The Adoration of Jenna Fox (26 page)

Or are afraid to notice.

And then one day you have to look.

And it's true.

All of your pieces fill up other
people's holes.

But they don't fill

your own.

The Beach

"Over here!" Claire calls, waving her
arm.

Lily waves back. Neither of us move, and Mother
resumes her walk through the tide pools. The ride to the beach was tense. We
hardly talked in the car. Mother insisted we go, saying the unseasonably warm
March day was perfect for a walk at the beach.

"She needed this," Lily says.

"I didn't."

Lily pulls her sweatshirt over her head and
ties it around her waist. "Then what
do
you need, Jenna?" Her
voice is sharp.

I look at her and knot inside. I can't answer.
I shake my head and walk away. She grabs my arm and spins me around. "I
asked you something. What do you need?"

I pull away. How dare she treat me like a
—

"I need
—I
need—" I want to spit my words into her stupid face is what I need to do,
but they just keep catching, like they are snared on something inside. I stand
there, my lips still searching for words.

"Tell me!" she says.

I can't.

She lets go of my arm and sighs. "And that
has always been your problem, Jenna," she says softly. "You've always
been two people. The Jenna who wants to please and the Jenna who secretly
resents it. They won't break, you know. Your parents never thought you were
perfect. You did."

What is she talking about? I never thought
— "They placed
me on a pedestal from the
day I was born! What choice did I have but to be perfect! And if I lagged in
math or soccer or navel gazing, they got me a personal tutor! And then I was
tutored and coached until I
was
perfect! I've been under a microscope my
entire life! From the moment I was conceived, I had to be everything because I
was their miracle! That's what I had to live up to every day of my life! How
dare you say that it was me when it was them! I was conceived to please!"

"What's going on?" Claire asks,
running over to see why our voices are raised.

Lily's eyes hold on to me, like she is talking
me down from a ledge. Her voice is low. "Start small," she says.
"I'll ask again, what do you need?"

"I need . . ." The words are dammed
up.
Start small.
"A skirt.  A red skirt!"

"What?" Claire's confusion is
obvious, but her eyes are intense and clear, focusing on me like I am the whole
Pacific Ocean.

"And room. I need room."

Claire looks at Lily. "What is going
on?"

"Listen," Lily says. She grabs Claire
by the shoulders and turns her to face me. "Just listen."

"I don't want to be your miracle anymore.
I
can't
be your miracle anymore. I need to be here on this planet with
the same odds as everyone else. I need to be like everyone else."

I slow. I take a breath. "I can't ever be
really alive if I can't die, too. I need the backups. Kara's, Locke's . . . and
mine."
Mother's face is frozen like I am speaking babble. "I
want to let them go," I whisper. She doesn't move. "Destroyed,"
I clarify, raising my voice, so that for once my intentions can't be twisted.

Her face loosens, goes blank. She says nothing
for much too long. Now it is me, frozen, and Lily, waiting, wondering if
anything I said made it through to her. And then the part in her lips closes
and her shoulders pull back. "We'll stop on the way home and get you a red
skirt," she finally says. She turns and walks away, only pausing for a
moment to shoot Lily a stiff, cold stare.

Calculations

The ride home is quiet. I watch Lily. Mother. I
see their eyes, unfocused, staring at the road ahead but not seeing it. Each of
us are bound by our own thoughts, seeing the edges of our limits, maybe seeing
the edges of others. How far can we push? How far can we bend? How much can we
preserve? How can we get what we want? The calculations are endless, not
knowing the future, not knowing how far is too far for any of us. My thoughts
drift, search, calculate, remembering, jumping to the past and back again.

My baby, my precious baby, I'm so
sorry.

The hospital room is dim. Her chair
is pulled close. She rocks, hums, whispers, and she smiles. The smiles are the
hardest to watch. They are beyond her strength, but somehow she makes them come
forth.

Let me die.

Please.

I screamed the words. Over and over. But only
in my head. The words couldn't get past my lips. But even as I pleaded within,
hoping some message would get across, I knew. As I lay there in the hospital
bed, unable to move or speak, as soon as I looked into Claire's eyes, I knew.

She would never let me go.

So much strength within her, but not the
strength to let go.

I was forever her baby. Forever her miracle.

How long is forever?

Grasping

Forever adv. /.
Without ever
ending, eternally:
to last forever.
2. Continually, incessantly, always.

There are many words and definitions I have
never lost.

But some I am only just now beginning to truly
understand.

Moving

Lily swings her door shut and heads off to her
greenhouse, to simmer, I presume. Father is standing on the walkway talking to
someone. He lifts his hand and waves but returns to his conversation. I am
startled to see a visitor, since we have never before had one. The visitor's
back is to me, but his girth is oddly familiar. Mother gathers two bags of
groceries we stopped for on the way home. We didn't get a red skirt. It's not
important. It never really was.

"Come in the back way with me,
Jenna," Mother says. Her voice is near an edge I have already calculated.
How far can I push? I turn, leaving her at the garage house entrance, and walk
around to the front where Father talks to the visitor. They are close, keeping
their words tight, like the air itself might snatch them up. Father glances at
me, willing me to hurry in the door. But I linger, of course.

Tomorrow. . .

Not safe . . .

I concentrate, trying to decipher the whispered
words. I detect a rush within me, an ache, and then a stillness, like the words
are being whispered right into my ear. Like every available
neurochip
has been called to task. And they have. I have billions of available
neurochips
.

They're too vulnerable where they
are.

I have several possibilities. By
tomorrow I'll move them.

It can't be
—

Traced. I know. I have it covered.

And secure.

Have I let you down yet?

She's my life, Ted.

The visitor shakes Father's hand, then turns,
knowing all along that I have been watching them both. He nods in my direction,
and I feel everything drop within me. He is the tourist from the mission. The
one who took Ethan's and my picture.

He leaves, shuffling down the walk and sliding
his wide girth into a small car that wheezes under his weight.

"Who is he?" I ask Father as he
approaches me.

"It's not important," Father answers.
"Let's go inside."

"I've seen him before."

Father frowns, knowing I won't let it go.
"My security specialist. He takes care of. . . things."

"Like me?"

"Sometimes."

"He took my picture at the
lavanderia
."

"Not you. He was investigating Ethan and
the community project at the mission. Making sure the risk factor was
minimal."

"Is that what my life is now?"

"What?"

"A controlled risk-free cocoon for your
lab pet?"

Father sighs and runs his fingers through his
hair, the only nervous habit I have observed in him. "Let's not dig that
up again, Jenna."

"What's he moving?"

Father looks at me, making his own
calculations, studying my face and especially my eyes. Does he know I can see
lies as plainly as a deep breath or shrug? He doesn't answer. He's catching on.
He knows I am becoming more than he planned. More than the endlessly compliant
fourteen-year-old he loved. But all children grow up.

"I'll figure it out," I say.

He concedes. "The backups. A closet in a
house is no place for them. We didn't have time for better choices before, but
now we do. He is going to move them to a safer location."

He stares at me, too close, too carefully, like
he is reading every breath and shrug from me as well. I carefully look up to my
left, like I am weighing what he has told me, and slowly I look back at him.
"Oh," I say. "That's probably a good idea.'' He watches, and
gradually I see his muscles loosen and relax. He believes me. But that is
nothing new. He always did because I was a rule follower. I played by the rules
he understood. But there are new rules now, ones he doesn't know yet. He'll
learn. Just as I am learning.

He opens the front door. "You coming
in?"

"No," I tell him. "We were late
getting back. Ethan is picking me up soon."

"It's not a school day." He implies a
question. He's become more like Claire than I remember. When did he start
clinging to me so? But I sense the answer lies somewhere between the darkness
and the fear, sometime when it looked like I would be gone forever, the
accident that didn't just change me, but made them both different, too, that
was when he changed. Calculations and maneuvers drain from me. I am seven years
old and leading him to a cake that is filled with my love for him. I lean
forward and kiss his cheek. "Our friend
Allys
is
sick. She hasn't been to school in days. We're going to see her."

A simple kiss on the cheek and his eyes are
glassy. "Be home before dark," he says. I don't answer because lying
is not in me right now. But I will try. Because of his eyes. Because I am his
life. Because some things don't change.

I stand at the curb, waiting for Ethan,
skimming back through the whispered conversation between Father and the
stranger.
By tomorrow.
That's what he said. By then the backups will be
whisked away. But will their voices? Will I still hear them calling to me,
pleading for release? If they only had a second chance, but they'll never have
a rebirth, not like me. Their purgatory will go on and on, and somehow they'll
always know that I could have saved them. Should have saved them.

When tomorrow? Did he say?

Sometime tomorrow Kara's and Locke's futures
will be cemented, and I will become something less than genuine, like the first
in a numbered series of art prints. Kara, Locke, and me, forgotten in a storage
facility.

Mother and Father won't be going anywhere
between now and tomorrow. There's no chance I could sneak into their closet.

Witnesses. They are witnesses.

I don't have the key to the closet anymore
anyway. I was stupid to leave it in the lock when I ran out. I can't do
anything for them now.
Relevé
. Jenna.
Relevé
.

I look at my hands. Trembling. A battle between
neurochip
and neuron, survival and sacrifice.

Where's Ethan? He's late!

I stand on tiptoe, like that will help me see
farther down our street. My breaths come in rapid shallow pants, and I feel
betrayed by this body that remembers panic with ease but needs coaxing to
remember friends.
I can't let them go.

I spot Ethan's car, finally, turning the corner
at the end of our street.

"I
can help you." I jump and turn around. It
is Lily.

I don't need to ask. I know what help means.

"You have a right," she says,
"at least to your own backup.  And maybe more. Only you know what
it's like. If you really want this, we can figure something out
—"

Ethan stops his car at the curb. I open the
door but look back at Lily. "They're taking them away tomorrow."

"Then maybe we'll talk tonight?"

I nod, wondering at her unexpected proposal.
"Maybe we will," I answer, and I get into Ethan's car.

They
Know

"You're shaking."

"Just my hands."