Remember Yesterday

by Pintip Dunn

  My mother’s eyes well up. “I hoped she was still alive. Something…in the past…made me believe she might be. But as the years passed, and there was no sign of her, I began to lose hope. My little girl…my baby. How is this possible?”

  For the second time in half an hour, I repeat the story. You’d think I would get bored of the retelling, but I could talk about this—I could talk about Callie—for the rest of the night. Maybe even the rest of the week.

  My mother’s openly crying now, and she moves forward and hugs me, in a way she hasn’t since I came back to civilization. I close my eyes, feeling the warmth of her embrace, the solidity of her arms and chest. This is how it would feel if she loved me. This is how it would be if we were a true family.

  “Your true daughter, your firstborn,” I murmur. “The one you actually love.”

  I don’t know why I say it. Swear to Fates, it just slips out. I want to snatch the words from the air, stuff them back in.

  But it’s too late. She drops her arms and backs away from me. I reach out, but before I can touch her, she cries out and runs from the room. Blood-red footprints decorate the floor in her wake.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. What is wrong with me? This is the closest I’ve felt to my mom in years. Why did I have to ruin the moment with my insecurities?

  Angela squeezes my hand. Her eyes are red, and she looks like she’s been crying herself. “She’s emotional, and who can blame her? I can only imagine how I would feel if my daughter were returned to me.” She drops a kiss on Remi’s head. “Don’t you worry. I’ll go talk to her. She may want to be alone now, but in a few minutes, she’ll be glad for the company.”

  Shooting me a sympathetic glance, she and Remi leave the room.

  And then it’s just Mikey and me.

  Except he won’t look at me. His eyes flit from the magnificent mountains on the wall screens to the retractable coffee table to the water-filled massage chair. Anywhere but at me.

  He’s not crying, either. In fact, he doesn’t even look surprised.

  All of a sudden, I remember him coming to my room, in the early days after we relocated to Eden City.

  “Callie’s been gone six years, and you’re still grieving her,” he said. “It might give you closure if you resurrected your bond and sent her some memories.”

  “I already tried.” I hugged a pillow to my chest. “Almost every day the first month we escaped, and nearly every week since. It doesn’t work anymore. There’s no click.”

  “Try again,” he suggested. “For me. Try it one more time, right now.”

  Because I never had a father, because I was barely speaking to my mother, because I loved him as much as I’ve ever loved any parent, I obeyed. Nothing happened.

  Looking almost as disappointed as I felt, Mikey left the room, and I pushed the incident out of my mind.

  Until now.

  Mikey works at TechRA. In fact, he’s one of their head scientists. Is it possible that he’s known this entire time?

  “Did you know, Mikey?” I whisper. “Did you know my sister was still alive?”

  He finally meets my eyes. And then he nods.

  My knees go weak, and the room spins around me. I trusted him. He taught me to hunt, even though I didn’t talk. When we came back to civilization, he let me live with his family in the cottage behind their house, when my mother refused to move to the compound. He was like the father I never had.

  “You lied to me,” I say.

  “You have to understand,” he pleads. “Every day, I wanted to tell you. I wished every single day that her condition would improve, so that I could come home and tell you the good news. But what good would it have done for me to tell you that Callie was in a coma? It would’ve killed you to see her lying there, day after day, and not be able to do anything to help her.”

  “I could’ve sat by her side. Held her hand and sent her my memories.”

  “I was trying to protect you.” He walks to the water recliner and flops onto it, covering his eyes with one hand. “Both you and Logan. I had no guarantee she would ever wake up. And I didn’t want the two of you to bury yourselves in that room until you might as well be dead.” He lifts his hand, and it’s like he’s pulled back a curtain. As blank as his eyes were before, they’re full now. Of a long-ago wound that’s never healed. Of a pain so deep it’s carried in his soul. “Turns out, I was right. She took a turn for the worst last week, and even I had to admit that my hope was foolish. It’s only a matter of time before she leaves us once again.”

  “No, you’re wrong, Mikey.” I shake my head. “Today, her vitals entered the safe zone after I sent just one memory. All I had to do was touch her for the transmission to work. Preston thinks the only reason her brain was behaving erratically was because it had woken up and couldn’t find a hold. But now that she’s latched onto me, she’s stable. More stable than she’s been since the first year of her coma.”

  “Oh, thank the Fates.” He closes his eyes briefly and then opens them. “You can’t tell Logan. You have to promise me that.”

  “What? Why not? You just said you were waiting for good news before you told us. This qualifies as good news.”

  “Normally, I’d agree with you,” he says quietly. “But when I believed we were going to lose Callie for good, Angela and I redoubled our efforts. We took turns talking to Logan every night; we invited him and Ainsley out to dinner at a Manual Cooking establishment. Angela even let Ainsley play with Remi, so that Logan could see what a good mother she could be. And then, a couple days ago, we finally seemed to get through to him. After all these years, my brother is finally on the verge of moving on. Of being happy.”

  “He deserves to know—”

  “He deserves to live,” Mikey says, his eyes blazing. “I’m glad Callie’s gotten a new hold on life. I want her to wake up nearly as much as you do. But that may still never happen.”

  “Logan has a right to know,” I say fiercely. “A right to live his own life.”

  “I can’t let him do that! I can’t lose him, too.”

  I stop, not sure I heard him correctly. “What do you mean? Who else have you lost?”

  He pushes against the floor with his foot, and the recliner rocks beneath him. For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer. And then he sits up and rests his elbows on his knees.

  “Most people know I was the first member of Harmony,” he says. “What they don’t know was there wasn’t even a Harmony back then. I was just a sixteen-year-old kid who managed to escape from the TechRA labs. I didn’t go into the woods, but up into the mountains, where a primitive community lived, one that had been together since the pre-Boom era.”

  A smile ghosts across his lips. “The mountain people thought I was strange, with my pockets full of gadgets and my talk of psychic powers, but they were kind and they accepted me. There was a woman there. Sierra. Just as I arrived, her little boy, Jonas, was about to step on some sharp rocks, and she swept him up just in time. He laughed, not understanding the danger he was in, and she covered his face with kisses. I fell in love with both of them in an instant. Sierra was the sister I never had, and Jonas was the nephew I never knew I wanted.”

  His words are quiet and halting, as though he’s not used to the rhythms of this story. “I’d been there only a couple months when tragedy struck. A snake slithered into their tent and bit Jonas. The poison spread fast. By morning, he was dead.”

  I gasp, bringing my hand to my lips. But he continues as though he doesn’t hear.

  “We buried him under a mound of loose rocks.” He looks at the wall screen, and I know he’s not seeing the rotating images of the majestic snowcaps. He’s seeing the mountains he knew. The ones where he lived and loved. “Sometimes, I wonder if it would’ve made a difference if I hadn’t piled on so many rocks. Other times, I know this is my Fixed. The event that defines my life so thoroughly it would be the same in every world.”

  “What happened?” I whisper.

  �
��An alarm sounded that night. A rockslide was coming, and we had to clear out. There should’ve been plenty of time. But when the supplies were loaded into the wagon, I realized Sierra was missing. I found her at the rocks.” His voice breaks and he drops his face, his shoulders shaking, shaking, shaking.

  My mouth falls. Is Mikey…crying? The leader of our community. The man who makes the toughest decisions without flinching. I’ve never seen him teary before, much less sobbing.

  I fall to my knees and inch closer to him.

  “She was trying to dig Jonas out. Oh Fates, Jessa, she wouldn’t leave him. I pleaded with her, I begged. I even lifted her and tried to drag her away. She fought me like a wild animal, and then she manacled herself to a tree. She said if Jonas couldn’t leave our campsite, then she wouldn’t, either. And then the rumbling started.” He looks up, then, his eyes as dull and black as coals. “Leaving her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” His voice breaks. “But if I hadn’t, I would’ve been buried there with her and Jonas. My sister. My nephew. They weren’t my first family, nor my last. But not a day goes by when I don’t think of them.”

  He stands, scrubbing a hand down his face. Erasing his tears and the moment much like he clears holo-docs from the air—with a single swipe. “If I had to do it again, I would make the same decision, every time. I will always choose life over death. And that’s why you aren’t going to tell Logan about Callie. Because I won’t have him burying himself in the past when he could be living in the present.”

  I don’t speak. I can’t. I’m sorry for Mikey’s tragedy, but Logan would want to know. Just like me.

  “Would you want him to end up like your mom?” Mikey continues. “Holding onto what could’ve been. Pining for someone who may never come back. She hasn’t been able to let go, and that’s caused her to make decisions that have hurt the people around her. That have hurt you.”

  I freeze. My knees become so weak I’m afraid they’re going to spill on the floor. Would I wish my mother’s fate on Logan? Would I wish my fate on Logan’s future children? I imagine a future where Logan is married, where he has kids—but he’s unable to give his family his full heart because he’s hung up on a girl who lies in a coma.

  “Give it a few weeks. Your connection with Callie is so new, we don’t know what will become of it.” His gaze pins me against the wall screens, up high on a precipice with no rope and no water. “What do you say, Jessa? If you care about Logan at all, promise you won’t tell him. At least not yet.”

  It’s not my place to decide. But Mikey’s right. I can’t bear to think of Logan winding up like my mom. I can’t bear to think of his children winding up like me.

  Besides, what can a few weeks hurt? He’s already waited ten years to learn the truth.

  “I promise,” I say. And hope to the Fates above that I’ve made the right choice.

  18

  I manage to avoid Logan for the next seven days. I focus my energies instead on my clandestine visits to Callie, on the memories I send into her mind. I choose only the good ones. Like the moment I returned from the wilderness and saw my mother for the first time. I barreled down the hall and took a running leap into her arms. She was laughing and smiling and crying, all at the same time, and I was certain I had never seen anyone so beautiful in my entire life.

  Like my first date with a boy. It was the anniversary of the Underground’s truce with ComA, and he took me to dinner at a Meal Assembler café. I chose a café that served different varieties of tartare, thinking it sounded sophisticated. My dinner turned out to be a mound of raw beef—with a raw egg on top. I tried to eat it, I really did. But the texture was too much for me, and when I looked up, I saw that my date had hidden half of his dinner under a lettuce leaf, too.

  Like the time I dove off the cliff behind the TechRA building into the roaring river below. Ryder and I inspected the area carefully, and we dipped a chain in the water to measure the depth. I even brought along a first aid kit. The most thrilling part was the jump itself. I stood erect at the edge of the cliff, my knees bent and my arms overhead. I swept my arms down and out, driving forward with my legs. Gravity pulled me into a vertical position, the wind rushing along my body, and I felt for one infinitesimal moment that I was with Callie once again.

  I send all of these memories and more, and my sister’s vitals improve with each one. The memories distract me from the needle that Tanner plunged into my arm, drawing a vial of my blood. They distract me from the fact that my mom’s retreated further into herself and our relationship is more strained than ever, in spite of the fact that she accompanies me on every other visit to see Callie. The memories distract me from my promise to Mikey.

  But at the end of the week, the first person I see when I return to the compound from a visit to the TechRA building is Logan.

  And he’s not alone.

  In the long straightaway running through the middle of our compound, a woman balances on a board hovering a few inches off the ground. Logan has a hand on her hip, steadying her, while he gestures in the air with his other hand. She leans over to kiss his cheek—which sends the board shooting out from underneath her. She tumbles into his arms, and they both fall to the ground, a tangle of limbs.

  I dislike her on sight.

  Logan’s eyes are lit with laughter. He looks…happy. Oh Fates, I want him happy. There was a time I would’ve given up all my safety gear if only he would snicker at one of my jokes.

  But now, seeing him with this girl, while knowing Callie is still alive, feels like a stake through my heart.

  Logan glances up and waves. I wave back, but I don’t go over to them. I can’t. I’m just not up to meeting my sister’s replacement right now.

  Logan says something to his date, and then he jogs over and gives me a big hug. “Hey, there. How’s my favorite girl?”

  “Okay.” I shrug. “Keeping busy, you know, with school and all.” Not a lie, but not the whole truth, either.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” We walk down the straightaway. The concrete is gray and smooth, and interlocking tracks of magnets lay underneath it. I’m wearing my hovershoes, with flecks of metal mixed into the soles, and each step fuses me briefly to the ground, before I break the suction with my next step.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you and Angela said,” he says, shortening his stride to match mine. “And you’re right. My memory’s not much proof that Callie’s still alive.” He pauses, and I know he’s come to a big decision. One I’m not going to like, even though I encouraged it myself a couple of weeks ago. “I think…it’s time to start living again. I like Ainsley. I’ve known her for a long time, and she has a kindness in her, an inherent goodness you can’t fake.”

  We walk a few more paces. Step, stick, wrench out. Step, stick, wrench out. A regular rhythm, but not a comfortable one. Kinda like my heart. Kinda like my life.

  “I will never forget Callie, and I will never stop loving her,” he bursts out. “But she isn’t here anymore, and she hasn’t been for a very long time. I think she’d want this for me.”

  “Of course she would.” I study my high-top sneakers, the silver laces, the special soles that help me stick a landing. That’s Callie. That’s always been Callie, thinking of others first.

  He takes a deep breath. “I’d like to have your blessing to be with Ainsley.”

  “Wha—?” Shock cuts the word in half. “Logan, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need my blessing for anything.”

  “I don’t need it. I would like to have it. You’re the closest thing I have to Callie herself. It would mean something if you approved.” His voice drops. “It would mean that Callie would’ve approved, too.”

  I fight to relax the muscles around my eyes and mouth. Oh, Logan. She’s not in another realm. She’s lying here, only a few miles from where we’re standing. You could be holding her hand in thirty minutes. All you’d have to do is go to your brother. All I’d have to do is tell the truth.

  But the infinite sky
above me is the same one that covered Jonas. It heard the escalating rumble of the rocks, it smelled the dust kicked up by the horse’s hooves. It understands the dangers of loving someone too much and for too long. And now that Mikey’s told me his story, it’s become part of my life, too. I can’t forget it any more than my arms and legs. I can’t let Logan turn into my mom, not if there’s something I can do about it.

  “What do you say, Jessa? Do I have your blessing?” He sounds so sincere, so earnest. So much like the brother I never had, so much like the sister I had for too short a time. In a way, he’s both those things for me—brother and sister. Maybe even parent, too.

  I grab my temples. The sun blinds me, and my head spins with all this endless blue. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. Who is right? What is wrong? What would Callie do?

  My breath comes faster and faster. I see spots in my vision, and my fingers begin to tingle. “Sure, Logan,” I blurt out before I hyperventilate or faint. “Whatever you want. Of course you have my blessing.”

  It is the coward’s way out. I have not so much made a decision as delayed it. But it’s like what Mikey said. Give it a few weeks. There’s no hurry.

  In this case, time is on my side.

  Logan goes back to Ainsley, and I walk along the wall of the compound, trying to clear my head. As I pass the gate, I catch a flash of black hair and a white lab coat over a thermal shirt and cargo pants.

  I do an about-face and open the door. “Tanner, is that you? What are you doing here?”

  He steps over the threshold, his eyes steady, his lips resting against each other. He’s not frowning, but he’s not smiling, either. “I offered to walk you home. You refused.”

  “So you followed me?” I ask, outraged.

  “It’s not like it was my choice,” he says evenly. “Preston’s orders. Now that we’re asking you to come to TechRA every day, he feels responsible for you. Wants to make sure you get home safely.”

  Oh. I flush. That’s sweet of Preston, even though I’m the last girl who needs an escort home. I lived in the wilderness for six years without a parent, and I’ve been getting myself around Eden City for the last four.