Skinner Luce

by Patricia Ward

  “Fucked me up. They like to do that every once in a while, keep me in my place.”

  “That sucks.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  She sets down the box. There’s nowhere to sit. The couch is buried under a rumpled load of laundry, mostly bedding. The other armchair’s piled with books. He gestures impatiently for her to move stuff, but she finds a spot on the floor instead, her back against the wall. He asks what happened, and the story comes out haltingly, in fragments elicited by his questions. She tells him about Eden, what Theo did to himself, and how she got Dara-Lin out. She skips over the details of waking up at the Gate and how it’s left her feeling, because it’s too raw, and she’d never find the right words, anyway. “And here I am,” she shrugs, winding down. “I have to go back in less than twenty-four hours. It’s unreal.”

  “You call home yet?”

  She shakes her head. In response to his surprised look, she leans over, rummages in the box for the charger she packed at the apartment. He watches as she plugs in her cell phone near his chair, waits for it to kick to life. As she expected, voice mail is full, all calls from home. She hands the phone over.

  He listens a few minutes, then hands it back. “Seems to me, you need to call your mother.”

  “And say what?” She leaves the phone to charge, returns to her spot on the floor. “It’s been days. They think I’m dead. I came here because I wanted you to help with a story. But—”

  “But what?”

  “I’m just so fucking tired of it.” She bends over her crossed legs, pushes her hands through her hair, pressing against her temples. “It’s just too much.”

  “Can’t say I know how it feels,” he admits. “You’ll adjust.”

  Adjust. She could scream. Maybe it’s the boost, she wonders, but it isn’t. This is the same old shit she’s been facing for years. The lies. The apologies. Never measuring up. “I dunnow, I keep thinking, maybe it’s better like this. Just let them think I’m dead.”

  He cocks an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”

  “You did the loan, right?”

  “Went through yesterday. This is fucked up, Lucy. Have you considered what it’ll do to her? Jesus, you know how I felt when I thought you were dead?”

  Lucy’s momentarily tongue-tied. How he felt. “I’m just trying to figure out the right thing to do.”

  “Huh. Well, that isn’t it.”

  “You don’t understand,” she retorts. “I told them things were changing, and instead it’ll just be worse. Sentries get hardly any time off, even in summer. It’ll be the same old, ‘Sorry, Ma, I can’t come after all.’ ‘Sorry, Ma, I meant to call, but work got in the way.’ All I do is disappoint her, all the time.”

  “So what? That’s what mothers are for.”

  “The point is,” she says, gritting her teeth at his weak joke, “it was supposed to be finished. I wanted to go back to school—make up for everything—” The words catch on themselves, and she digs her fingernails into her palms hard. “I thought I could finally show them I’m not—a fake.”

  He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Their whole world is a fake, you want to talk that way. You’re the one living in reality. You’re the one protecting them from it, actually, especially now. Did you think of that?”

  “Fuck it,” she snaps. “Just forget it.”

  She stares hard across the floor, clenched around herself like a fist. It’s dusty. There’s a can under the couch. She’s got a wicked headache coming on. It’s all too much, and every time there’s a moment where she thinks she can sort it out, instead it’s like she’s getting slowly crushed under a ton of concrete.

  She hears him mutter in discomfort as he gets up. He drags an ottoman over, sits down in front of her. He leans forward, pushes her hair out of her face, tucks it behind her ear. She shakes her head a little, and the hair falls back over her eyes.

  He says, “You need to pull yourself together. You need to think about your mother.”

  Ain’t no serv ever had a ma, the words float up from the past. She tightens her arms around her knees. She watches through her hair his fingers lightly drumming his leg as he waits. There’s the smell of his sweaty robe and dried blood and the noise of his labored breathing, likely due to the ribs Sina cracked. And now Sina’s gone, and so much has happened, and here she is huddled up under Bedrosian’s stare.

  She peeks up, and the pity in his sad-dog eyes makes her want to cry, and that makes her want to smack him. She straightens a little, tucks her fists between her knees. “Fine,” she says.

  “O.K.,” he says slowly, waiting for more.

  “I need a better story. I don’t want them thinking all that stuff anymore.”

  He shrugs assent. “That’s no problem.”

  “And you have to be the one to tell them, in person, so they can’t possibly think I’m making it up.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m a very good liar, better than you, even.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You’re sure you did the loan? Because I don’t get paid much, I don’t think.”

  He lifts his hands, as in, enough already. “I did the loan.”

  There is a pause.

  “Come on, get up,” he reaches out and gives her knee a shake. “And be nice. You can kill me with your pinkie now.”

  This is somewhat true. She manages a small smile. “Don’t you forget it.”

  “I’ll take a shower, then we go,” he says.

  HE PUSHES OPEN THE glass entrance doors, steps aside to let her out. It’s dusk, and the ice in the trees glitters like crystals in the failing light. She still has the ampule in her pocket, she realizes as they walk around to the car. She can’t feel it there, it’s so tiny, but she’s aware of its presence in the darkness of her pocket, that near invisible point of light.

  They buckle and he switches on the engine, flooding the cabin with noise and the faint scent of gas. The radio’s on a news station, low murmur of voices. She props herself up a little to dig around in her pocket. Carefully withdraws the ampule and unfolds her hand over the console, so he can see.

  “I found it at Eden,” she whispers. “It’s part of a grab.”

  His eyes lift to meet hers. In them she sees the biggest sadness, like all the world is coming apart. “What’re you going to do with it?” he says.

  Lucy’s fingers slowly close back around the ampule. She leans back. The slice of fire within now burning a hole, it feels like, right through her flesh and bone. She stares out the window at the darkening street. “Maybe sometime, during a Service, if there’s someone who needs it,” she says.

  “There’s always someone.”

  “Yes,” she agrees.

  He reverses out of the driveway. The car rolls down the hill, the city a splendid silhouette against the orange sky. Lucy turns up the radio a little. It’s going to snow again tonight, with more expected on the coast. It’s good she’ll be home to shovel. Lucy carefully places the ampule in the empty cup holder, drawing a worried glance from Bedrosian, but it merely rolls around a little. She flips open her barely charged phone and dials Eva, leans back and closes her eyes. She counts the rings, imagining Eva getting up from her chair and making her way down the hall to the telephone stand, the cats rushing around her ankles as she walks.