And this was the man who now wanted to donate to the Star Brotherhood Foundation! Marianne sat at that evening’s fund-raiser, which would net at most donations of a few thousand dollars, and made mechanical conversation with overdressed women and their mostly preoccupied husbands. She gave her brief after-dinner speech without really hearing her own words. Jonah Stubbins! His spaceship, constructed according to engineers’ interpretations of the plans left by the Denebs, was the furthest along since domestic terrorists had blown up Branson’s ship. Stubbins was serious about this. And the figure he had written on the erase-o-paper was staggering. The foundation could create TV and Internet spots, pay for ads, hire another speech-giver….
She sat down to polite applause. Conversation resumed. That man at the next table, leaning in so eagerly toward that woman—was she wearing Sleep With Me? Were either of the two women at the end of her table, who appeared to be discussing a business deal, scented with Trust Me or I’m In Charge Here? Did any of that stuff actually work? Well, yes, Sleep With Me did, there was independent-lab verification for that, but sexual-arousal hormones had been researched and studied for decades. The others might just be smoke and mirrors.
But Stubbins’s money was real.
“Well,” she replied to whatever it was that her host had just said, “that is interesting. Tell me more.”
Marianne sat in the front seat of the rented minivan beside Tim, who drove too fast north on Route 87 from New York to Tannersville. The college where Marianne had taught was there, and so was Ryan’s home. Colin had turned two a month ago and, finally, there was to be a family celebration.
“I can drive myself,” Marianne had said. “Or take the train.”
“Amtrak isn’t reliable,” Sissy had said, “especially north of Albany. You know that, Marianne. Look what happened when you tried to get to Pittsburgh for that speech.”
“Pittsburgh isn’t north of Albany.”
“Tim’s driving you,” Sissy said. “That’s what a bodyguard does, he guards people. Am I right, Tim?”
“Always,” Tim said, not looking up from the videogame on his tablet.
Sissy snorted. “Yeah, right. But I’m right this time, Marianne. Tim should drive you. Why wouldn’t you want him to?”
Tim raised his blindingly blue gaze from his tablet. Sissy stared at Marianne. Danger, danger. She loved Sissy like a daughter. Tim’s long legs sprawled across Marianne’s office in black jeans and boots. He smelled of leather and masculinity.
Marianne had made herself shrug. “No reason. Okay, Tim, you drive.”
Now she sat beside him, hunched over her tablet as the slowly greening spring landscape slid past. She concentrated on Harrison’s research notes, and only on that.
If only mice weren’t so damn tiny! Adult Mus weighed on average half a pound. As far as Harrison could tell, and it wasn’t very far, the brains of sacrificed mice showed the same abnormal tissue growth as those of the deer mice. Which might or might not have been the same as the autopsied child, which in turn might or might not have anything to do with Karcher’s statistical analysis of increased agitation among children born since the spore cloud. Many, but not all, of these children were deaf, and deafness did not ordinarily increase infant agitation. The data simply did not yet yield enough correlations.
Marianne looked up from her tablet and rubbed her eyes. Elizabeth was flying up from Texas for the birthday party. It would be the first time they had all been together since the Denebs left.
No, not all together. Noah was gone. Every time Marianne thought that, it was as if for the first time. She would never see Noah again. Was he happy, out there on an alien planet, with an alien wife? Probably Marianne would never know.
Tim said abruptly, “You should take the money.”
The interruption was welcome. “Stubbins’s money?”
“Yeah. We can use it. And who cares if he makes perfume? Money is money.”
Curiosity overrode prudence. “Have you ever used any of his scents?”
“Once I tried I’m In Charge Here, when I was Special Forces. It didn’t work too good. My CO didn’t believe I was in charge.” He chuckled, a low lazy sound that went straight to Marianne’s primitive brain.
She said, “I’m going to take the money.”
“Good. Sissy won’t like it, though.”
“I know.”
“It’ll be okay.” He began whistling, and Marianne went back to Harrison’s notes.
Was Ryan and Connie’s youngest, Colin, among the children with hearing problems? That was one of the things she wanted to find out at this family gathering. The other thing she wanted to know from Ryan, she could never ask. Maybe Tim’s presence would be useful, after all. With an outsider present, her family could not get too personal with each other. They had never done well with personal.
“Grandma! I’m three!” Jason held up three fingers of a candy-smeared hand.
“What a big boy!”
“And Colin’s two!” Two little fingers.
It would be okay. Ryan, Connie, Jason, Elizabeth—they all met her, smiling, on the porch of the little house. This was just a normal family gathering, and everything would be okay.
Within the hour, none of it was okay.
Colin, the birthday boy, cried constantly, a high thin wail. Marianne walked him; Connie fed him; Jason brought him toys. Only food quieted him, and then only briefly. He looked underweight. Elizabeth, who did not like children, asked Jason to show her his sandbox, just to get out of the house. Ryan, looking strained, dressed Jason in his jacket and sent him outside with his aunt.
“She shouldn’t have come,” Ryan said to Marianne as they stood in the hall. In the living room, Colin cried. “Already Elizabeth’s started that old drumbeat about law and order. Connie isn’t up to this.”
Marianne said carefully, “Connie looks really tired.” The hallway rug was stained, the walls bore crayon marks, a houseplant looked dusty and parched. Connie had always been a meticulous housekeeper.
“Of course she looks tired,” Ryan said. “She doesn’t ever get uninterrupted sleep. Colin just cries and cries. Jason wasn’t like this.”
“Every child is different,” Marianne said, and immediately regretted the fatuous truth. It was no help.
“Did any of us cry like this?”
“No. I guess I was lucky. Ryan, Connie looks like she’s lost a lot of weight. Has she seen a doctor?”
“She has an appointment next week. Colin, too, although the doctor appointments never seem to help.” He ran his hand though his hair, already going thin on top.
“If you need money for a night nurse or other household help….”
“No. We don’t. And I know you don’t have any to spare. But thanks, Mom.”
He had always been like that, reluctant to accept help. “Me do it,” he’d said as a little child, never belligerently but as a statement of fact. Self-contained, self-reliant. And always, always secretive.
Ryan, did you do it?
Did you aid the organization that tried to blow up the Embassy? She could never ask him. If he had done it, he wouldn’t tell her. If he hadn’t done it and she accused him, the fraying tie between them might snap for good. Instead she said, “Jason is so excited about Colin’s birthday.”
He smiled faintly. “Well, three—an excitable age.”
“He seems to love being a big brother.”
“Yes. We haven’t seen any sibling rivalry at all. Jason constantly tries to console Colin.”
Something small to be grateful for. Sibling rivalry with Elizabeth and Ryan had made Noah feel he could never measure up, had set him adrift. Maybe Ryan and Connie were better parents than she and Kyle had been. Well—not a very high bar.