The Quiet Pools

be flattered to be picked out of such a large group. But this seems a little like winning a sweepstakes and then having to sell the prize to pay the taxes.”

“To you,” said Brett, coining to her defense. “But her life isn’t your life, or yours, Caroline. She’s still living in the world we created for ourselves. Of course we’re comfortable here. But she’s only just starting to make her own choices and shape her own world.”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” snapped Jack. “You’ve influenced her enough already. Everything you say is just an apology for yourself.”

It was an old wound, reopened by the blow of Malena’s news. Alicia stepped in to try to blunt the confrontation. “The issues here are present and future, not past. And everyone has a right to be heard, Jack.”

“I’d like him to hear me,” Jack retorted, jabbing a finger in Brett’s direction. “He made this happen. When we let him in ten years ago, he picked out Malena and tried to make her his daughter—”

“I am his daughter,” Malena said.

“You were happy enough about that when it was convenient for you,” Brett said at the same time.

“—because he didn’t have one of his own. And as for Malena living in the world we created, that’s him talking for himself again. You were the last one on the scene. And if you didn’t like what you were getting into, you shouldn’t have contracted with us.”

Brett refused to back down. “And if you didn’t want me, you shouldn’t have offered the contract. Or did you think that I would just take care of Alicia’s needs so you three could go on ignoring her?”

“What does any of this—” Malena began.

But Caroline trampled over her attempt to reenter the conversation. “You’ve never stopped trying to make us feel guilty over Michel and Alicia growing apart—”

“Growing apart? The way I hear it, you came to every little crisis between them like a shark to blood—”

Malena watched, first with astonishment, then with growing dismay, as the compromises and accommodations which held Raven House together dissolved in the acid of harsh words. Finally, her frustration turned to fury, she skidded the airchair into the middle of the circle and dropped it to the floor with an emphatic thump.

“Stop!” she demanded. “Stop, all of you! This isn’t about you. This is about me. Doesn’t anyone here want to talk to me?”

The display won a moment of awkward silence, brought an embarrassed look to Michel’s face, and elicited a pursed-lip nod of self-recrimination from Brett.

“I’m sorry, Malena,” Alicia said gently. “What did you want to say?”

She looked slowly from one face to the next, fixing finally on Father Jack. “I really hate the way you have to turn every conversation into a contest, and every conference into an excuse to drag out every old family argument and grudge. I’ve heard all of this until I’m sick of it. Michel neglected Alicia. Alicia drove Michel away. Caroline’s a bitch. Jack’s selfish. Brett’s the thief of hearts. This one neglected the kids. That one spoiled the kids. This one doesn’t pull his weight. That one’s always trying to take over. Did you ever talk to each other, or was it always yelling? Don’t any of you ever put anything away for good?”

“Listen, child,” Jack started threateningly. “You can’t talk to me like that—”

“Oh, no—I’m not going to let you shut me up by making me small,” she said warningly. “I hit my majority five years ago.”

“It’s true. Malena does not have to be here,” Alicia said. “It’s because she loves us that she’s willing to share this with us and listen—”

“Mother Alicia, I can speak for myself,” Malena said, irritated. “Father Jack, in case you haven’t noticed, I have three fathers and two mothers, and have had for quite some time. I can talk to any of you any way I have to, to make you understand. The fact that you and I are blood doesn’t give you any special right to say no to me, or to tell me who I can and can’t respect. Every one of you has helped me. Every one of you has influenced me. And every one of you has hurt me, too.”

Surely you don’t mean me, Caroline’s eyes said. Father Jack looked away and grunted.

“That goes with being family,” Brett said finally.

“Maybe it does,” Malena said. “I don’t really know, because this is the only family I’ve ever seen from the inside. I love you all, but it is your world, just like Brett said. I would have left it by now, if there’d been some place or way to go. I’ve been here too long.”

“Is that your answer, then?” asked Caroline accusingly. “You want to go because you want to get away from us?”

She did not shy from the accusation. “That’s not my best reason. But I have to admit it’s part of it, yes. It might be nice to be alone for a change.”

“What about Ron?” asked Alicia.

That was a jolt, and her face betrayed it. “I guess,” she said slowly, “I guess the fact that I didn’t think of him all day until just this moment tells me something.”

“It should tell you that you haven’t thought this through,” said Michel.

“Or maybe that whatever needs Ron answered will be answered as well or better by going to Tau Ceti,” said Brett. “Can you answer me this, Malena? Do you understand yourself? Do you know what this means to you?”

“Did you know, when you bought the option?”

His expression turned inward, reflective. “It seemed like the most exciting thing anyone could do,” he said. “Like if you didn’t want to, there must be something wrong with you.”

“Would you go now?”

He looked at Alicia before answering. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not important.”

“It is important. Is it because you grew up? Because you see things more clearly now? Do you look back and think you were silly, naive? Do you think I’m naive?”

“Too many questions,” he said, shaking his head. “No easy answers. Sometimes I think it’s because I grew old, inside. You have to travel light to get anywhere. The more you’re afraid to let go of, the fewer your choices— until your only choice is to stay right where you are. My luggage got too heavy somewhere along the road.”

He looked up, taking in both Malena and Alicia sitting side by side. “I’m not unhappy, you know.”

Alicia smiled a sweet, sad smile. “I know,” she said gently. “I also know that part of your heart broke when Ur left and you weren’t on it.” She turned to Malena. “If you know your heart, and your heart says go, I think you should listen to it and not to us. I think you should go.”

Bright tears spilled down Malena’s cheeks. “I don’t know why I want to go,” she said. “I only know that I do.”

“That’s enough, sometimes,” said Alicia, reaching out and taking Malena’s hand.

It was not enough for Caroline, who came to her feet and stood, indignant, looming over her daughter. “Do you really think life’s as easy as that? That you can leave everything and everyone behind and be happy?”

“I don’t know,” was Malena’s answer. “I don’t even know how happy I am now.”

“You’re going to tell them yes.” Father Jack’s words were a harsh accusation.

Malena nodded and blinked back a tear. “I already have.”

CHAPTER 8 —GGG— “We have not forgotten.”

If it seemed odd sometimes to outsiders that the director of the Diaspora hyperlibrary project was not a librarian but a historian, it usually seemed less so when they found out who the historian was.

Thomas Tidwell was that oddity which seemed to come along once in a generation—a popular writer-director who also had the respect of his more reserved peers. The British-born, Oxford-trained Tidwell had earned respect through more than thirty years of work on Millennial culture, including two standard reference works,