The Carried

words by Mia Tan, art by Sana Friedman

1983. A rickety bus, crawling through the city.

Inside, nearly twenty passengers, most of them strangers. They sway in the cramped cabin, sweat pooling beneath their collars, elbows bumping as they hand over the day’s fare. 

In a seat in the far back, Tala. She tilts her face towards the sun, lets warmth coat her skin. She is dressed like any other student—faded jeans, rumpled shirt, untied shoes. But her backpack has been emptied of school books and filled instead with a more volatile kind of paper: handmade signs, inked demands, posters written in bold. She has folded the posters into her bag with care, as if they could be set aflame at the slightest touch. Each minute that passes, she feels them weigh on her back heavily, balancing out the new weight that swells from her stomach.

She is seventeen. She has yet to grow into her own body, but she is growing another’s body inside of her now. By the time she is halfway out of the city, she has come to accept this thought with a piercing, intoxicating dread.

—

1995. June, twelve years old, sits before a vanity table as Lola, her grandmother, teases out knots from her hair. June watches in the mirror, waiting for Lola to look at her. The older woman is not old by age, but by circumstance. Her eyes are sunken. She remains trained on the task, raking her fingers methodically through June’s hair.

LOLA: You should know that children are like medicine. They look sweet, but they’re bitter inside.

JUNE, laughs: But you can’t swallow a child. 

LOLA: You can take them in just the same. Haven’t I told you this, Tala? A woman can take in anything. We absorb. We grow. Even when it drains us.

JUNE, patiently: It’s June, Lola. My name is June. Lola’s hands still. But tell me more about this theory. What about me? Was I so bad as a kid?

(A beat. At this point, Lola either remains silent and drifts away to stand by the fireplace, or she continues the following conversation. There is no way to predict which will happen. The decision is left up to you.)

(Note: In both cases, Lola’s eyes grow distant while June searches her grandmother’s face.)

LOLA, resuming motion: You made my head spin before I even held you. Every morning, you gave me a stomach ache—a pain in my hip—a crick in my neck—she punctuates each word with a teasing poke at June’s side. June twists in her seat, laughing. Then Lola, sober once more—But you were sweet, Tala. That was the worst part.

She tightens her grip in June’s hair. Suddenly the years seem to pile on: her hands appear gnarled, the skin wrinkled, knuckles turning translucent like a thin sheet of wax melting again and again.

June does not correct her this time. She studies the two of them in the mirror, as if staring long enough will conjure the image of her mother, clear the cloud of silence behind the name. 

LOLA: Even when you were killing me, I thought you were saving me. Do you understand what I’m saying, anak? She pressed a palm to June’s forehead.

JUNE, testing out the words: Ma. Yes, Ma.

LOLA, looking at June now, smiling: It’s true, anak. You saved me. June smiles back.

—

1983. As the bus rumbles on, Tala watches a group of boys run after the bus, backpacks bouncing, shoes slapping against burning asphalt. One of them manages to grab the back rail and leap on. The driver yells, glaring at the boy from the mirror, but the boy just laughs. Whenever the bus makes a turn, he swings from the rail like a garment on a clothesline.

He waves at Tala. When Tala meets his eye, she laughs. (Or cries. Again, the decision is in your hands.)

Come evening, the bus turns onto an orchard path. Only a dozen passengers remain. Among them is Tala, the boy, a farmer, a physician, a shopkeeper, a pharmacist, and a handful of older students. They make their way to an abandoned barn at the edge of a field. A soft wind lifts their hair, smelling of citrus and fresh earth. The party searches the surroundings, makes sure no one else is around, then slips inside the doors. They sit in silence, testing the weight of each other’s presence. Then they begin to speak.

—

1987. Not long after the funeral, June creeps out of bed to find Lola watching the television.

A man stands on the screen. His lips move silently. He gestures to a flag behind him. As he adjusts the lapels of his suit, someone throws rotten fruit at his face. The juices explode on his cheek and dribble down his chin. The camera pans to the crowd: people thrust fists into the air, hold up signs, rush towards the stage. They are raucous, even without sound. 

Lola stands abruptly and crosses the room to the fireplace, where orange light clashes with the television screen. She picks up a picture frame from the mantle. She cradles it with both hands. As she stares into the photograph, the television cycles through clips of riots, fires, smoke. The crowd parts; officers surge, grabbing clothes, tossing limbs. Then the man again, plastering a smile on his face. He waves to the crowd. It is like he is waving into the room.

JUNE, whispering: I’m June.

The man nods to the camera. Maybe he can see her. Maybe he is saying her name. In the shadows, June watches the man blink in and out of view. Lola continues to clutch the picture frame. There she stands, like a stamp of ink herself, melting into the night.

— 

A note about June and Lola. Neither has a clear memory of how they came to be in this house. That is, June was too young to understand why visitors appeared one day, whispering and dressed in all black, and this was around the same time that Lola began to lose track of her memories. But the people around them thanked God for their unawareness. They glanced nervously as officers rummaged through the house. When officers approached them, they averted their eyes, turning their attention to the edge of the yard where the young child and her grandmother stood alone.

VISITOR #1: It would be worse if they understood what was happening, no?

VISITOR #2: Bless them. Good thing they have each other. 

VISITOR #3: Terrible, terrible. It’s like she didn’t think of them at all.

VISITORS, voices blending into one: I can’t believe she’s gone. They have each other, bless them.

(Alternatively, Bless, she’s gone. Good thing she’s gone.)

— 

In the following years, June and Lola continue to carry her voice and wear her face. They step into their roles. They become her. This way, they keep her alive with them.

It is easier than you might think. For a daughter to want her mother back, for a mother to want her daughter back. Easy for the mind to see only what it wants. 

You can still hear her. At night, when the house fills with footsteps and soft hums, the squeak of a faucet, a pot releasing steam. A woman saying, Look, anak—beyond the window, look how the orchards sprawl and meet the sky.

The land swells, a body folding into itself.

(JUNE, TALA, LOLA, voices blending into one.)