The scene melted away, and we were back at the dreadful dinner in the Peshka patio.

With a smile, Kaythe fluttered her fingers in front of her face like a handheld fan.“Lani’s been accepted into that international finance mentorship in Tvala,” she said. “He tells me he might even get to meet with some of DAISHU’s hedge fund managers!”

Yan raised his beer mug and nodded in approval. “If all my grandchildren were as smart as Lani, I could die a happy man,” Yan said.

Mabel and her husband Clarke grimaced in response.

“Lani better be careful, Kaythe,” Mabel said, slicing into her burger with a knife. “He might end up canoodling with one of DAISHU’s desperate interns.”

“Oh stop it, Mabel,” Kaythe said, tepidly playful. She shook her head with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Lani’s smart. He’s on the lookout for a good girl, maybe Trenton born, or a well-raised Polovian. Someone nice and faithful, not one of those slant-eyed butterflies.”

“Not butterflies,” Yan said, hawking up gunk at the back of his throat, “Ants. Munine are like ants. They want to make whole world hive, and they think they can buy their way to whatever they want. But not me.” He raised a defiant finger. “I know best. When I came to this country, I was not like them. I have only one groat in my pocket. I work hard, and look at me now!” he stretched out his arms to either side. “Big success!” His eyes made a round of the guests. “That’s how you do it! But…” he added, “People forget. Whole country forgets. Everything goes to hobno.”

I wanted to stop the memory and slap him, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Not yet, anyways.

“Tell that to those nuts in the National Diet,” Mabel said.

Multiple voices murmured in approval—though, notably, none of them were surnamed Plotsky.

“They’re crazy—”

“—I know, right?” Kaythe interjected.

Mabel nodded. “But especially if they think people are going to stand for screw-ups and criminals getting healthcare before people who actually work for a living and contribute to this country.”

“And, what,” Kathe added, do they think we’ve got money going up the wazoo? It’s just… unconscionable. It’s like the Naters all over again. You don’t go around telling people what to do like that.”

“You know,” Babs said, meekly, “I admit healthcare reform has a steep price-tag, but… revisions to high-income bracket tax rates could make up for a lot of it. And, in the long run, if the population is healthier, the economy would benefit from it. People can’t readily spend money when they’ve got insurance payments or medication co-pays or bills for deferred hanging over their heads.”

Smirking, Mabel shook her head. “There she goes, again. Batty Batty Babs.”

“You know, Babra,” Clarke said, chewing smoked salmon. “You’re not an economist. Just because you took a class or two in college, it doesn’t mean you know how the whole world works. Mind your own business, and appreciate what you have.”

The balding man had a face like a woodchuck, gnawing teeth and puckered lips, only without any fur to cover it up.

Yan’s gaze fell upon his middle child. “Don’t say stupid things Babra. I raised you better than that.”

Serves you right, Mom, Ileene thought, in the memory.

“Do you still feel that way?” I said, asking Ileene’s spirit.

“It’s not like I want to.”

“Few of us ever want to, Ileene,” I said.

The past swelled; I pulled out another memory. The practice I’d gotten in my journeys through Ileene and my clockwood world were making a difference here. Without them, I would probably have already crashed and burned.

This next memory was a mutual one, shared between Babra and Jed, fondly remembered by both. It congealed into a comfortable spring morning out in the Drylands.

Even as a young man, Jed had been active in politics, following his parents’ example. Handing out flyers for the Distributist candidate for the their district’s seat in the National Diet was a good job for a young man to have; it would certainly look great on a college resumé, and it never hurt to have connections in high places, even minor ones. But, while many kids in the Drylands saw it as just another opportunity to rake in some community service points or pad their allowances, Jed actually believed in the cause. Healthcare needed to be universal, guaranteed to all. When you had more money than you could ever spend in your lifetime—when even your off-hand remarks swayed the stock market—you needed to be taxed up to your collarbones. No one person deserved to have that much unaccountable power.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Jed would never forget stopping by the Peshka residence, nor would Babra. Even decades later, Jed still wasn’t quite sure what about her had caught his attention. Was it her poise? Her intelligent regard? Her forthright attitude? Or something else altogether, perhaps even something that went beyond words.

“The details weren’t important,” Jed’s spirit said, in the now, “all that mattered was how I felt.”

Babs’ feelings were much more specific. To her, the young man with the messenger bag slung over his shoulders stuffed full of fliers was the first person she’d ever met aside from Father Ode who thought that civilized societies had a responsibility to provide for their people.

Young Jed cleared his throat. “I’m surprised you say that,” he said. “That’s not a popular opinion out in the Drylands.”

Young Babs flashed a smile, trying to hide her unexpected embarrassment. It had come out of nowhere, and it just wouldn’t go away. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed hold of the door frame and leaned into it.

“Well, keeping bonsais isn’t that popular in these parts, either.”

Jed chuckled nervously. “I don’t see the connection.”

Babs smiled. “You’d be surprised at how political some of the articles in Bonsai Quarterly can get,” she replied.

Somewhere in the house, a voice bellowed.

“Who’s there, Babby?” Yan said. “Is it solicitors? Tell them off!”

But, for once, Babs didn’t listen. She just closed the door right in his face.

She’d later find out where he lived, and give a lengthy, stutter-filled apology.

The memory ended, but there was no mistaking its aftertaste. Ileene recognized it; she knew it all too well, herself.

It was love.

Back in the memory of the dinner on the patio, Mrs. Plotsky’s face went taut. Her next words stuttered their way out between her lips as she dared to show a hopeful smile.

“Would a ‘batty’ person get you a knee brace to help you with the post-op soreness, Deddy? Speaking of which,” Babs added, “how’s it knee feeling?” She leaned in attentively, her sisters watching with softly glowering eyes. “If there’s anything I can do, just ask.”

Babs’ father waved his hand dismissively. He groused. “Eh… it’s okay. What matters is that this is the pain of a real man. All those years down on lots, doing work, measuring steel beams, telling the hloopy construction workers to get back to work. That’s how you do it.”

The rosy tint of alcohol on Mr. Peshka’s cheeks was lost beneath his swarthy face, baked and hardened by years spent laboring in the Sun. He rolled his eyes over to Babs and her daughter.

Angel, please, just leave me alone, Ileene thought.

“Babra,” I said, “imagine how she feels. Now, feel it for yourself.”

The spiteful scherzo passed into an earnest, heartbroken trio. A collage of little indignities paraded before us, magnified through the lens of Ileene’s resentment.

As a little girl, Ileene had a favorite outfit: a blue blouse with a plaid skirt hued in kelpy greens and sea-struck blues. She loved the way the skirt looked, and the blouse was always soft and cozy while still looking really pretty. She’d loved wearing that outfit, but then, one morning, without the slightest warning, her mother had thrown it out and replaced it with a new one, all because Yan had rambled on during a videophone call that he hadn’t liked Ileene’s dress when the family had gone to visit the Peshkas in their house in the Drylands. Babs’ Deddy much preferred the one Kaythe had gotten for her daughter Ilsabel.

We watched through Ileene’s eyes as her cousins laughed at her when they learned her first boyfriend had dumped her, but because the laughter had happened over a family dinner with Ileene’s aunts, uncles and grandparents overlooking, Babra hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to set her sisters’ kids straight. If she stuck her head out for her daughter, Babra knew her sisters would put her in the cross-hairs, and she didn’t want to be ridiculed. Mrs. Plotsky already felt bad enough about herself as-is. Everything she did seemed to upset everyone around her.

The mother’s feelings intruded on her daughter’s, but I let it pass without interference. They were communicating with one another, bit by bit.

I called up the next memory: Ileene, left out in the rain, cold, wet, and alone, all because her mother forgot to pick her up from school one day, because Babs was too busy trying to wrangle some affection out of her own mother. Ileene was filled with memories like that. We saw so many. The saddest part of all was that, no matter what happened, Babs nearly always chastised her daughter for falling short of the example of piety she herself all too often failed to keep, as if that, and that alone, was the source of all of the young woman’s problems.

Ileene’s feelings made her feel like a child again, and it made her mother feel the same way, much to Babra’s dismay.

“Babra,” Yan said, back on the patio, “if you really want to know what I want,” he pointed at Ileene, “I want to know that my granddaughter is not going to waste her life.”

Ileene felt her grandfather’s gaze burn into her. She wanted to look away—or, better yet, get away—but she couldn’t.

So, she chose to fight. “In case you didn’t know, grandpa,” she said, “I’m going to college. I’m going to become a marine biologist!”

Even without the benefit of the family’s memories, I’d seen enough of this den of vipers to know that Ileene had just made a catastrophic mistake.

Never confront a bully on his home turf, and if you do, make sure you’ve got allies to back you up, or a heck of a big gun.

Preferably both.

The grim scherzo roared back to action.

“So you have decided on a major!” Babs said, pleasantly surprised.

We felt her worry that her daughter would never find her life-path.

But Yan Peshka just scoffed. “Marine Biologist?” he said, bristling his mustache. “What is that from? That’s stupid,” he said. “How is ‘marine biology’ useful? Have you ever heard of any big-shot marine biologists? No, and you know why? Because it isn’t real work, and when it isn’t real work, you don’t make good money. You couldn’t make it work, even if you tried. You should find a good man, Ileene. That’s the best work you can do.”

The scherzo ended in calamity.

Jed’s soul ached at the sight. “Babs,” he said, “you didn’t tell me it was this bad.”

“You should have been there, Jed!” Babs retorted. “If you’d just set aside your stupid feud with my father, none of this would have ever happened!”

“Stop saying that!” his spirit cried. “It’s not my fault! It’s not my fault.”

Jed stopped going over to his father-in-law’s house precisely because of situations like these. We felt his anger, his indignation, and his grievous, grievous guilt.

“I should have been there.” His soul wept.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Ileene said. He soul stabbed ice picks at her mother’s ghost. “It’s her fault. It’s all her fault.”

Calamity and desolation.

All of us ached.