled again. "I'll keep you posted." # My mother arrived from Pathfinder City, the quadrant capital, where she works as an accountant for the Mars Group. Red-faced and still furious, she threw her arms around me. "That goddamn bastard," she said, her voice like stone on stone. "I hope they toss him out the bloody airlock." She hugged Holly, then stacked little containers on the kitchen table. I stared at them, then realized they were food, take-out. Nausea balled up in me. I turned and dropped onto the couch. Mom was on the phone already with her office, then with her husband Ashley-Bryce, and some lawyer friend connected with the Mars Group who does criminal law. Prosecution. Holly sat beside me on the couch, her hand on my arm. We've known each other a long time, Holly and me. High school in Pathfinder, then tech school, then we both got the same assignment with the ag-lab here in Eddie. Shared an apartment in the compound until she met Ellen and I fell in love with Adrian. "I'm going to call El again, Ria," Holly said. "Get her to pick up the kids and do supper. Let her know what's happening. And I'll clear your calendar for the rest of the week, get you booked off work." Work. I nodded. I hugged her, unable to speak, sobs rising in my chest. "I'll use the phone in your room," she said, and as she stood, she blew me a kiss. Mom clicked her phone shut, stomped across my small living room, her boots loud on the apartment floor—she never could just walk anywhere—and perched on the edge of the couch beside me. Mom is very immediate. When she's with you, you are the most important person to her. It's quite a gift. My dad both loves and hates that about her. Makes fighting with her difficult because she's so focused. Not that my parents fought much, but when they did, it was catastrophic. After twelve years, they separated. My dad says the bad times eventually overshadowed the good. I understand that. "How are you doing, Pickle?" she said. I didn't laugh as I usually would when she calls me my baby name. I cried instead, suddenly and with renewed ferocity, thinking of Aruna's baby name, Apricot, and her happy face seeing her daddy with a present under his arm. "Lousy," I said. "One second I'm relieved they found her, then the next I'm terrified it's not her at all on that flight." I sucked in a breath. "It's as if she died, Mom. I feel like I'll never see her again and it's all my fault." I was crying so hard I could barely talk. "I opened the door. I let him in. I believed him!" She touched my face, her bracelets jangling on her arm. # My dad arrived, a little breathless from the stairs up to my fourth-floor apartment—he never takes the lift, he's always trying to work off some extra weight only he can see. He brought food with him, like mom, only his gifts were oranges and mangos and bananas, the locally grown successes of our ag-labs and greenhouses, where Holly and I worked as gene manipulators. It hurt to look at my dad. It was as if you could see right through his skin to the rawness, the emotional abrading, underneath. He has been part of Aruna’s life in a way he was never part of mine. I've been glad of that. The news that the police boat intercepted the ship to Earth came only minutes after dad arrived. We cheered, hugged each other. My mom cried—the only other time I'd seen her cry was the moment she first held Aruna. I danced across the living room with Holly, grinning and crying and feeling like my chest was going to burst apart with relief. # Quiet
yellow light glows inside the mask, eradicating the dark, as the tiny interior
monitor comes online. I see myself
in the open stasis tube, floating on gel, flanked by suited aides fussing with
the awkward limb scaffolds. One
of the aides rests the bio-pack on my chest while two others hook up the leads
and lines. The tube cover descends partway and the bio-pack is lifted and
fastened up inside the cover. They
run a systems check. "We're
going to close the stasis tube now, Ms. Hunter." I watch myself disappear under the lid. My name flashes across the lid’s oblong readout, followed by my bio-levels and the date and time of internment. # Someone touched my shoulder, shaking me gently. Dad stood above me, dark wedges under his eyes. He'd slept on the sofa bed in the living room—Mom had Aruna's bed. Holly had gone home just after midnight. He crouched at the side of the bed. "The detective is on the monitor," he said, but his face told me it wasn’t good news. I threw myself out of bed, ran to the living room in my pajamas, headache pounding. Forrest's eyes were dark, his mouth turned down at the sides. "The man and the girl on the ship to Earth were decoys," he said. "Adrian hired them, paid them a lot of money—" "No," I said, shaking my head. "Let me see them! I can tell you if it's my Aruna!" Dad stood beside me. Suddenly mom was there in her bathrobe. I felt like I was being buried in a sandslide. "No! It's got to be her!" I could hardly breathe. Forrest shook his head slowly. "It's confirmed: DNA scans; a confession." He shrugged. Opened his mouth, then closed it again. Looked at me. "I'm sorry, Ria. I'll be by later today." He keyed off. "Shit," Mom said. "That bastard!" I shouted, my breath coming in chunks. "That goddamn bastard! I can't believe I let him in!" # Missing Aruna burned through me like inhaled fire. I'd lay awake imagining her with Adrian, tucked away in some featureless apartment in a city up in the northeast quadrant or even in an underground compound on the Moon. They'd be on a "holiday" or maybe he'd be telling her that they were going to visit Poppa and Nana soon, and I'd wonder what he was telling her about where I was, why I wasn't there. I'd see her in a bed that wasn't hers and I'd think: would Adrian know that she needs a drink by her bedside at night—in her blue elephant cup which he didn’t take? He won’t know how to brush her hair so it won’t snag and pull, or how to rub her back at night just before she falls asleep. What if she cries for me and because I don't come she thinks I don't love her anymore? I started taking sleep medication but it didn't help much. Even if I got to sleep, I'd have this recurring nightmare. When I was eight years old, our school went on a camping trip to the Kasei Valley. A girl I never knew was killed that year a week or so after our camping trip—somehow she fell over a safety railing. I used to daydream that I was there when she fell and would save her in the nick of time by grabbing her arm or the belt of her micro-suit. Now I dreamed that as I grab at her, instead of saving her, I accidentally knock her over the cliff and she begins to fall in slow motion, as if on one of the moons. And suddenly I realize that she wasn't in any danger at all, that it was just my imagination, and now I've stupidly knocked her over the cliff. I'm horrified at what I've done: I'm the reason she's going to die! I notice then that we are on a tiny moon, and the force I'd used trying to grab her carries me over the cliff, too. Below me the girl falls down and around to the other side of the moon. I twist to watch as she lands on her feet on the edge of the cliff I've just fallen over. She waves at me, smiling, and I fall further and further out into space, and she gets smaller and smaller until she looks like a little girl. Like Aruna, left behind on a tiny moon, waving at me. # I wrenched the door open. Forrest, dressed in smart black pants and a short jacket, ducked into my apartment. "Coffee?" mom said. He shook his head, then sat at the kitchen table. I sat opposite him, between Holly and my dad, staring at the small flat computer he slid onto the table: my daughter's file. It had been eight days since her kidnapping. I choked out the words: "This can't be good news. If you had found her, you'd have said so already." "It's not good news, Ria." He brushed the screen of the computer file with a finger. "We found her, but she's on a starship." He licked his lips. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Well, can't you just go get her?" I said, angry, but then my mouth went dry. "Oh God, where?" "It's a colonist flight to C-4, in the Conrad system." He pointed at the graphic on the computer, but I couldn't see it through the tears. "How far away?" my mother asked, her voice small. "Seventy-five standard years. It's the longest stasis-sleep trip we make." He took a breath. "They've accelerated beyond Jupiter's orbit. They're gone." I could hardly breathe. My dad: "Are you sure? Could this just be another decoy?" Forrest shook his head, rubbed his nose with his thumb. "We interviewed the people who oversaw Adrian's application. DNA scan results, graphics taken during stasis-sleep preparations, witnesses." He ducked his head a little. "It took Adrian almost a year to put this together. They're under assumed names, with false identification chips, but the DNA matches are what clinch it. He took your daughter to the initial colony application interviews in Pathfinder City fourteen months ago. We've seen the graphics. He even provided a death certificate for a wife—who was actually a patient he attended in the Eddie Trauma Center who died as a result of a workplace accident." Seventy-five years, I thought, the words as stark and clear as the tiny moons in the sky above Mars. I could hardly get air. Static smudged the edges of my vision. I surged to my feet, clutching my chest, gasping. Mom was talking to me: "—take another breath. Slowly. Good. It's okay, Ria, just breathe. You're having a panic attack. Take nice, slow breaths." I tried to breathe slowly, but I thought I was going to die, that I was having a heart attack. And why not die? I thought. She's gone. Mom rubbed my back, just like when I was a little girl, just like I rub Aruna's back when she's too wired to sleep.... "Just breathe. That's it." I eased into the chair, numb, stunned, my tingling fingers over my mouth. My breath came back in heaving gulps. "Is there any way to intercept the ship?" mom asked. "I'm sorry," Forrest said. "The ship is autopiloted at this stage. Everyone is in stasis-sleep." He gave a little shrug. "There's been no success in direct communication with C-4, which is almost thirty light years away—it's just too far. We are going to send a message indirectly, from colony to colony, but my sources estimate it won't be received for almost a year. Of course, the ship won't arrive for seventy-four more years—" I went over to the kitchen sink, hit the cold water button, splashed my face again and again, breathing in the icy, damp air the tap released. This can't be happening, I told myself, this just can't be happening. I jammed my knuckles against my temples. "Ria?" It was Holly, touching my shoulder. I looked up: her face had crumpled in on itself. I buried my face in her shoulder, scrunching my eyes tight. Forrest was still talking. "We're preparing a file to send with the next ship to C-4, which isn't scheduled to leave for another year. The file delineates Adrian's crime and charges the authorities there with the responsibility of investigating him. That's about all we can do, I'm afraid." "I can't take this," I whispered into Holly's shoulder. She hugged me tighter. "Aruna's gone." # I saw Lydia Gill—the police services' counselor—three times a week and struggled to put some normalcy into my life: I returned to work; sent my mom and dad home to their own lives and jobs; resumed dance lessons; went back to the weekly board meetings for the compound. My mom suggested I lease out my apartment and move in with her and Ashley-Bryce in Pathfinder City. Just for a while, she said, until I got back on my feet. I told her that I didn't want to leave my apartment—it was Aruna's only home. And I didn't want to leave my life here, my friends, my job. What would I do all day if I didn't go to work? I said to her. As Aruna's birthday crept closer, the nightmares got worse. But now when I dreamt of grabbing at the girl to save her, I tried to stop myself. I tried to keep my arms at my sides, force them down with sheer muscle and willpower, because I knew that when I grabbed at her, I would accidentally knock her over the cliff and then I would fall after her. It never worked, though. I would wake staring at the little girl on the moon waving at me, who is now sometimes Aruna and sometimes not. I hardly slept: I'd curl up in her tiny bed, smelling her on the sheets that I put back when my mother left. My skin ached with the memory of her face pressed against my arm, her breath hot on my neck. The knowledge that Aruna was alive out there on that starship but as good as dead to me here on Mars suffocated me like swallowed sand. # Holly and Ellen and Lydia, my counselor, threw a birthday party for Aruna. I cried: the cake, candles; her picture sitting on her little table in the kitchen; balloons. My dad came, and mom and Ashley-Bryce. Holly and Ellen's kids. Detective Forrest, with his wife and their baby boy. Aruna's dayschool teacher. We wore hats and sang Happy Birthday. Ate cake and chocolate ice cream. At the next counseling session, Lydia said celebrations like that allow grieving people to say goodbye in ways they may not be able to articulate.
How can I say goodbye to Aruna? I said, angry. She's still alive! She's still going to turn four, and then five, then fifteen and twenty-five...but I'll be long dead by then. # Holly sat cross-legged on the floor in my living room. It was two weeks after the birthday party. She was helping me organize the compound's monthly volunteer work bee: it was my turn in the rotation of board members. Holly had talked me into not turning down my rotation. She said she'd help. Lydia, of course, thought it was a good idea. "I just can't let her go," I said to Holly, who sipped her coffee and listened while we took a break. I was standing in the doorway to Aruna's room, looking in at the bright walls, her little bed, the toy box Adrian bought her, the glider-chair from my dad. I shook my head at myself, wondered when I would finally be able to let go.... A string of half-formed thoughts twisted together: "I'm going to go after her," I said, the words simply falling out of my mouth. Holly frowned at me over her mug. "You're going to go after her?" I nodded slowly, my heart rattling. "I'll get on the C-4 colony ship Forrest is sending Aruna's file on. I'll go there, find her, and bring her home. Even if I have to kidnap her back." Holly rested her mug on the living room floor, pulled her knees up and hugged them. "You know what that would mean, don't you?" she said quietly. "Going on a starship?" I looked at her, sudden loss constricting my chest. I nodded once, unable to speak, but feeling for the first time in months that I had some hope. "And what if," Holly continued, "the police are wrong, like before, and Adrian and Aruna aren't on that starship?" # I didn't do well at the initial colony interview. Coffee in hand, I sat in the city park—which was always empty this early in the morning—staring through the sand-scratched poly-dome at the dusty crater floor that reaches 90 kilometers north and east from Eddie proper. A small storm scoured southward, toward us. I tilted my head back, looked up at the stars, knowing—believing—that my Aruna was out there somewhere. The interviewers were uncomfortable with my reason for wanting to travel to the colony on C-4—even though I omitted the part about just turning around and bringing Aruna right back to Mars. They were looking, they said, for more interest in, and, just as importantly, commitment to the goals and on-going work of the colony itself. If my application were to be accepted, the main conditions of acceptance would be a fitness exam and a training upgrade to a Level 3 Agricultural Technician, so that I'd have more employable potential—in the future. A lot of things can change in the seventy-five years it'll take to make the journey to C-4, advances in technology and research, new methodologies. Indeed, whole paradigms of understanding can shift, and they wanted me to be as prepared as possible to upgrade smoothly when I arrived on C-4. I didn't care about these things, though. I wanted only Aruna. And I wanted to bring her back to Mars, to our home, even though after the 150-year round trip in stasis-sleep everyone we had known and loved would be dead and Mars itself would have changed so much that it might not even seem like home anymore. I had thought of asking them to come with me: my mom, my dad, Holly and her family. But how could I? How could I ask any of them to leave behind everything they know and the people they love to start over. Just to be with Aruna and me. I didn’t ask. The hope I had felt two weeks prior, sitting on the floor with Holly in my living room, drained out of me, slipping down my body, through the park floor, down the foundation walls of the dome, and into the dirt and rock of Mars, where it coagulated, cementing me to this planet. I drank up the familiar flood of self-pity. What was I thinking? Fly to C-4, nab Aruna, who would be so happy and relieved to see me—or so I imagined, her round face brightening, "Mommy! Mommy! I missed you so much!"—and simply hop on the first starship back to Mars? Let her go, I told myself. It's over: just say goodbye. Aruna is dead—at least to me—and I should be thankful for the three years I had her.... I drained the last of my coffee and stood, trying to staunch my growing despair. But then, underneath the mental cacophony I heard something, a barely perceptible growl, which I imagined coming from deep within Mars, from the place where my hope had drained and died. It was the sound of rage, and it was coming like a new volcano, growing, gaining momentum as it pushed up through the rock, through the foundation, into my feet, up my legs, my hips, my stomach, through my chest, then blew out my mouth. I cried and screamed until there was nothing left inside me. I buried my face in my hands, crumpled onto the bench. I raised my head, opened my eyes to the storm swirling indifferently across the sand. I had to go. She was on that ship. And in that moment I decided to journey to C-4 as a colonist, carrying Detective Forrest's file so that I could take Aruna back from Adrian, and then make a life there on C-4 with her. # I
request an exterior view of Mars on my mask monitor as heated gel once again
pours through the tube ports. I can
feel it climbing up over my exposed skin, slowly burying me.
I concentrate on the monitor. Scattered
high clouds today. Light winds.
The view is to the west, of the rust-colored hills that hide distant
Pathfinder City from the starship port. In
seventy-five years Mars will have a breathable atmosphere.
Won't even look like my Mars anymore:
vegetation softening the hard landscape, lakes stocked with fish cloned
from Earth, a decent-sized ocean. Rain.
I'd miss the dust storms and the omnipresent stars, the clarity of the
volcanic peaks grabbing up at space. # Holly swallowed another mouthful of beer, set her glass on the table. "You're my dearest friend, Ria, so I'm going to ask you this because you have to face it before you make any more plans." She leaned forward and propped her elbows on the table. I leaned back in the kitchen chair, suddenly afraid. My resolution had been so strong since my decision to leave. I spun my wineglass in my hands. "Is this the best thing for Aruna?" she said. "Is your going to C-4 and taking her back from Adrian, is this what's best for her, or just for you?" I studied her face. "I don't know," I said, shaking my head a little. "I really don't know." I spun the wineglass again. "What I do know is that if I don't go, I don't think I could stand myself." "And if she's not there?" I shivered. Holly stared at her beer. After a while she said, "I wanted to throw you a going-away party." I looked at her. "But I decided to make it a wake instead." She sighed and gave a little laugh. I started to cry, and then we were both laughing and crying. Holly blew her nose, scrubbed at her eyes. "You have no idea how much I'm going to miss you, Ria Hunter." # Holly waited until I had completed the Level 3 AT upgrade and my acceptance as a colony member was confirmed before sending out the invitations to my wake. How do you say goodbye to everyone and everything you've known and loved in your whole life? It's the end of living and the beginning of survival. My mom. We spent a day talking. Like we always did when we had time together. We met at my favorite coffee shop in Eddie, indulged in pastries, went for a walk in the poly-dome park. Came back to the coffee shop for lunch, stayed until well after dinner. When it was time to leave, she put her hand on my mouth, shook her head. "I'll say goodbye to you on my deathbed," she said. Then she kissed me and hugged me, held me tight, kissed me again and walked away. My dad. He still felt guilty for whatever hurt his and mom's divorce had caused me, and for not being there as much as I had maybe wanted him to be. It's okay, Dad, I said, I forgave you years ago. And Holly, my dearest Holly. I held her for a long time. All my hopes go with you, she said. # I
am buried alive in stasis-gel. The
tube slides into its cradle. The
clamps lock. On my monitor the wind
is blowing harder: red dust swirls,
rises, rushes toward the low hills. "Ms.
Hunter, we will be initiating the first series of medications in one minute.
We wish you a safe journey." "Thank
you," I say. In
my personal luggage is a copy of the police file for the authorities on C-4 who
will oversee Aruna's return to my custody and Adrian's indictment for
kidnapping. But deep inside I nurse my darkest fear:
that Adrian is still on Mars somewhere, holding tight to our little Aruna,
watching me fall off the cliff into the future and out of their lives. I'm
terrified that as the technicians finish laying me down to stasis-sleep, somehow
I will know beyond any doubt that I have made the wrong choice, that I have
indeed thrown myself out into space only to see Aruna standing behind me,
waving, and getting smaller and smaller as I drift further away, until she is
finally and irrevocably lost to me. I
thrust this thought from my mind. Instead
I think: when I see Adrian, there
will be no mercy. And this thought
calms me. If, for some reason, the
authorities on C-4 fail me, I will flush him out myself and do whatever I have
to do to take back the life he's taken from me. An
aide asks me to begin counting down from one hundred. I
begin to count down. Mars
is gone. I have said my inadequate
goodbyes. I tell myself: this isn't
the end of living; rather, it's a new beginning.
I must accept this, not just for Aruna's sake, but for my own. The End |
