The Three

by Meghan O'Brien

  “His mother,” Kael whispered, sharing a quick look of sympathetic loss with Anna.

  From the graduation party, the video moved into a much darker scene, that of the young man dressed in a military uniform and smiling as he had in front of his Mustang. Pride radiated from his lean body, and he held himself like a swaggering hero. Anna dropped her eyes, sick from the sight of the uniform. If there was one thing she had learned to fear, it was war, and the soldiers who waged it.

  The film reel ran to its end, flapping in the air upon each revolution until Anna stopped the projector. Kael cleared her throat, awkward.

  Elin sighed deeply and deposited a kiss on Kael’s temple. “Well, I thought it was pretty good up until the bummer ending. I think he should’ve found a girl and settled down. That going--to-war story is so played out.”

  “I agree,” Anna said. “Maybe there’s a better one in this box.” She smiled at her companions, allowing her eyes to linger on their contrasting forms. Kael was dressed in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, stretched out tall and lanky on her belly. Her body was lean muscle, solid, with narrow hips. Elin lay in just a tank top and her panties, all soft curves and warmth. Anna desired both so intensely that she felt weak.

  She selected a reel of film at random and loaded it into the projector, cranking the handle to charge the machine. As she worked, she watched Kael’s hand tickle the back of Elin’s upper thigh. Starting the movie with the press of a button, she dragged her eyes from Kael and Elin to the images being projected on the wall. At once, there was complete silence in the room as they all watched what Anna had discovered.

  Children. Three of them, tearing shiny paper from boxes stacked beneath a Christmas tree. The imagery was familiar to Anna. Christmas was something nearly everyone in her tribe had celebrated in some way.

  “Christmas.” Elin’s eyes shone with emotion as she watched the screen, seemingly lost in her own memories of the past.

  A little boy sat beneath the Christmas tree with a miniature guitar that looked like it had been designed specifically for a child. His upper body swayed back and forth as he strummed the strings, and his mouth opened and closed in silent song. The other two children, both long-haired girls, danced in a circle for the camera. Each had a brand-new doll clutched in eager hands to serve as a dancing partner.

  Anna stared at the images in rapt fascination. It had been over a year since she’d seen a child, and the movie brought home some memories she had tried to push aside. There had been eight children born into her tribe over the past twenty years. Growing up, she and Garrett had been two of only four pre-sickness children raised by the tribe. The new births in the years since the sickness had been a sign of hope, if not a source of constant worry for those charged with protecting the tribe and its future.

  She wondered what had happened to the children that day. It wasn’t the first time she’d had the thought.

  Janice and Owen always said they would hide the kids if trouble came, but Anna hadn’t seen whether they got away. Swallowing, she watched the carefree innocence of the children in the movie, not sure whether she preferred to think that the children she remembered were captured or just killed.

  Elin released a wistful sigh. “I’d like to raise children someday.”

  Anna swung her eyes over to Elin and tried to imagine her lover as a mother and found that it wasn’t very difficult. She’d be wonderful with a child.

  “No.” Kael stared at the movie in silence, her eyes hard and expressionless, her face tight with pain. “There is no way I will ever help bring a child into this world. No child deserves that.”

  “No?” Elin responded sharply. “Since when do you get to just tell me what’s going to happen? I thought we talked about things.”

  Kael turned dark eyes to Elin. “Some things aren’t worth talking about.”

  Anna stayed quiet, uncertain of her own feelings on the subject. On the one hand, Elin’s desire to raise a child was so utterly Elin-like that she found it hard to imagine her lover never getting that chance, and especially when she would do such a good job. On the other hand, Anna wasn’t sure what kind of legacy past generations had left for the three of them, let alone what they could leave for children. Maybe it is best that we just…stop. There’s so much pain in the world that I don’t want a child to have to feel.

  “Not worth talking about?” Elin murmured. “Something that I want—that I’ve dreamed about—isn’t worth talking about?”

  Kael’s eyes flashed with anger. “If you think I’m letting some man fuck you so that you can have a baby, then—”

  “Then what?” Elin’s shoulders rose and fell with her rapid breathing, a sign that she was more upset than Anna had ever seen her. “And who said I needed to actually have a baby? I’m not talking about having a baby, necessarily, just raising a child—”

  “Same difference.” Kael sat up and scooted backwards until she leaned against the couch, arms folded defensively. “And the answer is still no.”

  “So your issue isn’t with the idea of a man fucking me, as if there weren’t other ways to solve that particular problem—”

  “My ‘issue,’ “ Kael interrupted in a cold voice, “is that it’s a completely selfish desire that I want no part in.”

  Elin recoiled as if Kael had slapped her across the face. Anna watched the hurt flash in her lover’s eyes, and it elicited her protective instincts. If there’s one thing you could never call Elin, it’s selfish.

  “Kael,” Anna murmured. When Kael gave her a cold stare, she said, “You know that’s not fair.”

  “I’m selfish?” Elin’s eyes filled with tears, even as her face grew hard with anger.

  “Wanting a child is selfish,” Kael said. “What do we have to offer a child?”

  “Love,” Elin replied.

  On the wall, the movie faded away when the projector ran out of charge. Anna made no move to crank it up again.

  “Love?” Kael scoffed. “Well, what does the world have to offer a child?”

  “The same thing it offers us. I thought you agreed that the world isn’t a wholly awful place.” Elin shifted back to sit against the couch, a couple of feet from Kael. Their separation seemed far vaster to a silent Anna. “Loving you, loving Anna. Watching the sun rise in the morning or swimming in a cool lake on a hot summer day. There are a million things to love about life, and you know it.”

  “Just because it isn’t wholly awful, that doesn’t mean we should start ushering kids into it,” Kael said. “Your child will never have a Christmas like that, Elin. That’s gone now. Over. What do you think your child is going to have to celebrate?”

  “My child?” Elin stared at Kael as if looking at a stranger.

  “Not mine.” Kael’s jaw tightened. “I refuse to watch a child grow up in this world. Do you really want to have to worry about what’s going to happen to your little girl when she grows up? Or about what your little boy could become?”

  “But if there was a child who was already here, who needed someone—”

  Kael wasn’t about to listen. “What about you?” she asked Anna. “You want to watch a child grow up so she can be gang-raped on the ground like you were?”

  Shamed, Anna looked at the floor. Hot tears stung her eyes, and she blinked, desperately trying to clear her vision. She didn’t want Kael to see how much the comment had cut her.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, Kael?” Elin’s voice rose. “How could you say something like that? What did Anna ever do to you?”

  Anna couldn’t meet Kael’s gaze, but watched her tense jaw work in silence, and her fists clench and unclench in her lap. After a moment of awkward silence, Kael stood and strode over to her discarded blue jeans. She tugged them on angrily.

  “Where are you going?” Elin asked, tears rolling down her pale cheeks.

  “Out,” Kael said in a rough voice.

  “Don’t go far, please,” Elin whispered.

  “I won’t.” Without turning around, K
ael left the room, and a few moments later a door opened and closed in another part of the house.

  “Did he just go outside in this rain?” Elin’s shoulders shook, and she lifted a hand to cover her eyes.

  “I think so.” Anna had never seen Elin anywhere close to this upset. She gathered her into a gentle embrace.

  Elin buried her face in Anna’s neck. “I know it’s silly to cry, but we’ve never fought like that before. I feel sick to my stomach.”

  “He was really upset,” Anna said. It was an understatement. Kael had looked transported to another place with her pain and anger. “I can’t blame him, given what he’s experienced. Having to worry about his own child maybe going through some of the things he did…I’m sure it’s a scary thought.”

  “That doesn’t excuse what he said to you. There was no reason for that.”

  Anna focused on one of a myriad of freckles on Elin’s chin. “I’m okay.”

  “He hurt you.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “He hurt me, too,” Elin said in a quiet, sorrowful voice. “Do you think I’m selfish?”

  “You’re the least selfish person I’ve ever known.”

  “Do you think wanting a child is selfish?”

  Anna hesitated, then shrugged cautiously. “I don’t know. I think if you wanted to adopt a child who needed someone, then no, not at all. As far as bringing new life into this world…sometimes I wonder what people think those children have to look forward to. Sometimes I wonder if I would have chosen to be born, knowing what I do now.”

  Elin’s eyes turned sad. “Oh, Anna, I hope you don’t mean that. Every moment I’ve spent with you has made me happy to be alive.”

  Anna hastened to explain, heart stuttering at the thought of never having lived her time with Elin. “Me too, every moment. Well, except maybe the first ten minutes or so.” She managed to crack a brief smile.

  “Definitely once I bathed with you that first time.”

  Elin chuckled. “You take the good with the bad, I guess. But doesn’t the good make it all worthwhile?”

  Anna considered Elin’s question. The bad times in her life had once left her wishing to die; the good times she’d found with Elin and Kael made her grateful that nobody had listened to her wishes. Fear tugged at her gut at the thought of losing either Elin or Kael like she had lost Garrett, but fear wasn’t enough to keep her from basking in the joy of them for as long as she could.

  “I guess so,” she said. I hope so.

  “I would be just as happy adopting a child in need,” Elin said. “Maybe happier. I don’t need to get pregnant and have a baby. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want that, maybe, but it’s not about that for me. I tried to make Kael understand that.”

  “I know you did. He just wasn’t listening.” Lightning flashed, and both women turned their heads to gaze out the window at the pouring rain. “For the record, I’m not sure I’d be okay with a man being with you, either,”

  Anna said.

  Elin gave her a gentle shove. “The sickness may have taken us back to the dark ages in some ways, but there are options when it comes to inseminating a woman. We could work around that, if need be.”

  “You really want a baby someday?”

  Elin nodded shyly. “Someday. I’m not ready now, because traveling is no way to raise a child and right now I want to see the world. But someday, whether it’s because a situation arises or we just decide to settle down and have a family…yes, someday I would like to raise a child. I think about it sometimes, and it just feels right to me. With you and Kael.”

  “With me?” Responsibility crashed down upon Anna, before being replaced by elation at being given a gift she had never thought she would receive. “Really?”

  “Of course. I think you’d be wonderful with a child.”

  The words brought unexpected tears to Anna’s eyes as she contended with another memory, this one pushed so deep inside that she had steadfastly refused to think about it since the day it happened. She pulled Elin into a quick hug so she wouldn’t see her rising emotion.

  Elin tightened her arms around Anna’s body. “So would Kael.”

  Anna tried to imagine Kael with a child. Kael had taught her so much about fighting and hunting; their sparring matches had grown competitive and laughter-filled. Anna learned something new nearly every day they spent together. I love being around him. Once he lets down his guard a little—and I let down mine—he really is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.

  “He would be great,” she said. “There’s not a question in my mind about that. He’s just scared, I think.”

  Elin drew back and twisted her hands together. “I still love Kael, and Kael still loves me, it’s just…I totally ruined tonight. It was such a good night, too.”

  Anna lifted Elin’s face with a hand under her chin and gave her a reassuring kiss. “You didn’t ruin anything.

  Like you said, you still love him and he still loves you.”

  “But he’s standing out there in the rain pissed off at me. We yelled at each other.”

  “Honey, sometimes people who love one another fight. If you didn’t love him, he wouldn’t be able to make you so angry. The same goes for him. If he didn’t love you more than anything in the world, there’s no way you could elicit such emotion. And you know that.”

  “I know. But it doesn’t seem right somehow.”

  “Trust me,” Anna said. “John and Moira back in my tribe loved each other so much it was crazy. The only thing louder than their lovemaking was their arguing.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever fight?”

  “Probably. But I’ll love you until the day I die, no matter what.”

  Elin’s face flushed with pleasure. “I’ll love you until the day I die, too.”

  “I think I should go after Kael,” Anna said.

  “Will you tell him that I love him? No matter what?”

  “He knows that.”

  “Tell him anyway. Sometimes he forgets.”

  “I’ll tell him.” Anna stroked her lover’s fiery hair. “And then I’ll bring him back inside so you can tell him again.”

  When Anna stepped onto the back porch of the cabin, now in blue jeans and a thick sweatshirt, she thought at first that Kael had broken her word and wandered off. Having already checked the front porch and around the sides of the cabin, she started to weigh the pros and cons of venturing through the rain into the surrounding forest when a quiet sniffling noise drew her attention to the ground just below the porch.

  She stepped to the railing and looked down at a freshly shaven head. Kael stood shivering in the pouring rain.

  Goddamn it, Kael.

  She got to the bottom of the back porch steps just as Kael turned to walk away. “Hold it,” she called out.

  “You’re not leaving. You’re coming out of the rain with me. You’re going to get sick, for Christ’s sake.”

  Kael stopped walking, and her shoulders dropped in defeat. She let Anna grab her arm and lead her onto the porch. Then she turned, revealing reddened eyes and an expressionless face. “I honestly don’t know why you care.” Her voice was almost swept away by the sound of the storm. “Hit me,” she whispered.

  Anna blinked. “What?”

  “Hit me, Anna. Please. I deserve it for what I said to you.”

  Anna stared at Kael’s heaving chest and the way her wet T-shirt clung to her lean body. “That’s not going to make me feel better.”

  “It’d make me feel better.” Tears spilled from Kael’s eyes, and she swiped at them with an angry hand. “I’m such a fucking asshole sometimes. Even as I was saying the words, I knew what they would do to you.”

  “So why did you say them?” Anna whispered, still raw from having such ugliness thrown at her by someone she trusted.

  Kael balled one hand into a fist and rubbed it over her scalp. “Because I was scared. I thought you might tell Elin that you would raise a child with her. And that Elin might decide
to leave me if I couldn’t give her what she wanted. I wanted you to hate the idea, too.”

  “Elin’s not going to leave you, Kael. You know that. And for the record, I’m not competing with you for her. I don’t want to leave you, either.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, I don’t.” She blew out a nervous breath. “Before I came out here to find you, Elin made me promise to tell you something. She told me that she loves you no matter what. She said sometimes you forget that.”

  Kael released a quiet half-sob. “Sometimes I do.”

  Anna took a deep breath, steeling herself for the talk she knew they needed to have. “Elin really wasn’t saying that she has to have a baby. She’s just saying that she hopes to have the opportunity to raise a child someday.”

  Kael raised haunted eyes to Anna. “And I’m saying that I don’t think I can do it.”

  “I don’t deny that it would be hard. And it would be scary as hell. But it’s something she genuinely wants, and if we could find a child who needed parents, would it really be such a horrible thing?”

  “Yes,” Kael exploded, anguished. “One more person to worry about? Another person to protect? But this one is completely helpless and dependent upon me? I don’t know if I can take it, Anna. Do you know how hard it is?”

  “To love?” She allowed herself to imagine Elin being hurt for just an instant, and her bones ached with pain at the idea. “Yeah, it’s hard, but what’s the alternative? Not to love?”

  “I don’t know.” Kael turned dark eyes to the wet forest that surrounded them. “I never—”

  “What?”

  “I never thought I would feel…these things I do. And it terrifies me. After I met Elin, I swore I would never let another person inside of me like I did her. Loving her was the best thing I’d ever felt, but it scared me in a way I had never experienced when I only had to think of myself. When we found you…I didn’t want to care about you, but goddamn it, I do. And that’s fine, because what can I do about that, anyway? But now Elin’s asking me to think about adding a child to this family? Why? So I can worry constantly about what could happen to my babies?”