Sophie Littlefield - Rebirth

Ruthie nestled close against Cass’s chest and Cass tried to put everything out of her mind but her daughter. I am here I am here I am here for you . But only hours ago, there had been nothing in her mind but crazy rage as she bit down on Dor’s hand and silently screamed, not five yards away.

She had to go to the bathroom. She wanted to clean herself and she had to pee. She grated her teeth against each other and got out of bed as carefully as she could, pulling the covers back in place and smoothing them down.

“Good morning,” she mumbled, not looking at anyone.

When she returned a little while later with Lester, feeling a little calmer after a shower of lukewarm water in a public stall, Kaufman was there as well and food trays had arrived. Cass checked on Ruthie, who was still sleeping. Over on the other side of the room, Malena and her son slept, too. The woman had to be exhausted from her round-the-clock vigil. Well-almost around the clock, anyway, Cass thought. No one had been awake besides her and Dor, at least for a little while.

Malena was going to wake up sore. She had pulled a straight-backed chair close to the recliner where her son lay, and leaned against his shoulder, her head at an uncomfortable angle, her hands clasped in her lap. As Cass watched, the woman shifted in her chair, her eyelids fluttering and her mouth forming silent words. She woke with a start, a muffled exhalation, and her hands went straight to her son’s face and her fingers danced under his jaw, searching for a pulse and then, when she found it, clasping his face gently. She caressed his hair as he slept on, unmoving. In the morning light Cass could see that his skin was sallow and waxy. He looked desperately ill, and if Cass had to guess she wouldn’t expect him to live many more days, and the thought was too much and so she busied herself with making the bed.

When someone touched her shoulder, Cass startled and backed away, but it was only Malena. “You’ll stay with him,” she said urgently. Up close Cass could see the deep grooves in her skin, the bruise-purple smudges beneath her eyes, the sagging of the pale crepey skin under her chin. Her coarse hair was salted with gray, loose strands clinging to the fabric of her coat. She smelled of many days without washing, and her breath made Cass turn away.

“Stay with Devin. Please. I’ll be just a minute,” she repeated.

“Come on, Malena,” Lester called from across the room. He sounded indifferent, even irritated, but Cass remembered the night before, his muffled sobs. Cass knew that equation well. He didn’t have enough left over to care about Malena. “Come with me now, you can have a nice shower.”

“I’ll stay with him.” Dor set down his coffee mug and book. “I’m glad to. I’ll watch him, your boy. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

The woman’s eyes darted back and forth between Dor and Cass. “But it has to be…”

Cass knew what she meant: a woman. It has to be a woman, a mother.

“No. You go with Cass. Take a little time for yourself. I’ll watch him.”

Dor said it with finality, firmly. It was his way, to take charge, to feel responsible. Cass realized she’d never seen it that way before; she’d always thought of the Box as his trophy, a symbol of his striving and his wealth. But it was also his sanctuary, one he shared with anyone who came along…unselfishly. Bravely. She had wanted to think his controlling and calculating was exclusively for his own gain. But maybe it really was for other people.

“Come on,” she said, linking her arm with Malena’s, finding it thin and bony. “Let’s go. We need to go for a few minutes. It’s going to be fine. Dor will take good care of your son.”

Malena allowed herself to be led, like a child, looking over her shoulder at the sleeping young man the whole way. Lester walked in front of them and Malena leaned practically weightless on Cass’s arm. “Devin will be nineteen next March,” she said, and Cass knew that the boy would never see another March.

“He’s a handsome boy,” she said softly.

“He needs Beclosterone. Only twenty milligrams twice a day, that’s not so much. And they have it here. You know they have it here, the Rebuilders? You know that?”

Cass nodded, though she had never heard of Beclosterone and while she was sure that the Rebuilders stockpiled medicine as well as everything else, she also knew that they would not spare medication for a boy who was this sick. After all, he couldn’t work, and even though he looked like he was starving he was still a drain on resources.

“We find out today if we’re outliers. We get the results today.”

“Do you think…you are?” Even as Cass asked the question she knew it couldn’t be true, that the woman’s desperate hopes would be dashed.

“Yes,” Malena said too quickly. “Yes, I’m sure of it. Devin, anyway. He’s always been special, ever since he was born.” Her eyes flickered and burned, and the skin at the corner of her mouth twitched with a manic tic. Cass wondered if she was losing touch with reality after her long journey, little food, little sleep. “Did you see him?”

“Yes, I did,” Cass said softly.

“All he needs is just twenty milligrams of Beclosterone. Every day. But even every other day would help. It would be something. Do you know that when he was born he had a full head of hair? A fair child like him-do you know how rare that is?”

Cass murmured sympathetically, but Malena didn’t seem to hear; she went right on talking.

“He took his first steps before he was eleven months old. Never crawled. Just that determined, he was. When they diagnosed his asthma, they said I’d always have to limit his activities. But I said no. I said, Devin will never allow that. He needs to be up and around, with all the other boys. He played varsity soccer his sophomore year. And that’s on a team that went to State three of the five years he was in high school. And he never sat out a game. With his meds he does perfectly well.”

They had arrived at the bathroom, Lester nodding at them to go in. Cass led Malena inside and she looked around as though surprised to find herself there. “I’ll just be a moment,” she said, with a trace of dignity, and Cass saw a shadow of the woman she must have once been-a suburban mother who had a weekly manicure and sat in the stands at every one of her son’s games, cheering every time he even came close to making a goal.

But when Malena emerged from the stall, she began talking again, not even looking in the mirror as she made a halfhearted effort to wash her hands.

“They say if Devin’s an outlier he can have his medication. Then he’ll be just fine again. They do so much for the outliers.”

“Like what?”

“They get all the best things. Everything they need. Medicine. Food. Everything. And they don’t have to work, not hard labor anyway.” She flapped her damp hands. “Devin’s not cut out for manual labor.”

“He’s… You take good care of him.”

“In Tapp,” Malena continued, not listening. “We had the whole day in Tapp, all those tests, there was a lady who talked to us. She liked Devin. She could tell he was special. I think she could tell he was an outlier.”

She was clearly teetering on the line between reality and wild hope. Maybe someone in the clinic really had talked to Malena, given her a false sense of promise. Felt sorry for her, no doubt-one look at her son’s poor ravaged body would pull anyone’s heartstrings. Cass wondered if it was worth trying to tease out the facts from the fantasy. “What about families? Do they break them up? I mean, if one of them’s an outlier?”

Malena’s face, which had been bright with possibility, lost some of its energy. She stared down at the basin of water, the thin film of grime on top, and frowned. “Well. I don’t know. I mean. I think I would go with him, as his caretaker. I’ve been there for Devin his whole life. It wouldn’t make sense for me not to.”