When Women Were Dragons(101)
This bothered me deeply for reasons I couldn’t quite name at first. I sat up in my chair, my body tilted forward. Was I being aggressive? Maybe. “My mother’s body,” I said carefully, “wasn’t irrelevant.” My cheeks felt hot.
“Of course not. I didn’t mean to suggest so.” He sipped his tea again, closing his eyes and collecting his thoughts. He seemed unbothered by my sudden anger. Maybe he was used to being the target of people’s rage. “One could argue that perhaps she never felt the urge to transform in the way other people did. But that, too, I find doubtful. More likely, she did feel the urge to change, and powerfully so, and yet chose to stay anyway—she chose that very body, that very life, despite its limitations and despite the fact that it would be cut short far too soon. Even imperfect things can be precious, after all. The choice itself is precious. The smallness and the largeness of an individual life does not change the fundamental honor and value of every manifestation of our personhood. I think it does no good to wonder if your mother chose rightly or wrongly. There’s no such thing, you see? The only thing that is relevant is the fact that she was. She lived. She raised you and Beatrice as best she could and as long as she could and loved you every second. And her life mattered.”
I still had more questions, but I wasn’t sure I had the strength to ask them. Maybe it’s true that the cancer would have gotten her in the end either way. Or maybe she was afraid of what a life unbound might be. Or maybe she didn’t trust my father to raise me on his own. Or, simply, my mother loved me that much. Was it fear or love that made her stay? There was no way of knowing. The only thing that was certain was that I missed my mother. I felt a surge of grief hit me like a wave.
I looked at the clock. “I’m due in the lab in a bit, so I have to go fairly quickly. I’ll talk to my aunt Marla and we’ll see when you can come by for a visit. I’m sure Mrs. Gyzinska told you about my sister.”
He lit up. “Yes! A most interesting case. I have yet to come across a similar situation, either in the current literature or in any of the historical documents. Truly an extraordinary child. Has she ever fully transformed and then returned?”
“Not fully. Usually she only changes in bits and pieces. If she has ever fully changed, I have not seen it. We usually tell her to return to her little-girl self. Just in case.”
The doctor wrote something down. “And why is that, do you think?” he said.
No one had ever asked me that before. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I thought about my mother’s rules. Her silences. The sudden anger. The slap. She told me I would understand someday. But I didn’t. Instead, that slap came out of me in oblique and unexpected ways. In my explosion of anger at Mrs. Gyzinska that day in the library. At Beatrice when I saw her notebook full of dragons. It came out in my terror of being alone. My mother’s fear became my fear, whether I wanted it or not. The realization of this made me gasp.
“I can’t lose my sister,” I said, as large tears pooled and slid down my cheeks. I was astonished. I hadn’t meant to cry.
“What on earth makes you think you’ll lose your sister?” He shook his head in a state of bafflement and wrote something down. “A lifetime of research and still no one understands the basics,” he muttered under his breath. He scribbled something else on a separate scrap of paper and regarded me through a narrowed eye.
“Beatrice and I only have each other,” I murmured, which didn’t answer his question. The words were automatic, and for the first time, I realized how hollow they sounded. I had been saying these words for so long that I had never considered how quickly a comforting truism can become a limitation—or a trap.
The doctor leaned forward. “Well, first, it’s clear that this belief is no longer true. There are others in your life—indeed, you live in an entire household of others, all of whom would gladly risk everything to protect and care for both you and Beatrice. The two of you are part of something larger than yourselves. How marvelous! Would that all of us were so fortunate. While it is perfectly understandable that you once worried that your sister’s dragoning would precipitate her removal from your life, I think recent events should have disabused you of that notion. At this very moment, human and dragon families—both blended by birth and created by circumstance and shared bonds—are caring for one another and sitting down at dinner and making plans and occasionally squabbling and carrying on with their lives, just as they always have. You are holding on to a fear that is no longer relevant to the current reality. Leave it behind!” He drained his teacup and sat in silence for a long moment. I looked at my hands. “Essentially, you have a choice: you can force your sister to remain in the form you know, or you can accept her as she wishes to be. But ask yourself, is it really so terrible to have another dragon in the house? Will you not simply fight just as hard on her behalf, and protect her interests, and hold her in love and care, just as you always have?”
“But school . . .” I began lamely.
He tossed that idea away with his hand. “Small-minded bureaucrats!” he snorted. “Don’t even get me started on that ilk! I’ve been battling similar buffoons my entire career.”
I didn’t know what to say. I looked at the clock. I was definitely going to be late. But I wasn’t quite prepared to leave. I gulped the last of my tea, which for some reason made Dr. Gantz suddenly look unreasonably happy.