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When Senlin returned to Marya’s dome with Olivet in his arms, he expected her to be waiting anxiously in the garden with her lips formed in that same, unfamiliar thin line he’d learned to expect these past weeks whenever he’d taken their daughter from her arms. But she wasn’t by that front door, and she wasn’t inside her golden igloo, nor the back garden.
Senlin eventually found her in the nearest park, much smaller than the one that housed the Arcadium, but grand in its own right for its handful of trees and its thicket of tiny raspberries. Marya was standing at the foot of one of those trees, looking at its boughs with an odd, hesitant sense of determination that looked entirely foreign upon her face. Senlin shifted his somewhat fatigued arms as Olivet squirmed and whimpered, and Marya turned to face them, her face slackening and relaxing when she saw them approach.
Senlin hesitated a moment, but he felt in Marya’s posture a command that could not be erased. She wanted to hold what he held, so he surrendered their daughter to her, and she opened the front of her blouse to feed her.
“I keep trying,” said Marya. “As soon as I saw a tree through the dome, I knew I’d been right to leave the ship. I wanted to teach Olivet how to climb.”
The infant squirmed in Marya’s arms at the sound of her name, and neither parent could help but smile and touch her nose, her cheek.
“But I couldn’t,” Marya went on. “I looked at it, and it was too high. It looked strong, but I knew it was a trap.”
He tried to meet her gaze, but he couldn’t. It had wandered to the nearest patch of immaculately groomed grass, and there it stayed as he said, “Well teach me, then. I’ll climb the tree, and if you teach me, I’ll play the piano. And I’ll share it with Olivet. She might not be as good as if you’d taught her, but that’s fine with me, as long as it is for you.”
Olivet wriggled again, and Marya adjusted her so she could feed from her other breast. Marya watched their child’s face intently, or perhaps absently.
“I’ll,” Senlin continued, “I’ll teach you how to be pedantic, and how to pretend you know a damn thing about where we are or where we’re going. I’ll teach you—”
“Will you teach me how to command a crew? Or maybe a classroom of more than ten?” said Marya. “Will you teach me how let go of you?
Senlin swallowed thickly, forcing back the pain, forcing back the tears. “Yes,” he said, “of course. Anything.”
Marya waited a full minute, until Olivet was sated, then handed the baby off to her father before rebuttoning her blouse. “Then I’ll teach you how to climb a tree.”