McCardy looked up at him. “Okay.”
Laughton passed by McCardy. “Let’s go,” he said, continuing out of the room. His junior officer followed behind, and they let themselves out the front door. It was so dark beyond the house’s aura, it was like they were on an island in space, disengaged from the rest of the world.
“A sister on the other side of the country and one name?” Mathews said, shutting off his body camera. “Half a name, really.”
The pain in Laughton’s face had returned, making it hard to see. “We’re done for the night,” he said, rubbing his head with both hands as he went to the truck. If only he could squeeze the pain away, out, gone. It made thinking impossible.
“Should I—?” Mathews started, as they got into the truck.
“I’m done,” Laughton snapped, collapsing into the passenger seat. He closed his eyes before Mathews even hit the power button, and focused on his breathing, trying to breathe away the pain, just breathe. He was asleep before they’d left town.
Chief… Chief.”
No, it was too early to get up. He could tell by the way his head felt, still stuffed with cotton, the left side of his face pulling everything down. Too early. In the mornings, he always felt better, something like optimistic about the day.
“Chief.”
A rough hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes just enough to glimpse the world, like dipping a toe into a pool to check the temperature before diving in. Shit. He was still in the truck. They were parked in the driveway of his house. All the lights were on inside. What time was it? Laughton sat up, rubbing his face.
“Chief, you all right?” Mathews said from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah. Yeah. Fine.” He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. “I’m fine.”
“I figured I should just drop you off. I’ll take the truck home, and come pick you up in the morning.”
Laughton nodded, taking the key fob from his pocket and dumping it in the cup holder. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah. See you tomorrow.” He opened the passenger door.
“Six?”
“Make it six thirty,” Laughton said getting out. He slammed the door, and Mathews pulled the truck out of the driveway as the chief went to his front door. He stood outside, closed his eyes, and counted to three. When he was younger, the first night of a murder investigation, he would go all night, driven in part by the chiding of his inexhaustible robot partner Kir. But right now, it was all he could do to keep standing. He tucked the last few hours away for the morning, grabbed the door handle, waiting for the chunky click of the lock disengaging as the knob verified his fingerprints, and then went inside.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Erica pounded halfway down the stairs, completely nude. “Daddy, I carved a dolphin at recess by the twin trees.”
Before he could respond to this overwhelming onslaught of noise, Betty breezed out of the kitchen. “No,” she yelled. “No, no, no, no.” She grabbed the banister and swung around, pointing a finger up the stairs. “No. You get in the bath,” Betty yelled.
“Daddy!”
“Let your father get in the door. You do what you’re supposed to be doing, and get in the bath.”
“I was just—” Erica started, but Betty took one step up the stairs, and Erica spun around and scrambled up the stairs on all fours. The bathroom door closed but didn’t latch.
Betty turned to Laughton. “Hello,” she said, but it came out as almost an accusation instead of a greeting. Betty started for the kitchen. “I’m going to kill her,” she said.
“What happened?” Laughton said, although he knew what happened. It happened almost every night. Dinner ended and then it was the nightly negotiation, do I have to take a bath, do I have to wash my hair, can I just rinse off with a wet washcloth, do I have to wash my hair, and once Erica was eventually upstairs, who knew what she did up there, ten, fifteen minutes before she even turned the water on, and now it was 8:43, and thirteen minutes after bedtime.
Laughton put his hand to his head. This wave of noise and anger was too much. He just needed a moment to himself to come in and unwind. Betty was in the kitchen, noisily putting dishes in the dishwasher. Laughton went in after her.
“I don’t know what to do with her,” Betty said without turning from the sink. “I’m so sick of this same bullshit. Why can’t she just get ready for bed for once?” She turned her glare on him. “Is the water even on up there?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I’m going to—”
“I’ll go check,” Laughton said, holding his hands out in the same “calm down” gesture he used to settle abusive spouses, drunks, and the victims of crashes caused by people who refused to use the autopilot in their cars.
Betty stamped her foot, something Laughton still found adorable. Of course when Erica did it, Betty found it infuriating. “You just got home. You shouldn’t need to deal with this. We’ve told her you need a breather when you get in.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Betty said. “Don’t tell me it’s fine.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Just agree with me.”
That was too loaded to touch. Laughton went back through the living room and far enough up the stairs to hear that the water was still not running. “What are you doing up there, Erica!”
The water went on then. “Showering.”
Laughton went back to the kitchen.
“Is the water on?” Betty said.
“Yes,” he answered truthfully. No need to tell her it hadn’t been until he called up.
“How was your day?” Betty said, but she said it angrily, like it was so unfair that he’d even had a day.
He pulled her to him, and she crossed her arms on her chest between them, so that she was snuggling in as small a package as possible. She sighed and leaned in to him. Laughton enjoyed the moment of calm. His headache was full force again, and he was already thinking he couldn’t get up tomorrow, he couldn’t go to work.
“How’s your head?” Betty mumbled into his chest.
“Bad,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Laughton said.
Betty broke their hug now, and went to the cabinet where they kept the cookies. They were made by a pair of sisters in Beaufort in small batches when sugar was available. “You want one?” she asked, pulling a chocolate chip cookie out of the bag. Laughton just shook his head, going to the table, where he fell heavily into a chair.
“Want to hear how my day was?” Betty said, sitting across from him.
Laughton really just wanted to go upstairs, put Erica down, and collapse into bed, but he could see Betty needed to vent, and not just about bath time. “Marcos?”
“Marcos,” she said.
Betty ran the Liberty Young Primary School, her brainchild, which she had founded and saw as the essential sister program to the Liberty Fertility Clinic, which she had also been instrumental in developing. Human schools had been almost nonexistent before the creation of the preserve. There had been a few isolated institutions in the cities, the only places where there were more than one or two human families. The attitude was that all that mattered was learning how to run a subsistence farm—a hydroponic vegetable garden, some fruit trees, a dairy cow or two, and all of the production therein. They needed these things to survive, and what was the good of anything else? Sure, there were some protein products made by entrepreneurial robots, and some grains—and sugar, of course, sugar—but most humans had no way of earning money, relying on government subsidies.