The Quiet Pools

CHAPTER 23 —GAC— “…notions of progress…”

It was the emptiest, loneliest night Christopher McCutcheon could remember.

Outside the house, a drenching winter rain was sweeping the dusty streets, the fat droplets beating against the windows when the wind gusted. Hiding out from the storm in their vehicles, two stalwart microcam crews, competing independents, waited at the mouth of the cul-de-sac, hoping Christopher would make an appearance or agree to an interview. It was a small mercy that there were only two—the morning after the concert, there had been eleven cameras waiting for him when he started for work.

The attrition was largely Allied’s doing. As part of its response to Malena’s murder, the company had gone to war with the media on his behalf. Management dispatched spin doctors and jackmen to divert their attention elsewhere, and loosed its attorneys to end the use of the bootleg concert recording (the source of which was still not known, though signs pointed toward Papa Wonders).

No doubt he was becoming old news, and soon even the last holdouts would lose interest. Still, he felt trapped. The house was at once the only place where he was guaranteed privacy and the last place he wanted to be.

Christopher knew, though it was no comfort, that his dilemma was largely self-created. He had squandered most of the compassion offered him in the wake of Tuesday’s horrors. Brittle-tempered and bitter-tongued at best, inconsolably self-hating at his worst, he had exhausted the sympathy of his friends by the end of the first day and the patience of his supervisor by the end of the second. She banished him from the complex late Thursday with orders to take the weekend off and see a staff facilitator when he returned Monday.

“You’re all turned inside out, Christopher, with the ugly parts on the outside and the good stuff tucked away,” was her blunt assessment. “Get your attitude adjusted and come back in tune, because I need you on task.”

The oddest part, looking back, was that he had known exactly what he was doing. As if he wanted to make them despise him as much as he despised himself. As if making them reject him would confirm his harshest judgments of himself and make him feel as miserable as he thought he ought to.

And he had succeeded. He was quite alone, and he had never felt quite so awful.

Jessie was somewhere in the city with John Fields, the fifth time in two weeks they had disappeared on a formal evening date. And Loi was in the moon room’s whirlpool with a new playmate, the lion-maned son of a Dallas client. From time to time, Christopher could hear the splash of water, a titter of laughter, from behind the privacy-opaqued glass door.

It should be me in there with her, he thought wistfully, wishfully. Could have been.

Loi had been home Tuesday night when Tidwell delivered him to the front door. She had seen him struggling with his conscience, witnessed the body blow as he learned that his name and music were linked to a bloody murder that was top of the queue on every net. She had offered him motherly consolation and caught the full force of a broadside of bile for her trouble. He had been too busy being unapproachable, unlovable, to accept the comforts she offered.

No, he could not blame her for leaving him to his own devices—though, in truth, neither could he quite forgive her.

Or himself, he realized. Or I wouldn’t be sitting here in the pit making myself listen to them play.

“Music,” he said.

“What kind of music?” asked the house AIP.

“Loud music,” he said, sinking down further in the cushions.

Better alternatives were scarce. He had already run the list of programs in storage without finding anything that could command his attention. Daniel Keith was locked in a late-night conference with Karin Oker and the senior selection staff; he would not be free until after Saturday’s memorial service and Sunday’s postponed send-off ceremonies.

And Christopher’s usual diversion had no appeal at all—he had not picked up the Martin since leaving the stage at Wonders, and it seemed unlikely he would again soon.

“This is no good,” he said aloud.

The music ceased. “What would you like?”

“An answer.”

“I’m sorry. I did not hear the question.”

Christopher snorted. Baiting the house AIP? A game for ten-year-olds. Is that how low I’ve gone? “Show me the mail list,” he said.

The frozen patterns on the main display faded and the list sprang into view.

“Kill one through five,” he said, scanning. “Parasites. Kill seven. Tell eleven to fuck off.”

“That would be considered rude.”

“I know. Do it, anyway.” He squinted up at the wall. “I’m gonna be brave. Show me number eight.”

The list vanished, and the face of Lenore Edkins appeared. He was in his Building H office, and frowning.

“Christopher—I had hoped to tell you myself, but apparently you’re not in the complex today,” Edkins said. “Good news can keep as well as bad, but I thought you’d want to know. Maybe you’ve already guessed. ‘Caravan to Antares’ will be in the Memphis hyper. Through the front door. You’re relevant now.”

Edkins tried a smile. “For what it’s worth, I think you could have cracked in on artistic merit—the best work I’ve seen from you. Anyway, congratulations. Maybe the circumstances aren’t the best, but I know how much you wanted it.”

Somewhere in the middle of the message, Christopher’s mind switched off, and something wild and ugly took hold of him. Giving voice to a cry that began as a growl and ended as a shriek, he seized an onyx carving off the end table. In a single seamless motion, he came to his feet and hurled the carving overhand with all his strength at the wallscreen.

His throw was wild high, and the carving buried itself with a small puff of white dust in the soft plasterboard above the screen. It was over that quickly, the impulse grounded in one explosion of sound and movement, leaving him feeling drained and wobbly-legged.

As he stood staring wonderingly up at the hole, Loi appeared at the door of the moon room. She was dripping wet and wearing only a troubled expression.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he said, turning toward her. “I’m all right. Go back to your friend.”

She looked past him briefly, her glance taking in his redeco-ration. “Then what was the screaming about?”

“I was celebrating,” he said wryly. “Primal victory cry.”

“Celebrating?”

He dropped into a chair. “I’m going to live forever. The company just told me so.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Are you under?”

“No,” he said, trying to manage an embarrassed smile. “Unless self-pity is a drug. Which it probably is. Please—go on back to your friend. I really didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll—I can leave the house if you want.”

She frowned, studying him. “Only if you need the distance. Not for me.”

“I’ll be okay.”

She hesitated. “Mark won’t be staying,” she said. “We can talk later if you need to.”

Looking at her glistening body, Christopher remembered something Daniel had said when struggling to explain why he wasn’t comfortable around Loi. “She’d make a lousy lifeguard,” he had said finally. “She’d kneel on the edge and hold out her hand, but she’d never jump in to do your swimming for you.” Christopher had bristled in loyal defense, only later realizing that Daniel had been right.

But it was a trait, not a fault. Or if it was a fault, it was an innocent one—of expecting from others what she expected from herself. Loi had built her life on self-reliance. To need rescuing was a humiliation; to offer a rescue, an insult. The edge of the pool was as far as propriety would allow. It said something about how she saw him now that she was offering her hand a second time.

Shaking his head slowly, Christopher said, “Thanks, but I don’t think you can help.”

“Don’t close me out, Chris.”

Plea or caution? He couldn’t quite decide. While he debated, she retreated two steps and disappeared behind the closing door. A moment later there was a splash.

Caution, he decided.

“Would you like to see any further mail?” asked the AIP.

Christopher laughed brittlely. “No.”

“Would you like to select alternate music?”

“No.” He was silent for a long moment, trying to read the feeling in his body without putting words to it, trying to grasp his experience of his own life. Is this where you want to be? Is there anything right about who you are this instant? he asked, and the answers were reflected back to him as echoes of sorrow. No. Not the tenth part.

Then what are you going to do about it?

Male laughter in the distance. He drew a slow deep breath, his eyes closing briefly. “Judy?”

The AIP responded to its name. “Yes, Chris?”

He sighed. “See if you can reach Eric Meyfarth.”

Meyfarth did not call back, Jessie did not come back, and Mark did not leave until after midnight.

By that time, Christopher had retreated to the darkness of his bedroom, trying to pretend he was tired. When Loi slipped into his room, he tried to pretend he was asleep. She stood by the bed for a long time, watching him, saying nothing. Just when he thought that she was about to leave, she spoke.

“Would you like some company?” she asked gently.

He opened his eyes and looked up at her, his eyes suddenly damp. “Yes,” he said hoarsely, pulling back the sheet.

Loi slipped into bed easily and snuggled against him in a position born of compromise and experience, lying on her side with one arm hugging his chest, one leg hooking over his. Her skin was silky and warm, and her hair smelled faintly of spa oils, but not at all of Mark.

Despite their nakedness, the embrace was chaste, the intimate space they shared the creation of two friends, not two lovers. She wrapped him in a safe, comfortable cocoon built from her love and her body and her energy, and her presence was balm for his pain. He was so grateful for the gift that he almost began to cry.

“I called Dr. Meyfarth,” he whispered, the words an offering.

“Sssh,” she said, turning her head to kiss his shoulder. “Sleep.”

Christopher closed his eyes and listened to the echoes of his unhappy thoughts, now fading beneath the sound of their breathing, each breath deeper and more tranquil than the last. Sooner than he would have guessed possible, he was asleep.

Loi was gone when he woke in the morning—she did not like to share a bed for sleeping, so he was not surprised. But the touch of peace that she had given him remained, nestled against the resolve he had found on his own. Between the two, it was a little easier that morning to face both the day and himself.

Eric Meyfarth did not make it easy.

“I got your message,” he said when he called back. “What’s up, Chris?” His tone, like his expression, was pointedly neutral.

“Can I see you?”

“That depends,” said Meyfarth. “Why?”

Asking had been hard enough. Christopher had not expected to have to explain himself. “Because if I saw someone else, I’d have to waste all that time getting to where we left off.”

“I appreciate the compliment,” Meyfarth said dryly.

“I didn’t mean—”

“But I’m not quite persuaded,” he went on. “The last time I saw you, you were a bit skeptical about my usefulness.”

Christopher looked away. “I wasn’t ready to be helped.”

“True enough. What’s changed?”

“Nothing. Except for the worse. And that’s what has to change. I don’t want to feel like this.”

“You said much the same thing a few weeks ago, in my office. But you broke your contract with me and walked out when it got tough.”

“I—” The quick defense died on his lips. “I guess I did. Old habits die hard.”

“Sometimes they don’t die at all,” Meyfarth said. “What assurance do I have that you’re serious this time?”

Knitting his brow and frowning, Christopher considered. “I don’t know. None. I have to hope you’ll trust me. Which comes harder the second time around, I suppose.”

Nodding, Meyfarth said, “You know that I’m going to go right back to the sore spots, right back to your father and your family.”

“I know. I just don’t know how much I’ll be able to help you.”

“Why is that, Chris?”

“Because I don’t know how much I know.”

“Ah,” said Meyfarth. “I’m confident that, at some level, you remember everything that’s important to remember.”

“How can you say that? You can’t know.”

“No, I can’t—not with complete certainty,” said Meyfarth. “But it’s something I’ve come to believe about people. Inside every one of us is the frightened four-year-old, the nine-year-old explorer, the restless adolescent, and the twenty-year-old dreamer we once were. Remembering is easy. It’s the forgetting that we have to practice.”

“It comes naturally enough to me.”

Meyfarth shook his head. “You’re self-taught, I assure you. The heart of your problem is the pretense that all you are is what you are now. You’ve been living unconnected to your past.”

“I just don’t archive things like other people do,” Christopher said defensively. “Look, I have trouble remembering what happened two years ago, let alone twenty. I wish I had more stories about my childhood. I wish I had more stories about my father. But I don’t. I’m lost when the conversation turns to people telling funny anecdotes on themselves. I just don’t remember that sort of thing. I don’t know what I was like when I was ten. And I don’t have anyone to help me remember.”

“You don’t need anyone,” Meyfarth said simply.

“I need something. You, anyway.”

Meyfarth shook his head. “You know where the gold is buried. I can only guess. If you need a map, you have to look in your own life. Have you ever kept a diary? Letter archives? Any family video albums lying around?”

“No and no. Not many pictures.” He paused. “And when I look at them, I can only see this little boy that I can’t really remember being.”

“Because you won’t let yourself. If you were connected to your past, those pictures would make you feel, not remember,” said Meyfarth. “You’re a curious one, Chris. You don’t even get emotional about your emotions.”

“That’s not true—”

“It is. Which is why they all come out as anger.”

Christopher looked away.

“You need to be reconnected, Chris.”

“How do we do that?”

“We don’t. You do.” Meyfarth pursed his lips. “I was hoping to get what I needed talking to you. But the trust is coming a little hard, Chris. I think you’re going to have to show me something before we can pick up our sessions.”

“What?”

“How long has it been since you talked to your father?”

“Uh—a few weeks.”

“Your sister?”

Wincing, Christopher admitted, “A couple of years.”

“Okay,” Meyfarth said, nodding. “Here’s my offer. I can slot you at two, Monday—if sometime between now and then, you give your sister a call and ask her what kind of kid you were. Or something equally risky. What do you say?”

Christopher’s wince deepened into a grimace. “We’re not close.”

“I didn’t expect that you were, considering.”

“This one’s not my doing. My sister isn’t exactly my biggest fan. I never have quite figured out why.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Meyfarth said. “Your sister holds a piece of you. Reach out and claim it back.”

Christopher met the arty’s gaze with a wondering look. “I never looked at it that way.”

“Probably she hasn’t, either.”

It was hard to believe that any piece of him which Lynn-Anne Aldritch might hold could be of much value. Because of their history, she was more like a cousin—a cousin who had seemed like a friend in their uncritical youth, but who had drifted away on the judgments of maturity. And all the growing up that seemed to matter had taken place in her absence.

Lynn-Anne was fifteen when Christopher was born, a dark-eyed, thin-bodied girl who rarely smiled, at least for a camera. The four of them—his father, Lynn-Anne, Deryn, and himself— were not together long, and Christopher remembered little of the time they were. Lynn-Anne left the B Street house when he was five, first taking an apartment in Portland, and then late admission to Bennington College, a continent away. And she never really came back into his life.

After Bennington, it was New York Metro for a year, Toronto for two, and then back to New England, settling at last in Bangor. Somewhere along the way, she replaced their father’s surname with their mother’s, bringing her in line with custom. She had never married, in fact had always lived alone, except for her first few months in Toronto, when she joined a household of women on exclusive Center Island.

Christopher remembered the trip to visit Lynn-Anne there, a memory highlighted by the quaint hubris of the CN Tower and the vertiginous delight of its upper lookout. There was a less vivid remembrance of an earlier trip to a weary, noisy New York.

She always sent something at Yule, never on his birthday. He went her one better and remembered both occasions, but his gift-giving was duty-driven and the gifts chosen almost at random—he knew so little of her life that he had no idea what would truly please her, and Deryn could offer little help.

Once every few months there would be an unexpected call or, if Lynn-Anne was in the middle of one of her depressions, a morose letter. He would answer with earnest but stilted missives which—at Deryn’s prodding—invariably contained an invitation to come home for a visit.

But the invitations went ignored and unanswered. As far as Christopher knew, only once in twenty-two years had Lynn-Anne returned to the West Coast—a decade ago, for the funeral of Grandmom Anne, Sharron Aldritch’s mother, in Seattle. But after coming five thousand klicks across the country, Lynn-Anne chose not to come the one small step farther to Oregon; she was back in Maine before either Christopher, then in school in San Francisco, or their father, at home in the ridge house, even knew of the death.

That was the break point. Perhaps understandably, the Aldritch-Martins had never taken Christopher into their hearts as a grandchild—the circumstances were unhappy, the link tenuous. Grandmom Anne was a name to him, little more, and he was not greatly surprised to learn he had been excluded.

But he would not have expected his father to be kept in the dark, or Lynn-Anne to join the conspiracy of silence. That was the first time Christopher realized how hard the lines were dividing what was left of the family, and the first time he realized that he and Lynn-Anne stood on opposite sides of one of those lines.

He missed one birthday, she the next Yule. With no protest or apology from either side, the remaining threads tying them together broke one by one. Without those threads, the semblance of kinship and friendship between them simply slipped away.

There was never any formal declaration, no doors slammed. But silence was its own message.

That was the gap he had to bridge. And all he had to throw across it were words. Two words.

“Hello, Annie.”

It was a jolt to see how she had aged. The picture he carried frozen in his mind was of her at the rail of the Toronto harbor ferry, pointing out the sights, or standing on the balcony of her 94th Street high rise, watching the two-mile-long shadow of Columbus Tower sweep across the city—a brave-eyed wry-mouthed woman in her twenties, living what seemed then like an adventure.

But fifteen years had taken the courage from her eyes and twisted her mouth into a cynical pout. She looked at him won-deringly for a long moment before she spoke.

“Christopher,” she said. “God, but you’re looking worn.”

That was the second jolt. The picture he carried of himself was also frozen, locked in the first time he looked in the mirror and no longer saw a boy, with no allowance made for further aging.

“It’s been that kind of year,” he said ruefully.

Lynn-Anne passed on the opportunity to invite him to explain. “So, you’ve joined the real world at last,” she said. “Life is the great leveler. You don’t know how much comfort I take in that.”

“I wanted to wish you happy holidays,” he said. “Are you going to do anything special?”

“I don’t celebrate a winter holiday anymore, Christopher,” she said with a politely tolerant smile. “I didn’t believe in most of it, and the rest has been a disappointment. It’s rained for Solstice Moon three years running, Santa Claus is just a nice old man with whiskers, and I’m still waiting for Jesus to decide he wants me. Hardly any point, wouldn’t you say?”

“I had my doubts about Santa Claus early on,” Christopher said with a gentle smile. “But it’s still a good excuse for catching up with people you’ve been neglecting.”

Though she was only forty-two, Lynn-Anne had mastered the dowager’s raised-eyebrow look of skeptical disdain. “This may come as a surprise, but I don’t feel neglected,” she said. “It isn’t an accident that I moved here, you know. And I do know where you are and how to use the link. Besides, I hardly think that’s why you called.”

He frowned. “Why do you think I called, then?”

Leaning forward, Lynn-Anne collected the cup on the table before her. “Based on past experience, you either want something from me or you’re going to apologize for something you’ve already done to me,” she said, and raised the cup to her lips.

It was an attack, and yet said so quietly, so gently, that he hardly knew how to respond. “I need your help,” he said. “I need your help understanding what happened to our family.”

Her laugh was unpleasant. “We don’t have a family, Christopher. We only have relatives.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Maybe that’s right,” he said. “But if it is, I don’t know why.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because I’m trying to build a new family,” he said. “And I seem to keep tripping over pieces of the old one.”

“Give it up for a loss,” she said shortly. “McCutcheons don’t know how to love. It’s a birth defect. Their hearts are too small.”

“I don’t want to believe that.”

“Of course not,” said his sister. “You think you can have what you want, just because you’re you and you want it. You always have.”

“Why are you angry at me?” he asked beseechingly. “I don’t understand what I did to you.”

Frowning, she shook her head. “Be careful what you wish for. I might tell you.” She set the cup down before her. “Thank you for the holiday wishes, Christopher. And the same to you, just as sincerely meant. Good night.”

And the screen brightened to white.

“Damn you!” Christopher exclaimed, bouncing up from the couch, jangling with frustration. Satisfying Meyfarth’s conditions was no longer uppermost in his mind. Lynn-Anne had seen to that, with her genteel sniping and infuriating dismissal.

He waited five minutes, composing himself, composing his words, and then called back. As he half expected, this time her AIP answered over the simple blue and black identifier screen.

“I’d like to leave a message,” he said resignedly.

“Ready.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Christopher said. “It looks like you’re just as good at avoiding the past as I am, Annie. I thought you stayed out there because you didn’t like us. I never thought it was because you were afraid of us.

“We were a family once, on B Street. You were part of it. I was part of it. Maybe it didn’t last very long, but it was important. You’re a witness to my life. I need your memories to help me sort it out and put it in order. And if there’s some grudge you’re holding because of something I don’t even remember, I need to know that, too.

“You used to tell me stories about our mother, and that was important to me. You knew her. I never had that chance. Buck and Annie didn’t even consider me a relative. But I needed to know what part of her is in me. I needed her to be real—”

Unexpectedly, the display brightened, and Lynn-Anne’s face appeared. “You don’t have any right to call Sharron ‘Mother,’ ” she said, her eyes flashing angrily.

“You thought I did then.”

“I’ve learned things since then,” she said. “Hard things.”

“I know that in most ways Deryn was to me what Sharron was to you. But Sharron gave me life. She made half of me. I’ve always felt that I had a father and two mothers.”

“Wrong,” Lynn-Anne said curtly. “You had a father and a keeper. That’s all.”

“Look—”

“You really don’t know your own history very well, do you, brother dear? I ran away the day you were born. I spent five weeks on the coast, Cannon Beach, Nehalem, Tillamook, before they found me.”

“Why?” Christopher asked, brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

“Hurt feelings. While Deryn was pregnant with you, it seemed like I didn’t exist. William fussed and fretted and hovered and dictated every detail of what she did, so you’d be healthy. You were such a big production it was pretty obvious that he wanted you because I wasn’t good enough, that he wanted you a lot more than he wanted me. So guess what—I was rooting for you to die. Then Deryn would go away and everything would be the way it was.”

Christopher blinked. “I never heard anything about that.”

“Who would tell you?” she asked. “But you went and survived, even came two weeks early. As far as I could see, it was only going to get worse once you were actually born, so I left. I was just two months short of majority when they dragged me back.”

“But then you stayed for five years.”

“Yes,” she said, and glanced down at her folded hands. “And you even lived through them.” She looked up. “Does that shock you? That I thought about killing you?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“Just remember, this was your idea,” she said, and settled back in her chair. “I had never been around a baby. I didn’t expect you to be cute. Deryn let me hold you, and I felt—protective. You were so tiny, so helpless. And then Deryn told me that I was the closest connection you had to your mother— to Sharron—and that you needed me. That Sharron—that my mother would have expected me to help.” Lynn-Anne fought off a tear with an angry shake of the head. “Stupid me, I believed her.”

“She wasn’t wrong,” said Christopher. “I looked up to you. I loved you.”

She was silent for a moment. “Past tense,” she said finally. “Or didn’t you notice?”

“I do love you—”

“Don’t rush to judgment on that,” she said. “Deryn was wrong. She was told a lie and passed it right along. All part of the plan.” She shook her head. “He started working on you as soon as you could talk. I finally left because I couldn’t stop it and I couldn’t stand to stay around and watch it anymore.”

“Working on me?”

“Pushing, pulling, twisting, programming. The sculptor at work, creating a self-portrait.” She studied him with a critical gaze. “For a piece of statuary, you actually do a fair imitation of a person.”

So sharp the scalpel, so deep the wound. She was an artist. He gaped, amazed. “Why do you want to hurt me?”

“Why do you care what I think?” She pulled a yellow-wrapped cigarette from a sleeve pocket and lit it. “I was eight when Mom died. You notice things at eight that you wouldn’t notice at five, even if you don’t understand them.” A deep, breathy drag. “They had a fight, the night before, and then she came and held me.”

“I remember you telling me.”

“She knew I didn’t like it when he yelled at her. Usually, I was the one crying. This time she was. She said, ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. So sorry. I won’t make the same mistake again.’ It was the last time I saw her.”

“It happened in the lab the next day,” he supplied.

She smiled faintly. “Yes. The toxicity lab. A lovely irony. Grandmom Anne came and got me from the city school, took me to the hospital. I remember how pale she was, how frightened. By the time we got there, my mother was dead. William was arguing with the doctors and barely noticed us. So Anne took me in to say good-bye.”

Lynn-Anne’s eyes were unfocused and bright with tears. “I touched her hand, and it felt so wrong that I ran out of the room crying that it wasn’t her. I didn’t know until later that it was the hand where she’d injected herself.” She looked hard at him. “You know she did it on purpose, don’t you? You don’t still believe it was an accident.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I still wonder why she would do it. A moment of weakness, because they had a fight? That doesn’t explain it. There were better choices. If she was unhappy, she could have left, moved out, even divorced him.”

Lynn-Anne was shaking her head in dissent. “You don’t leave William McCutcheon until he’s ready to let you go. Sharron Aldritch was a very bright woman, but not a very strong one,” she said. “She killed herself in a moment of clarity and strength, because she knew that it was the only way that she could escape him—the only way she could deny him. I’m as sure of it as I am of anything in this world. And I hate him for it.”

Tight-lipped, Christopher nodded. “I guess if I believed that, I would have to hate him, too. But I don’t see him that way.”

“You can’t,” she said with a sad smile. “Please don’t pretend on my account.”

“I’m serious. Sharron gave me something precious—a piece of herself. I love her for that, even though I never knew her.”

“She gave you nothing,” his sister said harshly.

“I am what I am partly because of her—”

“What makes you think she wanted you born?”

He stared. “They harvested her eggs when they knew she was dying—she wanted—”

“No,” Lynn-Anne said sharply. “I saw them take her to surgery. I remember, because I thought it meant she might be okay. They harvested the eggs after she was dead.”

A deep frown creased Christopher’s face. “So I was confused,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether it was before or after. The point is the same. She gave us a gift—”

“What makes you think that she knew?”

“Deryn told me—” He stopped short. “Was that the lie? Is that what you meant?”

Lynn-Anne showed a smugly satisfied smile. “The light dawns. Yes, that was the lie. The fight was about you, Christopher.”

Though he heard the words, the meaning eluded him. “What are you saying?”

She laughed at his puzzlement. “Think about it. You’ll figure it out eventually. You see, you’re just like your father, Christopher. You’re just not as good at it.”

The screen went white.

And though he tried for more than an hour, she accepted no more calls from him that night.