Chapter 13 Cora #2
"Talia was a kid who picked up languages.
She had Spanish from her mother. She had English from the enclave.
She started picking up the Vampyren-cohort handshakes from a Vampyren scout who came through in year three.
She had memorized the cohort hand-signs in two weeks.
She was the kid Mara called 'the listener.
' She did not talk much. She watched. She picked up everything.
She had asked me, the week before she died, what the Vampyren word for 'home' was.
I told her I did not know. She said she was going to find out and tell me. She did not get to."
"Nina."
"Yes."
"I have been carrying her name for eleven years."
"I know."
"I have been carrying it the wrong way. I have been carrying it as a verdict.
I have been carrying it as proof that I miscounted.
I miscounted twice. The count came up fifteen both times.
Talia was sixteen. The sixteenth was in the stall.
The protocol said to check the stalls. I had fifteen seconds.
I did not check. The protocol was the gap.
The count was correct. I have been carrying it the wrong way. "
"Cora."
"Drew told me. On a bridge in Missouri. He told me the count was correct.
He told me three nights ago. I have been holding the count differently since.
I am here now to tell her name out loud.
To you. Because you knew her. Because Drew told me the count was correct but the count was not the whole story.
The count was not the love. The count was just the count.
The love is the part that is. The love is the part that is mine to say. "
Nina was crying.
I was not, yet.
I said:
"Talia."
I said it to the stall.
"Talia."
I said it to Nina.
"Talia."
I said it to the bathroom.
The third saying was the saying that broke me.
The third saying was the saying that put me on my knees on the bathroom floor at the threshold of the third stall, on the tile that had been wet for eleven years from a leak in the roof I had never noticed in year three because I had not been on the second floor of this dormitory since the raid, and Nina came across the bathroom and sat on the floor with me, and we did not say anything for a long time.
I cried.
I had been crying twice this week. Once at the bridge, once at the gap. The third time was the crying I had been not doing for eleven years. The crying went deep. The crying went into the place where the wound was. The crying was what pulled the wound out.
I did not pretend the wound was gone.
The wound was still there.
The wound was a different shape now. The wound had been the verdict for eleven years. The wound was now grief. Grief was the right shape for the wound. Grief had been the shape Talia had earned. Grief had been the shape I had been refusing to let the wound take.
I cried.
Nina cried with me.
We sat on the bathroom floor together for a long time.
The band of light moved across the floor.
The light reached the stall. The light reached the tile.
The light reached the small crack in the back wall and lit the crack so I could see it from where I was sitting on the floor.
The crack was a thin pale line in the grout.
The grout was older than the crack. The crack was older than Talia.
The crack would still be there in another eleven years, and another, and as long as the dormitory stood.
The crack would be there for as long as someone was here to see it.
I would not be here to see it.
The dormitory would go on without me. The crack would go on without Talia. The grief would go on without the verdict.
The grief was mine to carry.
I would carry it home.
After a long time — I did not know how long — I sat back on my heels.
Nina sat back too.
She said:
"Cora."
"Yes."
"I have a thing to tell you."
"Tell me."
"Talia called you Maestra. That was her name for you.
The Spanish word. She did not call you Cora.
She called you Maestra. I never told you because the name was hers.
It was a name for you that lived only in her head.
After she died I kept the name. I have been calling you Maestra in my head for eleven years.
I am telling you now because. Cora. Because the name is mine to give back.
Maestra means teacher. Talia called you teacher.
Her last name for you in this world was teacher.
She loved you. She loved you the way kids love teachers.
Cora, you know how that love goes. The love is a forever thing.
Talia loved you forever. I am telling you so you have it. So the name is yours."
I sat on the bathroom floor.
I held the name.
I said: "Maestra."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"You are welcome."
"Nina."
"Yes."