Matched

I’m hunting around through my meager belongings when my mother comes into the room. She returned late last night from her third trip out of Oria. “Are you looking for something?” she asks.

I straighten up. “I found it,” I say, holding up the fragment of green under glass. I don’t want to tel her that I can’t find the Match Banquet box.

She takes the square from me and holds it up, the green fabric from the dress catching the light. “Did you know that there used to be windows with colored glass?” she asks. “People put them in places where they worshipped. Or in their own homes.”

“Stained glass,” I say. “Papa’s told me about it.” It does sound beautiful: light shining through color, windows as art or tribute.

“Of course he has,” she says, laughing at herself. “I final y submitted that report today, and now I’m so tired I can’t think wel .”

“Is everything al right?” I ask. I want to ask her what she meant about the trees that day, why she thought their loss was a warning to her, but I don’t think I want to know. After the real-life sort I feel like I can’t take any more pressure; I feel as though I already know too much. Besides, my mother seems happier now than she’s seemed in weeks, and I don’t want to change that.

“I think it wil be,” she says.

“Oh, good,” I say. We’re both silent for a moment, looking at my dress under glass.

“Are you going to have to travel again?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she says. “I think that’s finished. I hope.” She stil looks exhausted, but I can see that submitting the report has lifted a burden.

I take the memento back from her, and as I do, I have an idea. “Can I see the piece of your dress?” The last time I looked at it was the night before my Match Banquet. I was a little nervous, and she brought me the dress fragment and told me again the story of their Match with its happy ending. But so much has changed since then.

“Of course,” she says, and I fol ow her into her bedroom. The framed bit of fabric sits on a little shelf inside the closet she shares with my father, along with two silver boxes—hers and Papa’s—that held their microcards and, later, the rings for their Contract. The rings are purely ceremonial, of course—they don’t get to keep them—and they give the microcards back to the Officials at the Contract celebration. So my parents’ silver boxes are empty.

I pick up her dress fragment and hold it up. My mother’s gown was blue and thanks to preservation techniques, the satin is stil bright and lovely in its frame.

I put it next to mine along the windowsil . Together, side by side, I imagine that they look a little like a stained-glass window. The light behind them brightens them, and I can almost imagine that I could look through the colors and see a world made beautiful and different.

My mother understands. “Yes,” she says. “I imagine the windows looked something like that.”

I want to tel her everything but I can’t. Not now. I am too fragile. I am trapped in glass and I want to break out and breathe deep but I’m too afraid that it wil hurt.

My mother puts her arm around me. “Can you tel me what’s wrong?” she asks gently. “Is it something to do with your Match?”

I reach for my dress fragment and take it down from the window so my mother’s sits up there alone. I don’t trust myself to speak, so I shake my head. How can I explain to my perfectly Matched mother everything that has happened? Everything I’ve risked? How can I explain to her that I’d do it again? How can I tel her that I hate the system that created her life, her love, her family? That created me?

Instead, I ask, “How did you know?”

She reaches for her frame and takes it down, too. “At first, I could see that you were fal ing deeper and deeper in love, but I didn’t worry about it because I thought your Match was perfect for you. Xander is wonderful. And you might be able to stay in Oria, nearby, since both of your families live here. As a mother, I couldn’t imagine a better scenario.”

She pauses, looking at me. “And then I was so busy with work. It took until today for me to realize that I was wrong. You weren’t thinking of Xander.”

Don’t say it, I beg her with my eyes. Don’t say that you know I’m in love with someone else. Please.

“Cassia,” she tel s me, and the love in her eyes for me is pure and true and that’s what makes her next words cut deep, because I know she has my best interests at heart. “I’m married to someone wonderful. I have two beautiful children and a job I love. It’s a good life.” She holds out the piece of blue satin. “Do you know what would happen if I broke this glass?”

I nod. “The cloth would disintegrate. It would be ruined.”

“Yes,” she says, and then it’s almost as if she’s speaking to herself. “It would be ruined. Everything would be ruined.”

Then she puts her hand on my arm. “Do you remember what I said the day they cut the trees down?”

Of course I do. “About how it was a warning for you?”