Carola Dibbell - The Only Ones

I’m like, well, ok, but she’s just ten years old. Could you excuse me? I just want to get out of there. But Mariah Delize blocks my way, in the hall. You really cannot get around Mariah Delize in a hall.

Ani has to know what is going to happen, so she is not afraid. It could happen any time, she goes. Ten, eleven, twelve. She has to know it’s part of nature. It’s part of nature girls must ministrate, or no one will be born.

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 that was of the sort of on 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 in case she comes back.PUs g. 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 the only one that works, why is it leave Quonseton 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.