The Shakespeare Incident

by Jonathan Miller

  Denise and Denny hugged their mom. Did Jen get younger with their touch?

  Dew entered the room, holding Sahar. “What’s going on?”

  Everybody was silent for a moment. Jen took a few deep breaths, closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them. “A miracle just happened,’ she said. “I’m back.”

  Luna smiled. “Boy are we a close family.”

  Jen laughed as she hugged Denny close one more time. “I kinda knew that you’d come back someday, Denny. Did I ever tell you the story of how I gave you your name?”

  Chapter 67

  Sunday, August 16

  Denise had mixed feelings about attending Hikaru’s memorial service back in Albuquerque. He could have been the one for her, and instead of saying “I do,” she was now saying good-bye.

  Denise drove the Kia; Denny sat in the front with Rita in the rear. They were doing their best to bond as a family. Denny and Rayne had nothing in common except Rita and that might be enough. Rayne had recovered but was still hospitalized in Cruces as a precaution. The toxic lake water really worked.

  Denise would keep some in her thermos there in the trunk of her car forever, regardless of the smell. Eventually they all got used to it. Dew had recently mentioned setting up a website so that they could probably make a few bucks selling it online—lasergeishawater.com.

  Dew’s last website idea had worked out, so Denise hadn’t said no just yet.

  “How about the other aliens or whatever they were? Are they really coming back?” Rita asked.

  “They’ll probably come back in a hundred years,” Denny said. He then went into a lengthy discussion about the speed of light, constellations, and wormholes. Rita hung on every word.

  “I’ll be ready for them,” Rita said.

  “You do that. I probably won’t be here when they do come back,” Denise said with a grimace.

  Her spark was off and on today, and she had a splitting headache. She had missed a text from Dew who’d gone up to Albuquerque the night before.

  WHERE WERE YOU? Dew had texted. THEY MOVED HIKARU’S MEMORIAL BECAUSE OF RAIN.”

  COMING ANYWAY, Denise texted back.

  Sure enough, the other mourners were leaving the cemetery as the Kia arrived. It was pouring in Albuquerque, which was a relief after a long drought. Dew gave her a wave from her Mercedes. Sahar, still wearing that comfort animal vest, pointed the laser toy at Denise with her mouth, but it was done with love.

  Denny and Rita stayed in the Kia and let Denise pay her respects alone out in the rain, sans umbrella. There was already a brick for Hikaru on the memorial wall. It was right next to Marley’s.

  As she walked toward the wall, Denise received a series of pings that must have come from Marley. She felt three pings and then nothing. It was not an SOS; it was an over and out.

  She turned and tried to communicate with him, but she might as well be talking to a wall. “Goodbye, Marley,” she said. “Hope you’ve finally gone to a better place.”

  Suddenly she had a vision. It was an image of a cyclist reaching the South Pole overlooking some kind of vessel buried in the ice.

  “Hikaru?” she said out loud.

  “It’s me. Kinda,” the voice was coming from the brick.

  “They changed the times,” she said out loud. “Sorry I was late, traffic…”

  “Don’t go there,” he said. “I’ve got a feeling we’ll be able to stay in touch.”

  She smiled. “I’d like that.”

  “By the way, congratulations!”

  “On what?”

  “You sure you’re psychic?”

  Denise reached inside of herself, and for the first time, she felt another spark. Actually two sparks. “Oh my god, I’m pregnant.

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “I’m going to be a mother. It’s amazing.”

  “Kinda,” they said in unity.

  They conversed for a few more minutes, without making a sound. And then there was silence on his end. Hopefully, they would keep in touch. Denise nodded to the blank wall, turned around and walked back to the Kia.

  Rita was worried. “You OK, Auntie Denise? I can’t tell if you’re happy or you’re going to throw up.”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said. “From Hikaru.”

  Rita smiled. “I need all the family I can get. What would the baby be, my first cousin?”

  “Cousins,” Denise nodded. “Going to be twins,” she said. “I can tell. Just like us.”

  “That makes me an uncle,” Denny said.

  Denise looked at him with wide eyes.

  He laughed. “Don’t ask me to name them.”

  EPILOGUE

  Thursday, November 26

  Even after a few months, Denise was still getting used to this whole double pregnancy thing, but at least the family was being well, like a close family, a real family. They had finally become the clan she had always wanted. She might be a single mom-to-be, but she wasn’t going through this all alone. It would take this village to raise her children.

  She wasn’t wearing black anymore, or even charcoal. She liked her maternity blouses in blue and pink—in honor of twins to be, one boy and one girl.

  Denise had enrolled at UNM Law School and it was far more laid back then her last school. There were no cheetah moms on the faculty. Dew was also enrolled, actually doing her homework on her own which was a relief.

  Taking a break from UNM law school with finals on their way, Denise was spending Thanksgiving in the living room of her mother’s new house in the Sandia Heights neighborhood of Albuquerque. The home had an Asian flair with an Albuquerque accent, much like Jen herself. The living room even had a yin-yang gong made out of gold and turquoise. The Spanish tiles of the patio looked over an expansive view of Albuquerque in the valley below, past a bamboo fence.

  Denise had invited Wu to cater the affair and he had arrived earlier that morning. He was in the kitchen, directing his staff on something called a tom ka turkey with spices from all over this planet and perhaps off planet as well. It smelled incredible.

  Her Aunt Luna was no longer a hurricane, but still a bit of a drip. Luna just got off the phone with her ex, Dan the Rattlesnake Lawyer, who apparently was off preparing for his big trial on a new case. From the sound of his rattling on about his client—a nurse’s aide accused of killing a rich woman at an assisted living facility—it sounded like Dan deserved a book of his own. She sensed that it would be a dangerous adventure. Hopefully, Dan would survive that adventure so there wouldn’t be a rattlesnake funeral.

  Jen herself sat with her cousin Susie and the two were making small talk about their new endeavor—a class-action suit for factory workers harmed by radiation by Cygnus Moon all over the planet.

  “I am so thankful to be here,” her mother said to her cousin. “Actually, I’m so thankful to be anywhere.”

  “Sorry again about pulling the plug,” Susie said for the ten millionth time. She was dressed in golf clothes and had just come off the links. She too had recovered but wasn’t swinging for the stars anymore. She was happy to make par.

  “You’re forgiven, Susie,” Jen said. “I’m thankful to be here with family.”

  “Me too,” said Denise. “That’s why they call it Thanksgiving, mom.”

  “Any ideas on naming my grandchildren?” Jen asked her.

  “I have no idea,” she said. “But they will be names that they can be proud of. The last thing I want is to give them joke names…”

  “You were never a joke to me, Denise,” Jen said. “Nor your brother. I think you’ve gone your whole life trying to prove that—your brother too—but you should have known that from the very beginning.”

  Denise wiped away a tear. It must be the hormones from pregnancy, right? She quickly got a hold of herself.

  “They st
ill need names,” Jen said. “I may not have been the best mother, but I will be the best grandmother on earth. Or anywhere else for that matter.”

  Susie looked up from her phone. “Cygnus Moon came from a Greek myth about Zeus in the form of a Swan umm…hooking up with Leda, and the offspring were the Gemini twins—Castor and…”

  “I’m not naming my daughter Pollux, or my son Castor for that matter.”

  “Polly wouldn’t be that bad,” Susie said.

  “If she was already a hundred years old,” Denise said. “And she wanted a cracker.”

  “Well, I promise that I’ll teach your twins how to golf,” Susie said. “I owe that to you, and to them. Swing for the stars. Well, swing for the moon at least.”

  “I’d like that,” Denise said. “They’ll love it.”

  There was a knock on the door, which opened before anyone could answer it. “Annyeonghaseyo,” Denny said perfectly, as if he’d been rehearsing all day.

  “Where’s my Denny?” Jen asked.

  “I’m here, mom,” Denny said stumbling in with excitement. “With guests!” Rayne and Rita followed behind. They weren’t quite a comfortable family yet. But they were working on it.

  “Smells delicious,” Rita said. “I like your Thanksgivings better than the ones we used to have with my other grandma.”

  Rayne shushed her.

  “Dew is allegedly studying so she didn’t come with us,” Denny said. “Finals coming up.”

  “Tell me about it,” Denise said. “I used to be a snob about people going to UNM, but law school is law school. Law is law.”

  “Someone had better pick up my wayward daughter, the legal scholar,” Luna said, hanging up another call. “Her Mercedes is broken yet again. She needs to learn to put oil in it before it starts smoking. You’re drafted Denise. Hurry back, dinner is in an hour, with or without her.”

  “I’ll get her,” Denise said. She patted her belly. “Save a drumstick for me. Well, save three drumsticks for us.”

  Denise went outside into the crisp November air and got in her Genesis; the most luxurious Korean car ever made. It wasn’t a Lexus, but it was shiny black and dent free.

  * * *

  Dew lived in a rental home by the law school, with a view of the wooded UNM north golf course and out to the Sandia Mountains beyond. It was actually close to the Mental Health Center so she could monitor her Crotaladone use and do a pre-hab if need be.

  Dew was paying her own way, tutoring UNM students for their LSAT exams on the side. She’d even developed a computer program that taught aspiring law students how to work the logic games portion of the test while they slept. She was thinking of adapting the program for teenagers and maybe even younger.

  “You can give your kids a head-start by listening to the bar review tapes while you sleep,” Dew constantly told Denise. “They’ll grow up to be lawyers, whatever their names are.”

  Denise felt homesick as she pulled into Dew’s driveway. It was near the group home where Denise had lived with her late grandmother during the earliest years of her life. She sure hoped that her own children wouldn’t spend their lives without their mother like she did. If Jen was going to be the best grandmother, Denise would keep her end of the bargain by being the best mother.

  She touched her belly. “What should I call you both?”

  They didn’t answer.

  “How about Sonny and Daughter-y?” Denise said. She felt a kick and then another. They didn’t like that one bit.

  Feeling a bit dizzy, she knocked on the door.

  “Come in! I’m in the shower,” Dew yelled from inside.

  “Hurry up! Your mom said she’d start eating without you!”

  “Luna will wait,” Dew yelled. “By the way, how about Yin and Yang as names for the twins?”

  “Racist, much?” Denise laughed.

  “But you should go with names that both start with the same letter, like my cats, Sahar and Suri.”

  Dew had replaced the old Suri with a new cat—same coloring and same name. The new cat was making a deposit in the litter box, but it was the same old Sahar, who must be hiding somewhere…

  The place wasn’t quite a sty, but not much had changed since Dew moved to the big city. There was still a gigantic computer in the middle of the room, but it was surrounded by law books and CDs for the LSAT students. Dew still claimed that computers would replace lawyers, but not anytime soon. There was a framed photo of Petro in his Aloha-alien surfing shirt.

  “Just sit down on the couch,” Dew yelled over the water.

  Denise was so busy looking around at the mess that she didn’t look down before she sat on a blanket. She heard a bloodcurdling squeal, and jumped right back up, realizing that she must have sat on poor Sahar under the blanket.

  Denise was unsteady on her feet after her leap up off the couch. Worse, Sahar was startled, her green eyes unfocused, and the cat leapt up landing on Denise’s bulging belly. They both toppled her over. As Denise fell over, Sahar scratched her while trying to regain her balance. Could cats have venom in their claws?

  It was too much. Denise fainted. Would the twins be all right?

  * * *

  Denise wasn’t sure where or when it was when she awoke and stood up. She couldn’t tell if it was night, or maybe she was actually out on some distant planet. She saw lights streaking by, a thousand shooting stars were falling on this location.

  “They’re finally coming,” a voice said.

  Denise looked around. “Who are you?”

  “It’s me, Sahar,” a woman standing in front of her said.

  It took a moment, but Denise recognized Sahar by her green eyes. The cat had taken human form and the laser geisha cat toy weapon was now a real laser. The human Sahar appeared to be in her late twenties. Dew’s plan to integrate cat DNA into her future descendants was apparently possible in this world, wherever or whenever it was.

  This Sahar was dressed in some type of white jumpsuit. She was standing next to Dew’s father, Marlow, who hadn’t aged from the image on the picture Denise had once seen on Dew’s mantle. Didn’t he die a few years ago?

  There was also an old native woman in traditional Navajo garb sitting in a wheelchair. “Jean Dark,” the woman said, introducing herself. Denise could see the resemblance to her mother Jane.

  “I knew you before you were born,” Denise said.

  The old woman nodded. “My mother said great things about you.”

  “She was probably the best lawyer I ever knew,” Denise replied.

  “How do you like our place?” Sahar asked. “It just came on the market, and we snapped it up right as the world is coming to an end.”

  She was apparently a couple with the resurrected Marlow. That must be a story for another time.

  “It doesn’t smell as bad as when Dew lived here,” Denise said. She scanned the area. They were in the same house, Dew’s house, same planet even. But it was now covered by a transparent bubble that vibrated slightly. Was it a glass dome or an energy field?

  To the east, she could see the same Sandias, but there was some kind of cylinder on the summit, reminiscent of the water tower back in Lordsburg, but this tower was made of gold and glistened in the starlight. To the west, she could see Albuquerque, but a modern Albuquerque with a thousand-foot skyscraper anchoring the downtown.

  Jean Dark pointed to a hologram of Dew, looking well over a hundred years old. It was so lifelike, but Denise saw a death date of 2112 and the words, RIP, hovering below the hologram.

  “How did she die?” Denise asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Sahar said. “And not a happy one. But in the end, she did the right thing.”

  “You’re here,” a voice said. “You’re really here.” Denise recognized a very ancient, but spry Rita coming through the bathroom door. Rita had shrunk with age and w
as nearly Denise’ size.

  “And my brother?” Denise asked. “Your father?”

  Apparently, there was some kind of holographic projector in the room. Rita pressed an invisible button in the air and the hologram shifted to life-size image of Denny with a death date maybe ten years after his release from jail, but he looked thirty years older.

  “He got back on the drugs, relapsed,” Rita explained. “He was a lot more damaged than you thought, more damaged than we all knew.”

  The hologram showed a ravaged Denny lying on a deathbed. He looked worse than when Denise had first met him in jail, thinner and with deeper wrinkles.

  “I didn’t save him,” Denise said.

  “You gave him a chance, a life. He was there for me through high school,” Rita said. “He helped me get into college. You saved me.”

  “And me?” Denise asked.

  “You went away, but you’re here again,” Rita said. “Kinda.”

  It didn’t make sense, had she died and come back? It was too much to try to try to piece together.

  There was an explosion overhead.

  “They’re here,” Rita said. She pointed to the sky. “They’re finally here. And we’re ready for them, Auntie Denise. My grandmother, and the rest of them are coming back.”

  Denise was confused. “My mother? Jen Song?”

  “My other grandmother,” Rita said. “The colonel. Big Red Herring.”

  The shooting stars kept coming down like something out of a video game.

  “What’s going to happen?” Denise asked Rita.

  “We don’t know.” Rita pointed to a door. “But they do. They are the key to saving us.”

  The front door vanished and then reappeared after two more people entered, dressed in those metallic fashions. One male, one female, but it was hard to tell them apart. Some of their body parts looked robotic, but their faces were still human. They looked at Denise and smiled.