Four: A Barrel Of Merlot

"George Clarence Genet-York, you are under arrest. You stand accused of…"

I had debated with myself over the best way to expose George. Would it be better to set someone else up to reveal his crimes, and feign shock and dismay with everyone else, or should I pretend to discover them myself, undergoing a horrific internal struggle as family feeling warred with conscience, before going to Edward and making a reluctant report?

In the end, it was a combination of the two. I had chosen Norfolk for his financial acumen. He spotted that something stank with the A.L.-Bion accounts—and then brought his findings to me. Together, Norfolk, Lovell and I, plus four of A.L.-Bion's staff accountants, uncovered the whole thing. George had done a good job of covering up his depredations, he had shifted funds around from account to account, making sure there was enough to cover salaries and day-to-day operations, but when several billion global currency units are missing, it leaves a large hole.

We worked four extra hours every evening for a week. Well, they worked and I acted as if I were working. My part had all been done beforehand. I had to hold myself back from 'discovering' too much too quickly, but I filled in by occasionally burying my face in my hands and pretending to grieve. When George's senior accountant, Elias Morton-Bishop, stopped by one evening and found us at it, I was grim and secretive, while dropping vague but curiously specific hints as to what was going on. I gave him a severe warning, in no uncertain terms, that he was not to tell my brothers. Especially not Ed.

Of course he told Edward immediately.

Edward had both George and me in front of him first thing the next morning, just as I had planned.

George looked like crap and smelled like whiskey. Edward wasn't looking any too good himself. He had inherited the heart disease that killed our father before he turned sixty. I would never have to worry about that myself, now that I had an artificial one, but Edward was a good Imagist and wouldn't have surgery. He was reasonably fit for a man of forty-six, but I was counting on his living another seven to ten years.

That morning Ed looked grey and bruised. He looked from George to me and back again.

"All right. What the hell's going on?" he asked.

I looked at George and gave him thirty-five seconds to say something. He didn't. I spoke.

"Last week, my assistant found some irregularities in our financial data. I didn't think anything of it at first, but I wanted to clear it up, so he and I looked a little closer. We found more errors. I got together a few people from the finance office, and we put in some overtime. The picture got worse and worse. Ed, A.L.-Bion isn't in the black. We're in the red so deep it's like we're sunk in a barrel full of merlot."

George remained silent. Ed turned even greyer. "How bad is it?" he asked.

"I can't be sure," I said, even though I knew just how much, within a thousand globals, "but—," and I told him.

"George. You've been my CFO for ten years. How did this happen?"

"Potato chips," said George. "You think you'll just have a couple, then you have a handful, then you're half-way through the bag and you think you'll just take a couple more, and quit. Before you know it, there's nothing left but salty crumbs in the bottom of the bag," and he fell silent again. The silence spread as Edward thought about what that statement implied.

"Ed, when you made him CFO, he was young, he was only twenty-six. Too young. I know I can't defend him, but—," I said.

"He was my—our—brother. And what were you doing at twenty-six? Getting that bastard's rights bill passed. This is a betrayal so big… And not just me. My family. His family. Every member of all the Directorship families. Our mother. Our father's memory and that of every Genet-York—."

"Will you shut up? And think about what you did to me! I didn't want the job. I never wanted the job. And you!" George turned on me. "I'd swear you came into this world to ruin my life. They hardly ever gave me a goddamn thought after you were born. Every year, it just got worse. I bet you think you had it rough. You were three times as smart as me, and you were challenged. There was not one single thing I could do that was half as good as you, except the things you couldn't do at all, so what were they worth? And then you come back and inside of six months—you finished me off."

Another blind spot. I had never looked at things from George's point of view. Or Edward's. Was George a tender plant that had to be nurtured in the greenhouse of A.L.-Bion, or he would perish? I filed the idea away for later thought.

"Is there anything that can be done?" Ed ignored George, who went for the liquor cabinet, and addressed me.

"I don't know," I said, feigning ignorance. "If George has the money stashed away somewhere, or tied up in something negotiable?" I knew that for years, all that he had taken had gone toward paying interest on previous illicit loans.

"No," mumbled George, through his whisky fog.

Ed looked older and sicker. "Can it be concealed?"

"Not for much longer. A.L.-Bion is a house of cards, at this point," I told him.

"What now? Do we declare bankruptcy?"

"We aren't quite bankrupt yet, and we may be able to avoid it. Isn't the structure of A.L.-Bion intended to create a familial bond? Spread out among the Directorship families, there should be enough assets to cover the deficit. My advice is, call an emergency meeting, and explain everything. For generations, A.L.-Bion has supported them; now they are called upon to support A.L.-Bion."

"Damn, but they'll hate it. And George?"

"I—don't know. I wish to God it had been anyone but him. How I got through the audit, I'll never know, except that I tried to see it as only numbers. I am so sorry," I said. I thank God for my acting ability.

"No, Richard. You did what had to be done. You've been a true brother to me. George—George hasn't been a true brother to either of us."

Once George had been arrested—I have some beautiful footage of him doing the 'perp walk'—booked and released on bond, the family atmosphere was strained and tense. Strained as a jar of baby food and tense as the suspension cables of an old fashioned bridge.

I would have enjoyed the situation more if I hadn't had to deal with it close up. The scenario didn't play out in real life the way I had imagined it would. Everybody involved had their own take on matters.

My mother's opinion was that I should, since I was such a high-powered lawyer, defend George.

Flabbergasted. I had never before been flabbergasted in my life, and I may never be again, but that did it. Apart from the fact that a witness for the prosecution is not allowed to be the attorney for the defense, George wanted to plead not guilty.

Ed's response to the problem was to try to glue the family together. What we, all fifteen of us Genet-Yorks, needed, he thought, was a weekend at the old place on Gloster Bay, out away from it all, just like we used to when we were growing up. He conveniently forgot how very rare those weekends were.

This never fails to impress: We own an entire quarter of an acre of ground, with only one dwelling on it, for use only on the weekends, and a private boat. The taxes are horrendous. At that time, I owned a sixth of both properties, or one third of my father's half.

The plan was that we should go down to Gloster Bay on Saturday, spend that day out on the boat, overnight at the cabin, and then spend the next day in and around the area, revisiting our youth.

The trip down was bad enough; the kids were excited and spent the time yelling until they wore themselves out. Their fathers expected their mothers to handle them, and the mothers were inclined to agree to anything so long as it meant the kids weren't whining. I told myself that they weren't my kids.

My brothers and their wives had chosen to raise their children as we Genet-York brothers had been brought up, which was with minimal parental involvement and a succession of care-providers to do the hard work. I don't know why they bothered to have children at all, when they spent so little time with them and got so little joy out of them.

The kids had been torn away from their care providers and were expected to listen to, interact with, and obey the virtual strangers who'd given them life. The situation was a recipe for stress.

The Gloster Bay house had belonged to our grandfather; Dad had bought the boat. It had not been used much at all since his death, and Ed, who'd taken responsibility for it, had—not taken enough responsibility for it. When we got down to the marina on Saturday morning, it would not start.

How much trouble could it have been to arrange for someone to test it a week before and carry out any needed repairs? Surely not that much. One call would have been enough. I would have thought of it and carried it through if I'd been running the show. But Edward had not, nor had Elyse, and so fifteen Genet-Yorks were left to hang around the dock while the techs worked on it. On the grounds of family togetherness, the kids had been forcibly separated from their entertainment systems before we left the city, and were now going hyper or sullen as their natures dictated. Mother was sitting on one of the coolers of food, my brothers were huddled around the turbs watching the techs work, and the wives were leaning on the guard rails, having a bitching session.

Two or three hours, said the tech.

Screaming children. Sulking teens.

Somebody had to do something.

Why not me?

I whipped out my Powermod and asked for a list of nearby diversions.

No, not shopping…Formal gardens would be too formal…Amusement park? Too late in the season, it was closed. Ice cream parlor, creams made fresh on the premises? Not before lunch…

Nature center? Right on the other curve of the bay, in the state park. I could just see the shimmer of the park's containment dome from where I stood on the dock. It had three distinct ecozones, and it was set up for groups, with a picnic area, a learning center, and a gift shop. They had teacher and student interactive multi-media linkages available for rent. Jackpot!

"All right!" I clapped my hands. "Kids—we're going on an expedition to the Gloster Bay Nature Center. This is not up for argument or bargaining, so get your jackets. Mike, Ellie, grab a cooler and re-arrange things so we'll have our lunches. Ask your grandmother if she'll move, and ask nicely."

Grumbling from the peanut gallery.

"Here are the rules for the day. You will come along. There will be no pouting, no sulking, no swearing, and no complaining—unless you're actually in physical distress. You can think and feel however you please, but you will look and act bright, interested, and involved, even if you aren't any of those things. It will be good training for later in life.

"We will explore the park and the nature center's resources from the time we get there until 12:15, when we will, and not before then, visit the gift shop, where I will buy each of you two items that you want provided that one of them is a book appropriate for your age and reading ability. At 12:45, we will lunch in the picnic area. After lunch, if I feel that your collective behavior has been acceptable, I will take you to a place where they make ice cream with real milk and real fruit—."

I was drowned out by gasps and shrieks of excitement. I guess that old, old song was true—we all scream for ice cream. "Only if you're good! After that, we will return here. I will call ahead to see what's going on, and we'll wing it from there. Daenne, will you accompany me as co-pilot?"

"A nature center?" asked my wife. "With—things running around loose?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so."

"As you wish." How I disliked her. "Are the lunches sorted?"

"Uh-huh."

"Did anything alcoholic get included?" My brothers and their wives quietly ignored that stricture of Imagism, and I had been surprised to find that I, the only non-Imagist, was the most abstentious one in the family, after Mom.

"Um—maybe. I don't know…" said Mike. George, I knew, had started experimenting with alcohol when he was about Mike's age. You have to keep an eye on kids.

"Then make sure there isn't. I will be the only person along on this who's old enough to drink, and I won't want any of it. All right, troops! To the vehicle!"

As I herded the kids to the parking garage, I overheard Daenne say to her sister and Elyse, "He'll be right at home with all the bugs, spiders and snakes." The three of them laughed nastily.

That did not bode well. I very much wanted to go back and take it up with her, but… It was a question of priorities. I could get into an argument with Daenne almost any old time, but the kids were there waiting.

Daenne wasn't that important.

The Gloster Cliffs State Park was a fantastic idea. I rented a teacher's module for myself and student units for all the kids, even Jonathan, who was only four. So what if he lost it in a bog? I could afford to replace it. What mattered was that he would feel like part of the group. The programming on the student units adjusted itself to the individual's level of comprehension, so everybody could use them. They had analysis ports and built-in cameras, as well. The idea was that the students should roam freely around the park, taking digitals, sound and visuals both, of the plants, animals, rocks, and so forth, using the analysis ports to take mineral and genetic samples. I hoped that meant only leaves and found objects. I didn't want the kids hurting any live animals or messing with any dead ones. The units would identify their findings, and keep track of the data. My module compiled all their information, and—vital from my point of view—also tracked exactly where and how active they were.

I kept the youngest, Margali and Jonathan, George and Isabelle's kids, by me at all times. They were six and four respectively. The others I split into three teams of two each, Tom with Rick, Mike with Ed Jr, the two girls together, and sent them off.

The three envirozones were forest, meadow, and wetlands. It's very rare to come across so much undeveloped space, and what we have left is protected for the treasure it is. The kids were amazed by the openness of it all. I only hoped nobody turned out to be agoraphobic, and luckily for me, none of them were. It was early October, the colors were glorious, and the temperature was perfect.

The kids got really into the activity. Even the teens enjoyed themselves, although it took a little while before they warmed up to it. It helped that I was prepared to be enthusiastic about it, and I am, by consensus, the best uncle they have. Before long, I had teams dashing back and forth to tell me and each other, "You've gotta come see this!" "Eewww—gross!" "Look, it's beautiful!"

Margali, Jonathan and I wandered off into the woods, where we got to see and record white-tailed deer, box turtles, chipmunks, lots and lots of trees, blue jays, chickadees, and a small grey and white bird whose name made Margali giggle. She was just the right age to get a little thrill out of a seemingly naughty word.

"The module says it's a—," she mouthed the word, and covered her mouth with her hand.

"A what?" I asked.

"Umm—I can't say it."

"Why not? It's a titmouse."

Giggles escaped from behind her fingers. "Oh, Uncle Richard!" She scraped one forefinger over the other at me in a gesture older than time.

"What? Why's that so funny? It's what that bird is called. Titmouse. You can say it. It's easy."

More giggles, or perhaps I should say, titters, erupted from her. "No, I can't!"

"Why're you laughing? I don't see what's so funny…"

While we were learning that a particular bird was called a scarlet tanager, she suddenly asked me a very awkward question.

"Why are you sending our dad to jail?"

I'd been dreading this moment. Up ahead of us, Jonathan had turned over a rock and was watching the life under it scramble madly to get away from the light. I felt just like one of those creatures right then.

"Your dad may not be going to jail, we don't know that yet." Technically true, and kinder to hear. "It wouldn't be me who's sending him there. Anyway, you mean prison, not jail. A jail is where you go before trial. Prison is where you go after you're found guilty." Yes, I knew I sounded stupid and stuffy.

"Do you want him to go to prison?" Her eyes were filling up with tears. "He says you hate him. W-why do you hate him? Do you hate me?"

"Sweetheart." I knelt down beside her. "Don't cry. I don't hate you. As for hating your dad—. Families are complicated. Aren't you mad at Jonathan sometimes, and he at you? What about on the ride down, when you were dividing the marshmallows from your cereal?"

"The marshmallows?" she gulped down tears.

"Yes. You were sharing them out one-for-me-one-for-you, and he was eating his as fast as he got them, so when you were finished counting, he didn't have any left, and you had lots."

"Yes, and he started to howl, cause he didn't have any. Mom made me give him some of mine, and that wasn't fair. Mercy, she's our care-provider, she would've been fair. Jonathan's a little baby-brat."

The accused Jonathan looked up. "Am not," he protested. "You stink, Marga."

"You're the one who stinks," she rebutted. "You stink like dirty socks. You stink like the runny white stuff in the vegetable drawer."

Runny white stuff in the vegetable drawer? I was a little shocked to hear that good food was left to rot in my brother's family fridge.

"Mom stinks, too." Margali wasn't done complaining. "It wasn't fair! Ohhh. You mean that even though you're both grown up—."

"We still feel about each other like you do about Jonathan and your mom. Unfortunately, yes. Now. Suppose that your dad was the one in charge of the family's whole supply of marshmallows, and like Jonathan, ate not only his own, but a lot of everybody else's, in secret."

"Is that what he did? Only money, not marshmallows?"

"Exactly! You're very intelligent, Margali. What would Mercy do if Jonathan ate your marshmallows without asking?"

"Give him a time-out."

"Would you think that was fair and right?"

"I'd want to smack him."

"I can understand that. Would she let you?"

"No. She'd give me a time-out, too."

"Then you can understand me when I tell you that prison is the grown-up version of time-out." I may never have given a better explanation, in court or out, than I gave her then.

"Oh! I get it! But if—but if Dad goes to jail, I mean, to prison, he won't be home with us. Maybe not for years." Jonathan had abandoned his nature hunt to listen, solemnly and silently, to us.

No point in asking if they loved him, if they would miss him. Of course they did, and would. He was their father. He was part of the foundations of their world. My brother George was not a solid rock on which to build in safety; he was sand, inclined to abruptly move and drift, but he was theirs. Their mother might be gone, as well. Isabelle had signed where George had told her to sign. That was not good for these little ones, not good at all.

"I'm making you a promise. Both of you. We don't know what's going to happen. Your dad may be acquitted—which means he'll go free, but—." I was still kneeling, and I then gathered them both to me. "If he has to go to prison, you will have me. I won't be living with you, because I'm not married to your mom, but I will talk to you, clikgram you, message you every day. I'll do it several times a day if you need me."

I was getting cried on, both shoulders at once. "And you know I remember things, and I keep my promises."

"What did he do it for?" Margali wailed into my shoulder. "Why?"

I could not answer that.

We clung together for a few moments, until another group appeared on the trail. By then, it was a little past noon, so I led them back up to the visitor's center, where we whiled away a little time in the shop as the other six kids wandered in. I helped Margali choose a book for herself—one I remembered another intelligent six-year-old girl enjoying: Rascal, by Sterling North. "My best friend loved this when she was your age."

"Aunt Daenne? She doesn't like to read."

"No, not Daenne. My best friend is called Primavera Visconti."

"Is she all grown up now?"

"Yes."

"Does she have children?"

"No, not yet. She's not married, either, and she's a doctor who works in Australia, where she's trying to put the environment back the way it was."

"Ohhh! Does she get to work with plants and animals all day long?" The nature center had made an impact on my little niece.

"Yes. Some of them are microscopic, though."

"She's lucky. Umm—what are her favorite colors?"

"Yellow, blue, and green, but also red, orange, brown and purple. She likes all colors, really."

"But yellow, blue and green best?"

"Yes."

"What are your favorites, Uncle Richard?"

"Black and white. Now, what are you going to get for your second choice, since you have your book?"

"I don't know…" I turned to the task of helping her decide.

There was a bracelet there I would have like to buy for Primavera, with stones in strong warm colors and a polished ammonite, but we didn't have the sort of relationship where I could buy her jewelry. Yet. Getting the bracelet only to tuck it away in a drawer in the hope that someday I could give it to her seemed… deeply pathetic. There would never be a dearth of things to gift her with then, anyway. The other kids had gradually come in, all happy and excited, and we finished up in the shop on schedule, and went out to eat our lunches. All of us had a good appetite, with room to spare for ice cream.

It was after two when I got all of us back to the dock, full of good ice cream and contentment. The boat had been fixed for a couple of hours, but rather than cut our visit to the center short, Ed and I had agreed that he would come back and pick us up. I thought that he and the others had been just as glad to have some kid-free time on the boat, too.

As soon as I stepped on board, I thought, Uh-oh. It wasn't just the expressions on the faces of the adults; it was what happened to the kids. We were back in the emotional Maelstrom. I hadn't realized how negative the atmosphere was until then. It was like a small black hole, sucking every positive feeling into it. I watched and listened as Ed's children tried to share the pleasure and excitement of their morning with my brother and his wife, and were rebuffed with lukewarm interest. Elyse's "That's nice, dear," was not an invitation to share more.

Margali and Jonathan didn't even try to tell their parents about it. Their faces had slammed shut. I'd seen how open and happy they'd been, only moments before. Now they were trying to make themselves as small as possible.

I looked at George. Evidently he'd been drinking steadily since at least noon. Boats and alcohol do not, in my opinion, mix. And I did not like the way in which Margali and Jonathan watched his every move, as if he might explode at any moment.

What was going on in my brother's house? He had been a heavy drinker for years; had it been full-blown alcoholism? I had the distinct impression that this was not a new situation, that his children had been watching him very carefully for far longer than the week since George's exposure. What had he been like to live with? I was shamed by the realization that I had tracked his expenditures on alcohol and not thought deeply about what it had meant.

Yes, let him go to prison, I thought. Get him out of the place where his children have to live and breathe and grow. Some times no father at all is the preferable situation.

I helped Margali and Jon into their float vests, got into my own as we pulled away from the dock, and checked to make sure the other kids were wearing theirs.

I went forward to where Edward was steering, and saw he had on a stoic expression. "Ed, what's going on?"

"I think it's just as well you were off the boat for a couple of hours, Richard. Some things got said that you didn't need to hear."

"I can imagine."

"I took your part. For whatever that's worth."

"Thank you."

He was struggling with something. "You may have been wondering why I pushed for this weekend."

"Now that you mention it…."

"I wanted it for George's sake. I wanted him to remember what life was like before... Because what he said struck a chord. 'I didn't want the job.'" Edward quoted. "I never wanted mine. It was their idea, Mom's and Dad's. They pushed me into it, and I—didn't fight them. It wasn't as if I had any other plans. So here I am…" He shook his head.

It seemed like Ed had had about enough, and I wanted to think, so I left him and surveyed the other adult Genet-Yorks. Mother was reading an Imagist text, which boded ill. Her religion did not make her a happier person; studying it made her harsher and stiffer. Elyse and Daenne were browsing over an article on trends, and talking about the newly fashionable coyote furs, coyotes having been recently declared a vermin animal, legal to kill without penalty. Isabelle was gazing out over the water, in silence.

What had gone wrong with my family? What had I been blind to? It wasn't just George and his drinking. Whatever it was affected everyone. Clearly this wasn't a new state of affairs. I'd been seeing the traces of it for over a decade, but this was the first time I'd seen all of them together without care providers or entertainment systems, in a setting that threw them into direct contact, unbuffered. Away from these people, the kids had been so happy, so full of wonder, great to be around. My extended family was falling apart on its own.

My mother had come up behind me. She made me jump for once, instead of the other way around. "So you see it now," she spat. "You see what you've done to us."

I wanted to bite her head off verbally. The only way in which I was responsible for this situation was in exposing George. The little games I played with gifts were exactly that. Little. I was not to blame for the disharmony, the disunion between these husbands and wives, or their children. I turned to confront my mother in anger, but I caught myself. Margali's small solemn face was turned toward me.

What was the problem here? Negativity, division, self-centeredness. If I decided to get into an argument with Mom, I would only be adding to it, and reinforcing her opinion of me. I could instead choose to behave differently.

"Hey!" I raised my voice, and addressed the kids. "Do you remember what they said about indigenous species around the bay? I've got a scope here. Rick, you bought an analysis unit, didn't you? Let's get a water sample and try it out."

Distracting the kids was mutually beneficial; it distracted me, too. We spent a few hours bird watching, talking, playing with their new stuff, until George broke our peace. Margali opened Rascal, and vanished mentally into WWI-era America, emerging periodically to ask about things in the book that she'd never heard of. She was the sort of child who can never just sit and read. Her little hands were kept busy with something as she read.

"Uncle Richard?" Margali tugged at my sleeve, and handed me something. Two somethings. I looked at what she'd given me. Two short lengths of colorful braided cord, which I could not identify.

"They're friendship bracelets," she explained. "I made them, for you and your friend Primavera. See, my friend Odette and I learned how," she waved her arm, where a similar cord encircled her wrist, "and to make it right, you use two of your favorite colors and two of your friend's, and when you see it, you think of your friend. And she thinks of you. Um. I only know how to do four colors, not five, so I picked teal because it's blue and green both. Do you…think she'll like it?"

I took a closer look at the two cords, where black, yellow, white and teal wound around each other in a simple herringbone sort of pattern. There was a loop at one end and two strands to tie it at the other. "I think she'll love it. These are beautiful, Margali. Thank you. Will you help me put mine on?"

"Sure!" She flushed with pleasure, and her nimble fingers went to work.

When she was finished, I kissed her on the forehead, buttoned the other bracelet in my pocket, and said, "I'll send Primavera's to her on Monday, and I'll tell her all about today and who made this for her. Thank you again." I wound up giving Primavera a bracelet from that day, after all.

My bladder had been telling me that it was too full, and I got up to visit the head. I was returning when George called out, "Is that what's next, Richard? Is that how you're going to complete the ruin of my life?" He was not sober.

I stopped in my tracks, and turned to face him. He lurched toward me, and while some of his unsteadiness was caused by the movement of the boat, some of it was alcohol. "You're going to steal my—."

"George!" I said with force, but I tried to keep it quiet. "I'm not stealing anything from you. Now just—Isabelle, can you?" Calm him down, I meant to say, but she was not responding.

"Talking to you," blared George, "is a mistake. What I ought to do is pound the shit out of you."

"George!" I tried again. "All the kids are watching. Think about what you're doing." Elyse had gone for Ed, I saw. Everybody else was fixed on us. That scared shut-down look was back on the faces of Margali and Jonathan. They looked sick.

"You little prick!" snapped George, and took a swing at me.

George was about twenty centimeters taller than I was, and weighed about half again as much as I did, but he did not have muscles built up in three gravities worth of pressure, bones stronger than concrete, and a nano-processor handling his reflexes. Nor did he have almost three years worth of martial arts training, as I did. Good physical therapy, you see. I could have taken him apart and swabbed the deck with him. But I am not a bully.

I dodged his fist, but as I tried to get by him so I didn't have my back to the water, his belt buckle got caught in my float vest. His weight carried us over the side, into the chilly, turbid waters of the bay.

We sank, and sank fast. I was wearing a float vest, but George was not, and our combined weight was more than one vest alone could buoy up. He was fighting, too, and while yes, he was fighting to free himself and swim to the surface, he was also fighting me, while I struggled to slip out of the vest. I had a secret; I didn't need that vest as much as he did. I could breathe water. At least for a while.

I have artificial lungs, which can take in oxygen in conditions that would defeat living human lungs. Water is among those conditions.

We were still sinking, and a current was dragging us out to sea. I struck George right in the face, to make him stop thrashing in all directions. I must have got him right on the nose, as red bloomed around us in the water. Another wriggle, and I was loose. George shot to the surface, because of my float vest. He went up like a cork from a champagne bottle, and I was left to beat my way up.

Under laboratory conditions, which is to say, in nice, clean, pure, warm water that's oxygenated, a human being with artificial lungs can breathe for about an hour before they get tired. Water is heavy stuff, and pulling it in and pushing it back out is exhausting. It was taking so long… Minutes passed, as I fought the current.

I was not going to panic. I wasn't. I kicked and stroked. There was air up there, and dry blankets, hot showers and pulmonary clinicians with kind hands who would clean out the residue of this little adventure. It seemed an eternity since I had freed myself from George. More than five minutes, perhaps ten.

These were not laboratory conditions, and I was suffering. The water was cold and filthy; there was chemical sludge, dead fish, sewage, silt, fertilizer run-off, and a lot of nasty bacteria in it. I knew this for certain because of Rick's analysis unit, which had been edifying. The cold would send me into shock and the contaminants would coat the gas exchanges, gradually clogging them, suffocating me. They also tasted foul.

I had only a few minutes left before I would fail, I could tell. Being able to breathe water had a disadvantage; the water weighed me down. I broke the surface, and found I could not call for help; the water stifled my voice. I coughed up some, tried again, waved. Where was the boat? My eyes stung from the dirty water.

"There he is, there he is!" shouted Mike, and soon I was on the deck of our boat, where I hawked a couple of liters of water back into the bay, while someone wrapped a blanket around me. George was yammering, "You see! You see? He tried to kill me."

I hawked up another couple of liters, and looked at him. "Yeah. Right. And I decided to commit suicide so I could enjoy it even more. George, will you please grow up?"

Mother put an end to the fight. "George. You are behaving shamefully. Stop it. And Richard—."

I waited. What would she say?

"You are not fooling me."

I guess it would have been asking too much to ask her to be sympathetic. There was no way I could have survived fifteen minutes underwater, as I had, without violating the precepts of Imagism.

That cut the day short. After I had showered, flushed out my lungs with a few liters of drinking water, and talked to my local health care providers, I decided that I could wait until Monday to see a doctor. The weekend was not to be cut short; Edward had worked to patch things up, and it would have left the kids with a traumatic finish to the day stuck in their memories, had it all ended there. So I ate dinner and drank a lot of hot tea and made conversation.

Mother had absented herself for much of the evening to walk in the woods as she once had with Dad. I respected that. The sun porch was dear to me for the same reason, for the moment that he and had shared, when I had some hope…

George and I carefully avoided one another, and we got through the evening. I helped the kids roast marshmallows and put them together with chocolate and graham crackers. It wasn't a bad evening, and it gradually wound down to bedtime.

Our cabin there at the bay had six rooms, (four bedrooms, one and only one bathroom and toilet). I thought trying to fit fifteen into it was a horrible idea, and I like the old cabin. There was a perpetual line for the toilet, giving new meaning to the phrase, "not a pot to piss in". There were no pots. My family did not cook. We're not quite upper-upper-class enough for that. I organized the kids into washing and cleaning up in the kitchen, which relieved the bottleneck somewhat.

As regards the sleeping arrangements, you may be wondering where, if each of the married couples had a room and Mother shared with the oldest grand-daughter, Ellie, the other seven kids slept.

It was crowded, but the living room had fold-outs—the sofa could sleep three— there were a few cots, so the two sets of parents each had their youngest in with them, and the little utilities closet had a lumpy single with an ancient featherbed, that I remembered with nostalgic fondness. It was the warmest room, the featherbed made it very comfortable, and I just arranged myself so my own lumps fit into the bed's peculiarities.

I had to face the prospect of sharing a bedroom and bed with Daenne. Sex was unlikely under the circumstances. Too many people around and not enough soundproofing. But no: I was surprised, albeit pleased, at least on the physical level. We were quiet about it. Afterward, she wanted to talk.

"Richard—doesn't getting all of us together like this make you think about wanting to start our own family?"

It was almost as big a surprise as Mother's request that I defend George.

Where the hell did this come from?

"Well, no, because for the entire day, you showed absolutely no interest in any of the kids."

"I did, too!"

"I couldn't tell. You made no effort to talk to them, to do anything with them, to get to know them, and you were making nasty remarks about me only this morning. Now you want to bear my children?"

"What I said this morning?"

"That I'd be at home with the bugs and snakes."

"That was a joke!"

"It didn't sound like one from where I was standing." Why had I thought marrying this woman was a good idea?

"I meant I was joking with Issy and Elyse!"

"But I was meant to hear it."

"Do you always have to…"she began to snap at me, "…no, I'm sorry. You always do answer like that. You always pull apart every single little thing, and it's… just how you are."

She was trying to make peace. "But seeing all the kids, and you're so good with them…"she let it trail off.

"I think," I said carefully, "that this requires some discussion." I did not want to have a family with Daenne. I knew it was only a matter of time before this union disintegrated, and a child would be very permanent. Half an hour later, I was mad enough to take my pillow and go in search of somewhere else to sleep.

Through a series of carefully phrased questions, I had discovered that Daenne's idea of motherhood was essentially the same as the rest of my family—once you had a child, you turned it over to the care providers and went on with your own life. Except that you then had a pretty little doll to dress up and shop for. That was not my idea of parenthood.

There was no chance of any little birth control 'failures', though. I had decided, long before I ever had the chance to make a baby, that I wanted to have control of the process. I had a thermal bead implanted in my scrotum, where it not only imperceptibly kept the temperature too high for sperm motility, it also ensured I would never suffer from frostbite of the testicles. And the pre-nups had very harsh things to say about any child conceived with outside help. It could be grounds for an immediate divorce.

My feet took me to the utilities closet, where the lumpy single waited for me. Or so I thought. When I turned on the light, I woke Margali, who knuckled her eyes against the brightness of the light. "Uncle Richard?" she inquired sleepily. "What is it?"

"It's okay, Margali. Do you mind going and sharing with your Aunt Daenne, and letting me sleep here?"

"Why?"

"Well, I talk in my sleep, and when I have nightmares, I yell and thrash around. I don't like to keep her up." Margali didn't need to know that I had been fighting with Daenne.

"I'm sorry. Are there monsters in your dreams?"

"Sometimes."

"I like dreaming about monsters. Some of them…" She yawned and got up.

"Here, take your pillow and your robe." I handed them to her.

"Thank you." She stumbled out.

I got into the bed, which was not as comfortable as I remembered. The mattress had been replaced and the featherbed was gone. I made the best of it.

The fight had keyed me up too much for immediate sleep. I lay there and let my thoughts drift. In one thing, Daenne and I had actually been in accord; that day had made us both think about being parents some day. I had truly enjoyed the time I'd spent with the kids, and I resolved to treat the promise I had made to Margali and Jonathan as a sacred vow, which I have kept.

What might our children, Primavera's and mine, look like, be like, should I ever have that happiness? Probably bright-haired, bright-eyed and way too clever for their britches…It would be nice to bring my own family here, but first I would get an architect to add a bathroom. Or three. Of course, then she and I would share the big bedroom with the view of the water. That would be wonderful. I fell asleep eventually.

The weekend was curtailed after all. George had to go to the emergency room the next morning. He came down with pneumonia, amoebic dysentery, and hepatitis as a result of our swim. I didn't even come down with a sniffle. Germs know better than to mess with me.

A happy result of his illness was this: the attending physician diagnosed George's incipient cirrhosis of the liver while she was attending to his hepatitis and told him he had to stop drinking so heavily or he might die. He wisely (if uncharacteristically) chose to cut back drastically on the hard stuff.

George was thrown to the wolves. Isabelle escaped indictment by turning state's evidence, and then she escaped to the Coast, leaving their children behind with their grandmother. The Directorship families were furious with Ed for promoting George in the first place, but they rallied in defense of A.L.-Bion. I was named CFO, and accepted with a suitably heavy, sincere speech about how I would do everything in my power to restore A.L.-Bion to what it had been.

My mother was dissatisfied. She blamed me.

"I don't like it, Richard."

"Neither do I."

"Are you sure?"

We were engaged in Stare-Down again. I had forgotten how it made my head hurt.

"Mother. I did not commit those crimes! I did not set George up. He did it. He did it all. I did not tell Isabelle to take off, leaving Margali and Jonathan in your custody, either. All I did was find out what he was up to before everything collapsed. George is going to prison, yes! I don't expect you to thank me for that, but the least you can do is not accuse me of things I didn't and would never do." It was the truth. I suppose I could have warned George not to dig himself in, or told Edward, years before, but why?

She was silent a moment. "You are right. Yet I wish it wasn't you who found him out. It makes me wonder what else you may find, and about whom."

"I don't know what I may find. But no innocent person will find me singling them out." I kept my word on that, too.

"Good. I hope it may stay that way." She turned to go.

"Mother!" She stopped and looked at me. "What would it take to make you look at me with something other than contempt? To—to bless me with some maternal affection?"

"I don't know, Richard. I have asked God that, many times. He has never answered me."

"If you weren't tied up in your own aspect of God, you might be able to see Him in other places." Another perfect exit line I didn't use. I suppose I still wanted her to love me.

That's a hope I've given up now.

For good.

The whole process of going through indictment, trial, conviction, and sentencing took months. It always does. While I of course did not defend George, I did recommend a lawyer to him, and of course George ignored my advice. I think the natural reaction to my brother George is to pinch the bridge of one's nose and shake one's head. He was forced to sell his shares in the family boat and the house at Gloster Bay—they were the only property he had that was not already mortgaged. I bought them, and at rather more than fair market value, too.

Eventually George went to prison, and he's likely to stay there for the next twenty years. The facility where he's doing his time is one of those 'country club' white collar prisons, with swimming pools and tennis courts. A minimum security palace, lest you think he's suffering in a crumbling, rat-infested hole somewhere.

An unhappy side effect of George's exposure was the new atmosphere of distrust which now pervaded A.L.-Bion. It even extended to me, which was both unfair and unnecessary. I was saddled with an 'overseeing' director, whose job it was to keep an eye on what I was up to. I wasn't the only one— all the heads, Sales, Service, Personnel, Science, and Public Relations had a director breathing down their necks. The new policy did not add to the smooth and efficient running of things. In fact, it detracted from it, as all the departments had to keep their directors informed of, and in some cases educated up to understanding, what was going on in the department.

My burden's name was Richmond-Stanley. I knew him from those lovely home schooling years. Theodore Richmond-Stanley, who is now the Executive Director of A.L.-Bion. Old Stanley's only genetic child was Rejoice—the girl who died in a murder-suicide at fourteen—so he had adopted Theodore, his wife's son, and turned the Stanley directorship over to him. I didn't remember him with any warmth. He had been a peevish, whiny brat who'd been through too many of his mother's divorces.

He did indeed understand finance and accounting, but that was small consolation to me. I could not stand him.

I had been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, once I'd read his curriculum vitae and learned he had a half-decent brain and a fairly respectable education. His competence would have gone a long way toward reconciling me to his presence, but it didn't go far enough.

Our introductory meeting took place in the Four-Squared restaurant, under Edward's supervision. Ed meant well. He wanted the initial meeting to be a good one and the working relationship between Richmond and me to be a success. Elias Morton-Bishop was there, too. He was still the chief accountant under the CFO— George before, now me. I didn't want to keep a chief accountant who hadn't caught on to what George had done, and I would have fired him if I could. He was from a Directorship family, though, and I couldn't. He knew what I thought of him. I had expressed my misgivings to Ed, and Bishop had found out. I'd made an enemy of him. He would bear watching.

Any chance of an amiable relationship between Richmond and me was in danger before he said hello to me. The way he ordered his lunch injured the chance further, and by the time he asked me an offensive personal question over coffee, that chance was dead in the dust.

His suit was cheap and ugly. That was the first thing I noticed.

There is no crime in owning and wearing a cheap suit; even a cheap and ugly suit. A man may do so for any number of reasons. He may be too poor to afford a better one. Richmond wasn't broke. He may be so rich he doesn't give a damn. Richmond didn't have the money or the attitude. He may wear one so rarely the expense isn't worth it, or he may be indifferent to materialistic things. Richmond wore one every day and he was keenly aware of the consumer goods around him. That was the cue I picked up on—he had, and still has, a calculation program going in his head at all times. I could see him assessing the cost of everything—the watch I wore, the restaurant furnishings, the menu. He was obvious about it. Obvious to me, anyway.

Richmond was pathologically cheap. Such was my diagnosis, and later events proved me right. He mentally added up the cost of everything I was wearing—I saw him look, and I saw him finish his analysis. Admittedly, I was doing the same thing to him, but I did not permit my mouth to make even the slightest superior smirk, as his did. Not only was broadcasting his opinion rude, it was proof he wasn't as superior as he thought he was. I shook his hand anyway.

Then there was the next blow to our potential relationship: how he placed his lunch order. He was debating over his selection—soup, sandwich, or salad, the cheapskate's specials—when Edward announced that this lunch was on him. Then Richmond ordered the clonal lobster, one of the most expensive choices on the menu. I had several meals with him over the next six months, and he was definitely under socialized when it came to dining-out etiquette. If someone else was treating, he ordered lavishly. If he was paying for himself, he ordered frugally. If it was his turn to pick up the tab, and he couldn't get out of it, he steered the group to the cheapest restaurant that would be acceptable.

But the deciding factor that turned me against him, the death blow, was the question he asked me over the coffee, or in my case, tea. I'm sort of naturally caffeinated to begin with, so I avoid coffee.

He led up to it subtly. "I've heard a lot about your surgeries."

"Yes, I'm sure that subject gets talked about, A.L.-Bion being as Imagist as it is." I replied.

"The treatments must have been really thorough. I can tell that just from how I remember you, growing up."

"They had to be thorough. I chose my doctor very carefully, and I got what I wanted."

"How much did it all cost?"

My jaw wanted to drop, but I had a mouthful of tea and it would have been messy. Had he just outright and nakedly asked me how much my transformation cost?

How much had it cost me to grow up deformed? That was a much more relevant question.

I gave him a long, silent look, considered all the things I could say, while I swallowed my tea and allowed Edward and Bishop to take in what Richmond had just said. I let the moment stretch out, and let them give him looks askance. I waited for him to realize how he had sounded, and what people would think of that.

Then I answered, very gently, "More than money."

He flushed and stammered, "I'm sorry. I did-dn't mean that the way it sounded."

"I'm sure you didn't," I graciously returned. The pleasure of being rude is as nothing to the much more refined and exquisite pleasure of being perfectly and absolutely civil, while at the same time letting someone know exactly what you think of them.

So Richmond became my burden, and I had to bear him. A small matter. His job was to watch me do mine to be sure I did it honestly. Since I am honest, and would have been whether he was watching or not, he had a very boring time, all around.

At that point, I thought it was all going well, more or less on schedule. Primavera and I were talking again. I called to tell her how George's defeat was progressing, and she told me all about Australia, where she was doing things with and to microbes. Neither of us so much as mentioned my marriage, or Daenne.

I had no reason to stay married to Daenne any longer, and several reasons to be free again. Daenne didn't get the Neville directorship after all. Isabelle left her proxy, as well as Margali and Jonathan, with my mother. Until either she or my mother died, that was how things would remain.

We had been married for almost a year. Sex had become ever more infrequent and impersonal, and we were having some very ugly fights. Some advice for you: Never marry anyone whose I.Q. is nearly a hundred points less than yours. I hadn't realized how big a mistake it was. Daenne could not argue rationally, which put me at a disadvantage. She called me names and accused me of talking down to her all the time, or, conversely, of talking over her head. I could never end an argument for once and for all. I would think I had won, but then she would keep on bringing the same thing up again and again.

I was not going to breathe the word 'divorce' until Daenne said it first, or until I was absolutely certain that she would agree. The waiting didn't help my temper any. I was really looking forward to my potential future marital disagreements with Primavera. I knew from having been her patient what her fighting style was like. I wouldn't win all the time, but Primavera argued with reasoning to back her, and used a more creative array of insults.

In the meantime, I was being unpleasant to Daenne. I was not unfaithful to her— it struck me as being a bad habit to get into. I was keeping my behavior and language from actually being abusive in any way. The lawyer in me, I guess, being prudent.