The Small Promise

The grass was already starting to turn. In the 4 days since the spill, the lush green was becoming a sickly brown. Unlike the brown of a crisp blade fried in the summer sun, which Cherry had seen before, this brown was warped. Everything had changed so quickly.

Cherry had been woken up this morning by her mother who was adorning a feeble smile and had obvious tear marks on her face.

“You got to get up and get dressed, baby.”

Cherry asked why.

Her mother clasped her hands together as if cheering. “You’re going to go stay with your Aunt Lynn today. Doesn’t that sound fun?” Cherry loved her Aunt Lynn, but something was wrong.

Cherry’s mother helped her get dressed in her loveliest blue frock. It was beautiful because it was the same color of the sky and had lace frills on the bottom. All her other dresses were faded or too small after her growth spurt. Her mother then brushed her hair exactly a hundred times, as she did each evening, and the act of this so early in the day made Cherry’s stomach upset. Her mother topped it all off with a matching blue bow that was saved for special days.

Cherry noticed while her hair was being plaited that both of her mother’s arms were trembling. Both of them. Her mother had one arm that looked like most everyone else’s and another that was auto-soft technology. Her mother had been born with just one and, up until recently, had lived her whole life like that. Several years ago, the auto-soft technology had become accessible through a series of payment plans, which realistically was the only way her mother would be able to get one. They were both grateful for the chance to try out such a thing, despite the adjustment period in the beginning. Cherry had never seen the shining silver arm quiver since those first days until this morning.

“Your arm, Mama,” she spoke quietly.

Her mother didn’t know what to say. Just this morning, along with the news of the effects of the spill spreading rapidly, she had heard that all the auto-soft limbs were being recalled because of a hidden trait in the metals they used to make the “cost-effective” ones. The metal was incompatible with human flesh and eventually, iron was being deposited into the blood. Her mother had been feeling the effects of it for months, having no name for her condition. How could she tell her daughter this? How could she explain such horrors to a child of eleven? She wouldn’t.

“Cherry,” her mother began, “I can’t come with you today and I hope that’s okay.”

Cherry’s head whipped around mid-plait.

“What do you mean?”

Her mother sighed and looked down at her rough hands, picking a callous.

“They aren’t letting the auto-soft users leave the province for a while. It isn’t safe.” This was the nice way of putting it. The auto-soft users weren’t allowed to leave despite the imposing dangers of the spill because the province was afraid of looking disgraceful.

“What do you mean?” Cherry felt her whole brain turn upside down. She was supposed to ride the train alone? She had never done this before.

“It’s just not safe for us to travel right now,” her mother said, smoothing Cherry’s fringe. And that was that.

As they walked the two miles to the train station, Cherry could feel herself sweating. It wasn’t just the heat, she thought. It was all of it. The spill happening days ago, the surprise trip to her aunt’s, the restriction of people with auto-soft to travel. Step after step, Cherry’s mom explained that everyone had to leave the province eventually because of the spill and they were just getting the little children out first ahead of everyone else because they were the most special.

“What about the children with auto-soft?” Cherry asked.

“They’ll take care of all of us eventually,” her mother said, wriggling her silver fingers, “but we’ll probably be the last ones out.”

“Why?” Cherry demanded.

“Oh, please,” softly, from her mother, “I promise everything will be okay. Your aunt will probably be able to explain things a lot better than me.”

After the unexpected sadness gripped Cherry’s chest, she decided to not ask any more questions.

As the train station appeared on the horizon, Cherry’s mother gently guided her out of sight into an alley between an abandoned factory and an empty parking garage. She kneeled on one knee, so her face was inches away from Cherry’s.

“I have a present for you.” Cherry’s heart leapt. She remembered the dismal state of last Christmas (one present of knitted socks and an orange), and this immediately grabbed her attention.

Her mother reached into her small satchel and pulled out a long and dim pearly necklace. Cherry was enamored with the heart-shaped pendant and even more so when her mother showed her that it opened. Inside was a picture of her mother when she was Cherry’s age and Cherry could not have thought up anything more wonderful if she tried.

“Now,” her mother spoke, tucking the necklace into Cherry’s bag which had been hastily packed this morning, “don’t let anyone see this, okay? It’s incredibly precious and people will want to take it from you and pawn it for just a few bucks.” An image came into Cherry’s mind of playing tug of war using the necklace. Cherry promised that she would keep it hidden until she got to her aunt’s.

“And don’t let the security at the train station scare you, they can’t look in your bag. Okay?”

Cherry nodded but felt like crying. Why did today have to be so different from yesterday, or even last week? Couldn’t things have stayed the same always?

At the train station, saying goodbye to her mom and going through security was a blur. Big men in their stately uniforms had always made Cherry uneasy. Presenting her identification was hard enough with trembling hands, and when the guard asked if she had anything valuable on her, she struggled to squeak out, “No.” The guard returned her ID and stepped aside so she could move on to the train. She looked behind her and saw her mother (between them two separate guards.) Cherry wished to rush back to her and beg her mother not to let her go. Instead, she waved to her mother and her mother put on again the feeble smile mask and waved back. Looking back later, Cherry realized in that moment, she would never love anyone more.

Cherry found the first available seat toward the back of the car and plopped down with her small bag. The car was filled with children around her age and some even older or younger. Some kids were already playing games, some were sleeping, and others looked as miserable as Cherry felt.

The conductor from the overhead speakers announced they would be leaving in 15 minutes. Cherry thought that felt like an eternity and wished there was a window. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to think of good things. Oranges, orange cats, cats drinking milk, dogs splashing in puddles…

Exhausting all of the good things she could think of, Cherry decided to take out the locket. No one was around her, except for some kids a few rows up. She wanted to look at it, wanted to study it and memorize its every curve and function. She stared longingly at the faded picture of her mother and was amazed at their resemblance. The same dimple on one side, the same cowlick near the front of their heads, and even the same crooked tooth were all striking to her.

As soon as she had time to notice these similarities in her mother’s face, the locket was gone and out of her hands. Yanked upward by a tall kid several years older than Cherry, the culprit was a light-haired boy with a bruise underneath his left eye.

“Give it back,” Cherry hissed at him. The boy smiled.

“What’s this?” He inspected the locket inside and out. “Pretty interesting. I didn’t know we had a rich kid on the train today. What is this, your dead mom?”

“It’s not – I’m not –” Cherry fumbled over her words. She looked up at the rows of other kids, grateful none of them had yet seen the interaction.

“That’s mine,” she pleaded again. “Please give it back.”

“Guess you’ll have to get it from me,” the boy said, tucking the necklace in his pants’ pocket and heading toward the door connecting this car to another. Cherry got up to follow him.

“What do you expect me to do?” She was frustrated now. “You’re bigger and stronger than me.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” the boy snorted, clearly having nothing better to say. “You’re not getting it back so you may as well go back to your seat.”

Cherry was fuming now. As the boy opened the door to go to the train car further back, Cherry put up both of her hands, and with all her might, pushed him. He stumbled a few steps. Feeling taken aback, the boy turned around and shoved Cherry in response. She felt the air knock out of her and she landed harshly on her behind. Cherry could feel tears stinging, but she didn’t want the boy to see her cry.

Other kids were looking now and making exclamations of how rude it was of the boy to shove a girl half his size. The boy sucked his teeth to keep his composure and turned around to go back towards the other car. Cherry wouldn’t let him.

Cherry stood up, dusted off her knees and ran to keep up with the boy. She entered the next car a few steps behind him and saw that it was empty. Her stomach dropped. The boy turned around at the sound of her steps.

“You’re still trying?” His voice was confident, but Cherry saw something uncertain in his eyes. This was all the motivation she needed to run at the boy full force again and try to really knock him down. This time, it worked.

The boy fell backwards and didn’t catch himself. He landed with a loud, dull thud and Cherry watched the locket fly out of his pocket. That wasn’t what she stared at, though. The boy’s pant leg had ridden up during the fall and Cherry was shocked to see a familiar sight: silver.

Cherry couldn’t help but stare at the boy’s auto-soft leg. He immediately tried to scramble and push his pant leg down, but it was too late. Cherry had seen it.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she spoke softly, just as her mother had earlier. For the first time, she recognized it as pity.

“Please don’t snitch,” the boy begged, pleading with her now.

Cherry drug her eyes away from the boy and to the locket sitting peacefully on the ground, seemingly unharmed.

The boy followed and continued, “You can have your necklace back, I promise.”

Cherry eyed the boy to see if she could trust him. He was shaking with nerves, so Cherry reached over his body to grab the necklace for herself.

“Just…,” she thought for a moment, “leave me alone, okay?”

The boy nodded and she saw tears starting to well in his eyes. She could offer him nothing but the small promise of a quick, timid smile before she went back to her seat.

Her things were left untouched, and she quickly stuffed the necklace with the heart shaped pendant back in her bag, trying desperately to avoid the inevitable stares from the kids around her who were eager to know what happened. Cherry said nothing and looked at her hands.

For the remainder of the ride to her aunt’s, she touched the outline of the heart through her bag for a small comfort.