“Yay!” Emily said, clapping.
Gran hadn’t been too far off when she picked sculpture as her cover story. Shiny metal flanges almost obscured my old playhouse. Gramps used to tell me it was a shuttle, and as a child, I’d spent endless hours inside, hoping it could fly me backwards in time so I could meet my parents. Now, graceful curves shaped like twisted flames engulfed the cab and reached skyward. I released the breath I’d been holding as I walked around it, unsure of what it was, now. And yet, something about it…
I pointed at the back end. Completely redone, and fitted with jets, wires, conduit. “What’s this?” I asked.
“A multiphase conversion catalyst.”
“Speak English.”
“Your grandfather and I invented this catalyst, years ago.” She grinned, rocking back and forth on her heels. “This little dohicky makes it possible to propel the shuttle and its occupants into another dimension.” She gave a little half shrug. “Theoretically.”
I almost couldn’t speak. “This isn’t a real shuttle, Gran. This is my playhouse… I hoped someday it would be Emily’s.”
Her eyes were clear, her expression bemused. Not at all what I’d expect from someone clearly losing touch with reality. “I believe this creation has the power to take us exactly where we want to go.”
“Us?”
She shrugged. “I’m hoping you’ll come with me.”
I didn’t know what to say for a long time. Finally, all I could do was ask, “Why?”
Gran pointed.
I ran my hand over the hull. Carefully lettered on its side-Destiny.
My eyes asked the question; Gran tut-tutted. “Now don’t you go thinking that I’ve gone out of my head. Think about it some, honey. Gramps and I decided long ago that people who really care about each other should be together. But then he died. Too soon.” She shook her fist at the sky, “Too soon, you hear me?” She made a funny face then, and I thought she might cry. Instead, she turned with a smile as big as the object before us. “I know he’s waiting for me, but he’ll have to wait just a little longer because it’s a bit more difficult with only one person working.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Gran wasn’t finished. “I’m going to be with your grandpa. We’ll be together again, forever, this time.”
“But Gran, that means you’ll die.”
She wagged a finger at me. “Now that’s where assumptions’ll get you into trouble.”
The doctor’s diagnosis flashed before my eyes. I tried to mask my reaction, but I knew that Gran had read my mind. She stopped right there and made what I used to call her “mad face.”
“You know I’m not crazy,” she said.
I must have squirmed, because Gran continued, a bit vexed. “Gramps and I had it all figured out, honey,” she said. “Death is just existence in a different dimension.”
Then she grinned and grabbed Emily’s hand, “How would you like some ice cream?”
“I’m worried about Gran.”
Don sat at the kitchen table, head bent, reading. Watching him, I grabbed a mug from the cabinet and banged the door shut a little louder than necessary.
The top of his head moved back and forth as he followed the words on the page before him, and he pushed his too-long brown hair out of his eyes. Don was one of those people who never learned to track the written word without moving his head, a habit that hadn’t bothered me years ago. Now, it was one of many that drove me insane.
I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed in the fresh-brewed aroma of the coffee warming the mug in my hands. Give me strength. A tentative sip stung as the liquid trailed a path down the back of my throat. The warmth felt good, very good.
Don was fiddling with his bottom lip, squeezing it till it formed a tight “U,” and studying a brochure he’d brought home. The same brochure that had been too important for him to put down earlier when Emily stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss goodnight. He’d said, “Uh-huh,” and absently patted her brown curly head. “Daddy’s busy.”
“Don?”
He made eye contact, but his mind remained on the glossy paper in front of him. I could almost see the struggle going on in his head: Keep reading? Or talk to her?
Talk won. Barely. His eyes were so glazed that I felt like he hadn’t stopped reading-that he was still poring over the copy now tattooed on my forehead.
“We gotta get one of these.”
“Get one of what?”
“Here,” he said, “it’s new.”
He turned the brochure for me to see, but when I tried to pick it up, Don held a corner, as if it were something very precious and he was afraid to let go. With obvious reluctance, he loosened his grip. “Where’s my coffee?” he asked as he stood.
I fluttered my hand upward toward the counter in a vague gesture that after four years of marriage meant get it yourself.
Nice brochure. Whatever they were selling, it had to be expensive.
I started to skim, and in a moment, raised my eyes to meet Don’s. He was hovering with a huge grin on his face. I gave him my best “you gotta be kidding” look.
The brochure was for Sensavision. The newest toy on the market for grown-ups so bored with the reality of their lives that they looked elsewhere for stimulation. This gizmo boasted a room-size screen with gears and sensors, speakers and cameras, aromabytes and atmospheric enhancers. Stressed? Hedonistic spa programs glittered to life, ready to soothe your troubles away. Ache for excitement? Design your pleasure. Physical, mental, sexual. Unparalleled virtual-sensory experiences guaranteed.
“We can’t afford one of these.” I said.
“We can, if we borrow from your trust fund.”
“No.” I said. “Not again. Gramps set that fund up for me years ago, for my future. And what have we done with it? Borrowed so many times I can’t count. We need that money for Emily’s education. And serious stuff.”
“There’s plenty there,” Don said, stressing the word “plenty.” I think his teeth were clenched.
“There won’t be at the rate we’re going. You bought that hover-camper last year and we’ve never even used it. I don’t think Gramps had campers and Sensavisions in mind when he put the money away for me.”
Don’s expression fell. He pulled the paper back to his side of the table with a huff and bent over it again, elbows on the table, face in hands. He started to read again, mouthing the words even as he maintained a pout. With his stubbled pink cheeks pressed firmly into his palms, his mouth was pulled up at the corners showing the bottom half of his teeth. He mumbled something I couldn’t hear, then said, “You got what you wanted.”
“What did I get?”
Don stopped and with a deliberate movement, turned his eyes upward toward the stairs and then back down at his paper.
It took me a moment. “Emily?” I asked. “You didn’t want the baby?”’
“Didn’t say that. Just saying you wanted it more,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “And I want this more.” Hitting the brochure with his finger for emphasis, he caused a wrinkle. He smoothed out the paper with care.
A long minute passed.
When he did look up, he grinned. “They take credit.”
Dr. Andrews called me again Monday. Grin missed another appointment.
I agreed to talk to her.
“My aches and pains are my own,” Gran said when I tried. “I can handle them. A few visits with those pill peddlers and I’ll be ready to pull the plug myself.”
“Gran,” I reminded her, “you’re not hooked up to anything.”
“Not yet.” She wiggled a finger at me, “But there’s a reason behind the expression ‘doctoring up.’ They want to change me. Or worse, to put me away. And I won’t have it.”