The Adoration of Jenna Fox: List 4

Now she is cynical, sullen, and a deeper mystery every day.

Now she is cynical, sullen, and a deeper mystery every day.

I don’t understand the importance of rehashing an argument.

“It was a suggestion, Jenna. We only planted a strong suggestion. Like a subliminal message. It wasn’t programming. And it was for your own protection...."

Erratic behavior can sometimes be a side effect of such an injury. Usually medication is used to lessen adverse effects.

She is not the deferring type.

He remains steady, his eyes faltering for only a microsecond.

Glimpses of Mother smiling and following along, giggles from Jenna, and hollow protests from Father punctuate the journey.

I close my eyes searching for my own history, the intangible bits that will tell me if what I am is enough.

His face contorts to an unflattering mix of frustration and anger.

I look away and see more eyes, the statues of the saints watching us from their niches.

We walk on the grass, stepping over and around the tarnished markers that remember lives and moments in time.

I look for the slightest bit of revulsion, but none is there.

“The guy was a dealer. He gave my brother HCP. My brother was only thirteen at the time, Jenna. He didn’t know anything about anything. So I went after the dealer. When they sentenced me, they said they couldn’t tolerate people out there like me, trying to wield their own form of law enforcement. ‘Vigilante justice,’ they called it. It wasn’t justice. This guy’s free and my brother’s hooked. He’s been in and out of rehab ever since.”

“The guy was a dealer. He gave my brother HCP. My brother was only thirteen at the time, Jenna. He didn’t know anything about anything. So I went after the dealer. When they sentenced me, they said they couldn’t tolerate people out there like me, trying to wield their own form of law enforcement. ‘Vigilante justice,’ they called it. It wasn’t justice. This guy’s free and my brother’s hooked. He’s been in and out of rehab ever since.”

His lips nestle close to my ear, and I feel his labored breaths on my skin.

I am an oaf. My timing is off.

“Ones that might get out in the world and taint the original species? Is that what you mean?”

I can see it in every eyelash, every contraction of her pupil.

“A short forty years ago, you hopeless moron, you would have been underwater. Look at the top of this ravine! This was once a river. In just forty short years, thanks to transgenic intervention and its domino effects, this tributary has become a mostly dry creek bed. So that is why we’re here, Dane. End of lesson!”

“A short forty years ago, you hopeless moron, you would have been underwater. Look at the top of this ravine! This was once a river. In just forty short years, thanks to transgenic intervention and its domino effects, this tributary has become a mostly dry creek bed. So that is why we’re here, Dane. End of lesson!”

I look at the sparse trickle.

Even Gabriel, who wants to fade into the background more than any of us, looks like a strutting peacock compared to me.

Kara chides me, Jenna, I refuse to allow you to buy another blue skirt! Your whole closet is blue!

His house reminds me of Thoreau’s Walden. It is larger, but still rustic and natural, overgrown with landscape, banks of wild white roses tangling across the porch roof.

An upholstered stool is slashed and the stuffing pulled out and tossed.

I rip open boxes. Box after box. Books. Dishes. Papers. Clothing. Keepsakes. I dump them out.

I sit on the bed next to her, feeling her arms holding me, rocking us together in primal rhythm.

“It’s an old saying. It means getting out of town before there’s trouble. Except that I was getting out of the country. I knew you were—that your parents would be—” She sighs and shakes dirt from a cashmere fedora.

She perks up, looking almost pleased that I have found fault with Mother and Father’s little coup.

I am still mulling over the word identity as I answer her.

“They needed an escape plan in case the authorities caught up with them. So while your parents provide subterfuge, I am to whisk you to Edward, who in turn will help whisk both of us out of the country. The choice was Italy, since they don’t have the same restrictive laws as us and the climate would work well for you.”

There are labels. Faint and hastily scrawled with a pen.

Does the soul cling to the last vestige of humanity until there is no more?

When I wake, the rickrack of sky visible above the canopy has gone from cerulean to black.