““I mean: if you’re going outside to look for your sister, I get it.” Max goes silent. Maybe Mirjam’s death is hitting him now, maybe his voice will choke—but he goes on. “But if you’re going outside to help your mother . . .” He gestures helplessly at my injured arm. His fingers stop a centimeter away, hovering in midair. “Don’t risk it. Don’t risk you.” “She’s my mother.” “The captain will never let her on if she doesn’t even try. Not when there are so many people who haven’t had thechance to try. People we can use on the ship. People who have been on that waiting list forever.” There are a dozen things I want to say. But she’s mymother—as though that means as much as people pretend it does. She is trying, just in a different way—as though I’m convincing myself. I wasn’t on that waiting list, either. I might not be someone the ship can use, as much as I’m trying to be.””
