The Only Ones (26 page)

Well, between you and me, how Ani was born? If that is part of nature, I don’t know what part. But I just say, oh I will be sure to tell her what you said.

Here is what happens now. I am facing Mariah, in the hall? Janet Delize comes up beside Mariah and says, “Well we don’t actually know if she’s going to ministrate at all.”

So Mariah turns to look at Janet. Then she turns to look at Ani, who is looking at TV. Janet does too. We’re all squeezed in the hall. They are both looking at Ani. Then they are looking at each other. They don’t look at me. Instead of Ani/me, Ani/me, it’s Ani/them, Ani/them, till Mariah finally goes, “Well, either way, she should not have unprotected sex.”

Janet goes, “She shouldn’t be having sex at all.”

I wake up on the floor.

Rauden is kneeling beside me in the hall. Am I sick? I only fell down. I am a goddamn Sylvain hardy. I don’t know why they make me lie down. They even put me in one of Janet’s regular beds, in a room I never saw before. There is a puff on the bed. There is curtains on the window, with big designs of flowers. Janet shuts them tight. She tells everyone, leave Inez in peace. Even Ani must stay out. I hear the door shut.

But in a while, I hear it open. And who comes running to the bed across the room? Ani Fardo, in her birthday dress. She puts her head on my breast. She nestles right up to it. She stays there a long time. She even pats my hair, till we hear footsteps in the hall outside. Then off she runs.

It’s Rauden, to check up. He takes my temperature and my, you know, the pulse on the wrist. He even does intake. Did I have Episodes like this before? Any symptoms? Give me a break. I’m supposed to sleep some more and stay in bed. I’m not even going in Janet’s basement until tomorrow. They do let Ani spend the night with me but make her sleep on the floor. She holds my hand, from the floor.

In the morning, Rauden comes in to do temperature and pulse, then stays sitting on the bed beside me and clears his throat. Am I still regular?

I’m pretty sure I never was but he means something else. “You do still have your,” he coughs, “menses?”

Oh, man. He wants to talk about the periods too. Mine. Where is this leading?

He just coughs a lot and goes, “It might be prudent to pull a few more ova. Since we don’t really know how long it’s going to be available at all.”

Ok. I get it now. He thinks I’m going to die. He wants a Harvest first. “Do you have a client?”

He said, “Well! No! But! You never know what will happen. I can always freeze it.”

I guess I was pleased. If he thinks we could be marketable, he thinks Ani is ok. She isn’t mainstream yet, but at school they say that is just a matter of time.

He says let’s be on the safe side. Pull a few more ova out. God forbid something should happen to me but, even if it didn’t, I’m not going to have eggs forever. After how much they stimulated the system, who knows what could happen?

So I said fine. The school year’s over. I got two weeks off from my cleaning jobs. We could stick around a while. Rauden always gives me some Compensation for Harvest. I’m just glad to get out of bed.

They start beefing me up the next day.

What happens now—ok, I have done this many times, though not for a few years. Ok, they gave me all my shots and now I’m in the new OBGYN’s garage, in Basher Kill, a pretty long drive away. Ani has stayed with Janet. They have everything set up, the table, the scalpel, the plastic and everything. Before they knock me out, I just grabbed Rauden’s hand and said, “Promise, if something happens to me, you and Henry will take her.”

He was really surprised. “I, you’ve done this a dozen times. Nothing is going to happen.”

“Promise.”

He shrugs.

“Don’t give her to Janet Delize.”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“Promise you’ll take her.”

“I, you know I can’t keep a child. I can hardly keep myself.”

“And don’t sell her.”

“I’m not going to sell her, I. But nothing is going to happen.”

He was right that nothing happened. It was not a great Harvest, just four eggs, but I was still alive. I know, I know. I already did Harvest dozens of times and nothing happened. Well, it was not the Harvest I worried about. I was worried if I die in a fire. I know, I know. What are the chances? I’m just saying.

We stayed a few more days. Then we went home.

But from now on, as far as things that could happen, they pretty much did.

The same week we got back from the Farm, I woke up early one day to a lot of noise. Alma Cho is in the courtyard running around, yelling, “Build a fire! For the body. Build a fire!”

So I come down in my pjs and am like, calm down.

“Bernie Cho died. Build a fire!”

So I’m like, “Alma, calm down. I’m sorry for the, you know, loss. But I’m not building a fire.”

She is like, “For the Hygiene. Build a fire!”

Calm down. I will dig a hole. So I get dressed, go to Alma’s courtyard where she keeps a shovel and some other things, and I dig. Ani came too and watched. It is a pretty hot day.

Alma goes, “She should help.”

So I go, “Ani, want to help?”

She does not want to help. She thinks I should just build the fire. I’m not doing that.

So Ani and Alma Cho just sit and they both watch me dig. Then I drag Bernie over in the bag Alma made and put him in the hole and we all cry.

When the whole thing’s over, and we are in our own unit, and I am tired, Ani comes right up close to me and whispers in my ear, “You could of built a fire.”

I don’t say anything.

She goes, “Ma.”

“It’s hot,” I say.

Well, you have guessed by now, it’s not about the weather. If I would of built a fire, how much hotter could I be? I’m dripping sweat here. No, it’s about if I die in a goddamn fire, and I’m not saying that’s going to happen. I’m saying I worried. I worried so much I had a hard time thinking straight. And the way this year starts to turn out, it would be better if I could.

When school starts, Alma Cho tells me be careful, there is some new pathogens around. It could be local flu. Well, thanks, Alma, but who cares? We’re not getting anything.

But Kurvinder did. The new driver said so. She wore a mask. I never learned her name.

And Melanie got something too. She didn’t die but is too sick to work. A substitute, Anton, is in charge and was not that great. I always liked Melanie, and she was very nice to Ani, but until now I never saw it really clear what she did. A school like Mill Rock, with all those Special kids and magnets and who knows what, there is a lot of things to deal with. It turns out Melanie was the only one who could.

Like, at the fall Festival? This is a regular thing they invite Parents to every year to show the skills. Like, remember that kid who hears the conversation in Yonkers? He really improved, he just hears it from the FDR Drive. So we all clap. The Asperger’s kid walks on the stage and says, “Is this the rehearsal?” So we all clap. This is regular stuff. They do it every year. The lower functioning ones demonstrate they could tie their shoes. They are really cute.

Well, Migan’s shoes have Special magnets so she won’t get lost, but she finally learned to untie them, so now she ran around barefoot and what happens is, she starts to float away. Ok, what it is, it’s about the magnets. This year the infrastructure had improved so much it has some new Energy Saving Device, with magnets too, for transportation, called MagLev. It is two magnets with a train between, which floats on tracks, how special is that, and now they even have it for boats, they call the boat AquaMag, but with all the magnets at the school, the East River AquaMag could go off course so they set up these anti-gravitational devices on Mill Rock Island, which sort of work, except when they forget to cap them and it makes a, like, current. There was already one injury, a minor one.

So, someone forgot to cap the anti-grav and this time Migan, who is very small and light, starts to float away. She only went up like five or six feet and is caught in some trees and rescued, but Lore and Dana went ballistic. It is because she’s Chosen. They’re always afraid she’s going to float away. Come on. What are the chances it’s going to happen again? But Lore and Dana pull her out of school and are going to homeschool her. Ani is really upset. Melanie would of dealt with it. Anton is just afraid he’s going to lose his job.

It starts to look like he could.

The Parents generally have an outside meeting after the regular Conference. So it turns out Anton is telling most of us our kid is ready to mainstream. Well Tensin’s mother, whose name is also Tensin, thinks he is just saying that because the school could get closed down. It is about the Migan incident, but also with Melanie so sick there could be a Hygiene issue. Well it’s true Anton did say Ani could mainstream and is grandfathered to a school they call Ward Island and could take the Tour even today. It is one of those island schools they like for outerborough kids so we will not give any other kids what we have. If we do.

I had looked over the water to where he said Ward Island school is. Some smoke came up from it. That could just be somebody burning leaves like they do this time of year, but I had said I rather take the Tour another day. Be on the safe side. Anton said she is also Zoned for IS 243 at Corona, a good local school.

Corona! She’s not going to Corona. I got a little too much history from Corona. That is where the fire thing began, when Cissy Fardo died in it. I just said thanks, Anton, I will get back to you on that.

Well it turns out Anton told all the Parents their kid could go to Ward Island. Well, except the really low functioning ones. I don’t know what he thinks those kids should do.

Remember how the Parents used to talk out at PS 263 in Queens about what is wrong with everything? These Parents do that now. It really brings back old times. It is even windy like that time the Parents got mad outside PS 263 when it was boarded up for Hygiene. These Mill Rock Parents are glad to share what is wrong with Ward Island. It is a tough school. They make the kids do what they tell them to do. What are the chances a Mill Rock kid could bring it off?

So Tensin’s mother asks me, “Inez, what did Anton tell you?”

I don’t even realize at first she’s talking to me because generally the other Parents don’t. To tell the truth my mind had wandered and where it had went was whose name did I put down for emergency contact? Alma Cho. Does that mean Alma gets Ani if I die in a fire?

I look up. I say Ward Island. Or IS 243 in Corona.

So some Parent heard that is a good school, but Itzhtak’s mother says well here is what’s wrong with local schools. They are tough too. The way local schools are tough, kids punch each other in the halls. At Mill Rock they never let the kids punch each other. They also do not have halls.

So now they get their teeth into the main thing, what is wrong with Mill Rock. The kids never learned to punch each other. Their Education will suffer. I never thought anything is wrong with it but these Parents seem to know.

By the time I take Ani home, I am pretty depressed. This is the first time it really sank in, she would ever leave Mill Rock. Now I have to work the system all over again and it is hard enough trying not to die in a fire.

Ani heard from her friends about how all the kids might have to change school. I guess they are talking about it too. She got really excited. “Ma! I could homeschool with Migan.” She missed Migan.

“Come on, Ani. They live in the Dome.”

We’re waiting at Queens Plaza for the podtram. We have to take the podtram home because the Conference ran so long we missed the cuchifrito pickup and have to take public Transport home, which takes forever, but I’m glad they have public Transport at all in this part of Queens. I remember when they didn’t.

“Ma!” The podtram finally comes, we get seats. She is jiggling like crazy. “Ma, we could move to the Dome!” She doesn’t get how it works and I don’t want her to feel ashamed, but, give me a break here. When you live outside the Dome it is hard enough to get a day Pass, let alone move in.

I just say, “Ani! Enough with the jiggling.”

She is like, what? She is upset I said that.

She gets over it, though. When we get back to the garden apartments she is running up to our unit. Then she is yelling down at me, “Ma! The plumbing works!” There are some infrastructure improvements at the City Line. The plumbing sometimes works. “Build a fire and boil water for the clothes.”

Here we go again. I say it is too late for a fire.

“Ma! I smell!”

“It is too hot!”

“Ma! It’s not hot. It’s cold!”

Ok. I will do it. I built a fire in the courtyard and boil the clothes, and spread them to dry. When the water cools down I let Ani jump in the pot. Then I pour the water on the coals when she is out and dry.

Then I wake up in the middle of the night and run out to check the ashes. I can’t get this fire stuff off my mind.

Like I’ll be on a pulley scrubbing a Nassau County personal Dome and will notice I didn’t do anything for like ten minutes because I was thinking, could I put Rauden’s name down for emergency contact in case I die in a fire? Well that will never work. He’s living at the Farm and Janet would never let me use the Farm info. She doesn’t even like it when I try to reach his Mobile phone.

I did get my cleaning work done. I’m just saying it was pretty hard to concentrate, and the way things are turning out, I need all the help I could get.

Because what happens now is, Melanie died.

Well, when they had a ceremony for her on Mill Rock, everyone went ballistic—kids crying, Parents complaining, and Anton saying do not worry but everyone does. At least they are not building a fire to burn Melanie’s body, but when we get home after the ceremony, I think I smell smoke and make Ani stay inside while I go sniffing around the area, but she keeps coming to the door and calling, “Ma! I’m cold!”

I am busy.

“Ma! Where is the fire in a can?”

I just lose my patience. “Much as you are jiggling, what are the chances you will not knock over the can and start a fire.”