“Huh.” She sat back, a pensive expression on her face. “I hadn’t thought about that.” She glanced at my lap. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.” I flipped the cover over my drawing.
“Can I see? It looked cool.”
I didn’t show my work around, except for art class. But I trusted Wei.
I pulled back the cover. “It was this woman who was here earlier. Her daughter was gang-raped and died.” I’d divided the page and done the drawing as a triptych. One panel was of a girl, unconscious and hurt, with boys walking away in the distance. The middle panel was the mother weeping over her daughter’s body. And the third was the mother being stunned by the cop.
Wei looked at it for the longest time. “That’s amazing, Nina. As eloquent as one of your father’s speeches, and just as powerful.”
Wei was maybe thinking about the picture, and I was wishing that more people could see, really see, that this is what the XVI tattoo meant, when a family came in. The woman, puffy-eyed from crying, held a sleeping baby in her arms. An older woman, possibly her mother, was with her, a boy of about five in tow. They sat on the other side of the room and turned on the Family Audio/Video. The baby fussed itself awake. Between its cries and the FAV, there was enough noise that Wei and I could talk, carefully, without fear of being overheard or monitored.
“Nina. After we talked this afternoon, I called and set up a meeting with my friends for tomorrow. But now that Gran’s here, maybe we should—”
“No! I’ll make it work.” The Sisterhood. I had to make it—this was my chance, and I needed to do something other than sit in this room, waiting for bad news.
Just then, the waiting room door swung open. All eyes turned toward the entrance. My heart leaped into my throat as Dr. Silverman entered, expressionless, like a sphinx. It felt like an eternity as he walked across the room to me.
When he finally reached me, he said, “Your grandmother came through the procedure as well as can be expected. She’ll be moved to a private room where we can keep her under observation.”
I seized his hand. “Thank you! May I see her? Please?”
He extricated his hand, waving over one of the nurses standing near the door. “Sani-cloth. Stat. Then take this girl to the eighth floor.” Without so much as a glance in my direction, he said, “Five minutes tonight, that’s all.”
Snatching the wipe from the nurse, he walked out, vigorously scrubbing the hand I’d touched.
“Nice guy,” I muttered to Wei.
“Oh, he’s so much more than that!” the nurse gushed. “He’s a miracle worker.” Her adoring gaze followed him.
I bit my tongue. If the operation saved Gran, I guess it didn’t matter how much low-tiers, like me, disgusted the man.
On the way to the eighth floor, I called Dee. “Gran’s out of the operating room. I get to see her for five minutes. The doctor said she did well.” I didn’t add his caveat. No need to upset Dee, and no need to dampen my own little spark of positivity. “I’ll pick you up from Harriet’s in about half an hour.”
While I was talking with my sister, Wei called Chris to come and pick us up.
“Nina, maybe you guys should stay with us tonight?” Wei said.
“We’ll be fine at the apartment.” My thoughts ran to the mess the B.O.S.S. agents had made and how empty everything would feel without Gran and Pops. “It’s closer to Metro,” I reasoned. “And I know Dee will want to come down here first thing.”
We opened the door to Gran’s room quietly. I couldn’t tell just by looking whether she was better or not. There was more color in her face, for sure. She was asleep and had a tube in her throat, and was hooked up to a machine that appeared to be controlling her breathing. I stood beside her bed for my allotted five minutes, remembering back to the allotted ten I spent with Ginnie when she was in the Infinity machine, after which the doctor had switched it off and my mother was dead. This time, however, things were different. The hypnotic blips on the monitor were stronger and more frequent than they’d been earlier—tiny pulses of hope.
VIII
It was freezing outside, and dark. The glare of the canopy of overhead lights temporarily blinded me.
“Hey, I’m over here.” Chris was half out of his multi, waving to us. “Ladies, your chariot awaits.”
“You sit in front.” Wei crawled into the back and stretched out. “I’m pooped.” She let out a big yawn, and then silence.
I sank into the seat, too wired to relax.
Chris slipped into the driver’s side. “So how’s your grandmother?”
“Better, I think. She was still under the anesthesia when I left, but they said her heart rate was good and she wasn’t gray anymore.”
“That’s great. I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s an Oberon. I’ve heard they’re pretty tough cookies.”
That did it. I burst into tears.
“Whoa! I didn’t mean to start a river. Although it’s completely understandable.” He pulled a napkin out of the console and handed it to me. “Here.”
Wei leaned over the seat, groggy. “You okay?”
“Fine.” I sniffed, wiping my cheeks. “A momentary lapse of control.”
Chris reached over and squeezed my arm. “Your family’s been through so much. But you guys always bounce back.” He put the trannie in gear and eased out into traffic. “Dad and Wei told me about the writ, and then your grandfather… Now this.” He shook his head. “Lots of stuff going on in your life. You know, I’m sure it’s because you’re Alan’s daughter. I wonder if B.O.S.S. suspects he’s alive.”
“Ed thought so, but—” Catching myself just in time, I pointed skyward. Surveillance.
“Oh, not to worry. Trannie’s been modified by John and Sal. You can say whatever you want. No one can hear us.”
Sal. What I wanted was not to be reminded of Sal. Sal who wasn’t there when I needed him most, who was off somewhere with Paulette. Like my dad had not been there for my mom.
This whole night had brought back so many memories. How Ginnie’d had to face life alone after my father went underground. Sure, it had been for our safety as much as his—but, still… Ed, her boyfriend and Dee’s presumed father, murdered her all because she wouldn’t tell the truth about Alan’s being alive. I knew some of how Ginnie had felt, from reading one of her hidden notes in Dee’s baby book. She’d loved my dad, all the way to end. But what about him? How had he felt all those years? There were so many unanswered questions.
For those last few weeks, I’d managed to keep myself pretty upbeat about an eventual meeting with my father. But there were times I was angry, really angry at him for choosing the Resistance over my mom and me. To stave off any more thoughts, I dove into the conversation with Chris. “Ed wasn’t sure my father was alive until right before my mother died. The nurse who was taking care of the Infinity machine that kept my mom alive those last few minutes was working with Ed. She overheard Mom tell me to find my father.”
“Yeah, I know,” Chris said. “She was dealt with.”
I sat up with a jerk. “Dealt with?” What did that mean? “You don’t mean… killed… ?” Was the Resistance no better than the GC, removing people who disagreed with them?
“Of course not.” Chris glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “We have a holding camp in the Himalayas. People there are as free as we can let them be. Most of them were coerced into working for B.O.S.S. anyway, but we have to keep them, uh… out of circulation, just in case. They’ll all be released after the Governing Council is brought down. Anyway, back to Ed. We found out that he’d been in regular contact with someone we only know as ‘A,’” Chris said. “But as near as we can tell, he didn’t have any solid proof about your dad to pass along. So maybe I’m wrong. It’s entirely possible that all of this is coincidence.”