Sister Cities

Part 41: Caitlyn

The rest of the world was black and white

But we were in screaming color

And I remember thinking

Are we out of the woods yet?

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 Mum splutters. "I beg your pardon? This— this person was menacing me, merely because I asked her to ensure your well-being!"

"She wasn't menacing you." Perhaps she meant to make her uncomfortable, but I'm inexplicably certain that she intended nothing further. In the glimpse I received before she backed up, there was something off about her stance— if she were trying to be menacing, she would have held her limbs more loosely. Instead, it almost looked as though she was bracing herself. I can't explain that to Mum, so I just say, "If she were, she would have had her fists up."

Actually, Vi still doesn't have her fists up, or even curled at her sides. It's odd. She does that to seem threatening, but also when she's threatened, and she definitely looks like she's feeling threatened otherwise: her teeth bared, her eyes narrowed and bright. Yet she has one hand on the wall and one hand behind her back. I suppose the latter might be in a fist that she wants to hide from me.

"She was using highly offensive language to attack my manner of caring for my child!" Mum says.

"What was this manner, precisely?" I ask. Mum has made it clear that, while she accepts the new government and will live in the house alongside me, she does not forgive me for my strategy. I have a feeling that "caring for her child" is a loaded notion.

"She stopped me to tell me to stay away from you, because I'm gonna trick you into acting like trencher trash and make your bloodline dirty," Vi says.

I clap my hand over my mouth.

"To be fair, we all shared needles when I was stuck in Stillwater on 'false pretenses,'" she adds. "Your mom could have a point."

"That is a highly disingenuous reading of my words," Mum says. "I told you that you may keep casual company with Caitlyn, and that you'll be welcomed further into her life once you've shaken your aggressive tendencies and radical, warped views. I told you that you're capable and that I will assist you in this journey."

"Oh, very nice!" I say before I can help myself. I'm unsure if I'm more livid or ashamed, and it's all I can do to keep my voice level. "I cannot believe you. I just— I cannot believe you." I try for a few seconds longer to come up with anything more than that, then give up, pass her, and take Vi's hand from behind her back. It's not not clenched, but it's perspiring, and she lists to one side as she follows me to my bedroom, like she did when she was on Jinx's tranquilizer. Jinx clearly didn't come with her— is she just that distressed about it? And about this?

"I'm so sorry," I say, slamming the door. "I don't know what to say. She had no right to tell you those things or make that request— it most assuredly was not on my instruction, nor in my interests. I'm so sorry."

Vi leans against the door, head down, hands hidden again. I sit on my bed and gesture for her to join me, but she doesn't.

"I'm so sorry," I say.

"Heard you the first time."

Do you think you can just brush these things off when you've had them drilled into you since the day you were born? I'm less than you, and that's never not gonna be in the way—

I wrench a pin from my updo and throw it against the carpet. "I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. It was stupid to bring you here."

Vi looks up. "It was?"