The Variables (47 page)

“And we don’t go to bed with unresolved conflict,” Maxine called up the stairs. “Don’t you dare walk away from this family when they need you the most.”

Scott paused. He looked down at the faces of everyone looking up at him. Then his eyes scanned the house—the granite countertops, the majestic windows, the spiral staircases. “Really?” he asked with a shaky laugh. “
This
is when you think you need me the most? When I’m finally free of that man and his whims? When we have a gorgeous home in a beautiful city?”

“Dad,” Lucy said, unafraid to interrupt. She walked toward him, pleading. “You’re not free. You’re just a different kind of slave. Huck’s not going to lie down...when he realizes that he can’t sanitize everyone...when he realizes that the people here are just as human as the ones he slaughtered…then no one is safe here. We’re definitely not safe here.”

“You’re not safe anywhere,” Scott answered. “You never have been. You just never knew it until now. You’ve been protected your whole lives and you don’t care. It’s never the right kind of life that I can offer you.”

“Please,” Maxine said and she rolled her eyes and turned her back, placing her hands flat against the countertop.

“Huck is not some benefactor who gave us life,” Ethan called to his dad. “Why do you still buy into his illusion? We always had choices...it was you who believed our only choice was to give our lives over to that man.”

“Yes, you do have choices. Choose to live here, safely. Or choose to die. Because, my dear family, you don’t have a choice to leave...or a choice to fight...or a choice to change Huck’s world. Those are not the choices you have.” He looked directly at Maxine. “I’m tired. Goodnight.”

“Grant,” Maxine said, with her back still to Scott. A single request. “You lost your Elektos Board position because of him...and he’s not even worth searching for? You gave up everything you had built for the boy, and you’re just going to bed?”

Scott didn’t answer her. With slumped shoulders he took the steps one at a time and then disappeared into the loft, shutting his bedroom door behind him.

“Well,” she said, turning to Lucy. “That settles it.” She walked to the front door and opened it wide, and turned to Ethan. “No one leaves this house. I don’t care if a sea monster appears on that window and starts breaking the glass, you hunker down. Use the kitchen knives.”

“They’re plastic,” Ethan said.

“If Huck thinks plastic knives are going to prevent murder, then he’s never met Mama Maxine.” She nodded, pulled her robe tighter around her belly, and stormed out down the hall. Even after they had shut the door, they could hear their mother’s clomping steps fade into the distance.
 

Grant opened the door expecting to see guards and Huck and Gordy; he had assumed they changed their mind and were coming back to finish the job. So, when he saw Maxine standing there in her bathrobe, her hands on her hips, her bare face staring forward at him with a mixture of annoyance and relief, he wanted to hug her.
 

“Get your things,” she said, and she snapped her fingers. No good evening or other formal greetings one might receive after opening a door.

“Of course,” Grant said, and he reached behind him to grab a small green toothbrush.

“That’s it?” she asked. Grant nodded. “Good. Come on, let’s go.” She marched off down the hall and Grant scrambled behind her. Even though her legs were much shorter than his, he still struggled to keep up with her breakneck pace. She stormed up the steps, flew through the sky bridge, and breezed past the concierge. Grant shuffled by, too. Then Maxine changed her mind and she looked back at the woman smiling blandly at them as they walked past.

“Excuse me,” Maxine said.

“Good evening, Ms. King,” the concierge said. “Is there something I can procure for you tonight?”

“Procure,” she repeated with disdain. “No. Look, this young man,” she tugged on Grant’s sleeve and pulled him closer, “is staying with
us
.”

“Oh,” she said and she looked at Grant. “Mr. Trotter. I hear you’re a lovely piano player. Did you know we have a lovely collection of instruments on level thirty-two?” She glanced for a millisecond at the camera above her and the nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. King. I’ll note it in the log.”

Maxine paused, poised to launch, and hesitated before simply adding, “You do that,” before walking away.

Grant held on to his toothbrush with a fist and shot a glance over at Maxine. “Are you mad?” he asked in a whisper while they walked along the sky bridge to their housing.

“Mad?” Maxine stopped. White twinkle lights lined the walkway and dotted the ceiling, but the tunnel was enclosed in a thick darkness. Grant knew that the ocean drifted beneath their feet, but he couldn’t see anything except blackness reflected back up at him. “No,” she said, softening. “Not at you.” She paused, and then added, “Are
you
okay?”

“No,” Grant answered. He had never answered no to that question in his entire life. “Is that alright?”

“I’d be concerned if you said anything different. Come on. Let’s get back. Ethan has some clothes you can borrow.”

“I don’t need clothes,” Grant said as they continued walking.

“I have a rule in my house about nudity.”

Her frankness flustered him and Grant laughed and gave her an aw-shucks smile, but then he became serious and stopped walking once more. Maxine flew on ahead until she noticed she was walking alone. She spun and looked at him. She wasn’t wearing shoes, just fuzzy black slippers, and her legs were dotted with goose bumps.

“I heard. I was there. When Huck told Scott he was kicked off the Board.”

Maxine looked down. “This isn’t something for you to worry about.”

“I’m scared,” he said before she could say anything more.

“Me, too,” Maxine whispered.

Grant nodded. “Yes. But...I think we’re scared for different reasons.”

“You scared for your life, sweetheart?” Her tone was so motherly, so comforting. Everything about her welcomed him into her circle with such warmth and equanimity.

“No,” Grant whispered. “I’m scared because the way Huck talked about this place...” he trailed off and looked out the bridge to the tower, lit up from top to bottom with lights and activity. “Why would I want to leave? He makes me want to fight to stay here.”

“And—”

“I’m not staying here.”

Maxine looked at him and didn’t say a word.

“And Lucy—”

Maxine exhaled and walked toward Grant and swooped up his hands into hers. Even her hands felt like a mom—slightly dry, but warm, just the right amount of pressure against his palms. She stared up at him for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was soft, “Lucy is my brilliant girl. Tender. Kind. Full of life. Spunky when she wants to be. She’s not anything like me. Or her father. It’s nice...to know she just grew up to be herself. And Lucy will make her own decisions...”

“And she will,” Grant added with a smile. “But...”

Maxine moved her hand from Grant’s hand to his face. She placed her palm flat against his cheek and his chin and patted twice. “Here’s the thing, Grant. Tonight, you are going to come to my house, kiss my daughter goodnight if you absolutely must, and sleep on my couch. Tomorrow, you can wax on and on about the risks and rewards of a life lived off the Island. No great mysteries of life and love and loss are going to be solved with just the two of us in this sky bridge tonight. Clear?”

“Yeah,” he conceded.

“Good boy.”

And Grant followed her the rest of the way in silence.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Scott sipped a cup of black coffee and looked at his wife and Grant before turning his attention to Lucy. He set the mug down on the counter and walked to the window; the shades were drawn and the coastline appeared as a single line of green against the horizon. They gave him time to process the entirety of their request, and he did so in pained silence. Upstairs, Ethan stirred in the loft. Downstairs, the little kids and Galen were still resting—whether they were awake and staying out of the way or still tucked up in their beds with sweet dreams, Lucy didn’t know.

“It’s impossible,” Scott finally answered. He turned to them. Lucy realized it had been a long time since her father had tried to assuage the tension with a one-liner or ill-timed joke. It was an embarrassing idiosyncrasy, one that prompted trying looks from the teenagers. Now that it was gone, Lucy wanted it back. Just one joke, just one bad pun. Just one big, kind-hearted smile.
 

Lucy slid down off her chair and started to walk over to her father, but Maxine was there first, putting her hand out behind her back to stop Lucy in her tracks.
 

Maxine looked at Scott and grabbed his hands. They stood like that for a long time—communicating with their eyes and twenty-two years of understood expressions. Lucy turned to look at Grant; she wondered if they would ever have the closeness and telecommunication abilities her parents had.
 

Grant was pale and his permanent smile absent from his face.
 

“We don’t have much time, Scott,” her mother whispered, but her voice carried to the others. “You know that the longer we wait, the chance increases for him to be discovered.”

“If I had a plan...if I had an
ally
...then maybe I could get Grant off Kymberlin. Which is absurd when you think of how much getting him
on
Kymberlin just cost me,” Scott said without hiding his disdain. Lucy felt herself go rigid.

“I got myself here, Mr. King,” Grant said, rising. He looked at his friend and mentor, and lowered his head. “Don’t get me wrong...I appreciate that you saved my life before, but...”

“Yeah, let’s not rewrite history,” Lucy interjected, staring at her father. “You left him to die. You created the virus to kill Copia and left Grant underground to die.”

“I tried,” Scott said in a small voice. “You have no idea how hard I tried.”

“Sometimes, Dad, just sometimes, you make it hard for me to see how I can ever forgive you for being so weak,” Lucy said. “You were sad yesterday morning at breakfast because you knew that they were killing hundreds of people in the name of progress for the Islands...and you
helped
them. Again. You keep helping them.”

“Well, I’m done now, right?”

“Because they pushed you out—”

Scott bit down, his jaw line tightened. Maxine, still holding his hands, let them drop. She leaned in close and whispered something in Scott’s ear, and while his body language didn’t soften, he looked at the ground in defeat.

When he finally turned to face Lucy, it was clear that he was close to tears. “This is our future. This is the reward. Our lives here will be full...rich with possibilities.”

Seeing her father so close to crying might have been enough to unhinge her, but instead she couldn’t help but feel disgust and anger.

“Stop with all the lying,” came a voice from the loft. Scott looked up and saw Ethan leaning with his elbows on the ledge. “You’re right. That’s how the Islands will be for most of the people here. I believe that the men and women who are raised here will live a beautiful life, but those people don’t know the truth, Dad. And sadly, we don’t get to live behind the façade. It’s not how you wanted it...you didn’t get everything you wanted. We’re alive, but that’s it.”

Ethan’s words fell on them and they absorbed his speech. Scott was the first to look away.

“It doesn’t matter what you feel, Ethan. I don’t know
how
to get Grant off the Island,” Scott said.
 

“This is not up for debate,” Maxine answered after a minute. “You will find a way to make it happen. Grant is leaving. And he’s leaving with Teddy. And—”

Maxine turned and looked out at her daughter. Lucy held her breath and watched the parade of emotions wander across her mother’s face. In an instant she saw fortitude, worry, and then grief. It was as if she didn’t need to say it out loud: she was wondering if Lucy would join them. And it didn’t have anything to do with Grant, although she was certain that is what her mother thought. Lucy knew in the hospital room, while she listened to Huck try to win her over, her lungs seared and burned in the aftermath of her drowning. She might have known before that, as she watched Salem crumble into a heap in the Pines’ kitchen. But her father’s apathy in the face of Grant’s impending doom, his lack of action against injustice, solidified some of her resolve.

This world was not for Lucy.

And the thought of abandoning it also terrified her.

One minute she knew she would follow Grant to the shore, and the next she couldn’t fathom a life without her siblings, without her mother. And even at her angriest moments, she couldn’t imagine willfully abandoning her father either. Could she choose to never see the young woman Harper would become? Could she look her parents in the eye and choose to say goodbye forever?

Grant looked at Lucy and then to the floor.
 

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t...I don’t know...” Lucy said. “How can I know? I want to go...I can’t stay here.” She said it weakly and without conviction, as if she hoped that no one would hear her. She looked down. She did not want to see her mother’s face register the announcement, or her father’s determination to stifle her success. As quickly as she said it, she retracted it. “But I can’t leave my family...”

“Lucy.” Maxine said her name quickly and quietly. It was an expression of understanding, of empathy. “You don’t have time to waffle, child. I love you and I’ll support you...”

“This is entirely out of the question!” Scott exclaimed, raising his voice. “Entirely, and ridiculously, out of the question. It’s not going to happen. Not Grant. Not the child, and most assuredly not my daughter.”

“Dad—” Lucy started.

“You would follow this boy into the wilderness? Do you have any idea what it’s like out there?” Scott flung his hand wildly toward the window.

“Yes,” Lucy answered in a heartbeat. “I do. Because
I’ve
been out there!” She blushed and tried to calm the building tide of resentment. How could he not remember that she and Ethan had been left behind? In snippets, he had learned of Spencer’s maniacal reign, and the ever-present fight for food and water. He had heard of her and Grant’s travels across America—encountering the bodies, the flooding, the quiet dissent into a world governed by nature and not man. It was her father who didn’t understand.