Martha sat in the back corner of her walk-in closet, her knees to her chest to make herself small. It was one of the few places in their home where an adult could fit during a game of hide and seek. They'd been playing it so much recently that Martha had brought in a pillow to fashion herself a seat.
Her shoulders began to ache so she rolled her neck to stretch her muscles when she heard the door creak open. She froze as tiny feet patted the carpet toward her.
"Found you!" Serafina cried, jumping in front of Martha.
"Ahhhh!" Martha shouted, feigning surprise. Then she chased her daughter out of the closet and into the daylight.
But that was yesterday.
Today, there was no game. Today, she sat in darkness but for a whisper of the day's fading light sneaking beneath the closet door.
Her daughter was gone. No, my daughter is sitting in the living room with James.
But she wasn't the daughter Martha knew – the daughter who was captivated by their friend's new hamster; whose mind they would blow with a trip to the Grand Canyon; who was the center of Martha's universe; whose eyes cast unfiltered awe and adoration towards her.
The eyes of this Serafina cast something altogether different.
But she's still my daughter just like I'm still my dad's! And she just woke up and she's probably scared and I ran from her!
She heard a high pitched scream from another part of the house. Was something wrong? No... That was laughter. Serafina and James were laughing. Of course they are. Why is everything so damn easy for him?
Martha took a deep breath. This was bigger than parental rivalry. She couldn't abandon her daughter. Because even though she had in no way considered the possibility that her daughter would be anything more than a first-lifer, she had resolved to hold no standards of expectation for Serafina. Whatever their passions, whatever their aptitude, whatever their choices, Martha would be there in support, no matter what. And however old they were in mind and spirit, Serafina still needed her and it was time for Martha to live up to her promise.
She wiped her eyes then got to her feet and left the closet. Down the darkened hallway, she moved quietly, stopping short of revealing herself at the edge.
"...Dostoevsky most recently," Serafina said from the living room. "But you know. You cycle through authors... through eras..."
"Oh yeah, totally," James said. "What about music?"
"Motown... New Wave... Australian Plunderphonics..."
"That's cool. That's cool."
"Nothing from the last ten years though. Sorry."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Like, we get it, 90s-Teen. Life is painful. But music doesn't have to be."
"What? That... is a gross mischaracterization," James protested. "Okay, maybe it's only a minor mis- Oh, hey hon," he said, having noticed Martha lingering.
Martha flinched back slightly but then stepped out. Serafina turned to her and their posture straightened. Martha wiped her hands on her pants reflexively, then said, "Sorry I... ran off."
"It's okay," Serafina said, eyebrows raised brightly. Still, there was something uncanny behind their eyes – something resembling fear.
"Yeah, why don't you come sit with us on the couch?" James suggested. Between the two of them, one would think Martha had suffered a head wound. But she complied, taking a seat next to James and across from Serafina.
Martha smiled politely at Serafina who smiled back, two of their lower teeth missing, just as before. A silent moment passed before Martha said, "I guess I was in shock."
"Which is an understandable response," Serafina answered, their voice still squeaking like someone yet to begin kindergarten.
Martha didn't know what else to say. Suddenly, she thought of her own mother, then swallowed back emotion. She cleared her throat and said, "I'm really, really sorry for leaving."
Serafina hopped off the couch, walked to Martha and gave her a hug. She hugged her back and swallowed again. I have to keep it together. Sera needs me. The hug was nice, but it felt different – polite, like greeting an acquaintance. James shifted to open up a space for Serafina to sit in between.
"So," Serafina said, once they were situated. "Would either of you like to ask any questions?"
Martha and James looked at one another. "Go ahead," he offered.
She wasn't ready so she shook her head. "You first."
"Okay," he said. "So, after you die you come back right here, or..."
"No, it's just like you guys. I briefly resurface twice. The first is at night in the back of Pe-Paw's car. The second is at a tumbling class. And then here, for good."
"And... it's always this life," James said. He wasn't asking questions anymore, but working through it on his own. "The life where your mom and I decide to have a kid... The life where we build the cabin... But it's not our loop. Because when we die, we go back to 1980. And you won't..."
"That's right," Serafina said gently. "I won't exist in your next life. I only exist in this life of yours. This life, the one with the cabin, is the life I always return to. But there's something else-"
"How many times?" Martha suddenly asked. "I mean, how many of this life have you lived?"
Serafina looked at James nervously, then at Martha. "This would be, I believe, my thirty-first life."
Martha's stomach sank. She wasn't sure why it should matter. If this was Serafina's second life, it would be just as disturbing. But Martha was only in her twentieth, which meant she was younger than her daughter – by around 700 years – adding another layer of unease to this ordeal.
Then she remembered James and her visit from Seamus Tanaka; how he'd confessed to trapping them and told them how. "I can't believe it. This was Tanaka's plan? Travel through time to apologize for putting us in this nightmare, but then tell us to have a kid so his lackeys back home can do the same to her? That son of a bitch!"
"Martha!" James scolded.
"Oh who cares, James? She's older than me," she looked at Serafina. "Sorry. I'm not mad at you. It's just... I get that things are desperate for them – the world's ending, humanity's ending, I get it. But you don't mess with my kid! That's bullshit!"
James scoffed, but Serafina turned to him. "She's right, Dad. About the cursing. It might feel strange, but lots and lots of things are going to feel strange moving forward and we should try to get used to that. I've heard curse words and spoken them many times myself. Because I'm old. I'm like, old as shit." James scoffed again, but nodded his head in concession. Serafina turned back to Martha. "But also, you're wrong. About Dr Tanaka. Neither he nor any of his lackeys had anything to do with this."
"What?" Martha said. "How do you know that? Did you talk to them? Did they send someone else back?"
"Well, yeah but... kind of the other way around." Martha and James stared at them in confusion. Serafina continued. "In my second life, which by the way, if you think this is rough, you don't want to know how bad my first renewal was. Anyways, in my second life, after things were relatively settled, I began to use meditation to help with my near constant state of panic. With practice, I got pretty good. Then one day, in the middle of a particularly deep trance, I suddenly felt like I needed to vomit so I opened my eyes and there I was."
"Where?" James asked.
"They call it The Arena – the stage upon which they review our lives. But when I say I was there, I wasn't there, there. I couldn't see my body. I was just floating. But somehow they could see and hear me."
"Wait, wait, wait," James interrupted. "You traveled to the future? Or your... mind traveled?"
"Yeah, much to their surprise. They didn't even know I'd revived and the whole place went bananas. I... guess I kind of make a habit of doing that to people," Serafina said with an apologetic smile. "And I believe them because the pandemonium I witnessed was awfully convincing and considering what they're up against, they don't have the time to stage that kind of theater.
"But it's come in handy – being able to travel there. I just need a quiet, dark room and I can make contact whenever I want. We've been able to discuss outcomes and strategies. They can give insights to help our tech."
"That would come in handy," James agreed.
Martha was less impressed, still focused on getting answers. "Okay, if not them, then how? How did it happen?"
"There's strong evidence that it's genetic," Serafina said.
"We gave it to you?" Martha said. She instantly recalled her anxieties leading up to the birth – that they'd doom their child to suffer. This wasn't what she'd had in mind, but here they were. We did it. We did this to Sera.
"Right now, I'd like to skip to the part where I tell you that I'm very happy you decided to have me," Serafina said, clearly reading – or perhaps remembering – Martha's reaction. "Things have certainly not always been easy and there will still be hardships to come. But I've experienced far more joy and I have two wonderful parents whom I love." They took their parents' hands in theirs.
James beamed at Martha and she tried to return the smile. Then, to Serafina, he said, "We love you too, sweetie. But back to your strong evidence?"
"Quantum Genome Diagnostics. All three of us have had ours run more than once. Both of you have significant mutations."
"Like our immunity to intoxication," James said.
"Right. Or Mom's pain-pleasure confusion."
"Her what?" James asked.
"Oh... yeah," Martha stammered, suddenly defensive. "Somewhere around or... just before Hawaii, my body began to react to pain as if it were pleasure. I don't know, my pain receptors activated a release of dopamine? I never took the time to study it."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't know. It... just never came up." Martha looked at her daughter. Clearly the topic had come up between them sometime over Serafina's lives. What else have I confessed? What else does she know?
Serafina looked back, smiling awkwardly, perhaps aware they'd betrayed their mother's confidence. "Too bad it didn't kick in during childbirth, am I right?"
Martha smiled and nodded. Her daughter was trying to help her – to distract James from the secret and evoke sympathy and gratitude for her labor– over which I'm still traumatized, so yeah, serve it up.
"But like I was saying," Serafina resumed. "Your genes were altered. But mine were a clusterfu-" They paused to censor themselves – the sound of a five year old dropping an F-bomb a bridge too far, perhaps. "A mess. Mine were a mess. Gene deletions... duplications... It made no sense. The techs who worked on it assumed they'd made mistakes in the sequencing. Otherwise, how could I be standing in front of them, living and breathing. But it's consistent every time we've run it. It's not a mistake. I'm... different."
The three of them sat in silence for a moment. Martha and James' eyes glazed over. Serafina yawned. "Do you have any more questions?"
"Yes," Martha and James responded in unison without breaking from their trance.
"We have time," Serafina said. "We don't have to cover thirty lifetimes and the mysteries of time and space in one night."
"That's good," James said. "That's good. So... What should we do? What do we normally do?"
"Well, whatever we want, I guess," Serafina said as they walked to a lamp to turn it on. "But usually, we finish putting away the groceries and mop up the Neapolitan ice cream."
"Shoot! That's right," James said, remembering what they'd left.
"Yeah, it's a pinkish, brownish puddle. And I'm five, so my bedtime's in twenty minutes whether I..." Serafina yawned again. "...like it or not. And we haven't eaten."
James stood. "I'm on it," he said, then left for the kitchen.
Serafina sighed and said to Martha, "Dad... Always such a boy scout."
Martha chuckled genuinely. He's a total boy scout. "Come here," she said to her daughter. Serafina walked to her and hopped up on her lap. Her thoughts and emotions were in such disarray, she didn't know what to call the buzzing and bubbling in her head. Nor did she know this Serafina. And yet, she trusted the words to be true enough to say. "I love you."
"I love you too, Mom," Serafina said as they embraced. "And I'm sorry this was all so clumsy. I really should be better at this by now."
"No more apologies, okay?" Martha said as they released one another. "Not one of us asked for this, but..." She caressed the side of Serafina's face, tracing the freckles, each one its own miracle, cascading off their nose and down their cheeks. "But I'm so, so glad to have you."
Serafina smiled. "Me too. And I'd truly love to sit in your lap for the rest of the evening, but I really have to use the bathroom. Been holding it for a while now."
"Oh my gosh. Well then go, go, go-" Martha stopped herself. Serafina had struggled with potty training – out of diapers but still having accidents – more and more concerning as kindergarten approached. Or is that over?
Once again, Serafina appeared to read her thoughts. "Yeah, we don't have to worry about the accidents anymore."
"Oh, okay. I guess that's a perk," Martha said as her daughter climbed off her lap and left for the bathroom. No more accidents... Martha wondered when they'd stopped in Serafina's first life. Had it been a matter of time? Or had the other Martha and James changed tactics? She stood and walked toward the garage. "I'm going to straighten up the garage," she called to James. "I'm not hungry so you can just fix something for Sera."
"Okie-doke," he replied from the kitchen.
Martha stepped through the door. The space was a snapshot from another time – the massive lego table featuring the streets of Mos Eisley, the hills of The Shire, the trail through Candyland, and a replica of their home; mirrors and bars along the wall for ballet; the reading nook in the corner set up with bean bag chairs and shelves with books and shelves without, the latter waiting to be filled as Sera's reading matured; and at the center of the garage were a pair of easels.
The adult-sized easel held an abstract painting of gray, black, and purple brush strokes which, upon reflection, had borne her dead mother's face. The child-sized easel held a cartoonish painting of a ladybug – quite good for a five year old, except for the line of black slashing from one of the ladybug's spots down past the bottom of the picture.
Side by side, her mother and daughter stood, both beyond her grasp.
Martha didn't know what to do with the paintings. Frame them? Shred them? Preserve them in plastic bags like evidence from a crime scene?
Instead, she sighed then walked to the ballet wall, leaned on the bar and stared into the mirror. She thought about other universes occupying this space in time – specifically, the one in which Serafina was living her first life. She watched as that Serafina finished the painting without the slip-up and that Martha took it proudly to stick on the fridge with a magnet.
She dropped her head then sat on the floor with her back to the mirror and her face to reality. Serafina's past was gone and with it, the future that Martha was promised.
But other universes and other Serafina's were irrelevant. This was the only universe Martha had. The only Serafina...
Author's note:
"Wouldn't it be fun," I'd thought halfway into writing Drifting... "If their kid ended up being immortal too?"
"No, my sadistic creator," Martha answers today. "No it would not."
Look for Part 3 tomorrow! Thanks for reading!!