No Choice at All

She was crying in the Airtube waiting room, softly, attempting to keep it concealed from the others, when I returned to her. I will never forget the look on her face: disappointment, I had let her down. But she was broken, and I had no way of examining what else could be done. I had just been in to see her doctor at the time, Stevenson. When I entered Stevenson’s office, her first look was surprise, but it was gone quickly, replaced with terror. She knew, much before I did, in that very moment they were sending her for laser shavings, and I was not going to stop them. She looked from me to Stevenson, back to me, a plume of red growing on her face. That’s when I realized she was not afraid, she was furious.

The tears ran down her face in the same line, dragging makeup along her cheeks, like a river carving through the plains on Earth. I remembered the pictures from our history books. Slumped in an equalizing chair, her shoulders rose and fell unevenly as she cried silently. I felt pity and fear, and a whole mess of other emotions rolling through my body. She was broken; I had been raising a damaged child. I knew it for some time with her talk of morbid things and always seeing things from the dark side of life, but for a long time I had hoped it was some phase she would grow out of.

Her father was out of the picture for a long while by then. John would not have let them do it because he was strong, a planet starter. Of course, she probably would not have been the way she was had he still been alive. I tried on a smile as I stood there next to her, but I knew it was fake. Worse: I knew she knew it was fake.

A rush of wind hissed in the travel chamber as an Airtube ferry approached, forcing me to focus on the tasks; boarding, finding a seat, proving payment. Soon, a hum began to grow in volume and energy filled the air. There were seven passengers seated in front of us. We sat in the back row where we could sort of hide. She was no longer sobbing, but her aurora felt numb. A short burst from the vacuum forced me deeper into the chair briefly.

As we rushed toward home I thought of when her father died; how I did not process it; how I did not help her process it. I was on the verge of a breakdown myself, and I kept thinking of my mother’s history; what that likely meant for me. Also, what I had heard as a girl, rumors around dinner tables at family gatherings about my grandmother and great grandmother. I could not do that in front of her, not in this moment. The weakness in our minds carried down through our genes, generation to generation was something I was afraid of. My fear kept me from facing it, and I feel that forced her, no I am certain she was forced, toward it. We should have mourned him. We should have gone to his grave over and over, and dealt with his leaving little by little. How can I go back in time?

I can’t, can I, return in time, to the past I mean. There were all these signs along the way that I just ignored. I had hoped she would grow out of it, as the saying goes. But she had been growing into it instead. And I’m left blaming myself. What will that do to me; will I become just like her, like my mother and mother’s mother, needing some kind of treatment to bring me back to society?

During the trip, I grasped as much as I could about the laser shavings treatments. For nearly an hour, perspectives of different doctors and medical centers were dumped into my consciousness explaining of the benefits and the dangers of this fairly new process. Although similar to the lobotomy given to my great grandmother when she was a young woman, this was futuristic and precise. They could only be performed in low gravity, on a planet like Mars, where we thankfully were living. I wondered if I had been spared only because of growing up during part of history when purposefully damaging a brain was considered inhumane.

The idea behind the process was old, but the method was altered using new technology according to the information I had been given. The results would be roughly the same: disconnect part of her brain. A hundred years ago, or whatever the number, in the past it was considered the best way to fix those who could not handle their own minds. Over time people began to understand what was really happening and mostly put an end the procedure.

History was repeating itself, yet again, only I was wrapped up in it. I didn’t know how to help her or cure her of whatever was driving my precious child to depression and despair. I felt angry in that moment that the only choice the doctor had given me was one of destruction. Maybe it was the only way to fix her, I reasoned with myself. I certainly could not bring her back to happiness myself.

I did not prevent discussing it or spend much time after that trip home thinking about it. The topic seemed completely overwhelming and I avoided it almost entirely. She walked around the house with her shoulders slumped and her back arched, like she was trying to get closer to the ground. She avoided it too, until the morning of the day before the surgery.

“Ma,” she whispered. I wasn’t sure if I had heard anything at all until she spoke again, “Mama.”

I turned to her, from the stove, where I was making a wet batch of scrambled eggs. They were shiny with butter and dripping with milk.

“I won’t ever be the same. Why are you letting this happen?” she said, sounding distant and removed. “I want to keep being me.”

“I don’t know how to stop it,” I said, not sure what I meant. I still don’t know what I really meant with those words. Of course I could have stopped it; maybe the truth was that I did not want to prevent it. I knew she was broken.

“What if I run away? Will you come for me?” she pleaded.

“I don’t know why you would say something like that … especially at a time like this.” I felt emotions growing within, and struggled to hold on. I turned back to the eggs, and growled at her over my shoulder, “You’re giving me more reason to think is this is the right thing to do.”

I imagined her hurt, but I did not turn to see if it was true. I couldn’t hold in my own pain and tears dripped into the pan and sizzled.