Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler Page 0,162

you could spare a little concern for your niece.”

“Don’t be so condescending! And I’ve told you what you should do to find her!”

Join CA. I shuddered. “I can’t. I just can’t. If Cougar were here, could you enlist with him again—just as a job, you know? Could you become one of his helpers?”

“It’s not the same!”

“It’s the same to me. What Cougar did to you, CAs Crusaders did to me. The only difference is they did it to me longer. And don’t tell me the Crusaders are just renegades. They’re not. They’re as much part of CA as the shelters are. I spotted one of the men who raped and lashed us at Acorn. He was working as an armed guard at the Eureka shelter.”

Marc stood up. He all but pushed his chair over in his eagerness to get away from me. “I’ve finally got a chance to have what I want,” he said. “You’re not going to wreck it for me!”

“This isn’t about you,” I said, still seated. “I wish you had a child, Marc. If you did, you might be able to understand what it’s like not to know where she is, whether she’s being well treated, or even…even whether she’s still alive. If I could only know!”

He stood over me for a very long time, looking down at me as though he hated me. “I don’t believe you feel anything,” he said.

I stared back at him amazed. “Marc, my daughter—”

“You think you’re supposed to care, so you pretend to. Maybe you even want to, but you don’t.”

I think I preferred it when he hit me. I couldn’t react except to sit staring at him. Tears spilled from my eyes, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I just sat frozen, staring.

After a while, my brother turned and walked away, tears glistening on his own face.

By then, I wanted to hate him. I couldn’t quite, but I wanted to.

“Brothers!” Len muttered when I told her what had happened. She had waited for me at the Elford guesthouse. She listened to what I told her and, I suppose, heard it according to her own experience.

“He needs to make everything my fault,” I said. “He still can’t let himself admit what Christian America did to me. He couldn’t stay with them if they did such things, so he’s decided that they’re innocent, and somehow everything is my fault.”

“Why are you making excuses for him?” Len demanded.

“I’m not. I think that’s really what he’s feeling. He had tears on his face when he walked away from me. He didn’t want me to see that, but I saw it. He has to drive me away or he can’t have his dreams. Christian America is teaching him to be the only thing I think he’s ever wanted to be—a minister. Like our father.”

She sighed and shook her head. “So what are you going to do?”

“I…don’t know. Maybe the Elfords can suggest something.”

“Them, yes… Irma asked me while you were gone whether you would be willing to speak to a group of her friends. She wants to have a party and, I suppose, show you off.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I said I thought you would do it.”

I got up and went to look out the window at a pear tree, dark against the night sky. “You know, if I could only find my daughter, I would think my life was going along beautifully.”

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2035

I’ve managed to get Marc to meet with me again at last.

He may be the only relative I have left on earth. I don’t want him as an enemy.

“Just tell me you’ll help my Larkin if you ever find her,” I said.

“How could I do less?” he asked, still with a certain coldness.

“I wish you well, Marc. I always have. You’re my brother, and I love you. Even with all that’s happened, I can’t help loving you.”

He sighed. We were sitting in his building’s vast, drab dining room again. This time there were other people scattered around, eating late lunches or early dinners. Most were men, young and old, individuals and small groups. Some stared at me with what seemed to be disapproval. “You can’t know what Christian America has meant to me,” he said. His voice had softened. He looked less distant.

“Of course I can,” I told him. “I’m here because I do understand. You’ll be a Christian American minister, and I’ll be your heathen sister. I can stand that. What I find hard to stand is being your enemy.