Dreams of the Golden Age (39 page)

Celia put a finger over her lips. “You should probably keep that quiet, since she never went public. I’m trusting you with this information, George, because of Sam. You deserve to know. But it’s not for public consumption. You understand, yes?” The Stowes nodded emphatically. “Also, all Sam’s medical bills will be paid for. It’s coming out of the Compensation Fund for Extraordinary Damages, the trust my mother established. Your family won’t have any financial concerns, if that’s all right with you.”

“Yes. Thank you, yes.”

Sam’s fingers twitched under Anna’s hand. His eyes were open, and he managed a smile with his swollen lips.

“Hey,” she said. “How are you?” What a stupid question.

“Crappy,” he murmured, his voice barely a scratch. “We won?”

“Yeah. But this … this sucks.” She blinked fast to keep the tears back.

“Yeah,” he said, the air going out of him in a sigh. He squeezed her fingers, but his eyes closed, and he slipped back into sleep.

This did, indeed, suck. But she finally believed he’d get better. Blaster would return.

Celia touched her shoulder. “We should probably get going, let him rest.”

“Okay.”

The leave-taking was awkward and drawn out. The Stowes seemed more stunned than when they arrived, not less, and Anna felt washed out. Just seeing Sam like that was exhausting. But she had to be thankful that he hadn’t died. How much more awkward, to be standing at his funeral?

She didn’t want to think about that.

They were in the elevator, descending to the lobby, when Anna felt a
ping
on her radar. “Mom, Eliot Majors is in the lobby.”

“Oh?” she said. “That’ll be interesting.”

They couldn’t help but meet him on their way out and his way in. Anna didn’t show any surprise at all, but Eliot’s eyes went wide, and he hesitated, as if thinking of turning tail.

“Hi, Eliot,” Anna said. Any embarrassment she might have felt had faded to trivia. “I don’t think you really had a chance to meet my mom?”

Celia smiled graciously and offered her hand. “So nice to meet you, Eliot. I never got a chance to thank you for what you did.”

He had a bouquet of tulips, which he awkwardly shifted from one hand to another so he could shake Celia’s hand. “Um. Hi. It…” His shoulders slumped. “I wish I could have done more. I wanted to come visit.”

Celia said, “He probably won’t be awake. But his parents are there, I think they’d like to meet you.” He blanched.

“So,” Anna said, jumping in to fill an awkward silence. “Are you going to stay in Commerce City, at the university, or go back to Delta?”

“I think I’m going to stay. I mean, as long as my father is here, I think I should stay.”

“A more urgent question for me, is Weasel going to stay?” Celia asked.

Eliot rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe that’s the name that stuck.”

“Told you,” Anna said. “You’d have been better off with Leapfrog.”

“My advice?” Celia said, grinning. “Since you’re never going to beat it, just own it. Put fur on your costume. Get a theme song.”

He didn’t look happy about any of those possibilities. “Ms. West, I’m sorry. For what my father did. If I’d had any idea, if I’d known what he was going to do, I’d have—”

“Eliot, it wasn’t your fault. None of it. I speak with great authority when I say that children cannot be held responsible for the actions of their parents. Now, let it go and just worry about being a good person, okay?”

Nodding, he continued on to the elevators, and Anna and Celia continued outside.

“Not a bad-looking kid,” Celia observed, smiling vaguely.

“I suppose,” Anna said, realizing she hadn’t actually thought much about Eliot over the last few days, beyond his superheroing. “We still going shopping for a prom dress tomorrow?”

“Yes. Is it all right if Bethy comes along? Girls’ day out?”

Anna’s first impulse was to argue. Bethy would talk too much and complain and she didn’t know anything about prom dresses. But she stopped herself, because really, having Bethy along might be kind of fun.

“Okay,” she agreed.

*   *   *

Among several news stories lost and buried amid the feverish reporting of the Executive and the battle at Horizon Tower was the report that Judge Roland had quietly resigned his position in the city court—and fled the country. The whereabouts of the criminal lowlife Jonathan Scarzen were also unknown. After his release, he, too, seemed to have fled. The
Commerce Eye
refrained from speculating that the two disappearances might be connected, and in refraining raised that exact possibility. The website Rooftop Watch had no such compunctions and praised the work of the superhuman vigilante Espionage in drawing attention to such activities when no one else could.

That was when Anna and Teia both realized that they had absolutely no control over what publicity they got. It was almost a relief.

*   *   *

Finally finally
finally.
West Corp won the planning committee bid, the development project was go. Contracts issued, ground broken, construction under way. The weight lifted. Celia managed to delegate most of her West Corp duties until all she had left was facing the promise she’d made.

They went on vacation.

It hardly seemed fair, though, lying on a warm beach under a bright sun and feeling cold. She wore a hat and knit gloves, and held a blanket wrapped around her. More side effects of the chemotherapy—she was always cold, always shivering. But she had only one more treatment, and the blood tests looked promising. The end was in sight, the light at the end of the tunnel was bright, and it wasn’t the light of an oncoming train. They probably should have waited to take the holiday until treatment was finished entirely, but everyone was so tired, so worn out. Not just physically but also emotionally, from all the anxiety, the long nights, the uncertainty. Celia wasn’t going to make them wait on her account. She needed this as well, and if she was going to be sitting around bundled in blankets anyway, she might as well be someplace beautiful, like Cascade Beach.

She wouldn’t have missed this for anything.

The kids had found a volleyball net in the storage closet of the beach house and set it up in the stretch of sand out front. Bethy, Suzanne—wearing a leg brace and still limping from her injury but gamely hobbling through—Teia, Lew, and even Analise had joined the current rousing match, not following any particular rules, bumping and slamming the ball back and forth accompanied by much laughter. Celia wanted so much to join in. Soon, she would. When she’d recovered. This gave her something to work for. In the meantime, their laughter warmed her.

There was a lesson here, one she reveled in: Suffering and happiness weren’t incompatible. She was in pain, but somehow she was contented, lying in her lounge chair. Happy, even. Her family was here, they loved her, and they had survived. As soon as she got some energy back, she’d shout her triumph to the skies.

Even Arthur had relaxed—as much as he ever did. He’d abandoned his jacket and shoes, rolled up his trouser cuffs and sleeves, and walked on the beach, contemplative. Celia turned from the game to watch him. He’d followed the edge of the water to an outcrop of distant rocks and was returning now, hands in pockets, looking over the sea. She couldn’t read his expression from so far away, but she could mark the line of his jaw, watch his brown hair toss in the wind. His hair had thinned but was still brushed back from his face in scruffy waves. He was still handsome, in her eyes. He was hers, she’d never had to question it. From a hundred yards away he looked up, feeling her gaze and thoughts upon him. Raised a hand in a wave, and she smiled.

He wandered back, pulled up a chair beside her.

“You look happy,” she said.

“I like it here. It’s quiet. Not many people around.”

He could lower his defenses here. He looked ten years younger. She reached for him, and he gently took her hand. He always knew exactly how firmly he could squeeze before hurting her oversensitive skin. She rested lightly against him.

The door to the beach house opened and closed, and Anna came out. Long tan legs, shorts and tank top, pure lanky youth. She stood at the edge of the porch for a moment, looking out, pensive, before dragging over another lawn chair and sitting by her parents.
She should be happy,
Celia thought.
I should tell her to be happy,
but she remembered seventeen.

“Hey there,” Celia said, deciding to keep it simple. “You decided to come out.”

Anna screwed her face up, tapped her foot. “I knew that Dad was back. I wanted to talk.” She glanced at them both, tried to smile.

Celia looked at Arthur; this might have been a first, and she was afraid to move, in case the moment passed too quickly.

“We’ve been waiting for months for you to say that,” Arthur said gently.

“Years,” Celia corrected, then hunkered into her blanket, apologetic. Arthur rested his hand on her arm, a touch of comfort.

They remained quiet, waiting for their eldest daughter to find words.

“Dad, I can’t read people like you can. But I still feel it. I don’t think I can handle it. Mom, when I thought you were gone I didn’t know how I was going to handle it, and then it turns out you’re sick, and someday you’ll be gone. And…” She looked at Arthur. “How do you keep from hurting when you lose someone?”

“You don’t. It overwhelms you, and then you move on. You must move on or you die, and there’s too much to live for for that.”

She frowned. “You make it sound easy.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t easy. But the strength comes to you.” He brushed Celia’s cheek. “Though I would very much prefer it if you waited to leave until after I’m gone.”

It would be better that way. She wouldn’t have to sit there, watching his very mind fade. She would try to last long enough to save him from that. Sighing, she said, “I’m trying.”

Anna’s face had puckered, a young woman trying very hard not to cry. She’d asked how she would ever survive one of them dying, and what did they do? Gave her a picture of both of them leaving her.
I’m a terrible parent. I had nothing to do with my daughters turning out so well.

Celia reached out her other hand, the one not claimed by Arthur. Anna might just as easily have walked away from it, but she didn’t. She took it maybe just a little too hard, but Celia wasn’t going to complain.

“What’s it like for you?” Celia asked. “Knowing where we are, being able to feel us?”

“It’s hard to explain. All I have to do is think of you and you’re there, in the back of my mind. It’s like the world is full, my brain is full. But that’s okay—it felt worse when it was empty.”

“The power means you’re never alone,” Arthur added.

“Yeah, it’s like that.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Celia murmured. She turned her gaze back to the volleyball game, which had degenerated into some kind of kickball-tag mashup that traveled down the beach. The kids ran ahead, and Suzanne and Analise trailed behind at a slower pace, side by side. They were talking—Suzanne giving the younger woman advice, Celia hoped. On how to be superpowered, how to be superpowered and a mom at the same time. How to get over losing a heroic husband.

Bethy stopped in the middle of sprinting, looked over, frowned. Arthur waved at her, and she stumbled through the sand to them. With a lack of self-consciousness that probably wouldn’t last too much longer, Bethy flopped into her father’s chair, half sitting on his lap and forcing him to make room for her. He put an arm around her, anchoring her.

The whole family.
My family,
Celia thought fiercely, proudly.

“What’s up?” Bethy said. A loaded question that also asked: Is something wrong, is everything okay, and you’re not leaving me out, are you? A teenage girl testing out her place in the world. For the first time ever, Celia wanted her babies back. The babies were so much easier to comfort.

“Family bonding,” Celia said. Amusingly, Bethy wrinkled her nose. But she didn’t run away.

Anna studied Celia’s hand, and the screwed-up expression on her face meant another question was coming. She waited. Finally, Anna said, “Mom. Can you tell me about when Grandpa died?”

Oh, is that all …
The family history that they all knew and never talked about. All those lurid biographies and exposés, and the poor kid had probably read them all, without any context. Celia never talked about it, she realized.

But she owed this to Anna. To both of them.

“I wish you could have known him. He’d have been so proud of you both—”

“Even if my power isn’t—”

“Yes,” she interrupted. “He’d have understood.”

Clearly skeptical, Anna looked at Arthur, who would obviously know the truth about what Warren West had or hadn’t thought. But Arthur was very good with other people’s secrets.

He said, “We can’t say exactly what he would or wouldn’t have done now. I will say, he knew he’d made mistakes. He simply wasn’t very good at expressing himself.”

Celia rubbed at her eyes. Her father had never been able to admit he was wrong about anything during his lifetime. But maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention. “Oh, no, he was excellent at expressing himself, as long as he could punch through a nearby wall.”

“Well, yes. He was excellent at expressing anger and frustration.”

Anna and Bethy both blinked at them in wide-eyed horror. Yeah, this stuff wasn’t in most of the biographies.

“He sounds kinda scary,” Bethy said.

“You would not be wrong,” Arthur said, his thin smile showing clear amusement.

Anna said, “So you never actually, you know, talked to him about this. Powers, or what happened with you and the Destructor, or anything?”

“Oh, no, he was right there when the chief of police questioned me about the whole thing,” Celia said, grinning.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. And no, we never really talked about it. Seems pretty typical for me. Girls, I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you because I thought I was protecting you, that it would be easier for you if I didn’t tell.”

“Yeah,” Anna said. “Me, too.”

Celia smiled, and Arthur’s grip on her hand gave her the strength she needed, as he wrapped her up with the warmth of his mind.