Mira and I know practically nothing about our mother, though, except for the idealistic picture our father painted. I could never bear to see the pain in his eyes when we goaded him for stories of what our mother was like outside of the happy holograms he showed to us. We eventually learned to stop asking. In grief all the little flaws of those we loved are colored over.
But I never stopped wondering about the entire portrait—the sharp edges and hidden cracks. How did she react when someone angered her? What did she look like when she cried? When she screamed? Did she let others see her weaknesses, or did she build a wall as high as mine?
I can’t see any trace of her in the face sitting across from me now, but I know Rayla must keep her daughter somewhere safe inside her heart, melded alongside her fervor for rebellion. Share her with me. Let me see my mother as she once was, before that fatal egg split into two.
“Your mother was on the path of becoming a valued leader. She was eager from a young age, just like I was when I joined at fifteen,” Rayla says, a smile tugging at her lips for the first time.
The pulsating music from below suddenly cuts off, leaving the room in silence but for the quiet hum of the old-fashioned refrigerator in the kitchen.
“Lynn was brilliant. Unrivaled. By the time she was barely older than you are now, she was a growing influence within the Denver community, with her great sense of compassion and charm. I was convinced the cause would burn once more in the hearts of the public when it was her turn to take the helm of the movement. I knew she could give the people knowledge and courage, and under our leadership the rebellion would emerge from the shadows once more,” Rayla says, a vivid pride lighting up her eyes.
Then a shadow darkens her face. “But before she was able to reach her potential, she met Darren and her focus became clouded,” she says.
Rayla looks down at her hands, breaking off her speech. I’m anxious for her to continue the untold backstory of my parents, but I wait respectfully during this interlude, knowing she must be wading through heavy memories.
“And our father? What happened then?” Mira asks, pulling our grandmother back to us.
“Darren was already working on Roth’s staff by then, which I of course did not approve of,” Rayla continues, rolling down the sleeve of her shirt to cover her brazen tattoo. “He didn’t approve of me either, to put it mildly.”
She sharply sucks in a lungful of air and breathes out the rest of the story in a hurry, as if each word is a stab to her tongue that she can only withstand in one painful burst.
“They knew I would never give my consent to their union—it would never last with Darren belonging to a man like Roth. So one day, she just vanished. Out of the blue, gone. I tracked her down in Texas, found out she was with Darren in Dallas. Pregnant. I showed up at their home in Trinity Heights unannounced. But it was Darren who answered the door.”
She pauses, lost in thought.
“And then what happened?” I press.
“Your father demanded I permanently cut off all communication with his new family. He said he was going to protect Lynn and their child. I thought he brainwashed her.”
Rayla stares at Mira and me from across the table, and a long-sought clarity crosses into her eyes.
“All these years I could never answer the question why. But now . . . here it is.” She gestures toward Mira and me. Her illegal twin granddaughters.
She closes her eyes, letting this new knowledge sink in.
Suddenly Rayla rises from her chair and stalks to the far wall, where she stops face-to-face with a photograph of my father.
“Darren must have joined the Common after the death of your mother.”
“He played for both sides . . .” I say, realizing how big the game actually is.
Father smiles in his impressive ceremonial uniform—his Family Planning Division badge fastened over his right breast—enclosed in a gaudy golden frame, completely incongruous with the rest of the apartment.
“You hypocritical son of a bitch,” Rayla says an inch from his face, her voice seething. “You still did Roth’s bidding!”
All at once she pounces. Her anger and hurt, which must have lain dormant for years, manifests in a single punch, and Father crashes onto the carpeted floor in a spray of glass and vengeance.
Mira springs to her feet.
“Our father sacrificed himself for us!” she shouts passionately in his defense.
Rayla turns away from Father, the knuckles of her right hand cut and bleeding onto the leg of her pants.
“As he should have. As your mother did,” she says evenly.
I rise from the couch, disoriented from the twists and turns of our family history, to stand next to my sister. I open my mouth, a hundred burning questions begging to be asked, but Rayla holds up her hand, stopping me. She takes a breath, gathering back into herself all that spilled emotion, and by the time she breathes out again, she has sealed herself shut.
She signals to the bedroom behind us.
“You can both sleep in my bed tonight, and there’s enough water for a shower. You both stink.”
She walks toward the front door.
“Where are you going?” Mira demands.
“Do not leave this apartment, and answer the door to no one.”
Without another word, our grandmother slips through the front door and secures the twin locks behind her, leaving Mira and me staring blankly at the yellow door glaring back at us.
MIRA
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ava tells me from the other side of the steamy glass door.
“You took all the water,” I say. The dented screen below the showerhead, the only piece of modern technology I’ve seen in this ancient apartment, reads “.25 Gallons Remaining.”
“She might not be the nicest person, but nice won’t keep us alive,” Ava says.
The water pressure is weak and comes out in fitful spurts, but it’s hot and does its job of rinsing me clean of the filth I’ve acquired from the long journey getting here. I watch it all spill down my shins, slide over my toes, and sink through the drain to be purified, stored, and recycled for tomorrow’s shower.
If we’re still here tomorrow.
“But I feel good about her, Mira,” Ava continues, “and she’s blood.”
I don’t want to talk. I just want to stand still and soak in the warm, comforting water that drizzles over my head, massaging my tired muscles and my tired mind.
In Dallas, the night before it was my turn to go up, I would bathe in our tub for what seemed like hours, allowing the transformative powers of soap and water to cleanse me until I was pink and raw, a clear canvas, restored and reenergized to confront another day in a dangerous world I had no right to be in.
I don’t want to think either, I decide.
Before I can staunch my unwanted thoughts and absorb any sense of peace, the shower turns off without warning.
“Dammit!” I shout, punching the screen that flashes “Empty” in my face. The heated moisture hangs heavily in the air, concentrating above my arms and chest as if the steam were rising from my fuming temper.
“I’ll see if the recycling tank’s been purified yet,” Ava says coolly, a formless blue blob in the cloudy vapor.
“Don’t bother,” I say a little too harshly, the shampoo dripping down my forehead, stinging my eyes.