Chapter 12

 

Jared

 

 

"You're where?" Jared said into his phone, standing on the Hardesty porch, afternoon sunshine lying on the lawn. The D'ubians and Terry played their music inside the house behind him, and he could hear the voices of his friends and their laughter. Dishes rattled as Phyllis and Lillian and Gina set the table for the dinner to celebrate Willis' graduation from Secondary, his acceptance into the Academy, his first steps into manhood.

Maud's voice on the phone was indignant, but it had just the slightest quaver; was it weakness, or nerves; was she afraid? He wasn't sure. "At Alliance General," she said. "Room SuCL732. They hauled me up here, after those idiots dragged me into Emergency. Without even asking me."

And there it was, what he had been dreading since the last attack, seeing her growing thin and paler, hearing her breath come short and fast when she walked up the stairs, when she walked quickly across the room. When she took his arm now she leaned on him as she never had before, and he slowed his steps as much as he dared; she resented such concessions. She admitted heart trouble was in her family, a matter of genetics; but with medical advances these days, she said, and she could certainly afford decent care, if there was such a thing – no worries.

No worries. "What happened?" he asked, and she made impatient noises over the phone.

"Nothing of any importance at all, just a misunderstanding," she said. "The reason I called you –"

"Maud," he said. "My dear. What happened?"

A pause. "I had a fall," she said. "It was nothing. Bruise on my elbow. As I said, a misunderstanding."

"Which took you to Emergency and then to a room on – " he calculated quickly, interpreting the room number. "Cardiac surgery," he said. "That is not a bruised elbow, dear girl. What happened?"

"A fall," she insisted, and in spite of everything he laughed at the stone wall of her stubbornness.

"I could," he said, "call Carter. You know he would tell me all about it. He was probably there when you fell. I assume it was in your apartment. He was the one who would have called the ambulance, am I right?"

"His afternoon off – "

"Isn't until tomorrow. Shall I call him? And get back to you?"

She sighed. "What have I told you about hobnobbing with the housekeeper?" she said, and he laughed at her again. "Oh, very well," she said. "It may have had to do with a slight dizzy spell, a very slight dizzy spell, and Carter got overanxious. You know how he is. Sits up nights worrying about nothing."

Carter's devotion was divided between his employer and his current boyfriend, a middle-aged antiques dealer who traveled widely through the Alliance core searching for treasures in estate sales. Carter was concerned about Neville's faithfulness, and he was concerned about Maud's health, but he wasn't the nervous type; he did not stay up nights worrying, and he had yet to overreact to anything Jared knew about, and Jared had known him almost as long as he had known Maud. If Carter had called the ambulance for Maud, he had good reason.

"So you had another heart attack?" said Jared, not allowing his voice to reflect what he was feeling, trying to sound as if it were a casual inquiry about a minor thing.

"An – incident," said Maud. "Perhaps. I assure you, it was nothing serious, nothing at all; these rodents here at the hospital have to justify their unreasonable charges by manufacturing crises where none exist. Absolutely nothing, I promise you."

"Of course," said Jared. "An incident." He glanced back into the living room; Sofi had dragged Willis out into the center of the floor, insisting he should dance with her; Clyde and Mimi and Al were all clapping in time to the music and Willis, pleased, embarrassed, was trying to match her steps. It was just past six; he could be at the hospital before six-thirty. "So, you're in room 732," he said, "on the Cardiac Surgery floor. I'll be there in half an hour at the most."

"You're at the party for Willis." She had inquired, taken a real interest in Willis and his triumph, although Jared did not think she and Willis had ever actually met. "Don't interrupt that; finish dinner before you come."

"Oh, certainly, why should I interrupt dinner just to hang around a hospital with you? As I said, dear girl, half an hour at the most."

"Don't overreact; this is nonsense," she said.

But she had called him, and she had that quaver in her voice. "I love you. And I'm on my way," he said, and disconnected.

He went into the house to make his excuses to Phyllis and Lillian, in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on an excellent dinner. "I'm sorry, something's come up," he said. They had met Maud, and had, as well as he could read them, mixed feelings about her. He thought it was better not to go into detail.

"We could wait dinner for you," said Phyllis, concerned.

"No, I won't be back until late. But thanks, I appreciate the thought."

He went back to the living room to shake hands with Willis and congratulate him again. Gina, by the stairs with a handful of silverware, was looking at him with concern; she had picked up on the emergency, and that it had to do with Maud. She noticed altogether too much of what went on around her and it was hard to tell what she understood of it, or how she interpreted it. He would have to make time to talk with her, when he had a chance.

He sent her a smile, trying to reassure her, as he headed out the door.

He took his car to the main road by the most direct route, over the housetops, not strictly legal but he was in a rush. Once settled on Central, he phoned Carter and found that the man was at the hospital; Maud had banished him from her room and he was pacing the halls of Cardiac trying to get news. He said, sounding relieved, that he would meet Jared at the main lift, and Jared found him there, waiting, a tired man with a middle-aged paunch, running fingers through his bush of white hair.

"She was all right yesterday," Jared said. "I thought she was stronger, in fact."

"She collapsed in her bedroom," said Carter. "She was dressing; she had an appointment to get her hair done, and she wouldn't have the woman come to her. She was going to go, and I was supposed to drive her. I was waiting in the front hall. When she didn't come out of her room – so I called the ambulance, but I may have made a mistake. She isn't very happy about this."

Carter, devoted to Maud, allowed her to bully him outrageously. "Well, she isn't happy about the hospital," said Jared, who loved her deeply and did not allow her to bully him, "but you couldn't have done anything else. Have you heard anything from the doctors?"

"I was in the room when they came to talk to her. It's her heart, of course, as you know; it's past repair, they say. They're planning a heart-lung transplant. They can take the tissue and do the cloned organs in maybe six weeks, with the new accelerants, and the surgery is routine."

Jared nodded, mentally adjusting his own schedule. He wasn't teaching this summer; he had planned to give his attention to the Gif'zi document project, but if he gave it six solid weeks he could put it on hold with a clear conscience for the rest of the summer. The surgery would keep her in the hospital for a few days, and there would be rehab; there was an outstanding surgical rehab facility on the coast, where Dr. Wilbur's wife had spent a month last autumn. He would take Maud there; she had always loved the ocean. He could stay in town and spend as much time with her as the facility allowed.

"So when are they taking the tissue?" he asked, and Carter ran his fingers again through his white hair, causing it to bush out even further.

"She won't hear of it," he said. "She won't consider surgery." He sighed. "She always said so," he pointed out, "but when it came to the point, I hoped – I tried to argue with her and she told me to get out of her room. And here I am." He waved a hand at the hallway in which they stood, potted plants, easy-clean floors in an unobtrusive shade of grey, pale blue-grey walls with inoffensive pictures in undistinguished frames.

He was right; Maud had always said she wasn't going to allow the doctors to cut her up. Like Carter, Jared had always hoped that she didn't really mean it.

"Dr. Ramirez," said Carter, in tones of entreaty. He had known Jared since almost the beginning, when Jared had been only a few years older than Willis, only a few steps further on the journey to manhood. Carter was prouder of Jared's doctorate than Jared was, even prouder than Maud. "Dr. Ramirez. I know you chose not to continue in psychology, but you did study it."

Jared had in fact taken his Bachelor's degree in psychology, but the modern reliance on psychotropic drugs had made him reconsider. He did not like drugs much at all. They made him think of Ava, blank-eyed in pools of filth on the old stained mattress; her soulless gaze had frightened him too much as a boy, and the memory hurt him too much now. He could make mental accommodation for necessary drugs, the sort of thing that might give Maud a few more healthy years, but he couldn't believe that mind-altering drugs were the best answer for the average patient in counseling. He tested as drug resistant himself, and managed very well without them, and was inclined to think with reasonable help and support most people could do the same.

Drugs had certainly done nothing to solve Ava's problems.

But he did have the degree, as Carter very well knew. "You think I can use psychology to talk her into the surgery?" he said, amused, wondering what magic Carter thought he might have acquired in getting that degree, and Carter shrugged. "Well, I'll try," said Jared. "You know I'll try. With or without psychology. You go down to the cafeteria, get some coffee, and I'll see what I can do."

"Please," said Carter. "Try hard."

And seeing her lying there in the hospital bed, looking unexpectedly small and frail under the white covers, her long white hair in braids over her shoulders, her hands folded thin and quiet over her chest, her pale skin translucent over bones become much too prominent, he wanted desperately to fix it, make it right somehow, force her, in fact, to do what had to be done so that she could come back to him again, strong and healthy.

There was no one else in the room; he bent over the bed and touched her face gently and when she opened her eyes, those sharp clear blue eyes, he lifted her enough to get an arm under her, around the tubes and wires just under the covers, and kissed her, and she put her arms around his neck and kissed him back, with a ghost of the old passion.

"And no," she said, drawing back so that she could see him. "You can't talk me into the surgery."

"You like the alternative better?" he asked her, still holding her.

"Are you sure those are the only choices?"

"Those are the only ones I know about," he said.

Her hands moved from his neck to his face, one on each side; she gazed smiling into his eyes. There were lines on her face now, but not many; he had always suspected cosmetic surgery, but she wouldn't say, of course; she had her vanities. And her eyes – as always, they were ageless; he looked into them and saw the spirit inside, as old as the universe, as young as little Gina on the cusp of adolescence.

"God, I have loved you," said Maud quietly, and then she let her hands drop and he eased her back down on the pillows; the bed was raised at the head to help her breathe, so she was half sitting, and he could take her hands and sit down on the edge of the bed.

"Why not, Maud?" he asked her, trying to understand. "The surgery isn't a big thing. It's probably not fun, but it could make you well again."

"And it could kill me, all by itself," said Maud, "even if they do say it's purely routine. And why should I let the doctors cut me up and stuff me full of artificial organs and tell me they're going to extend my life – until the next time everything fails, when they'll do it all over again?"

Jared held her hands; she wasn't, he saw, wearing her rings, or her bracelet or her earrings; he was not used to seeing her without the flash of gemstones. Even when they made love, she wore her jewelry, her rings, her earrings, something he had always teased her about. The lack made her look even younger, even more vulnerable. All she wore was the silver pendant with the Celtic knot, the twin of which she had given him years ago.

"Would it be so bad, to keep replacing these organs?" he asked her. "And they aren't artificial, dear; they're cloned from your own tissues, an exact match –"

She dismissed this with a wave of her hand. "Grown," she said, "artificially. Think how unnatural; organs grown in a tank without a body. They may not be able to do it, Jared; you know I have genetic kinks. They can't match my blood, none of the synthetics; they have to special-order. All the artificial blood made here, and they can't match me. They may not be able to develop a healthy heart, in spite of all their fine technology."

"And this is a reason," said Jared, "not to try?"

"It would certainly be a waste of effort."

"If it succeeded?"

She opened her mouth to answer, apparently found no answer, and shut it again; he smiled at her and after a moment she smiled back. "Think you’re smart," she said.

"Oh, I am," he said. "So here's what I suggest; you let them take their tissue, and you let them give it a try, growing you a new heart. It will take – what, how long? A month and a half? And we can see what happens. Suppose they do develop a nice healthy one for you. And special-order that blood substitute. You'd have a few days in the hospital –"

"Which is another thing," said Maud. "Remember, Jared, I'm drug resistant, just like you are. For surgery –"

And that might be the larger part of her objections, he thought, and with very good reason, but he did have an answer. "And your doctors are aware of this," he said, "and 'resistant' doesn't mean there isn't anything that will work for you. I can still get dental work done, you know, and I'm certainly not going to sit there letting them drill without any anesthesia."

"You'd think, this day and age, they could find some better way to deal with dental problems," said Maud.

"Which isn't the point," he reminded her. "The point is you and your surgery. Your health. And my chance," he added, "of keeping you a little longer. I'd settle for just a few more years. If I can have them, I want them, and I don't like your trying to take them away from me."

"Such a sweet speech," she said. "You're trying to melt my ailing heart."

"You're trying to break mine."

They looked at each other.

"Suppose I told you," said Maud, "that you are in my will."

"I'd bump you off immediately for the inheritance, of course. My dear girl," he said. "If I am in your will, take me out, instantly. I don't want your credits. I have never wanted your credits. Haven't we had this argument before? You promised me you were leaving your estate to your foundations, your scholarships, your causes." She started to say something and he closed her lips with one finger. "No," he said. "Under no circumstances. Absolutely not."

She eyed him. "Very short-sighted of you," she said. "You deserve it, after all of these years. If we had become legal partners, if we had married, you would certainly be entitled – and it isn't my fault we didn't." She shook her finger at his nose. "You and your pride. And you'd throw away an inheritance for your pride."

"I don't want your credits," he said. "I only want you. Preferably alive."

"Romantic," she murmured, and, holding his hands, turned her eyes to the window, where the day was lingering as spring stretched into summer. She considered the blue sky, the little swirl of thin cloud, the corner of the Pediatric Wing, just visible at the lower left. Or she considered the contents of her own mind, convoluted and many-layered as the curls of her usual hairstyle, of the twists of the Celtic Knot on the pendants they wore. They had been together over a decade, around thirteen years, he thought, counting in his mind. She was a complex person, infinitely fascinating, never predictable. He could not imagine life without her; he did not want to imagine it.

"I'll make a deal with you," she said finally. "I'll let them take their tissue samples and their blood samples; they can do that in the next couple of hours." He glanced at the clock on the wall doubtfully. "They said whenever I made up my mind," she told him. "They're waiting out there somewhere. Like vultures." Which were an Earthian species of carrion bird; he had seen holos of them, looming over dying victims in desert-like surroundings, not a heartwarming picture at all. "I will let the vultures in, and you will go and have dinner somewhere. Take poor Carter with you; I wasn't very nice to him, I'm afraid."

"I'm afraid you're right," said Jared, amused. "And after I have dinner with him?"

"Come back here," said Maud, "and help me break out of this place."

"Oh," said Jared, and she looked at his face and laughed.

"You know they're going to want me to stay here," she said. "To waste whatever time I have in this boring room. In these ugly gowns." She plucked distastefully at the sleeve of the hospital gown, and waved a hand at the bedside table, the pitcher and the cup, which was an unbreakable cup with a lid, the sort with a valve that let allowed the patient to drink but closed to prevent spilling the contents if dropped, the sort of cup given to small children, only in a larger size. "They think I'm a doddering old fool," she said.

"I'll handle that," said Jared, thinking that Carter could pack her own nightgowns for her, that he, her partner, even without the legal forms, could raise hell with the nurses and attendants and demand normal cups and glasses.

"No, why bother?" she said. "Give me one good reason I should stay here while the vultures are playing with their blood and their tissue?"

"I can give you an excellent reason. Your heart is not functioning properly," said Jared. "You had a heart attack. You collapsed in your bedroom. You need medical care."

"I need my own bed. My own clothes. My own readers; my friends; my housekeeper. You." He gave her a look, and she laughed. "Your presence, your company. I suppose my stupid heart would give out if we slept together; I wouldn't mind going out like that, making love with you, but you might have a problem with it."

"I might," he agreed.

Her eyes softened. "Making love," she said. "It always was love for us, wasn't it?"

"Always," he said, speaking the absolute truth. And it had been, and it was, and he held her hands and thought he could probably find someone, maybe one of the Bahtan sisters, actually, to come in to the penthouse and help Carter, and he could come in after classes, and in the evenings, and on weekends. The younger two Bahtans already had a patient and a very difficult one, by all accounts, but he thought Mutai might be available. It would be more comfortable for Maud at home, and it would only be a matter of six weeks; then he would talk her into the surgery, somehow, and the days of recovery, and the time in the rehab center. "All right, I will take you up on your deal," he said. "After your vultures get what they need, I will take you home. If –" he shook a finger at her, and she smiled again. " – you promise me that you will be very careful, take very good care of yourself, let Carter and me take very good care of you." She started to protest, and he put his finger on her lips again. "Promise me," he said, and she sighed and laughed.

"Oh, very well. Now call the nurse," she said, "so she can summon the vultures; and go have dinner with Carter. And kiss me before you go."

 

She was so weak that she scared him. He disconnected the wires carefully, hoping he wasn't taking away some vital support, and then he helped her to dress, holding her steady, fastening the hook of the bra, bending her arms into the sleeves of her summer blouse like the arms of a thin doll, all fragile skin and the sharp angles of bones. It was a pleasant night, with a light spring-scented breeze. But he suspected Maud would find it cold; he had brought up his old sweater from the back seat of his car. He wrapped her in it, thought of seeing if she could walk holding his arm, decided not to risk it.

The floor nurse walked in with an infuser just as he lifted Maud up in his arms. "What are you doing?" the nurse demanded. "You put that patient back this instant!"

"Ms. Clipper is leaving the hospital," said Jared.

"She is not," said the nurse indignantly. "The doctor hasn't released her yet. I have no authorization for this. She's supposed to have this infusion to help her sleep, and maybe in the morning –"

"No," said Maud, buttoning the sweater around her throat, "I'm leaving now. Against medical advice, yes, put that down in your records, and tell the doctor I'll call him in the morning. This is my decision, you little imbecile; you can't keep me against my will."

The nurse stood with her mouth open, and Jared, holding on to Maud, reached past her to get Maud's shoes, which he had left on the corner of the bed, having seen no need to try to get them on her feet. "Ready?" he asked Maud, and she smiled, and he swept her past the nurse and out the door and down the hall, patients and visitors and attendants turning to stare.

"You have become such a strong masterful man," said Maud. "It's inspiring. Quite seductive. You've swept me off my feet. Literally."

"Thank you, dear girl," said Jared. "We aim to please."

They reached the lift; he touched the button. She weighed so little, and this small excitement exhausted her; she put her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, and he wondered if he was doing the right thing. No, he didn't wonder; he knew damned well this wasn't the right thing, but it was what Maud wanted and he was no better than Carter, letting her have her way, however dangerous to her it might be.

Too late now, he thought, and as the lift disgorged a handful of visitors clutching flowers and boxes of candy, he carried her past them and said, "One," into the speaker. The lift door closed on a vision of startled faces looking back at him and a nurse rushing down the hall waving a handful of printouts.

"They probably want your signature," he told Maud.

"I'll do it at home on the screen," she said, not opening her eyes.

Jared had parked his car at the front door by the "No Parking" sign. So he had left Carter on guard, and Carter was waving his arms at a parking regulator in full and hasty retreat. "Treat an emergency like this; I'll have my lawyer on you; I'll sue you to Tuania and back; I'll have your uniform and your badge and your pension!" he shouted. "Dying, I tell you, and this is positively disgraceful; do your superiors know what you're up to? You should be ashamed of yourself! Does your mother know what you do for a living?" The regulator reached the corner of the chapel entrance and got herself out of sight, and Carter turned back with a sunny smile and opened the passenger door of Jared's car.

"Excellent, Carter," said Maud, with approval, and Jared set her down on the passenger seat and reclined the back. Carter crawled into the back seat, a little crowded with the passenger seat tilted, and Jared got into the driver's seat just as the nurse came galloping out of the door with her printouts. "Oh, all right, I'll sign the damned things," said Maud, and Jared lowered her window.

"I can't believe you're doing this!" said the nurse. "This is positively ridiculous! You had a heart attack! You can't go running around like this!"

"Who's running?" said Maud. "Give me your release forms. Hurry it up, girl, I want to get home and have a decent dinner before I go to bed."

And that was sheer braggadocio; she was not at all interested in food, even when Jared offered to call her favorite restaurant and make them provide take-out; she only wanted ice water in a glass, not a valve-lidded plastic cup, and then she was willing to let Jared carry her in to her bed and undress her and pull up the blankets, more than so warm a night really called for. He felt, again, that he had made the wrong choice, taking her home, but she looked so much more relaxed, so much happier, in her own bed, in her own nightgown, surrounded by her own things.

"This is what I wanted," she said, and caught his hand; he sat down on the bed with her. "You're right," she said, looking at him seriously. "Carter's right; my heart is in bad shape. But you've done the right thing. Maybe the doctors will be able to match my blood and do the cloning procedures, and everything will be fine. Maybe they can't. Maybe I won't make it long enough to get the transplant; that's possible."

"Maud –"

"No, listen to me. I could just as well die in the hospital, you know, and I'd hate that. My last sight that ugly hospital room? Maybe that nurse's face?" She shook her head. "I'd rather die here, in my own bed, in peace. Remember that, Jared. This is my choice. And I am grateful you helped me do what I need to do." She reached out to him, moving her hand over his arm, touching his face lightly, like the cool spring breeze outside. "How unfair this has been," she said. "I'm too old. You're too young. Our time is too short. I love you too much."

"I love you," he said, "for whatever time we have. Nothing else matters."

She smiled and closed her eyes, and he put her hand down gently on top of the blankets and started to get up; her eyes opened again, looking up at the ceiling, the shadows cast by the lamps and their shades. "You are in my will," she said. "You don't get it all. The bulk goes to those foundations you like so much. But even after the lawyers get done, there will be a nice little fortune for you."

"Maud!"

"I know, you're going to be angry, but you're going to have to put up with it. Consider it in trust," she said, blinking sleepily at the ceiling, "for you and your family. Your aunts and uncles, your brothers and sisters. Your little brothers. Your little sister. Someday you're all going to need credits; this way you'll have them. So you manage the trust; you can leave the principle where it is, and just take the interest. Buy yourself," she said, glancing at his comfortable old grey T-shirt, "some decent shirts."

"I have," he said, "several decent shirts." It occurred to him that the infusion the nurse had been bringing might not have been the only medication intended for Maud this evening; she might have been given something before he got back to the hospital. Certainly the harvesters of tissue samples would have tried to sedate her. And it had left her confused; what could she mean about his family? She was aware that he had no living relatives. His family consisted of his friends, of the Hardesty sisters, and Al and Clyde and Mimi, of Sofi and Issio, of the Duri group making music on the Hardesty stairs, of the McIntosh kids, Willis and Terry and Gina, his little–

His little sister, he thought. Two little brothers, one little sister.

Maud, looking at him under her eyelashes, smiled. "And one more thing," she said, "which I couldn't put in my will. I’m leaving you my daughter."

"Your daughter," he said, thinking, okay, this is definitely medication. Because Maud had never had children, a fact she had spoken of sometimes with regret, sometimes with triumph. That he was very sure about; there was no question in his mind on this issue.

"My daughter," she said. "You understand that you will have to work to get her; you will have to find her, and rescue her; she is being held prisoner –" she yawned suddenly, lifting a hand to her mouth, and her eyes drifted closed. "She is being held prisoner in an ivory tower," she said, the words beginning to slur together. "By a wicked witch. You must find her and rescue her, and if you can do this, you may have her."

"In a tower," said Jared, and, trying to keep it light, "Is her name by any chance Rapunzel? Long hair?"

"No, the witch changed her name," said Maud. "And she got her hair cut. Fashion these days, you know. But remember, Jared, she is yours." Her eyes flashed open, a glimpse of humor and mischief and Maud again, always Maud. "You think I'm losing it," she said. "And that's all right, but remember what I told you. And remember that I love you. Always."

"I love you," said Jared, to those dancing eyes, and he bent over her, smoothing her face with his hand, ironing out the weakness and the weariness, and kissed her very gently, wishing for the old alchemy of desire and passion to work their transformation one last time, fearing it would never happen again.

She closed her eyes and he walked quietly out, leaving the door halfway open behind him.

Carter agreed that Mutai would be a great help, if Jared could get her, and Jared went home to talk with her. It was late, but it was spring, after all, and the sisters had nighttime activities. They were still awake. Mutai was quite willing to talk with Maud and Carter the next day. Jared went on to bed, if not to sleep, with one problem solved.

Just after dawn Carter called to tell Jared that Maud had passed away in the night, in her sleep.

She had gone in such peace, he said, that he found her smiling. And the ambulance had already taken her away for the official death certificate and the autopsy, if the doctors required, to be followed at once by cremation, according to her wishes; he apologized for not waiting until Jared had seen her one last time, but she did not want anyone to see her, she did not want wakes and funerals; she wanted to be cremated and quietly scattered at sea, and if Jared would be willing to join Carter in this last duty, he knew that would be Maud's wish.

"And," Carter said, "there are some bits of business, but that can wait if you'd rather."

Jared sighed. He felt exhausted, drained, empty; he was finding it hard to think clearly. He had thought he was prepared, but he could not quite comprehend the reality of it. "Hell. She really did have me in her will."

"Oh, yes. You have a legacy, and she named you her executor, too. You know Maud," said Carter. "She always had to have the last word." And he burst into tears, sobbing over the phone, and Jared got dressed and drove back to Maud's apartment, to fix Carter a stiff drink and to call Neville, who was on his way home from somewhere, and to begin, reluctantly, with Carter's tearful assistance, to go through Maud's affairs.

He could hear her saying, "Gotcha!" Gleefully. With that flash of mischief in her blue eyes.