Woman on the Edge of Time

“Where will you go?”

“Down the highway, there’s a good‑sized town in maybe ten miles. I’m not sure how far I’ve come. There has to be a bus station there. I’ll walk through the night and then in the morning go to the bus station. Then I’ll go as far as I can on five dollars. I’ll use what I have left for food and some clothes from a thrift shop. A dress, some secondhand shoes, and a purse. Once I get to New York I figure I’m safe.”

Luciente required definitions of thrift shop, ticket, purse, and still she looked dubious. “Soaking the sumac in water will give us a poultice for your feet.”

When Luciente prepared the sticky mess, she pressed it on her soles. Then Luciente kissed her, wished her success, and left. The baked potatoes were mealy and almost inedible without salt, but she ate them anyhow, slowly. A potato without salt roasted in freedom can taste wonderful. Then she lay on her smock, but she did not sleep. Her brain would not quite shut down. Instead she half dreamed. The fire had burned out to dim coals that still gave off some smoke, some warmth.

The embryos in the brooder swam and sang to her, a fish song that did not bubble but vibrated directly into her body, into her midriff; they were bobbing and schooling and serenading her. All were promising to be her little baby, they would be her baby tonight, tomorrow, maybe on Sunday. She would be co‑mother, she would have a baby again of her own to suckle at her breast, to carry, to rock to sleep. Her robbed body twisted to seize one.

She was watching a birth. The three mothers were ritually bathed in a sauna‑sweat house and, dressed in red, they were brought in a procession of family and friends to the brooder. One of the mothers was Sojourner, the old person from Luciente’s family with eyes of coal chips, one of the mothers was Jackrabbit, and the third was her. They held each other’s hands and she walked in the middle. The robes were heavy, encrusted with embroidery. On hers were doves and eggs. Everyone was carrying bouquets of late summer flowers, asters and phlox and white lilies streaked with crimson and wide as plates that lay down a heavy scent, bouquets of marigold and nasturtium.

Some were dmmming, and toward the back of the procession a child was playing one of those flutes that sounded poignant and sad to her, although the melody was gay enough. Her heart felt too large under the robe. She gripped the hands of her comothers tight, tight, till Sojourner gently asked her not to squeeze so much, while Jackrabbit gave her grip for grip. Just behind them Luciente beat on her carved drums a syncopated galloping march. Bee nodded to her, carrying a sheaf of yellow and red and bronze bold‑faced sunflowers.

As they came to the brooder, everyone fell back except the three of them, who entered. They stood under the sterilizer, helping each other out of the robes and hanging them on hooks to the side. Naked they went into the center chamber, where Barbarossa, the birther, was waiting for them. Dressed in his brooder uniform of yellow and blue, he embraced each. As she looked down at herself, she felt her breasts, swollen from the shots, already dribbling colostrum. She and Jackrabbit were to breast‑feed. Sojourner explained she had decided not to try it.

“I didn’t have my first child till I was fifty‑five,” she said. “I fought in the battle of Space Platform Alpha. And in the battle of Arlington and Fort Bragg. Long, long before we had brooders, I had myself sterilized so that I wouldn’t be tempted to turn aside from the struggle. I thought I had left my sex behind me. Now I am seventy‑four and my family does me the honor of believing there’s enough life in me to make a mother a second time.”

Now all three knelt, the old woman getting down slowly but stubbornly on her gnarled knees. Barbarossa stood before them like a priest officiating at Mass. “Do you, Sojourner, desire this baby to be born?”

“I, Sojourner, desire to mother this child”

“Do you, Jackrabbit, desire this baby to be born?” and then “Do you, Connie, desire this baby to be born?”

She said softly, “I do. I, Connie, desire to mother this child.”

Barbarossa turned. The gawky teen‑age assistant she had met in the brooder was delivering the baby from the strange contracting canal while Barbarossa stood by to tie the cord and hold it squalling up, screaming and squirming. A small black girl whose skin gleamed waxy and bright.

“Do you, Sojourner, accept this child, Selma, to mother, to love, and then to let go?”

Sojourner held out her old black arms for the baby, nestling it to her. “I’ll mother you, love you, and let you go, Selma.”

“Do you, Jackrabbit, accept this child to mother, to love, and then to let go?”

Jackrabbit received the baby from Sojourner. “I’ll mother you, love you, and let you go, Selma.”