The morning had been long, and the weather was harsh. They had made little progress because it had not stopped raining, and the machines were getting stuck in the mud. Only the men had been able to work a bit, although they grumbled about it. They, too, felt the cold in that Northern Territory.

When lunchtime arrived, both men and women gathered in the large barracks that served as accommodation for the mine construction personnel. If the rain didn’t let up, they would spend the rest of the afternoon there before returning to their homes.

Despite being temporary lodging, it was not without certain comforts. It was decorated as any proper living space would be. After lunch, the men lay down to sleep, and Labra spent her time reviewing some blueprints. Lavidia continued studying her engineering manuals, and it was then that Mondra, a local girl who had been there since the initial drilling, appeared. She was a petite, somewhat plump girl, with a broad face and small eyes, and she had short hair, as was customary for women of age.

The young apprentice hadn’t eaten there with them but had gone back to her village after the morning session. When she returned, she took off her coat and sat across from Lavidia.

“Are you a mother?” asked the redhead. She had deduced it by observing small stains on her shirt at the height of her nipples, which were still damp.”

“Yeah,” she affirmed.

“And, what are you doing here?”

“Illegal motherhood.”

“Oh, I see...”

“But I don’t have much time left. Next year, I’ll be able to be with my girl whenever I want, not just to breastfeed her. After that, I’ll get married and have many more.”

Lavidia looked at the young girl with a hint of envy. It seemed as if she herself were serving time for breaking the law, when in fact, she had done nothing.

“I just don’t understand that stupid rule of not being able to be a mother before fifteen,” Mondra objected.

“It’s supposed to ensure the complete maturity of the woman...”

“And her reproductive fitness,” she interrupted. “Yes, I know that. But it’s nonsense. I’ve had my period since I was twelve, and I got pregnant at fourteen. My daughter was born perfectly fine, and I can’t wait to be with her.”

“Well, dear, you have your whole life to enjoy your girl, and then you can have many more. You’re only sixteen! I’ve had worse luck.”

“If I had had her at thirteen,” the girl continued, not having heard her companion’s last comment, “they would have let me keep her. But no. I was stupid and had to do it at the worst moment.”

“Wouldn’t you have had to come here at thirteen?”

“Not in the North. The punishment would have been for my mother.”

Lavidia wondered what fault a mother could have if her daughter was too... ‘promiscuous’, one could say, or if she had uncontrollable desires to be a mom. A woman couldn’t watch over someone twenty-four hours a day, especially in homes crowded with girls, among their own, sisters’, cousins’, friends’ daughters, and of course, with the boys from all of them.

“But why did you do it? Couldn’t you have waited a year... like we all do?”

“Well...,” she sighed, “you see your mother with her babies, your sisters, your cousins... and you see that every month your eggs are expelled from your body, coming out through your pussy, and getting lost as if it were urine... Eggs that could be daughters that you could already be enjoying...! And I said to myself, enough is enough! I’m not going to lose another egg!”

Lavidia smiled. That thought was something all women usually had. Indeed, during menstruation, an unfertilized egg is expelled. An egg that has left the ovaries to meet a sperm but hasn’t found one. Indeed, having your period is a failure, a missed opportunity to become a mother.

“But didn’t you know they would send you to work if you got pregnant?”

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“Yes. I knew. But no one is taking my girl away from me now.”

“Anyway, you’re still losing eggs, Mondra. Until you finish your service, you won’t be able to get pregnant again.”

“I know. But in the meantime, I enjoy my girl when I leave here.”

A practical woman, thought Lavidia. From twelve to fifteen, she would be ‘losing eggs’ every time her period came, and she preferred to do it from fourteen to sixteen, but with a child already. Usually, nothing happens with premature pregnancies, but it was better to wait until the legal age, that is, fifteen.

“And who are you going to marry later? The father of your daughter?”

“No. My cousin already got married. It would be with that one over there,” she pointed to one of the men who was farther away. The young man would be around twenty-five, and he was staring blankly out into the street, watching the rain fall.

“Wouldn’t you have preferred your cousin? With him, at least, you would have secured your lineage. He got it right the first time...”

“So what? That one looks good too,” she looked at him. “I’ve already talked to his mother, and she agrees. If he doesn’t get me pregnant, well, I’ll find another one, and that’s it. There are plenty of men.”

Lavidia looked at Mondra, who couldn’t stop looking at her future husband. That made her rethink, once again, the decision she made months ago.

The truth is, if she had wanted to, she could have stained her shirts with milk too. If she had listened to her mother and received eggs from someone, she would have gotten pregnant and would have breastfed a girl, like the other women. Of course, it was a newly invented technique that had saved many people from suicide in recent times.

But no. She wouldn’t settle for living a lie. There was something more to motherhood than just watching your belly grow, giving birth, and then breastfeeding. As gratifying as those things are, it’s not the same to have a girl as it is to have a daughter. The best part of motherhood is having someone with you for your entire life who has the same genes as you and is like a reflection of yourself. The rest is purely circumstantial, she thought.

Lavidia couldn’t live with a girl who knew she wasn’t her mother, nor would she know what to say when she asked, ‘Why didn’t my mother want to have me?’

“Do you think we’ll do something this afternoon?” asked Mondra.

The question snapped her out of her thoughts and the bitterness that lingered despite everything. Lavidia looked out the window and replied:

“It doesn’t seem like the rain is going to stop, and your drill is stuck. We would need to bring another machine and pull it, and it would probably get stuck in the mud too.”

“Yeah. And it’s too heavy for the men to pull it out.”

“They could use levers. But even so, I don’t think they could.

“Right,” she acknowledged. “You know what? I don’t mind using that machine to drill the ground. I almost like it, you know.”

“Do you like it as much as being with your girl?”

“Yes, of course, or like coupling with a man, can you believe it...”

They both laughed, and Lavidia added:

“You must have done it many times...”

“Until I got pregnant, yes, several. And...,” she leaned toward her face and looked around to make sure no one could hear, “and for some time now, I’ve been doing it again.”

“What a rebel!” thought the redhead. Then she said:

“With your cousin?”

“No. With that idiot,” she looked at the supposed boyfriend. “We live in the same building, and now I sleep alone since my sister got married.”

“Right. I understand.”

“Nothing can happen to me, Lavidia. When I start to show ‘the bump’, my ‘punishment’ here will be over, and no one will suspect anything. Hey...,” she realized she had said too much. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“No, dear. Deep down, I think like you. There shouldn’t be limits when a woman wants to be a mother. And since men are always willing...”

“Yes, that’s why there’s no problem. Anyway, when artificial insemination becomes widespread, I won’t get close to them unless it’s to force them to work. And that’s if they continue in this world. Because I think, if things keep going like this, that gender is going extinct.”