Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen (25 page)

“Any chance you could help me out?” I asked.

Sweat was already beading on her skin. “Um… Maybe… Is there a problem?”

“Well, I’ve lost my purse, and so I don’t have my phone or keys,” I explained as the woman’s T-shirt and jeans darkened with moisture and her face grew pale. “I was wondering if… hey, are you okay?”

Her head wobbled. “I’m… I’m feeling…”

“Dizzy? Here, let’s sit you down before you fall.” I eased her down to the asphalt, leaning her against the metallic green SUV parked next to her car.

“What’s going on?” she mumbled. “I was fine until just a… just a minute ago…”

“I think you’re dehydrated, dear,” I said with a sympathetic smile.

* * *

The Sûreté du Québec cruiser followed me onto the shoulder of the road.

I put the Toyota in park and flipped the lid off the travel mug sitting in the cup holder.

I watched through the driver’s mirror as the cop approached with one hand on a holster. I lowered the window, placed both hands on the wheel, and waited.

“Good morning, Madame,” he said, taking in my state of undress and standing about two metres away from the door.

“Morning, officer,” I replied. “What’s wrong? I thought I was doing the speed limit.”

“Is this your car, Madame?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Well, mine and my husband’s.”

“Can I see your licence and registration, please?”

“Yes, of course,” I replied, reaching for the glove compartment. I fished around for something that looked official. “Okay, here’s the registration,” I said, transferring the piece of paper to my left hand.

The cop stepped forward to take the paper. A jet of lukewarm coffee shot from the travel mug, past my face, through the open window, and directly into his nostrils. He doubled over, hacking and choking, and I put the car in drive again.

* * *

Perhaps the three fishermen in the rowboat didn’t see a lot of half-naked women out on the river. Or perhaps they did but didn’t care that I was middle-aged and out of shape. Either way, they waved and whistled as I cruised past, so I smiled and waved back.

At some point, one of them would probably comment on how quiet my outboard was and the other two would tell him to shut up and fish. Truth be told, I hadn’t used the outboard since I’d stolen the boat from a backyard dock in Lavaltrie. I simply parted the water around the bow, pushed it in around the stern, and moved forward.

This trip up the St. Lawrence was blissful. The kind of zen I couldn’t find in Joliette. The heat of the sun was glorious on my skin. The presence of all the water around me was reassuring. The sound of the boat cutting through the water and the calling of gulls was soothing.

As I was cruising past Île Marie, a Sûreté du Québec powerboat passed in the other direction. I waved, one of the occupants waved back. I wasn’t surprised to see a police presence on the water, nor was I particularly surprised when the powerboat made a 180-degree turn. Lights came on, and a garbled voice shouted something about killing the motor.

I chuckled at the irony and pulled the water out from under them. The powerboat fell into the bowl-shaped trough until the gunwales were below the level of the river, and then I released the water looming around the boat.

* * *

It took the rest of the morning and the early part of the morning to finish what had to be done: Get to Montréal, ditch the boat, dehydrate the creepy dude watching me come ashore and steal his pants, liberate some cash from a bank machine, buy an outfit, and hail a cab.

It dropped me off at Aunt Hélène’s house at quarter to two.

Muffled music, voices, and splashing were audible from the backyard, but the front was deserted. Nobody out smoking on the porch, no kids playing hockey on the hot asphalt driveway. The nearest visible person was a woman kneeling at a flower garden four houses down.

I exhaled sharply, jabbed the doorbell, and waited.

The door opened to reveal a pudgy woman with short, curly black hair not unlike my own. She stared blankly for several seconds before finally saying, “Martine…”

“Hi, Auntie,” I said.

“We … I didn’t know you were coming.”

I shrugged. “Not watching the news, I take it?”

“No…” Aunt Hélène hesitated. “I suppose… I suppose I should let you in.”

She stepped back to admit me into the old house. It was cold inside, the air-conditioning sucking a small fortune in hydroelectricity off the grid. “Thanks,” I said. “Shoes on or off?”

“Leave them on,” she said, turning away before bellowing, “Louise!”

My mother’s voice came from out back. “What?”

“It’s for you!” Auntie answered. “Just wait here,” she said to me before disappearing into the kitchen.

Mom appeared momentarily, wearing a sundress and flip-flops. Her sunburned face shifted from curiosity to shock, and then she marched forward until she was practically nose to nose with me. “What are you doing here?” she growled.

“I’m here for the party,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“I got out.”

“Got out, or got let out?” she demanded, folding her arms in front of her chest.

“Does it matter?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I got let out,” I said.

“You’re lying.”

“Yes, I am.”

She sighed, her head kind of wobbled about, and then she threw her hands up. “What do I do with you? Do I call the police?”

“They’ll be here soon enough,” I said. “There won’t be a scene, I promise.” Well, more accurately, I’d try not to create one. Couldn’t really speak for the law on that one. I’d embarrassed and inconvenienced a fair number of their buddies already today.

“At least you’re not wearing prison clothes. Where’d you get those?” she asked, pointing at my T-shirt and blue jeans. “Did you steal them?”

“I bought them. Although the money was stolen,” I answered. “Look, I haven’t got a lot of time. Are we gonna spend it all on the usual crap, or can I see my family?”

Her glare would’ve melted a weaker person. “Behave,” she said in a voice colder than the air-conditioning.

I nodded, and she let me slip around her. I pushed the screen door open and stepped onto the deck.

The party deflated as my presence registered. Uncle Serge, flipping burgers on the barbeque to my left, let a patty fall to the deck; beside him, my brother Maurice glared at me. Aunts, uncles, and cousins sitting in deckchairs or standing around the pool turned and stared. A few unfamiliar faces — the older ones perhaps neighbors, the younger ones perhaps new boyfriends or girlfriends — followed suit, confused. Even the kids in the pool seemed to notice something was amiss, though it didn’t stop their murderball game.

My brother darted forward and hissed, “You’ve got a lotta nerve.”

“Nice to see you too, Mo,” I said.

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it is for Mom just having you here?”

“For her or for you?”

“For both of us, then,” he said.

“No,” I said. “You guys had nothing to do with it. Anybody who wants to blame you is stupid. Now, where’s Nana?”

“Sleeping.” I pivoted on my left heel, but Maurice quick-stepped around me to block the way inside. “She needs the rest,” he said. “She’ll be up again soon enough.”

“Sooner I see her, the sooner I leave,” I said.

“She won’t even recognize you. She’s that bad,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I want to see her.”

“Then I’ll talk to Mom and Hélène. See if we can rouse her for a bit. But if you push your luck, superpowers or not, I will kick your ass. Got it?”

He was practically nose to nose, just like Mom had been minutes earlier. I stared back at him for a bit, then said, “I understand what you’re saying. Lucie here? I don’t see her either.”

“No, I heard she’s got food poisoning or something.”

“Damn,” I said.

“She told you, I take it,” he sighed. “Makes sense. She seems convinced that you’re innocent of everything.”

“You gonna tell her parents?”

“They should know,” Mo said. “Go grab some lunch or something— but stay the fuck away from my kids.”

He withdrew to the barbeque as I ambled toward a picnic table draped in a checkered vinyl cloth and covered with bowls and dishes of various sizes. My cousin Jocelyne and her husband Sammy noticed my approach as they were filling their paper plates and shied away.

Pursing my lips, I picked up a plate of my own. Pickles, cheese, coleslaw, a bit of Mom’s pasta salad. Some cold cuts and pork and beans I hoped hadn’t been sitting out too long. A bun with specks of rosemary and some real salted butter— not the margarine I always ended up with in Joliette. A can of Labatt Blue, my first beer in three years.

Not a soul showed any interest in me when I looked up from the cooler, so I found a vacant patch of lawn by the back fence and watched everybody as I picked at my meal. I spotted Mo’s wife Sylvie by the pool, keeping an eye on their two little boys as they splashed about. She had a bit of a belly that might’ve been middle-aged weight or a third kid on the way, it was hard to tell.

Mom had come out and was speaking with Mo. Now that I wasn’t arguing with her at close range, I noted that she’d lost weight. The bulge of her elbows and knees contrasted with the narrowness of her forearms and lower legs. It didn’t look healthy.

My cousin Jacques and a good-looking black boy were drinking beers and throwing plastic horseshoes at one of two bright pink posts along the west side of the fence. I didn’t know the other guy, but when he looked over and caught my eye he smiled.

I pushed away from the fence and joined them as Jacques took aim and skipped a horseshoe just past his target. “Merde,” he muttered.

“You should’ve made that,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was wondering if you were going to show up. Martine, this is Alain. Alain, this is my cousin Martine.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said as we shook hands.

“Likewise,” Alain said as he prepared to throw his first horseshoe. He had a Caribbean accent of some sort, probably Haitian.

“So are you in construction too?” I asked Alain as his first horseshoe fell neatly beside the post.

“Yes, we met on site,” he said. “How about you?”

Jacques said, “She’s a hydrogeologist.”

“Hardly,” I snorted. “I’m a supervillain. The obvious names were already taken, so they call me Mojili.”

“Are you serious?” Alain asked.

“Yes,” Jacques and I replied, and Jacques added, “Yes, she’s a supervillain. Lead story on the radio earlier, remember?”

Alain peered at me. “That was you?”

A little stream of amber shot out of his can and splashed his chin. He looked down at the can and then at me.

“Sorry for the waste,” I said.

“The news said a lot of people had been hurt,” Alain noted.

“That’s true,” I said. “Couldn’t be avoided.”

“Holy shit.” He turned to Jacques. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He chugged some beer, belched, and finally answered, “Why would I want to broadcast that
she’
s my cousin?”

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” Alain said. He had a look on his face that said he was thinking about excusing himself to go make a call.

“Look, Alain, I get it,” I said hastily. “I’ve done a lot of terrible things. I ought to be in prison for them. I will be going
back
to prison for them. But today matters to me. Our grandmother’s got Alzheimer’s. Late-stage. I have no idea how long she has, no idea where she’s living these days. But the single member of this fucking family who still voluntarily communicates with me told me about this party, and I knew that it was my single best chance to see Nana again before she dies. Are you going to deny me that?”

“You’ve killed people,” Alain said. “Stolen millions. Caused immense destruction. Why should I do anything for you?”

I said, “The cops will find me soon enough. You calling them won’t change that. It’ll just accelerate things and piss me off.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Alain said.

“Sweety, everybody else at this party is scared of her,” Jacques interjected. “As a kid, she came close to killing a few of us for various reasons. Almost drowned me with a bottle of soda.”

Alain stared at him.

Jacques said, “Here comes your brother.”

I turned to see Mo approaching. “Auntie’s waking Nana,” he said. “She doesn’t want to bring her outside in this heat, so I’ll show you to her room. Then you can have your time and leave, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

I followed him back into the house, closing the patio door behind me. We returned to the front hall and stopped in front of a closed door.

“She’s in Serge’s office?” I muttered. “Jeez, Mom and I were arguing, like, right there, and she didn’t tell me.”

Mo frowned. “Easier to get a bed down here than to get her upstairs.” He tapped softly on the door.

It cracked open and Aunt Hélène slipped out. Looking to Mo and then me, she whispered, “She’s awake, but she wears out quickly. Try to be brief for her sake.”

I pursed my lips. “Does she… is she going to know who I am?”

“Probably not,” Hélène said. “She doesn’t speak much and she can’t do much. If she indicates she needs something, call for me.”

“Okay,” I said.

She stepped out and waited. I took a breath and entered the office.

One of them closed the door as I froze in place at the foot of the bed.

Nana was covered up to her chest with a floral cotton sheet. Soft, warm arms that had once hugged me tight lay limp and gaunt on top of the sheet. The smooth cheeks I’d once kissed were wrinkled and hollow. Her once-sharp eyes now narrow and faded in color.

“Hi,” I managed to say.

She blinked.

“It’s Martine,” I said, finally bringing myself to move again.

“Martine,” she wheezed.

“Yes, Nana, that’s right. Do you remember me?”

She blinked but didn’t answer.

“Okay,” I lied, “That’s okay.” I slipped into the single chair sitting beside the bed. “I know you’re not doing well. That’s why I’m here. I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

“Martine,” she murmured.