Triptych (5 page)

“An’ you’re from the future?” Mark said, clearing his throat with a cough, as if that could clear his head, too. He didn’t look like the taste of the word “future” had gotten any sweeter.

Specialist Doctor Basil Grey, already ripping the Piersons’ new telephone to pieces with a set of miniature screwdrivers that he had pulled out of who-knows-where on the vest, said, “Twenty-nine years, give or take a few months.”

Evvie just barely resisted the urge to scrub at the bridge of her nose with the heels of her hands. Her daughter was
two years
older than she was.

Mark watched with a tightly set mouth, but didn’t protest. Evvie wondered if it was because he was secretly awed by Basil’s quick efficiency and familiarity with the electronic tinkering that so befuddled her husband — the microwave clock still flashed 12:00, three years after they’d purchased it — or because he was simply steamrolled by Basil’s blunt personality.

“And you’re…you can’t get
back
to the future?” Evvie asked, trying to clarify, to quantify, to (accept) understand. Gwen and Basil snorted and giggled again, respectively, and Mark narrowed his eyes, got that look in them like when he didn’t like the punks in the fields tipping the cows and let them know it. “What’s so funny?”

“The… ‘Back to the Future,’” Gwen began, then stopped, gasping in a breath and floating it out in a chuckle. “Never mind. Classified. Sort of.”

“Sort of,” Basil agreed around the screwdriver in his mouth. He kept tapping the screen of his hand-held television, pulling pieces out of the phone and comparing them to the images on the machine. “Blimey, my BlackBerry for a Flux Capacitor.”

“And a swanky DeLorean.” Gwen grinned as if Basil hadn’t just babbled something totally incomprehensible about fruit. She made a motion with her hand, a horizontal cutting through the air like describing the path of an airplane.

“Can you tell us what that thing was?” Mark asked, shaking his head at the strange terms the two kept tossing at each other, trying to pull them back into conversation that made sense — as much as a conversation about aliens and time travel
could.
“The flying saucer in the garden?”

“Classified,” Gwen said again, with the practiced ease of someone who’d used the word a lot (too much). “Though the term ‘flying saucer’ is considered derogatory.”

“Though
technically
the organization that classified it hasn’t actually been started yet,” Basil pointed out, mimicking her flippant tone.

“Shut up, dear,” Gwen said amiably.

“It was coming after…you?” Evvie asked, some of the clues slotting into place. She looked at the scar on Gwen’s forehead, then down to the blood-spotted bandage on Gwennie’s. “Her? To…I mean, to stop whatever you do in the…then.”

Basil frowned at the screen, face suddenly stormy. “It don’t seem right, does it? That they’d come and get cozy just to…to do something like
this.
”

“I agree that it’s
completely
unexpected, given their earlier behaviour,” Gwen said with a nod, and Evvie blinked at the professionalism of it. “They were warm and very…very
open
.”

“
Gwen,
” Basil warned.

Gwen deflated a little, shutting down on what she’d intended to say, tucking away an old can of worms that had been about to be reopened. “But that’s based on us actually
knowing
them.” So bitter.

“Unfair,” Basil whispered.

They glared at each other over the table — the kind of silent battle that only an intimate couple can have; the kind of battles Evvie had with Mark. Basil was the first to look away, turn his back, and return to dissecting the telephone.

Gwen stared at his back for a moment, eyes narrowed, as if trying to force her opinion in through the back of his skull with just the power of her glare. When that failed, she rolled her eyes and her shoulders, sighed, then leaned over the table to stare into the baby’s face. For a long moment two pairs of wide blue eyes regarded each other. Gwen reached across the table and Gwennie lay perfectly still in Evvie’s arms, completely unconcerned.

“Don’t touch her,” Basil said without looking up. “You’ll make space-time go kablooey.”

“Bullshit,” Gwen said. “What do you think this is, an episode of ‘Doctor Who’?”

Gently she ran the very tips of her fingers up the baby’s soft, still arm. Tapped the pudgy nose. Then she shivered all over once and sat back, staring at the tip of her finger like she was expecting the skin to melt off, despite her own self-assurances.

“You’re taking this very well,” Gwen said abruptly, dropping her hand to her lap.

“No, I ain’t.” Mark ran a hand through his hair, making the already over-stimulated tufts stand up in all directions. “I’m in shock.” His eyes widened a bit. “An’…an’ don’t swear, young lady.”

Gwen chuckled. “Yes, Dad.”

Mark’s stern expression melted into something akin to wonder. “Dad,” he repeated breathily. Neither of the Piersons had expected to hear that word quite so soon. The exhalation was his way of bumping back down to Earth, the truth of what was happening starting to settle. Evvie wasn’t far behind.

“
You’re
taking it well, at least,” Gwen said, her words aimed at Evvie.

“How could I not?” she asked, because it had landed in her the same time as it had in her husband. She knew, she
knew
that this woman was her child, felt that
mine
sensation, down in the same place where she felt Gwennie. “You have Mark’s eyes. My hair. Gareth’s smile.”

Gwen lifted a hand and covered her mouth, and there was something of shame in the gesture. “Gareth died in — ” Her eyes were drawn back to the bandage on the baby’s head. “You told me I fell down the basement stairs.”

“You what?” Evvie blurted, thrown by the
non sequitur
and the horrible thought that her brother Gareth was going to…no, Gwen hadn’t finished that sentence. It could have been anything. Could be
years
from now (tomorrow).

“The scar. You told me I fell down the stairs.”

Basil craned his head around the wall, to the small flight of steps that led to the basement family room. The basement was just a sub-level sunk a little lower than the kitchen, entirely visible through the white metal railings that separated it. Evvie could stand beside the sofa and see the table they were seated at now. Basil frowned, crooked mouth arching down, eyebrows following.

“What? A scar like that?” he asked, pointing at his forehead to the place where Gwen(nie)’s mark was with the tip of his screwdriver. “It’s four steps. Oh, my God, Gwen, look at that telly! It’s so
fat
. Is that a
Betamax
?”

Gwen dropped her hand and rolled her eyes. “Trust Basil to geekgasm all over the eighties.”

***

Evvie didn’t have much in the way of things to make up a meal in her house. The nearest store was more than a fifteen-minute drive up the country road, and even that was just a glorified family-run market stand. Neither she nor Mark wanted to leave the other alone with Gwennie and these two. Just in case.

Aliens and spacecraft and time travel aside, they were just hard to understand. Trying to hold a conversation with two people who knew you better than you did, who spoke in strange half-idioms and references to things you were unfamiliar with, while cheerfully ripping apart every piece of technology you owned was…tedious, to say the least. Terrifying, at the most.

So Evvie pulled Hi-liner fish sticks and McCain French Fries out of the freezer, and Basil muttered mutinously about how they were
not
real fish and chips, but Gwen clipped his ear and he ate everything she put on his plate, and more besides.

Evvie was starting to see how he may have gained his soft middle.

Was this really the man that Evvie’s daughter, her baby Gwennie, was (going to be) with? Brilliant, acerbic, nerdy, pudgy, rude, with a back-pedaling hairline? Evvie had envisioned a farmer with dirty blue jeans and a lazy smile that he flashed at her whenever he asked for more apple pie, or a cop with bright white teeth and a penchant for bringing home flowers, or the manager of a supermarket with dependable hours and a good benefits package. Instead, Gwen had found a squirrelly, potty-mouthed British mech-head.

They were easy around each other, touched casually and insulted affectionately, but Evvie couldn’t be certain they were
together
. If they were, then what was wrong? They weren’t even engaged yet, if her bare fingers were anything to go by, and Gwen was nearly thirty!

And Gwen herself…? Soldier?
Specialist
?
(Nerd?) Evvie knew it was a horrible motherly cliché, but she wanted Gwennie to be a ballerina. A nurse. The prettiest girl in school, with all the boys after her but smart enough to know that a man wouldn’t marry used goods. Instead, Gwen was single, childless, her social life lost in the secret bunkers of a covert military operation. That was not the life Evvie had in mind for her daughter. She was supposed to be the Fall Fair Queen, not a…a
killer.

Killer
, Evvie said again to herself, to be sure that it was the word she meant. Yes. Gwen had looked at the knife so precariously close to Gwennie’s tiny throat, and shot that thing point blank in the face. In the
face
. No warning shot, no demands for surrender. Cold.

Just a pulled trigger and the spray of stuff (brains) all over the grass.

For a split second, empty.

This
was Evvie’s daughter.

Trained killer.

Her baby.

The fish sticks make a bid for freedom and she swallowed once, heavily.

The milk glass clutched in her hand groaned, and the eyes of everyone at the table — save for Gwennie, who was solemnly massaging her ketchup into her hair — turned to Evvie. Mark cleared his throat, which he only ever did when he was nervous, and asked, “Evvie? Honey? You okay?”

“Yes,” Evvie lied. She set down the glass carefully. “I’m not…hungry.” She stood, cleared away her dishes, scraped the half eaten fries into the garbage and dropped the plate into the sink.

My daughter is a killer
, Evvie tried not to think.

Gwen’s mouth went tight around the edges, her eyes blue marble.

Unable to resist the motherly impulse, Evvie grabbed Gwennie up out of her highchair, pulled her close, sucked in the scent of starchy sugar and processed tomatoes and baby. “I’ll give her a bath,” she said to no one, and fled upstairs before anyone could protest or see the way her hands shook.

***

The sound of the water running to fill the bathroom sink drowned out the conversation downstairs. Evvie hated abandoning Mark to a room filled with strange words, but she couldn’t, couldn’t stay in that kitchen with that uncanny woman. Unnatural.

That
stranger
who was her child.

Gwennie blew contented snot bubbles until the water was ready, fingers grasping alternately at her mother’s shirt or more of the ketchup, turning Evvie’s clothing into a palette of red and green smears.
An artist maybe?
Evvie thought, smiling down at her.

With a jolt of startled horror, Evvie realized that no, no, of course Gwennie wasn’t going to grow up to be an artist. She was going to be a soldier. A Specialist. She was going to wear black and bullet-proof vests and telephones in her ear. She was going to carry a boxy gun on her hip. She was going to
use
it.

Evvie began shaking hard all over, and if weren’t for fear of hurting or startling Gwennie, she probably would have collapsed to the floor and had a good self-indulgent screaming fit. As it was, she sank down and sat on the toilet lid and cried quietly, miserably into Gwennie’s little neck. It felt awfully wonderful in that wrenching cathartic way and it made the back of Evvie’s eyes and throat burn.

Gwennie patted Evvie’s cheek with sticky, saucy fingers; a small, soft comfort.
It’s okay, Mom. It’ll be okay.
And then she smiled at Evvie with her uncle’s (dead) smile.

What will happen to Gareth?
Evvie didn’t dare try to answer herself.

“I love you,” she whispered into Gwennie’s reddened wisps of ketchup-matted hair. “I love you and even though I want you to do what makes you happiest, don’t be like her.” The words stopped up her throat, felt disingenuous and unfair and tasted horrible but only because they were true, true,
true.
She sobbed harder, hiccoughing against Gwennie’s shoulder. “Please, please, please, don’t be like her. Be better. Be good.”

And that was a stupid thing to say because nobody ever was, not as easy as that, but it was unfair, so unfair that Evvie had to
see
it, so totally, so perfectly, so
soon
.

Beside her, the water in the sink began to overflow, pattering a syncopated staccato against the floor as it fled over the corner of the counter, and Evvie stood up quickly, yanking on the taps before the bathroom rug got soaked. Gwennie looked torn between confusion and amusement. The back of her eyes still hot with the rest of the tears that she didn’t let fall, Evvie drained a bit of water from the sink, then set Gwennie down on the damp countertop and stripped her quickly of her onesie with shivering hands. She dropped it into the trash. She never wanted to look at it again. She didn’t want to remember. Even if Evvie did ever get the blood stains out of it, every time she saw the little elephants on the cotton candy clouds, all she would think of would be aliens and knives and how Gwennie had almost…almost…

Evvie removed Gwennie’s diaper as well — soiled but not too dirty — and then the gauze bandage on her forehead. Gwennie squealed when the tape came away with some of her hair and Evvie gathered her close, whispering soothing nothings against her head. Gwennie sniffled miserably, not entirely sure if the pain was worth full-blown tears. Evvie talked her out of them and sat back to take stock of the cut.

The flash of white bandage caught her attention instead. She stared at the gauze in her hand. A piece of the future.