Wrob did this, I told myself, looking at the damage the fire had left behind. But I was the one who gave him a “reason,” fucked though it might be—the one who kicked him when he was down then laughed at him. The one who let him think this might be the only way left to win.
Which meant, in the end . . . this was basically my fault. Most, if not all of it; in thought, if not in deed.
“Wrob Barney do this?” Simon asked me sidelong, mimicking my own thoughts uncannily, as his parents arrived. I shook my head.
“No,” I replied, just to hear it out loud. “I did, if anybody.”
I knew he wanted me to elaborate, but there wasn’t time—we immediately switched into meet-and-greet mode instead, his mom hugging me while his dad patted her back, eyes meeting mine, so forgiving I abruptly wanted to weep. Simon explained Clark’s situation, or what little we knew about it, till he got to a point where Mom could comfortably take over, allowing us to move backwards, bending our heads together once more.
“Listen, hon,” Simon began, quiet enough that hopefully none of them would overhear, “I really do get this has been a pretty bad day for you, in more ways than one—but considering it hasn’t exactly been all wine and roses for me either, before you go ahead and take nebulous responsibility for all the drama in our lives, you maybe need to explain exactly what you just said.”
I looked at him for a long moment, feeling a sort of existential despair at the very prospect. After which I pulled myself together, nodded, and replied, “You’re right. It’s . . . past time, really.”
He blinked, possibly surprised by the ease with which I’d agreed with him. He nodded, jerking his head back toward the family group. “You take a john break, splash some water on your face or something—I’ll beg some alone time, meet you wherever you want after that. What’s your preference, Starbucks in here or that Tim’s outside, on the corner?”
“Let’s say Tim’s. We need a bit of distance, probably, if I’m going to tell you everything.”
“All right.” Shrewdly: “And are you?”
“. . . I’ll try.”
“Good enough,” he said.
I had my stuff with me, of course, in preparation for that presentation I was now never going to give: the Mr. and Mrs. Whitcomb material, all ready for Jan’s perusal, while Safie supplied the visual component. So I spread it out on the table in front of Simon instead, and walked him through what we’d discovered thus far. The basics took about twenty minutes, by which time Safie—who I’d texted from the SickKids’ bathroom—had arrived, and my husband (poor Simon, as dead Iris Dunlopp W. would no doubt have called him) was starting to look more than a trifle existentially bitch-slapped.
“None of this can possibly be true, though,” he protested. I just smiled a little grimly.
“That’s exactly what I said, and more than just the once,” I replied.
Simon opened his mouth again, but was distracted when his phone beeped. While he checked his text messages, Safie and I exchanged glances, one of her eyebrows hiking in a weird mixture of sympathy and humour—we were both used to this shit by now, at least halfway, which was kind of a scary idea in itself.
“Who is it?” I asked as Simon looked back up. His face had gone blank, white, apparently even more gobsmacked than before.
“Mom—Lee, I mean. Your mom. Says the doctor had an update on those tests.”
“Great. And?”
“Um, well, the stuff he threw up? They say it was dirt, and, like, some sort of bulb—a flower, probably. Those can be poisonous, right?”
“Dirt, like, soil? Earth?” He nodded. “Simon, that’s crazy; Clark doesn’t eat that sort of shit, ever, not even when other kids do. I mean, we can barely get him to eat real food.”
“I know.”
“And flower bulbs? Where the hell would he have found those, in our neighbourhood, our building? In the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know, Lois. Not from the ghost of Mrs. Whitcomb, though, I’m pretty damn willing to bet, or some kind of fucking not-so-dead pagan god—”
“Lady Midday,” Safie put in, helpfully.
I hissed at her to keep quiet, almost automatically, but it was too late; Simon exploded. “Holy Christ, what’s she supposed to be, Lord Voldemort?” he snapped, then caught himself, brought his voice down as people at neighbouring tables glanced curiously our way. “Lois, c’mon, here! You think all the blood vessels in your eyes broke because the Poludnice put her hand on you in your sleep? Think you had a seizure because you saw something you shouldn’t have, something that doesn’t even show up on regular film?”
“Not that time,” I agreed. “But what we saw on Clark’s iPad . . . that looked fairly visible to me. You and Mom sure thought so, anyways.”
“That was a glitch, Lois—bent light, or something. Clark fucking around. It reminded you of this other thing, you freaked out, end of story.”
“Don’t you think I’d love to think that? But what about what happened to Clark, then—his seizure or whatever. A stomach full of mud and tubers, all over our bed sheets and floor—that’s not an optical illusion, exactly.”
“Not exactly, no, but it’s not what you’re saying it is, either. ’Cause it damn well can’t be.”