21 Thirty Years Ago
Thirty Years Ago
I am five the first time I disappoint my mother.
More accurately, it’s the first time I understand that I disappoint my mother.
I’ve spent the last month learning to read, and Nanny gave me a book of my own.
It was an alphabet board book, full of future careers: librarian, teacher, scientist, engineer.
“I want to be a truck driver when I grow up,” I proudly tell my mother when she asks for the weekly update on my education.
“What a quintessentially human occupation,” she says, her lip curled as if she’s smelled something particularly rotten.
I already know that to say nothing is better than to say the wrong thing. I don’t understand what “quintessentially” means, nor why she spits the word “human” as if it were a curse. But I do understand that something inside me curls up to hide, to shrink away from the expression on her face.
“I could see the whole world. Meet lots of people.” I already have an incurable case of wanderlust—understandable for an isolated child who lives among adults on a secretive base in the middle of the desert.
But one thing my mother never understood was my desire for human connection.
She has always wanted to stand separate, alone and apart from everyone.
“I created you for a much greater purpose than driving trucks, Regina,” she says dismissively, without cracking a smile.
This is the first time I find out I’m expected to be something besides ordinary—something better, something more, superhuman.
“Nanny says I can be whatever I want,” I reply stubbornly. Proud enough to hold back the tears I feel prickling at the edges of my vision.
It’s the first time I feel the heavy weight of inadequacy, the first time I register the disgust on my mother’s face as I don’t quite measure up.
My mother doesn’t say another word about the conversation, but my book disappears, and Nanny doesn’t say goodbye. I have a new nanny the next week. It takes several years before I realize that the word “nanny” is a job title rather than a given name.
On my tenth birthday, my mother gets me a mask—black mesh with silver accents, like a star-splattered night sky.
My mask is similar to the one she wears outside our living quarters.
But it is different enough that we won’t be mistaken for each other.
Different enough to feel like my own. I feel the weight of looming adulthood and the taste of freedom in the concealment simultaneously.
Somehow I can still see perfectly through the material, though the mask remains utterly featureless.
Behind it, I grin, stick out my tongue, cross my eyes, and the figure in the mirror simply cocks their head.
My antics would be unnerving if you didn’t know what I was doing behind it.
My head tilts from side to side, like a reptile sighting prey.
When I’m upset or angry, I no longer have to work to hide it.
It’s the first time I truly feel my mother understands me.
She never acknowledges the “otherness” she feels.
But I know it’s there. I’ve always been able to see it.
To hear it. A little voice in my head whispering, like you.
Whatever it is, it lurks under her surface, lashing out like a monster when noticed.
Strangely, it’s one of the few things I have in common with my mother.
Though I’m determined to be different from her.
To keep even the knowledge from her that we are two of a kind.
It’s easy because she doesn’t invite confidence, after all.
But this mask she gives me marks one of the few times she sees me for who I am, one of the few times she sees what I want and hands it to me without condition.
I can be any character in the mask. I’m “Kingsley,” eliciting a differential nod and downcast eyes.
Not “Adele’s daughter,” resulting in dismissive eyes that hardly skim over me.
People treat me like I’m an adult, an equal.
I bask in the power of it. I’m “Regina” rarely, only in my mother’s presence. Never Reggie, like I want to be called.
The first time I wear the mask isn’t just significant because it’s my tenth birthday.
It’s also the day I meet my sister. My mother walks me into a dimly lit room, the one across the hall from mine.
I’m usually not allowed in this room that’s seen a rotating cast of staff wandering in and out for months.
I’m used to living in this underground castle filled with off-limits areas, but they usually aren’t so busy or so near my bedroom.
At first, I’m disappointed at the mundane surroundings.
The space is hardly different from my own quarters.
A chair, a couch, a desk with a lamp and alarm clock.
But instead of a twin bed, there’s a row of tiny, clear plastic bins on wheels.
The kind I’ve seen on TV shows, the kind that hold babies.
My feet move to the three bassinets before I know what I’m doing.
The first one holds a bald little cherub with pink cheeks.
A blue blanket means boy. While I may not spend any time outside these walls, rarely interacting with anyone but my nannies and tutors, I’ve watched and studied diligently from afar.
I take notes while watching Nickelodeon and memorize every conversational nuance in the pages of my Sarah Dessen books; I could recite them by heart.
The angelic baby boy sleeps quietly, never noticing my presence.
I feel bad waking him, so I let him sleep.
The second bassinet holds a squalling red-faced, pink-swathed bundle over which I don’t linger long; I hadn’t realized how loud babies could be.
“Do you feel anything?” my mother asks me abruptly, removing the mask she usually wears.
My steps falter. I pause before walking to the third bassinet. There’s an edge to my mother’s voice; her eyes are intent, fixed on me. I stare at her features, the contours less familiar to me than her mask. Some undefined question is written across her face.
“Well? Can you sense anything? Anyone?”
I have no idea what she’s asking me, but I have the sense I will fail this test. Carefully, I school my face to keep my expression blank, before I remember the mask. This isn’t the first sort of test like this, given without warning, with undisclosed parameters and unrevealed stakes.
I choose silence, cocking my head questioningly.
My mother’s losing patience with me. “They’re all from powerfully magical bloodlines, if it worked—” She snaps her mouth shut and frowns.
Am I supposed to be sensing the most magical of the babies?
My studies have included magic for a while now.
Magic doesn’t work that way; it can’t be sensed in a person.
But if these babies come from magical bloodlines, then it’s likely they will be magical as well.
What more could I possibly confirm for her?
She asked if I could sense anyone. Is she talking about tethers?
My mother has always struggled to tether properly.
In fact, she’s told me to use magic without them, like she does, saying that tethers are unnecessary, a crutch.
That the lore is mistaken. My magical tutors have cautioned me against this, above all else.
I’ve been told to lie to her. The most fundamental rule in my magic teaching has been twofold.
Use tethers, and never let your mother know, for your own safety.
So far, I’ve gotten away with it, kept it hidden from my mother.
Tethering to my magical tutors, nannies I’m fond of, even one guardsman who had a soft spot for me.
But the strength of tethers isn’t something constant or easily quantifiable.
Tether strength usually depends only on proximity and connection, but not always—there’s something about me that bends those rules.
Maybe she’s looking for someone like me.
I’ve already long known I’m particularly good at wielding magic.
I’m sure it’s because I can tether so well.
This is my biggest secret. The only reason my mother can use magic is me.
She thinks she isn’t tethered, thinks she operates alone.
But it’s because of me. I keep her safe.
I stand in her shadow where she’ll never sense me and hold on tight even when I know she’d throw me off if she knew.
But why would she want a baby who can tether exceptionally well when she doesn’t even want me tethering, doesn’t even know that tethers are the reason for my strength?
I’ve waited too long to answer, and I see the disappointment in my mother’s face at my failure.
I wish she’d put her mask back on. The way she looks away, interest lost, stings.
“That one,” I say without considering the consequences as I point toward the third bassinet.
My mother looks back at me sharply, hope flickering in her eyes. “Are you sure?” she says almost tenderly as she follows me to the last bassinet.
I think the words “I love you” for the first time standing over the third bassinet.
Love isn’t a sentiment my mother has ever expressed directly to me, but I’ve learned about it, nonetheless.
Nannies, tutors, guards—I haven’t grown up entirely uncared for.
Sometimes I think my mother wants to love me but just doesn’t know how.
Sometimes I think she’s incapable of the emotion.
But I am not. And standing over the little creature in the third bassinet, I can’t help falling into a pool of emotion, submerging myself before remembering that no one’s taught me to swim.
I’ve never been around children before, yet there’s something about this one that I adore instantly.
The smallest of the babies, her limbs too disproportionate, lacking any extra baby fat to be conventionally cute.
She startles when I touch the soft brown skin of her bare belly; she’s clad in only a diaper and has a thick swatch of unruly dark hair that covers her whole overlarge head.
Though her face screws up with discontent against the touch of my cool fingers, she’s utterly silent.
“This one? Are you quite sure?”
I stare down at this baby whose fate lies in my hands, who still doesn’t cry, though I must look terrifying in my new mask. She wears a quizzical look and reaches out a hand as if to grab for me.
“Yes,” I say definitively, with no idea what I’m agreeing to. The moment feels solemn and oddly loaded.
“Then welcome to this strange world, little one. Zara. And happy birthday, Regina,” my mother says, her voice soft. I’ve never heard her sound so human and gentle before.
I have a sister. Zara.
A nanny bustles into the room, breaking the strange spell. My mother immediately straightens, places her mask back on her face, and chastises the nanny coolly, “I wanted them presentable before we came in.”
“I was changing the bedding and her clothes. She made quite a mess of them,” the nanny I’ve never met before says, quickly moving toward the third baby’s bassinet, fresh sheets in hand, as Mother looms disapprovingly.
I move without thinking to lift baby Zara from the crib, though I don’t really know what I’m doing.
I rely on instinct and what I’ve seen in sitcoms. Watch out for her head and neck.
She has a vaguely chemical smell, like the soap in the dispensers in the bathrooms. She’s heavier and more awkward to hold than I expected.
But I’ve learned confidence is the key. If I pretend I have the confidence and authority to do something, I’m granted it.
The last nanny cried when Mother fired her. I have no desire to witness another scene, and I want nothing more than to hear my mother soft and gentle again. If only everything could go perfectly on this momentous day. It’s not every day you reach the double digits.
“You know what to do with the rest of them,” Mother says to the nanny.
“What?” I say, distracted. This third baby stares up at me, and I’m entirely overwhelmed by the trust I see in her eyes.
“Don’t worry about it, Regina; we don’t need the others,” Mother says as the nanny quietly nods her understanding with averted eyes.
My stomach churns uncomfortably. I don’t know what she means, but I don’t like the tone she uses, as if she were talking about tossing clothes I’ve outgrown into a trash bin.
Shoving away the nanny, I sink into the chair. I stare down at Zara’s eyes as they close, as her body grows impossibly heavier and more solid with sleep.
“What happens to the other babies?” I ask, my voice raspy and monotone. I don’t know if that’s the mask or if it’s just who I am at this moment.
“That’s irrelevant,” Mother says, her voice equal parts matter-of-fact and cold.
My heart beats wildly in my chest. What fate did I choose for the others, I wonder. I hope I’ve made the right choice.
Zara cries endlessly as a baby. She won’t sleep unless she’s held and rocked vigorously.
“It’s colic,” one of the night nannies explains to me.
It’s annoying as shit is what I think. But I know better than to tattle.
Instead, I find ways to cope. I wear earplugs to sleep, earplugs I steal from the containers outside the noisy rooms. This night nanny is my favorite.
I wish she would tell me her name, but she refuses.
She whispers dark fairy tales and grim monster stories to me when I can’t sleep while she rocks Zara endlessly.
The darker version of The Little Mermaid, the one where the mermaid sacrifices herself rather than allow her prince to come to harm, even though he doesn’t pick her in the end.
Cinderella, whose stepsisters cut off parts of their own feet to masquerade as their sister.
The big bad wolf who eats grandmothers. I love these stories, the ones that feel truer than the silly versions in my picture books.
This most favorite nanny only gets angry once, when two-year-old Zara calls her “Ma.”
“Never call me that word. Never let her hear you say that,” Nanny hisses, holding Zara’s face in her hands. Tears drip silently down Zara’s plump cheeks. Nanny breathes heavily, as if she’s been running as her eyes dart nervously around the room.
She leaves soon after that. Zara takes her loss harder than I do.
I retell Nanny’s stories on a loop in my head until thinking about them doesn’t leave a lump in my throat.
I’m twelve, nearly thirteen, and I consider myself a teenager already.
Nannies have come and gone for years, and I’m too old for them, anyway. Zara cries for days, her first loss.