22

There being nothing else he could have done, Jack had driven like a maniac all the way to a point just south of Porcupine Plain on Route 38, had stopped the truck, and now waited with anxiety gnawing away at his guts, and watched the northbound traffic in his sideview mirror. There was no guarantee that the little blonde alien girl hadn't already rolled the truck. Worse! She could be anywhere, badly hurt, somewhere off the road where no one could find her.

Images flooded through Jack's mind, all of them bad. Yelina, trapped in the burning ruin of the wrecked crew cab; Yelina run off the road by highway cops and arrested at gunpoint; Yelina being examined in a hospital emergency room, a panicked emergency room doctor on the phone to the authorities . . .

'Damn, damn, damn!' Jack slammed his fists on the steering wheel in frustration. Why couldn't he at least have bought cell phones, for himself and the kids? How could he have let this happen? How could he have let everything slide so badly? Why hadn't he got to know the alien girls better? To date, he hadn't once asked them a single question about the ship, about their loved ones, about their other lives. How could he have been so insensitive? So very blind?

Hours passed, and Jack was just about to start up the truck, turn around, and head for home, when with a wrench of anxiety he spotted the crew cab. The little blonde alien girl seemed to have better control of the vehicle now. It wasn't careening, but jerked slightly from side to side in small increments that kept it generally between the line running down the centre of the road and the shoulder. Jack started the engine, put in the clutch, put the truck in gear, waited . . . waited . . . waited for her to pass-

'Jeeze!'

He almost blind-sided a little blue vehicle that was trailing the crew-cab in hot pursuit. Jack stared in shock! There was no mistaking the tell-tale plume of blue smoke belching from that rusty, dented old Honda Civic. It was Mike! Careening back onto the highway, spraying gravel as he went, Jack stomped on the accelerator and gave chase.

Jack was just beginning to wonder whether Mike's old Honda or his own old truck was up to catching the crew cab- had she floored the accelerator, and had she been a more experienced driver, Yelina could easily have lost them- but by degrees, the Honda inched up on the crew-cab until it followed in the wake of the fishtailing vehicle.

And then, Mike made his move! His little blue Honda dodged into the left lane and belched smoke as Mike stomped on the accelerator. Jack was just beginning to wonder if Mike was going to be able to overtake the crew-cab after all, when the Honda suddenly veered in front of the fleeing vehicle. Jack hit the brakes as the crew-cab's brake lights came on. As the vehicle came screeching to a halt, he parked himself right up against the rear bumper to prevent Yelina from taking flight once more.

In a lightheaded daze, Jack stumbled out of his truck to the crew-cab door and wrenched it open. As in a dream, he watched as Yelina tried pulling away from him, screaming at him.

'No, Jack! Let me go! I want my mom! I want my mom!'

And then, she was in his arms, weeping hysterically.

Jack couldn't read Mike's mood, but there was something ominous in the way the big man led Yelina to his car, went to the back, opened the hatch-back and produced a tow-bar, pushed it roughly into Jack's grasp.

'I'll meet you back at your place. Then we're going to have a little talk.'

Jack was stunned. How had Mike known? And why was he so angry?

Wordlessly, Jack obeyed, backed his old truck up and hooked it up by the tow-bar to the crew-cab, got the vehicles turned around, and headed back towards Anaheim.

For Jack, time seemed broken somehow, moving in jerky sequence from mid-scene to mid-scene. Almost unaware of how he had gotten there, he found that he was back at home, sitting at the kitchen table, the kids banished to the basement. Mike was standing, furious, pacing.

'Goddamn it Jack, WAKE UP! This has gone on long enough!'

Jack found that his insides were like broken glass, full of unuttered pain. He shook his head. 'Why are you being like this?'

Mike stared at him as though he were mad. 'Haven't you been paying any attention to what's going on around you? That kid could have gotten herself killed!'

'Oh, so it's my fault?'

At that, Mike appeared angry enough to floor him. 'It is your goddamned fault!,' he roared into Jack's face. 'She's out of control! She coming home drunk every other goddamned night, she's into drugs and God knows what else, she's selling drugs, and from the beginning you've done nothing! Kiko and Jason have been clinging to each other like grim death because you haven't been there doing your job! Carly's like a little ghost these days-'

Jack got to his feet, furious. 'I'm doing the best I know how-'

'You're doing jack-shit!' Mike roared down into his face. 'These kids need a father! Not a friend who buys their affection-'

Jack put up his hand. 'We're not even going there-'

'Oh, yes, that's exactly where we're going,' Mike told him. 'These kids are desperate for a father, or at the least, a father figure-'

'I'm doing the best I know how-' Jack tried to protest.

'You're doing nothing!' Mike thundered. 'You're not giving these kids what they need. Yelina wants you to punish her, to ground her, to warm her little backside when she's bad, to shower her with love and affection the rest of the time. They all want that. They all need that. But instead, you're just coasting, hanging around on the sidelines, where you've been ever since-'

'Mike, please don't-'

'Ever since the accident,' Mike pressed on. 'Well, pal, you can't keep coasting like this- not any more. These kids need you, Yelina and Kiko now more than ever. They need us to figure out a way to save the people inside that ship-'

Jack almost fainted, felt the earth tilt as the implications sank home.

'How the hell did you know about that?'

'Because the kids came to me and told me. Ages ago,' Mike said into Jack's disbelief. 'They told me, because they couldn't tell you! Christ, Jack, don't you even have any idea what's been going on around here with that crashed ship out there? Haven't you once turned on the television and seen the crowds of protesters and wack-jobs, from all over the world, camped out around the crash-site? Look at me! Don't you have any idea what's going on?'

Jack sat down, shaken. 'I can't-'

'Do you even remember what you called Yelina when you pulled her out of the truck?'

Jack gaped, feeling sick. He found himself unable to speak.

'You called her "Angie", Jack. You called her your little Angel.'

All at once, to Jack's aghast mind came unbidden the unthinkable- the mangled, burnt-out vehicles, the charred bodies of Mike's wife and his own, Ellie, and the charred, mutilated remains of his little girl.

In a quiet, roughly gentle voice, Mike continued. 'It was an accident, Jack. Just a stupid, horrible accident. I lost my wife, and you . . . you lost everything. And then you crawled up your own ass and tried to die, and you've been there ever since.'

'Oh, God!' At once, the grief he'd held back for so long, that had lain in wait for him all these years, suddenly erupted, seized him by the throat. 'Oh, God!'

'You have got to stop fighting it,' Mike told him gently, as Jack came apart at last. 'Don't hang onto it any more. I'm here for you, buddy. The kids are here for you. They need you- not a broken shell of a man, but all of you, alive and whole. It's time to let it go.'

Jack wept for Ellie, the lost love of his life; for Angela, the light of his life, gone out forever. His little angel. Jack wept for them, for his irremediable pain, for the life that had been torn from him . . . and for the first time in many years he felt the analystic balm of healing touch his scarred emotions like cold water poured over a burn.