The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  “Nothing.” Rachel had told me dejectedly as she threw herself down onto her bed. “Nothing. Empty fucking space, Brynna.”

  We had been onboard for a year and a half, and she and Joe, despite being imprisoned, had not put their efforts to conceive on hold. Rachel went to the doctor’s every month to see if the miracle had finally happened, only to come away disappointed each time. She was by no means required to conceive a child with her husband like I was required to conceive one with mine; in fact, by the Old Spirit laws, she and Joe were not even married anymore. Her efforts to conceive were totally her choice.

  “Oh, honey…” I got off of my bed and sat down beside her.

  “It’s impossible to get pregnant on this planet.”

  “You know what I am going to say.”

  “I know, but please don’t say it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Alright, say it.” She relented, “Sometimes it makes me feel better.”

  “You don’t want to raise a baby in a place like this. Penny is kept from me in the Juvenile Ward, and she survives because the parents of the other children fear me. I could make them fear me on your behalf as well…”

  “I could make them fear me.”

  “I know you could.”

  “Not like you, of course. But I could try. I would. You know I would do anything to keep this baby safe. We both want one so badly. We’ve been trying for ten years, since before we even came here. On Earth, we did everything we could possibly do except visit witch doctors, and trust me, if they listed Voodoo Queens online, and if we hadn’t lived in fucking Maine, then we would have done that.”

  She turned to me and laid her head in my lap.

  “Every time I get my period, I feel like I’m failing him. Failing myself. It sounds like Lifetime movie shit, but it’s true. It just sucks, Brynn. Doesn’t the fact that we’ve tried for so long mean anything?”

  “I don’t know.” I told her, “I wish I had some advice to give you besides the random tidbits I recall from the pregnancy manuals my father bought my mother when they were trying to conceive Penny.”

  “He bought her manuals for that?”

  “He did. They were having trouble, and he figured if she became learned in the art of baby-making, perhaps it would increase their chances. I mean, there is nothing more arousing than reading about estrogen levels and lactating breasts.”

  She laughed at that harder than I thought she would, but that was Rachel; she always thought my jokes were funny, even when I did not.

  “You and James never tried?” She asked, and her tone betrayed her caution in pushing the subject too far, though she needn’t have been worried about my reaction. My heart had steeled itself to the subject of him by then; I grieved in private, and I did so quietly. I allowed an ache, a flicker of longing, and then I silenced it. It would kill me, that need for him. Instead of it killing me, I killed it. It was my defense mechanism, my wild animal instincts lashing out at a threat, my coldness cradling me.

  Thinking about James and me conceiving a child made me very sad, because it was something we had sworn we would never do, because we had had our hands full with Penny and Violet. He did not know that it was impossible for me then, but even if it had not been, we would not have wanted children of our own. Adam had told me once that if we were so fortunate as to live for hundreds of years, our minds would change, and we would want to continue our bloodline. I had disagreed, and I had not changed my mind years later.

  “We never thought about it. You know that we had sex constantly, sometimes up to three or four times a day, and we still never thought about it. But let’s not talk about him.”

  She reached back and grasped my hand.

  “Whatever you want, Chiquitita. Joe and I went eight times in a day once, when Dr. Miletus said I was totally fertile, and still, nothing.”

  “And did she check to make sure he was not… you know… shooting blanks, as they say.”

  “Yup. She checked. He’s shooting thousands of bullets, just like he’s supposed to, and my target is as receptive as it can possibly be. God, it sucks, Brynna. Can you magically put a child in my womb? Can you use your power to create life in your hand, and then you can put your hand on my belly, and voila, you have impregnated your best friend.”

  I laughed at that rather heartily and continued stroking her hair.

  “I shall get working on that ability, sweetheart. I would so love to be your Baby Daddy. Though we must not tell Joe.”