The Great Transition: A Novel

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

EMI

The day before my mom leaves for extraction duty, she’s not herself. She doesn’t wake me early. She doesn’t force us to jog upcity together. Instead, she makes breakfast. I smell it before I see it: egg tacos, sweet potato hash, warm cinnamon milk with honey. She has her screen on the counter streaming something upbeat and bland, and she’s smiling—practically singing good morning—as she pulls out chairs for us to sit.

My dad and I throw each other looks like, Who is this woman?

My dad’s always the one who makes breakfast. Also lunch and dinner. It’s always been this way. He’s a team nutritionist for the Tundra and he’s really good at his job, even if I don’t always eat what he cooks. When I don’t eat, my mom will say I’m spoiled, or picky or ungrateful, or accuse me of being difficult on purpose. But I’m not. Sometimes I just don’t want to eat. Sometimes I can’t. Even when she tells me I have to eat so many bites, like I’m a little kid. She’ll ask if I have any idea how lucky I am not to know real hunger. She’ll lose her temper. She’ll ignite. She’s most predictable in this way.

Other ways to ignite my mom:

Tell her you want a cat.

Tell her you want your own screen.

Tell her you hate getting up early.

Tell her you wish you lived somewhere less crowded than Nuuk.

Tell her school is stressful.

Tell her Sundays aren’t meant for sifting compost in the plaza garden.

Tell her you’re scared of choking on your food.

Tell her that you’re scared of anything at all.

But the day before she leaves for extraction duty, the sparks bounce off her. She won’t ignite. When I take one sip of milk and push back my plate, she just smiles and says, Maybe later.

I look at my dad while she scrapes my tacos into the compost.

He shrugs like: I’m not complaining.

My mom’s strange mood doesn’t end at breakfast: usually my dad and I walk the compost to the garden and then he drops me at school, but today she insists on taking me. Except instead of walking to school—after we dump the compost—she stops in the middle of Norsaq Plaza under the shadow of the maglev tracks and touches my arm so that I stop too. Morning sun is glowing over the tallest landscrapers like an aura. People stream around us. A group of workers is unloading tools from crates. They have been building a Day Zero stage for our plaza. Next to the stage, the McDonald’s Cooperative is putting up this huge food hall. Hanging on the landscraper behind their hall is a banner that curls in the breeze, the fabric rippling upward from REBUILDING TOGETHER! at the bottom to 16 YEARS AND ONWARD! at the top. I’m one thousand percent ready for my mom to make fun of the slogans, as she loves to do, and remind me of all the reasons the holiday is a chance for grown adults to play dress-up, eat junk, and get drunk, but this isn’t why she stopped us. She doesn’t mention Day Zero at all. She nods to the upcity rambla and suggests we go on a walk.

A walk where? I ask.

Oh I don’t know. Summit Park?

I can’t skip school, Mom.

Who’s skipping? You’ll only be late. It’s the day before vacation. I leave tomorrow. Your teachers will understand. We’ll make it a picnic. We’ll grab lunch.

I just had breakfast.

You didn’t eat a thing.

I’m not hungry.

You can get a smoothie.

I said I’m not hungry.

Well fine, we don’t have to eat, Emiliana. We can just walk and talk.

It’s not until I’m in North American History, and Mrs. Helmandi is reminding us that completed drafts of our Great Transition projects are due after break, that I realize why I didn’t go picnicking with my mom.

One, what would we have talked about?

Two, I know what’s going on: she hates the holiday but feels bad leaving us.

She and my dad have been arguing about it for days. Their arguing isn’t unusual, only their volume. I don’t care. She’s always leaving for extraction duty. Nine or ten times a year. And our family doesn’t even celebrate Day Zero. My mom doesn’t allow it.

Yes, we slowed the warming, she’ll say. Avoided annihilation. But everything we lost? We should be throwing a funeral, not a party. We should be mourning. Organizing. Working twice as hard to ensure it never happens again.

So for the holiday week, that’s what we do. Literally. We work. Every year my mom volunteers us at the geothermal farms, which sounds worse than it is. You have to fly east to get there, and Greenland from a blimp is insanely pretty. The farms are by the sea with tons of hot springs and saunas. After work, you soak and watch the waves. Last year we saw orcas. But this year’s different. This year we’re splitting up. She’s leaving for extraction duty and my dad’s staying home and I’m going skiing with my basketball team.

Or I’m supposed to go skiing. The problem is this: I keep seeing myself at the ski lodge getting hungry and there are no soups, no smoothies, nothing easy to swallow. And instead of helping me, like teammates should, the other girls laugh as my throat closes up while I’m stranded hundreds of miles from home. So I’ve decided I won’t go skiing. I haven’t told my mom. She will one thousand percent ignite. I guess I’m saving the spark. Which brings up one last reason I couldn’t skip school to walk and talk with her, even though a part of me really did want to: sometimes it just feels good to tell her no.

CHAPTER TWO

LARCH

The day before Kristina leaves for New York it is like we have woken up as a family ten years in the past. You cannot go back. Not overnight. I know this. Still.

The first thing that is different is she does not shake Emi out of bed to jog with her. Their morning argument is my usual alarm. Today Kristina jogs solo, returns, showers off. Then there’s no sound of the front door. She does not leave for the windfields or the energy docks. She pops her head in and tells me not to step one damn foot out of bed until I can smell the coffee. After breakfast she insists on walking Emi to school. She puts a hand on my chest. Kisses me goodbye. Gestures that may not sound terribly exciting. But. Her hand over my heart. Her lips. I am washing the dishes when she returns.

Hey you, she says.

Hey yourself.

She swings the compost bucket under the sink. Leans against the counter. Smiles.

You look happy, I say.

I have news.

Do you now?

I hold my breath. Praying she has not decided to run again for Leadership Council.

You’re going to skip work, she says.

I am.

Yes. You’re going to skip work to stay home with me.

It’s the day before vacation, I say, turning off the water. Staying home won’t look great.

I’m doing it.

Easy for you, shipping out tomorrow.

She slides behind me. Wraps her arms around my waist.

Please?

I examine the sponge in my hands. The soapy suds. Her hands.

Convince me, I say.

We’ll catch up, she says. Have fun. Celebrate us.

I continue scrubbing the spatula. Kristina rests her head against my back. Her breath is hot through the threads of my shirt. I try to relax as if this is a common marital scene for us. It is not common. I could remind her of this. I could unclasp her hands and say it is not fair to turn a page backward right before she leaves. Not fair to me. Not fair to Emi.

But then again if you are dreaming a soft warm dream why risk waking up?

All right, I say, rinsing and racking the spatula. Let’s celebrate us.

CHAPTER THREE

EMI

After school comes basketball. After basketball comes CareCorps. CareCorps is where I fulfill my hours by feeding kids, playing with kids, soothing kids to sleep for naptime. Today I introduce them to a band called ABBA and a game called zombie tag. After we dance and eat each other’s brains and the last of their parents have picked them up, Maru walks me home. Maru’s my neighbor. She lives below us. She’s a CareCorps lead attendant, and even though I’m taking a class at school—Early Education and Child Development—everything I’ve really learned about kids is all from her.

How was basketball today? she asks as we turn off the lights.

Okay. We scrimmaged.

Scrimmage means you play against your friends?

I wouldn’t technically call them my friends.

Their loss.

Yeah.

We walk outside and onto the upcity rambla, then Maru asks: Before a game, if you could run onto the court to any song, what song would you choose?

Nirvana? I say. Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Do I know that one? she says.

I synch my headphones. She slips them over her ears. Frowns. Smiles. Hands them back and says the fantastic thing about music is that there’s something for absolutely everyone.

I laugh.

Maru takes care of kids but has none of her own. Just her cat, Alice. You might think living alone with a cat would make someone shy. Not Maru. I interviewed her for my Great Transition project. She did seven deployments with Deconstruction Corps, which my dad says was the worst because of the bodies you came across. Maru was easier to interview than my parents. She talks to me like I’m an adult. She asks interesting questions. About school. About music. About life. If Maru had asked me to skip school to walk upcity with her this morning, I think I would’ve definitely said yes.

We’ve almost reached Norsaq Plaza when she asks about my ski trip: All packed for the North Pole?

Actually, I’m not going.

What happened?

Don’t feel like it.

She opens her mouth like she’s about to say something. Then she smiles: Smart girl. Freeze your butt off some other time. Z-Day only comes once a year. You’ll love it.

We step into Norsaq Plaza. The holiday is still days away, but the neighborhood is so busy it feels like Day Zero could start any minute. Workers are setting up speaker systems, bolting together dance floors. Maru and I step over extension cords, cables, strings of glass bulbs that clink as they snake along the tiles to be hoisted onto lampposts. Two artists are finishing a mural: Wind Corps workers swinging a turbine into place. A famous image but the muralists are painting it with these unexpected colors and lines.

I heard it’s so crowded on Day Zero that you can’t even move, I say.

This is Nuuk, girl—find me one place that isn’t crowded.

And doesn’t everyone just get super drunk?

Wrong. We get super drunk and we dance. It’s the best day of the year, girl. People thought last year was big, but this year’s supposed to be even bigger. I’m glad you’ll be around. About time you get to experience it.

Then we’re inside our building and outside my door. For a moment I think we’ve accidently entered the wrong floor; the door has the correct number, but from the other side comes music and laughter.

Sounds like you got a party of your own, says Maru, and kisses my cheek goodbye.

My mom and dad don’t hear me open the door. They’re dancing. My mom’s wearing a dark blue dress I’ve never seen. My dad has a black tie. The air’s warm and heavy like the Tundra training room. Like they’ve been here all day.

Hi? I say, hanging my keys on the hook.

Emi! they cheer like I’ve been gone for years.

Thank God! shouts my mom over the music. Cut in. Please. Your father’s a terrible lead.

It’s hard! laughs my dad.

It’s the rumba, she says. You just follow the steps. It’s no different from a recipe.

It’s so different from a recipe!

You’d think I’d be happy to see them laughing instead of fighting—and I am happy—but I also feel this pressure behind my eyes, even though nothing remotely sad is happening. I notice my mom’s lipstick, the color of beets. I notice the same beety color on my dad’s neck. I notice wine on the table, the bottle empty, and dishes piled in the sink. I notice that my mom isn’t wearing her hair up like usual, but down, hiding her bad ear and cheek. I can’t remember ever seeing her so pretty.

Come, Emiliana. Dance with me.

All yours, says my dad with a bow. Good luck.

I stare at him, waiting for a wink—some clue like he sent me over breakfast to let me know we’re still playing along with her. But he sends no clues. Just his dopey smile, which makes me feel like he and my mom are the ones in on the secret together, without me.

I’m gross, I say, picking at my clothes. I smell like kids and basketball. I have to shower.

Wait! says my mom. I made you a smoothie! It’s in the fridge.

I’m not hungry.

It’s blueberry and peanut butter. Your favorite.

You drink it. I have to get started on homework.

Homework over break? says my dad. What’s wrong with these teachers?

My Great Transition project, I say, heading to my room. I told you. It’s half my grade.

They argue for me to stay and dance but—trust me—I’ve heard them argue a million times louder and harder.

CHAPTER FOUR

LARCH

Kristina and I are cooling off in bed. My finger traces the valleys and hills of her vertebrae in the dim cityglow that fills our window. The bed belongs to both of us in name but does not always enjoy us as a unit. Many nights one of us takes it solo. Alternating with the futon. I know we are not the only couple that fights and makes up and fights and makes up. But we have been stuck for so long on fight that making up now feels like an unexpected gift that must be returned. I do not want to return it. I want to keep tracing the topography of my wife’s body. Run my hands down her strong legs. Take in her warmth. Fall asleep together. Wake up. Repeat and repeat until we are old and soft and our memories a little crumbly so only the happy bits are left.

What are you going to do by yourself all week, Mister Bachelor? she whispers.

Miss you and Em.

Liar.

We are trying to keep quiet, for Emi’s sake, but when Kristina accidently knees my butt as she climbs on me we cannot help laughing.

Seriously, she says, sweeping her hair from my face.

Seriously. And while I’m missing you I might sleep in. Sleep in and cook big disgusting breakfasts.

Breakfast nachos?

You know it.

Mmm. What else?

Organize the clubhouse kitchen. Sharpen the knives. Season the cast iron. Do inventory for the rest of the season. Thrilling stuff.

What about Day Zero? she asks, not missing a beat.

Probably get a beer with Lucas.

Probably?

Most likely.

Just one?

Possibly more than one.

But upcity, right?

Upcity, I repeat.

You won’t go to the Esplanade. Even if Lucas wants to.

I take a calming breath. It is one thing for Kristina to volunteer for extraction duty over the holiday and another for her to tell me how I can celebrate with my friends in her absence. But she has been adamant: Making me promise that I will not join the big parade by the seaport. Making me promise—in her words—that I will not be a sheep among sheep.

Larch, she says, not whispering. You won’t go down there, right? Let me hear you say it.

I’ll try my best to resist, I say. But you know Lucas. He can be convincing.

She withdraws her arms and legs. All her warmth slips away with her. She pulls on a shirt. Gathers her hair. Begins pulling it back violently. Turning her head. Giving me her face. Her ear. She would never admit that she uses her scars like armor when she is upset but I know. Her way of telling me we are waking up from the dream of today. She is done acting like we have traveled back ten years as a family. And so am I.

What’s wrong? I say.

Nothing’s wrong.

You’re the one who told me to call out. You said we’d catch up.

We did, she says.

We had lunch. We got drunk and danced. We fucked.

Well what do you call that? she says, stepping into sweatpants.

Just say whatever it is you want to say, I sigh, exhausted at the idea of another round. But the bell has rung. The fight is on. I tell her that this feels very much like some political stunt—volunteering over the holiday while everyone else celebrates. I ask her bluntly: Is she running again for office?

She laughs. No. That ship has sailed.

Then don’t leave tomorrow. Go next week.

I can’t.

Says who? The world won’t fall apart without you loading batteries for two weeks.

It would if everybody said that.

Everybody is not saying that! Stay. Emi will be skiing. We’ll get the week together. Think about today. How great was today? We could have a week of todays. We won’t do any holiday stuff. We can just work. If that’s how you want to celebrate. At the garden. The docks. Wherever. But we should be together.

I’m sorry, Larch. I can’t.

What if I come with you? I say, sitting up, my back against the cool wall that separates our room from Emi’s. We could go to New York together.

She shakes her head: I need to go alone. I told you.

I could just show up at Gowanus and work with you. I don’t need your permission.

She laughs. You’re going to volunteer for extraction duty? Over the holiday?

Sure. Why not?

She raises an eyebrow, then shakes her head. No, she says, pulling on a sweatshirt. The answer is no.

Sixteen fucking years, I say.

Keep your voice down. Emi’s sleeping.

Sixteen fucking years, I whisper. Everything isn’t perfect. I know that. But there’s still a lot worth celebrating.

Not for everyone, she says.

For us, I say. So celebrate it. With me.

I can’t.

You could.

I won’t.

I blurt the obvious and not for the first time: Are you seeing someone else?

She looks at me through the dim half-light for a long moment, then puts a knee on the bed. Another knee. Crawls over in that way that gets me every time. Takes my face in her hands.

Larch. Listen to me. Seeing someone else is the last thing on my mind.

Then what is? What’s on your mind?

Even in the dim I catch a shine to her eyes. Like she wants to cry. Like she wants me to tell her she is allowed to cry. Allowed to lower her armor.

Instead it is me who opens up. As always.

She catches my tears with the back of her hand. She wipes her hand on my chest. You’re right about today, she whispers. Today was so wonderful. My love. Let’s not ruin it.

CHAPTER FIVE

EMI

With my headphones on, and Nirvana playing as loud as I can make them, I can’t hear my mom or dad through the wall. But I can still imagine I can hear them, which is somehow worse. Each time I take off my headphones to check, they’re trying to be quiet, and failing. The moaning is the worst. So I keep my music loud. Lie in the dark. Feel my heartbeat in my fingernails and ride the wave of my hunger.

I can’t say if hunger is the same for everyone, but for me it starts small—a little wave in my belly, which swells without warning into something large and panicky that begs me to fill it. With focus, I can ride the crest of the wave and glide down the other side. Then the wave will close out neatly into a flat, still surface that sparks with a kind of giddy light-headedness that melts everything away. Even when the world is spinning so fast—everything that’s wrong or could go wrong—if I ride the wave just right, I can control the spinning. Like magic, the spinning stops, and I disappear into something clean and calm and completely mine.

That’s one outcome of riding the wave. The other outcome is I fall. Falling off the wave is like the ocean opens up and wants me and everything else. Then the world comes rushing back—school, grades, kids at school, my parents’ fighting, my mom yelling at me about the Crisis and how it could happen again—spinning faster than before.

Falling happens most easily after basketball practice. Or in the school cafeteria. Also late night such as now when there’s a blueberry peanut butter smoothie in the fridge. Times like these demand the highest discipline. Your hands shake. Your heart hammers. But the reward’s worth it. Because it’s important to know hunger. My mom grew up in a border camp. Once as a girl she went four days without food. She says it made her stronger. She isn’t right about everything, but she’s right about this: not only to know hunger, but to feel it in your core. How else can you control it?

I switch from Nirvana and lower the volume. Finally it’s silent through the wall. Quiet at last. But no.

Emiliana?

My door is a pale rhombus of light. I close my eyes. Slow my breath. Twitch a little. Pretending to sleep. I want her to leave me alone. At the same time, I don’t want her to leave me alone. I don’t want to want both of these things at once, but with my mom, it’s often the case.

She sits on the edge of my bed. If she’s brought my smoothie, I’ll tell her I don’t want it. She puts a hand on my forearm. She rocks my shoulder.

Hi Mom, I say, sliding my headphones off one ear, leaving the other guarded.

Hi sweetie, she says. What are you listening to?

Music.

What music?

You wouldn’t know. It’s old.

So am I. Try me.

Britney Spears.

She laughs lightly: I remember Britney.

Okay.

She sits there holding my arm. Her hair’s no longer down. She smells warm. Sweet. She doesn’t have my smoothie. She crosses and uncrosses her legs. Like she’s waiting for me to say something. But that’s her job. She’s the mom. Not me.

Did you finish your project? she asks.

It’s not the whole project, I remind her for the millionth time, it’s just a draft.

Did you finish your draft?

No. It’s huge. I’ll be lucky to finish it by the end of break.

I’m one thousand percent ready for her to say how lucky I am to be worried about school instead of refugee camps or wildfires. But tonight’s like this morning. She won’t ignite. She squeezes my arm and says I’m a good student.

Thanks, I say.

You try so hard at school, Emiliana. I’m glad you asked me to help with your project. I wish I could’ve interviewed my mother like that.

Yeah, I say.

There’s a long pause that just keeps on pausing. I’m grateful for Britney even if she’s just singing in one ear.

Then my mom asks, Are you excited to go skiing with your friends?

This would be the time to tell her the girls aren’t my friends—just my teammates who invited me because our coach probably made them—and no, I’m not going. But my mom’s been nice today. She hasn’t made me feel guilty for anything. She made me a smoothie. She’s trying.

Yeah, Mom. I’m super excited.

You’ll have fun, she says, then whispers my name again: Emiliana?

Yeah?

She lowers her voice and switches to Spanish: Everything I do, I do for you. For your future. You know that.

Thanks, I say in English.

But do you? Do you know that?

Yes, Mom.

Never forget what happened. How close they came to destroying everything. And how lucky we are. You can’t understand. You’re fifteen. That’s why I tell you. We’re so fortunate. We fought so hard for this. But it’s not over. Don’t let the holiday celebrations make you forget.

Okay.

And remember that you are strong.

Thanks.

You’re so strong when you want to be.

Okay, Mom.

She kisses me on the forehead and leaves, closing the door to seal off the light. I stare at the ceiling in the darkness and promise myself—if I’m a mom one day—never to make my kid feel guilty for things she can’t control. Like being born after the Crisis. Like going to high school instead of saving the world. Like having a room of her own and food whenever she wants it. I promise my future self to remember that if you tell your kid how lucky she is, it never makes her feel lucky. It makes her feel terrible. Like it’s her fault for being lucky, and her fault for needing to be told all the time how lucky she is, and how everyone has sacrificed everything so she can continue being so lucky without knowing how lucky she is.

I fold my pillow and face the wall, my stomach clenching, the world spinning. This is how you fall off your wave. I rebalance. Refocus. I’m glad she didn’t bring my smoothie. At the same time I wish she had.

Then my door opens. My mom’s back. She remembered the smoothie after all.

But no. Wrong again. Four quick steps across the room.

Scooch, Em. Make room.

She slides under my blankets. Puts an arm over me. Folds her legs behind my legs. All my body is tense. This isn’t something we do. Not since I was young. But as the seconds go by, she begins breathing deeply, and I relax. Muscle by muscle. Even my stomach. Like melting. Like the best sort of melting. Something has changed. Between her and my dad. Between us. Maybe she’s made the same decision as me not to leave this week. In the morning she’ll be here, bags unpacked, shaking me awake to jog with her, and I’m saying, Okay Mom, and we’re running to the very top of Nuuk and she’s wearing her hair down and me too and our hair’s blowing behind us like one long scarf one banner one cape.

But, of course, we’re not. As suddenly as I’ve fallen asleep, I’m awake.

I’m awake and she’s gone. Not gone from my bed. Not gone jogging. Just gone.

I pull on a sweatshirt and drag myself to the kitchen where it smells like coffee and toast. My dad’s streaming a sportscast. The table is set for two, not three.

Morning, Em! What can I get you?

The smoothie that Mom made.

How about something warm? Oatmeal? Eggs? Tapioca?

Just the smoothie, thanks.

You sure? I’ll make anything you want.

Yes, Dad. I’m sure.

Emi Vargas Brinkman

North American History

Mrs. Helmandi

Great Transition Project (First Draft)

Introduction

Imagine your home is on fire, but instead of getting the fire department, you just watch the flames and live life like everything is fine. That was the Climate Crisis. It’s hard for people now to imagine, but during the Crisis, everyone knew what was happening and did basically nothing to stop the criminals causing it. When my parents were my age, to take one example, the destroying classes were still extracting oil and producing gas-powered cars and airplanes while getting richer and richer. Some people like Mama Greta tried to stop them but failed. Then the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed and the Great Transition started.

Maybe a more neutral term?

Private corporations or extractive industries?

The Great Transition led to everything good that people take for granted now, including the Southwest Solar Authority, the Half Earth Accords, the San Francisco BayGate, the Big U, the Great Green Wall, plus carbon and methane capture, and new cities like Nuuk, as well as recycled old cities like Miami, where life was impossible because of heat waves and flooding and mosquito diseases like West Nile and dengue, which we thankfully have vaccines for now.

Wow, this is a long sentence! Fantastic supporting details but try to avoid run-ons.

All of these combined efforts helped get us to Day Zero. Day Zero was the day the world reached net-zero