Shelter (48 page)

    "My father picked the name?" Meredith shook her head. "What guy? What are you talking about?"

    Kevin sighed. "When you were in iso, Merry, there was a guy singing a song on TV. Your father told me you always sang that song afterwards."

    "Oh. The guy in the blue cardigan." Please don't think it's funny when you want the ones you miss. They were on the Filbert steps now; Meredith welcomed the exertion. Step. Step. Step. Don't let Kevin see you cry.

    "Yeah. That one. He was famous last century—kids loved him, found him very comforting, which is why the hospital played that tape for CV kids. Anyway, your father figured you must have found him comforting too, since you kept singing that song, so he tracked it down. The guy's name was Fred. He had a TV show; kids loved it, even though most adults thought it was sappy. So when it was time to choose a name for the daycare center AI, that's the one your father picked."

    Merry swallowed. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? It's not exactly the happiest association."

    "Well, you heard Roberta. The kids love Fred. So does she. I'm sure Nicholas will too. He likes bats, remember? You can't force your neuroses on him, Merry. And anyway, now you'll be able to get more exercise. And do your volunteer work. So maybe Fred will be a blessing for you too."

    * * *

    Nicholas loved school. Kevin walked him there every morning, and Meredith picked him up every afternoon. Everyone but Merry seemed happy. Kevin became more affectionate again; Nicholas wet the bed less often. Merry was forced to concede, reluctantly, that maybe KinderkAIr had been the right choice, especially after Preston, during one of their rare conversations, assured her that there was no way for him to infiltrate the school. "The AI will not permit intrusion, Meredith, even from me. The staff must approve all visitors. But I do not understand why you are so concerned. I would like to spend more time with Nicholas. I hardly know him, and I know Theo well."

    Meredith felt a pang. Preston truly seemed to enjoy his virtual grandfatherhood, or whatever it was; what would you call his relationship to his wife's son by another man? But then again, who wouldn't enjoy Theo? "Daddy, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I just want Nicky to get better at relating to—to actual flesh-and-blood people, that's all. He already likes bots and computers. Now he needs to learn to get along with other humans."

    "I am legally human, Meredith."

    Her heart sank. "I know that. But you're not physically human. And that's the issue here. Nicholas's time in isolation—"

    "All right, Meredith. I cannot force a relationship upon you, or your son. But I am always here if you wish to speak to me."

    Don't I know it, she thought. Sometimes she wondered if she was wrong not to confide more in Preston. Perhaps he would be able to find some way to help Nicholas, some method that had escaped her. But she was afraid to trust him. He didn't love the boy the way she did; no one did, not even Kevin. Everyone else thought she should have left Nicholas in the hospital. And whatever Preston's legal status, she just couldn't see him as fully human.

    She was grimly aware of the irony. Most people who knew what Nicholas had done to Patty wouldn't see him as fully human, either. That's why they'd brainwipe him.

    But for the moment, Nicholas was acting more or less like a normal child. He came home with pictures for Meredith to put on the refrigerator, with more colds than he had ever had before—since now he was around a group of other children—and with cheerful snippets of stories about his day. "Today Berta made chocolate chip cookies." "Today Fred showed me how to play checkers." "Today Berta brought in leaves and Fred told us how they grow."

    Always Berta and Fred, Berta and Fred, as if there were no other children there at all. "What about the other kids?" Meredith asked. "What about Steven and Zillinth and Cindy and the other little boy, Nicholas? What's that other little boy's name? Benjamin? You play with them too, right?"

    He shrugged. "I like Berta and Fred better. I can talk to them."

    "Can't you talk to the other children?"

    He shrugged. "All they want to do is play."

    "You like to play, don't you?"

    "Not with them," he said, lifting his tiny chin. "I like to play with Berta and Fred. They like me. They tell good stories. Do you know The Hobbit, Mommy?"

    "Don't the other children like you?" Meredith asked, frowning. A good mother, she knew, would call the school and ask about this, request a conference. She wasn't going to. Even when she collected Nicholas after school—nearly every afternoon, whenever she didn't have to attend some CALM event instead—she hardly ever went inside. She waved at him through the window, and he'd come running to meet her. She knew Berta and Fred must think she was a hopeless snob; she didn't care. They'd call if there was trouble. Better to leave well enough alone.

    Nicholas pondered for a moment, and then said gravely, "Berta and Fred like me better. Do you know The Hobbit, Mommy?"

    "Sure," she said. "I read it when I was little. It's a great story. It's got dragons and treasure in it. Did Fred tell you that story?" She thought that The Hobbit was a bit advanced for four-year-olds, but no doubt Fred was telling them a watered-down version.

    "Yes," he said. "'In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.' "

    "Right," she said, startled as always by his memory. "And then what?"

    He sighed. "I don't know. Why does the Hobbit live in a hole, Mommy? Instead of in a house?"

    "Well, their holes are like houses, right? All snug and comfy? Isn't that the way the story goes?"

    "In the book. What about the real ones?"

    "The real ones?" Her heart sank. "Hobbits aren't real, Nicholas."

    "They aren't?"

    "No, they aren't. They're just a story."

    "Oh," he said, and sighed again. "All right. I thought they were real. Like the people you help on TV."

    Meredith made a face. "Those people are real, Nicholas. They're sick. Hobbits are make-believe."

    She wished the baggies were make-believe too. She hated her volunteer work even more than she hated sending Nicholas to school. The CALM people had crowed that someone as notoriously protective of her privacy as Meredith Walford-Lindgren was willing to make public appearances on behalf of the brainwiped; ScoopNet, little knowing how right they were, gushed about how motherhood had awakened previously untouched reserves of compassion in Meredith's heart. Meredith, playing the part, grimly wrote letters to politicians and made the obligatory smiling, chatty appearances on talk shows and newscasts. Inside she was terrified. If anyone ever finds out about Nicholas, they'll know exactly why I'm doing this. They'll know I'm a fake. The thought condensed into a core of dread she carried everywhere, the leaden conviction that this exhausting, draining charade was all that protected both her and Nicholas from annihilation. The more praise she received for her selfless activism, the more she felt like an imposter.

    And the people who knew her best had already seen through it. Kevin and Constance had both told her, with shrugs, that her hobbies were her business, but that this one seemed out of character. Matt was more blunt. He pulled her aside during one of her increasingly rare visits to Temple and said, "So, Merry, what's with this CALM thing?"

    "What?"

    "You hate this kind of work. You always did. You tried to do it when you were at Temple and it didn't work, so why—"

    "Matt, that was almost fifteen years ago! Give me some credit for being able to change!"

    "People don't change that much, not that way. I might believe it if you seemed happy, but you don't."

    "Matt, I'm fine. And if you'll forgive me for saying so, this is none of your business."

    He stepped back, looking troubled. "If you feel it's not my business, then it's not. I'm sorry. I was worried about you, that's all."

    "Don't. Don't be sorry, and don't worry. Everything's fine."

    "If you decide that it's my business after all, will you come talk to me?"

    "Of course," she said, and escaped.

    But he was right; she hadn't changed. To her mortification, she found most baggies completely loathsome, even harder to bear than Hortense had been. Their smell nauseated her; she found much of their speech completely incomprehensible, their tattered and dirty clothing repellant. I am a spoiled, intolerant bitch, she told herself as, struggling not to gag, she served hot lunches to baggies in city shelters. She forced herself to look each one in the eyes, no matter how crazed or blank the eyes were, no matter how filthy the face and matted the hair around it. This person is as much a child of the Goddess as I am. I know that. This person has a mother, somewhere. Goddess, help me be loving. Help me. Pretend it's Nicholas. Pretend it's Nicholas. All she gained from the exercise was the thoroughly bleak conviction that if Nicholas were ever brainwiped and she encountered him on the streets as a baggie, she'd flee, vomiting, in the opposite direction.

    Her media hosts continually asked her to bring Nicholas along to whatever event she was attending, but she steadfastly refused. She told them that Nicholas was too young to choose causes and activism, and that she wasn't going to push him into the public eye she'd tried to shelter him from. It was, for once, nearly the entire truth, underscored by her perpetual fear that if Nicholas was in public for too long, if someone took a picture at the wrong moment or asked the wrong question, his disturbance would be revealed. And how could she ask him to confront baggies? If she considered them repulsive, despite her most liberal beliefs and best intentions, how could she ask him to do otherwise? Instead, she used Nicholas to somewhat limit her appearances, and to flatly refuse any possibility of prolonged travel. She couldn't stay away from home overnight. She had to be there to tuck her son into bed. She had to be home each afternoon, whenever possible, to pick him up from school.

    * * *

    Parent-teacher day, the week after Nicholas's fifth birthday, came all too soon. Meredith dressed for the event as if for a wake; she couldn't just wave through the window this time. She had to go inside with Kevin and talk to Berta and Fred, and she dreaded what they'd surely say. Nicholas was antisocial, he was pathological, he was psychotic, he was a sick little boy. They haven't noticed, she told herself, surely they haven't noticed or they would have said something by now. We'd have gotten a call at home a long time ago, if they'd seen anything like what I've seen.

    The first thing she saw when she walked into the room was a large glass fish tank, with cedar chips and an exercise wheel in it, along one wall. Oh, no. Oh, no. Meredith froze, vaguely aware of Kevin in the background—"Oh, look, Merry, look at all the decorations the kids made, how cute"—and then jumped when she heard Roberta's voice inches from her ear.

    "What's wrong? You look as if you'vebeen struck by lightning."

    "Nothing," Meredith said quickly, forcing herself to look at Roberta instead of the glass tank. Nicholas never told me there were animals here. "Nothing. I, um, I just remembered I forgot something at the store."

    "Cedar chips?" Roberta said lightly. "So how's Bluebell adjusting to life away from her siblings?"

    Bluebell? I'm obviously supposed to know what she's talking about.

    Meredith felt sweat running down her neck, and sent up a brief prayer of thanksgiving to the Goddess that Kevin had wandered across the room to look at some of the children's artwork and hadn't heard Roberta's last comment. "Oh, just fine," she said, praying that Roberta wouldn't ask for details.

    "I'm glad. Nicholas was so happy when he got to take her home."

    Take her—? Meredith had picked Nicholas up after school almost every day, and he'd never brought home an animal. She never would have allowed him to bring home an animal. And Kevin surely would have said something if he'd given permission—wouldn't he? Change the subject, fast. "So how's Nicholas doing? He really seems to like it here."

    "We like having him here," Roberta said crisply. "He's still shy, but he seems to be coming along—oh, excuse me, I have to go say hello to another parent. I'll talk to you in a little while."

    "Sure," Meredith said. She felt dizzy. She hauled herself carefully and deliberately to the fish tank and looked in. Mice. Ten or twelve of them, by the looks of it. Of course. Cedar chips. And Nicholas had supposedly brought one home.

    "Ah, the famous mice," Kevin said, peering into the cage. She hadn't even heard his approach. "Cute."

    The famous mice? What was going on? How much did Kevin know? Merry's stomach knotted. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Roberta coming across the room toward them. Goddess. I've got to get him away from here and on to another topic, before that woman starts talking about Bluebell. "Ugh," she said. "I can't look at them anymore. Not after poor Patty. Did you see any of Nicholas's pictures over there?"

    "Yeah," Kevin said. "He did a really strange one of somebody living underground. "

    "The Hobbit," Meredith said, relieved that Nicholas hadn't drawn a butchered mouse. "He's obsessed with the Hobbit. Did it have furry feet?"

    "No," Kevin said, frowning. "It was sleeping on top of a recycling bin. And feeding pizza to a mouse."

    Named Bluebell, Meredith thought, just as Roberta appeared next to her elbow again and said, "Now, let's talk about Nicholas."

    * * *

    He was quite brilliant intellectually and his fine motor skills were far ahead of the other children's, even older ones (I could have told them that, Meredith thought, remembering Patty's neatly flayed carcass), but his social skills needed work. He was withdrawn and didn't interact with his peers, preferring the company of Roberta and Fred (I could have told them that, too, Meredith thought), and when he was forced into group situations he was rigid and defensive, anxious, unable to share or to initiate spontaneous play. "He's a little too orderly," Roberta said, "a little too obsessed with being neat and following the rules. When he doesn't know what the rules are, he panics."