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She’s twenty-two and naïve about the world when they come to her with money--American and lots of it--and a proposition. She’s a poor girl from the flats, living in a tin hut on the outskirts of Cape Town with her five younger siblings and their parents. They barely make enough to feed themselves and the money burns in her hands.
Her family won’t miss her, Amelia thinks, knowing it’s a lie as soon as the thought leaves her head. But it doesn’t matter; this is her decision, not theirs and if all goes well she might be able to make a life for all seven of them.
The movement tries, but they’re years off from ending Apartheid, if it’s even possible, and Amelia doesn’t have that kind of time. She’d given up schooling at fifteen—her parents had needed more money to feed their family and she’d obliged without a second thought.
The British couple swears she can finally complete her education, robbed from her out of necessity and they promise there’s more money if she successfully carries this baby to term. She could become a teacher like she’d always dreamed.
Nine months in a foreign land seems worth the sacrifice.
Amelia isn’t stupid. She’s fertile and they’re desperate. However the arrangement could benefit them both. They get a child; she gets a chance to start over while also providing for her family.
Without another thought, she takes their cash and signs their agreements, filled with words she doesn’t understand. That night she leaves the money under her pillow with a note that she’ll be in contact soon and she’s safe and found a job in a foreign packs her bags for London and ignores the questions that arise when she realizes the ticket is only one way.
~*~
London is loud and frantic. Bright lights and people bustle everywhere. It’s been a week or two since they’d found out she was with child, celebrated with a big breakfast and a blood test—it’s the closest Amelia has felt like she’s belonged.
Once schooling starts, she thinks this will change. She can make friends here, have tea and discuss Shakespeare and Hemmingway while carrying the child to term.
With her pregnancy a certainty, she’s given freedom to explore before classes begin in earnest. No longer confined to the apartment the three of them share, Amelia tries to find her place in the city she now calls home. Yet everything feels distorted and just out of her reach, the freedom she’d longed for found only within parameters set by another. Ethan and Susan say that they want her to enjoy her time in London—but there’s a feeling that they’re both watching her every move.
It’s silly, she reasons. Of course they’re watching--Susan can’t have children of her own and this child is their future, their family. They both are scientists by profession; observation is in their blood, just as their baby is in hers.
It still nags at her, doubts sinking further into her thoughts as she eats her protein and organic produce before undergoing another round of procedures. She doesn’t know much about babies, as this is her first pregnancy. But the books in the library say that what she’s undergoing is not typical for young, healthy, mothers.
However this is not a typical pregnancy, and her family is eating full meals for the first time in their lives, she reasons. So Amelia swallows her worries and rests her head on down pillows, dreaming of a bright future for them both.
~*~
The morning sickness comes out of nowhere. Her stomach rolls and she wonders idly why it’s called morning sickness and not just sickness as it has no rhyme or reason and lasts longer than the morning. Ethan and Susan lurk in the shadows and her time outside of Hillingdon disappears as quickly as it’d begun.
It’s to monitor her more closely, or so they say. The vomiting makes them nervous—she’s still permitted her classes, as they’re down the road, but nothing more strenuous than that. Amelia wants to argue, claim that she’s seen mothers carry water while eight months pregnant, but the words die in her throat.
If she seems contrary, her education, her time in the library may disappear as well. The Duncans seem reasonable, but Amelia knows that they’re in charge and she likes learning far too much to risk it.
Instead, she begins to use her time to monitor her monitors. It begins as a passive aggressive response to their overly cautious behavior, but then Amelia overhears the words uncharacteristic and subjects when they don’t think she’s listening. Words that are wholly separate from what they’ve told her so far about her condition, phrases that Amelia would not consider using when describing the life growing rapidly inside of her.
Uncharacteristic.
She’d never call her pregnancy that and it seems strange in the context of all that she knows. But what does she know, really?
Nothing.
She wonders what they mean—everything she’s seen in the Flats with her mother when she’d carried her younger siblings, and with the other women in her village, as well as what she’s read in the books about pregnancy suggest that this is normal and simply a mother’s stomach, but she knows better than to ask.
The Duncans don’t tell her much about what to expect as her body changes—just give her vitamins and encouraging smiles as they take notes and discuss the weather. It seems strange, but perhaps it’s because Susan can’t know what is like to carry life inside herself, Amelia reasons, and shakes her head for questioning this.
Questioning them.
Her family is eating because of what she’s doing—Ishani, smart, young, inquisitive Ishani, can stay in school and become a doctor like she’d always dreamed. Pretty Carina will not have to flirt with foreigners and lose parts of herself as she negotiates kissing booths and blurred lines so that they can survive.
Gavin, seven and too street-wise for his own good, will not have to follow after James, distracting tourists while their brother steals wallets and sells drugs to keep them in their home.
Ethan and Susan have never had to compromise themselves to stay alive. Their stomachs have always been full enough that they haven’t had to turn to love to survive. And maybe that’s why they love differently, behind coded words and pointed looks, and can worry about things that are uncharacteristic when their lives seem so ordinary. Everything buried beneath the surface—but Amelia vows to watch more closely now as her doubts are proving more than that.
She hugs her middle, imagining the life inside of her and the future it will have. Will it carry any part of her with it, the way that she carries it within her? It’s not possible, she knows, but still Amelia hopes that the light inside her knows love.
~*~
She hears them whispering late at night when she can’t sleep. It’s unseemly, she thinks, spying on them, but ever since the first time they’d mentioned subjects Amelia needs this time to reassure herself that everything is fine.
Most of the time, they argue about scientists and theories that she’s never had the mind for, she preferred literature until she’d left school entirely to work in the markets, weaving baskets and making jewelry two rand at a time.
Amelia misses the simplicity of it, weaving and creating trinkets with her hands. This was supposed to be a way out of that life, but Amelia finds herself yearning for a way back in more and more each day.
Instead she hides in corners, listening for whispers that confirm her paranoia. Amelia knows it’s ridiculous, she is being ridiculous, but the pit in her stomach never grows away. She turns to leave and try to fall back to sleep when their voices pick up and she stands in place, listening in.
“Leda—“
“Is progressing just fine. I’m not sure why you’re concerned,” Susan interrupts and Amelia can hear Ethan let out an annoyed sigh.
“They’re compartmentalizing the project—we’re no longer involved with Castor,” Ethan comments and she tries to make sense of it.
Castor, Leda. Greek mythology? Is this what they did for fun, then? And if it were a hobby of theirs, why were their tones so clipped?
Susan is always harder to make out than Ethan, who gets louder and more animated when he’s debating or sharing his concerns. They’re opposites, the two of them, but they compliment one another well enough.
Even if Susan won’t let Ethan bring his birds, his swans, into their home—another matter of intense debate in their household.
“You’re right, of course. It’s more that man they’ve hired to run things—“
Susan asks a question to clarify things but she can’t make out the words—it’s frustrating and only increases her questions when she hears half of a conversation never intended for her ears.
“No, no,” Ethan interrupts and mumbles some words Amelia doesn’t catch. “Wants to come over next week, before the scans. That leaky fellow—“
Leaky? That couldn’t be right, Amelia thinks as she mulls over their words and decides to make her way back to her room before she’s caught. Another night without answers and additional questions that she isn’t sure how to examine. Pulling the covers over her head, she rubs her stomach and makes a note to reread the myth of Leda and the Swan between classes tomorrow.
~*~
She remains at the library far later than intended. She’d lost track of time, or so Amelia will say if the Duncans ask questions about her whereabouts, but all the research into Leda leaves her head heavy and more confused than she’d been at the start.
The longer she’d spent there reading different translations and interpretations of the myth things grow more muddled and the running list of questions increases with limited, if any answers. Maybe it’s truly nothing—a pastime for intellectuals that she’ll never understand.
Turning the key, she holds her breath, expecting a frantic burst of questions that never come. Instead darkness and a light shining under the parlor door greet her. Amelia considers knocking on it and thinks better of it, hiding in the shadows that she has grown to know so well.
“A child, a life unfettered by evolution—“
That voice is unfamiliar—male, American, likely. He’s excited about whatever they’re discussing and Amelia’s unease grows as she thinks about what he is saying. This could be hypothetical, all of it, not necessarily related to the child she carries.
The Duncans’ child.
“No, no!”
Ethan is angry. She knows the clipped tone well enough from nights of listening to Ethan and Susan argue, but this is not like the times when Susan has outwitted him; no, this is this is true anger. Barely contained rage.
It is not hypothetical. It is not a theory. But it must be, it cannot be anything else—Amelia listens for more words to lessen her worries, craning her neck and slowing her breathing in the hope that this is all a terrible mistake.
“Yes, just think of it! A new era, and all that’s possible—“
“It’s rather fascinating, Doctor Leekie, but fringe science,” Susan whispers, her voice less mottled than normal and Amelia hangs on every word.
“I’ll ignore the irony inherent in your skepticism, Doctor,” the American—Leekie—laughs and Amelia can imagine the smirk on his face as he says it.
“She’s meant to be the control, this cannot happen if—“
“Ah Susan, but what if neolutionism is the true control? A face for a new age, yes?”
“She’s to be our daughter, Aldous,” Ethan stresses the word daughter and Amelia’s blood runs cold as any remaining doubts about the danger that she’s in—that they’re both in—disappear as the brutal realization sets in.
Daughter.
Instinctively, she clasps her stomach with both hands, her heart beating wildly in her chest. Her suspicions were right all along—this life, this child is in danger.
“What Ethan means to say, is that we appreciate your insight, however, it will—“
“Yes, yes of course,” the American replies, but Amelia is barely listening now. Instead, she’s quietly rifling through drawers, pulling notes out of Susan’s bag, it’s not much money, but along with the bills in her pocket it will be enough.
It’ll have to be.
She hesitates before putting Susan’s purse down, eying a photograph of Susan and Ethan in lab coats and pockets that as well. If something happens to her, to them, she at least has a photograph to bring to the authorities.
Quietly, Amelia grabs some food, careful not to leave anything out of place—a few apples, some pears, a loaf of bread—and stuffs it into her knapsack along with a change of clothes. Her hands shake as she moves about the apartment, listening for any sign that their conversation is finishing up, but none come.
She grabs a coat and a knife on her way out the door and realizes what she must do. When she’s halfway down the street, Amelia hacks at her hair and reaches for her textbook, determined to fake her own death.
She clasps the knife in her hand and cuts her palm, the blood oozing out of her hand. “For my baby,” she grits out, smearing her blood on the pages as she spreads her hair about, hoping that it’s convincing enough.
She glances around to make sure no one sees and lets out a sigh—the moon is her only witness, but Amelia isn’t stupid enough to think they’re safe. Admiring her handiwork, she takes one more look at the home she’s left behind before running as fast as her feet can take her in the other direction.
~*~
Brixton serves as a temporary resting place; it’s far enough and dark enough that she has a chance of blending in. All she’d known about the area when she’d arrived was that it’s dangerous and there are enough black people that she wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Now she knows more, that the people of Brixton are kind and it’s the type of place to disappear in and that’s what Amelia needs most of all.
Here, she goes by Yari, an islander, like so many others—working for a copper or two as she braids hair and makes conversation with the other women in the shelter.
“Yari, you’re getting big,” Inez observes as she adds seasonings to the pork they’re making for supper.
Inez was the first woman she’d met here. Friendly and in her mid-forties, Inez had run away from her husband after he’d hit her one too many times. She’s a bigger woman, kindhearted full of love and remorse. She’d said one of her sons was lost to her—in jail for larceny, something her husband blamed her for when he’d had too much to drink.
Something he did far too often these days, according to Inez.
Amelia makes a face at that, not entirely sure how to respond. Well, she knows how she would respond, but she’s unsure whether or not Yari would answer in the same way.
“It’s a good thing,” Inez comments, placing a hand on her shoulder. “The baby is healthy. How long to go again?”
“Four months,” she responds, wiping her hair off of her face as she kneads the dough between her palms. She’s not allowed to cook the meat, not since the first days here when she was unable to season it the right way. Inez’s been suspicious of her ever since, but in a place with so many secrets, the others don’t care.
It’s a kind concern, Amelia knows, but she cannot afford to trust anyone when the Duncans are out there running their experiments. Her face has not made the BBC, however they must still be looking. She’d tried to make it look like an attack, but it was desperate at best.
“Four months left?”
“Yes.”
It’s a lie. She’s six months along, but she feels that a month shouldn’t make that much of a difference. At first Amelia had considered saying that she was further along than six months, but a ten month pregnancy would be more difficult to explain than an eight month one.
“Are you sure, Yari? You look much bigger.”
“I know when it happened,” Amelia responds, trying to wave the older woman off as she places the dough in the oven. “The women in my family always have big bellies.”
“No, no. If you are truly five months in—”
“I am,” Amelia interjects, annoyed and confused as to where this is going. They can’t have found her, not here. It is a women’s shelter. The workers had promised her that she would be safe here and no one would find her.
Unless the Duncans had paid someone off in an effort to locate her.
“You have twin babies,” Inez grins and pats the woman’s stomach tenderly and Amelia relaxes a bit when she starts laughing so hard tears prick the corners of her eyes. Amelia can’t breathe as the words come into meaning.
Twin. Babies.
“What?”
After a second of contemplation, Amelia relaxes. This is not possible—she’d overheard the scientists talking about a child. However, it does mean that she can trust Inez as if she were truly with the scientists she would know that.
“Oh Yari,” the older woman laughs, loudly and without reservation as she cups her cheeks. “You look like I must have when I discovered I had two sons in my belly. It is a blessing, I promise you.”
“A blessing—“
“Yes, a blessing,” Inez interrupts, placing a hand on the small of Amelia’s back and guiding her to the table. “Come, sit.”
Amelia sits in the chair without comment. It’s easier to let Inez mother her; it also saves her from more jokes about her poor cooking skills and aversion to curry, which she has blamed on the baby.
“I will finish dinner and call the others—you are in shock. We can go to the doctor to be sure—“
“No,” Amelia shouts and pales when she catches the older woman’s frown. Her stomach ties in knots at the idea of a doctor examining her and somehow they will know, they will find her and all of this running will have been for naught. “No, please. No doctors, I do not want the father to find me. Please.”
“Fine, fine,” Inez relents and Amelia feels the panic leave her as Inez grabs her hand. “You must be calm. You are safe here. No doctors. I promise.”
“Thank you,” Amelia whispers as her eyes water at Inez’s words. Safe. She knows it’s a lie; Amelia will never be safe again. But the way that Inez’s brown eyes soften and her weathered hands wipe away the tears on her cheeks makes Amelia want to believe in the impossible idea that she and her child will be come out of this alive.
~*~
Amelia falls into a routine, growing more comfortable with the women who come in and out of the shelter. She no longer wears Yari like a mask, but a second skin, one that fits tighter and feels more right by the day. She jokes with the women who take up residence there and spends a great deal of time with their children, reading stories and laughing while playing checkers after dinner.
Inez is a constant, and Amelia welcomes her presence in a way that she hadn’t anticipated as the due date grows closer and the prospect of motherhood stares her in the face. She has done this before, giving birth, raising children, and she knows how to hide well enough. Her husband has not come to find her in all of the months that she has been here, and that seems proof enough of her skill to Amelia.
Amelia feels a tug at her shoulder and she turns, meeting Inez’s concerned gaze. She finds her ear and whispers, “a man came looking for you earlier.”
Panic cuts through her like a knife, sharp and spreading as her heart beats in her chest. She grips her stomach like a life line and tries to still her breath for the baby.
They are looking for her. They have found her.
She is not safe here. They are not safe here.
“It’s not—“
“Do not worry, Yari,” Inez interrupts, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder and Amelia relaxes slightly. “I said that I did not know you.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, the enormity of her gratitude filling those two words with more importance than Inez could ever know.
“Do not thank me yet,” Inez replies, gently pushing Amelia forward, toward an empty office. “Come, we must talk privately.”
Amelia eyes her warily, unsure whether or not she should follow. She wants to flee, to run into the night and find a new place, a new name to wear like a mask so she can raise this baby, this child, away from those who would harm them.
“If I was to out you, I would have done so already,” Inez huffs, her exasperation audible and yet it makes Amelia smile and relax for a second. “Come.”
Without another word, she follows the older women into the office and hears the door shut behind her. Then, she opens her mouth, willing words to spill forward only to find it filled with cotton.
“Who are those men?”
“Men?”
Her heart races and Inez grabs her arm, steadying her. She can’t panic, for the baby’s sake, but all she feels is the adrenaline rushing through her and the fight or flight response kicking in.
“Yes, yes, men. When there is one, there are more,” Inez explains, as if it’s a logical thing, commonplace for men to show up at shelters looking for women. She
“Why are they looking for you?”
“I—” Amelia stammers, inhaling sharply. She is trying to find the words despite her increasing panic. “My baby, they want to harm my baby.”
“Ah. You are not an islander, are you?”
“Please. I cannot—the child—”
“Calm yourself Yari,” Inez states, her tone more a command than a request. “I can help you. But you must explain, dear.”
“How? You are not—we are in a shelter! These people, they have power and money—“
“Bah,” Inez interrupts, as if is a silly thing, inconsequential. “I must be honest with you, Yari. My name is Sandra, not Inez. Inez is my mother’s name, and she raised me to help women, women like you.”
“What—I do not understand.”
And she doesn’t—Amelia feels she will never find solid ground. While she is Yari, here, she never expected that she would be one of several with another name to hide secrets behind.
Stupid, so stupid.
“This is not the first time I have helped women like you,” Inez—no, Sandra, explains and Amelia inhales sharply. There are no other women like her, she thinks, but since she is trapped here, and there are men searching for her, she has no choice but to listen to what this woman has to say.
“What do you mean?”
“Women in danger. I have helped them stay hidden—their children as well,” Sandra continues, her eyes lingering on Amelia’s stomach and she wraps a hand around her womb protectively.
“I do not—“
“They had money, Yari—“
“Amelia,” she interrupts whispering her name like a prayer. “My name is Amelia.”
“Amelia, then,” Sandra smiles and she relaxes at the easy way in which this woman accepts that she has secrets of her own. “These people, they had a lot of money, resources. Whoever you are hiding from wants you badly. I have done this before, hiding women involved with powerful men deep into the black, but I must know who they are, what they want.”
“My—the child. They want the baby,” Amelia confesses, her eyes hot and ready to shed tears any moment, but she forces them back, refusing to break down now. It is one thing to confess her truths, it is quite another to cry on top of it. She will be brave.
“Why do they want the baby? Who could possibly—“
“Scientists. I don’t know—I was so stupid!”
Sandra places an arm on her shoulder, soft and comforting as she begins to rub circles into her back, much like her mother might have, back in Cape Town, when life was simple and right. She misses that life.
Choking on a sob, the hot tears burning her cheeks, Amelia swallows her anger—her lack of strength—and steels her face in a weak attempt to mask the sheer terror and desperation that she feels. In—Sandra is still waiting on an explanation.
“I am from Cape Town. A couple found me, they said they were on holiday, infertile, they said. I help them create a life, they help me improve my family’s lives,” Amelia starts, hands shaking despite Sandra’s continued calming presence, soft circles doing little to quiet her nerves.
“In vitro, then?”
“Yes—no. At first I did not question it, the medical tests. They are scientists; perhaps they were worried. The woman, Susan, she said she could not have children,” Amelia continues, waving off the older woman when she starts to speak once more.
“Please—“
Sandra answers her with a nod and grabs her hand, the skin weathered against her palm, and squeezes. She seems to understand that this is difficult, that she cannot be interrupted, and for that, Amelia is grateful.
“I began to hear things, nothing certain at first. A new evolution, science—I continued to listen and I ran. These people, the Duncans, they wanted to harm the baby. Perform medical experiments. I had to leave—please, the child,” Amelia rushes out, her tears falling freely now, her throat tightening as her grief and her fear washes over, wracking her body with sobs.
Arms snake around her body and Amelia relaxes into Sandra’s embrace as she comforts her. “Shh, child. You did what was best, I swear it. Money like that—it is a vile thing, experimenting on a baby. You were right to run from these people.”
She sobs harder at that, she’d never been sure, not really, that what she’d done was best, but hearing this woman reassures her and lifts a weight from her shoulders.
“You are safe here, Amelia,” Sandra adds, her name foreign and halting on her tongue, as if she’s testing it out to see how well it fits. “I will protect you both; I swear it.”
“H—how?” Amelia stammers, unsure of herself. If they have come to Brixton, with photographs of her and stene, she cannot stay. She has been outside the shelter, to the market and library; surely someone has seen her face here.
“We must plan carefully,” Sandra concedes, and she finds herself biting her lip in an attempt to hide her annoyance at the obviousness of that statement. “But for now you must remain here, as Yari, as if nothing has changed.”
Amelia opens her mouth to argue, to point out the danger in this plan, but all that comes are frustrated tears instead.
“Shh,” Sandra coos, though there is more of an edge to it than she’d expected, as if it’s half comfort and half command. “You remind me of my son, Carlton. Run first—but that is what they expect. You must wait.”
“B—“
“No,” she snaps, frustrated, and Amelia jumps at the sound. In truth, this woman is so different from Inez it is a wonder she can wear her mask so well. “They will find you if you leave now. A woman leaving the shelter so soon after their visit will draw attention. Your belly will confirm it. No, you must stay here, Yari, and wait.”
There’s truth to this, Amelia knows, but the walls are suffocating and she feels unsure of the plan. All she knows is to run when things are difficult, and yet, this woman, Sandra—or must she be Inez again?—demands she stay.
“The other women—they must suspect,” Amelia says finally, trying to grasp at any reason to give into her instincts. It’s a thin argument at best and perhaps Sandra is right, but what if she’s wrong? The people searching for her have been to the shelter, they are close enough to the truth, they—they could harm the baby.
Sandra sighs, her irritation noticeable, and Amelia watches her through watery eyes, her vision distorted and blurred, but the edges of the handkerchief are visible enough. Sandra waves it in front of her face and she takes it without a word.
She has lost the argument. That much is plain to her and the more she thinks about it, Sandra is right. She must stay here, at least for now.
“Dry your eyes, Yari,” Sandra urges and Amelia obliges her. “I know it is a sad thing, your boyfriend’s death, but remember he is both good and bad—he beat you, threatened the baby, yes? It is a sad thing, death, but do not forget the rest of it.”
She pauses for a moment, confused, before it all makes sense. This is the story that they will tell themselves until it is true, whenever asked by the other women. It seems almost too easy, how well Sandra can come up with these lies that work as truths, and it reassures Amelia that she is skilled.
“You’re right, Inez. I just worry about the child, growing up without a father,” Amelia lies; shocking herself with how easily the story comes together. Yari and her fragile heart.
“Bah, with you as the mother, this baby will not lack for love,” S—Inez, because it’s truly Inez now, just as she is once again Yari and nothing more, says and offers her a hand, helping her from the chair. “Come, I will make you dinner. We will discuss the arrangements later.”
~*~
They settle in the East End after a month, when Amelia is swelling with child and knows that the time is drawing nearer, under the guise that Yari is helping Inez with her ailing mother. It works well enough, the other women at the shelter know that they have grown close, that Yari is like a daughter to Inez, and she would want a friend there, at the end.
In truth, there are three of them—Sandra, her son, Carlton, and her. They sit and wait, trading stories and laughing. It’s a diversionary tactic, but it feels like home in a way that nothing outside of South Africa ever has.
But eventually, eight months becomes nine and the waiting, comfortable, friendly, leads to anticipation and increased planning. There are names to consider; what is to be done with the child—Amelia wants to raise it, but Sandra is worried that the child won’t be safe, living a life where they both are looking over their shoulder, running from men with deep pockets and deeper resources.
Then, there is no time for debate, it is time for action.
March 15, 1984.
The day that three became five.
The two of them dance around the issue, Carlton, a year younger, plays with the children and smiles reassuringly when his mother is out of sight. But Sandra warns her not to name the girls—and they’re always the girls—to not get too attached.
However, after a few days, when she’s recovered, Sandra finally decides it’s time to press the issue.
“We need to discuss what we must do,” Sandra begins, cornering her after she’s placed them down for a nap.
“I want to raise them, my daughters,” Amelia answers automatically, willfully ignoring the issues that stand in the way.
“A black woman with white babies?” Carlton smirks, finding the irony in this situation amusing, despite his continued flirtations with her when Sandra isn’t watching. In another life—she thinks—this man would be someone she’d consider building a life with. She likes his humor.
But this is not another life.
This is the life where she has two daughters. Two white daughters with dark hair and eyes.
“I do not care—my babies need me,” Amelia stammers, her eyes watering at the thought of being separated from the children takes root in her mind. She hadn’t even wanted to be a mother, at least not this early, and now—now the idea of separating from her children, and they are hers, is far too much to bear.
“They will be in danger with you,” Sandra huffs, annoyance palpable, as if it’s obvious to even the slowest individual. “You know this, that you will be found.”
“Not in America,” Amelia returns, obstinate. With the time they’ve given her to recover, she’s been able to draw up a ghost of a plan—it will be dangerous, yes, but in America they can hide better, among the millions of people and the more liberal citizens.
The media always says that America is the land of the free, a melting pot, now they must prove it.
“Child! Listen to yourself!”
“But—“
“No. These scientists—these men, they had money, yes?"
“Y…yes,” Amelia stammers, uncertain where this line of reasoning is going but she is certain that she is on unstable ground and that her plan is fading as quickly as it had been strung together.
“The—“
Carlton places a hand on Amelia’s shoulder, waving off his mother, whose voice is growing in intensity. She nods and sits down, waiting for her son to speak.
Carlton looks at her with soulful eyes; Amelia can tell immediately that he already regrets whatever it is that he is about to say, but will say it anyway. His gaze cuts her to the core, more deeply and fully than anything Sandra might say in that moment, and her eyes begin to water as she realizes she has lost the argument. Lost her children.
“America is the richest country in the world,” Carlton whispers and Amelia nods her head. “These men—these scientists—they could only have done this with American money.”
“No—“
“They paid you with American dollars, yes?” Carlton asks and she nods, the sheer force of this realization slamming into her like a tidal wave, violent and all encompassing.
America may be the land of the free.
But she will never be free, or safe, there.
And if she cannot be safe there—she will not be safe anywhere.
Her children, though, her babies, they have a chance. Sandra knows it. Carlton knows it. That is why this must be done—her babies deserve this, deserve freedom, safety. Both things she cannot provide.
“I wish to name them, before,” she says finally, realizing that both Sandra and Carlton were waiting for her to say something. “Before I send them away, I wish to name them.”
“N—“
“Mum, let her do this,” Carlton interrupts and Sandra squeezes her hand, relenting, even though it worries her. “Amelia deserves to name her children.”
“Yes, fine,” Sandra agrees, nodding her head as she eyes Amelia sadly, finally allowing her emotions to splay across her face. For this, Amelia is grateful, thankful that Sandra understands what she is being asked—no, what she must do—for the children.
“Helena,” Amelia whispers the name like a prayer. “The younger one, the quiet baby who screams at night. Helena. I want her to go to the nuns, my light.”
“Fine, Helena, then,” Carlton smiles approvingly, encouragingly, and Amelia exhales. She would not receive a complaint about her younger daughter. The light inside of her.
“That works well,” Sandra agrees with a sad smile. “It sounds Greek, we can place her with the Orthodox nuns none the wiser.”
The nuns. That was also a concession to Amelia—when they’d discussed plans in the abstract, Amelia had wanted her child to be raised by the church if she could not do it. Less paperwork, less testing, and a more righteous upbringing than the government could provide. She’d never trusted governments, not when her own was set up to benefit only the Afrikaans, and she felt that the church might do a better job with children.
“Yes,” Amelia adds, then bites her lip. This name, her elder daughter’s name, might be more difficult. The older one was a prickly thing, already independent from the time she’d left the womb, and when she cried it was more of a howl. While the younger—Helena—was an easy babe, except when separated, the older girl was far more trying.
Amelia was worried how Helena’s attachment might translate to a life away from her. The older girl would not have an issue, she thinks, but Helena—no, there was no use in worrying, this must be done so they both could have a life, even without her in it.
“Sarah. My older daughter will be named Sarah. It sounds like Sandra, but different enough to protect you—I wish for her to be named after you,” Amelia states, her eyes watering over as the older woman collapses into tears.
“I—I am so sorry child. For this. For what you must do.”
“Please—“
Amelia can’t find the words to say all that she wants—please don’t make me do this; please take them now before I change my mind; please promise me they will be safe; please let this be the right decision; please God look after them; please—somehow they understand.
Sandra grasps desperately at her body as she draws her in closer until Amelia is unsure where she ends and Sandra begins. Carlton watches in the shadows, stoic, silent, but still wrecked by the display. They are all tied together, the three, no five, of them, and although this is the only avenue left to them, it hurts just the same.
After all her tears have left her she feels Carlton’s fingers at her elbow, soft, gentle, but firm and Amelia looks up at him with sad eyes.
“Would you like to see them, before?”
“Ye—No. No.”
She wants to see them desperately, her two girls. Sarah—Helena. Cradle the two of them to her chest, Sarah fighting her the entire time while Helena clings to her hair at the mere threat that she might let go. But if she does, her resolve will fall apart underneath her and then none of them will be safe.
Carlton’s eyes widen for a second, betraying his thoughts, and yet it doesn’t bother her. Amelia feels nothing.
Without another word, Carlton leaves them, his mother too emotional to aid him in this and she refuses to look, refuses to listen, as Carlton bundles up the babies and takes them out the door—out of her life—and into another where they are all strangers.
She knows it is the only option.
But she cannot ignore the pit in her stomach as the door slams behind them with such finality.
Please. Please be safe. Please survive.
~*~
They dance around her, after all is said and done, but eventually Amelia is sick of being treated like an invalid, so she makes more of an effort. When Carlton and Sandra are off doing whatever it is they do—saving other women, other babies, she begins to work in the garden.
Amelia is being kind when she calls it a garden; in truth it is a patch of weeds behind their small apartment that are overgrown and messy—much like her situation. But it is something that she can nurture, and for that, Amelia seizes upon the opportunity.
The dirt under her fingers feels strange at first, foreign and simply different from what she found in the grounds back home, back in South Africa—a place she knows now she can never return to—not without hurting her family’s safety. But there’s a comfort in it as well, it does not stare back at her with sad eyes, it does not question—it simply is dirt.
She buys seeds from the market with the few pounds she has left. Amelia knows she could just ask Sandra or Carlton to get them for her—but this garden, this dirt, it is hers and hers alone.
The callouses come with time, when the dirt is soft to touch and the seeds have been sown, but they’re there all the same. It’s a reminder of all that she has been through in growing this from nothing, and when spring comes they will sprout and come to harvest, feeding the three of them—only the three of them.
Amelia wonders what her babies eat, now that she is not there to nurture them, if they are still Sarah and Helena or if they have new names for their new lives. It surprises her that she can think of them now with only the haunting shadow of regret, not the crippling sadness that had accompanied her prior to this project, this garden.
She hopes they are happy, that they are loved.
With a sad smile, she surveys her garden, noticing the first bits of green leaves sprouting up from the earth.
She can make something of this, of this tragedy, like she has made this garden from the shadows of disrepair. Amelia knows it now—knows what she must do.
Determined, she walks toward the apartment, to the home that sheltered her. Sandra and Carlton are seated at the table, and they both turn as she enters.
“I wish to help you—I wish to help women and children, please,” Amelia begs, the words spilling from her before she can give in to self-doubt. She needs this; she needs to have purpose again, to help other women like herself with nothing but impossible choices and desperation left to them. She knows that life, she knows what it is to survive it, and she can do this.
Carlton and Sandra are silent for what feels like an eternity before Sandra rises from the table, her relief evident on her face. She embraces Amelia and kisses her cheeks, her lips wet and cool and full of life, her hair scratching Amelia’s shoulder.
“Yes, child. Come—we have much to discuss. You can do this, you will do this, even if it will take you far from here.”
“Thank—“
“Do not thank me Amelia. You are a gift, your life is a gift, and you are a kind woman, a brave woman, to share it.”
With that, Amelia follows Sandra into her office, which doubles as a sewing room, and shuts the door. She is eager to have a purpose again, and while she will never forget her babies, her role now has evolved. She will protect other children with as much ferocity and determination that she wished she could use to protect her own.