The answers I needed existed somewhere. A thought here, a sentence there . . . or, if not the answers, at least the right follow-up questions to lead me to answers. So I’d gone back to bed that night with a plan. My own research plan. And I’d felt a smidgen better. I’d slept through the rest of that night, anyway.
Ugh. Sitting on the bed was a bad idea. My body longed to stretch out and wrap itself up in a swaddle of blankets. But it was Mother’s Day. No napping. And the key to sleeping through the night is being sleepy.
Logic sucked. I forced myself to stand and move one foot in front of the other until I made my way to the bathroom. Eileen was already in the kitchen, lining up ingredients on the counter.
My angel. “Need help?”
“I got it.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” I yawned. “Shower . . . ‘kay?”
“Want me to fix your coffee?”
Mmm . . . Scalding hot water? Or scalding hot caffeinated water? “Tempting. You know how?”
“Puh-lease. I do live here.”
Wow. A hot shower and coffee waiting for me? “Happy Mother’s Day to me! Be out in a sec.”
More than a second, as it turned out. Standing in the steaming rivulets felt exceptionally good to my aching head and neck, and I fantasized that my nightmares were being washed away. I lathered my hair slowly, trying to pretend that a masseuse was massaging my scalp, and even shaved my legs as an extra excuse to stay in the shower; but once I found myself just standing in the water with my eyes closed, I realized I had to get out. There was a fine line between relaxing and falling back asleep.
I twisted the handle to the right, and the water cooled to barely lukewarm, spattering me in goosebumps; but the cool water did the trick and by the time I reached for my towel I had shivered back to being awake.
As I slathered lotion on my arms and legs, it occurred to me that I’d just taken my first embarrassment-free shower in weeks. A small laugh tried to push its way out of my lungs, but I was still too tired to help it along. It was nice, though, to finally be at the point where I could shower without feeling like an unwilling participant in an alien peep-show. Of course, intellectually, I’d known all along how absurd that worry was, and had even assured Eileen that, like bathroom habits, extraterrestrials couldn’t care less about stuff like us washing our armpits, but it was still creepy. What really made us feel better was thinking of it in the terms of how Sal explained it. It wasn’t like they had hidden cameras installed everywhere . . . they just recorded energy. So, worst-case scenario, some alien computer screen might show little graphs and blips registering body temperatures and the decibels of water splashing on ceramic. No biggie.
Creepy. But no biggie. Nothing to be done about it anyway unless those tin-foil hat people were on the right track. Could you buy aluminum wallpaper? I could wrap the whole house from the inside like a baked potato.
“Mom?”
“Yeah . . . ?” I wrapped a towel around me and opened the door.
She was waiting with a hopeful smile. “Was that a laugh?”
“Was it?”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better. You look a little better.”
My left eyebrow lifted.
“Not that you looked bad! Just . . . tired.”
I patted her on the head and went to get dressed. A familiar-looking turquoise blouse was laid out on the bed next to jeans and a braided rope belt, and a steaming mug on a breakfast tray waited as my Mother’s Day gift. “Thank you!”
“I knew it’d look pretty on you! I found it in the back of your closet.”
“Mmm . . . ” My excitement had been for the coffee. Once upon a time I’d worn colorful clothes, but they really weren’t me. Maybe later today I’d bag some things up to donate.
“You should wear blue more often.” She made herself comfortable on the end of my bed, and I flapped an edge of my towel at her.
“No offense sweetie, but . . . ” Not that I really cared, but privacy would be nice. She ignored my hint and traced the red embroidery around one of the cap sleeves.
“I was thinking . . . I guess I was wondering . . . do you think that . . . ” She chewed on her lip, drawing the blouse into her lap like a blanket.
“Do I think Cara is having a nice Mother’s Day?” Her eyes flash-filled with tears and I pulled her against me. “I wish I knew, sweetheart. I’d like to think she is.”
We’d talked about Cara many times in the past few weeks, wondering if she was happy with her baby, that maybe it was really cool to live among aliens and raise a superhuman child; but inevitably those chats would become silence and we’d end up hugging each other until one of us found a way to change the subject.
“Is there something else, honey?”
She squinted up at me, and I waited—a little more patiently than I would’ve before.
“They’re listening . . . watching or whatever. Right?”
I squeezed her hand. “Probably. I try to pretend that it’s just Sal though. Like he’s our guardian angel or something.”
She seemed really disappointed. “You’re still not seeing any angels?”
I shook my head, and she leaned into me again. Since the night Sal had whisked us away, I hadn’t seen any. None. My friends were gone, or maybe the
