She doesn't look at me. Her thick hair is tied back in a knot, and she wears a gray shirt with a factionless armband over it. She looks exhausted.
"Mind waiting in the hallway?" I say to Peter, and to my surprise, he doesn't argue. He just walks out, closing the door behind him.
My mother and I are alone.
"The people outside have no
messages for us," I say, moving closer to her. "They wanted to take away the memories of everyone in this city. They believe there is no reasoning with us, no appealing to our better natures. They decided it would be easier to erase us than to speak with us."
"Maybe they're right," Evelyn says. Finally she turns to me, resting her cheekbone against her clasped hands. She has an empty circle tattooed on one of her fingers like a wedding band. "What is it you came here to do, then?"
I hesitate, my hand on the vial in my pocket. I look at her, and I can see the way time has worn through her like an old piece of cloth, the fibers exposed and fraying. And I can see the woman I knew as a child, too, the mouth that stretched into a smile, the eyes that sparkled with joy. But the longer I look at her, the more convinced I am that that happy woman never existed. That woman is just a pale version of my real mother, viewed through the self-centered eyes of a child.
I sit down across from her at the table and put the vial of memory serum between us.
"I came to make you drink this," I say.
She looks at the vial, and I think I see tears in her eyes, but it could just be the light.
"I thought it was the only way to prevent total destruction," I say. "I know that Marcus and Johanna and their people are going to attack, and I know that you will do whatever it takes to stop them, including using that death serum you possess to its best advantage." I tilt my head. "Am I wrong?"
"No," she says. "The factions are evil. They cannot be restored. I would sooner see us all destroyed."
Her hand squeezes the edge of the table, the knuckles pale.
"The reason the factions were evil is because there was no way out of them," I say. "They gave us the illusion of choice without actually giving us a choice. That's the same thing you're doing here, by abolishing them. You're saying, go make choices. But make sure they aren't factions or I'll grind you to bits!"
"If you thought that, why didn't you tell me?" she says, her voice louder and her eyes avoiding mine, avoiding me. "Tell me, instead of betraying me?"
"Because I'm afraid of you!" The words burst out, and I regret them but I'm also glad they're there, glad that before I ask her to give up her identity, I can at least be honest with her. "You . . . you remind me of him!"
"Don't you dare." She clenches her hands into fists and almost spits at me, "Don't you dare."
"I don't care if you don't want to hear it," I say, coming to my feet. "He was a tyrant in our house and now you're a tyrant in this city, and you can't even see that it's the same!"
"So that's why you brought this," she says, and she wraps her hand around the vial, holding it up to look at it. "Because you think this is the only way to mend things."
"I . . ." I am about to say that it's the easiest way, the best way, maybe the only way that I can trust her.
If I erase her memories, I can create for myself a new mother, but.
But she is more than my mother. She is a person in her own right, and she does not belong to me.
I do not get to choose what she becomes just because I can't deal with who she is.
"No," I say. "No, I came to give you a choice."
I feel suddenly terrified, my hands numb, my heart beating fast—
"I thought about going to see Marcus tonight, but I didn't." I swallow hard. "I came to see you instead because . . . because I think there's a hope of reconciliation between us. Not now, not soon, but someday. And with him there's no hope, there's no reconciliation possible."
She stares at me, her eyes fierce but welling up with tears.