Chapter 21.

 

Jared

 

 

It was past midnight. Jared considered the couch, but it was in the living room and he still didn’t know where the fly was. He didn’t want to leave Cara alone with that thing loose in the house.

He found the blankets in the closet across from the bathroom. There were what looked like folded tablecloths and cloth napkins, yellowed with age and neglect. There was a large stack of folded things that proved to be the sort of plastic pads you would put under an invalid to protect a mattress from accidents; they were well-worn, and beside them was a pile of sheets too narrow for Cara’s bed, about the right size for the hospital bed. There was a stack of something like plastic-lined towels, which proved to be giant-sized bibs, all bearing the shadows of many spilled meals. There were lots of disposables on the market, but some invalids, the Bahtan girls had told him, objected to the feel of them or the idea of them – or just preferred to make work for their caretakers; Evvie had said that of their last patient, who had been, she had told Jared, a miserable vicious old bitch, or at least the Bahtan equivalent. Evvie was good with patients; that one must have been remarkably difficult.

Jared dug a blanket and a pillow out of the linen closet and adjusted the recliner, took off his shoes, and lay down there in the night light glow. Cara slept, looking a little less uncomfortable. He had the Nahno if sleep didn't come to him, and he had the fly swatter where he could grab it.

He dozed.

A shriek that would have done credit to a banshee brought him upright in a hurry, knocking the pillow to the floor and tangling the blanket around his feet. You stupid sex-addled cow, are you going to leave me to die here alone? screamed the voice, and he saw the shadow of the insect as it swooped across the ceiling just above Cara. Cara jerked into a sitting position and threw the blankets off.

"I’m coming, Mother," she called, and he kicked off his blanket and caught her just before she got out of bed. "Jared?" she said, blankly; he was privately pleased that she knew him, even drugged and half asleep. "Oh," she said. "Oh, it was a dream, I had a dream. I thought Mother was calling me. I thought she needed me."

And Mother has a hell of a way of communicating it, Jared thought. "It’s all right, she’s not here," he said, and, feeling her tension, he held her and looked over the top of her head for the insect. It had prudently vanished into some dark and private hole somewhere else.

She was coping with a slight temperature and pills. This was not the moment to talk to her about her peculiar house mate. He held her and it seemed to ease her; after a moment or two he decided it was simpler just to lie down with her in his arms until she slept again. And it fit in with his private wishes, another advantage. He pulled the blanket around them both, propping himself up on the extra pillow. "Better?" he asked her, and she nodded against his shoulder.

"She was sick," she murmured, drugged, drowsy. "In the night, she needed things. Her room was back there." She nodded toward the bathroom and the second bedroom.

"You took care of her yourself?"

"She didn’t like strangers. I had people come in to help, but she wanted me. She always called me."

And that spoke of devotion and affection, just as the invalid equipment did. "It must have been hard," he said.

"She had a stroke," said Cara. "Off-planet. You must have read about that. She had a lot of brain damage. That was five years ago. And you know she died last winter." she said on a sigh, and he held her a little tighter.

"I’m sorry," he murmured into her hair.

"I just wish I wouldn’t have these dreams. I guess it’s habit."

Habit had a little help in this case, Jared thought, eyeing the darkened doorway to the hall and the living room, but nothing moved out there. "It's all right now. Go back to sleep," he said, stroking her hair, and her eyes began to close again.

She slept. Nothing buzzed. Nothing shrieked. With luck, Cara’s nasty little boarder had done her worst for the night, and would let them alone now. Her body was a trifle too warm yet, but he still thought the temperature wasn’t serious. It wasn't three yet – he peered at the clock on the far side of the water pitcher – a little too early for her pills. If her nights were often disturbed like this, she was probably sleep-deprived on top of today’s stresses. She seemed very peaceful at the moment, anyway, curled against him, and rather than wake her by moving, he lay back and thought about insects and mothers and Little Ears, and wondered what Sofi and Issio would think if they could hear what he had heard. And was there a connection between that fly, or whatever it was, and the late Dr. Lindstrom? Devotion and affection, but the language in which the fly, in the voice of her mother, had summoned her – Maud at her most imperious had never spoken like that to anyone, however inferior she felt they were.

He shut his eyes only for a minute.

The second shriek brought him to instant consciousness. Whore, whore, lazy whore! right over their heads, of course; Jared spotted it almost at once, diving out of his reach, heading for the folding doors of the closet. " – Mother," muttered Cara, eyes closed, trying to sit up, and he held her closer and her blue eyes flew open and looked at him with dismay. "Oh, god, did I do it again?" she said. "I’m sorry, I’m sorry –"

"It wasn’t you," he said. The fly landed just above the folding doors and began to walk back and forth on the wall, and he lay Cara down on the bed and got up, tapping up the lights, looking around for the swatter; it wasn't in sight, something he would worry about later when he had time.

"It wasn’t – "

"It wasn’t," he said, thinking just how insane explanations were going to sound. He picked up one of his shoes and started moving toward the closet and the fly paused; he had the clear impression she was watching him. And so was Cara, on the bed, frozen into silence. He made it almost within arm’s reach, and the fly launched herself from the wall right toward him; he swung the shoe and nearly connected, and the fly let out an angry screech and dodged away toward the other wall.

Gutter garbage! Get your ass the hell out of my house!

"Mother?" said Cara from the bed, in a wondering tone.

Jared swung the shoe again and the fly ducked and landed on the wall by the dresser. Get back in your sewer! Get away from here!

"No way," he said, and lifted the shoe for another try.

"Jared, don’t swat my mother!" screamed Cara, and the fly gave another fine shriek and dove into the bathroom. Jared sprang after her; the lights came on as he passed the door sensors and knocked his knee against the door frame. The door to the other bedroom was closed but the door to the hall was open a crack, and it occurred to Jared that he might be able to trap the thing if he moved fast enough. At least then he would know where it was. He went for the door and slammed it shut; the fly shrieked over his head and was out into Cara's bedroom again.

Filthy slut! She passed over the bed where Cara sat, wide-eyed, clutching a pillow, the picture of bewildered helplessness and as he came out of the bathroom, she reared back and flung the pillow at the fly full force. It hit her, driving her, screeching, out into the hall, and Cara uncoiled from the bed in one sinuous movement and slammed the bedroom door shut and stood against it as the fly, after a moment of furious buzzing, began to shriek again, banging against the door like a man with a small fist.

He tossed his shoe down by the recliner and went to her, peeling her away from the door and into his arms as the fly pounded on the other side of the door and yelled incoherently. "Good work," he said, and she laughed shakily and clutched his T-shirt. "Are you all right?" he asked. He ran a hand along her side, noting a little swelling but no blood

"My head still hurts a little," she said. "I forgot. I just wanted to get her out of here." She let go of his T-shirt and made little gestures of smoothing it down again.

"You were supposed to stay in bed," he said, thinking of Frank’s instructions, none of which had taken talking flies into account.

Couple of rutting whores! from the hallway.

"Mind your own business, Mother," Cara shouted back, and the buzzing increased by a few decibels and the fly banged against the door again.

"Whatever it is," said Jared, "it can’t be your mother, sweetheart; she died last winter – " And the Institute had declared a day of mourning, and the Project Azuri/zai committee had read a tribute into the minutes of their daily meeting: Dr. Margo Lindstrom has succumbed after many brave years of battling her disabilities; we deeply regret the loss of this brilliant woman.

"Oh, yes, she did," agreed Cara. "She got a kitchen knife somehow, we don't know how, she couldn’t get around but she did it, and she tried to stab – she –" She shut her mouth and her eyes against the words and the memory and the idea. "And then she stabbed herself," she said. "She cut her own throat. Blood everywhere, all over the room, all over us, the night nurses, everyone. You’re dead!" she shouted at the door. "Go away! You’re dead!"

I should have strangled you at birth!

"I should have stabbed you myself!"

You and that piece of crap man whore in there with you, rutting pig!

Cara gave the closed door a beautiful smile. "Yes, right from an Agency," she said. "I picked him out myself, just to take me to bed. And you know how I paid for him, Mother? I paid out of the Security Trust account. Your account. How do you like that, Mother?"

There was a charged silence in the hall, which built up and exploded into a howl of such unmitigated fury that Jared almost expected the door to melt in its frame. You spent my credits on that filth, you little – even an articulate fly could not think of an appropriate epithet; she hit the door again and began to scream, great huge horrible screams ringing through the air.

"That’s my mother," said Cara quite calmly, proving her point, and then she began to laugh on a hysterical note, and Jared picked her up and carried her back to the recliner and sat down, holding her on his lap. Whether or not the fly had any connection to Cara’s deceased mother, and that was mind-boggling enough, it was quite clear that Cara had taken the opportunity to speak her mind for what Jared suspected was the first time. And that was good. He couldn’t think of much else in this situation that was.

Although he had to admit that the notion of Cara paying for an Agency representative with her mother’s credits was, everything considered, pretty funny.

He would not have been surprised if her laughter had turned into tears, but it didn’t. She just sat on his lap and laughed and he held her, and the fly screamed and battered the door and the wall all the way to the bathroom door and then back again. After a time Cara's arm crept up around his neck. "I hope you don't mind, I know you're retired, I read that in the bio, but I couldn't resist," she said.

"I thought it was brilliant," he said, keeping her safely in his arms.

 

Cara grew quieter, but the fly did not. They sat and listened to her raging out in the hall and watched the shadows of the trees through the window. Jared couldn’t see the clock from where he was. He thought it must be getting near dawn.

"I thought it was all in my head," said Cara.

"Yes, I know," he said.

"But you heard her too?"

"Since I brought you home from Dr. Frank's," he said. "How often has she been waking you up like this?"

"Not every night," said Cara, which said volumes, Jared thought.

Another long piercing shriek, and the door resounded to a volley of small sharp blows. Jared had thought the creature could do no physical damage; he was beginning to rethink this. He was willing to risk it for himself, but the fly seemed to have forgotten him and his many sins in her outrage at Cara’s financial dealings. He was not willing to risk Cara.

It would be satisfying to squash the thing against the wall but, he had to admit, that was probably short-sighted. She should be looked at; she should be studied, in fact. Issio, for instance, might like to look at her. His earlier idea of trapping her was the right decision. If he could confine her to one room, preferably a room not in use right now –

"I’m thinking," he said to Cara, "that I ought to see if I can decoy her into the back bedroom and shut her in until we decide what to do with her."

"That’s a good idea," she said. "Only how do we do it?" The fly banged twice on the top of the door and then resumed the screeching, moving back and forth and up and down the hall. "Maybe if she sees me in the room – I can open the hall door and she’ll come after me and I can run out and shut the door. Is the door to the bathroom closed?"

"Yes," said Jared, "but you need to stay here. Frank would not approve." He smiled at her. "She’s been after me since I brought you home. And she especially doesn’t like this." He tapped the pendant, which he left on as an act of defiance against angry insects; he would take it off later, when this was settled.

Cara looked at it closely. "Were you wearing this earlier?" she asked

"Under my shirt. As soon as I took it out she dive-bombed me. I have no idea why, but she hates that almost as much as she hates your using her account."

Cara lifted it and studied the Celtic knot design. "This is an odd coincidence," she said. "I have one just like it."

"You do?"

"Yes, it's in my jewelry box. Mother always complained when I wore it; she didn't like it. She thought it was ugly. I found it among Granny's things; that was her mother. She took care of me when I was little. Where did you get yours?"

"A gift from a friend," he said, hoping to keep it general.

It didn't work. "A girlfriend."

"Yes."

"Someone special?"

It was early to get into this, but they seemed to be on an accelerated schedule. And she was going to have to know sooner or later. He didn't think it was a good idea to keep these sorts of secrets from the woman you, well, cared about, not if you wanted a real relationship with her.

And he did.

"Yes," he said. "Her name was Maud. We were a couple for many years. She died early last summer."

"Oh, god. What happened?"

"It was her heart. She had problems for a long time; it wasn't unexpected."

She stared at him. "Jared, I'm so sorry, that's awful."

"I was thinking," he said, "that I should take the pendant off and put it away now. That's why I took it out from under my shirt. I loved her very much. That's the truth of it. But she is gone, and it's ended, and I now – see very strong reasons to move on." She looked at him with huge blue eyes; he couldn't help smiling at her. "No expectations, no demands," he said. "I don't mean that. I do mean it's time to take off Maud's pendant. I only left it on because it annoyed the fly so much."

She smiled. "Why," she said, "no expectations or demands?"

"You don't believe in wasting time," he said, amused.

"Of course not. When you see what you want," she said, "you should just plunge in. How can you tell? Some things you only get one chance at."

"Oh, hell," he said, laughing in spite of the banging and yelling out in the hall. "And here I was worried about moving too fast for you."

"And," she continued, looking down at the pendant, "maybe you should keep on wearing this, and I'll wear mine, because they match."

"Actually the McIntosh kids have pendants like this too. From their mother, they told me, for luck. And my neighbors Issio and Sofi each have one. The Fellowship of the Celtic Knot." He became conscious that he was seeing her there, part of the fellowship, in his house, in his yard, at the picnic table; he was seeing her with all of his neighbors filling some gap he had only just now noticed, as if she belonged.

"Then you have to keep it on, and I don't mind – if you loved Maud, if you really loved her, that's a good thing," she said. "You should remember her; she's part of you."

"I think," he said, speaking the truth, "that you may be too." He folded her against him and she put her arm back around his neck and out in the hall, the fly let out another banshee screech and hit the door hard enough to make it shiver. "We need to deal with that," he said, and kissed her once and stood up, putting her down in the chair as he vacated it.

"I'll decoy her. She's my mother," she said, and that was debatable, but there was no way he was going to let her out of the chair.

"You already hit her with a pillow. That’s enough for one night. And I think you still have your headache."

"It's better."

"Just the same. Stay right there," he told her. "I'll be back in a minute."

The fly was back at the door and the wall beside it. He moved quietly into the bathroom, not that the fly could hear him over her own uproar; he shut the door behind him, just in case she somehow got loose and Cara needed an extra bit of protection, and went to the third door, listening to the screaming. She could curse in all five Alliance languages including basic D'ubian, he noticed. The night light came up when he stepped into the second bedroom, showing the dusty furniture and the big brown stain on the floor. She stabbed herself, he thought, after having tried, perhaps, to stab someone else, and he had an idea who, too. Charming. He pictured the smear of a dead fly on the wall with great regret. He would enjoy doing that.

Whether or not she had been a good and decent person, Dr. Margo Lindstrom had undoubtedly been a brilliant person. On the slight chance that this really was her, or some part of her, it wouldn’t be smart to underestimate her intelligence, Jared thought, but the uproar in the hall suggested that she was too angry to think clearly. He thought just a small taunt would bring her after him.

He made sure the door to the bathroom was shut, checked the windows, which were all closed, and then he straightened the silver chain around his neck and flung the hall door open. "Hey!" he yelled down the hall. "I'm still wearing it!" And he flipped the pendant with his finger.

The fly gave a great screech and dived at him and he ducked back into the bedroom with her almost on top of him. She was headed for the pendant; he cupped his hand and swiped at her, actually making a momentary contact with something small and vibrating and blazing hot, which he flung at the far end of the room as he spun out the door and slammed it shut behind him, trapping the fly and a rising crescendo of screams in the back bedroom with the dust and the brown stain on the floor.