Cassandra and the Sisterhood
Hope Triumphant II: Sister
Chapter 11
(World population: 7.48 billion)
A MATTER OF TIME
Autumn and Winter 2014
Scotland
Cassandra wanted to bury Phoenix near the sacred spring in Donan Woods, but the trees had been cut down years ago, and the spring had disappeared. She took the train ride to the Highlands anyway—Phoenix had been happier there than in the city—and chose a grove of oak trees, not far from the farm where Phoenix had been born twelve years before. Cassandra laid her on a bed of dry autumn grasses in a shallow grave.
"I'll miss you, my friend," Cassandra told her, leaning over and kissing her goodbye on the top of her head, right between the ears. Teardrops matted down the soft golden fur, and Cassandra carefully fluffed it dry. She covered Phoenix with a blanket of red and gold leaves before filling in the hole. Phoenix had always hated to have dirt on her fur.
Cassandra left no marker, no ring of stones around the grave. The wheel of life and death was always turning, always changing, and that was the terrible beauty of the world.
It was terrible in other ways, too.
"Connor and Sara dance well together, don't they?" Cassandra said to Alex on New Year's Eve, at the traditional dinner and dance party that the MacLeods had hosted in their Edinburgh townhouse these last fifteen years.
Alex nodded, her gaze on the dancers whirling about the floor. "They make a handsome couple."
They did indeed. Connor was resplendent in a black tuxedo; Sara looked grown-up and lovely in an aqua velvet gown, a gown Cassandra recognized as one Alex had worn some eight or nine years ago. The jewelry Sara was wearing was Alex's, too. Over in the corner, Rachel and Mitzi had Colin arm-in-arm between them, and they were teaching him a dance step that had been popular half a century before. Duncan and his wife, Susan, waltzed by. John was escorting Gina (five months pregnant and fanning herself rapidly) from the floor. The room was quite warm.
"Are there more people here this year?" Cassandra asked, but Alex didn't respond. Cassandra tapped her once on the hand.
Alex blinked and turned. "What did you say?"
Cassandra repeated her question and motioned to the dance floor. "It seems like quite a crowd."
"Yes, I think so," Alex answered vaguely, then went back to looking at Sara and Connor.
Cassandra glanced at the dancers but then looked at Alex, really looked, for the first time in years. Alex was still a lovely woman, but fine wrinkles showed around the dark blue eyes. The skin at her neck was slightly mottled with age, and grooves ran from her mouth to her nose. Alex had turned fifty-two a few weeks ago; Sara had just turned eighteen.
Cassandra saw no pride in Alex's eyes for Sara, no fond approval at watching her husband and her daughter dance. Instead, there was envy and jealousy, and then, for one instant, a savage twist of naked hatred and impotent rage.
"Alex?" Cassandra said immediately, knowing with heart-rending despair that she had waited much too long.
Alex was already getting up from her chair. "I'm not feeling very good, Cass," Alex announced. "I'm going upstairs."
Cassandra stood and helplessly watched her go, a slim elegant figure in blue silk with faded gold hair. "Oh, Alex," Cassandra whispered, knowing there was nothing either of them could do to stop the deadly march of time.
But she would do what she could to root out those strangling tendrils of jealousy and rage, or at least give them less fertile ground. These last few years Cassandra had ascribed Alex's anger to the obvious causes: unhappiness at the twins' growing powers, grief at the death of her niece, guilt over Dawson's death five months ago, and other, more minor irritations here and there.
Cassandra had been blind. She should have seen that Alex was actually angry with her. She should have known; it had happened before. She should have left years ago.
Cassandra went to look for Connor. "Alex needs you," she said quietly.
Connor's gray eyes narrowed in that familiar searching stare. "Why?"
Because she's beginning to hate herself for growing old. Because she already hates me for staying young. Because she's beginning to hate Sara, too, and the best thing I can do for your family is to leave.
Cassandra said none of those things. She couldn't say them to Connor, Alex's husband, because Alex wasn't stupid. She would know, somehow, that Cassandra had trespassed in Alex's marriage yet again. And Alex already knew that Cassandra had once loved Connor, and Alex would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to know that Cassandra hoped, someday, years from now, to be able to love Connor again—and to have Connor love her.
Cassandra could say none of those things, not to him. Instead, she told him, "Alex said she wasn't feeling good. She's upstairs."
Connor nodded once, set down his drink, spoke briefly to Duncan, and headed for the hall.
"Connor!" Cassandra called after him, and he turned, obviously impatient. Cassandra couldn't say goodbye; he would want to know why. She settled for, "Thank you for inviting me." He and Alex had invited her to be a part of their family eighteen years ago, and Cassandra treasured every instant of that time. "It's been wonderful."
He tilted his head quizzically, then gave her half a grin. "Enjoy the party. The new year is almost here."
"And happy birthday," she added. He would be four hundred ninety-seven in fifteen minutes.
"Thanks," he said, with a full grin this time, then turned and took the stairs two at a time. Cassandra watched him until he disappeared.
Sara came up to her and asked, "Where are Mom and Dad?"
"Your mother wasn't feeling good," Cassandra explained. "Your father went to be with her upstairs."
"They'll miss the toast," Sara said, snagging a glass of champagne off a tray as a waiter passed by. All around them, people were starting to fill up their glasses and gather to count down to the New Year.
"So will I," Cassandra said.
"What?"
"I have to leave town, Sara, for an old friend. I won't be here tomorrow."
"But it's Dad's birthday party," Sara objected. "You always come."
"Not this time." Not ever again. "I'll be in touch, Sara," Cassandra promised. "I'll see you soon." She gathered her purse and her cape then went out into the cold winter air, pausing on the sidewalk to listen to the cries of "Happy New Year!" and the triumphant blaring of the band. On the second floor, the lights in Alex and Connor's sitting room glowed.
Images flickered through Cassandra's mind: Alex enormously pregnant with the twins, Alex nursing Sara, Alex skiing on a mountaintop, making cookies, getting tipsy on wine, playing cards, planning Phinyx, kneeling with muddy hands in the garden, Alex running up hills, Alex gaily shopping for clothes. Another image came from many places, many times: Alex gravely listening, chewing on the tip of her glasses, as Cassandra shared yet another secret of her soul. Best friends.
Cassandra took each image, savored it, celebrated it, then stored it in memory to be taken out and celebrated again in the years to come. "You've been a wonderful friend, Alex," Cassandra said softly. "I'll miss you."
She pulled her cape more tightly around her then walked swiftly down the street, making plans for tomorrow. She had a lot of work to do, and until Sara was ready, she was on her own.
THE INNOCENT
January 2015
Great Britain
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mom," Sara said on New Year's Day while she was setting the table for Dad's birthday party. "Right before she left last night, Cassandra said she wouldn't be able to make it today."
"Oh." Mom fiddled with the silverware Sara had just put down. "Did she say why?"
"Something about an old friend and her having to leave town."
Mom nodded, but she didn't seem to care.
Three weeks later, Mom didn't seem to care when Cassandra said she was moving away. Mom and Cassandra even said goodbye on the phone. "Shouldn't we have a farewell party or something?" Sara asked. "Take her out to lunch?"
"London's not that far," Mom said. "We'll see her again."
But they didn't. Cassandra didn't come back to Edinburgh, and Mom never went to London anymore.
Sara went to London. She took the train down on Friday afternoons, a couple of times a month, right after school. Cassandra would meet her at the station, and they'd eat at a restaurant and go out dancing, then sleep late the next day. On Saturday afternoon, they'd do a magic lesson (Sara liked scrying the best, seeing visions of far-away places in the water of a silver bowl), then they'd go out to eat again and maybe see a movie or a play. They always had a great time. Sara learned a lot, and not just about magical things.
"Did you ever have sex with my dad, Cassandra?" Sara asked early one spring morning at breakfast, all the time watching the Immortal woman closely, because although Cassandra had promised she would never lie to her, still … just in case …
But Cassandra only tightened her lips a little, half smile and half frown, then she finished pouring herself tea, set down the teapot, looked straight at Sara, and said simply, "Yes."
That had been easy. Except now everything else wasn't. Sara licked suddenly dry lips. "When?"
"He was my student for about six months in 1592." Cassandra tilted her head to one side. "You know about that."
Sara nodded; she knew about Dad staying in Donan Woods at Cassandra's cottage and finding Uncle Duncan as a baby, and then taking Duncan to the village of Glenfinnan, where he'd been adopted by Mary and Ian MacLeod. But obviously, Sara hadn't known about it all.
"Your father and I were both lonely—and alone," Cassandra was saying. "A few days before he left, we become lovers."
So … four hundred twenty-three years ago, Sara calculated.
"We saw each other twice a year for the next eight years or so, then he left for England. Thirty years later, he came back to Scotland to teach Duncan, and your father and I met once in 1630. That was the end of it."
Sara nodded again, thinking that through. Now, she understood a lot more of what she had seen between Dad and Cassandra through the years: the smiles, the looks, the sentences started and never finished, the rare touches that seemed to mean so much more. Like that summer day twelve years ago, when Sara had been six and Cassandra's cat, Phoenix, had been expecting her first litter of kittens. Sara had wanted to stay with Cassandra until the kittens were born.
June 2003
The MacLeod Farm in the Highlands
"Yes," her mom had said, but Dad didn't say anything when he heard about it, just leaned against the wall next to the fireplace in the living room and looked at Aunt Cass, his eyes cold and hard and serious, even kind of scary, that look that always made Sara and Colin do whatever they were supposed to be doing, and do it right away.
Aunt Cass stared back, her face suddenly all smooth and empty like a doll's, then she bent down to smile at Sara and said, "Maybe when you're older, Sara."
"But you said it would happen sometime this week!" Sara protested. "I want to see the kittens being born!"
"I'll call you, and your mother can bring you over right away."
"But—"
"No," Aunt Cass said, just as cold and hard and serious as Dad, even almost scary, and Sara blinked in surprise and hot tears, for Aunt Cass had never spoken to her that way before. Aunt Cass blinked too, and her face almost crumpled like she was going to cry. Then she hugged Sara quickly and promised, "I'll call you as soon as I find out, Sara, and you and Colin can pick out your kittens when you come over."
"Phoenix might be all done by then," Sara muttered. "It won't be the same."
"No," Aunt Cass agreed. "Nothing ever is." That didn't make any sense, but Aunt Cass had already left the living room, so Sara couldn't ask her what it meant. After a couple of minutes, Sara followed her through the kitchen and out to the garden, but Dad was already there, standing next to Aunt Cass by the tall stone wall, both of them looking out over the valley toward the loch below.
Dad and Aunt Cass hadn't noticed her, and Sara crawled under the broad leaves of the snowball bush and crouched there to wait. Under the bush was her and Colin's favorite place to play—or to hide, whenever they were supposed to cleaning their room. Sara started scratching patterns in the dirt with a stick, playing noughts-and-crosses by herself, since Colin was at a karate lesson with their big brother, John.
"You don't trust me with her," Sara heard Aunt Cass say.
"It hasn't been that long since you told me you didn't trust yourself," her dad answered.
"Six and a half years."
Sara and Colin were six and a half, except he was eleven minutes older. She could still run faster than he could.
"You're still in therapy, Cassandra," Dad said, with the patient explaining voice he used whenever Colin and Sara asked him questions.
"I've never hurt a child, Connor," Aunt Cass said. "Not once in my entire life."
Sara stopped scratching, the X only one line. Of course, Aunt Cass had never hurt a child. She never even got mad or annoyed, not even when Colin and Sara asked her to read the same book over and over and over again. Aunt Cass always had time to play, not like Mom and Dad, who were busy a lot with work and cleaning and horses and books.
"I know that," Dad said. "But how long has it been since your last flashback? Your last dream?"
Sara didn't know what a flashback was, but she didn't see what was wrong with having dreams. She liked dreams, except the scary ones. Did grown-ups have scary dreams, too? She'd ask Mom later. Sara finished drawing her O, then drew an X in the corner, giving the O's a chance to win. Why try for a cat's-cradle when you're playing by yourself?
Aunt Cass hadn't said anything, and Dad said quietly, so that Sara had to listen hard, "She's my daughter, Cassandra, my little girl. I'm not taking any chances with her."
"You're right," Aunt Cass said finally, also quiet, her voice just as crumply as her face had been earlier. "And I know I'm not a good bet."
"Hey," Dad said, sounding just like he did whenever Sara skinned her knee. Sara stopped drawing the final O to peek out from between the leaves. Dad was giving Aunt Cass a hug, with his arms around her and her head lying on his shoulder, her long brown hair goldeny in the sunshine, spilling over the dark-green of Dad's shirt.
"Just give yourself some time, Cassandra," Dad said. "I'm willing to."
"She might be all grown up by then," Aunt Cass said, with a shaky-sounding little laugh as she pulled away, but she and Dad were still holding hands. "It won't be the same."
"Nothing ever is," Dad answered, and the words didn't make any more sense now than they had before. The grown-ups let go of each other's hands and went back to looking out across the valley, so Sara turned back to her game, finishing the O and then drawing a deep triumphant line across the three circles all in a row down the middle. She'd won.
April 2015
Cassandra's flat in London
Sara had finally won in convincing her dad to let her stay with Cassandra, but it had taken seven years, after Cassandra's therapy had been completely finished and her flashbacks had gone away, and after Sara and Colin had turned thirteen and started having the dreams. But the dreams hadn't told Sara about this, and she wanted to know. She needed to know. "Does my mom know about you and Dad?" Sara asked Cassandra next, because that was the most important question of all.
"Oh yes," Cassandra said, putting the knitted purple and white tea cozy back on the pot, and putting a lot of Sara's world back together again with those two little words. "Your father told her before she met me, about six months before you and Colin were born. Your parents don't keep secrets from each other, Sara. That's one reason their marriage works so well."
Sara wasn't so sure about that, not anymore. Not that Mom and Dad got into fights or yelled or threw things, but something was wrong. Mom didn't seem happy anymore, no matter what anybody said or did, and she was impossible to please. "Haven't you finished your chores yet, Sara?" Mom would say, almost every day. "Are you still on the phone?" or "You're not going to wear that, are you?" and "What did you do to your hair?" Sara's friends all agreed that their mothers, as a rule, were hard to live with, but they also agreed that Sara's mother was one of the worst.
Then in May, after the car accident, things went from bad to horrible. "The ankle was shattered and the knee is badly damaged," Sara heard the doctor say in low tones to Dad. "But with time and therapy, your wife should be able to walk again."
When Mom finally came home from the hospital, Dad was always helpful and unbelievably patient—taking Mom to her physical therapy three times a week, helping her up and down the stairs, getting her books and drinks or whatever. He was always at her beck and call, but Mom didn't seem to appreciate it. She didn't appreciate Sara's help, either, so eventually Sara just gave up and tried to stay out of her way. Colin was the only one Mom seemed to like anymore. That wasn't a surprise. Mom always had liked Colin best.
"Your mom will be better when she isn't in so much pain," Dad said after he had called Sara and Colin into the kitchen for "a talk" on an especially bad afternoon. "We have to be patient," Dad went on, looking at them both with serious eyes. "Healing takes time."
Sara knew that. The doctors said the scars would fade with time and plastic surgery, and that Mom's ankle would be better eventually. She would always limp and she would never be able to ski again, but in a year or two she wouldn't need her cane. Sara knew all that. But Mom knew it, too, and even so, she got crankier every day. That summer, Sara spent as much time as she could away from home, visiting Cassandra or staying with friends.
Cassandra didn't visit Mom. Not once. She didn't even call. "Why not?" Sara demanded, one Friday evening in August while she and Cassandra were drinking wine.
"I have sent letters, Sara. I've sent cards and flowers, puzzles and books. Your mother hasn't answered or acknowledged any of them."
That was impossible; Mom was a stickler for being polite. She'd always made Sara and Colin write out thank-you cards right away. "None of them?"
"Not one."
"But … why?"
"How old is your mother?"
"Fifty-two."
"And how old do I look?"
Sara shrugged; she'd never thought about it much. Cassandra was just Cassandra, the way Uncle Duncan was just Uncle Duncan, and Dad was just Dad. "Thirty-ish or so, I guess." Cassandra nodded then just sat there looking at her, eyebrows raised. "But … you and Mom are friends," Sara protested.
"Yes, we are." Cassandra drained the rest of her wine. "And that's why I'm staying away."
That autumn, Cassandra went even farther away, to California. Colin went away, too, off to veterinary school, devoted (as always) to helping animals. Sara had been able to "hear" the heartbeat of trees since she was seven; Colin had been able to "hear" animals since he was twelve. Not as clearly now, since Cassandra had helped him turn his powers off, but some. Sara missed sharing that with him. She missed him.
But they had their own lives to lead, and they were both ready to leave home. Sara plunged into economics and political science at Cambridge University, nearly drowning some days, but enjoying her studies and her new friends, plus a boyfriend or three. During summer break, Sara went to the newly renamed African republic of Kambezi for six weeks to work at the Phinyx Women's Collective, so she missed the family vacation in Finland that year, but that suited Sara just fine. She didn't want to go. Mom had been horrible to Sara's friends over the winter holiday, and even more horrible to her.
When Sara finally did see her parents in August, during their usual summer stay in New York City to be with Aunt Rachel, it was even worse than Sara had feared. It was hot, it was humid, and Mom lost her cool all the time. Plus, Sara had decided she hated the States, what with the silly green bracelet she had to wear all the time, and the constant checking of papers and IDs and the funny looks she got from people because she was "an alien." A friendly alien, maybe, the white circles on her bracelet helped there, but an alien nonetheless.
"It was your decision to choose Scottish citizenship instead of U.S. citizenship when you turned eighteen," Mom reminded her when Sara complained.
"But I am Scottish," Sara protested. "I was born there. I grew up there." She slumped down in her chair. "I don't see why they don't allow dual citizenship anymore."
Mom marched over to the south window of the loft and pointed outside. The long arms of cranes poked up above the tall buildings, where the rebuilding of the second monument to the Twin Towers was still going on. The first monument had been blown up four years ago. "That's why," she said shortly. "You made your choice, Sara. Live with it, the way all of us have to live with the choices we make."
"But—"
"You can't have everything you want," Mom snapped then stalked away, limping a little still but managing without her cane.
Sara sighed and slouched down further on the chair, wishing she could go back to school right now. Three whole weeks to go.
"It's like I can't do anything right," Sara complained to Colin later that day after Mom and Dad had—thankfully—gone out somewhere or other.
Colin just looked up from his book (a large green tome that illustrated in all-too-colorful detail the many and mostly repulsive diseases of the hoof) and said, "When have you ever?"
Sara threw a pillow at his head. He blocked it with his left arm, grinning at her all the while. Then he shut the book with a thwack and moved over on the couch: an invitation to talk more. Sara flopped down beside him and gloomily picked at a loose thread on a cushion. He stopped her by laying his fingers on the back of her hand. Sara turned her hand over, palm up, and they held hands, the way they always did. Colin's bracelet was green, too.
"Am I just imagining this?" Sara said. "Or is Mom being impossible?"
"She's a little irritable," Colin said, but it sounded like he was just trying to be agreeable, as usual.
"A little?" Sara thumped the arm of the couch with her free hand, a solid punch with her fist. "I feel like I'm living with Medea."
Colin actually laughed. "She's not going to kill you, Sara."
Sara didn't think it was funny.
"It's not like Dad is throwing her out the door so he can marry a princess," Colin went on. "And Mom doesn't have a dragon-drawn chariot."
"She doesn't need one," Sara muttered. Mom was a dragon.
"It's probably just hormones, Sara," Colin said, now in his irritating "all-wise-medical-almost-a-doctor" mode. "Menopause. You know."
Sara rolled her eyes. Sure she did. She'd heard that before. Blame everything on female hormones, why not? Typical.
But when she went to visit Aunt Rachel and Mitzi at their house that evening, they said about the same thing. "Oh, the change," Mitzi said, shaking her head. "It can take you in funny ways sometimes."
"It did you," Aunt Rachel said fondly, patting Mitzi's hand. Sara watched the two of them together and couldn't help but wonder, as she always did, how people so different could be so close.
Years ago, Colin had summed the difference up in just two words. "Pillowy, that's what Aunt Rachel is,"
"But she's not soft," Sara had immediately objected.
"Of course not!" Colin had said in outrage. "Firm, but still pillowy. Comfortable, holds you close, keeps you warm with arms and words both … that kind of pillowy."
"And Mitzi?"
Connor had paused only a second. "Rubberbandy. Thin, tall, and full of energy just waiting to go 'Snap!' That's Mitzi."
Mitzi was still tall and thin, still quivering with energy ready to go 'Snap!' Every week she dyed her gray hair completely black, to match her trademark suits of black linen. Mom dyed her hair to hide the gray, Sara was pretty sure, even though Mom never talked about it. Aunt Rachel didn't dye her hair; it was completely white, which made her and Mitzi even more of an odd pair: a firm white pillow and a black rubber band.
"Even with the change, I was never hard to live with," said Mitzi, supremely confident as always.
Aunt Rachel didn't say anything, but Sara knew she was trying not to smile.
Mitzi obviously knew it, too. "No more than usual," she said briskly. "And at least I didn't order Chinese take-out at three a.m., the way you did!" Mitzi leaned forward, her black eyes sparkling, and confided to Sara, "Just like when she was pregnant."
"It is a little like that," Aunt Rachel agreed. "You can cry over the littlest things." She looked sidelong at her long-time partner, the smile showing more now. "Or get angry over trifles."
Mitzi smiled back, a thin amused twist of bright-red lips, then shrugged one shoulder. "It's temporary, Sara. You just have to be patient."
"And understanding," Aunt Rachel chimed in.
Sara nodded, but neither of them understood at all. Colin didn't understand, either, and Dad … Sara wasn't going to mention this to Dad. He had more than enough to deal with. He had to live with Mom.
A week went by. The weather stayed hot. Mom stayed impossible. Sara stayed away—sightseeing with Colin, hanging out at her friend Aleah's house, helping Aunt Rachel at the antique store downstairs and flirting with the men who came there. No boys to bother with, thankfully, since most boys couldn't afford antiques and almost never came into the shop. After Greg and then especially after Neville, Sara had given up on boys at university. She wasn't going to date students anymore, except possibly postgraduate ones. Maybe.
It stayed hot, and Sara checked off the days on her calendar, one by one. Then Cassandra called from New Washington to say: "I'm taking the train into the city on Tuesday. Want to have lunch and then wander around?"
"Love to," Sara said in relief. She didn't tell her mom.
They met at a Chinese restaurant in the Village, and it took Sara a moment to adjust to Cassandra's "new do." She'd dyed her hair blonde, then looped strands back from her face in a style that looked vaguely Japanese. At least her hair was still long. That hadn't changed. But the flamboyant flowing clothes and extravagant jewelry of her priestess days had been traded in for low-heeled shoes and a long dark-blue tunic over white leggings, all plain except for delicate white embroidery at the throat and wrists. No cape today, not in this heat. A simple silver hoop hung from each earlobe, and she wore a plain gold ring on the third finger of her left hand, just above the red, white, and blue ID bracelet, the mark of a citizen, with all the right and privileges thereto.
Of course, Cassandra was a lobbyist these days, not a priestess at a many-painted church or a talent agent in Hollywood, and so Sara supposed Cassandra had to dress like all the other lawyers and accountants, but it still looked odd. And boring.
But Sara knew that hidden under the sedate and respectable clothes was Cassandra's priestess necklace, a pendant with three crescent moons intertwined, a symbol of ancient power still alive. Mom had given the necklace to Cassandra for Christmas nineteen years ago, when Sara and Colin had been just two days old, and Cassandra wore it all the time. The power of the priestess never went away; it just changed form.
While Sara had been examining Cassandra's clothes, Cassandra had of course been examining hers. "You're looking dangerously sexy," Cassandra said with a conspiratorial grin, and Sara laughed aloud.
"Good," she said and just had to take a quick look at herself in the mirror on the wall of the tiny waiting area. Shoulder-length blondish brown hair, braided into many braids; a sleeveless jerkin of green and black leather, short over the ass but laced all the way up in the front; black leggings with a yellow stripe down the sides, green suede boots, and a silver-sheathed dagger at her thigh. Sara, unlike most of her friends who'd adopted this latest fashion, actually knew how to use one, and her dagger was real. It was against the weapons laws, of course, but Sara didn't care. She'd rather explain herself to a cop afterwards and pay the fines than have her parents have to pick her up in pieces from a morgue. Mom didn't like it much, but Dad hadn't objected. How could he? Sara's blade was a lot shorter than his.
"No new boyfriend yet, I see," Cassandra said as soon as the hostess had shown them to a booth and the waiter had brought them tea.
Sara stopped with the menu half open in her hand. "How'd you know?"
Cassandra just smiled. "You have the look of a woman on the hunt."
"How about you?" Sara challenged, with a nod to the wedding band. "It looks like your hunt was successful."
"Oh, this is just camouflage. I picked it out myself." She extended her hand to admire the ring. "They're useful little things. People take you more seriously, and it keeps some of the men at bay."
"What if they want to meet your husband?"
"I tell them I'm a widow. Which," she said serenely, sipping at her tea, "I am."
Four times. Sara had forgotten about that. It was easy to forget that Dad and Uncle Duncan and Cassandra had had other lives and other families, other people they had loved.
Or maybe it was just easier. Sara opened her menu all the way and wondered what to eat.
"Tofu delight and an egg roll, please," Cassandra told the waiter when he came over to take their order.
Sara chose moo goo gai pan and a bowl of wonton soup. When the waiter was gone, she tapped her green ID bracelet then looked at Cassandra's bracelet with a question in her eyes. It wasn't wise to ask some questions aloud.
"I haven't visited my mother's side of the family yet," Cassandra explained. "Florida's a long way to go. I know they're eager to hear the stories about my parents' missionary work in Africa, where I was born."
"I'm sure they are," Sara agreed solemnly. And Cassandra's name was Page Eidman now; Sara had to remember. "Your parents filed all the necessary paperwork with the U.S. Embassy after your birth, I take it?"
"Yes, although there was some confusion about my records when I arrived in the States last year," Cassandra admitted. "But I explained everything to the clerk, and she was kind enough to put my name in the system."
"Oh, I'm sure," Sara said with a grin, knowing the real reason why. Cassandra's "explanations" were hard to resist. Sara wanted to learn the Voice, but Dad and Mom said no, and Cassandra just shook her head whenever Sara brought it up. Sara wasn't worried. The scrying was going well, she still had the occasional dream, and she planned on out-stubborning them all.
The soup and the egg roll arrived, and Sara picked up her spoon. "How was Kambezi?" Cassandra asked next.
Sara put her spoon back down, suddenly unable to eat. All around her, people were eating. All around her, mouths chewed. Red tongues flickered over white teeth; moist sucking sounds came from lips greased by shining oil. White rice lay discarded in small heaps and single grains under the tables and on the floor. Fingers and chopsticks and forks sorted daintily through the piles of food, picking out the choicest morsels and throwing the rest away.
"It's obscene," Sara said. "Not there," she explained quickly, "but here. They have nothing. We have so much, and we waste it." At the empty table beside them, a waitress pocketed a tip then gathered the leftover food. There was too much to fit on a single plate. Food, good food, nutritious food, food wasted and tossed to rot, when so many in the world went without eating all day. Sara had seen children die over there. "I've seen it on TV, of course—who hasn't?—but it's not the same." TV didn't give you any idea of the smells: dust and urine, mold and shit. TV didn't show you the flies. It didn't show you the maggots which, alone in that county, seemed to have enough to eat. People were hungry in the States, too. From the window, she could see a beggar sitting right outside the restaurant door, a huddled figure with slumped shoulders and a faded red hat, holding up a pale hand to passersby.
Sara sliced the wonton into pieces with the edge of her spoon, but still didn't eat. "The Phinyx collective is helping—in the nearby villages there are farms, some small businesses, a school—but most of the people have nothing, Cassandra. Most of them are so sick, what with AIDS and the Asian pollution cloud and the parasites and all the other diseases, and they have almost no food, no houses, no blankets, no water … nothing."
"I know."
Those two words, so simply spoken, so full of knowledge and pain, left Sara with her mouth half-open and nothing to say. "I guess you would," she ventured finally. "You started the collective there." She left the soup alone and crumbed the corner of a cracker between her fingers, feeling the oil there, the calories of food. "Have you ever seen it, for yourself?" she asked Cassandra. "Have you ever lived that way?"
"Yes." Another simple word. Another word filled with pain. "When I was young—"
"How young?" Sara interrupted, as she always did whenever Cassandra talked about the past.
"About your age," Cassandra said with an indulgent smile, a smile that faded quickly as she told her tale. "My people had very few possessions, you know, only what we could carry on our backs. By today's standards, we were 'poor.' But we had what we needed. We had enough. We were happy. Then one year, no rain fell. The springs at the oases were dry; there was no game to hunt. The plants withered; there was no food to gather. Our goats starved. We ate them, then we starved. The old died first, then the young."
"And?"
"And, one day, the rain came. We gave thanks to the gods. We danced in the waters from the sky. And we went on." She lifted her glass of water up to the light, held it there a moment, in homage or in wonder, then drank slowly with her eyes closed.
Sara picked up her own glass and drank. The water tasted flat and slightly bitter. She closed her eyes. It tasted the same. She drank it anyway; drinkable water was even more precious than food. It was up to three dollars a cup now in the city, and the entire country was on rationing all the time. There was a war on, after all. Lots of wars. A war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terrorism, war on crime, war on waste, war on corruption … Honestly. Why couldn't Americans just fix their problems without declaring war all the time? No wonder they were so paranoid.
When Sara opened her eyes again, Cassandra was watching her. "We were lucky," Cassandra said. "Sometimes, the rain doesn't come in time. Sometimes, everyone dies. Or sometimes, people cling to the edge of survival, year after year, generation after generation, and no one ever has enough. I've seen that, too." She dipped her egg roll in hot mustard, chewing thoroughly before she swallowed. "People don't really need that much. It's a very small distance between 'nothing' and 'enough.' But it's a crucial difference."
"And it's a very big distance between what they need and what they want," Sara said. TVs, new clothes, cars, computers, refrigerators, vacations, swimming pools … not that she could go around pointing fingers. Her family had three houses, a boat, an airplane, and five cars. She'd never once had to worry about getting enough to eat. She'd gone shopping just yesterday, buying yet another pair of shoes. "I feel guilty about living this way." She looked down at her bowl, still full of untouched food. "For eating this way. I know you and Mom are trying to fix things through Phinyx, but I never realized …"
Cassandra nodded. "Most people never do."
"That's why you wanted me to go to Kambezi," Sara said. "To see for myself."
"To see and to learn," Cassandra agreed. "What do your economics teachers say about consumer societies and the equitable worldwide distribution of goods? What do your political science teachers say about the reasons for war?"
Sara grimaced. "I don't think they've gotten there yet."
"They probably never will." Cassandra took another bite of egg roll. "What drives capitalism?"
That, Sara could answer, or at least give the answer from class. "Profit." She thought about it for a moment and added, "Profit and greed."
"Greed," Cassandra repeated in a murmur. "One of the seven deadly sins. Perhaps the deadliest of all."
"But people do need some kind of reward for their work," Sara pointed out.
"Indeed they do. What other rewards are there besides money and things?"
Sara thought some more. "Fame. Respect and honor, the approval of your community. Pride and satisfaction in a job well done. Feeling good about helping others. Companionship. Sex. Love."
"Good answers," Cassandra told her with a smile. "We're social animals. We're designed to be helpful and to share, at least within our own tribe. A healthy society encourages generosity, not greed."
"And that's why you were in Hollywood promoting a movie about St. Francis of Assisi."
"He's a powerful role model, in many ways."
Sara went back to pushing the noodle around in her soup, remembering the story. "He renounced his father's money and took a vow of poverty as a monk." He'd owned only one pair of shoes.
Cassandra reached over and briefly touched the back of her hand. "No one's expecting you to become a nun, Sara."
"And the money?" Sara asked. "Dad gave me millions. I've done nothing to deserve that."
"True," Cassandra agreed equably. "Yet money brings power. Will you give that away? Or will you live simply and instead use the money to help change the world for the better?"
Sara didn't need to think about that one. She'd seen the time and effort people spent on getting grants and soliciting funds, all so they could get the real work done. "I'll accept the money. I can decide where it goes." She was studying economics, after all, and once she graduated, she planned on working at a bank for a few years, to learn best how to take capitalism apart. Except maybe … Sara chewed on her lower lip. "Mother Teresa didn't have any money, and she did a lot."
"Mother Teresa," Cassandra reminded her, "was a nun."
"Well, that takes care of that," Sara said decisively.
Cassandra laughed then caught sight of the waiter across the crowded room. "Food," she announced, but as it was being served, Sara went outside to ask the beggar what she would like for lunch.
"Kung pao chicken, extra hot," the woman said, pushing her faded red hat away from her pale blue eyes.
"With an egg roll?"
"Two. And water. I want water. They've shut down all the fountains again."
Sara went back in the restaurant and ordered for her, then sat down to enjoy her own lunch. She ate what she could and took the rest home for another day. She didn't leave one grain of rice behind. Cassandra did the same.
When they left the restaurant, the woman in the red hat was gone.
It was later that afternoon at the bookstore near Central Lake that Cassandra brought up Mom. "How's your mother?"
"Fine," Sara said and concentrated on setting a book about game theory back on the shelf.
When Sara finally looked up, Cassandra was waiting, and she asked the question again. "How's your mother?"
"She's not using her cane anymore," Sara offered brightly. "She barely even limps. The scars are nearly gone. She's doing good."
"I'm glad to hear her body's healing," Cassandra replied. "How is she?"
"OK. Not great, but OK." Sara picked up another book, a mathematical analysis of election techniques. She didn't want to discuss her mom with Cassandra. She didn't want Cassandra to know. It was … a betrayal, somehow, and no matter what, Mom was still her mother, and Cassandra was just a friend. Sara shrugged. "She's getting better. Dad says it takes time to heal."
"It does," Cassandra agreed. "But time takes other things as well."
"Yeah, I know," Sara muttered, putting the book back. She'd heard this before.
"She still loves you, Sara," Cassandra said gently.
"Of course she does!" Sara snapped, turning on Cassandra. "I don't need you to tell me that!"
"You need her to tell you that. I know."
Sara turned away again and blinked back hot, unwanted tears.
"She can't, Sara. Not right now."
"Why not?" Sara demanded, forcing the words out, her throat suddenly tight. "What have I done?"
"Nothing," Cassandra said, and now her voice was sad. "Except grow up, and remind her of me."
Sara left for school two days later, a week before she was scheduled to go. At the end of August, Mom and Dad went back to Edinburgh, and Colin went off to vet school. Sara didn't go home to visit during the fall term, and they didn't even have a family Christmas that year—Dad said he and Mom were doing something special—so Sara and Colin stayed with John and Gina instead.
Sara didn't go home that spring, either, and in June Mom and Dad moved from Scotland back to New York, where they had first met twenty-three years before. Sara got a job as an intern in a London bank. Cassandra came for a visit and stayed all summer long.
In October, Dad invited Sara home. "Come stay with us in New York for Christmas," he said on the phone. "We've finished redecorating the loft: put in a library, redid the kitchen, painted it all. Everybody's going to be here." Sara hesitated then rattled off something about the crowded travel season and how hard it was to get a visa and how busy she was with papers and exams and school. Dad wasn't fooled. "Your mom's better now," he said. "She got help last year."
Sara wasn't convinced. "What do you mean 'help'?"
"Psychological help."
"Like Cassandra?"
"Yeah," Dad agreed, and even without seeing him, Sara knew he was smiling, dryly amused. "Like Cassandra. Only not as much, and not nearly so long. Sara," he said, serious now, "your mom wants you to come home."
"Then why wasn't she the one to call?"
"She's planning to, later today," Dad said. "She doesn't know I'm calling you now. I wanted to talk to you first, to make sure you knew."
"Knew what?"
"That she loves you, and that she wants you to come home. And so do I."
"Oh, Daddy," Sara said, her eyes filling with sudden tears. She hadn't called him that in years.
"I've missed you, Princess," Dad said. He hadn't called her that in a long, long time.
Sara wiped at her eyes. "I've missed you, too. Both of you."
"Then come home."
"I will," she promised, and when Mom called two hours later, Sara told her the same thing and had to wipe away more tears. Mom cried, too.
"We'll be having a party," Mom said, right before she hung up.
"A New Year's Eve party?"
"Yes, of course, a small one anyway, but I was talking about the birthday party. Next year is 2018. Your dad's going to be five hundred years old."
FOR TOMORROW WE DIE
17 December 2017
Rachel Ellenstein's Home, Greenwich Village
"A small group," Rachel commented when Alex brought the guest list for Connor's birthday party over to Rachel and Mitzi's house a week before Christmas.
"Just family and close friends. You know," Alex said with a wry grin as she leaned back in a chrome kitchen chair, "Immortals who get along with both Connor and Duncan, and mortals who can sing 'How old are you now?' and hear the real answer."
"Do you think Grace will come?"
"I hope so. Kit O'Brady has already said he will. I was going to invite Gina and Robert de Valincourt, but they're on a six-month sailing tour of the South Pacific and can't be reached."
"But not Amanda, I see."
"With Duncan's wife there?" Alex asked. "Not that Susan's the jealous type, but Amanda's always trouble."
"And what about you, Alex?"
"What about me?"
"Are you the jealous type?"
"I don't—"
Rachel tapped the list with one firm finger. "Cassandra is Connor's friend. And yours. She used to be part of this family. Yet I don't see her name here."
"She hasn't come to his birthday party in years," Alex protested. Four years, to be precise. Cassandra hadn't even sent Connor cards.
"Is that because she doesn't want to? Or because you don't want her to?"
Alex didn't answer, and after a minute, Rachel pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. "Don't you dare," Rachel began, fierce and low, and Alex pulled back in surprise at her tone. "Don't you dare," Rachel said again, gripping Alex's hand within her own, tightly, so that the prominent blue veins trembled just underneath the parchment-like skin, "ruin that chance of love for him."
"I—"
"Don't you dare be that selfish, Alex."
"Selfish!" Alex exclaimed, yanking her hand away. "Selfish?" She shoved her chair back and stood. "What do you expect me to do, Rachel? Smile as I hand over the man I love to another woman?"
"I did," Rachel said coldly. "Twice."
"Connor's your father. Not your husband."
"He's the man I love," Rachel replied, unshakeable and unstoppable. "And so I want him to be happy. Now, and after I'm dead. And after you're dead, too. What do you want for him, Alex?"
She wanted him to be happy. Now, and in the years to come.
"Connor doesn't do well if he's all alone," Rachel reminded her. "He needs to be needed. He needs love. Cassandra already loves him, and she's immortal, just like him. She could be with him forever, if he decides that's what he wants, too. But it won't happen if your ghost comes between them. It won't happen if Connor believes he's betraying you by loving her."
Alex gripped the back of her chair hard, ignoring the stabs of pain from her arthritis. Blue veins were beginning to bulge underneath her skin, too, hidden here and there by faint age spots, ugly brown blotches, like the beginnings of mold on pasty white bread. "I hate this," she whispered fiercely. "I hate having to leave him."
"Oh, honey," Rachel said, softer now, and she got up, carefully because of her recent artificial hip, then hobbled around the table to gather Alex in her arms for a hug. Her skin was soft and wrinkled and smelled of rose-petals, an old lady's skin. Her hair was completely white, just as Alex's was now. A year ago, when Alex had walked out on Connor, she had finally stopped dyeing her hair. She'd wanted to know what she really looked like, after a decade of pretending that she didn't age, after a decade of trying to look young, just like him.
Just like her.
"You're angry with Cassandra," Jennifer had said over a year ago, during Alex's second therapy session, an hour-long talk in a rented hotel room, because Jennifer had retired and closed her office years before. At first, she'd been reluctant to take Alex on as a client, and truth be told, Alex hadn't been all that eager to talk to Cassandra's former therapist, either, but who else was there? And so Alex had promised Jennifer four times her usual rate, bought the train tickets, paid for the hotel room, and provided lunch, all so Alex could talk about the woman she had come to hate.
"It's not her fault she's immortal," Alex protested to Jennifer.
"No," Jennifer agreed. "But fault or blame makes no difference in your feelings. You're angry with her."
Alex pushed herself out of her chair and went to the window to stare down at the tiny green park two stories below. A young mother chased a toddler in the grass; a pair of lovers kissed on a bench. "Yes," Alex said, turning around and finally admitting it to Jennifer—and to herself. "I am angry with her. To be honest, I can't stand the sight of her." To be brutally honest, she wanted Cassandra dead. But she wasn't going to tell Jennifer that.
"Why are you angry with her?"
A dozen good reasons popped into Alex's head, but they all boiled down to one: "She's taking everything I have!"
"Taking?" Jennifer probed.
"No," Alex had to say. "Not taking. She's never tried to take Connor from me. Or Sara. I've pushed my own daughter away." Alex blinked back tears as she realized just how far Sara had gone. They weren't even speaking anymore. "And I've been pushing Connor away, too," Alex said. "We haven't even made love in …" Weeks, Alex started to say, but counted backwards and realized it had been over two months. "A long time," she finished.
"Why not? Is it him? Is it you?"
"Oh, he would if I asked, because he loves me. I know that. But he doesn't want me. He can't. Not really. How could he?" Alex didn't need to look in a mirror to know why. "I look so old. And I limp, and with the scars …" Her wounds didn't heal with little blue sparks and then disappear. Her body was ugly, defective, and it was going to stay that way until she died.
No. Not "stay that way." Her body would age: steadily, inexorably, completely. She'd lose teeth and hair. She would probably break a hip. Many women did. She might grow feeble or incontinent. She could be housebound, bedridden, senile, or all three. And then, after ten or twenty or thirty years of that, she would die.
But Cassandra wasn't making that happen. Nobody was. It was just the way things were. "Cassandra didn't 'take' my beauty or my youth," Alex said to Jennifer. "She didn't have to. They disappeared on their own, with no help from her, and there was nothing—nothing!—I could do to make them stay. But I tried. God, how I tried! But all that exercise, the face creams, the hair dye, the diets … none of it worked. So guess what? I got old."
Jennifer was hiding a smile, and Alex demanded, "What?"
"Forgive me, Alex, but … I'm sixty-nine, fifteen years older than you are. You don't look old to me."
"But I look old to me," Alex said softly, and Jennifer nodded, not smiling now. "And so I hate her," Alex went on, "for having the things I want, the things I used to have."
Jennifer nodded again. "You've known her how long?"
Alex counted back. "Twenty years."
"These feelings didn't bother you when you first met?"
"No. At the beginning, we looked the same age, and she was such a mess …" Emotionally disturbed, sexually frigid, mentally unstable … "I felt sorry for her."
Jennifer put those feelings into words. "Cassandra was no threat to you. No competition."
"No. No, she wasn't."
"And now?"
"Now she's healed. She's self-confident, directed, organized. She's starting a whole new life; mine's slowing down. She still looks thirty-five. She's beautiful. She found a lover a few years ago; she glows. People follow her with their eyes. Connor does, too. I don't have that anymore." Alex had to sit down before she could utter the damning, inescapable truth: "I'll never have that again."
"What do you have?" Jennifer asked.
During the next few months, after more sessions with Jennifer, after running out on Connor and leaving him to spend Christmas all alone, and after some long talks with her mom and Rachel and Mitzi (who were all in their seventies and doing fine), Alex had come to see that she had all she needed, and more. A devoted husband, three fine children, a grandson, good friends, her health, an interesting job, plenty of money … and she was only in her mid-fifties, which wasn't old at all.
But she would be old, someday. She didn't mind that quite so much anymore, now that she wasn't trying desperately—and hopelessly—to look young. But it still wasn't easy. At the last archeological dig she'd been on, a young man had offered to do her digging for her, and after a try or two at the hard-baked clay, she'd swallowed her pride and said yes. She'd let him carry her equipment for her, too, and she'd tried not to mind that she was holding him back as they slowly climbed hills she once could have run up with ease. He told her that he'd read her books when he'd been in grade school, fifteen years before. He called her "ma'am."
When Connor had visited the site, a young woman had watched him digging (bare-chested in the heat) and then wasted no time in inviting him to her bed. She hadn't called him "sir."
"I know, when people look at me," Alex said to Rachel, "that they see my white hair and wrinkles and they think 'older woman.' They see a respectable matron, not a sexy young babe. But there's a part of me that isn't a respectable matron," Alex said plaintively. "There's a part of me that still feels like a 'sexy young babe,' even if nobody—except for Connor, of course—treats me like one."
"I know just how you feel, Alex." Rachel was seventy-seven, the age Alex would be in just twenty-two more years. Rachel sighed. "Part of me is a sexy young babe, too, but nobody's whistled at me in years."
"They don't know what they're missing," Alex said loyally.
Rachel's smile didn't reach her eyes. "But I do."
1 January 2018
The MacLeod Home on Hudson Street
It had been a good party, Alex decided as she sat by the fire. Family and friends had gathered, the presents had been opened with much laughter and teasing and good wishes, and Connor's birthday cake had been devoured, down to the very last crumb. The loft smelled of spiced apple cider and evergreens. Lights twinkled on the Christmas tree, flames flickered in the fireplace, and snow was falling outside—the perfect way to end a winter day. The perfect way to start a new year.
Of course, the year wouldn't stay perfect, but Alex was determined that she would begin this one better than she had the last four. But first, a cup of tea. Alex went to the kitchen and set water on the stove to boil, half-listening as the four MacLeod men and Kit O'Brady yelled encouragement at the football players on the screen, yet another of the many New Year's Day games: the Albequerque Redskins against the Dallas Cowboys. Over near the soaring windows of the south wall, Rachel, Susan, and Sara were staring with ferocious concentration at a Boggle tray, their pencils poised to write down any words they found in the jumbled letters. Gina and Grace sat at the kitchen table, sipping hot chocolate and speaking of children.
"When is your baby due?" Grace asked.
"Three more months," Gina replied, with a fond smile and a satisfied pat of her swollen tummy.
"And your son is … three?"
"Yes, Davey will be four in April. He wanted to come to his grandpa's party tonight, but John and I decided he's too young to explain things to, and too old not to notice how many candles were on the cake. Connor took him ice-skating earlier today, and Mitzi's watching him now. We promised him we'd be back at Aunt Rachel's house before his bedtime."
"You have a wonderful family," Grace said sincerely.
"Yes, we're very lucky," Gina said, but then her smile slipped away. "Not like in China. That article in today's paper…"
Alex had read it, too. "Sterility Plague" the headline had blared. "Government Birth Control Program Gone Too Far." Chinese officials denied any culpability, claiming instead that their people had been infected by outsiders who wanted China's land for themselves. "Generational genocide," they were calling it.
"They say some areas haven't seen any births in over two years." Gina glanced down at herself again, one hand absently caressing her unborn daughter. "I can't imagine an entire country without children."
Grace's usually serene features were grim. "I know. And it's spreading. India, Australia, even as far away as France."
"You work on population control, don't you?"
"Yes. It's ironic. I've spent a decade developing and distributing birth control, and now we're working on restoring fertility."
And whatever had Cassandra said about that, Alex wondered. The tea kettle whistled, and Alex turned to pour the boiling water into her cup. She added half a teaspoon of sugar and carried her tea with her to the library, making her way through the narrow book-lined room to the study at the far end. But before she had done more than sit at the desk and take out a sheet of paper and a pen, Sara knocked and peered around the door jamb, leaning her head sideways so that her long hair fell over her eyes. She pushed the honey-brown strands back with a quick hand and said simply, "Hey, Mom."
"Come on in, sweetheart," Alex called, setting down her pen with a sense of relief. Things weren't completely comfortable between them, not yet, but talking to Sara was still easier than the task Alex had set for herself this evening. "How did the Boggle game go?" Alex asked after Sara had flopped into one of the two reading chairs near the window.
"Aunt Rachel won. As usual. I found 'bound' and Aunt Susan found 'vague,' and of course Aunt Rachel found both of those and she also came up with 'vagabond.' Ten bonus points for one word." Sara sighed dramatically. "I have never found an eight-letter word in Boggle. Not once in my life."
"Neither have I," Alex said with a sympathetic grin. "Rachel's good at seeing things." And not just in word games. A week after that talk in Rachel's kitchen, Alex had finally sent Cassandra an invitation to Connor's birthday party. There had been no reply until this morning, when a package from Cassandra had arrived for Connor, along with a short note saying she was sorry she could not attend. No explanation had been given. None was needed. Alex knew why Cassandra hadn't come.
Alex also knew, from watching Connor sit and stare at the drawing of Ramirez that Cassandra had made for him, that Rachel was right. Cassandra knew Connor. She understood him. She had loved him for centuries, and she could love him for centuries to come. And Connor could love her.
"What are you writing?" Sara said, twisting in her chair to peer at the desktop.
"A letter. To Cassandra."
"Oh," Sara said in blank surprise then added quickly, "That's great! She'll be really glad to hear from you. She talks about you a lot. She misses you."
"And I've missed her." Four years it had been, since they had last seen each other. Four years of silence and rage. Alex straightened the paper on the desk and placed the pen neatly on top. Then she rearranged them both. Finally, she said, "You know how angry I've been …"
"Oh, yeah," Sara agreed, and they shared painful smiles.
"It wasn't just you; I was blaming Cassandra for my growing old," Alex told her daughter, knowing that someday Sara would have to face this, too. "But it's not Cassandra's fault that we're mortal, or that she's immortal, and it's not your dad's fault, either." Alex had blamed Connor most of all, though it had taken her months of therapy and the near-destruction of her marriage before she could admit that.
Well. That was all in the past. Maybe not over and done with, but in the past. Alex doggedly went on. "It's just … what they are. What we are."
"Aunt Rachel told me and Colin that years ago."
"And she's right," Alex said. "I just had a hard time seeing it. But now I do. So, I need to tell Cassandra that I'm not angry with her and I don't hate her, not anymore. I like to think that Heather and Brenda wouldn't hate me for loving Connor, now that they're gone. They would want Connor to be happy." Alex took a deep breath and said firmly, "And so do I. Love shouldn't be selfish, Sara. Sometimes it has to let go."
Sara hopped off the chair and wrapped her arms around Alex from behind. "I will always love you, Mom. And so will Dad."
"I know." Alex reached up and patted Sara's hand. "Thank you. But someday, he's going to love someone else." She had to take another deep breath before she said it, but she said it nonetheless. "I want him to."
"You're the best, Mom," Sara said, squeezing extra tight. "I want to be just like you." Sara kissed her on the cheek before she left the room.
Alex finished her tea before she finally picked up her pen. "Dear Cass," she began. Three pages later, she signed the letter with "Love, from your best friend."
This story is continued in Revolutionary, in which Alex takes another look at Cass and Methos finally returns