by Jenn Gott
Besides, Jane had never been able to say “no” to Clair. Amy. Whatever.
So here she was: standing in front of the door to her father’s hospital room, trying to settle her shaky hands. At least she’d taken out her contacts by now, though the dry air of the hospital meant that her eyes were still itching, making it hard to fully calm down. Jane glanced to the side. Two bodyguards stood sentry by the door to Mayor Maxwell’s room, their ears wired up. They’d already cleared her to enter, though Cal (who’d insisted on coming along for moral support) had to stay outside. He’d wandered down the hall in search of a vending machine a few minutes ago, when the guards had explained the security rules. Jane watched him go, wishing he didn’t have to. As if sensing her attention, he’d held up a fightin’ fist in solidarity, like a protester on the march.
There was nothing left to do but to face it.
Mayor Maxwell’s head snapped toward the door, but his face fell into a scowl of disappointment as Jane stepped in.
“Oh. Jane.”
Jane gave a curt nod. What did her double call him, in her world? “Dad”? “Daddy”? “Father”? What level of love, if any, existed between them? It was easier to stay silent.
Mrs. Maxwell stood up. She edged around the table with the remains of Mayor Maxwell’s dinner on it, and came over to wrap her arms around Jane’s shoulders. “It’s good of you to come, sweetie. I’m sure that your father actually does appreciate seeing you. Don’t you, Paul?”
Mayor Maxwell gave a grunt that was neither agreement nor dissent. Allison was already seated on a chair that she’d pulled right up next to the bed, and she patted her father’s hand as if to say, It’s okay, at least one of your daughters cares.
Jane pinched the bridge of her nose. Or maybe she was completely wrong, maybe she didn’t know how to read this jumbled-up version of her own family, these people that both were and weren’t the faces that she’d seen over the dinner table, the parents that she both had and hadn’t bought Christmas presents for, drew pictures of, came crying into their bedroom in the middle of the night.
“Listen, Jane, I’m . . . sorry,” Mayor Maxwell said, and Jane looked up in wonder.
In all of her years, had her real father ever uttered those words? Okay, so these were said with a snarl of resentment, like he’d only bitten them out from some twisted sense of obligation, but it was still something.
Mrs. Maxwell smiled. She left Jane, then, and sat back down and crossed her toned legs, duty done.
“I really do appreciate you coming out,” Mayor Maxwell continued. “Your mother is right. It’s just that I’ve sent Craig with a message for the Heroes, but they haven’t responded yet, and . . . when the door opened, I was hoping it was one of them.”
Jane tossed a glance at Mrs. Maxwell, who arched one eyebrow at her.
“Oh,” Jane said. She hadn’t heard anything about a message, or the mayor wanting to speak to them, but then . . . she supposed it didn’t really concern her anymore. She’d done her job.
Still.
“Um . . . is it something terribly important, then?”
Mayor Maxwell scowled. “No, I just want to swap recipes. Yes, it’s important.”
“Paul,” Mrs. Maxwell said, his name drawn out in her warning tone.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Olivia, give it a rest. I’m done playing the happy family game today, all right? My daughter asks a stupid question, she’s going to get a stupid answer.”
“All I was saying—”
“Do I look like I give a shit what you were saying? This isn’t the time for family therapy.”
“Hey!” Jane said. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
Mayor Maxwell pointed at Jane. “You stay out of this. You’re in enough trouble already.”
“Me?”
Allison rolled her eyes. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know. How many times, Jane? When we text you, it’s because it’s important.”
“I was busy.”
“Yeah, sure.” Allison snorted. “Doing what?”
Jane’s jaw bobbed open and shut, open and shut. “I—”
“That’s really not what matters right now,” Mrs. Maxwell cut in, saving her.
Allison rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, of course not. My issues are never important when compared to protecting the almighty Jane.”
“Allison!”
“Enough!” Mayor Maxwell snapped. “God, you three are going to drive me to an early grave. Is it any wonder I work late?”
Mrs. Maxwell’s mouth tightened.
And then Jane knew: this world really wasn’t so different, after all.
“Sure,” Jane said, before she could stop herself. “ ‘Working,’ let’s call it that. I’m sure that makes it all sound so much better in your head.”
The room was cut with a heavy silence. Jane saw each of her family’s reactions, as if their faces were framed in three narrow panels right in a row. Mrs. Maxwell, somehow mortified and smug all at once. Allison, confusion drawing her brow together, with just the slightest hint of understanding beginning to creep into her doubtful eyes. Mayor Maxwell, jaw set, battle ready. He glared evenly at Jane.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?”
Jane snorted. Oh, where would she even begin?
“Sure,” Jane said. “Why not? God knows I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long fucking time, so sure. You’re a complete piece of shit.”
“Jane!” Mrs. Maxwell gasped.
Jane ignored her. “You’re such a hypocrite. No one else has ever been able to set a foot out of line, but you can apparently just do whatever the fuck you want, and it doesn’t matter who gets hurt. You know what? It would have been better if this had all just come out years ago. I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep Mom quiet, but I know. And if you think I’m just going to stand here and pretend like you don’t cheat on Mom every chance you get—”
“That’s enough!”
Jane’s rant stumbled to a halt. She’d been expecting to be cut off, the truth shut down before she had a chance to tell it all—but she hadn’t been expecting the admonishment to come from her mother.
Or, well, Mrs. Maxwell, anyway. Close enough.
“Seriously?” Jane asked. “You’re going to defend him?”
“This isn’t the place,” Mrs. Maxwell said. She moved over to stand beside the hospital bed, where she actually laid her hand on Mayor Maxwell’s shoulder. “And your father has done so much for our family, that . . . we owe him our loyalty. I’m sorry that you can’t understand that.”
For a moment Jane just stared, agog. Mayor Maxwell sat up in his bed, looking smug, as Allison clung to one hand, Mrs. Maxwell to the other. Like some kind of saint, revered by all. The overhead lights even caught the pale color of his hospital gown, lending an angelic glow to the scene.
“Oh, fuck that,” Jane said. “That’s the most apologist bullshit that I’ve ever heard!”
Mrs. Maxwell scowled. “Jane, you will apologize right now.”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Yeah, not happening.”
“Young lady, I didn’t ask you.”
“I don’t care,” Jane said. “You want to stay here and suck his every lie, fine. I’m done. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”
She was already at the door as Mrs. Maxwell started calling after her. The guards didn’t even flinch as Jane stormed into the hallway. She barreled past them, barreled straight into Cal as he rounded the corner.
“Whoa!” Cal said, catching her by the shoulders. “What’s the rush?”
“We’re leaving,” Jane said.
Cal studied her face for just a second before nodding. “Okay.”
They were just turning away when Mrs. Maxwell’s voice caught up with them.
“Listen, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but—oh,” Mrs. Maxwell cut herself off as she rounded the corner and spotted Cal. Instantly, her whole demeanor cooled. She straightened her shoulders, smoothed her
expression. “Cal.”
Cal smiled at her. “Olivia.”
Jane frowned. Her mother had always been somewhat image-conscious, and certainly this version of Mrs. Maxwell—being a public figure, or at least the wife of one, under constant scrutiny from the media—had plenty of reason to worry about airing their family’s dirty laundry in a hospital corridor, in front of guards and orderlies and nurses and people pushing dinner trolleys back and forth. And yet, as Mrs. Maxwell stepped toward Jane, lowering her voice, something else seemed to be going on. Call it daughter’s intuition. Her mother was flustered, by more than just the fight.
“Janie, you know why we can’t make a fuss about this. Please, can you just come back inside? For me?”
“No. I shouldn’t have even come,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, Mom. Really, the last thing that I want is to make things complicated for you. But I won’t apologize to him.”
Mrs. Maxwell’s mouth compressed into a tight line. “I thought that you’d changed. After all that you’ve been through . . .” She shook her head. “Fine. Run away from your messes again. Don’t listen to me. Again. See what good it does you.”
Cal cleared his throat. “Jane?”
Jane didn’t answer. She couldn’t speak to either of them right now, and so she did the only thing that was left for her to do. She turned on her heel and stormed out of there.
* * *
“Jane!”
Jane ignored Cal. She tore out onto the street, her footsteps making satisfying thumps against the pavement as she wended toward the subway. Her world narrowed down, divided into tidy chunks: a couple, scrambling to get out of her way as she barreled past them, frowning at her in annoyance; a flock of pigeons taking flight from the sidewalk, the colors of their plumage catching neon in the lights of the city; a guy leaning against a lamppost, head down, hoodie up, tapping his legs to the music in his earbuds. A subway sign glowing bright, the shadow of Jane’s profile against it as she headed down, down, down.
A train was just arriving. Jane hurried into the flock pouring inside.
“Main Jane!”
Cal’s tone was light, friendly even. The perfect way to blend in, as if there was nothing more to their interaction than Jane had forgotten her wallet and he was rushing to return it for her.
Jane found an empty seat. Slumped low, crossed her arms, shut her eyes. She tried to pretend that she was just another passenger, just another citizen of Grand City, that this was just another evening. That she hadn’t just defeated a supervillain, almost lost the woman that wasn’t exactly her dead wife but close enough, drank champagne on a rooftop, met the double of her estranged father, gotten into a fight with her mother-not-her-mother.
She wasn’t in the mood. Not for Cal, not now. Not for anyone. She longed for her bed—her real bed—with an intensity not felt since her very first time waking up in this place. Her apartment may be empty, lonely, an aching wound that would never heal; it was still home.
Cal’s weight dropped in beside her.
To Jane’s surprise, he allowed several minutes of silence to pass between them. The subway car lurched forward, swaying gently underfoot. Somewhere nearby, the faintest hint of bass from another passenger’s headphones provided a counterpoint to the rhythm of the rails. Cal’s fingers tapped against his elbow, his arms crossed, syncing up without conscious thought.
“So . . . do you want to talk about—”
“No,” Jane said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Cal sighed. “Cut her some slack, Jane. Your mom’s just trying to—”
“Yeah, forget about me and my mom for a minute,” Jane said. “What’s up with you and my mom?”
She didn’t realize it until she asked. That’s what had caused Mrs. Maxwell’s discomfort: Cal. Every time, every interaction, ran taut with invisible tension.
The smallest flush colored Cal’s cheek as he turned toward the window; then he seemed to realize his mistake, and made himself look straight back into Jane’s eyes. The whole thing took only an instant, but it was enough.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Jane raised an eyebrow. “Cut the crap, Cal. I’m not stupid.”
A blink of surprise. Then Cal turned downcast, his shoulders drooping in defeat. “No,” he said, “I know you’re not.”
“So . . . ?”
“Is this really where you want to talk about it?” Cal was squirming where he sat, like a little boy caught stealing candy.
Jane looked around the train. There was a certain privacy in the kind of crowds that cities provided, a total lack of fucks given for those around you. Across from them, a pregnant Hispanic woman sat leaning her head back against the window, thick headphones blocking out the world; beside her was an older black gentleman, clean-cut and academic, reading a well-thumbed paperback; two pale and scrawny teenagers stood making out not far from them, one with her hair dyed purple, the other’s streaked white-and-black like a zebra.
“Just tell me.”
Cal ran his hand across his jaw. The rough scrape of early stubble grated like sandpaper.
He wasn’t looking at her as he spoke, not directly. The reflection of the window right beside them would do just fine. It framed them like a comic panel, two people heading home after a long day.
“I . . . may have . . . ,” his voice lowered to a mutter, spitting it out fast, “slept with her.”
“You may have?!”
The question exploded out of Jane, louder and more of a shriek than she intended.
“Shh!” Cal turned back, scowling hard at Jane. “Quiet, will you?”
“Well, did you,” Jane asked, lowering her voice to a tense hiss, “or didn’t you? And don’t you dare try to tell me that you don’t remember.”
Cal’s scowl deepened. The lines of his face were hard as marble, thrown into stark relief underneath the stale-piss lights of the subway car. “Fine,” he said, biting the words out. “Yes—I did, all right? But it was one time. It meant nothing.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“You asked.”
“You’re right,” Jane said. “I did.”
And really, it’s not like it was surprising. Isn’t this what Jane had always suspected, deep down, as soon as she’d seen the way they were acting around each other? Isn’t it what she’d known that she’d hear?
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to just sit there and look at Cal right now. Jane turned away, studying the grooved runner that cut down the aisle of the subway car.
“Jane . . . I’m sorry.”
“You slept with my mom,” Jane said. Her mouth twisted up as she spoke, an urge to vomit twitching in her stomach.
“Well . . . technically, she’s not really your mom.”
Jane looked back up. Now it was her turn to scowl. “Not helping your case, man.”
“No, I don’t suppose it does.” Cal sighed, regripping his hold on the seat’s support pole. “Listen, not to make things worse, but . . . I think that might be what the big fight was about. With your mom. The fight was—was not long after it happened. When Jane got back, she was . . . different.”
Jane shut her eyes for a moment, gathering herself. “Don’t you think you should have told me this sooner?”
Cal winced. “Yeah,” he said, his voice small. “But it’s not like I can prove anything. I mean, Jane never talked to me about the fight. It could have been about something else.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, I’m sorry, all right? I wish I didn’t do it, but I did, and nothing’s going to change that.”
“You slept with my mom,” Jane repeated, as if saying it again might make things more palatable. The words didn’t taste any better this time than they had the last.
Cal’s phone chimed. He pulled it out of his pocket, and frowned as he read the message on the screen.
“Your dad wants a meeting.”
“I’m
not going back there.”
Cal sighed as he ran his hands through his hair. “You understand that he doesn’t know who we are, right? He’s not going to fight with you, if you show up as . . . well, you know.”
“Don’t care,” Jane said as she adjusted her glasses. “I’m done with that man. If you want to meet with him, fine. But don’t expect anything that he says to be of use. He’s always been more talk than substance.”
“That’s . . . not exactly been our experience with him.”
“Then you just haven’t met him properly yet.”
Cal sighed. “People do change, Jane.”
“Some people.” Jane shook her head. “Not him. Not even a new universe can fix him.”
They watched the meeting from the command room.
It was easier for Jane to see her father this way: his image plastered on a large screen, like he was nothing more than a television character, and they were binge-watching some new superhero show on Netflix. Jane sat in one of the chairs, swiveling back and forth, her feet propped on the edge of the curved conference table. She didn’t know why she was here, because it’s not like she cared what Mayor Maxwell had to say. Everyone else stood around on-edge, arms crossed, faces grim. The light was turned down low, the screen dark as Cal’s video feed showed him, as Deltaman, scaling the side of the hospital.
He snuck in through the window. Mayor Maxwell was asleep, his room still and empty. The Heroes had purposefully waited until after visiting hours, to ensure they’d be alone. Monitors displaying Mayor Maxwell’s vitals lit just enough of the room to catch his profile, slack and unaware. His mouth hung open, his hair lightly askew. Jane flinched, watching him. He looked old, older than she was comfortable with.
It wasn’t clear what Deltaman did to wake him. One moment a faint snore filled the room—the next, Mayor Maxwell jerked awake, blinking rapidly as he seemed to take in his surroundings. His attention settled on Deltaman.
“You’re here,” Mayor Maxwell said.
“Your message said it was urgent,” Deltaman said. His voice came through distorted, digitized by the same type of device UltraViolet used. It was a necessary precaution, in their line of work, and one that Jane had never had qualms writing into the comics—but there was something unsettling about hearing it from someone that she knew. A voice that should have been familiar, but wasn’t.