Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town Part 62

"Yes. He has dinner with a woman, then he takes her dumpster diving and comes home and goes to bed. I can see that."

"But you don't see everything?"

"No, but I saw that."

"Fine," Adam said. He felt hopeless in the face of these predictions, as though the future were something set and immutable.

"I need to use the bathroom," Billy said, and made his way upstairs while Alan moved to a sofa and paged absently through an old edition of *Alice in Wonderland* whose marbled frontispiece had come detached.

A moment later, Mimi joined him, sitting down next to him, her wings unfolded across the sofa back.

"How big are they going to get, do you think?" she said, arranging them.

"You don't know?"

"They're bigger than they've ever been. That was good food," she said. "I think I should go talk to Krishna."

Adam shook his head. "Whoa."

"You don't need to be in between us. Maybe I can get him to back off on you, on your family."

"Mimi, I don't even want to discuss it."

"It's the right thing to do," she said. "It's not fair to you to stay."

"You want to have your wings cut," Alan said. "That's why you want to go back to him."

She s.h.i.+ed back as though he'd slapped her. "No --"

"You do. But what Billy didn't tell you is that Krishna's out there with other women, I saw him today. With a girl. Young. Pretty. Normal. If he takes you back, it will be as a toy, not as a lover. He can't love."

"Christ," she said. "Why are you saying this?"

"Because I don't want to watch you self-destruct, Mimi. Stay here. We'll sort out Krishna together. And my brother. Billy's here now, that means they can't sneak up on us."

"And these?" she said, flapping her wings, one great heave that sent currents of air across the room, that blew the loose frontispiece from *Alice in Wonderland* toward the fireplace grate. "You'll sort these out, too?"

"What do you want from me, Mimi?" He was angry now. She hadn't spoken a word to him in weeks, and now --

"Cut them off, Alan. Make me into someone who can go out again, who can be seen. Do it. I have the knife."

Adam squeezed his eyes shut. "No," he said.

"Good-bye," she said, and stood, headed for the stairs. Upstairs, the toilet flushed and they heard the sink running.

"Wait!" he said, running after her. She had her hand on the doork.n.o.b.

"No," she said. She was crying now. "I won't stay. I won't be trapped again. Better to be with him than trapped --"

"I'll do it," he said. "If you still want me to do it in two days, I'll do it."

She looked gravely at him. "Don't you lie to me about this," she said. "Don't you dare be lying."

He took her hands. "I swear," he said.

From the top of the stairs then, "Whups," said Billy. "I think I'll just tuck myself into bed."

Mimi smiled and hugged Alan fiercely.

Trey's ardor came out with his drunkenness. First a clammy arm around her shoulder, then a casual grope at her b.o.o.b, then a sloppy kiss on the corner of her mouth. That was as far as she was going to let it go. She waited for him to move in for another kiss, then slipped out from under his arm so that he fell into the roots of the big tree they'd been leaning against. She brained him with the vodka bottle before he'd had a chance to recover, then, as he rocked and moaned, she calmly took the hunting knife she'd bought at the Yonge Street survivalist store out of her bag. She prized one of his hands off his clutched head and turned it over, then swiftly drew the blade across his palm, laying it open to the muscle.

She hadn't been sure that she'd be capable of doing that, but it was easier than she'd thought. She had nothing to worry about. She was capable of that and more.

They climbed into bed together at the same time for the first time since they'd come home, like a domesticated couple, and Mimi dug under her pillow and set something down with a tin *tink* on the bedstand, a sound too tinny to be the hunting knife. Alan squinted. It was the robot, the one he'd given her, the pretty thing with the Dutch Master craquelure up its tuna-can skirts.

"He's beautiful," she said. "Like you." She wrapped her wings around him tightly, soft fur softer than any down comforter, and pressed her dimpled knees into the hollows of his legs, snuggling in.

He cried like a baby once the pain in his hand set in. She pointed the knifepoint at his face, close enough to stab him if need be. "I won't kill you if you don't scream," she said. "But I will be taking one joint of one toe and one joint of one finger tonight. Just so you know."

He tried not to fall asleep, tried to stay awake and savor that feeling of her pressed against him, of her breath on the nape of his neck, of the enfolded engulfment of her wings, but he couldn't keep his eyes open. Soon enough, he was asleep.

What roused him, he couldn't say, but he found himself groggily awake in the close heat of those wings, held tight. He listened attentively, heard something else, a tinny sound. The robot.

His bladder was full. He gently extricated himself from Mimi, from her wings, and stood. There was the robot, silhouetted on the end table. He smiled and padded off to the toilet. He came back to find Mimi splayed across the whole bed, occupying its length and breadth, a faintly naughty smile on her face. He began to ease himself into bed again, when he heard the sound, tinny, a little rattle. He looked at the robot.

It was moving. Its arms were moving. That was impossible. Its arms were painted on. He sat up quickly, rousing Mimi, who let out a small sound, and something small and bent emerged from behind the robot and made a dash for the edge of the end table. The way the thing ran, it reminded him of an animal that had been crippled by a trap. He shrank back from it instinctively, even as he reached out for the table light and switched it on.

Mimi scrunched her eyelids and flung an arm over her face, but he hardly noticed, even when she gave an outraged groan. He was looking at the little, crippled thing, struggling to get down off the end table on Mimi's side of the bed.

It was the Allen. Though he hadn't seen it in nearly 20 years, he recognized it. Tiny, malformed, and bandy-legged, it was still the spitting image of him. Had Davey been holding on to it all these years?

Tending it in a cage? Torturing it with pins?

Mimi groaned again. "Switch off the light, baby," she said, a moment's domesticity.

"In a sec," he said, and edged closer to the Allen, which was huddled in on itself, staring and crazy.

"Shhh," Adam breathed. "It's okay." He very slowly moved one hand toward the end table, leaning over Mimi, kneeing her wing out of the way.

The Allen s.h.i.+ed back farther.

"What're you doing?" Mimi said, squinting up at him.

"Be very still," he said to her. "I don't want to frighten it. Don't scream or make any sudden movements. I'm counting on you."

Her eyes grew round and she slowly looked over toward the end table. She sucked in sudden air, but didn't scream.