Laura: Unless you prefer gentleman caller.
Sue: I wonder what he’d look like in a natty morning suit and a monocle? But, okay, you’ve had the meet-cute, the hot-and-heavy, and set him before the family to admire. What comes next? The ex-wife turning up with a spanner to throw in the works? Or the Big Misunderstanding?
Laura: Neither, I’d hope. Spending some time with his daughters.
Sue: No more wibbling?
Laura shrugged at that, and Sue smiled, and gripped Laura’s hand in brief, silent encouragement. Laura had to admit she was feeling optimistic. And the next month would at the least involve a great deal of being ruined for other men.
Although it was the afterwards that she was beginning to look forward to most. She liked to touch him when they were curled together, both too replete for it to be sexual.
"Are you going to join the crowd to watch Haelin try out Maddy’s ice skates?" she asked much later that night, after the exertion, the lingering shower, and the comfortable positioning beneath sheets.
The faintest shake of his head. "The Setari and Kalrani won’t be able to be fully at ease if I’m there. And Haelin—even now my behaviour with Haelin and Allidi is examined for hints of favouritism. That will be why she didn’t tell me just why she wanted to delay the outing I had arranged with her."
Of course. The Principal’s daughters: considered privileged, no matter how impartial he strove to be.
"It bothered your Sights. Not to know."
"Yes. It’s rare that they don’t tell me things they know might trigger a Sight reaction. But it is important for me to demonstrate a decision not to ask when information isn’t volunteered. Although, on that subject…" He slid his hand down her arm, and linked fingers. "Is the tension that rose around the discussion of the moonfall something you can tell me about? You were annoyed at Julian, but deeply worried for Nick."
"Yes." Laura grimaced, then sighed. "There’s no secret to any of that. Well, not on Earth. Sue handles it far better than I, which is typical of Sue. She is…well, you can’t miss that she’s a very vibrant person, but she’s also had more than her share of hurdles. She started out full of music, you know. Ever since she was tiny she’d play anything and everything she could get her hands on, but particularly the violin. Almost didn’t need lessons. But she started going deaf when she was eight. She stuck with music for quite a few years, but lost almost all the high pitches, and then the lower ranges faded, and hearing aids only helped a bit. When she was fourteen she put down all her instruments, and hasn’t picked them up since."
"Even though that has been corrected now?"
"She’s been listening to a lot of music since we came here—Muinan and Terran—but she hasn’t gone near any instruments. Back when her hearing loss was shifting from moderate to severe, she took up photography instead. And proved to be extremely good at that as well, making quite a reputation for herself, particularly with landscape photography. She was on assignment in Western Australia—wildflower season—when she met Nick and Nick’s dad, Sam Dale."
Laura lay silent, thinking back to first impressions and happy years. Gidds waited, rubbing a thumb on the palm of one of her hands, and eventually she went on.
"They married about two days after they met. Sam’s a writer—non-fiction books with a sideline of articles—and they ended up collaborating on a lot of things: Sue doing the photography for the articles he wrote. Nick is his mirror image, in looks and personality. Laconic-ironic, I think of it. Nick was ten when Sue and Sam married, and he took to Sue right away. She adored him. Everything was great."
The kind of life people envied. Shared interests. A beautiful home. Frequent international trips.
"The Dales had been in a car crash when Nick was just little. Nick came through unhurt, Sam was injured, and Maria—Nick’s birth mother—was killed. Sam had been driving, and he fell apart for the better part of a year afterwards, then pulled himself together for Nick. But he’d been left with chronic pain, and when Nick was fifteen it flared up badly. He self-medicated with alcohol—something he hadn’t touched since that year after the accident—and…"
Laura faltered, stomach twisting. Then she remembered just how Gidds would be experiencing this tale, and started to draw back, murmuring an apology.
Gidds stopped her. "I am more than capable of shifting myself, if there is something I can’t face," he said firmly.
Laura sighed, but then gripped his hand. "One night—past midnight—I got a call from Nick. He was at the hospital. Sue had a fractured skull. Poor kid, he had to tell me how she got it."
Laura could not stop herself reliving that midnight trip to the hospital, Cass and Julian in tow because they were too young to leave behind and Bet and Steve had been out of town. Nick in the waiting room, outwardly composed, but shivering, constantly shivering, no matter how hard she hugged. Finally being allowed to see Sue: small and bruised and so very still.
"Sue left the marriage after that. Even if Sam had managed to keep himself sober—which he didn’t—there was no way to come back. She wanted custody of Nick, but his maternal grandparents won that argument: Sue could only manage to get him for family trips. After the divorce, Sam tried to dry out—to stop drinking—but couldn’t, and has struggled a great deal with depression ever since. When Nick was eighteen, which is legal adulthood in Australia, he moved back in with his father. And that…helped Sam."
"The boy had an eye injury," Gidds said. "When Cassandra visited your family through the Ena."
"Yes. Nick pulled Sam out of the hole, but he couldn’t move him away from the edge. And when Sam relapses, he lashes out blindly at whoever’s in reach. Doesn’t even seem to recognise them. But we failed completely to convince Nick to put his own well-being first. He wasn’t even going to come here, despite he and Alyssa being so close, and I know for certain he’s worried about how Sam is holding up because he’s no longer there with him. I’ll never forgive Sam for hurting Sue, but I am grateful for the moment of clarity that made him push Nick through the gate to Muina."
"And you fear the boy might become distressed during a moonfall?"
"I don’t know. Nick faces situations relating to alcohol with complete aplomb. He’ll even accept a drink to be social, but I’ve never seen him finish one. He never gives any hint he’s bothered by anyone drinking around him, but we worry about him."
"I will arrange for Exclusion Suits for all of you, then," Gidds said. "It will allow you to experience a moonfall at its height, and control your exposure."
Laura thanked him, but searched his expression at the same time. "Will you find yourself being accused of favouritism because of your relationship with me?"
That brought out his flicker of a smile. "Not beyond those who would criticise me for breathing. I would be more likely held to account if I didn’t arrange something like this. Don’t underestimate who you are. The debt owed to your daughter is literally impossible for us to repay, because she allowed us to use her to regain our home world, and to save ourselves. Cassandra is the reason we are alive."
His expression had become very still, although his voice remained clear and steady as he went on: "And, when she was trapped in the facility that was the source of our problems, I am the person who gave the order to detonate charges rather than continue to try to rescue her."
Laura had known that already, although she’d not thought about it in quite those terms. It had obviously been weighing on Gidds.
"So you did," she said. "I don’t know how I would have felt if she hadn’t lived through that, but when the decision is between everyone definitely dying including Cass, or Cass alone possibly dying, I’m fairly sure she and I have similar views." She paused, because his expression had remained very still and shuttered. "It would have made every difference if Cass had died. But, so far as I understand that situation, setting off those charges saved her life, even if the entire building did drop on her head in the aftermath. I’ve neglected to thank you."