Remnant Population

“Will you eat with us?” Ariane asked. Ofelia shook her head.

“I should go home; Barto will want me. But I’ll come back later. “Ariane gave her a little hug; for the first time Ofelia could feel the bones through Ariane’s flesh. She looked at her daughter’s friend. Ariane was aging; she had hardly noticed before, but there were gray streaks in Ariane’s hair. In Ofelia’s mind, she had stayed the same age as Adelia — who had never aged past twenty, when she died. At home, Barto and Rosara were out somewhere; the house felt peaceful and cool without them. Ofelia laid the stack of completed mending on their bed, and went into her own room. Someone had dumped all her clothes onto her bed, pushing them into messy piles. Underwear, shirts, skirts, the one dress. She hated seeing her clothes like that. Underwear always looked vaguely indecent, even if it was plain and old, like hers. Limp unattractive shapes of beige and white, designed only to cover twice what her baggy clothes would have covered anyway.

She was not going. She would not have to wear underwear once there was no one to be scandalized because she did not. She felt her heart pounding, and a delicious sense of wickedness rose from between her toes to the top of her scalp, bathing her in heat. She went back to the living room and looked down the lane. Nothing. They would be eating in the center, more than likely.

Ofelia went back to her room and shut the door. She had no window in her room. Stealthily, she took off her clothes. In broad daylight, her public voice scolded. For no reason. Her new voice, the one that said she wasn’t going, said nothing. For an instant, breathing hard, she stood naked in her room, and then she slipped her outer clothes back on, leaving a pile of underclothes on the floor. Indecent! shrieked her public voice. Shameless! Disgusting!

She could feel the skin on her belly, on her hips, on her thighs, touching the cloth of her skirt. She took a tentative step, then another. A little draft between her legs, coolness where she was used to heat. No! her public voice told her. You can’t do that.

The private new voice said nothing. It didn’t have to say anything. She could not do it now, not while other people were there to condemn. But later… later she would wear only what felt good on her body. Whatever that was.

Quickly, without paying attention to herself or her feelings of distaste, she undressed and dressed again, properly. The underclothes, all of them. The outer clothes, all of them. For now. For twenty-nine more days.

She had just dressed, and refolded her clothes into neater stacks, when Barto and Rosara came back. They had a new grievance.

“They say you are too old,” Barto said, glowering at her as if she had chosen that age on that day. “Retired,” Rosara said. “Too old to work.” Ridiculous. She had always worked; she would work until she died; that’s what people did. “Seventy,” Barto said. “You’re no longer on contract, and they say it will cost them to send you somewhere else, and you won’t be of use to the colony anyway” It did not surprise her, but it angered her. Useless? Did they think she was of no use now, because she had no formal job, and only kept the garden and the house, and did most of the cooking? “They are going to charge our account,” Rosara said.

“We will have to pay back the cost of shipping you.”

“There was a retirement guarantee in the contract.”

Barto said, “but when you didn’t remarry, didn’t have more children, you lost a portion of it.” They had not told her that. They had said she would lose her productivity bonus, even though she kept working full time. They had said nothing about retirement. But of course, they made the rules. And with this rule, perhaps they had made it easy for her to stay behind.

“I could just stay here,” Ofelia said. “Then they wouldn’t charge you—”

“Of course you can’t stay here!” Barto slammed his fist on the table, and the dishes rattled. “An old woman, alone — you would die.”

“I will die anyway,” Ofelia said. “That’s what they mean. And if I stayed, it wouldn’t cost you anything.” “But, mama! You can’t think I’d leave you here to die alone. You know I love you.” Barto looked as if he might cry, his great red face crumpling with the effort to project filial devotion. “I might die alone anyway, in the cryo. Isn’t it supposed to be more dangerous for old people?” She could see by the look on his face that he knew that already, had probably just been told that. “That would be better than dying here, the only person on the whole planet,” Barto said. “I would be with your father,” Ofelia said. It was an argument that might work with Barto, who remembered his father as a godlike person who could do no wrong. But she hated herself for the lie, even as she said it.

“Mama, don’t be sentimental! Papa’s dead. He’s been dead for—” Barto had to stop and work it out; Ofelia knew. Thirty-six years.