Michael Kube-McDowell - The Quiet Pools

As the other parents arrived home, Mother Alicia took them aside and informed them of the news, asking them to hold their thoughts until the conference. Malena hid in her room, reviewing the information files that had been attached to her selection notice. The only intrusion was by Father Brett, whom she had wanted to tell personally. It was Brett who had given her the chance, transferring his own option to her after he failed to make the cut for Ur . He responded to the news with an ecstatic, enthusiastic hug that did much to fortify Malena for the ordeal to come.

Several hours later, with the family’s three youngest children in bed and the other four asked to respect the closed door of the family room, the adults gathered, and the issue was joined. By then it was already clear that both her blood parents, Father Jack and Mother Caroline, and Father Michel were united in their shock and opposition. Only Mother Alicia’s thoughtful emphasis on the ground rules for an advisory conference as she opened discussion checked what might have been a summary execution.

“We can’t tell Malena what to do, of course, any more than if she had announced that she was moving out or marrying,” Alicia said, concluding. “Our place is to help her explore the dimensions of the decision, so that she can make the best possible decision. Malena, if you choose to accept their offer, what does that mean?”

“Mine is a staff selection,” she said. “I’ll be part of the counseling staff on the ship. That means I have to report sooner than the regular selections—in no more than thirty days.”

“Where will you go?” asked Alicia.

“To the center in Houston.”

“And how long will you stay there?”

“It’ll be in Houston for sixty days of ground training. Then they’ll give me ten days off for personal business—packing, good-byes—before I move up to the ship. From what I’ve been reading, we’ll only be on board for a few weeks before the first group of pioneers moves in.”

“Only ten days?” asked Michel. “Not very much to say goodbye to a whole world.”

“We’ll get another ten days closer to departure,” Malena said. “If we want them.”

Mother Caroline edged forward in her chair. “Malena—why do you want to do this?”

Malena turned the question on its head and fired it back at the source. “Wouldn’t you want to if you could? Wouldn’t you go if they wanted you?”

“Could I take Jack, and Michel, and you, and your brothers?” asked Caroline, knowing the answer was no. “Could I take this house, and my friends, and the Bay? And if I couldn’t, what would I be getting in return that could be worth giving all that up for? Nothing. No, I wouldn’t go. And I don’t understand why you want to.”

“We understand that you’re flattered,” Michel said, playing Tweedledum to her Tweedledee. “Anybody would be flattered to be picked out of such a large group. But this seems a little like winning a sweepstakes and then having to sell the prize to pay the taxes.”

“To you,” said Brett, coining to her defense. “But her life isn’t your life, or yours, Caroline. She’s still living in the world we created for ourselves. Of course we’re comfortable here. But she’s only just starting to make her own choices and shape her own world.”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” snapped Jack. “You’ve influenced her enough already. Everything you say is just an apology for yourself.”

It was an old wound, reopened by the blow of Malena’s news. Alicia stepped in to try to blunt the confrontation. “The issues here are present and future, not past. And everyone has a right to be heard, Jack.”

“I’d like him to hear me,” Jack retorted, jabbing a finger in Brett’s direction. “He made this happen. When we let him in ten years ago, he picked out Malena and tried to make her his daughter—”

“I am his daughter,” Malena said.

“You were happy enough about that when it was convenient for you,” Brett said at the same time.

“—because he didn’t have one of his own. And as for Malena living in the world we created, that’s him talking for himself again. You were the last one on the scene. And if you didn’t like what you were getting into, you shouldn’t have contracted with us.”

Brett refused to back down. “And if you didn’t want me, you shouldn’t have offered the contract. Or did you think that I would just take care of Alicia’s needs so you three could go on ignoring her?”

“What does any of this—” Malena began.

But Caroline trampled over her attempt to reenter the conversation. “You’ve never stopped trying to make us feel guilty over Michel and Alicia growing apart—”

“Growing apart? The way I hear it, you came to every little crisis between them like a shark to blood—”

Malena watched, first with astonishment, then with growing dismay, as the compromises and accommodations which held Raven House together dissolved in the acid of harsh words. Finally, her frustration turned to fury, she skidded the airchair into the middle of the circle and dropped it to the floor with an emphatic thump.

“Stop!” she demanded. “Stop, all of you! This isn’t about you. This is about me. Doesn’t anyone here want to talk to me?”

The display won a moment of awkward silence, brought an embarrassed look to Michel’s face, and elicited a pursed-lip nod of self-recrimination from Brett.

“I’m sorry, Malena,” Alicia said gently. “What did you want to say?”

She looked slowly from one face to the next, fixing finally on Father Jack. “I really hate the way you have to turn every conversation into a contest, and every conference into an excuse to drag out every old family argument and grudge. I’ve heard all of this until I’m sick of it. Michel neglected Alicia. Alicia drove Michel away. Caroline’s a bitch. Jack’s selfish. Brett’s the thief of hearts. This one neglected the kids. That one spoiled the kids. This one doesn’t pull his weight. That one’s always trying to take over. Did you ever talk to each other, or was it always yelling? Don’t any of you ever put anything away for good?”

“Listen, child,” Jack started threateningly. “You can’t talk to me like that—”

“Oh, no—I’m not going to let you shut me up by making me small,” she said warningly. “I hit my majority five years ago.”

“It’s true. Malena does not have to be here,” Alicia said. “It’s because she loves us that she’s willing to share this with us and listen—”

“Mother Alicia, I can speak for myself,” Malena said, irritated. “Father Jack, in case you haven’t noticed, I have three fathers and two mothers, and have had for quite some time. I can talk to any of you any way I have to, to make you understand. The fact that you and I are blood doesn’t give you any special right to say no to me, or to tell me who I can and can’t respect. Every one of you has helped me. Every one of you has influenced me. And every one of you has hurt me, too.”

Surely you don’t mean me , Caroline’s eyes said. Father Jack looked away and grunted.

“That goes with being family,” Brett said finally.

“Maybe it does,” Malena said. “I don’t really know, because this is the only family I’ve ever seen from the inside. I love you all, but it is your world, just like Brett said. I would have left it by now, if there’d been some place or way to go. I’ve been here too long.”

“Is that your answer, then?” asked Caroline accusingly. “You want to go because you want to get away from us?”

She did not shy from the accusation. “That’s not my best reason. But I have to admit it’s part of it, yes. It might be nice to be alone for a change.”