Soledad took what seemed the appropriate amount of time she figured it should take to work through the pre-articulation of a difficult thought.
She said: "Talked to my physical therapist this morning. My knee's only going to get so much better."
"How much?"
"Not enough to go back to MTac."
"What are you going to do with yourself?"
"That's what I'm sitting here thinking about."
"What would you like to do with yourself?"
"I guess… what I've been doing with myself for the last month. Working DMI."
Coming up off his haunches: "Make it sound like we're a consolation prize, and not much of one."
She wasn't an expert on such things, but common sense told Soledad the best deceptions are the ones that aren't deceptions. The best deceptions are truths that hide lies.
"If you're asking me, yeah, it is a consolation prize.'" Soledad modified herself none. Didn't plane any edges. As such she sounded as though she spoke with honesty. "But a prize is a prize.
And a job where I can still help do something about muties is a whole hell of a lot better than working security at the Beverly Center. I'm still in the fight. If this is the way it's got to be, I'm good with that."
She put up the window on Raddatz. She went back to sitting alone. She was pretty sure the lie about her knee would stick. And just that quick she was working for Tashjian. That quick she had purpose again.
The thing is, the thing is how right she was." "Mothers have a way of being annoyingly correct."
Soledad was with Vin. In his place. Lying on his couch. Staring at his ceiling.
Vin was across the room, in a chair. Same chair he'd been sitting… planted. As much time as he spent there, «planted» was the better, was the more accurate word. Same chair he'd been planted in last time Soledad'd been over. If Vin hadn't opened the door for her. Soledad would've figured Vin and the chair were never apart.
"And the way she said it." Soledad giving color to the context of her conversation with her mother. " 'I don't want you to come home.' So to-the-point. So… harsh."
"The apple doesn't fall far from the-"
"Don't give me that shit."
Vin kind of mumbled something. Back when he had two legs, when he had two legs he didn't mumble. His comments, always sharp, were never gagged by self-pity.
And then he kind of eked out: "She wanted to make it stick."
"She could have just-"
"Just what? It" somebody told you to breathe, you'd suffocate yourself just to be your own man." Force to the thought, but not much to his tone. "She doesn't want you to watch her die."
"Don't say that!"
"That she's going to die or that she doesn't want you around?"
"Any of it. Take your pick."
Vin's head dropped back, sort of lolled around. "I didn't. Didn't say it. She, she did." That last bit was slurred slightly as it gimped its way off Vin's tongue. Something besides pity was washing out his words.
Soledad looked to Vin. He was slumped some in the chair. Was as if, even sitting, he needed all of the furniture to keep him propped up. A little sweat was on his brow, collecting on his upper lip. It was there never mind the AC being on.
Vin, like he was waking up from a snooze, realized he'd caught Soledad's eye. "So… so what are you going to do?"
"Stay on the job. Stay here. Mom made it real clear what she wants."
"Do you care? If someone told you to, to breathe-"
"You said that. You said that. Vin. You said it already." Soledad drifted where she lay. She drifted to the day prior, to her lunch with her mother. Before, like a little girl who'd messed her best dress, Soledad feared having to explain her damaged leg to her mom. But at lunch… "She didn't even ask about my leg. Barely she did."
"She's got cancer."
"Cancer'll kill you. It doesn't stop you from being a mother. Nothing does. She knew I didn't want to talk about my leg; she knew the boundaries I'd set."
"So she knew."
"All this time I'd been pushing her away. Didn't have to. She knew to keep some distance. But I kept pushing when I should've been-"
"Soledad, you've got a unique ability to make everything about you."
Vin's words didn't set Soledad right. Just made her more morose. "The death I was feeling… thought it was mine. It was hers."
Vin: "How Is your leg?"
"Good. Recovering good. Moving to a cane in a couple of weeks. I could put in for active duty." And on the subject of limbs: "Where's your leg?"
Vin flipped a finger, Indicated across the room. Through a doorway Soledad could see the prosthetic lying, surreal, on the floor. Some kind of exhibit on loan from MOCA.
She said: "Doesn't do much good parked there."
"Doesn't do much good at all unless I've got somewhere to go. I'm not going anywhere."
"If you had it on, maybe you would."
"And one day I'm going to put your little theory to a test."
That was that. So Soledad moved the conversation on by returning to the central subject. "I couldn't even cry. I sat there feeling like I should. Feeling it, knowing it. Was like I went through a checklist-heartache, guilt, denial-but I couldn't finish the emotion."
"You're shut down. That's what we…" Vin was mealy mouthed with that, feebled the word «we» as if ashamed at the attempt to equate himself with working cops. Doing an edit: "That's the way you get through things."
"This isn't cop shit. I've been shut down since May Day. Since San Francisco I've been about taking a stand against the freaks to the exclusion of every other thing around me. It's like I was so set on dying I took out a scorched-earth policy on the rest of my life."
Pathos with such pretty words.
Putting spin on it, Vin: "And good for it. Well, not good, but… good came, came out of it." He stumbled a little. "If you hadn't taken out that telepath-"
"Some other cop would have."
"Without that gun you put together? Doubt it. And even if… we only lost Yarborough. How many cops would've been lost if things were different?"
Despite what Vin was putting out, Soledad's lament stayed constant. "My own mother… Tell you something: You're looking at the end of things, you realize you weren't even decent with your own mother… Sometimes, Vin, sometimes I feel like-"
"Don't get sentimental. You'll regret it tomorrow."
"Sometimes, sometimes I feel like I'm fighting for normal humans and I traded my humanity in the deal."
"And you talk about me going soft. Act like you don't know what love is just 'cause some guy broke your heart."
It was as if, what it was like was Soledad had been gored from gut to chest. Some guy. Ian. He was unaware, but Vin wasn't just talking. For Soledad, he was seancing demons. And the twist in her Soledad felt… it wasn't that she had her heart broken. What was hurting her was the how of her heartbreak. It's one thing to fall in love and have love not work out. It's a very, very different thing to fall in love, have the love force you to question yourself to the core, only to find out who you love is the thing you hate most.
Soledad had fallen in love-she'd use the word in the quiet inside her, but she'd never speak it, regarding Ian, aloud-she'd fallen in love with a freak,
"How'd you know?" Soledad asked regarding Vin's knowledge of Ian.
"You make a big deal about a guy for months, then all of a sudden you don't so much as speak his name. Not since I got out of the hospital. Maybe you're being sensitive to me, knowing how I feel about you. But the next time you're sensitive to how I feel'll be the first time."
"Fuck you." Playful with that. Relieved, really. Vin didn't know the specifics of Ian, was just tossing out suppositions on some vagaries: of Soledad's heart. Coming back at Vin, deflecting, things from herself: "You want to be a detective, put your leg on and get back on the force."