Matt looked over the trees with her. In the distance, the sun was going down. It was a school day the next day, but Becca didn’t think any of the parties involved were thinking about school at the moment. Death had a way of taking over people’s thoughts, mostly when it was so near and dear to their hearts, or rather, their lives.
“Do you think it’s true?” Matt said.
“I know you do,” Becca said. “Why else would you have told Robbie about what happened to Jolie?”
“She’s pregnant.”
Becca’s heart sank. She whirled her head around to look at her brother.
“What?” she said.
“To be fair, it was before the NaU,” Matt said. “About a month or so before.”
“But how can you—”
“Are you seriously asking your brother about how babies are made?”
Becca didn’t know what to say. Jolie must be a couple of months by now, and that meant that—
“Yeah, we’re planning on keeping it,” Matt said.
“But, you guys are going off to college.”
“We’ll make it work,” Matt said. “Or rather, we had planned on making it work. Your father’s announcement might have ruined our plans for the future.”
Becca thought about Matt as a father. Of course, the new Matt was obviously more capable of such a feat, but even if he hadn’t been blessed/cursed with the NaU, Becca could imagine her brother as a good dad.
“Don’t get your hopes up now, Becca,” Matt said.
A few last remaining leaves fell from the trees around them to the ground, disappearing amidst all of the others.
“Everything has a cost,” Matt said. “It looks like this NaU wasn’t the miracle we all thought it would be.”
“My dad will think of something,” Becca said.
“I don’t doubt Robbie’s commitment to all of us,” Matt said. “Nor his intelligence. He has done something truly remarkable. But like I said, everything has a cost. And the bill is coming due very soon.”
The front door opened.
Nigel walked over toward his car. The man’s face was as red as a tomato. He got into his car and drove off.
“Your father didn't look happy,” Becca said.
“He rarely ever does,” Matt said, “but he won’t do anything outrageous.”
“Do you still hate him?” Becca said.
“I can’t,” Matt said. “He’s my father. He’s all I have. Robbie is nice, but he likes you more than me. It only seems right. Like I’m sure my father likes me more than he likes you.”
“My father said that he poisoned you,” Becca said. “I think your father is capable of doing something outrageous.”
“As outrageous as injecting a dead woman with experimental nanite clusters,” Matt said.
The two of them had a quick laugh at that, but there was a thorn in the side of it.
“Don’t worry,” Matt said. “I know you don’t want me to die.”
“You still don’t know if that will happen.”
“I have a pretty good guess,” Matt said. “You were claiming that your father was a genius a couple of minutes ago. Are you going to say that he’s wrong about his prognosis?”
Becca rolled her eyes.
“Now you’re just annoying,” she said.
“I’m dying,” Matt said. “Humor keeps me warm.”
The two of them talked a bit longer after that, but Becca wouldn’t remember most of it. Instead, her mind was thinking about something else, about the doors, many that there were, all of which were now closed off to her and her family. There would be no family get-together with Jolie and Matt, no seeing her herself go off to college.
All because her father couldn’t let his wife die.
****
Nigel came back a few days later.
By then, Greendale was covered in a few inches of New England snow, and the air had a cold crispness to it, the kind that stole away your breath and choked your lungs whenever you tried to run or walk too fast in its presence. All of the leaves had fallen under the trees, leaving the skeletons of trees. The leftover remains of a hurricane down south that coming into contact with the colder temperatures of the north, along with the shifting jet stream, made a recipe for a blizzard, the likes of which the people of Greendale were prepping for. And amongst all of that prep, as the electricians were making sure the poles were safe, as the plumbers were checking people’s pipes to make sure none froze in the coming cold. Nigel Torres had been busy.
There had been talk all throughout town that he had been around asking people things, asking them about Robbie and the McCarthys in general, along with all of Matt’s friends. Becca heard rumors that the man was asking the police department about the lab that Robbie and his friends were using up in Argyle. What was it exactly that they were doing? Human experiments? Negligence and bad treatment?
Her father had told her and Carol that the man was harmless. All he was doing was causing a ruckus and, in truth, not an illegitimate one.
“I’ve killed him,” Robbie said to Carol and her daughter one night. “Or at least partially.”
By then, the only potential cures had been weak ones at that. It seemed that when Robbie McCarthy had been able to etch together this miracle of science known as the NaU, he had done too well of a job in one area, that being the kind that made sure the NaU was attached forever to the person that is inhabited. There seemed to be no real way to remove the NaU.
Kent was the most affected. All of them were starting to have problems. Jolie seemed to be racked with seizures. They were growing more severe as her nausea turned into something different and deadly.
Matt wasn’t home the night his father died.
He was off with Jolie, doing God knew what.
Miles away from the McCarthy house in the middle of a snow-laden
