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Chapter 15

Call or Fold

June did not quite lose consciousness, merely misplaced it for a few moments. And she didn't quite go down, for Paul caught and steadied her. But for the longest interval in her life, perhaps ten whole seconds, she did not think anything whatsoever. Johnson could not have more effectively stunned her consciousness with his mental sledgehammer. Paul was somewhat less affected; his mind produced not only gestalts but words . . . but just the two, over and over: Holy shit holy shit holy shit—

By the time June was sentient again, she was in her mother's embrace, squeezing back fiercely. (She heard, but did not register, Paul behind her muttering, "Her fucking dead mother just showed up, okay, Wally? Shut up and stand by.")

This is a lie, was her first verbal construct. And then:

This is the most precious lie I have ever been told, and I must not waste a second of it!

She stepped back and looked.

It had to be a lie. It was just too perfect. Laura Bellamy in a brand-new replacement body, she might have been able to rationalize with Star Trek logic. The wasted, half-animate doll she had said goodbye to only days ago, she might also have accepted. But this Laura looked precisely the way she had in the childish wish-fulfillment fantasy June had been having repeatedly ever since her death: neither rejuvenated nor ruined, but partly recovered, as though her illness had miraculously remitted a week or two ago and she was nearly ready to be released. This was, at best, a very good model of Laura Bellamy, who was herself in fact dead.

Okay. Just now June was prepared to settle for even a fair model of her mother—gratefully. Any booby-prize is much better than total defeat. Too good to be true is the best kind of false.

"Are you all right?' she asked.

"Of course." A very good model. Even Disney's audioanimatronic boys couldn't have gotten that twinkle at such close range—much less the scent, the oldest and largest file in June's olfactory memory—or the skin temperature. "But you aren't. What's wrong, Junebug?"

"Don't call me th—" June automatically responded, and then caught herself and began to giggle.

Paul came up from behind her and put an arm around her, and that helped her stop and get her breath back. Okay, I'm in the Twilight Zone. Time to stop acting like a protagonist, and go with it, then. She came to a decision.

"Mom," she said, "this is Paul. We're retired, and engaged."

Her mother's smile nearly took her breath away again. "Oh, I'm so glad! Hello, Paul," Laura said, and embraced him. After a frozen second, he returned it. "Welcome to the family," she said. "Call me Laura."

"I'm . . . glad I got to meet you after all, Laura," he said gravely, and released her.

"Oh, so am I." She took both their hands in hers. "Now, what is wrong?"

"Well . . ." June gestured vaguely toward Myrna and Johnson, and Laura appeared to become aware of them for the first time. ". . . these are Myrna and Johnson Stevens. They're from the future. They say they must invade our minds—and will—but it won't hurt a bit, and they'd rather we let them. We say fine, let us into yours so we know we can trust you, and they say that's not possible, we'd go insane. We say, then at least tell us, in words, what you're doing here in our time, so we can be sure it's okay with us, and they say we'd be sorry if they told us and they can't anyway. They're at least as slick as I am, Mom, and I just can't tell if I can trust them."

Laura had nodded after the statement, "They're from the future," and continued to nod after each sentence to indicate that she was following the tale. After June stopped speaking, she nodded one more time, and then turned to face Myrna and Johnson.

"Mr. and Mrs. Stevens," she said, raising her voice but speaking in a polite, conversational tone, "from what I've read and been told by a dear friend of mine, I understand I am late for an appointment with a bright light at the end of a long tunnel, so I'll be brief. Are you conning my daughter?"

Myrna did not hesitate. "Yes, Mrs. Bellamy. We must."

"Is there no way you could tell them what they wish to know, and then, if they are indeed sorry to know it, cause them to forget it again, with their consent?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Johnson said. "At that point, the only thing that would serve would be to completely remove every memory they've formed in the last week—no, excuse me, the last several weeks. They would become different people than they are now. They've grown and changed a lot, in the last few days. Several weeks ago, for example, they were not retired. They would notice a memory gap that large, identify it as a wound, put their talented brains to vengeance, and sooner or later we'd be right back where we are now—at best. The only thing that will serve is for that Paul and June standing there beside you now—and all their friends listening in—to all agree to walk away and spend the rest of their lives knowing nothing more than they do right now. And we must be certain they mean it."

"But you state that if you could and did satisfy their curiosity, they would ask you to perform surgery to remove the knowledge again?"

"Yes," Myrna and Johnson said together.

"Thank you."

She turned back to her daughter and prospective son-in-law. She chose her words, and when she spoke her voice was firm and strong.

"Junebug, if you won't listen to your mother, listen to your great-great-grandchildren. Do what these people tell you. Walk away. You and Paul and whoever else is involved. They mean no harm, to you or anyone."

It never occurred to June to ask her how she knew. Her mother's people-radar had always been infallible. Instead she heard herself cry, "But how do I know you're not a hallucination?"

Laura Bellamy considered the question . . . and smiled. "How do I know you're not?" She thought about it some more, and her smile wavered. "This does seem an awful lot like the kind of dying fantasy I'd concoct. You're retired. And engaged. And only my wisdom from beyond the grave can save you." Her smile firmed again. "Only we both know it isn't a hallucination, don't we? We both know this is real, however it's happened. Just like we both somehow know I'm going to have to go again, soon. Tonto, our work here is done."

"No!" June cried.

Oh my God, she thought frantically, I finally got one last chance to have that Last Conversation after all, without Daddy around . . . and just like last time, it's going to be over before I've even had a chance to remember all the things I needed to say, all the things I needed to ask—

"Wait!"

"As long as I can, dear," her mother agreed, glancing at Myrna.

"Mom, you were wrong a minute ago. I did listen to you. Always. I know I gave you hell. I'm sorry. But I always listened. Hardest when I pretended to be deaf, maybe. You won The Fight, you know. Stubborn bitch that I am, I held out until the day after you died—but you won. I always knew you would. I just didn't want you to have the satisfaction."

"But I did know."

June blinked. Something knotted began to ease, deep within her. "Well, I'm sorry."

"I absolve you. Now ask the question you want to ask."

There's only one? she thought dizzily, and opened her mouth to let it emerge of its own accord. "How could you stay with Daddy, all those years?"

"It was my privilege," she said.

"Mom, forget the fact that on his best day, his brain was half as good as yours. The man is an emotional basket case. He needed round-the-clock care just to keep him functional, my whole life—hell, he managed to screw up your death scene! How could you waste a mind like yours on propping him up all those years?"

Laura took her time answering, seeking the right words. "June," she said finally, "you greatly underestimate my own selfishness. I got more from your father than I gave."

"But what?"

"The thing I married him for. The thing I never had much of myself, until he taught it to me. The thing I hope Frank and I together managed to pass on to you. His kindness. His clumsy warm never-failing kindness."

June stared "But there's kindness everywhere," she protested. "The world is full of kindness."

"Oh, it certainly is," Laura agreed. "And most marriages still end in divorce. Most people can be kind, honey. Your father is kind. That's a different thing—and it's worth more than rubies." Seeing that her daughter still didn't get it, she went on. "Okay, yes: you have to hang a sign on a joke for Frank to recognize it. But dear, once you do, he always laughs, even if it's a poor joke. One time I'd gone with him to one of those awful sales conventions, and we were sitting in the most expensive restaurant in the convention complex, and by some accident they had a genuinely wonderful jazz combo playing. I looked up and saw a young couple we knew, a new salesman and his fiancée, standing in the entranceway, listening to the music and nodding. I started to wave and invite them to join us, quite automatically . . . and just as automatically, your father caught my hand and stopped me. 'But that's Jim and Shirley,' I said, 'You like them.' And Frank stopped and thought about it and said to me, 'Laura, look at the way they're dressed. Look at the way we're dressed. Why are they standing there in the doorway? If you wave to them, they're going to have to come in and sit down and blow half their weekend's budget on two drinks they don't want, just to hear the music for a few minutes. Kindest thing you can do just now is ignore them.' Once he explained it, I saw he was right, of course—but June, he had to stop and think to explain it. It's instinctive with him. If anyone in a room with him gets their feelings hurt, it's because his best wasn't enough to prevent it.

"Take the example you mentioned. Dear Frank tried to protect me from the terror of death. Clumsily, transparently, yes—and to the very best of his sweet ability. Even though it cost him his right to share his own crushing grief and loss with me. I had no choice but to let him think he was succeeding." She took June's hand again. "And in consequence, I could not allow myself to indulge in that terror. Do you see? For his sake, I kept whistling as I approached the graveyard—and so in the end he succeeded, and I died with as little fear as I could. Honestly, it wasn't nearly as hard as I'd thought it would be. All our married lives, he did things like that for me. Without him, I might have been you without Paul." She took his hand again as well, but kept speaking directly to June. "I approve of him as a son-in-law—but not because the boy is clever. Because I can tell he is kind."

"There are people who would disagree with you," Paul said softly. "Some of them are listening right now."

She met Paul's eyes. "Ah. I see. You were trying to unlearn the kindness . . . to impress June. She has always had enough mischief in her to get her boyfriends in trouble. Well, it didn't work this time . . . did it?" She watched his eyes, and nodded. "Kindness does you less credit than it does Frank, because you're smarter and more confident and less afraid: you can afford to be kind. But it's still a rare and sweet thing to be by nature. Teach her everything you know about it, teach her to respect her father and you . . . and forgive her what she finds hard to learn."

"I do," Paul said.

"I will," June said.

Laura smiled again—beamed, this time. "I now pronounce you man and wife," she said.

June felt herself beaming back, and burst into tears. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you, dear. And you too, son." She reached up, captured one of June's tears on her fingertip, and licked it. "We're done, aren't we?"

"Yes," June said in wonder, "I think we are."

At once her mother was gone. The pilot light went out behind her eyes, and as her vacated second body began to fall, it dissolved. There was no sound or heat. It was as though she simply turned to ash-laden smoke and blew away, like a digital special effect. In seconds, the last wisp was gone.

June kissed her fiancé firmly, and was kissed back. Then she pulled away and faced Myrna and Johnson.

"I'll never know for sure if that was real," she stated.

"That's right," Myrna said.

"I am in exactly the frame of mind a mark is just before I take 'em for everything they've got. Cold logic says I'm being set up, but I want to believe."

"I imagine so," Johnson agreed.

She squared her shoulders. "I'm wide open. Come on in."

Paul said nothing, very loudly.

"Sit down," Myrna said. "Since you are volunteering, it will not be necessary to invest you, the way we did Angel Gerhardt. There will be no orgasm involved. Or any other physical sensation."

June sat by the great ash tree, leaned back against it and relaxed utterly. "Go ahead."

"First, your stolen memories back," Johnson said.

There was a soundless explosion, an inertialess impact, and a vague inexpressible sense of relief, of healing from an unsuspected wound. She probed, and found that she had her missing minutes back. Quite dull and uninteresting minutes, really—but she cherished each one.

"That felt . . ." she murmured, "that felt like . . . like scratching an itch on a phantom limb I didn't know I had. Okay, I remember everything now. Scan away."

"It is done," Johnson said. "You are free to go."

She shook her head in awe, and got slowly to her feet. "So little," she said, "for all that trouble. Maybe I felt a tickle. Maybe I imagined it. I'm sure you didn't hurt anything. Paul?"

His voice was so well controlled that only his fiancée or a telepath could have detected the suggestion of a quiver in it. Wally probably never noticed. "I'm ready." He sat.

"It is done," Johnson said again. "Thank you. Mr. Kemp? I can hear you directly. . . ."

Suddenly, so could June—with crystal clarity, as though he were present. "Well, it's going to drive me nuts, that's for sure—but I'd like to put this whole thing behind me as quickly as possible. Moira and I have a convention to run in two weeks, and we've already lost about all the time we can afford. Go ahead: I'm dropping my shields."

"It is done. Thank you, Wally. Ms. Rogers?"

"The greatest puzzle of my life? And I can never ever know the answer? And never ever share it with anyone I haven't already? Johnson, you know more about what makes a SMOF tick than even Paul, there. Besides, I go anywhere Wallace goes. Make it so."

"Thank you, Moira. Mr. MacDougal?"

"You guys got a space program in the future?" Space Case asked.

Johnson seemed to grin in spite of himself. "At the time we left, pretty much anyone who wanted to had spent at least a decade or two off Saturn, in the Ring, just gawking."

"That's all I want to know. My lips are sealed, and I'm gonna die happy."

After a second, Johnson said, "I believe you will. Done."

June knew the meeting was over. She found herself reluctant to leave this place, this tranquil spot, these people she had wished dead for so many hunted days. Something wonderful was near here, and she would never know what it had been. "Will we ever see you again?" she asked Myrna and Johnson.

Myrna shook her snow-white head. "Not for a very long time," she said. "And not here."

"Is there anything you two need, that we can get you?" Paul asked.

June turned and looked at him with new and growing respect.

"One thing, perhaps," Johnson said. "And I'm afraid it's a dreadful cliché."

"Name it," Paul said.

"When you remember this—" he said.

"—and you will—" Myrna said.

"—think of us with kindness."

"We will," June said, and took Paul's hand, and they left Pacific Spirit Park without looking back, and with the firm resolve never to return.

They did, of course—but did not bring their bodies with them when they did, and never experienced a subjective instant of all the long years they spent there together in the Lifehouse. The answers they had wanted so badly would be granted them only in the next life—the longer and happier one. But their reward had already begun. For the remainder of their short first life together, they would display such uncanny talent at remaining married that their many close friends would often say it was as if they had been granted some secret knowledge no one else had.

 

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