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I: 1896
He chased her across the beach, laughing, his dark hair plastered to the back of his neck with sweat. She’s laughing too, racing through the sun-soaked afternoon with the string of delicate white blossoms trailing like a banner behind her hair.
“That’s not fair,” Gilbert muttered, stopping in his chase. Foolishly, she stopped too, meeting his scarlet gaze through squinted eyes. “You run so much faster than I do, Ellie.”
“I know,” Ellice answered smugly.
Then Gilbert was charging at her again. Ellice only had time to yelp before her best friend rammed into her and knocked them both into the sand.
It was not a pretty thing. Sand went everywhere, and Ellice was picking grains out of her clothing for weeks after. But in the moment, it was glowing, pretty, like the sun far above that glinted off Gilbert’s silky hair.
“Ellie,” he said softly. She recognized it, that flicker of heat in his eyes. “I -”
Ellice leaned up, using the only bit of space between them to her advantage. She pressed her lips against his.
He kissed her back, her hands in his hair and his hands in hers, no longer a single bit of space left between the two of them. She liked it that way.
“Took you long enough,” Ellice gasped, smiling.
Gilbert rose to let her get up. “Got to make up for lost time, right?” he asked. His face was shy, his voice uncertain, and Ellice thought to herself that he must truly be dense if he still didn’t realize that she loved him too.
“Of course we do.”
II: 1916
“We’re about to get married, Ellie.”
“I know,” Ellice answered. She pulled on the simple white dress she had gotten and watched him dress himself too, the smooth skin of his lower back that she had found herself running her hands over again and again.
“It’s crazy.” Gil was laughing. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Gil,” Ellice replied. She moved across the room to kiss him, winding her fingers back into his hair, mussing his carefully arranged curls.
She knelt to help him button his shirt, and she was laughing too with him. This was crazy. The two of them marrying like they had any say against what happened in the rest of the world.
“Do you think we could have children?” Gil asked suddenly when she was gone. He rose from the bed to fix his hair as Ellice adorned hers with a crown of flowers.
“But…we’re colonies,” she said.
Gil shrugged. “Colonies can raise children. Most do.”
Ellice set the blooms into her hair. His words were tempting, she admitted. Ellice imagined having twins, two warm bodies she could clutch to her own. “The children thing…it sounds quite nice.”
“Good to know. We’ll talk more later.”
“Now.” Ellice took his hand. The church, the haphazard gathering of personifications that shouldn’t be allowed in the same room, the rings, the wedding - it all waited for them. “Let’s go get married.”
III: 1930
“She’s so beautiful, Ellie. She’s like you.”
Those were the first words Gil said when we finally met his daughters. He stood over the bed Ellice laid in, their daughters held in his strong arms. They were tiny, but Ellice could already see how undeniably beautiful they were. Their children.
“What will we name them?”
Ellice groaned weakly, almost indignant. “Gilbert, I’m exhausted.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking downward sheepishly.
She sighed. “How about ‘Tuvalu’?”
“I like it. This one…what if we name her ‘Kiribati’?”
Ellice grinned. She wanted to slap him. “You egomaniac,” she said, too sore to laugh. “That’s your name.”
“It's a different language,” he retorted.
“...just let me sleep.”
IV: 1943
“I don’t want to fight, Gil.”
“There’s just no choice, Ellie. I'm sorry.”
Ellice sighed, fidgeting with the gun. It felt clunky in her hands. Wrong. “For our daughters,” she said, forcing a smile.
“For our daughters,” Gilbert agreed, his gaze fixed on the aircraft floor below them. “For the colony.”
“Gil, not the colony,” Ellice said softly. “I don’t care about it.”
Gil startled. “It’s the reason we fell in love.”
“I fell in love with you, not with the damn colony, Gil.”
He looked as if he wanted to say more, but the plane was beginning to dip into a landing over Tarawa, and the war was upon them and the world was coming down.
“The girls are safe in the Rawaki Islands,” Ellice said, extending a fragile olive branch.
“They are,” Gilbert agreed. “We’ll...we’ll talk after the battle, okay?”
“Of course,” Ellice muttered, and then she pulled him down and kissed him despite the helmets between them. It was hungry and desperate and so many unsaid words exchanged all at once. Stay safe out there, he begged silently. I will, she promised back.
He pulled away, looking uncertain, and something within her froze and stilled. There was something he wasn't telling her.
But she had no time left to think about it. The Battle of Tarawa was beginning.
V: 1946
“Look,” Gil said. His voice was awash with pride, with joy, as he gazed out across Tarawa, lush and glowing beneath them. Ellice swallowed and pretended not to see the half-submerged tanks, the detritus of war. “Look at what we have.”
“What you have, you mean.”
“Ellie, it’s ours. We’re the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.”
“But you’re the ‘Gilbert’ half, and Tarawa is yours. What do I have?” Ellice laughed - stinging, bitter. “Funafuti?”
“Ellie,” he said gently, fidgeting with his hands in his lap. He was still beautiful, and Ellice still felt a twinge of warmth when she looked at him, but it wasn’t the same as how she felt before, when she knew he loved her, when she trusted him with every secret in the wretched depths of her soul. “What happened to us?”
Ellice looked away, searching for something neutral to keep her eyes on. She settled on the plane’s other window, the one across the aisle - the one that showed nothing but sky and sea and the occasional bird. “I don’t know,” she replied tartly. “You tell me.”
“Ellice.” His tone turned sharp as well, and she didn’t realize how used she was to him calling her Ellie until he stopped. “I didn’t do anything. All of this is your fault. The way you’re acting.”
Ellice breathed slowly. Keeping her eyes on that window because if she turned she would see his eyes, so steely, so different from the sweet boy who used to run across the beaches with her. “Sometimes, it seems to me that I don’t matter to you.”
“Where did you get that impression from?”
“You just moved the capital to Tarawa, far from my territory. You want to be in control of everything, don’t you? Of me?”
“Ellice…why…” She sneaked a glance at him to see his brows furrowed, in that way that would have been adorable if he wasn’t angry. “You’re crazy.”
“Perhaps I am,” she admitted. “Perhaps you’re right, Gilbert.”
VI: 1965
“They’re trying to separate us, Ellice.”
Gilbert’s voice was low and hushed, trying to hide from Kiribati and Tuvalu.
“Doing a pretty good job of it, if I’m seeing things correctly. Their own political party, huh? What’s it called again - Gilbertese National Party?”
Gilbert lowered his eyes to the floor. “Yes. Your people and my people…we can’t do this thing anymore.”
“I know,” she answered. The same thing she had said to him when they were about to be married in 1916. She’d loved him so much then. And now…
There was nothing left between them. No warmth. Just the treacherous, terrifying cold of a place that was once home.
“Can we keep it together?” Gilbert asked.
She laughed dryly. “No, Gilbert. We really can’t.”
“For the children,” he begged. “For Kiribati. For Tuvalu.”
Ellice glanced over at their daughters, all that remained from long-lost days of affection. Tuvalu was braiding Kiribati’s long hair with deft hands. Ellice knew she was older now, but in her mind’s eye, she would always see the tiny brown-haired child clinging desperately to her shoulder and meeting her gaze with starry blue-grey eyes.
“Fine.”
The word tasted horrible in her mouth, like condemnation, like sacrifice. Ellice had never been particularly good at sacrificing, but she would do this if she had to. Stay. For the children.
Gilbert sighed, but he was relaxing, shoulders softening from their posture. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said stiffly, then she stood.
VII: 1974
“We’re separating.”
Gilbert didn’t look up from his newspaper. “So it seems.”
Ellice sighed. “Do you care?”
“Yes, Ellie. Of course I still care.”
Ellice was stunned silent. He had called her ‘Ellie’. He had told her he still cared. “You do?”
“I never stopped,” he said gently, pushing the newspaper away. “I never could have stopped caring about you.”
Ellice believed him. Somehow, she believed him. She pulled him close and kissed him, slowly, tenderly, as if they had all the time left in the world.
“I missed you,” she admitted.
“I missed you too, Ellie.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“For what? You were right - I’m the insane one here. I’m the one causing all the trouble.”
“Ellie, I think the blame lies at least partly with both of us. So at least…let me apologize.”
Ellice sniffled and wiped at her dampening eyes. “I forgive you, Gil, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Ellie,” he said gently, his eyes starting to glisten too. “Everything is going to be okay.”
She didn’t quite believe him, but she loved him still, even though she didn’t trust herself to say it. Ellice sobbed alongside him and wished they weren’t colonies, chained to the Empire’s whims.
VIII: 1978
The colony separated. Ellice moved out and into a house in Funafuti, and she and Gilbert didn’t speak again until the day it happened.
Tiny cracks. Spreading up Ellice’s arms from her fingertips toward her elbows. Ellice watched in, almost in awe, marvelling at the delicacy in their jagged-glass formations. Then they started to bleed, torrents of red flowing from her skin, and they stung with pain so horrible Ellice wouldn’t wish it upon her very worst enemies.
She swaddled her arms in the bandages she found, a low steady headache beginning to thrum in her skull. When she’d calmed, Ellice took a plane to Tarawa despite the late hour.
Tuvalu and Kiribati greeted her at Gil’s door. Ellice smiled warmly at the sight of her girls and hugged them close. “You have wings, Kiribati,” she noted.
The taller girl laughed, a sound like breeze between palm fronds. “I do.” She flapped them, and a gust of warm air blew into Ellice’s face, making her sputter and giggle.
“Ellie?” Gil stood behind their daughters suddenly, head cocked to one side. “What’s up?”
“It’s private,” Ellice muttered, leaning close.
Gil eyed her curiously, his mouth tightening. “Girls, why don’t you go play on the beach for a while?”
Tuvalu and Kiribati exchanged puzzled looks, their eyes straying briefly to the bandages on Ellice’s arms before whisking themselves out of the house.
“You’re hurt,” Gil said matter-of-factly.
Ellice unwound the bandages to show him the extent of the cracks on her arms. They were still bleeding, three hours later. Her voice quivered when she asked, “What are these, Gil?”
His gaze stayed on her forearms for an immeasurably long moment. “Oh,” he said.
“What?”
“At dinner, a few hours ago…Tuvalu made a remark about wanting to be ‘free.’ An independent nation.”
Ellice froze, understanding suddenly. “So. I’m dying.” And Tuvalu was to be her replacement. She should have foreseen this.
He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, they were glittering with tears. “Yes.”
Ellice swallowed, keeping her eyes on the floor. What was she supposed to say to that?
Gil rose. “I’ll get Tuvalu.”
“Wait!”
He didn’t wait. Honestly, Ellice didn’t really expect him to. He went outside and called for her, and the girl came bounding over, her face still glowing with joyful innocence.
“Tell your mother what you said at dinner. About independence,” Gil said strictly, not missing a beat.
Tuvalu’s face paled. Shuttered. “Mother, I…”
“It’s okay, dear.” Ellice mustered a tiny smile. It took all of her willpower. “I’m not angry.”
Tuvalu’s eyes were suddenly glimmering with tears the same way Gil’s were. Their tears hurt, each one digging a tiny blade into Ellice’s heart.
“I just said I wanted independence!” Tuvalu sobbed. “And I do, Mother. I want to be free, to be my own country, and I’m not grateful for what you two have given me, but I always want more!”
Ellice swallowed past the rising lump in her throat.
“I’m independent,” Tuvalu said softly. “Or going to be. I spoke to the officials, Mother. To the Empire. You said…you said you wouldn’t be angry.”
Ellice wasn’t. Not yet, anyway, because her daughter deserved every little thing she wanted. Gil took it less gracefully. He dropped his fist on the table and roared, “You did what?”
Tuvalu stared him down. “You heard me, Father. It’s about to be finalized.”
“Tuv,” Ellice gasped, sensing the pain beginning in her temples. She realized, with a sickening resignation, that she was going to die. “You don’t understand.”
“What?” Tuvalu asked, blue-grey eyes big and clueless. “What’s wrong?”
Ellice took her in, the last time she would ever see her beloved child. The stubborn tuft of brown hair at the top of her head that refused to stand down. The three freckles right below her left eye. The slight shadows her long eyelashes cast on her cheeks.
Then the pain hit her like a physical blow, and she recoiled, falling from the chair and onto the floor. The door slammed open, and there was Kiribati, almost majestic bathed in the sunset light with her wings spread, except Ellice had no time to think about it because the scars on her arms were crawling up, higher, higher until they touched her shoulders.
“Mother?” Kiribati asked, her voice soft and terrified. “What’s happening?”
“Ellie!”
Ellice blinked, her vision distorting, throbbing black at its edges. A pair of red eyes were blinking down into hers and she recognized the way Gil’s hand felt, swallowing up her smaller one.
Slowly, he lifted her up, and he carried her onto the worn cot in the corner. He was still clutching her hand - such a strange thing, for two divorced nations.
“Goodbye,” Ellice croaked, and it was the only word she could choke out. There was so much more she wanted to say, though. I love you, Gil. Tell Kiribati and Tuvalu that I love them too. I’ll love all three of you forever. Please stay safe.
Gil looked like he wanted to say something back, something like ‘Goodbye’ or maybe even ‘I love you’ if she was optimistic. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Tuvalu raise her chin and close her damp eyes and slip out of the house, pushing past Kiribati as she went. She saw the way their gazes met, small and fragile, and how Kiribati reached out for her sister before realizing she was gone.
That Tuvalu would never return to them, and neither would Ellice, because Tuvalu was about to be independent and Ellice was about to die.
IX: 1979 - Kiribati
Kiribati woke to an insistent thumping against the wall downstairs. This would be the last night she had to listen to that sound. Tomorrow, in just a few hours, Gilbert would be gone.
Still, Kiribati rose, putting on her house slippers and tiptoeing down the stairs. She didn’t know why she stepped as quietly as she did - it wasn’t like she could disturb an insane man.
There he was, exactly how she had expected to find him. Gilbert crouched beside the wall, clutching bleeding knuckles in his other hand and weeping. His sobs were choked and ragged, like each one ripped flesh from his throat.
Kiribati locked her hands around his shoulders and pulled him away from the wall, just in case he tried to punch it again. “Gilbert. Father. I’m here now. You’re…” she swallowed against the lie. “You’re going to be okay.”
He gazed up at her with blank, unseeing red eyes. “Ellie?” he asked weakly.
Kiribati clenched her fingers into a fist. “It’s Kiribati.”
“Kiribati?”
“Yes - your daughter, Gilbert.” She didn’t expect him to remember. He remembered nobody but Ellice, far gone as he was. She walked over to the cabinet and pulled it open to find the roll of bandages, her memory flickering back through the hundreds of other days where she’d gone through this exact process.
Gilbert lowered his head and began to weep again. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said, sobbing softly.
Kiribati paused, lifting her eyes to the back of his downturned head. “You remember me?”
“I thought you were gone. With Tuvalu, and…and Ellie…”
How would she ever tell him? How would she ever tell him he was going to die in just a few hours?
“Father.”
He didn’t answer, just kept sobbing.
Kiribati sighed, picking up the bandages, going back over to him. “Let me bandage your hands.” One last time, she thought, but didn’t say. Before you’re lost to us too. Before I’m completely alone.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “I’ll be dead soon anyway.”
Kiribati froze, keeping her back to him as if that would help her hide. “You know?”
He laughed, raw, a little raspy. “You think I can’t feel it?”
Kiribati swallowed thickly. Her eyes were wet. “I’m sorry, Father.”
“Don’t. You’re just doing me a favour, anyway.” His voice hardened. “If you didn’t do it, I would’ve.”
Kiribati clutched the bandages close to her chest. “Just let me bandage your hands, then.”
Gilbert glared at her for a few moments. Then his defiance melted. “Fine.”
Kiribati led him over to his favourite rocking chair and sat him down. She dabbed the blood off his raw-beaten knuckles, winding the bandages around them again and again. She felt his gaze on her, cautious, like if he looked away for too long he would realize that she was just an illusion after all.
She moved to his other hand, and still he didn’t speak. Eventually, she felt him fall asleep - his fingers dropped slack beneath hers, his eyes finally shut, his breaths rattling like stones in his throat. His breathing was so fragile, every inhale shallow, and Kiribati found herself anxiously counting the seconds between each breath, wondering despite herself when his last would come.
Finally, Kiribati dropped his bandaged hand and pulled back, away from him. He was so vulnerable, sitting in that chair with his head lolling onto his shoulder, exposing the pulsing veins in his neck. He looked exactly like what he was - a man that was about to be dead.
An uncomfortable lump rose in Kiribati’s throat, her eyes beginning to dampen, but she blinked it all away, even her thoughts of Ellice and Tuvalu. How she had wished for her sister, in those long months after Ellice died, when Gilbert did nothing but punch at the walls and cry and scream. Now she understood perfectly - Tuvalu had killed their mother. Tuvalu had left Kiribati to this.
Kiribati touched his shoulder, just briefly, and his skin was already cooling beneath her fingers. “Goodbye, Father,” she said.
Wishing a loved one farewell - a luxury that many were not awarded.
He didn’t reply, of course. Kiribati pulled herself away from him and headed back upstairs, the certainty of her father’s death lying heavy in her heart.