Back to Jet again. He's returning to his roots, and is about to get a nice birthday surprise.
This chapter is written by Tian Ning.
Jet Black and all Bebop characters do not belong to us, but all original characters belong to Tian Ning.
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New Toronto
Time doesn't stand still. Jet squinted through the glare of the Hammerhead's dirty windshield at the settlement emerging from the fog below. At first light, they had left the Bebop in a sheltered berth in old Toronto's dilapidated harbor, paid the fee, and fled as quickly as possible from the depressing sight of the ruined city. Twenty minutes later, they were circling the land about a hundred kilometers west. And as he scanned Toronto's successor nestled on the uneven terrain below the Niagara escarpment, Alisa's words came back to him.
It seemed much longer than sixteen years since he had last seen the New Toronto skyline, if that was what you could call the view he remembered. Back then there was little to see but a great swath of stark, weed-covered humps marking the underground dwellings. Huddled against the cliffs, those shelters had been dug hastily and later shored up by refugees of the apocalyptic destruction of old Toronto and its suburbs. Though it offered more protection from the unpredictable barrage of space debris than the flat glacier plane, the region had suffered its own catastrophic losses. The forests and old orchards, once the economic mainstay of the locals, had withered and died in the unending winter the gate accident had made. More than a decade and a half ago, when Jet had taken his last look back through the window of the transport bound for Mars, he'd seen nothing but jagged tusks of rotting deadwood thrusting up at him. Now, as they made their final approach, he could see even through the fog that the New Toronto below them was not the one he remembered.
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"Go left," Andrew yelled over the engines from behind Jet's seat as they taxied. "The Computer Center parking lot's right over there. You can use my dad's faculty spot. He won't get in for a couple hours yet."
The corner of Jet's mouth turned upward. "He finally got tenure, huh?"
Andrew snorted. "Nine years ago!"
Jet gave Andrew a slow take over his shoulder. "Nine" he murmured, then straightened and looked ahead. "No way."
He rolled along well-groomed runways to a concrete structure jutting from the sod like some ancient, half-buried plow. Andrew guided him to the space labeled "T. RedCrow." The last whine of the Hammerhead's engines stilled, and he greeted the quiet with some relief.
As he popped open the cockpit, an icy blast sucked in and cut through his threadbare denims and old plaid flannel shirt. "Man!" Jet stood up, crossed his arms and tucked his chin against the cold. "You going to be warm enough, Andrew?"
"I'm not cold," he said, crawling out of the cramped space behind the pilot's seat. "I'm used to it." He handed Jet the worn leather coat and Russian fur hat he'd been holding on his folded knees. "But here's your stuff." He scrambled out onto the wing step and dropped to the gravel. "The ATM's on the way to the library," he said, dusting his hands on his thighs, "I'll show you where. Come on. The library opens in about ten minutes. I have a lot of work to do before my sister gets here."
Jet released the long breath he'd been holding and stared down at the boy with mild amusement. "At least you haven't changed."
Andrew rolled his eyes slightly. "Come on."
Jet walked silently alongside the boy, who seemed as comfortable with the surroundings as he himself felt disoriented. The air was at once strange and familiar; not the cold, lifeless air of space, this was alive with the scents of pine and soil. The cold taste of it stole his breath and made him a bit light-headed with nostalgia. Funny how smells could do that when everything looked so different. Where scant, scruffy grass and seedlings had once struggled towards the dim sunlight, now there were maples and aspens lining the walks and reaching far over his head. The spruce and pines bristling over vague outlines of the old underground campus buildings were even bigger.
"I barely even recognize the place," Jet said quietly to himself, then addressed Andrew, strolling at his elbow. "When I was here, no one believed the trees would ever grow."
The boy shrugged. "The meteors are falling closer to the equator now," he said. "Mostly hitting open ocean. So the dust is finally starting to settle, especially above 45 degrees north and south. That means a little less rain and snow, but more sun. And there's still plenty of water up this way, which is good for the new plantings." He waved his arm to the northwest. "If you think this is something, you should see how the woods in the hills have grown."
Jet halted. "The hills? You mean to tell me the trees are growing back on their own?" He took two long strides to catch up with Andrew, who hadn't missed a step.
"Never took ecology, eh?" said Andrew. "Once the dust settled and the sun came back, the plants came out of nowhere. Professor Hennig in Environmental Engineering got a big grant for a thirty-year reforestation project. Past fifteen years he's headed a big team of biology and environmental engineering faculty and grad students whose main job is figuring out how to keep the trees healthy and growing as fast as they can. Right around when I was born, they inoculated a bunch of plots in the hills with mycorrhizae so they'd" he glanced up at Jet and rephrased, "uhused a special fungus that help them grow. The trees really shot up after that. They've been setting seed, and we've got pioneer understory plants growing up all over the hills. The native stuff is starting to come back."
Jet stared up at the canopy flickering overhead and grinned. "You're scary, Andrew."
"What, because I care about our investment?" He shrugged again. "You ought to be glad."
Jet shook his head and looked back at the ground as they trudged along. If I'd had as much faith in this place as you have, he thought, I might never have left. But maybe you're right, Andrew. You've always been a hundred-year-old man in a boy's body. Maybe you see something the rest of us don't.
Andrew stopped and pointed. "It's right down that walk. I'll wait for you."
It took Jet a few minutes to remember the codes. Account balance. From the ATM's shelter, he glanced out at Andrew, who was idly kicking a sycamore capsule around with his toe. Even though it was Andrew, he was still surprised that a boy so young would be sensitive enough to keep a discreet distance while his chauffeur tapped into an ancient bank account that probably carried a negative balance. He sighed, glad he'd at least been able to give the boy a decent breakfast back at the Bebop. The machine whirred and spat out a slip of paper. Almost afraid to look, Jet squinted at it with one eye closed. He stared for a moment, then opened both eyes.
Would you like to make another transaction? the screen asked. Damn straight, he thought grimly. This is no time for stupid jokes. Account balance, he punched again. The slip came more quickly this time, and the amount was the same.
"Okay, joke's over," Jet growled. "Let's see you keep it up when I ask you to deliver the goods." He flipped his cash card out of his wallet and jammed it into the slot. Withdrawal. 50,000 Woolongs. He punched the keys a little too hard, and sent a challenging smirk up at the dark eye of the closed circuit security recorder. The machine whirred busily for a while, and he gave a satisfied grunt, thinking he'd forced it to admit its error. At last the machine gave two electronic chirps, and spat the card back out at him. Jet snatched it, pressed his fingertip to its fingerprint authorization pad, and stared in shock as the new total on his card winked up at him. He stood unmoving, half-wondering if the card might suddenly burst into flames. "Whathell?"
The machine was sliding him another receipt. He ripped it out of the slot and glared at it. The quantity printed on it was exactly fifty-thousand Woolongs less than before, but the withdrawal had barely nicked the total. Slowly, he slid the cash card into his wallet, and turned to look at Andrew. The boy was still kicking the brown seed pod around the sidewalk, but glanced up to see Jet's eyes on him.
"Orchards have been doing pretty well, eh?" he said.
Jet's jaw dropped momentarily, but he quickly snapped his mouth shut. "Seems that way."
The two walked on in silence. It was only when Andrew turned down the walk leading to the underground library that Jet spoke. "Andrew."
"Sir?"
He stared down at the boy, not exactly sure of what he wanted to ask. "What's going on?" The question sounded lame, even to him. "I haven't heard anything about the orchards doing well until this minute. When I left, the trees were nothing but dying stumps. What the hell is going on?"
Andrew shrugged. "Just because you didn't think they'd grow didn't mean you were right. My grandfather promised yours that his family wouldn't give up on the trees. And my dad still thinks you were nuts to offer us seventy percent of the profits, just for taking care of the land when you went offworld to be a cop. You know as well as anyone what real, Earth-grown fruit sells for out there. If you think your account is impressive, you should see the RedCrows'."
Jet blinked, but found nothing to say.
"You might want to go up there, Running Rock." Andrew's voice was suddenly as calm as his grandfather's. "It's changed."
"Maybe I will."
"Well, then we both have something to keep us busy. See you around, eh?"
Andrew scuffed down the walk, heaved open the heavy oak and copper doors, and disappeared into the dark. Jet stood unmoving, gazing at the old, familiar entry. He took a few tentative steps closer to the door, and raised his face to the bronze coat-of-arms overhead. Engraved on it was the university's motto, Velut arborum aevo. Tantum Nobis Creditum. May the trees thrive. So much has been entrusted to us.
Below the coat of arms was emblazoned the year the university had been established, 2028, and a list of fifteen names. He had heard the story so many times as a boy. How only seven years after the gate accident, those fifteen men and women had refused to accept that the technological arrogance of one corporation would consign all of humanity to a primitive state of mere survival.
Through the tenuous threads of the Internet they had solicited engineers, architects, and builders from around the broken world to come to this place and help build their vision of the future. They had taken the ideals and motto of the old, destroyed University of Toronto at Missisauga and in this new place had resurrected it, the world's first university established after the gate accident. Even those who had expressed grudging admiration for the idea had never believed it could succeed. But here it stood, forty-four years later, and from all appearances, thriving as well as the trees. Sixteen years ago, he'd left this place, practically dusting his hands with relief and never wanting to return. But suddenly, for a scant moment, he felt a small surge of pride that he had once been part of this.
He stared blankly at the names, and though he tried not to read them, the second name blazed out at him. Cyril Black. A wave of melancholy washed through him. He looked up at the maple branches, where a few frosted, red leaves still clung. "Hey, Granddad," he said quietly. "I don't know if you're there. But if you are, I'm also not sure I ever thanked you enough."
He dug in his pocket for the last receipt, uncrumpled it, and studied each number. The account was right. The dateDecember 3. He blinked again, and a rueful smile spread slowly across his face. "Son of a gun," he whispered. He stuffed the paper back into his pocket, and lifted his head. "Not a bad birthday present."
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Banking over the hills, Jet felt vaguely drunk with an odd mixture of homesickness and disbelief at the changes below. It had taken three or four passes before he'd been able to locate the ravine where, decades ago, his grandfather had used some of the ample forest deadwood to build his log cabin bunker right into the cliffs. Jet had grown up there, had known every rock and runoff, but he had not been able to recognize it under the waving mass of young evergreens.
He decided against landing near any of the habitations spreading outward from the town. It wasn't likely that anyone would be on the lookout for him or his craft here, but better not to take chances. He cast about for a clearing near the foothills. After what Andrew had told him, he was loathe to set down anywhere he might disturb the new saplings.
The closest clearing big enough to land the Hammerhead was about ten kilometers west of the college town and just south of the hills. As he approached, he glanced down and saw among the trees a familiar settlement spreading northward from the campus. Once the university had started doing well, enterprising merchants had come to settle, figuring if anyone had money to spend in these hard times, it would be kids whose parents could afford to send them to the University of New Toronto. Back in his own college days, the line of taverns and stores below had been the only place anyone had dared to build above ground. Because dead trees were plentiful after the gate accident, and as much as a tourist attraction as anything else, most of the places had been built to resemble rugged log cabins of the late 1800's. But each was little more than an entryway built over an underground bunker that housed the main space of each business. No one was foolish enough to take unreasonable chances with a financial venture so risky to begin with. But as Jet peered down at the cabins, he quickly counted at least three times as many as he remembered. Maybe it hadn't been as big a risk as some had feared.
Even at this early hour, blue plumes trailed from the chimneys. He could almost smell the burning wood and taste the grill smoke as the memories of dusk outings to those taverns came rushing back. With those bittersweet memories came a renewed sense of his most recent losses. It seemed as if his whole life had been nothing but a series of painful partings. The first of them had been here, in New Toronto. Almost against his will, his eyes roved the horizon. He could not see the rise that marked the hospital from his position, but the blinking tower beacon that marked its position was hard to miss. He forced his eyes and mind away, unwilling to sully the experience of visiting the woods, and banked the Hammerhead towards the clearing.
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If he had been lost from the air, he found it even harder to get his bearings walking through the woods. If not for a few familiar ravines and rocky outcroppings, he might never have steered himself in the right direction. But he finally found the dirt road that led to the old bunker. He wasn't surprised to find the path well maintained, since the orchards obviously were being tended. But it still felt strange--in a good way--to see it lined with thick stands of firs, pines and dormant hardwoods.
Though his wounded leg kept him from hiking at full speed, he soon shed his heavy coat and hat and draped them over his shoulder. Sunlight flashed through the canopy. The scent of pines filled his head. His mind was blissfully empty. The only animals he saw were a few magpies noisily arguing over some morsel one had found. The rest was silence, the wind across his ears, and the quiet crunch of dead leaves under his boots.
At last, he turned off the road and up the path to his old home. He tried to steel himself for whatever emotions might assail him. But when he finally laid eyes on the place, he found he still wasn't quite prepared.
He stopped short at the sight of the heavy wooden door built into the cliffside, then strode to within twenty yards of it. He dropped his coat and hat into the dust, and stood, hands spread at his sides, as if the door were some sort of altar. The breeze died, and all became so still that the tinnitus in his own ears became a roar. He felt disembodied, his legs and feet floating, his head loose on his shoulders.
The oldest of the fruit trees, the ones his grandfather had first used to graft new seedlings and create his orchard, still bordered the clearing in front of the bunker. He walked close, spread his right hand against the chilly bark of oldest pear tree, and fingered the lichens crusted there. The branches were bare, as were those of the six cherry trees. The four gnarled apple trees, though nearly leafless, still bore a few frostbitten, wrinkled-looking fruit. Considering the price of real fruit, he wondered why even those hadn't been harvested, even if only by trespassers.
Almost reluctantly, he turned his eyes to the door. He wondered whether he should try to jimmy the lock, or just turn away now. Then he ambled to the front step.
When he tentatively pressed his thumb to the heavy, brass latch, he was momentarily shocked to feel it click and give way. He drew his hand away from the door as it swung ajar, and rapped it with his knuckles.
"Yo!" he cocked his head and called into the darkness. "Anyone home?"
He waited, then pushed the door open. It swung wide without so much as a creak. "Hello" the word died in his throat as the mid-morning sun filtered past him and lit a sight that hurled him back far more than sixteen years.
It seemed unchanged. The walls, shored up with huge fir beams and lined with meticulously joined split logs, looked freshly oiled and polished. The woolen rugs laid over the flagstone were as colorful as on those winter nights when he had spread himself there and listened to the stories the fireplace hummed. He stood on the raised wooden landing and surveyed the dim shapes in the living room a few steps below him. He swung the door so only a few inches let in the sunlight, and descended into the room. Slowly, he turned to face the old stone fireplace to the right of the entryway, and then went to stand before it. A long moment passed before he let out a long, silent sigh. He dropped to one knee before the hearth, wincing as he flexed his wounded thigh. He stared for a while before slowly reaching out to touch the edges of the stones with his right hand. Even in the dim light, he recognized each of them, their shapes, their dun, red and grey veins. The individual personalities his child self had unconsciously assigned each stone peered hauntingly out at him. And for just for this moment, the Jet Black who had lived here so long ago woke up, let the familiar touches and smells wash through his head and bring him back home.
A long-nosed butane lighter was propped against the stones. It was full, and lit on the first strike. He doubted the generator was primed, but he didn't want to start it and ruin the silence, anyway. The lighter would do.
Its faint halo wavered ahead of him as he meandered back through the hall and into the kitchen. The long, mirrored tunnel of one of granddad's skylights brought in enough daylight for him to see, once his eyes adjusted. He found a nearly-spent candle there, lit it, and waited as the flame grew. Smooth, stone countertops shone dully in the faint light. He ran a hand along them, and feathered his fingers against the perfectly sanded maple cabinets Granddad had made. He opened one, found tins of flour, coffee and tea. He opened the coffee tin, stuck his nose in and breathed deeply. It was fresh, and the smell that flushed up through his sinuses drew him even deeper into the past. How long he had been standing there when the candle sputtered and brought him back to his senses, he did not know. But he picked it up and carried it back through the hallway.
He passed by the hall closet door and, almost as an afterthought, paused and plucked it open. A couple of dark, faux leather cases were propped there. One was Granddad's old guitar case. The other, dimly lit by the candle's flame, was his own. He breathed another silent sigh through his half-open mouth, and shook his head. Slowly, he pulled the case out, sat on the floor, lay it across his knees, and stared long before opening it. He was already so enveloped by the past that even the musty, metallic smell could not deepen his nostalgia. He lifted his old tenor sax from its dark blue velvet nest, riffled the fingerpads, tongued a tentative blast through the mouthpiece, then set it down and picked up the rusted Sucrets tin that held his reeds. He pushed them around with a finger until he found his best, slipped it onto his tongue, and snapped the tin shut.
Something else caught his eye, a dusty shine in the corner of the closet. An old, gold-foil cardboard box. He knew what it held. Gently, he set the sax and its case to the side, and reached into the closet again. The box slid easily from under a small stack of scrapbooks. He needed more light. Still sucking the reed and staring at the lid of the box, he scooped up the candle and continued down the dark hallway to the stairs.
Half a flight up, he peered through a small, portal carved through the sandstone. It overlooked the kitchen, and from this vantage, he could see the table and chairs on the other side of the kitchen pass-through window. On that seventh step, a living force seemed to push him down on one knee. Almost without realizing it, he had spun around and sat down on the step in that same position he had so often taken when eavesdropping on the adults sitting at the kitchen table. The smell of granddad's pipe, the faint whiff of the single malt, the rustling of papers as the old man worked there--he smelled and heard them again. And then, without warning, voices came back to him, as real as the day they had spoken nearly three decades ago. All at once, he was nine years old again, perched on that step, his cheek pressed against the cold, stone wall. They were talking about him.
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"You understand, don't you?" It was his father's voice, almost plaintive. "I've been dragging him around the solar system for three years now. He's learned faster than most adults would about piloting and repairing the ship. But a transport pilot's life isn't good for a growing boy."
"I don't know." It was granddad's thick, Scots brogue, quiet and masterful. "I agree that he needs more schooling than what he can get out in space with you. But this is a working farm. A boy his age will be in the way, and may be at risk out here."
"Not Jet," countered his father. "If I can tell you one thing about him it's that you won't have any trouble getting him to shoulder his share of the chores. He's good with machines, even at his age. He'll be working alongside your best field hands in no time."
"He'd do better to stay out of their way."
"Not likely." His father's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "He tries so hard to please. It's almostunnatural. He's underfoot all the time, trying to do everything himself. Always trying to take care of everything."
"Ach," it was his grandmother's voice, deep and sad. "Er ist genau wie dieEva."
"Yes, I know he's got that from his mother. And I hear what you're saying, Gabriel Taggart" said Cyril. "But it's a great deal you're asking. I'm sixty-two years old now, and Halina is nearly sixty. I'm still department chair at the U, and Halina has her hands full trying to run the orchards while I'm working there."
"The orchards!" Gabriel almost snorted. "They're not coming back, Cyril."
The quiet clink of glass on glass and the gurgle of poured whiskey softly punctuated the conversation.
"That sounds like a challenge, Boy." Cyril's voice was suddenly cold. "For a man who can't even stay in one place long enough to marry the mother of his own son, I'd say you talk a bit too much about things that last a long time past one man's life. About things you'll never understand."
"Cyril" his grandmother's voice was soothing, and Jet could almost see her put a hand on her husband's arm. "Flying space barge ist not home for so little boy. Ich wille ihm¨ubernehmen. Ach bitte, mein Hertz."
There was a long, aching silence. Jet envisioned his father and grandfather sitting across the table from each other, arms crossed against their chests, glaring at one another.
"Cyril," pleaded his grandmother quietly.
"For you, Halina," Cyril relented. "I'll do it for you. Not for this irresponsible rogue."
Gabriel let out an audible sigh, and his voice became uncharacteristically meek. "You're doing the right thing by the boy, Cyril," he said. "You know as well as I do that living in space isn't healthy for him. He's too smart. His life will be wasted if he stays with me at his age."
"I'll expect you to still be his financial support, Gabe," said Cyril. "You're not to abandon your own son."
"I love the boy," Gabe's voice almost seemed to quaver. "Of course I'd never abandon him. This is as hard for me as"
"as it was for you to be off gallivanting on Mars while his mother was here, dying."
"That's not fair." Gabriel's voice was brittle. "No one expected her to go so quickly. I was on my way back when"
"We've been over this before," Cyril interrupted. "Enough times, I think."
"I took the boy and raised him after Eva died," Gabriel pressed, unwilling to let the comment pass. "I love my son. I've taken care of him alone for three years. He's a fine boy, and won't disappoint you."
"Don't push your luck," said Cyril. "I've agreed to take him on, for Halina's sake. But now you'll have a hard thing to do tomorrow."
A moment of silence. Then Gabriel spoke again, very quietly. "I'll tell him."
"That you will," agreed Cyril. "First thing. The sooner he gets used to the idea, the better."
"Do you think he'll be upset?" His father seemed to be directing the question to the gentle Halina. "It's justI can't manage. It's too much. Taking care of him and holding down my job. He'sin the way."
Adult Jet felt the icy spear race through him as if it were all happening again. He tightly shut his eyes. A long silence passed before his grandfather spoke.
"Little Cyril will have a fine place to"
"Jet," interrupted his father, his voice now as bold as ever. "He's called Jet now. He likes that better than Cyril. You know that."
"Right. Jet, then," his grandfather growled at that small slap at his own name. "But I don't want you to think we're doing this for you. We're doing it for the boy. For Eva's memory. He's our flesh and blood. And he's better off here with us than learning his values from the likes of you."
"He could have done worse than being with me," Gabriel said mildly. Now that he had won his goal, he had lost interest in arguing.
"And despite what you think," Cyril didn't acknowledge Gabriel's self defense, "The land is starting to come back. It'll be a good place for a boy to grow up."
"I hope so."
Again, silence. The soft clink of ice cubes whirling repetitively against glass.
"You'll tell him in the morning, then." said Cyril Black. It wasn't a question.
"Yes. I'll tell him," his father's voice echoed in Jet's head. "I'll tell him"
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But Gabriel Taggart hadn't spoken to his son the next morning. At sunrise, his bed had been empty, and he was gone. Jet's pressed his closed eyes into a scowl. It didn't matter. He didn't care any more that he'd never seen his father again. It no longer mattered to him that his father hadn't had the courage--after three years as a father-son piloting team--to say a last goodbye.
He worked the saxophone reed against his tongue for a moment, then abruptly stood and mounted the stairs, following the pale sunbeam the upstairs skylights drew in. He looked down on the expansive living room below the landing, his hand gliding almost reverently along the protective railing. Through the open bedroom doors to his right, he could see that the beds were made, and all was as tidy as when his grandmother had been in charge. The furniture had been moved around a bit, but the familiarity of the rooms hadn't changed.
The last one had been his room. He wandered in, staring up at the skylight, then scanning all four corners. He folded his knees and dropped to his haunches on the edge of the bed, holding the gold box gingerly. The Pale rays from above caught the dust particles he had raised, and made them wink at the edge of his vision. When he finally lifted the lid, it seemed right that the first face that gazed up at him was his mother's.
It was the graduation portrait taken when she'd received her nursing degree. Light brown waves curled out from under her mortar board and framed the smooth lines of her face. The brilliant blue eyes were discomfittingly like the ones he met in the mirror each morning, except that hers smiled. His mother's smile had always been real, always filling her eyes. He marveled at that for a moment. Why was it that none of the women he met smiled that way? Their lips would turn upward, but their eyes always remained distant, even cold. A smile like his mother's seemed so rare in a woman. Just the memory of that smile made it easy for him to understand how even a seasoned transport pilot like his father, who had never let himself get tied down before, had finally let his heart be captured by this woman, even if he'd never gotten around to actually marrying her.
Jet almost had to force himself to flip past that first photograph. There was his old fraternity picture, with himself, a head taller than all the others, standing in the back row next to Tom RedCrow. He laughed softly. Did I really have that much hair? he thought. Check out the soul patch! His smile widened. "What a geek!"
One after another, the photos softly gleamed up at him. He found his team portrait in which he posed, leaning forward on one knee, one broad, long-fingered hand splayed across the football on his thigh. "God, how corny." He grinned. Then a snapshot his granddad had taken during a Concert Jazz Band performance. There he was in the middle row, bent forward over his sax, hat pulled low over his eyes. He shook his head in amazement and laughed again. Maybe time does stand still.
Deeper in the box, the photos were older. There was Gabriel Taggart, a wild grin spread across his angular face. It looked as if he'd glanced up from the newborn son nestled in the crook of his arm just long enough for the photo to be snapped. The huge, long-fingered hand of his other arm was wrapped around Eva's shoulder, and she smiled up at him adoringly. There was that smile again.
The next one froze under his hand. A boy, not more than six years old, was standing beside that beautiful woman who had been his mother. But her face wasn't the one in the graduation photo. The eyes were still that haunting, pale blue, but they were sunken in a thin, pinched face half hidden by the few lank strands of hair left on her head. She had tried valiantly to brush them into place for the photo, but they could not hide her sickness. The boy's hand was on the arm of his mother's wheelchair, and he stared, unsmiling, at the camera.
Jet's head tilted back, almost of its own accord, and he found himself staring up, mouth agape, into the distant skylight. He dropped the pile of photographs to cover that last one. But it was too late to stop the memory.
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He felt his grandmother's hands between his shoulder blades, pressing him forward. "Nah, Cyril," she was saying. "Geh doch schon hinein, mein Schatz. Deine Mama will mit Dir sprechen. Hab' keine Angst."
It was hard to focus. Could that thin, wasted form under the sheets be his mother? A great, looping mass of tubes and wires seemed to sprout from her. But as he came closer, her eyes opened, and the face softened into the one he knew and loved so well. She seemed tired, and somehow not completely in control of herself.
"Cyril," she whispered. Her voice was slurred.
"Jet," he heard himself say. "Dad says to call me Jet. I like that better."
"Okay, Jet." The ashen face folded into a smile. "I like it, too." Eva's sunken eyes flickered up above his head, signaling to his grandmother. He felt two soft pats on his shoulder, then felt the older woman's warm, substantial presence pull away and leave him alone with his mother, her daughter.
"When are you coming home?" he heard himself ask petulantly. "It's boring staying with granddad and grandma."
"Soon," she said. "I'll come home soon." She closed her eyes. "Jet?"
"What."
"Will you do something for me?"
He shifted on his feet, wondering what this might be about. "I guess."
"Take care of your father," she said softly. She said nothing for such a long time that Jet wondered if she had fallen asleep. Then suddenly, "I couldn't take care of him as much as he needed me to. Maybe that's why he left us alone so much."
"When you come home, we'll both take care of him, okay Mom?"
"Like always."
What she had said suddenly sank in. "Did Dad leave because we weren't taking care of him?" It seemed impossible. His mother was always looking after everyone but herself.
"No" the word was little more than a sigh. "Well. Not really. His job takes him away. But when he's here, if we take really good care of him, then maybe he won't go away any more."
Jet frowned. "He'll stay with us? He'll come live with us for good? If we take care of him?"
She rolled her head and faced the ceiling. "I didn't look after you and your father enough," she said feebly, as if to someone else.
Jet chewed on this for a while, not sure he understood. "But I won't ever go away, Mom."
"I know you won't, Jet," she said. "You've always been so good." She turned her eyes to him again, and reached out a hand to touch his hair. There was almost no substance to her fingers. Her eyes shone like wet glass. "You can do this. You can take care of him." She almost seemed to be arguing with herself. "You're just a baby. But you're such a smart boy. You can learn from what I did wrong. If you take good care of him, Gabe will stay with you."
Jet began to feel a little frantic. "I don't get it." But maybe he did get it. Was she was saying that if someone left you alone, it was because you hadn't taken good enough care of them? He guessed it wasn't the first time she'd said that to him. Was she telling him, in her quiet way, that he hadn't done his job? But she had just said she wouldn't leave him. She wouldn't leave him. He'd always been good, and worked hard. She wouldn't leave him. Right?
Eva settled back, her color not much different from the sheets'. "I love you, Jet."
Jet cocked his head, puzzled and alarmed. "Me too, Mom."
She took an odd breath and her eyes shot open. All at once, an alarm sounded. Above the bed, a small, red light began flashing. Almost instantly, the room was swarming with huge bodies, pushing him aside, moving frantically, urgently saying things he didn't understand. His grandmother's hands were on his shoulders, her arms around his waist, lifting him up and swinging him around so he couldn't see. Her body was heaving against his, making strange, harsh sounds. She was crushing him against her, her face hot and wet against his, uttering uncontrollable, animal-like sobs that were almost screams. He pushed away, terrified, and found himself set free as his grandmother collapsed against the wall.
He still was not sure what was happening, but the only thing he could think to do was run back to the door of his mother's hospital room. He couldn't see her, surrounded by big people in white, moving frantically, shouting things to one another over the scream of electronic noises. In that moment, he suddenly knew what it was like to be completely, utterly alone. And somehow--the idea seared into him--it was his fault.
~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~
Jet expelled a great, harsh breath, trying to still the queasy, sick feeling the memory gave him. "Stupid kid," he snorted, the saxophone reed still sticking out of the edge of his taut mouth. "Of course it wasn't your fault. Idiot." But as much as his rational, adult mind knew it, some small, poisoned part of him could not accept it. He shut the box, cast it onto the bed, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to wearily rub his face.
On his way down the stairs, he nearly tripped on the saxophone in the dim light. He uttered a mild curse, and bent to pick it up. He clamped the wet reed into place, and rested the mouthpiece against his teeth. The first riff--it seemed to bypass his brain and come directly from his fingers--was the first few bars of Something I Dreamed Last Night. The notes were breathy, and ended in a painful squawk.
"No chops," he muttered, slid the reed guard in place, and set the saxophone gently back into its case. Part of him was wishing desperately that he had not come here, while another part wanted to claw his nails into the walls and never leave. What had made him think he could visit this place without awakening those unbearable memories?
He blew out the candle as soon as the light from the front door, still barely ajar, was close enough that he could make his way back through the living room. He paused, just for a moment, to gaze at the log walls, begging something there--anything--to soothe his reawakened pain. He hadn't even looked towards the southern end of the long living room into the darkened corner away from the fireplace. But he looked now. And there it was, unchanged.
On a raised platform stood five, straight-backed pine chairs. The seat of each was draped with a square of red-checked, gingham cotton. Two brass and walnut music stands stood erect against the wall where a big, knotted wool sculpture--he could make out the familiar oranges and browns even in the dim light--was hung to baffle the sound of the music the old men had made there every Thursday night. Even the sawed-off log, the one old Murphy had used to prop his foot when he fiddled, squatted there in the midst of the chairs.
"Holy crap" Jet breathed. He felt the dark grip release his stomach even as the small hairs prickled along the back of his neck. "I don't believe it." He moved towards the corner, and almost laughed when yet another memory stirred up: a tune coming alive and growing louder in his ears. The sight of them came next. There was Murphy, sawing away on his fiddle, and next to him, skinny old Ned, his chin pointed straight out as he stood erect beside his stand up bass. Alex Dunn leaned languidly against his chair, motionless except for the spidery hands on his banjo and an occasional swivel of his long neck as he watched his fellow musicians. Frank Budge flat-fingered his tinwhistle, his back so straight against his chair that his buttocks stuck out the back of it. And there was his own grandfather, Cyril Black, swaying in time and deftly picking the tune on his guitar. He could hear the song, a fast slip-jig, as real and cheery as when they'd played on those firelit nights. His grandmother sat by the fireplace sewing and tapping her foot while he himself sat cross-legged in front of the platform, mesmerized by the tight, merry sound of the band. Granddad gave a small "whup!" to signal his mates that it was the last bar, and then those bright, blue eyes turned to him and he heard his grandfather's voice. "What'll it be then, Jet? What'll we play next?"
"Play my favorite one!" he would always say. And without a word, the five old men would glance at each other, grin, nod and seamlessly sail into the sad, lilting ballad whose name he did not know, but whose every note he could play in his head. He stared into the darkness as the music wrapped around him. When the last note faded away, he blinked and swallowed hard, drawing back the hot wetness that swelled in his eyes.
"Why do the good things have to die?" he snapped in a whisper. "It's always the good things." His shoulders sagged a bit as he turned away from that corner and walked towards the dust-speckled sunbeam streaming in through the doorway.
His gaze stayed low, tracing the ground as he stepped out into the light and turned around to close the door. Nor did he raise his eyes when a terrible, familiar sound greeted him as the door clicked shut. He froze, his hand still on the latch, and grimaced slightly. It hadn't been just one rifle cocking, but many. How could he have been so careless?
An odd noise followed. The wet stutter of a horse's snort. He dropped his fingers from the latch and raised both hands. Slowly, he turned and lifted his eyes to meet those of eight stern-faced men on horseback, their rifle barrels trained squarely on his head.