Lovelock (31 page)

She looked at me with listless eyes and showed no interest in the food I offered. I put it in her mouth and massaged her cheeks and finally pinched her shoulders until she began to suck. Only once did her eyes actually make contact with mine. Was it my guilty imagination that read seething resentment in her face? She couldn’t speak, probably couldn’t even think. But if she could, what would she say to me? What sort of selfish plan did you have, Papa, that you brought me out of my fetal hibernation in order to live in this unbearable fear and loneliness?

Monkeys died of loneliness. I knew that. A primate infant that lost its mother could sometimes thrive with a parent substitute—but it was rare. They usually died. Why had I thought that with a hugger and a few visits a day I could do better with Faith? I might be an enhanced capuchin, but that didn’t mean that the laws of nature would bend to my plans. Faith was going to die. My plan was going to fail.

I smiled at her, caressed her, groomed her. She seemed to respond a little. Her tiny fingers gripped my fur. Not strongly, but enough to give me hope.

And more than hope. I realized as I held her that in all my skulking about, all my fears for her, all my hurried, hidden visits, I had come to feel something for her. Love. Not love like a man for his mate, but love like a father for his daughter. I didn’t just fear her death because it would mean the failure of my plans. I feared her death because I cared for her.

A voice in the back of my mind whispered, She’s just an animal. A pet is the most she could be to you. She hasn’t the intelligence to be any more than that.

But that was the voice of reason. It could not overwhelm the insistent wordless voice of my own instincts, which made me feel an overwhelming desire to protect and provide for my young. Not the maternal instinct, but the paternal one. The need to guard all who were within my territory. The need to see that no harm came to them. The desire to see them thrive.

Faith wasn’t just a plan anymore. She was alive, and she was mine. Somehow I would get her off the wall and into a new nest. I would track where the maintenance people had already inspected and move her into an area where they had already checked everything. I had computer access, after all. I would know what I needed to do to keep her safe. We would come through this. She would live.

When I got back to Carol Jeanne’s office, she was gone. That surprised me. It wasn’t even six
P.M.
yet, and Carol Jeanne almost always worked a little late. Perhaps, though, with Red gone she felt more urgency about getting home.

She wasn’t home, either. But Penelope was still there, and now it wasn’t just talk—she had her arm around Mamie’s shoulder, and Mamie was actually crying. What was going on? Mamie would never show such indecorous emotions in front of a woman she wanted to impress.

The girls were awake in the kitchen, and Nancy, looking triumphant, was feeding them their dinner. She looked at me and sneered. “You can tell Carol Jeanne that it’s
not
too stressful for me to take care of the girls.”

I hopped up in front of the kitchen computer and typed, “Where’s Carol Jeanne?”

“Some witness
you
are,” said Nancy.

I pointed to the screen again, insisting on an answer.

“If you must know, someone whose name I can’t mention in front of impressionable young ears has had a stroke, and Carol Jeanne is at the hospital.”

Now I registered what Mamie was saying, over and over again, in the front room. “I drove him away, I forced him out of the house, if only I had let him do some stupid job he could have been here with me in the last weeks of his life…”

“Now, now,” Penelope was saying, “it was probably his work that caused the stroke, you were only trying to save his life by keeping him home.”

Stef. A stroke.

The list of hospital patients and their room assignments was easily accessible using my legitimate password. I found out where Stef was staying and left at once.

He looked awful. He was tubed up to the gills, including a urinary drip. Carol Jeanne and Red were across the bed from each other, and it was obvious from where each was standing that Carol Jeanne had gotten there first—she had the chair and had been reading a book, while Red still had flowers in his hand. Flowers. What did he think was going on here? He had stopped for flowers.

Pink was lying on the floor in a corner, taking in the scene. I resisted the impulse to jack in and get a memory dump. It wouldn’t be good to let Red see how easily I ripped off his witness’s memory.

To my surprise, Stef was awake. And he was talking. His speech was slurred, and I could see that one side of his face sagged, but he had not been paralyzed. Comparatively speaking, it was a mild stroke.

“Think of it as flu,” he said. “Nothing major. Some people die of it, but I won’t.”

“A stroke isn’t the flu, Dad,” said Red. “And I think you should let Mother come and visit you. She wants to see you, and your forbidding her to visit is really hurting her.”

“Shedding big crocodile tears, is she?” asked Stef. “Tell her to screw herself.” The word
screw
was a challenge for him to say, with his semiresponsive lips and tongue.

“Maybe you shouldn’t upset him by being Mamie’s advocate right now,” said Carol Jeanne quietly.

I couldn’t see Red’s face from where I was, but I imagined that his silence was accompanied by a savage glare.

“I hear you gave her the boot yourself, Red,” said Stef slowly.

“I couldn’t take her with me into singles’ quarters.”

“Bullshit,” said Stef. “Didn’t want her.”

Red said nothing. I imagined another glare.

“If you’d done it long ago, maybe your marriage wouldn’t be in trouble.”

“It wasn’t Mamie who made our marriage fail,” said Red coldly. “Our marriage could never have worked. I should never have married at all. It’s not Carol Jeanne’s fault that she’s an emotional iceberg.”

“Is this really the scene you want to play here, now?” asked Carol Jeanne quietly.

Red ignored her and kept talking to his father. “Even if Carol Jeanne had been warm and loving, it wouldn’t have made any difference. I’m not a bad father, but I could never be happy as a husband, it’s that simple. So if you don’t blame Mother, I won’t blame Carol Jeanne. How’s that for fair, Dad?”

“I can blame Mamie if I want to,” mumbled Stef, but there was humor in his eyes.

“Blame her for the failure of your own marriage,” said Red, “but not for the failure of mine. That one’s my fault, pure and simple.”

It was Stef’s left side that he still had good control over, and so it was with his left hand that he clutched at his son until Red reached out and took his hand and held it. “I wanted,” said Stef, “to see you happy before I died.”

“You aren’t going to die from this, Father.”

“I’m not?” said Stef. “Too bad.”

“And I’m not unhappy, Father. I feel guilt-ridden about the way I caused it, but the breakup of my marriage was inevitable. Carol Jeanne doesn’t see it that way, but I hardly expect her to. It will hurt the children, but we’ll do our best to help them get through it. You can rest assured that your descendants will not be in dire agony.”

“You know what pisses me off?” asked Stef. “That Mamie will get to plan my funeral.”

“No she won’t,” said Carol Jeanne.

“I don’t want her to speak at my funeral,” said Stef. “You’re my witnesses.”

“You’re not going to die, Father,” said Red.

“Promise me,” said Stef.

“Father, do you really want to reach out from the grave and hurt Mother one more time?”

“Don’t want the old bitch gloating over my corpse.”

“I promise,” said Carol Jeanne. “And I’ll see to it that we get it legally put into your will today.”

“And none of that crap with dandelion puffballs,” said Stef.

“We won’t allow them to ‘spread the word,’ ” said Carol Jeanne.

Red snorted in disgust. “That’s good, Dad. You and Carol Jeanne go ahead and thumb your noses at a bunch of good, well-meaning people. If either of you would make the slightest effort, they could be your friends.”

Stef raised one eyebrow. He had never been able to raise just one eyebrow before. Amazing the new skills a stroke can give you. “Penelope?” Stef said. “Friends with a cow?” And he laughed, his body shaking under the sheet.

Red gave up in disgust. “I’ll be back to see you later tonight.”

“Good,” said Stef. “Sorry I’m being bad.”

“You
are
being bad, but I suppose between the stroke and the drugs you can act however you want and I won’t hold it against you,” said Red. He bent down and kissed his father’s forehead. “See you later tonight.” Then he left.

“Prissy little asshole,” mumbled Stef when Red was gone.

Carol Jeanne giggled. It was a rare sound, and to me it meant that, with Red gone, she felt truly comfortable. As if Stef were her true family. And then she went ahead and said it, taking the old man’s hand in hers. “I’ll miss you if you die, Dad. I want to keep calling you that, you know. Even when the divorce is done.”

“You always called me Stef.”

“Only because I couldn’t bring myself to call Mamie ‘Mother.’ ”

“Good point,” said Stef.

“Do me a favor and get better from this,” said Carol Jeanne.

“Just for you,” said Stef.

“Now you can go back to sleep,” said Carol Jeanne. “I brought a book.”

“Don’t the girls need you?” asked Stef. “Don’t leave them to Mamie.”

“Mamie will be fine with them. It’s just for tonight.”

I thought it would be a good idea to tell her what was really happening. I jumped up onto the bed. Stef gasped in surprise. He must not have seen me come in. “Hi, Lovelock,” he said.

I pointed to Carol Jeanne to get her attention, and then began to spell out words on the bedsheet. “Not Mamie,” I wrote. “Nancy.”

“Oh damn,” said Carol Jeanne. “I should have thought of that. I’ve got to get that girl out of the house. It was fine for Red to bring her there when he was in residence, but he’ll have to find another foster home for her. I can’t have her tending the kids.”

“Who?” asked Stef.

“A girl who was being abused,” said Carol Jeanne. “She’s only marginally sane at the moment, and I’m not surprised that Mamie left her alone with the girls, but I’ve got to go put a stop to it at once. Can I get you anything before I go, Stef?”

“Nope,” he said.

She kissed his lips and left. She didn’t tell me to come along, and I might have stayed with Stef a bit longer, except that he immediately closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep, I thought. And it’s not as if I could converse with him even if I stayed. So I followed Carol Jeanne out into the corridor, then scrambled up her body and rode her shoulder home.

When we got there, Red was already there, and Nancy, sullen and tear-streaked, was packing a bag. Red explained at once. “As mayor, Penelope has agreed that Nancy should stay with her for a while during this time when Dad’s in the hospital. I’ve arranged for Dolores to help Mamie take care of the girls during the day, and her children will come over and do their homework here at night. That will give you plenty of help with the girls. Diana in particular really loves them and she’s good with them.”

I caught Nancy’s face as he said this. It would be a good idea, I thought, to warn Diana never to let herself get caught alone with Nancy.

Mamie was stretched out on her bed, a damp washcloth over her eyes. As soon as Carol Jeanne came into her room to check on her, Mamie began weeping. “He was a wonderful husband, and I drove him out of the house.”

Instead of reassuring her by denying the obvious truth of that statement, Carol Jeanne only answered, “Is there something I can bring you?”

“Bring me my husband!” wailed Mamie.

Carol Jeanne refrained from laughing, which I thought took some real strength of character. “He seems to be in fair condition and good spirits,” said Carol Jeanne. “But he’s quite adamant that he doesn’t want you to visit him, and his doctor agrees. It would cause stress, and that’s the one thing he can’t have. I’m sure that in your great love for him you’ll be glad to comply.”

The irony in this last remark was not lost on Mamie. Her crying stopped and her voice sounded wooden when she answered. “I see that I am surrounded by hatred,” she said. “And I deserve it all, I’m sure. Just leave me alone. I don’t need anything. Certainly not dinner. Do
not
bring me a tray.”

“Whatever,” said Carol Jeanne, who, I was sure, would never have thought of giving Mamie a meal in her room. After all, it wasn’t Mamie who’d had the stroke. Though I noticed that it was Mamie getting the sympathetic visits and help from the women of Mayflower. She could turn anything to her advantage. Stef’s stroke was really working out well for her, in terms of helping her make friends with the women of the village.