Chapter 66

 

Jared

 

 

Cara checked with Phyllis first thing Monday morning and reported to Jared that Ann was better, was, in fact, throwing all of her energy into planning for the reception instead of thinking about her absent mother. This was a good thing, Phyllis felt, and Cara tended to agree. Ann needed this distraction, she pointed out, and they could practice a little patience and tolerance, and what, after all, could Ann do that was so terrible?

Jared kissed his bride and escaped to the Institute alone. Patterson, who had been up very late, was catching up on sleep, and this was lucky, Jared found, because the not-yet-ex Ms. Patterson was waiting for Jared in his office.

"She was here when I came," Sandy Ott whispered to him, shoving him toward his office door. "She was waiting outside."

"She says she won't leave until she talks to you," said Weston. So you gotta let her talk to you."

"Please," said Ott.

"Does she have power tools?" Jared inquired. Ott and Weston had not been present for Patterson's explanation; they looked at him blankly and Weston shook his head.

"I didn't see any," he said.

Nevertheless Jared opened his office door a little warily. "Ms. Patterson?" he said to the person hunched in one of the visitor chairs, glowering at his diploma, framed on the wall, and she rose to meet him. She did not require power tools to impress him. She was nearly as tall as he was, and much heavier, in a tight tank top revealing the curves and bulges of her torso, many many curves and bulges, and short shorts baring enormous thighs and thick legs webbed with blue veins. She had a drawing of a white poodle across the front of her shirt, emphasizing gigantic breasts unconfined by a bra, and she wore earrings, gold disks dangling on gold chains; the disk on her right side said, "BOW!" and the disk on her left side said, "WOW!"

"Dr. Ramirez," she said, getting directly to the point. "I'm Ione Patterson. You should know you have a pervert on your staff. If this were a decent world, he would be a felon, too. Because molesting sweet, harmless animals is against the law. I think you ought to know about this."

Jared decided not to shut the door; he might need allies. "To start with," he said, "what proof do you have that Patterson has done anything?"

"I know my baby," said Ione Patterson. "I knew right away how depressed she was. Not even playing with her chewy bone, just lying there with those eyes, you know, those sad, sad eyes, so I knew right away something was wrong."

Glancing down the hall, Jared saw both Ott and Weston leaning around the open conference room door, paying very close attention to Patterson's not-yet-ex wife. "Depressed," he repeated.

"So I called her psychiatrist," said Ione Patterson.

"Her psychiatrist," said Jared. "She has a psychiatrist."

"Of course she has a psychiatrist," said Ione Patterson. "This is a very big bunch of trauma for a little girl like Yvonne Marie, her parents breaking up and all, and did you know he sawed our dishwasher in half? Yvonne Marie needs all the help and support she can get. Troubled times," she explained.

"I see," said Jared, not laughing.

"So I called her psychiatrist, and he fitted her in right away, got her an extra hour because it could be an emergency, he said, her feeling that bad, and he talked to her and then he had me come in from the waiting room so he could tell me all about it, because of course as her loving mommy I have to know, who else is going to handle it? And he told me. He said she had all of the symptoms of abuse and molestation, that's what he's done to her, my baby, he has abused and molested her every time my back was turned. That's probably why he wants custody of her. So he can keep on abusing and molesting her. That's the way these degenerates are."

Jared heard strangled sounds from down the hall; he looked to see Sandra Ott with both hands over her mouth trying to hold back her laughter. Weston wasn't laughing; he was staring at Jared's office in disbelief.

Jared didn't laugh. "Are there any physical signs of this?" he inquired.

"Oh, no, he's been careful, the lying sneaking pervert, but she has all kinds of psychological scars, you know. Really big bad ones from this trauma, poor helpless little girl. It's going to take years of work, years of it, before she can get over it; that's what her psychiatrist says."

And, Jared thought, her psychiatrist would be more than willing to help her with these years of work, as long as the fees were paid. The fees would, he supposed, be part of the divorce settlement, provided the Pattersons ever got as far as a divorce settlement; the pervert would, of course, be expected to come up with the credits.

"Well," continued Ione Patterson, "naturally the first thing I thought of, the cops ought to be called, but I went to the district attorney and she said – you know it's a crying shame, what has become of justice in this world, how the liars and the perverts have it all their own way."

"She wouldn't prosecute," said Jared, conscious of relief.

"Because he hid all the physical evidence," said Ione, leaving Jared to wonder how you would go about that. "So they don't want to do anything, but I want you to know, you and all the people that pervert works with, you've got a nasty stinking deviant here, who ought to be torn apart with a red hot poker, that's what." Jared did not laugh at this muddled picture, but Weston was making muffled sounds down at the conference room door and Sandra had retreated into the conference room, out of sight, but not sound; he could hear her laughter easily. "And one thing for sure," continued Ione, stabbing the air with a huge fat finger. "He'll never get his creeping crawling hands on Yvonne Marie again. I am taking her away to a place where she can be safe and happy, and I can bring her in for her therapy three times a week, like her psychiatrist said, and if that slimy beast tries to get at her again I'll rip his guts out. And you can tell him that." She felt into her bag, which looked large enough to pack a wardrobe for a month-long trip, and produced a rubber bone, three squeaky toys in assorted shapes, and a mangled plush animal with rips and rents in the side, through which most of the stuffing had leaked. "And he can have these back; he gave them to her, to bribe her to keep quiet about his filthy business, and she doesn't want them anymore; she doesn't want anything from that monster. And you can tell him so from me."

She cast the toys on the floor and stomped down the hall to the parking lot door. The framed holos on the wall shivered with the vibration. "Pervert!" she shouted, passing Weston grinning in the conference room doorway, and then she hit the door with one enormous hand and went her ponderous way into the summer morning.

And this was good, because Jared was having a great deal of trouble not laughing, especially when Sandra Ott and Weston were all but rolling on the floor.

 

"A molester of poodles," said Issio. "That is indeed very good." Shaking his head, curling his tail, he refilled his coffee cup. "These are not sensible people," he remarked, "but they are very entertaining."

"Mr. Patterson is very nice," said Gina, "but a little weird."

"A lot weird, but you can see why," said Jared, leaning an elbow on Issio's breakfast bar. "He's lived with Ione for years now."

"The question is why," said Cara. "How can sane people do this sort of thing?"

"Who says either of them is sane?" said Jared.

The doorbell chimed; Issio called, "Come!" to the open window over the sink, but nothing happened; the doorbell did not chime again, but no one opened the door, either. There was a certain amount of movement on the porch, but nothing else.

"What?" said Sofi, and walked across the living room and opened the door. "Thirteen venomous hells," she said, and slammed the door shut.

"Sofi," said Lalia's voice outside on the porch, and Sofi came back to the breakfast bar and sat down and picked up Issio's coffee cup and drank.

"Much caffeine," said Issio, looking worried.

"Good," said Sofi and drank again.

"Who was at the door?" asked Cara, and the doorbell chimed again.

"Twenty-seven slavering demons from thirteen hells," said Sofi, probably not as an answer to Cara's question. The doorbell chimed once more, and Jared could hear more movement, something like scuffling, and a little yelp. He put out his mind, finding Issio's and Gina's right beside him, and they touched Lalia, who was standing on the porch with one hand by the doorbell and the other gripping the end of Zarei's tail; Zarei was hanging on to one of the porch supports, trying to pull herself free, with the clear intention of escaping down the steps and into the street.

Tell Sofi we do not mean any harm to the child. Tell her we are just here to talk. To get acquainted, said Lalia.

"It's Lalia and Zarei," Jared said, so that Cara would know, too. She glanced at him, but she didn't ask how he knew. She understood that. He wasn't quite sure how she did, but she did.

Issio put a hand on Sofi's hand; it was affectionate, and it incidentally kept the claws under control. "They say they do not intend harm to Shamri," he said, since Sofi had disdained to follow their minds to the porch. "They say they only wish to be acquainted with you."

"Shamri?" said Cara. "You've decided on her name? That's pretty!"

Issio looked at Sofi, who was lifting the coffee cup again, in no mood to talk. "That will be her first name," he said. "Her middle name will be an Earthian name; we wish to call her for her Earthian sister, if that is acceptable to you, Gina. Shamri Gina."

"For me?" said Gina, unbelieving.

"Oh, that's beautiful," exclaimed Cara.

The doorbell chimed again, insistently.

"If it is acceptable," said Issio, trying not to pay attention to the doorbell, or the gouges Sofi was digging into the top of the breakfast bar with her claws.

"I'm – honored," said Gina, breathless, and, unable to find any more words, she leaned across the breakfast bar and threw her arms around Issio, and he hugged her back one-armed, seeming pleased.

"We're not leaving!" shouted Lalia from the porch. "I arranged my whole day just for this!" She rang the doorbell once more, and Sofi snarled into Issio's coffee cup.

"Let them in," said Issio to Cara and Gina and Jared, getting a firm grip on Sofi's hand, the one digging into the breakfast bar, and Gina got off the stool and went to open the door. Lalia grinned at her and backed into the living room, with Zarei's tail gripped in both hands. Zarei did not follow; she was stretched between the porch rail, which she gripped with both hands and all her claws, and the living room door, where Lalia was hauling on the end of her tail.

"Will you let go?" said Lalia, yanking at the tail, and Zarei gave a wail and clung to the porch rail more tightly.

"What foolishness is this?" demanded Issio.

"It's time that Sofi and Zarei talked like mature women. We don't mean to do anything to your daughter," Lalia said, hanging on to the tail and digging in her heels, "but we would love to see her and bounce her around and sing silly songs and all those things people do with children and we can't do that unless you two are speaking. So come on, Zarei!"

"Where was she," inquired Issio, "when Sofi was a baby, when she might have sung silly songs and bounced her around, and also done other foolish things which babies like? Sofi had no mother to do these things."

"I did not require a mother," Sofi told the coffee cup. "I had my father, also my aunt, also my grandmother. I had a happy childhood. I did not require a mother; I did not need her," she said, glowering at the door. "You did not have a mother," she said to Issio. "You grew up well."

"I would have liked to have had a mother," said Issio. "I do not know that I would cast out a mother if one appeared even now, after these many years of absence. I do not say that I would trust her. But, not trusting her, I would rather she was where I could watch her; also I would wish to hear her, to see if she would tell me why she had not come sooner."

"That's right," said Lalia. "You have to speak to each other. Zarei," she said, tugging on the tail, and Zarei on the porch gave another wail.

"Sofi," said Cara, sounding as if she were trying very hard not to laugh, "if I can give Maud a chance, I should think you could give Zarei one. I know," she said. "The baby, but you know, Sofi, that while she belongs to you and Issio first of all, after that she belongs to the rest of us. The whole neighborhood. We would never let anyone harm her; you have all of us behind you, making sure that Shamri Gina is safe."

A pause. "Who?" said Zarei out on the porch.

"The baby," said Lalia. "They must have picked out her name."

"Shamri Gina," said Issio, nodding at Sofi, who nodded back, her claws retracting slightly. She had sunk them well into the surface of the breakfast bar, Jared noticed.

"That," said Zarei "is a good name."

"I am happy to have your approval," snarled Sofi.

Zarei's face, or at least half of it, an eye, an ear, part of a mouth, appeared in the doorway. "It is the name of a great warrior woman," she said, "who is in our genetic heritage."

"A legend," said Issio.

"No," said Zarei. "She was real, also very remarkable; we remember her name. She wed into our species and had children. We are descended of her, in part."

"She was daughter to the hero warrior f'Viffali, who with his people contested the invasion of the f'Gif'zi Adanai," said Sofi, sounding as if she wished to emulate f'Viffali's efforts. "Later, with her father making peace, she married the son of the leader of the f'Gif'zi, as her father married the daughter. You are descended of her?"

"You also," said Zarei, both eyes now visible around the door frame.

These were names Jared remembered well from his translation of the Gif'zi manuscript, which had turned out to be an account of ancient legends, Zamuaon dealings with supernatural invaders, considered by some to be gods and others to be magical beings of unknown origin. They had come out of the sky, Jared remembered, his interest caught. He had considered it mythology; he looked with interest at Zarei, who claimed actual descent from these beings.

Lalia tugged the end of the tail, and part of the rest of Zarei came into view, yellow flowered shirt, bright yellow pants, ankle bracelet clattering with charms, six tail rings this time, a wrist decked with yellow and hot pink and orange bangles. Zarei contemplated Sofi. Issio contemplated Sofi. Sofi contemplated the coffee cup.

"Perhaps," said Issio, with a small sigh, "your – this person – would like coffee, Sofi." She snorted, but she made no move to prevent him from getting up and finding two coffee cups, and she didn't snatch either of them away from him and fling the contents into Zarei's face, which was probably progress. Issio took the cups into the living room, where Lalia let go of Zarei's tail and sat down in the armchair, out of the way, and Zarei sank cautiously onto the very edge of the couch, looking as if she were ready to jump up and run the instant Sofi made a move.

"We probably should go and see what Ann's doing," said Cara. "She was talking about garlands playing music and dancing."

"Want to come?" Jared suggested to Gina, and she took a good look at Sofi and nodded with enthusiasm.

I'll stay and referee, Lalia assured them, and we have Issio, so they tiptoed out of the house very quietly and didn't start laughing until they got out into the street.