Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin Page B

is. But I don’t know if it’s good. I hate it when I come out
of the dream. I wish I could appreciate the present. But I’m
always on alert. I always expect something terrible to happen.” Miranda paused. “I guess that’s why I’m—I mean, why
I was—so scared to see you again, Fenella. I’m sorry.” She
inhaled. “I don’t smell anything now. I must have imagined
it. I do that sometimes.”
Guilt stabbed at Fenella. But she had choices and she
wouldn’t hurt Miranda. She would be careful, and thoughtful, about what she chose to do. She would be.
Nobody would be hurt unnecessarily. She swore it.
“I understand,” she said.
“Thanks.” Miranda pulled a vast quantity of cat hair out
of the comb and formed it into a ball that she set aside. The
cat rolled over obligingly, and she started combing him on
the other side.
“Then there’s the whole enormous business of making a
new life. I want to contribute, and not live off others. But
I’m not doing so well with that. Some days, I don’t even
want to leave this house. Soledad says it’s early yet. I know
I’m useful at home, helping with Dawn.”
“Are you . . .” Fenella paused delicately as an unexpected
question arose in her mind. “In this new life, is there a human lover for you, perhaps? Or do you think there might
be, someday?”
Don’t ask her hurtful questions! Ryland’s anger came at
Fenella like a blast. I’ve only just got her calmed down!
Fenella blinked, surprised.
But Miranda answered, simply and immediately, as if
she had dealt with this question before and it contained
no pain.
“Oh, Fenella. No. I can’t imagine that. It would be enough
for me to manage a job of some kind.” She tilted her head at
Fenella. “Let me ask you the same thing. Would you want a
real lover?”
“I had a real lover once,” Fenella said sharply. “Robert.”
“I mean now. Can you imagine being with someone new,
someone that you choose freely?”
Walker Dobrez’s shy sideways glance drifted into Fenella’s memory. She spoke quickly. “No. Never. That part of me
is dead.”
Miranda nodded. “Exactly. Dead.”
“Yes,” said Fenella.
“It’s too bad, though, don’t you think? Lucy says it’s like
Padraig keeps on winning.”
“What?” said Fenella. “No, he doesn’t. Why would she
think our not falling in love again means that?”
“People always think their own way is the right way,” said
Miranda. “And that’s what Lucy did. She says it’s the way to
go on with your own life. Loving.”
“It’s not the only way.”
“I agree. Especially as I don’t think it’s possible for me.
What’s your way going to be, then, Fenella? Now that you’re
here? What will you do with your life?”
I’m going to die, Fenella thought. She said, “I don’t know.”
Miranda nodded. “Me neither.” She bent to comb the cat
some more.
104

Chapter 12
    In the days that followed, Fenella tried to settle into her
pretend life with the Markowitz-Greenfield-Scarborough
clan. But all the while she was watching and thinking.
    At first the household seemed like it was made of pure
chaos. There was all manner of movement and noise:
phones trilling; doors opening and closing; computers
beeping; floors creaking. Neighbors and friends frequently
stopped by without warning; suddenly you would hear a
strange voice call out, “Hello? Is anybody home?” and then
another person would be there amongst them all, and this
stranger too would be talking.
    Always the talking, the exhausting talking. Nobody was
ever quiet for long in this house.
In the middle of it all was the child. Dawn waved her
hands and made burbling and cooing sounds. She cried and
    she laughed. She was into one thing and then into another.
Even though she was really getting too big for it, everybody
was always picking her up—usually a split second after she
toddled into something she should not.
Everything revolved around the child. Where she was