“So you’re really leaving. Over a rat.”
“It’s not as if I have a choice, Mother. I’m exiled. I won’t waste my time with appeals. You know how headstrong everyone on the council is.” Headstrong might be the wrong word choice here. Pigheaded, perhaps. Unfair to pigs, though. And bigoted to boot.
“You’ll die out there, Penelope. Over a rat?”
“Over Jeffrey. And he’s not just a rat. He’s Rattus rattus anosophoros.” He stirs in the side pocket of my jacket. He always reacts to my distress. Now it only adds to his own. He misses the familiar scent and texture of my lab coat’s pocket. I stroke his head. Soon, love. Wait until we’re out.
“You can slap any fancy name on it, it’s still just a rat! And what about me? Your own mother?” A sniffle. Here come the waterworks.
How predictable. And how damned effective. It’s the last time you break my heart, Mother. “You’ll manage. You always do.”
I keep shoving things into my backpack: warm clothes, energy bars, ammo, med-kits, socks — one can never have too many socks in the wastelands. Or caramel-flavoured bars — to reminisce about the times I shared those with Jeffrey on my breaks. You keep sniffling. I keep my eyes on the task. I need to leave while the sun’s up to find shelter outside, in a world full of hungry, desperate survivors. Jeffrey’s warmth in my pocket adds to my resolve. I won’t be alone.
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And we’ve been through this before: you, sitting at the edge of my bed, weeping perfectly timed tears, clutching crumpled tissues now that you don’t have pearls to clutch any more, your back cemented straight in that proper, dignified posture.
“How can you do this to me? After everything I’ve done for you? So you could study that nonsense of yours? That nano-stuff!”
Well, that’s new. It’s the first time there’s the slightest pitch in your voice. You’ve never yelled at your black-sheep daughter, not when I moved away to study nanobiotechnology, not when you learnt I was gay, not even when I initially declined to join this gated community with trigger-happy armed guards. In the end, I caved; the early days of the plague terrified everyone.
“I’m not doing anything to you.” I exhale slowly to briefly diffuse decades of pent-up frustrations. Your face is more drawn than usual — bloodshot eyes, smudged eye-liner. Sincere emotion at this late hour. I soften my voice. “I do owe you gratitude for my place here and my assignment at the lab. But we both know I’d never belong.”
“You could.”
“I highly doubt it.” I stuff the backpack’s pockets with dried fruit and veggies for Jeffrey. He stirs again, eager to climb out to get his treat, just as he climbed over his siblings despite his defects. Be patient, boy. Please.
“My friend … Her son wants a wife. You could still have a place here, if you …”
“If I what? Be a part of the council’s plans to ‘repopulate the Earth’? No, thanks. You know I’m gay.”
A snort. “Oh, please. We all experimented in college. It’s time to grow up, Penelope!”
“That’s what I’m doing.” My backpack is as ready as it will ever be. I holster my handgun and secure my combat knife on my thigh. “I know, Mother. I know that I’m not the daughter you wanted, one you could be proud of, always the odd-one-out, your gay bookworm wallflower offspring. Or, rather wall-weed. Please, let’s not make our final moments together another battlefield. I’ll probably see enough fighting where I’m going.”
Now you won’t look at me. Your fingers stroke my neatly folded lab coat next to you on the bed.
“You’re wrong. I was proud seeing you in this … My little Penny, who’d find the cure, who’d save the world …” Weary, raspy voice.
