***
Sometime during the night, Penny rooted her way in between us, and pulled one of James’s arms over her and then one of mine.
“You alright, baby?” He asked her sleepily, as he always did when she got into bed with us.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Okay.” He kissed her head and fell back asleep, but I opened my eyes, turned on my side, and rested my hand against her cheek. Already, she was beginning to look older to me, and silently, I wondered how quickly her aging would progress now that she had internally decided to allow it. My heart gave a cry of grief, because though I had told her that it was time for her to grow, I dreaded losing my beautiful little girl, the one who looked up at me with those huge blue eyes set above those adorably cherubic round cheeks, who slept between James and me when she had a bad dream, who was always so wonderfully positive and cheerful. It was selfish of me, to have rejoiced for so long in her staying young. For her to stay that way would have kept her heavily reliant upon me, because the status of “mother to a small child” was one that I loved and had not been ready to lose, partly because I was afraid I would become colder towards her, or perhaps she would become colder towards me. I did not want to lose my little girl. But that was not my decision. It was not my decision to keep her young. Penny and Idan had lived through multiple traumas, and though they had aged emotionally as a result of them, their physical ages had remained fixed. I had not complained, nor had I encouraged either of them to age until recently. As I stroked her beautiful face, I began to steel myself to the idea of losing that precious little girl, and from there, I began to speculate how I would perform in my new status as “mother to an older child,” and finally “mother to a teenager.” I resolved to be good, to love her just as much, if not more, though I was unsure if I could love her any more than I already did. I would be her mother forever, because by some strange twist of fate, by some mistake, or perhaps by the stars aligning perfectly, I had been made her mother. I would never fail her. Even when she was older, even when distance was inevitably put between us, however minimal it might have been, I would still love her and be there for her. I would always just be me, how I was right then. I would always be her mama.
Behind her, I saw James sleeping peacefully, and before I felt the drop of my heart, I steeled myself from her unwitting entry into my mind and heart. The one you have loved the longest will die.
No. I would not let it happen. I would not let the universe take him. God, the rage that welled inside of me at the thought of God or the Gods stealing my love from me… That after all we had survived I had to lose anyone onboard that floating safe haven, let alone one of the loves of my life. They would not take him. I would not lose him. I would see his deathly encounter before it occurred, and I would stop it. Somehow, someway, I would stop it.
“Mama, your heart is beating so fast.” Penny whispered to me.
“It is alright, sweetheart.” I whispered back, “Mama’s just a little anxious tonight. Don’t worry about me.”
“Don’t be anxious!” She whispered, “Daddy is going to be okay, Mom. I promise. He is going to be okay.”
I had steeled myself before thinking those grim thoughts. So she had not heard them or felt them inside of me. Instead, she had heard the same words that I had heard. She knew the same prophecy.
“He is going to be okay, Mama.”
Perhaps she saw some road I did not see, some detour that would lead around the disaster. I could not see it. All I could see was our group headed on a straight and narrow path, gunning it hard and fast, and at the end, there was a black hole that would suck all of us in but spit only a few of us back out. I could not discern which of us would go, but the prophecy’s words were clear: The one you have loved the longest. James had been my first love. It had been twenty-six years since that bar. Since Earth. Since our old home, and I had loved him every day.
It took me. The tears. In vain, I tried to stop them, and once they began to fall, once a sob escaped me, the self-loathing I felt shocked even me. I was breaking down in front of Penny, who needed me to be strong. I was looking out at a future more bleak and treacherous than the sure death we had all faced there on the Lapsarian. I had changed the future, thinking that it would be easier, but had I not, once again, prolonged our arrival at the final conclusion? Had I not prolonged the inevitable end? Had we not been doing that all along? I could not discern how many hearts that beat and minds that thought on Pangaea were formerly Earthean, but if I had to guess, I would speculate that most of our people who had come there had long since been killed in the war. So if our kind was mostly dead, had we not escaped one extinction in favor of another? When I had saved James’s life, when I had reassembled him, and breathed new life into him, had I simply saved him so he could die again? Was his death so deeply woven in the fabric of time that no actions he or I or anyone took could save him? I cried because my love for him burned like a devastating wildfire, my heart its point of origin, the spread reaching through every inch of me, devastating me down deep, as deeply as it could go, and losing him would not extinguish that fire, it would only throw gasoline onto it. I would love him long after he was gone, and because I could not have him, because I had lost him, that fire of my love for him would burn through me until there was nothing left, until my insides were a barren, black wasteland of charred rubble, full to the brim with smoke.
Why had I allowed myself to rely so heavily upon him? Because wasn’t my love for him a dependence? Wasn’t my love for him a heavy reliance? That I could not lose him was indicative of that dependence, and I had known when I began to feel that need for him blooming inside of me that it would destroy me in the end. When had I decided that it was acceptable to need him? When had I decided that he was my be-all, end-all? Well, I suppose it was when I realized I loved him. So if you would like to chastise me or outright condemn me for my “reliance” upon James, then clearly you have never loved a living soul besides yourself. My reliance upon him was the same as my reliance upon Penny, as my reliance had been upon my mother, before she had left. I loved them, and so I needed them.
Penny shushed me. Her small arms draped over me, holding me close, and holding me tightly.
“He is going to be okay, Mom. I promise.” She whispered, “You have to trust me. Okay? Daddy is going to live.”
She said it in such a way that I should have been reassured, but in my heart, it felt like there was more for her to say. It felt like there was more that she knew, that I did not know. I was exhausted, in pain, and my mind was reeling from all that had happened onboard the ship. If I had been rested and slightly calmer, I would have seen what Penny saw, I knew. But I was not, so I had to trust my little girl, and trust her, I did. To the end of time, I trusted her. We were, in our own strange little way, a team; she saw, and I saw, she knew, and I knew. We shared the prophecies we saw, and even though she was so young, she was able to help me make sense of them, and I was able to help her. When they frightened me, she calmed me with her perpetual optimism, her beautiful, never-failing positivity, and her eternal goodness, and when they frightened her, I tried to return that favor, and I was quite good at it. We were two halves of the same whole, mother and daughter, sisters, twins, friends, companions, co-workers, co-wielders of the same awesome and terrible gift.
“What about Gracie, Mama?” She asked, “She’s one of us, too.”
I nodded, and conceded that she was right. It would take some time, but I believed that I could love Grace, or at the very least, accept her. I could definitely protect her; I had proven that in the Arena. I would always protect her.
“You will love her, Mama. You will love her like you have loved me all these years.” She said.
“Like I have loved you?” I asked, “Never.”
“Certainly.” She replied, “I promise you will. Now go back to sleep, Mom. You need to sleep.”
“You need to sleep.”
And so we did. We closed our eyes, and as James and I held
her, I began to allow my heart to trust her. I lulled myself to sleep on the thought that perhaps my little girl knew and saw what I could not. That perhaps she was more powerful than I was, and could see beyond the grim darkness of the future. Perhaps she could, simply by willing it, cause the future to change.
When I awoke the next morning, and I found that everyone was still sleeping, I climbed over her, threw my leg over James’s middle, flipped my hair over so it was casting a shield around my face and his face, rubbed my nose against his, and then kissed him deeply.
“Wake up.” I whispered, “Baby, wake up.”
His eyes opened slightly, and he smiled when he saw me over top of him. His head rose, brushing my hair back with two hands, and when I kissed him, he opened his mouth and let me slide my tongue inside.
“I gotta go to the bathroom before we do any of this, baby.” He told me, and he spun us gracefully so I was lying on the pillow where he had been, and as he scampered off, I giggled to myself, because for some reason, the idea of what James called “early morning wood” was hilarious to me.
“Yeah, laugh it up, hyena woman.” He said as he came back out of the bathroom, “I’m surprised I have anything going with how fucking cold it is on this boat.”
“You know, with you I’ve found that whether it is very cold or very warm, it really has no effect. The size remains the same.”
“Oh!” He exclaimed, “Look at her go, ladies and gentlemen. Brynna Olivier is on fire this morning. God, you’re the worst!”
“And you love it, and I love that you love it.” I laid back on the pillow and pulled him to me so I could kiss him again, “You know I am just kidding. But you mustn’t create these opportunities for me!”
“I know, I know. I still walk right into it. Even after all these years.” His tongue dipped into my mouth, and mine found it eagerly. “Is my breath okay?”
“Fine. Is mine?”
“Perfect.”
“Good.”
“You know I can’t make out with you if my mouth is like a sewer.”
“Nor I with you, my sweet, considerate man.”
“Good, my sweet, considerate woman.”
Rael was working the boat now, having been awoken by Adam. Everyone else was still asleep, as their blank or dreaming minds told me. Rael did not know that we were awake, so he surely didn’t know that we were necking in such a way. James’s lips broke from mine and kissed their way over to my ear, where he whispered, very quietly, “I want you so bad right now… God, I want you.”
I inhaled deeply upon hearing him say that, because as always, hearing him say it was as much a kick-start to my desire for him as feeling his hands caressing my breasts, or feeling his fingers or tongue working their magic down below.
“When we get to where we’re going…” He whispered, “I am going to lay you down, and I am going to kiss you everywhere I know you love, and then, I am going to lick and kiss my way down, down, down, and then I am going to…”
“What are you two doing?” A little voice asked, and that feeling of warmth—it was actually pure, blind, lusting heat—iced over so quickly that it was almost hilarious. James jumped away from me, turned over onto his other side and faced Penny, who was looking at us with furrowed brows, and her adorably scathing look of judgment.
“Nothing.” He answered instantly, “Nothing, my wise Punky. Nothing at all.”
I rolled over and draped my arm over James and repeated him, “Nothing at all.”
She looked between the two of us for a long second as we both tried to look unassuming. Finally, she just said, “Smooth,” very sarcastically, and one of James’s raucous fits of laughter took him, and awoke everyone else.
“Shh!” I shushed him, and Penny very lightly hit him in the shoulder.
“I’m sorry.” He gasped out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. She just freaking kills me, man. Oh, God, I have to go let Rael get some sleep.” He kissed me softly and left to relieve Rael of his steering duties. I began to get up so I could walk over to Adam, but Idan and Penny got to him first and jumped on him with gusto.
“Papa!” Idan exclaimed cheerfully, “Papa! Rael says that land is just ahead! We will be free soon!”
“We are already free, Idan!” Penny corrected him as I came over, “Aren’t we, Adam?”
He turned over, his gray hair mussed up, his eyes squinting in the light, and immediately, he pulled Penny and Idan to him and squeezed them under both of his massive arms.
“Our wise Penelope is right this time, Idan.” He said, “To where did Rael say we were headed?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Papa. There are so many names on the map.”
“Would you two go ask him for me?”
They scampered off excitedly, and he reached out and gently brushed my hair away from my face. I held his hand and turned my head to rest my cheek against his palm. For a long moment, we simply looked at one another, and then my hand reached out to rest against his face, too.
“Alright?” He asked me softly, vaguely, because he knew that I would not want to make a fuss about myself, not in front of everyone else. As always, Adam knew me and what I needed without me ever having to say it. In response to his question, I nodded, and kissed the palm of his hand. He pulled me to him gently, and I nestled against his chest as his strong arms wrapped me up.
“Good.” He replied, as my fingers entwined with his. He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it before kissing my forehead. “I am glad.”