Carola Dibbell - The Only Ones

By the way, she is expelled from Armory Prep. She is a danger to herself or others. I can’t even see her till morning. They let me sleep on a chair out in the public room.

When I finally get into her room, she is out cold. They gave her a shot. They won’t even tell me what it was. They are going to keep her one more day for Observation. So I go outside to call Rauden. But I can’t get through.

When I’m back in the hospital, the Supervisor who cleared my Guardian thing went off shift. The new one has to start from scratch. Am I the Guardian? Am I myself? Am I qualified to make sure Ani is not a danger to herself?

When they finally let me take her, I’m so glad to see her awake, I’m almost jumping, but, I don’t know if it’s the drug or what, she just looks away. She will not talk the whole way home. And it is a long, long way. It is the usual problem of transportation in the Bronx, and some kind of ash is blowing in some kind of wind. The whole trip I am like, is she going to be a danger to herself? Is she going to jump off something? And all this time she doesn’t say word one. I am almost falling asleep on my feet but I keep myself awake. I don’t even let go of her hand. I try to keep myself awake by blabbing this, that. What kind of Process does she want for dinner? She doesn’t say anything.

By the time we finally got to Queens, I was so worried I can’t stop blabbing. What does she want for dinner? If the power works, what TV does she want to watch? She doesn’t say anything. By now we’re almost at Courtyard 2, and I’m like, please, let her say something, I will never leave her side again. I won’t do IVF with Rauden’s product. I won’t do SCNT. I will even give up my cleaning jobs. Well I will tell you this. When she did say something I almost changed my mind. She said, “You’re not my mother.”

Whoa.

“You’re my sister.”

So what is this?

“The ID filter said you’re my sister. The first Supervisor said so.”

“Ani, you know I am your mother. I brought you up.”

“Did I ask you to?”

We just have to get through the Courtyard 2 entrance and cross the courtyard in the dark and we will be home. There is still some wind and ash. “Ani. It is about the ID filter. It’s not about us.”

“My mother would not let them lock me up.”

We just have a little more ways to go. “Ani, they never even reached me all day. They never let me through when I was even there because the code Reader would not let me through.”

“My mother would not send me to this school to start.”

“I will find you a better school. Country Day is not going to work — well, you don’t know about that, but I will find you something else.”

“Did I ask you to?” So we are in the middle a danger to herself of the kind ofonof our courtyard, and it is dark and cold with some ash still falling. “You don’t even know what is a good school. You don’t even know the driver hurt me.”

So this is news to me. “When?”

“He grabbed me really hard!” And she shows the bruise on her wrist, which I can’t see in the dark.

At least she is talking at all. “When?”

“When I am trying to jump off the bridge.”

So I am like Rauden was when I tried to explain the Country Day thing, I’m just trying to follow this. “I think he saved your life.”

“DID I ASK HIM TO?” We’re almost at our door, but she is stopping where she is. “I hate my life! I HATE MY LIFE!” Then she goes, “I hate you.”

I just sat down on the steps in the dark. I didn’t know what else to do, I’m just so tired and she is just going, “I hate you! I hate you! You send me to schools where no one will sit with me. I’m glad it isn’t going to work with stupid Country Day!”

So it is just as well I didn’t do the Change.

“I’m glad I am expelled from Armory stupid Prep! Why do you even find these stupid schools for me?”

I am so tired. “I just want you to have a better life.”

“You don’t know anything about my life.”

“Ani, let us go inside.”

She just keeps going on. “Whatever school you put me in, no one will sit with me. No one will sit with me anywhere. You don’t know anything about anything! You don’t even know who is my Dad!”

I really want to get inside. But she keeps standing in the courtyard in the dark, going on.

“No wonder I can’t do anything! I got it from you! You can’t do anything! You can’t even pick me up on time! So don’t tell me what to do. You don’t know what to do, yourself. You don’t know anything!”

I was just so tired.

“Anything!”

So tired. I been running for days. To the hospital, the Nassau County job, the Yonkers Board, the Farm. I been running for years. To the Transport Stops, all the trips to all the goddamn islands where you get the goddamn Passes, the MagLevs, the cuchis, the hybros, the goddamn Lifeboat. And these last four days? Let alone this one day, the hospital, the Country Day stuff, the Change stuff. Maybe that wasn’t even why I said what I said now. Maybe it was all the things Rauden said, and the whole airborne thing, the hum, I don’t know. I just know I told Ani, “You do not have a Dad.”

Then she got really quiet.

“And I know why.”

I don’t know if I thought it was good for her or I was mad at her because she thinks I don’t know anything. I don’t know who I thought it was good for. I don’t know if it is just, you know, from all the things that Rauden said, I finally got some self-esteem and do not want to lose it. I just know that I told her.

I don’t even know why I told her. Maybe I was just too tired to make things up any more.

It is dark in the yard. It’s getting darker. The ash had stopped. But we just stay there, on the steps, in the courtyard where she spent so much of her life. Now look. She hates that life. It’ twelve years old and livet D a all the 9Hs not so dark I can’t see how her face looks. I wish it was that dark. I wish I didn’t see it. I wish I didn’t see how her face looks when she said, “So I am a clone.”

“There’s a lot of things you can call it,” I told her. “You can call it what you want. I prefer human being.”

iii

Now maybe you think this night here, and the next day that follows now, it is the worst time of my life. Well, I will tell you this. I wish it was.

She pretty much cried the rest of the night. She is shut up in her room.

I don’t know if she even slept. At least we are home.

I just stayed in the living room the whole time, on the plaid sofa she bit, so long ago. I’m not going to go to any of my jobs. I’m afraid what she will do if she’s alone.

She cried so long I go to her door and call her name. “Ani?”

She just cries.

I come back in a while, and try again.

She will not say anything. She just cries.

“Ani,” I tell her. “When all is said and done, it’s just another way to be born. It could happen to anyone.”

I don’t hear anything for a while. But then I hear her right up against the door. “Then why am I the only one I ever heard of, that it did?”

“You know what?” I’m saying this through the door. “I never figured that out. I’m sure there are others. They just didn’t tell. Until they do, no one will know.”

She is talking so soft I can’t hear.

I have to say, “What?”

She yells, “WHY DIDN’T YOU?”

So I am, you know, rubbing my ears where she shouted that. “We could of been in so much trouble. People think terrible things about people who do what Rauden and I did.”

“You could of told me,” she said.

“You were a child, Ani. It was a really dangerous secret.”

I just hear noises. Then I don’t hear anything. Maybe she is going to sleep.