door. My breathing completely stops until their footfalls are the only thing my brain registers. But then the sound passes by us, and I begin to inhale and exhale again. There’s a heavy pounding as they order someone to open up their front door.
I hear Haumea begin to beg, and then little Onyx’s piercing cry. Shale strides toward the door, but I grab his arm. I shake my head at him and he stops, his fists clenched at his sides, his gaze burning a hole in the door. I watch him, but I can’t see the complacent person I met at the Match Clinic only three weeks ago. He is someone else.
Onyx screams all the way past our door and Haumea follows behind, pleading and crying. I cringe. She should submit. There is never any allowance for the Défectueux, no matter how well-connected. The human race simply cannot afford to let unhealthy genes into the gene pool anymore. We’re an endangered species.
The van peals away, and there is silence, resounding and inescapable. A soft scraping sound outside our door is followed by a muffled thud, and the muted sound of someone weeping. This time, I cannot stop Shale.
He opens the door and lets Haumea in.
She looks from me to Shale, her chin wobbling. “They took him. They took him.” A pause, then she yells, “Onyx!”
Shale gathers her in his arms, and she flails against his chest, saying her son’s name over and over as if this will bring him back. I steel my heart, force myself to think contemptuously of her. That is what my mother would do. That is what is expected of me. I am a woman—intelligent, capable of higher reasoning. Haumea does us an injustice. She should be happy that Onyx will further the cause of purifying the coming generations. She is young; she might be Matched to a Husband again.
I wish she would leave. It is dangerous, her being in our home right after Onyx was taken. It might appear to our neighbors that we are sympathetic to her situation. My heart begins to pound. Before I can ask her to leave, she leaves Shale’s arms and approaches me.
“Vika,” she says. “You work with BoTA. Maybe you could—”
I do not want to hear what she has to say. Whatever it is will be considered treason. I cannot afford to be anywhere near this conversation if I hope to emigrate.
“Stop,” I say. “Please. I can’t help you. Please leave now.”
She stares at me for a long moment, her thin frame rigid. Then she looks at Shale, but he is staring at me, too.
She lets herself out.
After Haumea is gone, I go to the washroom to splash water on my face. When I look up, Shale is standing behind me, looking at me in the mirror. I jump and wheel around, water droplets spraying. “What is it?”
“Why didn’t you want to help her?”
I sigh and reach for the towel. “Shale…it’s not a simple situation. I can’t use my position with BoTA to help someone do who-knows-what. It’s treason. Besides, I’ve been entrusted with a very grave responsibility by being assigned to BoTA.” Again, I am saying what I have been trained to say. But I inject as much plausibility as I can.
He nods, then looks down at the floor, thinking. “Did you ever lose someone you loved?”
I cannot speak for a long minute. I am struggling to reign in images of Ceres running through my mind like an old movie: my sister laughing, running in her rompers, picking flowers and gathering them in her chubby, sweating fist. I am glad Shale is not looking at me.
Finally, I clear my throat. “No. Why do you ask?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m wondering what it must be like for Haumea, for anyone really, who has to give up a loved one—a daughter, a son, a sister—to the Asylum.”
This conversation is making me perspire. I hang up the towel so I don’t have to look at Shale as I say, “Well, it’s for the best, really. The Défectueux are taken care of while also performing a valuable service to the rest of humanity. It’s the most humane solution.”
There’s