Kate sat quietly as she waited for Beth and Julia to emerge into the public area of O'Hare airport. She had arrived thirty minutes before her sister's flight had, and took the opportunity to sit still, resisting her natural impulse to fidget.
It was three months almost to the day since Kate and Beth had seen each other last, three months since Kate had gotten her first glimpse of Beth's new boyfriend. Three months since the pair had arrived in Chicago without the usual bother of air travel or a long car ride. Technically the trio, since when the bubble formed the appearance of an extra-large dog was preceded by a troika of voices, the sounds echoing through Kate's apartment as if the owners of those voices were standing right there with her.
"Tyler, wait!" a man's voice stated just as the mutt that belonged to that name emerged right in front of Kate, trailing his leash behind him.
"I though, you said you had a hold of him," Beth's voice said in a tone of voice equal parts accusation and exasperation.
"I did, but he really strong. You try holding onto him," Julia's voice said in her defense.
Tyler seemed a bit confused by the sight of the woman in front of him; his eyes telling him one thing, but his nose telling him something else.
"Sorry," said the exquisite man who stepped through the bubble only a second before Beth did.
"It wasn't my fault," Julia's voice stated clearly from their apartment in Harlem just as the bubble collapsed.
Kate was still partly stunned by what she had witnessed, and it took her a moment to recover, during which Tyler stopped in front of her and presented his ample head for scratching.
"You weren't kidding," Kate said as Beth walked up and hugged her twin, "that was fucking wild."
"Wait'll you walk through one yourself," Beth answered as she rested her head on her sisters shoulder, wrapped her arms around her, and breathed in deeply. Beth couldn't explain to people that Kate had a fragrance all her own, at least to Beth's untrained nose. When Kate had given Beth the winter coat she would eventually wear, Beth would regularly bury her face in it and breathe in the perfume of her sister's scent and be immediately transported back in time to when they had been inseparable. But that gift was still in Beth's future as she hugged the sister that she had not seen in over a year. They were separated eventually by a fur covered wedge that was still trying to figure out how his new second-best friend had divided herself, and why those two halves smelled so different.
"Come her, you big doofus, and give them a minute to say hello," Aric said as he patted his leg. "Sorry about that, he's a well known escape artist."
"No worries," Kate said as Beth straightened up and the two women stood eye to eye and simply looked at each other for a minute.
"You have a couple of new scars," Beth said as her fingers traced a pair of lines on her sister's face that had not been there the last time they stood like this.
"You don't," Kate replied. "Why is it always me? I wear a mask, and I get new scars. All you wear is a glow in the dark wig, and you're as smooth as an egg. Unless..."
Her voice trailed off as her eyes traveled to Aric.
"Don't look at me," he said as his hands came up in mock defense, which allowed Tyler to immediately return to the side of the two women, "I didn't change anything on the outside. What you see is what you get."
"Mostly," Beth said as she smiled and hugged her sister tightly. "It's what he changed on the inside that counts."
Something inside had definitely changed. It hadn't taken Kate much time at all to notice that for herself. That night, which had originally been intended as a meeting between Kate and Aric, had quickly turned into a rediscovery between the two sisters as they explored the landscape of the new, post-Alice-integration, bond. The two women sat side by side on the couch that was mostly taken up by snoozing German Shepherd once he settled down. Aric and Kate traded initial pleasantries, and talked for a while, but he sat mostly silent as Kate and Beth talked and laughed and shared many physical gestures of the love that they felt for each other. No uninformed observer, seeing the two of them together now, would have guessed that they had spent twenty years (give or take) apart.
It was only at the end that Kate asked her sister if she could have a few minutes alone with Aric. Beth had been expecting something of the sort, and since Tyler had escaped Julia's grasp leash and all, Beth knew how she would spend her time while her sister and her boyfriend talked in private.
Now that it was just the two of them, and Aric had Kate's undivided attention, any uncertainty about what he had been feeling the entire evening evaporated like an early morning fog in July. Kate's mind had been gently prodding his, like they had met before; met and developed a connection, however tenuous. Aric resisted the urge to reach out and complete the connection that would have them sharing thoughts. He was certain he had never met either of the Kane sisters before he met Beth on a beach in Costa Rica. He had no explanation for it, but in all fairness Kate didn't give him much time to develop one.
"Tell me something about yourself," Kate had asked simply once Beth and Tyler had left for their walk around the Gold Coast. It had been a completely alcohol free evening up till that point, but as Aric watched Kate reach up into a cupboard, produce a bottle of Westland Single Malt American Whiskey, and pour a healthy amount into two glasses he knew that the tenor of the evening was about to change.
It was a classic tactic. The interrogator would ply his (in this case, her) prey (in this case, Aric) with good food and drink to loosen their tongue, while only pretending to drink anything themselves. Kate had no way of knowing that Aric could burn away the alcohol before it got anywhere near his bloodstream, but on this particular evening, in this particular setting, he did not see the need to be quite that cautious.
Aric took a sip and felt the warm liquid burn its way towards his stomach. "What is it you'd like to know?"
nudge...nudge...nudge, she was still prodding. Aric wasn't sure she was even aware she was doing it.
"I don't know," Kate replied after taking a sip of her own drink, "anything and everything?"
Aric chuckled. "Just that?"
Kate's smile very much resembled her sister's. Aric could not help but be affected by the face that he had become so found of smiling at him in that devious manner, and he was positive that it was all part of Katherine Kane's plan of attack. There were times in Aric's life that, for whatever reason, people in positions of authority had begun asking him questions that lead to dangerous, at least for Aric's anonymity, places. In those cases Aric's solution was to have the person simply forget what they were asking, and why. But manipulating Kate's mind and memory was strictly off limits, and Aric would have to maneuver out of this trap the old fashioned way.
Aric took another sip. "Let's set some ground rules. I'll answer any question that you're willing to answer about yourself."
The glass in Kate's hand was halfway to her mouth before it stopped. Aric could still see her eyes above the rim of the glass as they narrowed and looked back at him with apprehension. She was aware that this animal was not so easily trapped, and might be dangerous if cornered. Aric knew she had secrets of her own that she wanted kept hidden, and that Kate was mentally updating the list of questions that she was safe to ask, and to answer.
"Fine. Marquess of Queensberry Rules it is," she answered.
Beth returned approximately forty minutes later to find them still sitting in Kate's small study.
Well, they haven't killed each other, or demolished the building, she thought, so how bad can it have gone?
Kate continued to replay that night in her mind as she waited for Beth and Julia's flight to arrive, and to thank God for returning her sister to her, physically and now, finally, psychically.
I give thanks unto You, Adonai, that, in mercy, You have returned my sister to me. Endless is Your compassion; great is Your faithfulness. I thank You, Adonai, for the family You have given me and for the breath that renews my body and spirit.
"She was shaking so much it felt like we were dancing," Beth was explaining to her sister as Kate made the exchange from the Tri-State to the Eisenhower. "I almost felt bad for her. I think at one point she started praying."
Kate could not help but laugh, even though what Beth had gone through was far from funny.
"Its their own fault. The TSA can stop strip searching you if they're going to piss their pants every time they do it."
"It wasn't the TSA," Julia chimed in from the back seat. "They refused, saying that they don't do that, and it was for either the CBP or the NYPD to do it. The itch-bay from the FBI just stood there sweating through her clothes and hoping nobody asked her to do it. That was a ten minute argument between three women who jumped every time Beth moved a muscle or even looked at any of them."
"I think I dozed off at one point while they were arguing. I remember one of them saying, I have two kids I wanna be alive to go home to tonight."
Julia was smiling when she recounted the last images she had watched before disconnecting her phone from the video feed. "They we crying and hugging each other after you left that room. Did you know that?"
The humor drained from Beth's face before she answered. "No, I didn't. Happy to be alive, I guess."
It was like a switch being thrown, as the mood turned somber. But it only lasted a moment, Kate sensing that as host it was on her to lighten the mood.
"Well they can all collectively go fuck themselves if they're going to keep putting you through that. The next few days are going to be all fun and games. And massive amounts of food."
"I can certainly get on board with that," Beth said as she looked out the passenger window of Kate's 2021 Range Rover Sport while they moved through Hillside at 65 miles per hour. They were still far enough out of the city proper that nothing was likely to trigger a bad memory. It was mostly neighborhoods filled with small houses packed tightly together, but Beth's vision was on the large green expanse of the Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery, and the Queen of Heaven Cemetery just behind it.
Twins, just like Kate and me, Beth thought as her mind went to all the souls who's mortal forms found their final resting places in one of those twins. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that she, when she had still been Alice, was responsible for separating some of those souls from the bodies that now rested there. Alice had killed people on every continent, except for Antarctica. Their shared hands had a lot of blood on them.
But Al Capone's in there someplace, and he had enough blood on his hands to fill Lake Michigan. I wonder if he bought his way in? Or did he truly repented at the end, and the Church let him in?"
"What are you thinking about?" Kate asked as her vision alternated between her sister and the traffic in front of her.
Beth was silent for approximately ten seconds. "You ever think about what you want to happen to you when you die?"
"So I guess the fun and games part of the vacation has started," Julia said.
"I mean have you picked out a spot, or bought a plot? Made arrangements? You know, a will that says cremate me and dump my ashes over Wrigley Field?"
Kate was quicker to make the connection than Julia because she could see the relevant clue past her sister out her passenger window. "I'm never driving you by a fucking cemetery again," she said as her eyes returned to the slowing traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway.
"I was just wondering. Until recently I never figured that there would be enough of me left to bury, and that no one would even care if someone just flushed what was left down the toilet. But for the last few weeks I've been thinking that maybe things might be different."
"I care. I've always cared. Dad too. That'll never change. But to answer your question, yes, after my latest near death experience I wrote up a will. I'm going to lie next to Mom in the family plot in Ridge Lawn. Which, in case you forgot, is big enough for four."
The implication was not lost on Beth. "I can't be buried there, I'm not Jewish."
"Yes you are. They let us put up a tombstone in your memory even though we never found your body."
Beth had seen it for herself when she went to visit her mom. It had been one of the first things she had done once she finally escaped Alice's grasp. It was surreal, seeing a stone with her name, and her birthday, and the date that she and Kate had been separated, the same date that was their mother's tombstone, carved into it, standing almost as tall as she was. She also knew that the stone was gone now; relocated somewhere, Beth was not sure where, once Beth had been shown to be very much alive, at the request of the Bet Din after they rescinded Beth's Teudat Petira; biding its time, maybe, until it would once again be put to use as it marked someone's final resting place; maybe hers, maybe Kate's, maybe a complete stranger's.
"You know what I mean. I'm not practicing."
And I don't believe God exists. I haven't for a long time. Not after everything I've seen, and everything I've done. How could God allow that to happen if he existed?
Beth knew that playwright Elie Weisel had been fifteen years old and an inmate at Auschwitz, his arm bearing the number that the Nazi's had recently tattooed there, when he watch as three rabbinical scholars put God on trial for breaking his covenant with the people of Israel - and found God guilty. Beth would have found Him guilty too. She had too many memories of men and women as they prayed to whatever God they worshiped to spare them the suffering they were about to endure at Alice's hands, or at the hands of one of the other Daughters of Lilith. And as they screamed, and cried, and sobbed, and watched their blood and other bodily fluids spill out of them, where was God, and what did he do to protect them? Nowhere, and nothing. Even if there is a God, what fucking good was he if he let shit like that happen.
Why didn't you stop me, you son of a bitch? Why didn't you save those people from me? Why didn't you save me from myself? Where the fuck were you?
Kate's voice brought Beth back to the here and now. "You can still be buried there. Dad checked."
Beth turned and looked at her sister and did not try to hide the surprise she was feeling. "Dad. When?"
"Right after your last visit. Just in case you hadn't made other arrangements."
"Well, I have definitely not made other arrangements," Beth replied. She turned back to look out her window again, but there was nothing interesting to see. Nothing to send her thoughts off on a tangent like the cemeteries did. She defaulted to the view out of the windshield, a mirror image of the woman sitting next to her, give or take their very different hair styles.
Both women were quiet for a moment, the engine and the surrounding traffic supplying a steady background noise. "So you'll think about it?" Kate asked eventually.
Beth took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly, as her mind recited a fragment of a prayer that Aric liked.
Today I will walk out, today everything negative will leave me
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever, nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.
"Sure, why not? You already bought the tombstone, no point in it going to waste."
The smile did not leave Kate Kane's face for approximately ten miles.
"Innkeeper, wine for my men!" Julia said as she stepped through the door and greeted Luke.
"I don't wanna carry the baaags," Luke replied in his whiniest voice.
Kate rolled her eyes. "Do you two have to do that every time she visits?"
"Yes," Julia replied simply as she hugged the man she had known for years, who hugged her back just as tightly. No one could, or would, mistake them for brother and sister, even though that is how they thought of each other. "How are you? You look good."
Beth had to agree with Julia, Luke Fox did look good. He was about the same age as (give or take a few years) any of the three women, and his dark skin showed the effects of a rigid skin care regime, as his body likewise displayed the effects of an equally rigid exercise regime. The fact that he also possessed an intellect of the first order was hidden from view beneath a head of close cropped dark hair.
"I am good," he answered. "Sorry to hear about what's-his-name. How are you doing?"
Julia smiled weakly as she patted his chest. "I'm good. What's-his-name did what any well adjusted person would do under those circumstances and ran for the hills. I don't blame him."
"Well I blame him," Kate added.
"Did you see Kate's new ride?" Luke asked Julia, though it was Beth that answered.
"We did. From a distance. She parked three spots away from it, and barely let us look at it, let alone touch it," she answered Luke before turning her attention back to her sister. "How many motorcycles do you need?"
"Need, or want?" Kate asked in reply. "My old bike is five years old. I thought it was time to upgrade to the newest version. Did Kyle ever ask for his Buell back?"
Julia was shaking her head no while Beth answered. "No. Not yet, at least. I do the odd job for him, so it's sort of the company car he lets me use."
"Do you want another one? You can have my old 883."
Beth was going to say something smart, or at least clever, until she saw her sister's face. "Are you serious?"
"Absolutely. I was thinking I might sell it, but I'd rather give it to you."
"To get you into that family plot a bit faster," Julia said dryly, her opinion of motorcycles, and those that chose to ride them, being well documented.
"Say what?" Luke asked, his face a mask of confusion as he scanned the three women's faces.
Kate laughed at the face that her assistant was giving them. "Nothing. Inside joke. Besides, Beth's an excellent rider."
Beth's face began to shine with enthusiasm and glee. "If you're serious, then fuck yes I'd like your old Harley."
"It's settled then," Kate said as the twin sisters thousand watt smiles illuminated the large living room of Kate's spacious apartment.