Sophie Littlefield - Rebirth

She and Dor had no peace. From the first time they met, the day she and Smoke arrived in the Box, he had seemed hard and distant. Of course, she’d begun their relationship by asking something from him. Dor did not part with things easily. As she came to learn, he exacted a fair price for everything he traded, plus his cut. No exceptions. He’d helped her get into the stadium to find Ruthie, but only after Smoke traded their most valuable possessions for the privilege. Dor paid Smoke handsomely, but she had noticed that he never traded with her, never asked for anything from her garden. It was as though he would not allow himself to, though she didn’t understand why-the herbs and vegetables she grew were the only ones that most people had had for months; people had already offered fantastic trades for the tiny green oranges on her trees, once they matured.

But Dor acted as though he didn’t see the garden, didn’t see her. It was as though he reviled not just her but everything she touched.

Ruthie shifted in her arms, sighing and snuggling closer. Cass stroked her soft cheek and kissed her shiny hair, but she felt her face color with shame, remembering the way Dor had fought her last night. And the way she had fought harder.

He could have stopped her at any moment. He was powerful. Strong. He’d battled himself more than he’d battled her, Cass understood that. She even understood why he’d done…what they’d done; she had given him little choice. There had been some hard volatile kernel there, some imbalance between attraction and repulsion, an unstable compound which she’d deliberately ignited.

Her mortification deepened and she pulled gently away from Ruthie, tucking the blankets carefully around her daughter’s small shoulders, adjusting the pillow, before sitting on the edge of the bed doubled over, her arms wrapped around her knees, her nails digging into the soft skin of her thighs, trying to make it hurt enough.

She’d seduced Dor and she’d fucked him. He may have thought he’d been culpable, that he was willing when he turned her over, took her hard, slammed home all his disgust and resentment, but he’d only done it because she gave him no choice. There was a point past which anyone could be made to lose control, and Cass was an expert at that fine line, a stellar student of lust and urgency. She had seen a thousand variations-some rolled their eyes back and others’ breath came short and still others muttered and hummed-but in the end it was the same, a place where the conscious mind gave itself over to instinct. That’s all it had been-not just last night but on hundreds of nights before, starting at the age of sixteen, when she’d merely been looking for an escape from Byrn’s midnight advances, for a substitute for her real father who’d left them to seek his fortunes as a guitarist in a band up and down the California coast. She’d gone looking hungrily. She’d worked her way through all the boys and then moved on to men-five years, ten years, twenty years older than her, in so many bars and parking lots and cheap apartments as she taught herself a few more tricks for forgetting.

Dor didn’t know that. Even Smoke didn’t know all of it, though she’d told him plenty-another mistake, another thing she’d given away. No more giving away. Anger colored Cass’s thoughts, clouding her remorse, giving her a strained and bitter kind of strength. She forced herself to relax her grip, to stop hurting herself; she slowly sat up, breathing deep and ragged breaths.

Okay. All right. She had lost control last night, but at least she hadn’t given anything away. She hadn’t given any more pieces of herself away. She had been the strong one. She’d made Dor do what she wanted him to do, and so she’d won. She had to win, every time, because now it was just her and Ruthie again. Smoke was gone, and that was that, and it was up to her to make sure no one took anything from them. She would be smart, and she would be careful. And as long as she stayed strong, it would be all right. This world demanded strength.

By the time Cass went outside with Ruthie in her arms, Dor had built a fire in the back patio barbecue pit. There was split wood stacked against the shed in the backyard, and he’d laid it out neatly, a tidy flame flickering from an economical arrangement of tinder and wood. A kitchen pot simmered on top of the grate. He didn’t hear her coming, and for a moment she and Ruthie watched him warm his hands high above the orange flames, turning them one way and then the other. He was wearing a shirt she didn’t recognize-a plaid overshirt lined with fleece, black and gray with bits of blue-and she wondered if he’d found it in the house somewhere. If so, it had come from the blocked-off room, the room of unknown horrors that he had taken pains to shield her from.

Cass thought about that, watching Dor. He was turned away from her, his gaze fixed at some distant point down valley-the direction of the Rebuilder headquarters, maybe. He had shaved; the rough shadow of a beard that had abraded her skin last night was gone. His hair was damp, the ends curving against his collar. His expression was hard to read, but he wasn’t happy.

Cass kicked a stone, and as it skittered across the brick patio and disappeared into a flower bed choked with dead kaysev, Dor turned toward her. She saw him take in her own shirt-something she’d found in the closet of the room where she and Ruthie slept, an older woman’s shirt, cotton broadcloth in begonia pink with embroidery on the yoke-and knew that he too was remembering the night before, the ripping of her buttons.

And everything else. Everything.

She shifted Ruthie in her arms and stared at the ground. Kaysev had rooted in the cracks between the brick pavers. Even a month ago the plant would have been lush and green. Cass had the stray thought that now, while it was dormant, would be the time to weed it from between the pavers so that the roots wouldn’t work their way underneath and unseat them. It had been a nice patio, with outdoor furniture still covered in plastic except for a couple chairs whose covers had blown off in some storm. It could be a nice space again, especially in the spring when the kaysev came back, and the fields would be a deep emerald-green as far as the eye could see.

When the kaysev leaves had started to brown a few weeks ago, when they withered and shrank at the ends of the stems, when the stalks themselves turned brown and woody, some people panicked. They thought it had died. Some thought it an act of God, or a second apocalypse caused by some unknowable malevolent force. Cass reassured anyone who would listen that the plant was merely dormant. She snapped off roots to show that beneath their tough brown exterior they were still creamy yellow, dense with retained moisture, even fatter than usual. She explained that they could take ninety percent of the root for food and still leave a viable plant. But it was only after she put a dormant plant into her makeshift greenhouse, a small tent Smoke rigged from scrap canvas and plastic and poles for that purpose, and tricked it into rebirth that people believed her.

They believed. But then quickly they all wanted to know exactly when the plants would spring back to life, something Cass couldn’t tell them. She was keeping a detailed, daily diary of the plants’ habits, and a year from now she would be able to tell them all sorts of things. Assuming she was still alive then. Assuming anyone was around to listen.

“There’s water,” Dor muttered, interrupting her thoughts. “Enough to wash. And I made coffee and oatmeal.” He pointed to the picnic table where a flowered mug was covered with a saucer, and a bowl was steaming in the cold air. Next to it was a smaller, second bowl and a plastic tumbler.

“I found some Crystal Light inside. Think she’ll drink it? I mean, if you don’t mind her having it.”