by Anne Corlett
Daniel. His name fell into her thoughts, sending ripples of shock running through her.
He stared back at her, accusingly, from the shadows at the corners of her mind. You never wanted to be close to me.
She rolled over, wrapping herself in the blanket. She had wanted him. But when she let him in, he seemed to fill the space she gave him, and still want more of her, digging away at her closed-off corners, the ones clearly marked with a sign saying No through road.
She couldn’t imagine Callan pushing like that.
Again, she felt needles of shock and guilt. Those moments in his cabin when she’d felt a tug of . . . something; it was classic. Two people thrown together, in the heat of an intense moment. It was easy to see things that weren’t there. Tomorrow he’d be distant and polite once again.
She yawned and rubbed her cheek against the pillow, looking for a cool spot. The lights were still on, but that didn’t matter.
Sleep made a swift surge for her, and she let go.
Daniel, she thought, as she fell.
But it was Callan who stared back at her, unsmiling and himself again.
CHAPTER
10
There were voices outside her quarters.
Too soon. Jamie turned over, feeling for the edges of sleep again. But it was slipping away from her.
She found Mila and Lowry in the hold, drinking tea, while Finn was sitting beside another makeshift table, sorting the sea glass by size and color. When Jamie stepped through the gap in the crates, he looked up with the faintest suggestion of a smile. It faded fast, his eyes flitting away, as though he wasn’t quite sure whether he had it right.
“How are you feeling?” Lowry stood up. “Coffee?”
“Please.” She stepped over to the pallet table and picked up a piece of blue glass.
“There.” Finn pointed at a stack of medium-sized blue. Jamie deposited her piece on top, setting off a little landslide that Finn halted with the side of his hand, never looking up from the pile of striped glass that seemed to be giving him some trouble.
“I looked in on Callan a few minutes ago,” Lowry said, handing her a steaming mug. “I couldn’t find him, but Gracie said she’d seen him checking something in the engine corridor.” He smiled. “I don’t think he’s the staying-in-bed type.”
“I’ll need to give him another shot soon.” Jamie didn’t know what Callan’s type was. She’d thought she did, but that exchange in his cabin had left her unsettled.
“Will he do any damage being up and about?”
“He’d probably heal quicker if he stayed put, but the stitches should hold.”
“Well, you can always stitch him back up again,” Lowry said. “That might teach him to slow down a bit.”
Jamie made a noncommittal noise and sipped her coffee. She didn’t want to have to stitch him up again. There’d been an odd, painful intimacy to that scene in his cabin. It was something she’d felt in her early days as a trainee medic: that sense of you and your patient knotted tight together by your involvement in their pain. It was a brutal closeness, your hands, cool and untender, moving over places that weren’t usually touched by someone who wasn’t a lover. People sometimes reacted strangely. You never knew what they might say.
It was as though skin was a barrier, keeping the person inside and the world outside. When that barrier was broken, unexpected things leaked out. She’d had someone turn to her, just before going under anesthetic, and tell her that they didn’t love their husband, even as he waited outside, anxious and unknowing. One young woman had stared at the wall, stoic and silent, throughout her treatment. She only looked up at Jamie once, when they were almost done, to say that she’d been raped a few years ago, and never told anyone.
The feeling when she was treating Callan was just part of the same thing. It didn’t mean anything. But still, she didn’t want to sit that close to him again, close enough to hear the rhythm of his breathing, close enough that she wouldn’t have to stretch out to touch him.
Mila stirred on the sofa, drawing her legs up.
“Are you okay?” Jamie said.
Mila looked up with a too-bright smile. “I’m fine.” The smile faded a little. “I’m fine.”
“Tell Jamie what you were thinking of doing later,” Lowry said.
Mila chewed on a fingernail. “It sounds silly. But I thought . . .” She glanced at Lowry, who gave her an encouraging nod. “I thought we could have a proper dinner. I could make something, and we could all sit down together. Like a celebration.”
Jamie tried to imagine it: the seven of them sitting around the table, sipping wine and talking about the weather. The image was absurd enough to break a laugh from her. She instantly snapped it off, but Mila’s smile fell away.
“I’m not laughing at you,” Jamie said, quickly. “Something . . . It doesn’t matter. It’s a great idea.”
As though she’d been waiting for Jamie’s approval, Mila was off and planning. There wasn’t room at the table, but they could move some crates, put a board on top. She’d cook something, and they could dress up. Well, the women could. She had some things that might fit Jamie. Maybe Rena would want something too. Probably not Gracie. Unless Jamie thought . . .
Jamie didn’t think.
Well, that didn’t matter. Everyone could just wear what they wanted. It could still be a bit special. Didn’t Jamie think so?
Jamie did think so.
After Lowry had been dispatched to ask everyone to be down for dinner in an hour’s time, Mila and Jamie dragged three of the smaller crates together and placed a board on top.
Mila stood back, her face falling a little.
“It doesn’t look like much.”
“We could use a sheet to cover it,” Jamie suggested.
Mila brightened. “That would work.” She looked around again. “What do you think is in those crates?”
Jamie walked over and tried to lift one of the lids, but it was fastened down. “Gracie said it was a family relocating.”
Mila joined her and tried another crate. This lid was loose and she slid it off, revealing tight-packed shredded paper. “I’ll keep looking. There might be something we can use.”
• • •
Jamie found some spare bedding in one of the bays and dug out a plain white sheet. On her way back to the hold, she was intercepted by Mila. The girl’s face was flushed, and there was a secret little smile on her lips.
“I found something. You’ll see. Don’t come down till it’s time. You can get ready while I cook. Here.” She opened the door to her quarters. “I’ve got something you can wear.”
Mutton dressed as lamb. The snide saying floated through Jamie’s head, although she’d never thought of herself as too old for anything before. Everyone was younger than they used to be. When she was a child, forty was an unimaginable age. But now, fifty, even sixty, didn’t seem that old at all. The only time she’d really been aware of growing older was when Daniel dropped his little hints about her biological clock. He’d been frightened they were going to time out, that her reservations would outlast her fertility. Each birthday, he’d find some way to bring it up. Depending on how things were between them, sometimes she’d just smile and say, Not yet. Other times, it would trigger a row, and she’d finish up by taking herself off to bed. He’d follow later, and they’d have sex, with Jamie feeling like they were doing it all wrong. If they were doing it right, surely there’d be a moment when they’d hold one another’s gaze and know they both wanted it to be the time when they created that spark of new life.
Mila came back clutching an armful of pale gray fabric. Jamie relaxed a little. It wasn’t frilled and flounced, and it didn’t have sequins or lace. It was just a plain, floor-length dress with shoulder straps and a crossover top. It looked like the sort of thing she might have worn for a summer barbecue or garden party, back b
efore their lives grew more formal, and every social occasion started carrying its own agenda and dress code.
“This should fit.” She handed Jamie the dress. “I thought you might like it.”
When Mila had disappeared downstairs with the folded sheet, Jamie collected her toiletry kit and a towel and took the dress with her as she set off for the showers. She’d found them on her second day on board, discovering that they were communal, the only privacy provided by shallow metal dividers. She’d chosen to wash in her cabin instead. But she was hot and sticky, with streaks of dirt on her knees, and Mila’s dress smelled freshly washed. She wondered where the girl had worn it. Perhaps she’d changed into it after her last caller had gone, leaving her alone for the night.
Jamie felt a prickle of discomfort. It felt wrong to think of Mila that way, as though she were talking behind her back.
She closed the door behind her and stripped, hanging the dress on a hook outside the stall. The water was warm, and she relaxed a little as the grime of the day rubbed away from her skin. She’d always felt safe in water. It kept things at a slight remove. The instant hot luxury of the capital planet apartment she’d shared with Daniel. The opulent, soft-water cradling of the building’s rooftop pool, with the lazy-river current that let you drift, switch off, gazing at nothing but the empty sky. Even the untrammeled chill of the North Sea, back on Earth. There was no cold like the cold of the sea after sundown. But there was a simplicity to it. If you didn’t fight it, then it didn’t fight you. You could just lean into the swell and watch the stars ease in, and there’d be no need to think of anything beyond that moment.
She gave her hair a quick wash, then turned the shower off. As she bent over to dry her legs, the door slid open, and she straightened up, clutching at her too-small towel.
Rena stared at her from the doorway, a dark red flush rising to cover her face and neck.
“Sorry.” Jamie scrubbed at herself with the towel.
Rena continued to stare, until Jamie felt her own face growing hot. Surely even Rena could work out the basic etiquette of running into a naked fellow traveler?
“What’s that?” Rena was looking at the scar on Jamie’s chest.
Jamie bent and gave her legs another rub, hiding that long crackle of bleached skin.
“I had a heart problem.” That was the answer she’d always given, even to Daniel.
When she stood up, reaching for Mila’s dress, Rena had her head tilted, considering Jamie as though she were some scientific problem.
“That’s not a heart surgery scar,” she said. “It’s old. It almost looks . . .”
There was something about the twist of Rena’s mouth that raised a flicker of memory; an old, stale emotion, too faded for bitterness.
The way she’d felt when she’d found out what the scar meant.
“What does it look like?” Her voice was harsh.
“It looks like something I saw. A study I worked on.” Another twist of her lips. “Congenital . . . defects.”
That old emotion was licking into life now, changing color, changing shape, until it was so close to anger that Jamie couldn’t tell the difference. She’d never said it out loud before. It had always been a secret so close and physical that she couldn’t imagine ever dropping it into casual conversation. It would have been like slicing herself open and spilling her guts onto the table at some polite dinner party.
But Rena was still looking at her, and that anger—it had to be anger—was hot against the inside of her ribs, and the truth was so old, it didn’t matter. It couldn’t hurt her, and her mother was long dead and past caring. Even through the heat, Jamie knew there was something off about her anger. It was blurred, out of focus, and she could feel all sorts of thoughts and emotions elbowing for space inside.
“I had a conjoined twin.” She held the other woman’s gaze. “They thought they could separate us, but something went wrong. She died. I didn’t.”
Such a brief, fractured account of a brief, fractured life. But that was how she’d always thought of her lost twin. Not in detailed might-have-beens—the two of them growing up together, sharing a room, fighting over their place in the family—but slantwise, with a quick flick of a glance, then looking away again before she could see too much. A face that was her own, yet not her own. A fading pulse in a tiny chest, struggling to match Jamie’s stronger, luckier heartbeat. And sometimes something older and vaguer. A faint haze of red, and the feel of someone’s cheek against her own. She knew that wasn’t a memory, just something her subconscious was trying to sell her as the truth. But she’d never quite shaken it away, even after nearly thirty years of knowing.
Rena flinched, a look of revulsion twisting her face.
“That’s what we wanted to stop,” she said. “Things that went wrong. We were figuring out the genetics, but we couldn’t stop people from making poor decisions, even if they knew what was in their genes.”
“They don’t know what caused it.” Jamie pulled the dress over her head. The anger was fading, leaving a hollow feeling just behind the white line of the scar.
“There’s always a reason. We hadn’t figured it all out, but we would have. Given time.”
“And then you could have stopped people like me from being born.” Jamie felt a cold distaste. “How do you square that with your god? Isn’t it all God’s will? The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away?”
Anger flashed in Rena’s eyes. “God has many faces. He’s a God of death, as well as life.” Her voice was growing louder, echoing in the metal-lined confines of the shower room. “We’re supposed to work with what we’re given, refine what God has made.” She paused and made a visible effort to steady herself. “We were doing something good,” she went on, more quietly. “The human race is broken. We could have fixed it.”
Jamie moved toward the door, but Rena blocked her way.
“There’s something I’m missing. We’ve been given the signs, but I can’t quite make out the pattern. It’s like God got tired of waiting for us to get it right. Cut away the bad in one go.”
Jamie raised her eyebrows. “He’s saved you a job, then. It’s all perfect and meant to be. We’ll all live happily ever after.”
“Perfect.” Rena’s brow furrowed. “We’re not perfect. Look at us.” Her face hardened. “A whore. A boy who barely knows what day it is. And . . .”
“And me.”
“That’s not what I . . .”
“It is.” Jamie took a sideways step, aiming for the door again.
Rena slumped, seeming to curl in on herself. “I’m not seeing it. There’s something, a pattern. But I will. I’ll find it. Then I’ll know what’s to be done.”
Jamie turned her body so she wouldn’t touch the other woman as she moved past. “You do that. Let me know how it works out for you.”
It’s summer, and she’s leaving.
He’s begged and cried and told her the story of the two of them over and over until it’s just words, and she can barely hear them anymore.
He’s gone out now, leaving her alone. She walks around the flat, staring at things, unable to work out whether she needs them. When her rucksack is full, she finds she can’t remember what’s in there. It doesn’t matter. She just wants to be away, and done with this business of leaving him.
She’s asked him not to come and see her off, but she knows he’ll be there anyway. He thinks she’ll change her mind, if he can just keep putting himself in her way. He thinks something will click back into place and she’ll remember that she loves him and he loves her and that’s the way it’s supposed to be, forever and ever.
Her thoughts are fraying and unraveling. She can’t focus on anything for more than a few seconds. Perhaps that’s the only way she can leave him. In snatches and splinters. The door closing behind her. The port. The ship. A hand raised in a blur of good-bye. All the ways he’s found
to say, Don’t leave me. All the ways she’s found to say nothing at all.
CHAPTER
11
When she got back to her cabin Jamie found that her hands were trembling.
She’d lied about that old scar for years, and now she’d just tossed it out there, as currency in an argument she was never going to win.
She flexed her fingers, trying to dispel her discomfort. Mila would be expecting her downstairs.
When she checked her reflection, she was struck by how pale she still looked. It didn’t matter, of course. Everyone on board had seen her at her grubby, exhausted worst, but on a sudden impulse she rummaged in her toiletry kit and found a tube of tinted moisturizer and a stubby kohl pencil. She rubbed the cream into her cheeks and ran the pencil around her eyes. Then she fastened her hair up with a battered silver hair clip, pulling a few tendrils down to frame her face. It was a definite improvement. She wasn’t going to be turning any heads at a society dinner, but it would do.
When she ventured downstairs, there was no sign of Rena. Lowry was setting the table with what looked like fine bone china, while Finn followed him around, straightening the cutlery. Mila was at the stove, stirring something in a battered cooking pot. The red dress the storekeeper had given her had wide elbow-sleeves, which she kept pushing back. Her hair was loose, and she’d put on a silver necklace and a couple of bangles that jingled with every movement.
Jamie suddenly wished that she’d left her face and hair alone. As she hesitated at the gap between the crates, Lowry looked up and saw her.
“You look lovely,” he said.
She’d never known how to deal with compliments, but nothing Lowry said ever felt barbed or layered.
“Thank you.”
“We’re almost ready,” Mila called over. “The others should be down soon.”
“Is everyone coming?”