What?
That’s what I wanted to tell you. Suyin and I can claim her now, under One Child. If that’s what you want.
She didn’t understand. If that was what she wanted?
When was the last time you logged on at a Source Centre? He said. Not on the phone.
His words had speeded up but Li felt stupid, slow. Three months ago, she said, maybe longer? Town called Kutha.
Where is that? Listen, Li, would that be in the howler zone now?
Maybe. What do you mean, claim her?
He said, I can convince the Agency you’re dead. I can match DNA and claim Matti. We can sponsor her, bring her in.
Li heard her voice come out but she didn’t recognise it. Matti doesn’t know about you.
Oh. Yeah, I figured. We didn’t tell. Aaron didn’t know about you either. I was going to tell him when he was older, when he could understand.
She could hardly hear him over the blood rushing in her ears.
He said, It would only work if you stayed dead, Li. They’re saying they’ll never be able to ID all the unsheltered who died in that howler, but you’d have to disappear, go somewhere there’s no Source, no Agency, no reason for anyone to run your status.
She understood now. He meant no goodbye. He meant all she had to do was stay lost. Turn around, was what he meant.
Chris said, I was wrong, Li. I do owe you. I got this life and you got that one. I can change that for her, if you want.
She made herself speak. Is that what she wants too? Suyin?
Suyin wants Aaron back, he said simply. She’ll come round, she’ll see this is right. Matti can have a life here. She can have Aaron’s life. He stopped for a minute. Inside, it’s not what you think it is but it’s better than out there. She’ll get more time. And maybe, who knows, maybe we’ll get to the Deep Islands.
There was a flower growing up through the gravel, a weed. Sour yellow stem and frail cup, white with blue veins. The cold season was almost done. She said, I need to call you back.
Okay, I know. Do you have credit?
Yeah.
Okay. I’ll wait for you to call.
Chris.
Yeah?
Was there a photo? Did she look. How did she look?
She waited, hardly breathing.
Li-Li. She looks like you.
She sat still at the side of the road, holding everything in, and she’d never hated Chris for being chosen but she hated him for giving her this choice. Because he was right. She got the other life. Her deep desire was to go down now and walk until she found Matti and touch her to know she was real and say, I’m here, I won’t leave you again. You are my best place. But it wasn’t enough. What could she offer her? A lifetime queueing for islands not even sheltered people could get to? A long drive north into the heart of Weather? She touched the shape of the chocolate in her pocket and it felt pathetic, someone else’s gift, not even hers. Chris had been loved, raised, sheltered – didn’t Matti deserve that same chance?
A truck went past, spitting gravel. She tried to lose her thoughts in the roar but they found her on the other side. How did her own mother make the choice? Knowing so little, having so little power. Did she just do the best she could? Save one child and trust someone else to save the other one? What did it mean to her at the moment she decided and for the rest of her life? What would she tell Li now if they were face to face and her voice didn’t fail her? She listened for a sound from the other room but she was alone with this decision, just like her parents had been alone. If she went to Matti now and put her arms around her and told her she was loved and safe, half of that would be a lie. Matti wasn’t safe with her, not out here. All Li knew how to do was walk, seek shelter, find the next place, make the same mistakes. And she would leave her again. Matti wasn’t safe in there either but she would be safer, for longer. And Chris would love her. She had heard the slow wonder in his voice remembering Matti’s photo, when he saw his eight-year-old sister in her face.
Was this what she had needed to see? You’re not the one who can save me. You’re not the one.
Somewhere down there in the managed sprawl of the camp, was Matti. Matti was alive. There was all this joy inside Li, this blazing joy, but it was held in check, waiting for her to choose. Could she turn around now and walk back into the cold, and love Matti without wanting her? Hadn’t a part of her been doing that from the beginning? She closed her eyes and was in Nerredin again. Dark, early, the cold pressing in around the bed. She felt the sunken space that Frank had left, smelled woodsmoke from the kitchen stove, koffee, heard the radio on low.
Matti’s arm was flung back across her throat, resting there. A school morning. She felt through the arm that her child was awake and not ready to be awake. She kept her voice low. Do you want a piggy back, a carry, or do you want to walk?
Matti laughed quietly. All small kid things.
Even walking?
Except walking.
So, do you wanna walk?
I’ll walk.
Li came back to the hill and the road and the sun, the end of the cold season. When it came she let it come in a great hot rush that brought her to her feet. She lifted her pack and faced the camp and started walking.
Acknowledgements
This story takes place on a continent that floats somewhere above the one I grew up on. I want to acknowledge the Traditional
