Chapter 375: Before I Found Out

My mother keeps looking at Rhayne.

The surprise lasts a few seconds. Then it disappears almost all at once, replaced by the smile she uses when she notices someone uncomfortable inside her house.

"Of course she can stay."

Rhayne doesn’t seem to expect an answer that fast.

"Mrs. Sands, I don’t want to impose. I can look for somewhere tomorrow and—"

"Rhayne, right?"

"Yes."

"Then come in, Rhayne. You can worry about tomorrow later."

My mother touches her arm lightly and points at the couch.

"You can put the backpack there."

Rhayne looks at me before stepping inside.

I give her a small nod.

My mother keeps smiling while she watches the backpack go down beside the couch.

I know that smile.

The welcome is real. My mother would probably take Rhayne in even if I’d brought home a stranger found sleeping on the sidewalk.

But the rest is performance. She’s worried, and it isn’t about space in the apartment or expenses.

Her eyes move over Rhayne, come back to me, drop to the backpack, and rise again. She’s trying to make it look like there’s no question happening inside her head.

This is the woman who spent half my childhood saying she’d already eaten so I’d finish her food. She’s my mother, so.

I know when she’s pretending.

"Come meet someone."

She leads Rhayne to the bouncer near the couch.

Lili is busy hitting a plastic piece attached to the side, producing the same noise every few seconds. When she notices people coming over, she stops and looks at Rhayne.

"This is Lili."

Rhayne crouches down.

All the stiffness she brought from the orphanage seems to ease a little.

"Hi."

Lili holds out a hand.

Rhayne offers her index finger, and the small fingers close around it immediately.

"Wow. She’s got a grip."

"Wait until she discovers hair," my mother says. "Then you’ll learn what she’s really capable of."

Rhayne smiles.

Lili tries to pull Rhayne’s finger toward her mouth.

"Hey. That’s not food."

"She disagrees," I say.

My mother shoots me a quick look.

"Don’t interrupt their conversation."

"I live here too."

"Today you’re outnumbered."

Rhayne laughs quietly.

It’s the first laugh I’ve heard from her since we walked into that orphanage.

My mother watches the two of them for a few seconds, and something in her expression actually relaxes.

Then she looks at me.

"Rhayne, can you keep an eye on Lili for a minute?"

"Of course, Mrs. Sands."

She heads for the kitchen.

Before she disappears:

"And... Den. Come help me in here."

I look at her back.

’There it is.’

Rhayne notices.

"What?"

"Nothing..."

"You made a face."

"Pattern recognition"

I go into the kitchen.

My mother is standing at the counter doing absolutely nothing.

’She didn’t even bother setting up an alibi.’

The moment I’m out of the living room’s line of sight, she lowers her voice.

"What is this?"

"It’s not what you’re thinking."

She folds her arms.

"You don’t know what I’m thinking."

"I said I was going to pick up someone important in District 3. I came back with a pretty girl, a backpack full of clothes, and a question about whether she could live here. I have a decent estimate."

My mother presses her lips together, holding something between irritation and the urge to laugh.

"At least you noticed that much."

"Rhayne is my friend. Her orphanage closed. She came back today and found out she doesn’t have a home anymore."

"I believe you."

"Good."

"I said I believe you."

I frown.

"What’s the difference?"

She tips her head slightly toward the living room.

"The girl is another story."

"Mom..."

"What?"

"You talked to her for two minutes!"

"And?"

"That doesn’t make you an expert about her!"

"Den, she looked at you before walking into our house."

"Because I’m the one who brought her."

"She looked at you before putting the backpack down."

"Because she didn’t know where to put it."

"She looked at you when I said she could stay."

"That’s called trust."

My mother stares at me for a moment.

"You’re very intelligent about some things."

"Thank you."

"That wasn’t a compliment."

I let out a sigh.

"Rhayne trusts me. We’ve been through a lot together. I’ve helped her a few times, she looks up to me a little, and—"

My mother raises an eyebrow.

I stop.

"That came out worse than it sounded in my head."

"A little."

"You know what I meant."

"I do. And trust and admiration don’t turn a girl that color when she meets her possible future mother-in-law."

I close my eyes.

"For the love of God."

My mother almost laughs.

"She went red."

"Rhayne goes red easily."

The silence that follows tells me I’ve just made a mistake.

I open my eyes.

My mother is smiling.

"You’ve noticed that she goes red easily."

"I spend time with her."

"Of course."

"Don’t start."

"I didn’t start anything."

"You’re making that face."

"What face?"

"The mother face that thinks it figured something out before her son did."

"Maybe I did."

I run a hand through my hair.

She keeps her voice low.

"Do you like her?"

The joking fades a little.

I look through the kitchen doorway.

I can see part of the couch and the side of the bouncer, but Rhayne is outside my field of view. I can hear her voice saying something to Lili.

"She’s important to me."

My mother takes a moment before answering.

"That wasn’t what I asked."

"It’s the answer I have."

She watches me.

She doesn’t push.

"All right."

Then she finally starts taking things out of the cabinets.

"Just be careful."

"I am."

"I’m not talking about Thirstfall."

I look at her.

"I’m not playing with Rhayne."

"I know. If I thought you were, this conversation would be different."

She sets a pot on the counter.

"I’m telling you to be careful because sometimes you decide what a person feels before you let them say it."

That bothers me enough to tell me she hit something.

"She just lost her home. I’m not going to be thinking about that right now."

"Good."

My mother looks at me.

"But she might be."

I go quiet.

She turns back to the food.

"Go look after your sister. I’ll make something for you two to eat."

I take two steps.

"Den."

I stop.

"Be gentle with her."

There’s no joking in her voice.

"I am."

"I know."

This time she smiles.

"That’s exactly why."

I go back to the living room.

Only now do I actually take in the apartment.

A few things have changed.

Nothing big enough to transform the place. It’s still the same couch, the same television, the same small table, and the same cramped kitchen.

But there’s a new throw over the worn arm of the couch. The diapers by the wall are a better brand. Lili is in a padded bouncer that didn’t exist the last time I came back.

Then I see the device near the window.

A humidifier.

Small, white, releasing a thin mist into the air.

I stand there looking at it.

On our Earth, spending water to raise the humidity in an apartment is the kind of comfort a family like ours cut from the list before even checking the price.

It isn’t a luxury product for people with money.

For people without it, it is.

It helps with the constant dryness, respiratory irritation, eyes, skin. For Lili especially, it means growing up in a slightly less hostile environment.

My mother bought it.

That tells me more than the device does.

She has started to believe she can spend the money I left.

For years, any extra money in that house went toward an emergency that inevitably arrived. Food, water, and medicine always came before comfort.

Now there’s water being used to improve the air.

I feel a strange kind of satisfaction.

Maybe because part of everything I do in Thirstfall comes down to this.

I want my family to have small things without having to feel guilty about them.

"Den?"

I look at Rhayne.

She’s sitting on the floor beside the bouncer. Lili is holding two of her fingers now and seems completely fascinated by the discovery.

"Hm?"

Rhayne glances at the humidifier I was still staring at.

"Something wrong?"

"The opposite."

I sit on the couch.

She keeps playing with Lili.

After a few seconds:

"Now I get it."

"You’re going to have to be more specific."

Rhayne smiles.

"You."

"That clarified very little."

She keeps her eyes on the baby.

"Why you fight the way you do."

My urge to answer with something stupid passes.

"What way?"

Rhayne thinks.

"Like you can never afford to lose time."

Lili opens her hand and Rhayne touches the palm with a fingertip.

"Even when we aren’t fighting, you’re preparing something. Money. Equipment. Routes. People. Always trying to get somewhere before a problem does."

"Problems have a terrible habit of arriving early."

"I know."

She looks around.

"I just didn’t understand why coming back here seemed so important in the middle of all that."

Her eyes go back to Lili.

"Now I do."

I don’t answer.

"She doesn’t even know she needs you," Rhayne continues.

"She probably thinks food appears when she screams."

"For her, it does."

"Fair point."

Rhayne smiles, but her tone doesn’t change.

"You look at her the way you look at someone you have to protect, except here you aren’t looking for an enemy."

That one catches me a little.

"Are you analyzing me now?"

"Maybe."

"Arthur would be proud."

The mention causes a brief change in her face, but Rhayne doesn’t run from it.

"Maybe."

She keeps holding Lili’s hand.

For a moment she seems far away.

"Do you remember your parents?" I ask.

Rhayne takes a while.

"A little."

"Were you very young when you were left alone?"

She nods.

"I have a few images. I just don’t know which ones actually happened."

I look at her.

"What do you mean?"

"I think I remember my mother’s smell. Something sweet. I also remember her playing with my hair."

Rhayne pauses.

"But there was a photo of her fixing my hair. I saw it so many times that sometimes I think the memory was born from the photo."

"It could be a real memory."

"It could."

She moves her fingers, and Lili tries to grab them again.

"My father used to put me on his shoulders."

"You remember that?"

Rhayne smiles a little.

"I want to believe I do."

The mood threatens to go down with her into somewhere we’ve already visited too much today.

I look at my sister.

"I’m terrified."

Rhayne lifts her face so fast I almost laugh.

"You?"

"I’d like that offense entered into the record."

"I didn’t mean you don’t feel fear."

"That’s exactly how it sounded."

"It’s just that you never talk like that."

The answer makes me stop.

"Like what?"

"’I’m terrified.’"

She watches me.

"Normally you talk about the problem. Then you talk about the plan. The fear stays hidden between the two."

I don’t have an immediate answer.

Rhayne points discreetly at Lili.

"Is it about her?"

I nod.

"Black Thirst."

Her face goes serious.

"You think she’s going to get it?"

"I think there’s a risk nobody understands properly."

Rhayne waits.

I lean my arms on my knees.

"A few years from now, they start cross-referencing cases with family history. The results never got far enough to prove a cause, but children of Divers turned up infected more often."

She looks at Lili.

"Hereditary?"

"Maybe. They never proved it."

"But there was a difference."

"There was."

My throat gets a little dry.

"And then another correlation showed up. Children who spent long periods around active Divers were also slightly above average."

Rhayne looks at me.

"Just from being around them?"

"Nobody could explain it. It could have been environment, water, clinics, shared genetics, exposure to something they hadn’t identified yet. Correlation doesn’t prove transmission."

She keeps looking at me.

"But you live here."

"When I’m on Earth."

"And Alden was a Diver."

I nod.

"So statistically, she has both factors."

"Yes."

Rhayne lowers her eyes to Lili.

The baby keeps trying to pull her fingers as if the conversation doesn’t exist.

"Do you think about that when you hold her?"

The question lands harder than the last one.

"Sometimes."

Rhayne waits.

I give.

"Almost always."

She runs her thumb over Lili’s hand.

"You’re afraid you’re part of the risk."

I stay quiet.

"If you found out that staying away would lower her chance of getting sick, would you stay away?" she asks.

"Yes."

The answer comes without effort.

Rhayne stares at me.

"Even after fighting so hard to come back?"

"I came back for them. If staying away were the way to protect them, it wouldn’t make sense to choose what I want."

She lowers her eyes again.

"That’s horrible."

"That’s a reasonable description."

Lili finally manages to grab her own foot and seems very pleased with herself.

Rhayne helps steady the bouncer.

"I never understood how you know so much about the future."

My body stiffens a little before I can stop it.

She notices.

"I’m not asking."

"Yet?"

"Yet."

There’s a minimal smile.

Then it disappears.

"At first I thought you had some skill. Then you started knowing specific things. People, places, events. Things that haven’t happened."

"You pay attention."

"I was trained for it."

Arthur again.

This time she keeps going.

"I don’t know where it comes from. But I understand why knowing that about Lili would be worse than knowing nothing at all."

I look at her.

Rhayne is watching my sister.

"Because you have enough information to be afraid and not enough information to do anything."

That’s exactly it.

"Yes."

Lili closes her hand around her index finger.

Rhayne smiles.

Then the smile fades slowly.

"Den?"

"Hm?"

"Is she going to get it?"

I know immediately what she’s asking.

Even so.

"Black Thirst?"

Rhayne nods.

"Is Lili going to be infected?"

The apartment goes silent for me.

My mother is still working on something in the kitchen. The television is on low. The bouncer makes a faint noise with every movement.

I look at my sister.

I have answers for events that haven’t happened yet.

I know the names of people I haven’t met in this life, places I haven’t visited, and tragedies that can still be prevented.

But I don’t have this one.

"I don’t know."

Rhayne frowns.

"You don’t know?"

"No."

"But you know when those studies come out."

"I do."

"You know what they find."

"Part of it."

She tries to understand.

"Then why don’t you know what happens to her?"

I could deflect.

I probably should.

But a few hours ago Rhayne handed me a letter Arthur told her to hide from me, because she decided to trust me more than his last order.

I can’t answer that with another lie.

I look at Lili.

"Because I died before I found out."

Rhayne’s fingers stop.

Lili is still holding one of them.

For a few seconds, Rhayne doesn’t move.

Then she slowly lifts her eyes to me.