Making Space (The Time Traveler's Passport)

by R.F. Kuang

“I’ve got an overnight in an hour. You figure this one out.”

Asshole

“But more often than you realize, and despite all

the mistakes they might make—the parents often know better.”

“No mask,” he says. “What?” Jess touches her mouth. “Me? No.” “Good air.” “Yes,” she says cautiously. “The air—it’s fine.”

Sus

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.

Combining the best of their separate selves into one perfect being.

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.

Chris likes Nina. Chris likes Nina very much.

Chris has displayed such an avid interest in Nina’s pregnancy—always asking questions about how far along she is, what the doctor has said this week, what to expect at this or that trimester.

Calling it now that Chris is the biological father.

“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.

Because everyone’s prayers have been answered after all; because Chris doesn’t get to be a father, but she gets to be a mother. Because from the corner of her eye she sees Buddy tiptoeing down the stairs, and 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.

Because Chris doesn’t like to look bad.

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.”