Chapter Forty-Four
“I still can’t believe I wasn’t there.” Delilah tapped her pencil against her sketchbook.
Next to each other on the Hayes House parlor’s tall sofa, Luz and Vivian exchanged a glance. “Be grateful you weren’t,” Luz said.
“I’ve been watching the vids. Viv, you were incredible … and a bit scary.”
Vivian rubbed the back of her neck. “I was desperate.” She let the memory of swinging the greatsword through a fragile Martian rib cage wash over her and away.
In the days since Presentation Day, she’d started to try to allow the blood-soaked images to come freely, rather than repress them and end up trapped in vivid, violent dreams.
“Do you know what they’re calling you, Viv?” Delilah continued. “The Red Woman, since you’re famously not a mother at all.”
“You need to watch less news vids.” The Red Woman, indeed. Ridiculous. “Are you comfortable here?”
“I am.” Delilah smiled softly. “Caspian and Ivey have been so welcoming. They said I can stay as long as I want. And Ivey set up a little studio for me in a corner of the sunroom. I never thought I’d have a chance to learn to paint.”
Vivian didn’t ask her sister if she had any further hopes when it came to Caspian. It was too soon.
“What about you, Viv?” Delilah waggled her eyebrows, and Vivian was reminded, painfully, of how carefree her sister used to be. “Are you and Xavier …?”
“What do you know about it?”
Luz and Delilah both laughed. “Come on, Viv baby,” Luz said. “It’s painfully obvious to all of us. But—he didn’t wait for you, did he? After Presentation Day.”
“No.” She understood. He wouldn’t have wanted to put any obligation upon her after she’d just won her freedom. “He has a particular sense of honor.” Not to mention his aunt had just died. And Silas.
“Viv.” Delilah’s voice was suddenly small. “What’s going to happen to Mom and Dad?”
Vivian blew out a breath. “I’m going to get a job and send back as much as I can.
Now that I know we don’t need to repay your payment, maybe I can figure it out.
But the timing is tight for the rent on their trailer.
” She bit her lip. “I just couldn’t do it.
Not after knowing what it could be like with Xavier. ”
“I held some money back,” Luz said quietly. “Just in case it didn’t work out with Wim. I sent most of it to my cousins in Jersey, but you can have what I kept. For your parents. Should be enough for a month or two on their trailer.”
Vivian’s heart beat with a wild kind of hope. “Are you sure you don’t need it?”
“I’m sure. I owe you a debt, Viv. You gave me a choice. Now, when I stay, when I become a mother, it’s not something just happening to me. It’s my decision.”
Vivian had suspected Luz would choose to stay with Wim, but it still was a surprise to hear it aloud. “Do you love him?”
“You know, I think I might.” Luz gave a helpless sort of laugh and covered her face with one hand. “Not like in those romance novels you’re always reading. But I like being the person he sees when he looks at me.” She turned to Vivian. “How does Xavier make you feel?”
Vivian thought about him behind her lending silent support as she spoke to the Council. She would wait to see him, she decided. Let this initial shock and grief pass. She wanted to come to him as an equal, not as a dependent.
“He makes me feel like I’m capable of anything.”
When they reached the train station, Vivian said to Luz, “I’ll join you later.
I have a few things I want to take care of first.” She took the train going in the opposite direction of Luz’s home, back toward the shuttleport.
At the tall, locked gate to the Red Mothers walled compound, she said aloud, “Intelligence, open the door for me please.”
“We don’t normally converse with non-augmented humans without an orb, Vivian,” a tinny voice said from the built-in intercom.
“The door,” Vivian repeated, and it swung open.
Her room was unchanged. She packed her dresses, hats, and shoes into a single bag and stowed Ren’s pearl necklace carefully at the bottom.
She left again through the front gate and walked down the wide streets of Arcadia.
It was sparkling clean, she realized. And so walkable.
So welcoming. A city optimized for the daily experience of its citizens.
Tiny coffee shops and restaurants beckoned.
A florist stand sold bright bouquets on one corner while another offered cups of sliced mango and watermelon.
The barracks were quiet and subdued. Flags hung at half-mast and the red-clad militia sported black armbands. They recognized her as she walked through, and every person who spotted her kept their distance and bowed low.
Finally, she reached the Dorsey Law Library and stepped inside.
“Vivian Bowen,” the law librarian said warmly. “I’ve been hoping to see you again.”
“You remember me?”
“My dear, everyone knows you now. I thought your defense of the Charter of the Planet Mars was inspired. And against the Intelligence!” She lifted a first to her forehead. “You have a gift. I hope you’ll be taking advantage of the new scholarship.”
“New scholarship?”
“For Earthers who wish to study at the law school. The Dorsey Estate just announced it yesterday. Isn’t that why you came?”
“The Dorsey Estate?” She smiled to herself.
“A full scholarship and a living stipend for an apartment close to the school.”
Vivian tried to reel back her longing. “I came today to understand the pre-reqs for attending law school so I could prepare. But I don’t think I would be accepted yet. You see, I didn’t finish high school. On Earth.”
“I can assure you, no one here will be looking for your American school transcripts.” The librarian waved one hand.
“If you can match wits with the Intelligence, you can keep up with your classes. I’ll help you with the application.
You’ll have to wait until the next semester to enroll, but the scholarship will cover room and board immediately. ”
How had Xavier known her deepest desire? And he’d found a way to give it to her that she was willing to accept.
After finishing at the library and getting directions, Vivian walked back to the train station. By the time she arrived at the dark wood gate of the Nakamura estate, the sun was setting.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she said to Ren, who waited for her quietly in the courtyard just inside. “I only wanted to return this.” From her satchel, she drew out the pearl necklace.
Ren took the pearl and stared down at it with an unreadable expression. “This was a gift.”
“A family heirloom. Intended for your wife. The mother of your children.”
Ren sighed. “I’m very glad to see you, Vivian. I’ve been hoping to find an opportunity to apologize.”
The person Vivian most wanted an apology from was dead. And Chancellor River was secure in Catena, denying involvement in the attack out of one side of their mouth while demanding equal access to the reproductive tech with the other. She might as well allow someone to attempt to make amends.
Ren gestured to her to join him on the gravel garden path. In the fading light, Vivian took in the blossoming pink trees, moss-covered ground, and small redstone sculptures. A lovely place to spend her life—if she didn’t mind living caged behind a high gate.
“Your words before the Council …” Ren stared at his feet as they walked.
“I cannot stop replaying them in my mind. And how could I forget? The Presentation Day footage is on constant rotation on the news vids.” Ren rubbed the pearl with one thumb.
“What I mean to say is, you deserved better from me. From Secretary Yarrow. From all of us. When the Intelligence called the Red Mothers initiative a form of indentured servitude, I swear my heart stopped.”
They came to a slatted wood bridge, stretching over a tiny body of water. Vivian stared down to see flashes of orange and yellow in the water. The koi pond.
Ren crossed the small bridge and settled on a low bench.
At his gesture of welcome, Vivian sat beside him.
“My ancestors are one of the oldest families on Mars, and they played an important role in the establishment of Martian Fundamental Rights. Until you laid out your argument, I hadn’t considered how much the Red Mothers initiative was in contradiction to the Declaration of the Rights of Mars.
I’m ashamed.” He looked around the serene garden.
“We built a beautiful homage to the famed Earth Japanese gardens here, but our efforts are meaningless if we refuse to honor the full vision of our ancestors.”
“Will you help me?” Vivian asked. “Fulfill the vision of the first Martians?”
He bowed from a seated position. “It would be my great pleasure. What did you have in mind?”
“Nothing yet. I need an education first. I was brought here to bring about a new future for Mars, and I believe I could still fulfill that mission, even if it isn’t in the way that Secretary Yarrow envisioned.
” Vivian rose and walked over the bridge toward the gate.
She turned her head back to look at Ren.
“I accept your apology. And I’m glad to count you as an ally. ”
Vivian lifted her head to the dark Martian sky as she walked unchallenged away from the Nakamura estate.
She’d come close, so close, to making the place her home.
The heady sense of relief at her freedom made her smile at every pedestrian she passed in this quiet stretch of the dome.
Some returned her smile. Others looked quickly away. A few crossed the street.
Tomorrow, she’d find a job. And soon, if she received the scholarship, figure out an apartment. And then, maybe, she’d be ready to go to Dr. Chavez and, finally, fully claim her freedom.