Making Space (The Time Traveler's Passport)

by R.F. Kuang

“But more often than you realize, and despite all the mistakes they might make—the parents often know better.”

It was Chris who first wanted to have a child. Jess had never dreamed of being a mother. She liked her freedom, she liked her spare time, and frankly everything she’d ever heard about pregnancy seemed like body horror. But Chris wanted so badly to be a father.

By now, a child has become a purely hypothetical prospect, a symbol neither of them believes in. Parenthood is like heaven, a concept they are making desultory gestures toward, but a dream neither of them really thinks might come true.

Jess thinks she is experiencing a pleasure that all parents must feel—the privilege of showing their children the world.

These are the unspoken rules of their neighborhood. Drink your vinegar, but pretend it’s champagne.

Chris disappears among the cluster of husbands, who are headed out back to look at Harry’s new Cybertruck.

Tomato tomato tomato

“Because it’s not fair,” Buddy bursts out. “Because you burned the world, and we suffered for it, and it’s not fair that you get Eden and we have to choke, just because you’re here now, and we are not. It’s not fair. But I am here now, and I am going to make space.”

She has become for him a safe harbor, a home that will not be swept away, or burned down, or swallowed into the ground. Isn’t that enough?

Jess tries to imagine these people, this nameless pair who gave Buddy his thick brows, his long lashes. All she knows is that they are survivors in a dying world, a world where the air is not breathable and the ground scorches and floods take away everything you know in an instant, people who loved their child enough to send him to a safer past rather than burning with them. She is their promised land.

she understands her task is to keep Chris distracted, to keep his eyes on her, until Buddy is near enough to bring the bat crashing against his head.

She sees Buddy watching her. Smiling, she reaches over to ruffle his hair. “Oh, Buddy,” she says. “I’m going to give you the world.”