Nobody’s Baby #2
Florian was born at six in the evening—the afternoon matinee would have ended, but the evening showtime wouldn’t have yet begun.
The best thing I can say about it is it was quicker than I’d feared.
If it were only about the labor I might have slipped out from the Palace, borne down a time or two, cleaned myself up, and been back in my seat before the next showing’s title cards went up—but it wasn’t just that, of course.
I couldn’t do that to Anne.
She’s told me so much about her life before Embarkation—about losing Norris’s father, and how she threw herself into being a mother for so long she forgot how to be anything else.
She got started as a projectionist because she wanted to give her son a way to experience his father as more than just a name and a story, since Norris was only a boy when he died and the two of them came aboard the Fairweather.
They bonded over their first home skimmer—Anne projecting her memories of her lost love, Norris taking the skimmer apart to learn how the tech worked—but I still think he was a little put out when we started the Palace and Anne’s gifts became public knowledge.
I think he liked having a secret between just the two of them.
But Anne has bloomed so much since I met her.
She’s happier now that she’s more than a mother, I know she is.
She deserves some time to be herself for a little while.
And I know she’d happily help me care for Florian, and keep him safe and secret if I asked her to—but that would be like asking her to forget who she’s become. How could I do that to someone I love?
Norris agrees with me for once, so I know it’s the right thing to do. A mother is irreplaceable, he says, especially for a child with no father, either.
So I suppose I get to keep a secret of my own. At least for a few years, until he’s grown and can make his own choices.
If I can manage it, that is. My new son is loud.
Norris assures me that the soundproofing is very good, that none of the neighbors are going to hear Florian no matter how shouty he gets.
I don’t know what I’m going to do when he’s old enough to learn to work the doors.
I’ve had nightmares about him escaping to wander the ship, among all those people out there who are bigger and older and stronger than him.
With no memory-book waiting for him if something should go wrong.
I have to keep him entertained to keep him safe.
Norris is not who I’d have picked to help me, but he’s the one who figured out why I’d been feeling so ill, so there was no hiding it from him.
He’s been awfully sweet about it, even bringing me a skimmer so I can project things for Florian.
I haven’t Anne’s talents, it’s clear: I have to work to keep the figures consistent, to keep the pictures steady and the stories from rushing ahead too quickly.
How does she manage it without going mad?
Last month it was Busby Berkeley, three times a day! I feel queasy just thinking about it.
Norris suggested I stick to my own memories rather than movies—apparently the stronger the emotion, the clearer the projection—so I’m projecting paintings I remember, illustrations brought to life, children’s stories my mother used to read to me on Old Earth.
Things I can sing along to, make up lyrics for.
He coos at “Cinderella” for the pumpkin and the party, he cries at “Sleeping Beauty” for the dragon and the thorns—my son, through and through.
It’s not what I’d have chosen, but it’s a duty I cannot put aside.
I’ve been trying to project memories of Anne. The summer they let fireflies loose in the Greenway, and we spent a whole night walking through a sea of living stars. But every time I try to focus on her face, it melts and morphs into someone I don’t recognize.
Or maybe it’s the tears doing that, because I can hardly think of Anne without weeping.
I miss her terribly. I hope that one day I can make her understand.
We have centuries, after all—this is just a brief interruption.
The third-act twist, where I realize how foolish I’ve been and how different I wish things were.
I put down the book and stepped back out to the living room.
And there it was, now that I knew to look for it: a broad wall free of paintings or knickknacks, and when I stepped close so the light caught it at an angle, I could see the faint square shape where the paint had faded away beneath the repeated touch of the projector beam.
The wall opposite was covered with framed photographs and landscapes—and one single glass lens, mounted discreetly among the artworks like a demure debutante’s eye.
Another search failed to turn up anything like a skimmer, however. Someone must have taken it away. The fabled Norris, perhaps?
I returned to the diary.
I’ve been rereading my earlier entries, Flora wrote. That bit about the fireflies?
I don’t remember that.
Gooseflesh broke out on my arms and ran down the back of my neck.
I remember remembering it, remember exactly where I was and how I was sitting when I wrote those words—it was only two days ago—but the actual memory, that sea of stars? A blank. Nothing there at all.
Maybe it’s just the sleep deprivation. Florian has decided to cry almost constantly, and I’m fighting to stay awake and alert.
Maybe something is wrong with me. Maybe I’m going crazy. I keep thinking I see film characters in the corners of my eyes, but then when I turn of course there’s nobody there. And I haven’t been to the flickers in almost six months now …
I’d known new motherhood could be lonely, but this rang all my alarm bells. I made a note of the entry and forged on.
Today I went to see Jason. Florian’s father.
Well, now we were getting somewhere. Jason wasn’t the father, of course—but I only knew that because of Ferry. Flora would have had to make the best guess she could.
I couldn’t tell him about his son directly, of course—not before I knew what he’d want.
So I told him about a script I was working on, a made-up one, where someone had a baby and the parents stopped updating their memory-books so the ship wouldn’t become aware of the baby’s existence.
It was a great sacrifice they made, I said, very beautiful. Don’t you think that’s beautiful?
Horrible man that he is, he laughed.
“I know children are supposed to be a person’s legacy—but come on, Flora, memory-books are where the real immortality’s at.
Listen, here’s how I’d write it…” And he made it one of his usual pieces, where the baby was a teenager forced to grow up too fast and the mother was addicted to memory cocktails and the father had to retromat a gun for some made-up reason.
Jason’s never even held a gun before—he was a grocery store manager on Earth before Embarkation—so I don’t know why he’s so romantic about them.
Granted, his scenarios are quite popular with a certain set—they can even be stylish, when someone with Anne’s talents is projecting them—but this only confirmed my notion that as fun as it’s been, the affair has burned itself out.
He’ll have forgotten all about this conversation by next week. I’ll break it off then.
I set the diary aside. Flora had thought Jason was the father, and had all but told him so. Had he seen through her hypotheticals to the truth beneath? Had he discovered the baby and felt possessive, or jealous?
It was clear I’d have to have a chat with the man. After I spoke with Flora, of course.
I left everything in the apartment as it was—but I took the diary with me. It pulled down my jacket pocket, a weight made of secrets.