Ashes ashes the complete.., p.96
Ashes, Ashes: The Complete Series, page 96
“Candles!”
“Three credit repairs! Three credit repairs here—
“Amy! Amy, down here!”
I peered between the hanging clothes and sheets. A few benches lined a small playground made of weathered driftwood. A pretty brown-skinned girl with her dark hair in neat pigtails sat on one of the swings, smiling. She waved at me, squinting in the sun.
“Elise!” I thought it would come out a shout, but I guess my voice box was a little rusty. There was no way she heard the cracked whisper I uttered, but I was smiling as hard as I could and I managed to curl my fingers into a small but very sincere wave.
And then I saw Jax. His arm was in a cast but his long blonde hair was combed and he wore a clean orange T-shirt, a pair of cargo shorts and sandals. He looked like a one-armed hippie surfer. He let go of the swing and waved with his good hand, just as Elise hopped off and darted out of the field of my vision.
“Wait a second, Elise!” Amaranth came into view.
Someone had finally cut her hair right: it was an attractive pixie that molded against her cheekbones. The flowered sundress she wore was a little too big and her bony arms stuck out like a pale straws. She waved at me, smiling broadly. “We’ll all go up, pequena. Marty, are you ready?”
The boy appeared behind her, balancing on a pair of crutches. He looked up at me and grinned before swinging out of view.
“We’re coming, too!” Katie called. “Come on. You’re doing great…”
Bobsie lumbered into view holding her hand. He was still massive, but he looked dramatically thinner to me. He took a couple of steps and then stopped, panting a little while he got himself together.
“Oh! You’re finally up!”
A young man in blue scrubs stood in the doorway. He was slightly-built and had a fading purple streak mohawking down the center of his jet black hair, which he wore in a pony tail that swished between his shoulder blades. When he hurried across the room to me and took me by the elbow, I saw a white nameplate pinned to his chest: Griffin.
“We like to get C-section cases up as soon as we can, but that was back when we had more drugs. Your incision must be on fire. Sorry, but all I’ve got for you is aspirin. The good stuff is for emergencies only and there are those who feel you’ve already had more than your share—”
“The baby,” I interrupted him. “The last thing I remember—”
“Yes, yes. In you go,” he clucked at me as I slowly maneuvered myself back into the bed. And of course, now that I knew that there weren’t any painkillers coming, the cut below my belly button seemed to hurt worse than it had before. When I was settled, he grabbed my wrist and studied the dial of an old-fashioned analog watch.
“How long have I—?”
“Days. Today is five. Now shh,” he insisted when I opened my mouth for the next question. “Work first, questions after.” He pulled a stethoscope from a pocket and stuck it in his ears, calmly pushing aside my gown to listen to my heart. When he was done, he stuck a thermometer in my mouth.
“I’ve got to check the incision now, okay?” He didn’t wait for my consent before yanking up the gown’s loose fabric and pulling up the gauze.
“My baby—”
“Shh,” he hissed, pressing my skin with cool fingertips. “It looks pretty good. The doc will check it when she comes through, but I think she’ll be happy just that you’re finally awake.” He yanked my gown down and pulled the thermometer out of my mouth as it beeped.
“Where is—?”
“And here, drink this. You and the others were seriously dehydrated. Some of the worst I’ve seen since—” His face changed as a bad memory threatened to overwhelm him and instead of reliving it, he concentrated on pouring me a glass of water from a pink pitcher on a nearby table. “We’ll get you a little something to eat if you think you can manage it—”
“My baby. Where is he? Did he… did he die…?”
Griffin laughed. “No, thank God, though I hear it was close. Both of you nearly ‘crossed the vale,’ as the saying goes. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the kid’s neck and you…” Griffin grabbed a clipboard from the edge of the bed and shook his head. “Well, you’re very lucky Major Harper and her crew found you when they did. God, I miss computers,” he murmured, pulling a pen out of his pocket and writing something quickly.
My head throbbed with this new information.
“Please,” I said. “Can I… can I see him…?”
Griffin’s pen paused over the paper. He didn’t look up at me. “I’ll bring the baby in a bit,” he said efficiently. “Not for long, you understand. She was early and—well, we don’t have a fancy NICU anymore, we’re doing our best to keep her warm and support her lungs—”
“Her?” I stared at him blankly. “You mean… it’s a girl?”
Griffin’s laughter was like the jingle of bells. “Well, duh, Amy. ‘She’ and ‘her’ are the indefinite pronouns that correspond to the female gender. Unless—” he stopped and flushed like he had revealed a secret I thought I’d already guessed. “Never mind,” he said quickly. “I’ll check with Dr. Qadira and—”
Dr. Qadira?
The memory of a campfire in the forest and a group of refugees from Baltimore misted in my mind. There had been a Dr. Qadira who had patched up Amaranth and Lilly after the ugliness with Richter. And she’d had a son. A boy with the face of a Middle Eastern prince swam in front of me for a second before I remembered the rest of the story. Those people had stolen our food and our ammunition and left us defenseless. Nate had died because of those people and the rest of us—the rest of us—
“This Dr. Qadira,” I interrupted him. “She’s Muslim. Wears a hijab. Came from Baltimore. Maybe, I don’t know. Fifty-five years old? Has a son,” I felt my cheeks getting warm. “He’s eighteen or nineteen. Curly black hair?”
Griffin frowned at the change in my voice.
“You know her?”
“We’ve met,” I said drily.
Griffin stared at me for a long time. “Amy, let me tell you something. Something about living here—”
The door behind him flew open and Elise darted across the room like a missile.
“Easy, easy, little chica!” Griffin laughed. “She’s not ready for a lap full of you!”
Elise lowered her eyes shyly but her smile said that she liked him. She slowed and approached me carefully now, leaning toward the bed like she was afraid it would break.
“Hola, Amy!” she said softly, grinning at me. “Que pasa?”
“Oh, Elise…” She looked so much better, so healthy and happy that my eyes filled with tears.
“There she is!” Jax’s voice boomed across the room, long before he was close. He patted Griffin on the shoulder and the man’s eyes swept over him appreciating the broad shoulders and thick hair. It seemed like Jax edged away from him as soon as he felt the man’s attention. “You made it, girl!”
“Was there any doubt?” I snapped but I smiled when I said because we all knew there had been plenty of it. “You don’t have to sound so surprised—”
But Amaranth and Marty appeared a moment later and he was already turning away from me.
Marty actually smiled at me, which I don’t think has ever happened in the entire time that I’ve known him. He still looked like an old man with a child’s body, but at least he looked like a friendly one. He wore a light blue shirt and a pair of shorts that looked like they actually fit him, which was new, too. He too nodded at Griffin with a shy but genuine affection.
But as different as he looked, I think Amaranth’s transformation was even more dramatic. The ugly scars of illness had faded down to brown spots that looked almost like freckles. Her skin had lost its sickly pallor and her hair gleamed.
“Hi,” she said and to my surprise, she leaned over me and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing my shoulders gently but tightly. “Thanks for leaving us, Amy!”
Tears rose in my eyes. I lifted my hand and pressed it against her back and felt her shoulders shaking with her sobs.
“I’m so glad,” she whispered in my ear. “I’m so very glad! And she’s beautiful, Amy. She reminds me of Lilly." She pulled away, wiping her cheeks. “Sorry. I’m just glad you’re awake. We all are. I think even Griffin was starting to get scared—”
“And I’ve seen it all, child. Nothing scares me anymore,” Griffin laughed.
Katie hurried in last.
“They took Bobsie back to his room. He’s got some kind of treatment to do—” she stopped and grinned at me. “Have you seen her? She asked, after hugging me. “Have you seen the baby? Golly, I ain’t never been so scared for anyone in my life. We all were. If hadn’t been for Liam’s mom being so important, I don’t know. They were actin’ like they was gonna let you and the little one die. And when Nester said all that stuff, I was sure you were just gonna give up and…” her shoulder lifted. “You know.”
Nester.
A bunch of images whirled through me like a computer screen set to slideshow. I heard his voice in my ear: middle school, kimonos, grace, mean, bad ass…I remembered straining to hear the next words, fighting to replace the darkness with the next picture, struggling to keep hold of the girl he described.
“Nester,” I breathed as the weight of what he’d done settled around me. “Where is he? And where’s Liam?”
Their eyes shifted away from me, every last one of them. Something had happened, something they didn’t want to tell me. I opened my mouth to launch a determined objection to any secret-keeping when Griffin cleared his throat.
“I’m going to get the baby.”
There was something about the way he said it that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
“What—?” I began, forgetting myself and trying to sit up suddenly. Pain joined the terror racing through me. I focused on Amaranth. “You said she reminded you of Lilly. Is there something wrong with the baby? And where’s Nester? Where’s Liam?”
“They’re gone.” Marty said.
“Please… don’t upset yourself about it,” Katie said, but her own eyes had already misted over with unshed tears. “It’s a good thing, I guess…”
“To be expected,” Jax added.
“And they say we can see them… eventually,” Amaranth murmured but the look on her face said she wasn’t sure.
“I don’t understand,” I sighed. The old weariness, the kind that had traveled so many miles and lost so very much settled on me again. “Gone? Gone where?”
“They fixed Liam’s prosthetic and he’ll be staying with his mother now,” Amaranth said. She tried to smile like that was fine and good and that she was happy for him, but instead managed to look like she was about to cry, too. “She’s like super-important around here now. She like, saved the President or something on their trip here.” She blinked a few times and rubbed at her nose. “Anyway, he’s been gone about three days—”
“They came for Nester yesterday,” Katie added.
“And there’ll be coming for the rest of us any time now—” Marty added, sadly. “At least Katie and I get to stay together ‘cause we’re family but—”
“You’re not making any sense. Who came for Nester—” I demanded.
“His stepfather,” Jax curled the fingers of his good hand around Marty’s shoulder and shook him gently. The boy looked up at him. For a moment his lips trembled like he might start crying, too before he stiffened them and nodded, signaling that he was all right.
“His stepfather’s alive? But how? Why—?”
“We don’t know. They just came and took ‘im. Dr. Qadira said they’d discovered he had family here and since he wasn’t hurt bad, he couldn’t stay here no more,” Katie explained. “He didn’t want to go but—”
“Here she is. Our little princess!” Griffin cried. He eased a tiny bundle of fabric into my arms swaddled in a blanket. A thick white hat was pulled so low over her face I couldn’t see her eyes.
“Get her out of all that,” I snapped. “I can’t see her face. And does she have—like all of her fingers and toes and—”
“Damn,” Marty shook his head.
“Told you,” Amaranth chuckled.
“What?” I demanded as I divested the child of the wrappings with shaking fingers.
“I told them you’d say that.”
“Every mother says that.” Mother. The word felt weird to say aloud. It felt like a word that belonged to someone else.
“She has them all, we checked,” Katie said as I pulled off the hat. Her hair was black and soft and covered a head that didn’t look right to me. It looked pointed and lopsided and big—too big for her tiny frame.
My heart sank.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked in a low voice. “She’s—she’s—”
Her eyes fluttered open and focused on me, and in that moment she looked like Rod and like Benji and like me and—
“Oh,” I breathed as a feeling I hadn’t expected rushed through me. It wasn’t that I hadn’t expected to love her—of course I knew I would. What I hadn’t expected was how it powerful it was, how it made it hard to breathe, how right then and there I was ready to fight for her future in a way I’d never been completely sure I was willing to fight for my own.
And then my mother was there, speaking softly in my head:
I’ll never forget it, when they brought you to me and I looked into your little face and I felt a different kind of love. A kind you can’t believe exists until you hold your child in your arms. Your grandmother and I haven’t always seen eye to eye—in fact we see eye to elbow most of the time. But I know she must have felt like that when she held me, like I felt when I held you. And one day, when you hold your own child, you’ll understand—
I didn’t know I was crying until a tear rolled off my chin. It didn’t matter what was wrong with her: I didn’t care. She was beautiful.
“Hello,” I whispered. “Hello, little girl.”
She opened her mouth and smacked her lips, stretching her little fists wide.
“Oh, I think she knows who you are,” Griffin teased. “And she’s looking forward to a proper lunch.”
Everyone laughed nervously. A fresh wave of panic surged through me as I realized I didn’t know the first thing about feeding a baby. But Griffin patted me on the shoulder.
“It’s okay, girl,” he said gently. “Compared to the stuff you’ve already done… it’s a piece of cake. A piece of cake.”
I couldn’t speak. I nodded him my gratitude and stared back into the tiny baby’s face.
“So what’s her name?” Jax asked.
Name. I’d been so sure it was a boy I’d barely considered girl’s names, but the answer came out of my mouth as easily as if I’d been pondering it for months.
“Suyari. It—it was my mom’s name. It means “little flower” in Japanese.”
I heard them testing out the name, commenting on it, but my attention wasn’t on them. It was a moment for Suyari and me…
“And I’m sure she’s gonna be okay, Amy,” Katie breathed over my shoulder, peering into Suyari’s face. “She’s tough. Like her mama—”
“What is it exactly?’ I asked. “Why is her head shaped that way?”
Griffin shot Katie a glance that made her skin go purple with embarrassment before saying, “It’s too early to tell but—”
“Well, isn’t this a pleasant scene!”
Dr. Qadira stood in front of us, different from the last time I’d seen her, but the same, too. She looked thinner, her face sunken in a way that no amount of food or water would ever fix. A black scarf swathed her hair and dingy white coat covered her shoulders. She smiled at us.
“You gave everyone quite a scare, young lady,” she said approaching me. As she bent over me, examining me quickly, I was bathed in the strong smell of antibacterial soap. “Good, good,” she patted my arm. “See,” she told the others. “It’s fine. Another week or two and she’ll be up and around.”
None of them answered. Most of them wouldn’t even look at her. A weird vibe rippled through the room as Dr. Qadira studied each of us like she was expecting something. When her eye fell on Elise, the little girl buried her face in Amaranth’s side.
“It’s time,” Dr. Qadira said.
“No,” Amaranth hissed, leveling angry eyes at the woman. “Not yet.”
Dr. Qadira sighed. “Amaranth, I’ve stalled as long as I can. I know you and your friends were on your own out there for a long, long time. But you’re here and you’re safe. In exchange for that safety we all must follow the rules. This is a hospital. Resources are limited. You must understand that—”
“Yes’m,” Katie faced the woman with a boldness I wasn’t used to seeing. “And we’re willing to go. We just want to stay together, that’s all—”
“I’ve told you: that’s impossible. We have a placement for you and your brother ready and waiting. And for Amaranth until she turns 16. Jax is 17, we consider him an adult and he can choose whatever community he likes to reside in. As soon as his arm heals, we’ll find him some work around the Camp. Something that uses his skills and enables him enough credits for housing and food—”
“If I’m adult, why can’t I just adopt them all? Why can’t I be the placement for the others—?”
“We’ve been over and over this, Jax,” Dr. Qadira said patiently. “We need to protect the children. All of these placements have been carefully vetted to be sure that your young friends won’t be harmed—”
“Then vet me or whatever,” Jax said.
“You can certainly apply to be a caregiver in one of the Child Survivor buildings. I’ve told you that. But it will take time. And in the meantime…” she sighed again. “Your loyalty to each other is commendable, but completely misplaced. I know you have seen and survived some terrible things but…” she tried to smile. “It’s okay now. We are the good guys, I promise—”
“Good guys?” I spat. “You stole our food and our guns! Nate’s dead because of you!”
The woman shrank a little.
“As I told the others, I did not know of this. There was a group among us who were… not of the spirit we believed them to be.” She shook her head. “Accept my apologies and know that you were not the only ones who suffered evil.” An ugly memory twisted her face until she inhaled and shook it aside. “We all have our losses,” she continued cryptically. “Things are not the same. They will never be the same again. This is another thing you must understand. Everyone here has done terrible things. Everyone has stolen. Many of us have killed. Some have harmed others in other ways. But we begin here with a clean slate. The only crimes that count are the ones committed within the camp… and those are punished swiftly and with finality. That is the rule…and I believe it is just. ” She gathered herself together and stared around the room. When she spoke again, it was with unyielding firmness.
