Apocalypse to Go

  Sean shrugged as if he knew nothing about it. Dad turned a baleful eye his way.

  “Oh, okay,” Sean said. “What’s the opposite of finding?”

  “Losing,” I said. “Are you telling me that you can hide yourself when you pull dumb stunts like this one?”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, but yes, I can. Claw knew it, too. He’s the one who insisted they collar me.”

  “So Claw knew a lot about talents?”

  “You bet. He gave me the creeps. He wanted to kill and butcher me, but the Axeman wouldn’t let him.” Sean went pale at the memory. “He had a girl back home, he told us, Claw, I mean, not the Axeman. When he brought her enough dead apes, she’d let him get her pregnant. I don’t know how many apes he needed, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be one of them.”

  “He talked about having kids a lot,” Mike put in. “I called them ‘cubs’ once, and he took a swing at me. The axeman had to break it up.”

  Jan and Spare14 exchanged a significant glance.

  “This is going to be an interesting set of reports,” Spare14 said. “HQ will doubtless want follow-up, and I suppose I’ll be postponing my holiday leave yet again. At least I’ll be vacating this wretched office soon. I’m sincerely pleased about getting away from Three.”

  “I hope to God,” Jan said, “that they don’t tap me to take your place.”

  “I’m nearly at the radiation limit,” Spare14 said. “You’ve got a long way to go, so you’re no doubt right to worry. Which reminds me. O’Grady and Nathan—or I should say, all you O’Gradys and Nathan, there’s no reason for you to stay here tonight, but I’ll collect any radiation badges before you leave. The medical staff will need to check them and record the readings.”

  Words could not express my feelings at the thought of getting out of SanFran. Sheer joy would be a good start. We wasted no time in collecting our luggage. Before we left, however, I did have one last thing to ask Spare14.

  “Earlier this year, when I was hunting Belial,” I said. “You were scanning for me. Why? I know you wanted contact with the Agency, and that Nathan’s report gave you a lead. But you were spying on me, not the general situation.”

  Spare14 briefly dithered, then said, “Well, to be honest, it was due to my guilty conscience. The Brittanic officer who was pursuing the case against your father never told us he had a family. So we never made any attempt to contact your mother.”

  “Dad,” I said, “why didn’t you say something?”

  “I was hoping the bastard didn’t know I did. I was afraid of reprisals. The Brittanics are known for that, taking rebellion out on a man’s family.”

  I stared, gape-mouthed.

  “They’re not like the British here,” Dad continued. “Never make that mistake.” He looked straight at me and emphasized each word. “They are not like the English you know.”

  Ari glanced at Spare14 as if asking for confirmation. Spare14 nodded his agreement and sighed.

  “So I found out about the family long after the trial.” Spare14 glanced my father’s way, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to look Dad in the face. “I’m sorry. We would have made some provision for the children had we known in time.”

  Since he had talents enough to hide his SPP, I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not.

  “At any rate,” Spare14 continued. “When I was assigned to Four, just a few months ago now, I remembered your family and thought I’d see what had happened to the children. When I realized that you worked for the Agency, you became the logical place to start my inquiries.” He turned to Dad again. “I’m also the one who told the releasing magistrate about your son Patrick’s death.”

  “And I’ll thank you for that,” Dad said. “I had a chance to digest it that way. It would have been a bitter shock if I’d gotten all the way home before I found out.”

  “So I thought.”

  “There’s another thing I’ll thank you for, not lying when Major Newcombe demanded it of you.”

  “There was no evidence you’d shot anyone, none.” Spare14 turned to me. “I felt at the time that the Brittanics wanted your father hanged and were willing to bend justice till it broke in order to do so. I refused to go along with it. They did have evidence of his being an accessory to the killers’ escape, and they made the most of it.”

  “Thank you.” My voice choked on tears. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  Spare14 smiled at me, then held out his hand to my father. Dad hesitated, then shook it in farewell.

  With Dad and his set of orbs along, returning home to Terra Four that evening presented no problems. The first thing I did when we reached our own world’s version of South Park was get out my cell phone and call Aunt Eileen.

  “You’re back,” she said. “News?”

  “Michael and Sean are safe and right here.”

  She caught a liquid breath that told me she was fighting back tears. “I’ll call Al right away.” She sniffed heavily. “Ah, here’s Sophie. Hang on.”

  I heard her speaking, then Sophie’s high-pitched shriek. Aunt Eileen returned to the phone.

  “She’s dancing around the kitchen, and honestly, I feel like dancing myself.”

  “Call Al before you do, okay?” I had to smile. “Oh, and there’s another call you need to make—to Mom.”

  “Yes, I certainly do! She’ll be so relieved. I know she blusters and natters, but she does love all of you children.”

  “Well, most of us, anyway. We’re coming straight over, and we’ve got a surprise.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s true, then! I dreamed last night that you’d brought Flann home.”

  I should have known. “Yeah,” I said. “He’s here, too.”

  Aunt Eileen began to cry, big sobs of relief and joy.

  “I’ll let you go,” I said. “Ari’s flagged down a cab. We’ll pick up our car and get over there as soon as we can.”

  By the time we parked in front of the Houlihan house, the sun hovered low in an orange blaze of incoming fog. Uncle Jim came out on the front porch and stood with his hands on his hips to watch us unload the cramped Saturn. Dad got out first. Michael and Sean pried themselves out of the back seat and stood stretching on the sidewalk.

  Jim yelled down the steep flight of brick steps. “Jesus H, Flann! Where the hell have you been?”

  “Hell,” Dad called back. “Tell you about it over a drink.”

  With a shriek Sophie came bounding down the steps to throw herself into Michael’s arms. Sean stood smiling at them off to one side. I had just gotten out of the car when I saw Mom barge through the front door onto the porch. She was wearing a black jacket over a demure gray dress and swinging her handbag, obviously leaving in one of her usual huffs. On the top step she turned back to snarl at Uncle Jim.

  “I am not going to stand here and listen to nonsense,” Mom said. “I can’t believe you thought I’d—”

  “Deirdre!” Dad called up. “Open your eyes, will you?”

  She stiffened. Her back arched as if she’d felt an electric shock. Slowly, very slowly, she turned and looked at him, merely looked, stared, said nothing, never moved.

  “It’s really me,” Dad said. “Here, I’ll just come up.”

  He sprang up the stairs two at a time while she continued to stare, never moving, never speaking. When he reached the porch, she raised one hand and laid it alongside his face. At the touch of solid flesh and blood she began to weep. He threw an arm around her shoulders and swept her into the house. For a moment I saw a vision of them as they looked in old photographs, young and beautiful, both of them, besotted with each other, and so much alike that I wondered how I’d ever missed seeing their secret.

  Hand in hand, Michael and Sophie walked up the stairs to disappear inside as well. Ari opened the trunk and tossed Dad’s duffel bag to Sean. Sean carried it up the steps and hurried into the house after Uncle Jim.

  “Shall we go home?” Ari said.

  “Please. I
want a real shower.”

  “I’ll take one with you.”

  We shared a grin and drove off. I don’t think anyone noticed. As we turned onto Silver Avenue, we passed Al’s car. He honked, I waved, and Ari nearly drove into the oncoming number 44 bus. It took me a minute before I could breathe well enough to talk.

  “I’ve got to find out who sent me that hallucination in the park, so I can take over the driving again.”

  “Now I know we’re really home. Let’s hope the flat’s still there and free of Maculates.”

  I ran a quick SM:L. “Yeah,” I said, “it is. But you know, I bet that the Maculate woman who’s been bugging me isn’t going to stop. Claw was her mate, not just her supplier.”

  “Supplier of ape meat, you mean? She’ll be furious when she finds out he’s dead.”

  “The apes fight back!”

  “If she causes trouble for you, she’ll have me to deal with.” Ari laid on the horn and swerved around a pedestrian, who screamed.

  “Never mind that now! Just drive.”

  When we got home, Ari called Itzak, and I called Annie. After I went through the flat to renew the Chaos wards, Ari and I had our shower, and its logical aftermath, then went out to a late dinner at the Japanese restaurant like a normal couple. That night, though, around three in the morning, Ari had the nightmare. I woke up to hear him barking orders in Hebrew, telling the Palestinian boy to stop where he was. In his sleep he flinched with a quick groan. He’d fired, I supposed, and killed the suicide bomber yet once again. I sat up and turned on the nightstand lamp.

  “Ari,” I said, “sweetheart, darling, Ari, it’s okay, you’re just dreaming.” I repeated this litany a couple of times before he woke with a jerk of his whole body.

  He sat up and looked at me, but it took a good minute for him to recognize who I was. His hair stuck to his face with sweat. I held out my arms. He turned to me and let me hold him while he trembled.

  “There isn’t any end to this, is there?” he said.

  “End to what, darling?”

  “I don’t know. The guilt, I suppose. And just the sight of it, the things you’ve seen, the things you’ve done. They come back up like vomit.”

  The trembling eased, then stopped. He pulled away, tried to smile, failed, and ran both hands through his sweaty hair. “In the heat of the moment,” he said, “there’s nothing wrong with killing someone. That’s the hell of it, Nola. In the moment, you have to fire, and you do, and it’s perfectly justified and right. It takes time before the memory blows up in your face. Then there’s no way back or out.”

  “That’s true about everything. There’s never any way back, whether it’s a good thing or a lousy one.”

  “True.” He lay back down with a sigh. “Unfortunately.”

  When I lay down next to him, he rolled into my arms. I left the light on and held him, just held him, until we both could sleep.

  We’d just gotten up, around 11:30, and Ari was making coffee in the kitchen, when a hoarse Aunt Eileen called me on my landline phone. I sat down in my computer chair to talk.

  “What’s wrong with your voice?” I said. “Are you getting a cold?”

  “No, I was just on the phone for hours last night, telling everyone that Flann’s home.” She paused for a dry cough. “Dan and Maureen and Kathleen, of course, and Father Keith, and Rose and Wally, and the Donovans—well, you get the picture.”

  “Let me guess. You’re throwing a party.”

  “Yes, tomorrow afternoon. I hope you and Ari are coming. Your mother has to be there, of course.”

  “Of course. Well, I’m tempted to say we can’t come, but damn it, it’s my family, too.”

  “Exactly, dear. I’ll speak to her about things. After all, you’re the one who brought him back.”

  “Will that really cut any ice with her?”

  Aunt Eileen sighed. I heard a sound that implied she was drinking some kind of liquid.

  “I hope so,” she said eventually. “You know what the problem is, don’t you?”

  “Sure. My abortion when I was a teenager.”

  “Not just that. I mean, she was honestly upset about it. We all were, especially you, but I really don’t think she’d have acted so horribly about that alone. She would have made your life miserable, but she never would have thrown you out of the house. It gave her the excuse she needed, in a nasty way.”

  “Excuse for what?”

  Eileen hesitated before she continued. “The sad thing is that you were always Flann’s favorite child, very, very favorite, really, though he tried not to show it in front of the other children. I suppose it’s because you’re the most like him in so many ways. Deirdre was so jealous. It was when you were nine, I think, that I saw it. We were having a picnic in the park, and I was watching Flann teach you how to kick a soccer ball. The way Deirdre looked at the two of you curdled my blood. Right after that she started in on you about your imaginary fat.”

  I was stunned. There I was, the psychology major, Miss Psychic Talent herself, so proud of my insights into everyone else, but I’d never realized that my own mother was jealous of me.

  “That’s where the eating disorder comes from, I bet,” I said.

  “Yes, and I’m so glad you can finally admit you have one.”

  “I could see the dust fleck in someone else’s eye, but not the splinter in my own.”

  “You’re not the only one, dear.” Eileen paused for a long moment to have another couple of swallows of whatever she was drinking. The pause gave me time to wonder: did she know about my mother and father’s marriage? Had she dreamed the truth but kept the secret for all these years?

  “Sorry,” Aunt Eileen said. “I made myself some herb tea and honey for my throat. Anyway, do you think Deirdre will ever admit that she’s jealous of her own daughter?”

  “No. I guess she still is, huh?”

  “Probably more so than ever, now that he’s back. I’m about to call her. If she says one word to Flann about your pregnancy, I’ll strangle her with my own hands.”

  And yet, of course, Eileen would never strangle anyone, and Mom knew it. I doubted if she could resist the chance to drive a permanent wedge between me and Dad. Maybe not right away. She’d probably enjoy thinking about it, savoring the prospect, but sooner or later the subject would come up. I could imagine the fake sorrow in her voice as she dropped the bomb on our relationship.

  “Why don’t you and Ari come over for lunch today?” Aunt Eileen said. “We can talk more then. We need to come up with a strategy for dealing with Sean’s problem.”

  “Sean’s—oh right. What Dad’s going to say when he realizes Sean’s gay.”

  “Exactly. Sean and Al are willing to hide it for a little while, but eventually Flann will just have to face facts.” She paused to sip more tea. “Do come over. I’m honestly sick of talking on the phone.”

  “You? Sick of talking on the phone?”

  For a reply she coughed.

  “We’ll be glad to come over,” I said. “That way I won’t have to eat whatever Ari cooks.”

  What Aunt Eileen was cooking was a wonderful chicken soup and blueberry muffins. I found the soup easy to eat, but the muffin stuck in my throat, even though it was delicious. I could not stop my mind from counting calories, worrying about fat content, and all the rest of the compulsive details that had obsessed me for so long. I did manage to get most of a muffin down, but it was a struggle.

  “You should eat more,” Ari began. “You—ow!”

  Aunt Eileen had kicked him under the table. “One step at a time, dear,” she said. “How about some fresh coffee?”

  Ari sighed and reached down to rub his shin. She got up, poured coffee all round from the carafe on the stove, then sat back down.

  “I don’t know where Michael and Sophie are,” Aunt Eileen said. “It’s probably just as well, too. I—” She hesitated at a sound from outside.

  An ancient truck came clanking up the drive. Aunt Eileen got up and
looked out the window over the sink. “It’s Jim,” she said. “I wonder what he’s doing home?”

  He enlightened us as soon as he got in. “I took the afternoon off,” Uncle Jim said. “Flann and I are going to go get his truck out of storage. They should be here any minute.” He looked at me, hesitated, and sighed. “I should have called home first, honey. Sorry. Deirdre’s going to be with him. She took the week off work, he told me.”

  I stood up. “It’s okay, Uncle Jim. You didn’t even know we were here. Ari, let’s go.”

  We weren’t fast enough. Another car trundled up the drive and parked behind the truck.

  “I’ll head them off at the pass.” Uncle Jim fled the kitchen through the back door.

  Ari and I ran for the front door, but just as we reached it, my mother opened it. She was wearing jeans and a gingham shirt, the first time in thirteen years, I figured, that she’d dressed so casually. Her Qi, too, flowed around her smoothly, quietly, in a way that I remembered from my childhood. She was looking back over her shoulder and talking to someone behind her.

  “I must have left it in the living room,” she was saying. “I’ll just see.”

  She turned. What she saw was not whatever her missing item was, but me. We stared at each other for a long, cold moment.

  “I’m surprised you’d show your face around here,” Mom said eventually. “Aren’t you afraid of what your father will think of the things you’ve done? He must know about the live-in boyfriend. But I bet there are other little matters you haven’t mentioned.”

  “I know what you mean. Have you told him?”

  “No, not yet.”

  I felt pure rage build at the implied threat in that “yet.” I squelched what Qi I could and looked her straight in the face.

  “You know, Mom, we both have secrets to keep, don’t we? You keep mine, and I won’t tell the rest of the family yours.”

  “And just what do you mean by that?”

  “How you’re twice an O’Brien, by birth and by marriage.”

  My mother went pale. Even through her makeup I could see the pallor form. Her hands shook so hard that she nearly dropped her handbag.

  “I know it’s been hard on you,” I went on. “Waiting and wondering if Dad was dead or alive. You risked damnation twice over to marry him, didn’t you? More than twice. With every child you gave him, you risked it again. Well, he’s back, and he’s yours.” I paused for emphasis. “All yours. A little peace and quiet would be nice now, right?”