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“It’ll be fine,” Sarah says under her breath as she tucks a stray blonde curl under the wig. She doesn’t sound convinced, but: none of them are convinced. Helena isn’t convinced, either – but only part of her is here to be worried. The other part of her is rooms and rooms away, where one of her babies has just woken up. She’s hungry, Helena can tell. Helena’s body is sitting here heavy with milk and she wants to feed her daughter but she can’t, because Sarah is tugging at the collar of Helena’s leather jacket and sighing through her teeth with anxiousness.
Rachel wants Sarah. Rachel is getting Helena.
Helena volunteered.
“You sure about this,” Sarah says again.
“Yes,” Helena says again. She goes to rub at her eyelid with her knuckle, only to remember that there’s eyeshadow on it and she can’t. Sarah had put the eyeshadow on and then washed most of it away and wouldn’t tell Helena why. No one will give Helena a mirror, so she doesn’t know if her eyes look the way Sarah’s do.
Alison should have done this. Maybe Cosima, though Helena doesn’t know how good Cosima would be at playing pretend. But: the numbers in Helena’s blood match the numbers in Sarah’s blood, so Helena is going into this tooth-mouth and hoping that someone in there will be stupid enough to let her pull one of those teeth out.
(She’d only need one tooth – a needle, maybe, or a pen left unattended. She just needs a sharp thing and a chance.)
“You can tell them apart,” she says, shifting in her seat a little bit.
“Yeah,” Sarah says, sounding surprised Helena would even ask. “’course. They don’t even smile the same.”
It’s true. That’s not the only difference between Helena’s two daughters: one laughs louder, one will only nurse from her right breast, one cries, one screams. But it’s enough that Sarah can tell them apart. If Helena doesn’t—
If things go—
Well. Sarah can tell Helena’s daughters apart, and Sarah is the best mother Helena knows.
“Just – keep your mouth shut, yeah?” Sarah says.
“I know.”
“You know how to sign my name.”
“Yes, I know it.”
“Right hand, Helena.”
“Sarah,” Helena says. Sarah stops pacing. Sarah was pacing, and now she has stopped, because Helena said her name.
“I will play this game for you,” Helena says. She reaches for Sarah’s hands and folds them around her own. Sarah doesn’t have her jacket; her arms are goosebumped from cold. She doesn’t have her jacket because Helena is wearing it. Helena is wearing her jacket, her eyeshadow, her hair. Is Helena wearing Sarah? Hm, maybe. Maybe not.
“Are you sure,” Sarah says. She sounds helpless.
“Yes,” Helena says again. Sarah’s hands tighten around her hands and pull her up to standing and then Sarah is hugging her. Helena closes her eyes, settles into Sarah’s skin, imagines: the first time they hugged like this. The burning of her own arms around her leather jacket. The ship was dark – where did the lantern hang? Is the light coming through Helena’s eyelids the same sort of light? Did it feel like this? Is that why Sarah hugged her back?
“I love you,” she whispers, her own voice hanging around two sets of Sarah’s ears in the dark.
“Yeah, love you too,” Sarah says, voice rough. Her arms close tighter. “You be careful out there, you got it? Your babies need you to come home safe, Helena.”
Part of Helena is rooms and rooms and rooms from here. A fan whirring. A baby sighing, rolling over in a crib. She’s hungry, she could tell Sarah. They’re both hungry now. She really wants Sarah to already know. She doesn’t know if Sarah already knows.
“I will come home safe for them,” she says. “And for you. And for all my sestras. I am doing this for all of you.”
Sarah breaks the hug and rubs her hands briskly up and down Helena’s arms. The leather creaks. Helena breaks Sarah’s expression into pieces and puts those pieces in her pocket, so she can pull them out later and use them. The tightening of the muscles around her mouth. The way her eyes dart and dart and do not settle.
“Alright,” Sarah says.
“Alright,” Helena says, and Sarah actually laughs.
“Yeah, you got it,” she says, sounding fond. She ruffles Helena’s wig a little bit; the static makes it cling to Sarah’s fingers, before Sarah shakes it free.
“Time to go,” Sarah says.
“Yes,” Helena says. She doesn’t move. It’s not that she thinks that she’ll die, there, anywhere, it’s just that her babies are hungry and she doesn’t want to walk away without feeding them. They’re lying there in their cribs and they’re hungry and she can’t go to them. That’s all. That’s the only worry inside of her.
She steps back. Sarah’s hands drop from her arms. Helena sways a little bit, settles into her feet, imagines that she is Sarah. She takes another step back. She watches herself watch herself – brow-furrowed-eyes-sad.
“Bye,” she says.
Sarah bites her lip and shakes her head and turns away, folding in on herself. Fear, maybe. Sadness. Guilt. She doesn’t pay attention to it: she puts her hand on the banister and she pulls her Sarah-self up the stairs, towards the hungry thing that’s waiting for her, going out into the world to be swallowed whole.