“But that hat will have to go,” Colene said—even as the woman removed it. Provos located a kerchief, and tied that around her graying hair; it seemed that she did not feel comfortable with a naked head. She looked reasonably normal now.
Then Colene heard something. A vehicle—and it was pulling into the drive! It was her mother’s car. “We’ve got to get out of here!” she cried. “Before Mom comes in!”
But Provos refused to be rushed. She seemed unconcerned about discovery. Colene reminded herself again that the woman remembered the future; she must know it was going to be all right.
Still, there was a protocol to honor. “I’ve got to face Mom first,” Colene said firmly, and hurried to the stairs.
Colene was there in the living room, watching the TV, when her mother came in. Just as it always had been. She would simply pretend that nothing had happened, and see how it played. She hadn’t thought about this aspect of her return before.
It didn’t work. “Colene!” her mother screamed, dropping her packages. Then she swayed, seeming about to faint.
Colene jumped up and got to her before she fell. She got her mother to the couch, where they both collapsed. “I’m okay, Mom,” she said consolingly.
Her mother clutched her, crying. She reminded Colene of herself, in Bumshed with her things and their sudden memories. Suddenly her mother seemed ten years older, and frail, and Colene just wanted to hold her and reassure her. But somehow that wasn’t what came out.
“You never checked Bumshed,” she said reprovingly. “I left a note.”
“We did!” her mother sobbed. “Your note—it said you were fine, and had somewhere to go. But it didn’t say where or why!”
“But nothing was touched,” Colene protested.
Her mother gazed at her with a tear-ravaged face. “We were afraid you—there was a knife—all your things were—we didn’t dare—”
“You thought I—” Colene started. She had never even hinted to her folks about her suicidal nature. She thought she had fooled them completely.
“That somebody had come and taken you from the shed,” her mother said. “Made you leave a note. That you were raped or dead—oh, thank God it wasn’t so!”
They didn’t know about the rape scene either. “It wasn’t so,” Colene agreed. “I just had somewhere to go, Mom. It wasn’t as if it would matter much here. You have your beverage and Dad has his social life.” She was speaking euphemistically. Her mother got drunk almost every evening, and her father had a mistress who monopolized his free time. As families went, theirs was mostly charade.
“Not matter! Oh, my dear, I haven’t had a drink since we lost you! And your father has been home—”
Then, seeing Colene’s disbelief, she got up and urged her to the kitchen. She opened the cupboards. There were no bottles there.
“You really—?” Colene asked, almost daring to believe.
“My precious child, we did not have an ideal marriage, but we both loved you. That was the one thing we had in common. Didn’t you know?”
Colene felt the tears starting again. “No.”
Now it was her mother who held her. “You were always so smart, so good, so well adjusted, despite everything. You were our joy. Only somehow we got distracted by things. When you left, it shocked us to our senses—too late.”
Good? Well adjusted? Colene had gone through a series of shocks, beginning with the rape, and had sought to kill herself. Her exterior life had become an act, covering her suicidal depression. She had cut her wrists daily and watched them bleed, daring herself to do it, to die. She had been on the verge of it when Darius had made the Virtual Mode and given her a chance to find him.
“But nothing changed!” Colene protested. “You lived the same way without me as you had with me. I didn’t make any difference.” There was one of the fundamental bitternesses of her existence.
“Everything changed,” her mother said. “We—we were so afraid of what might have happened that we denied it. We didn’t report you as a runaway, we didn’t make any fuss, we just told the school that you had gone to visit relatives in Alaska, that an emergency had come up there and they needed you, and no one questioned it. But between ourselves we denied it. We didn’t touch anything of yours. We put the note back and pretended you were still with us. That you were up in your room, or out in your shed, or at school, or visiting a friend down the street. Because if we ever admitted it, then it might become real, and we couldn’t face that. We—we pretended to be the family everyone always thought we were, with you included, and neither of us dared to break the spell—in case you did come back—so as not to drive you away again—”
Colene was appalled. Her departure had reformed her parents! They had covered for her, and acted perfectly, just in the hope of having her back. All the rest had disappeared when she went. They really did love her!
“Now you are back,” her mother said. “Our prayers have been answered! We will be all the things we never were before, so you can have a family worthy of you. We had to believe that you would return!”
How was she to tell them that she had not come to stay? Colene had just walked into a guilt trip she had never anticipated.
So she avoided the issue. “I—have a friend,” she said.
Provos appeared. There was no common language, but Provos had an unerring memory of what was appropriate, and there were no slips. “She—I traveled to a, a strange place,” Colene said. “And met several people, and right now I’m traveling with Provos. We have to—to do something here.” It was all awkward, but it didn’t seem to matter. Provos, an old woman, was a reassuring presence. No one could believe that Provos would ever be involved in anything oddball. In fact, soon Provos was helping to fix supper.
Then the other car pulled in. Soon Colene’s father entered the house.
“Baby!” he cried, spying Colene. There was relief and gladness in his face, and tears shone in his eyes.
In a moment it was clear that what her mother had said was true. The family had become normal, cleaning up its act in a hurry. All because she had gone. What was she to make of that?
Try as she might to be cynical, she could not deny it: she did love her parents. Maybe that was what had made her hold back, and never quite actually kill herself. Maybe she had known, deep down, that there was after all a foundation, however dilapidated the superstructure.
They had supper together, making a good impression on Provos, and on each other. Colene explained that she would have to go into town tomorrow with Provos, to get something done, and this was not challenged. They didn’t want to do anything to drive her away.
The guilt was growing. Colene had given her family no consideration at all, deeming it a lost cause. Now she saw how wrong she had been. But there was still no way she could stay here. Not in this reality.
They watched TV after supper. Provos was fascinated by this too, as she was by the purely mechanical cooking and sanitary facilities.
Provos was satisfied to sleep on a mat on the floor of Colene’s room. There just seemed to be no problems with her presence, or Colene’s return.
Colene lay awake. All this seemed too good to be true. Had she missed something? Was this some kind of a dream? Should she try to penetrate through to the reality?
Then she remembered the guilt, and was morbidly reassured. It was too good to be true—because she was the fly in the ointment. She was the one who made it untrue.
Damn! She wished it had been otherwise. She felt like a clod of horse manure.
NEXT day they were ready to get down to business. Colene had enough money for a taxi, and called to have one come. It wasn’t as if she would have any use for money later. Provos was intrigued by the bills and coins, which were not her type of money.