July 2nd, 1984—Surrey, Engnd

  Three people sat—and one stood—in Ed Martell’s office. The situation was awkward, evidenced by the fact that Ed avoided eye contact with the man who was standing with his back to the closed door. He’d waited until both of them—and the rest of the team for that matter—had returned to the b before disclosing what he had shared, and with whom he had shared it.

  “It’s my fault,” Aric replied once the room had fallen silent. It was his modus operandi—taking responsibility for something that wasn’t entirely his fault. “I didn’t think of the receipt, didn’t think how Roz would react to me showing up with a ton of stuff and no expnation where I got it. Add that to the nguage fiasco…”

  “You let your guard down,” Edith said in his defense. “It happens. It’s not a hanging offense.”

  “No, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.”

  Ed shook his head as he leaned forward and pced his elbows on his desk.

  “Let’s not get too carried away. I think we can all agree that the timing could have been a lot worse. For one thing, she slept through the entire thing. For another, it was nguages, not nuclear secrets that you acquired.”

  “You really couldn’t tell you were cycling through different nguages?” Delphine asked him. Roz had finally come clean to her father, and Ed had passed the details of what happened to Aric, Edith and Delphine.

  Aric shook his head. “I had no idea. Not even a hint. If you’d asked me ter I’d have told you we’d been speaking English the whole time.”

  “Well, her list of nguages was quite impressive,” Ed added, his pride in his daughter shining through loud and clear. “Your list of nguages now, I guess. You still have all of them rattling around in your head?”

  Aric shrugged. “No idea. I guess I won’t know that until the party. If I should still be going.”

  “Why shouldn’t you be going?” Edith asked, her voice equal parts concern and consternation. “It’s a team party. You’re part of the team.”

  “I don’t want her to freak out when she sees me. Which she might do. Given I made her father—”

  “She won’t freak out,” Ed reassured him. “She might throw her arms around you and thank you for curing my cancer. She was pretty upset to learn I’d had it, and just as relieved to learn I’d gotten rid of it. I think flying to Germany and back will take a back seat to that. As for the nguages…”

  He stopped a moment, giving Edith enough time to complete his sentence.

  “She’s worried about what else Aric might have pulled out of her mind. Like any thoughts she might have had about him.”

  “We hadn’t met yet,” Aric reminded her. “And all I remember is my head being on fire, and a flood of words and symbols. No images, no childhood movies.”

  “No pictures of her naked,” Edith added with a grin.

  “Excuse me?” Ed asked. “A little respect for my daughter, please.”

  Edith shrugged. “What? It’s a natural thing to worry about. I did the first time.”

  “You did not,” Aric said with a smirk.

  “How do you know what I worried about afterward?” she asked him innocently.

  Aric was stumped, and flustered. “I don’t. I just—I thought—did you really?”

  “Yes. Really. I wondered if you’d gone digging around my memories for pictures of me naked.”

  Ed was shaking his head as he pced his hands over his ears. “I really shouldn’t be hearing this.”

  Aric’s muffled reply still came through loud and clear. “That’s not how it works. I think you know that now. Your mind doesn’t have a card catalog beling what’s stored where.”

  “Except nguages,” Delphine said.

  “Not quite,” Aric replied. “I wasn’t searching, she was sending. She was in a sort of fugue state, and it took me by surprise. If I’d been searching I would have been protected when it hit.”

  “Well,” Ed said after a moment, “I can’t begin to act like I understand what happened, but I can tell you that it happened, you can’t hide from it, and if you don’t show up at the party Roz will know why, and she’ll be hurt. So you are showing up to the party.”

  The tone of his voice left no leeway for argument.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Delphine had an idea—and an educated guess. And when combined she thought it was the perfect way of telling whether Aric was retaining the information that had inadvertently poured into him. She pulled him and Edith into the server room which, for the moment, they had to themselves.

  Ed had noticed the change. Up until the trip to Cornwall it had been Aric and Edith—just the two of them. Afterward—most probably during—their stay in Portreath it was now Aric, Edith and Delphine—the three of them. They seemed to always be together. When Ed had called Aric and Edith into his office for a private meeting Delphine had not hesitated to follow, and neither of them had batted an eye.

  So it was just the three of them in the room housing their computer equipment when Delphine—unannounced and without fanfare—put her pn into action.

  “Davvero non ci si accorge di parre una lingua diversa?” You really can’t tell when you’re speaking a different nguage?

  Aric shrugged. “Non proprio. Non in quel momento. La sensazione è proprio quel di adesso. Stiamo solo parndo.” Not really. Not in the moment. It feels just like it does now. We’re just talking.

  “Solo che in questo momento stiamo parndo italiano,” she pointed out as gently as possible. Except right now we’re speaking Italian.

  The words died half formed on his lips. “Cos— cosa stai—”

  Delphine knew he was about to ask, what? before it dawned on him what was happening.

  “We were speaking Italian. You really had no idea?”

  Something akin to fear began to grow on Aric’s face. He’d been totally unaware, just like in Ed’s kitchen. His ear was deaf to it.

  “No,” he said weakly before his voice gained strength. “No. I couldn’t tell.”

  “Well,” she said, reverting back to a nguage Edith could understand, “if we ever visit Rome you’ll sound like a native. You’re—and Roz’s it seems—accent is perfect.

  “Rome?” Edith asked.

  “Rome,” she answered. “He stretched out his consonants, and opened his vowels. And when he spoke his voice rose and fell. It almost sounded like opera.”

  “I noticed that he was doing that, but you weren’t.”

  “I learned Torino Italian. More ft, less sing-songy. Crisper words, less flowery vowels.”

  Edith didn’t speak Italian, but she recognized it being spoken. Growing up she’d had more than one set of neighbors who would regurly scream it at each other. She’d always thought they were fighting. Until she learned that the wives were sisters and their husbands cousins, and they were just sharing gossip from back home.

  “So it’s been almost a month. It’s persistent, I’ll give it that,” Edith weighed in. “It might be permanent.”

  “This is not good. It’s going to draw too much attention. I already get enough of that. More than enough.”

  Delphine thought for a moment. “We’ll have to think about that. Train your ear to notice when someone isn’t speaking English. It’s worth asking someone in the school of linguistics.”

  “We already know a linguist, or Ed does anyway. We can ask Roz,” Edith countered.

  Delphine nodded. “Good idea. But right now I have another question.” She looked at Aric. “How did this happen?”

  Her question confused him. “You already know that. I told you. I didn’t know she was there. I opened myself up to it when I dropped my barriers.”

  Delphine was trying to draw it out of him like a mother gently removing a splinter from her child’s finger. “Yes. We know that. But why did you open yourself up?”

  He shook his head, still confused. “I don’t know. I was tired. It’s a lot of work. And I felt I needed...”

  He trailed off. Possibly he didn’t know. Probably he didn’t remember, not after the trauma of the mental flood.

  Also possible that he didn’t want to admit why. That he felt ashamed of his weakness.

  It clicked into pce in Edith’s mind, almost as if Delphine had pnted it there. Which no longer struck her as far fetched.

  “You felt you needed connection. Belonging. Like in Cornwall. You woke up, you were completely open, and your emotions flooded into us. Not nguages. feelings.”

  “It’s the second time this month it happened,” Delphine added. “The first time wasn’t intentional. Could the second time have been unintentional as well? You felt a need, and your mind reacted?”

  He didn’t know; that much was clear from his face. Uncertainty. Fear. Shame. He was afraid because he didn’t know, and ashamed at his weakness, like a little boy needing a hug, a gesture of affirmation.

  He might have transmitted it to them. Or they knew him well enough by then that he didn’t need to.

  Edith was first to speak. “You’re not weak for wanting to be close to us. It’s not a fw to care that much about someone that having them near makes you happy.”

  “We know how alone you feel,” Delphine added. “It’s perfectly natural to reach out, to seek out connections. You just happen to have a special way you can do that.”

  He felt naked in their sight. Like they could see every crack and fw within him. Somewhere from deep in his subconscious his grandfather’s voice spoke to him.

  “Ei ole heikkoutta rakastaa toisia ja haluta ol heid?n l?hell??n.” It’s not a weakness to love others, to want to be close to them.

  “Se tuntuu silt?. Kuin pyyt?isin heilt? jotain, mit? he eiv?t halua antaa. Ett? olen itsek?s.” It feels like it. Like I’m asking them for something they don’t want to give. That I’m being selfish.

  “Rakastan sinua ja olen onnellisin, kun olet kanssani. Tekeek? se minusta heikon? Itsekk??ksi?” I love you, and I’m happiest when you're with me. Does that make me weak, or selfish?

  “Ei.” No.

  He took a breath, and then another. With intention, he began to slow his heart. He felt the pulse in his temples become more tame, like a cougar ying down to rest.

  “I’m sorry,” he said simply to the two women he loved.

  Edith smiled at him as Delphine rubbed his back. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

  Sanjay Deshmukh chose that moment to enter the server room. He stopped abruptly when he saw them.

  “Ummm...Carol asked me to load tape 109.”

  Aric nodded but said nothing.

  “We’ll get out of your way,” Edith said, and they all made their way to the door, and into the hall.

  “So you actually invited her, and she said yes,” Carol said. “I told you not to worry.”

  She’d told Hank a bit more than that, of course—but that had been the main point.

  “It wasn’t me that was worrying,” he said, right before he caught Carol’s look. “Okay, it wasn’t only me that was worrying. Aside from you, she won’t know anyone. She doesn’t want to stand out.”

  “She’ll know you. And she can make conversation—more or less.”

  Most of the conversation Carol remembered Amy making had happened on a rugby pitch, often directed at the official, and usually fairly profane. But the few times the two of them had hung out off the field, Amy had been, in many ways, like any woman Carol knew.

  Well—except Edith. And Delphine.

  Okay, maybe some of the women she knew.

  “Should we bring anything?” Hank asked.

  “I’m making 100% authentic American potato sad. Delphine’s doing something French, and I’ve never seen her show up anywhere without at least two bottles of wine. Ed and Aric are going to Ed’s butcher for ground beef, so we’ll have real hamburgers. If we were home, we’d have steamed or baked cms and chowder, but we’re substituting barbecued chicken.”

  “Is Carlos bringing anything?”

  “A selection of wine from his family’s vineyard.”

  “So the only thing missing is dessert.”

  “Aric got a watermelon, but if you want to bring a cake or something, that would be great.”

  It was two days until their combined celebration of independence.

  Carol had taped a small colonial American fg to the poster on the wall, and Delphine had almost immediately scoured her bookshelves until she found a fleur-de-lis she was willing to sacrifice. Off to one side, Aric had taped the picture Davy had drawn of him and Delphine flying. On the other side, bancing out the expanding poster, was a torn portion of a newspaper article titled CROYDON B ROARS BACK TO LIFE.

  Anyone who’d noticed Aric’s subdued disposition over the st few days had also noticed him return to his old self. His walls were rebuilt, his emotions under control.

  But he kept his distance from Edith and Delphine. Not physical distance—the b was too small for that—but mentally, emotionally, he was still shut down. As if the experience of being seen so vulnerably—so naked, in a way—had left him shy, self-conscious. They didn’t pry, didn’t make an issue of it, but both women missed the closeness. Just like he did.

  In his absence, Edith and Delphine leaned into each other for support. It wasn’t the same as what they shared with Aric, but it was enough. During those days they were rarely seen apart. Not always talking, not always interacting. Sometimes just being in proximity to each other made it easier.

  The three women from the b had already made several trips to Ed’s house, making sure they had everything needed for Saturday—and even helping Carol prep her dish in advance.

  “Potato sad is always better if you let it sit a couple days. Better fvor, better texture.”

  “It’s potatoes covered in mayonnaise,” Delphine said as she helped cut them into wedges. “How complicated can it be?”

  “Spoken like someone who’s never had awful potato sad.”

  “When are you starting yours?” Edith asked Delphine.

  “Saturday morning,” she answered. She’d already brought zucchini, squash, eggpnt, and tomatoes down to the celr. “It’s my mère’s recipe. It’s best served immediately, or after only a short rest.”

  “Well remember, Carlos is bringing the wine. And we’ve got Ed’s ale collection. One of us needs to be able to drive the rest home,” Carol warned.

  “Otherwise we’ll all be sleeping it off in Ed’s back yard,” Edith added.

  “How’s it going?” Roz asked, appearing from the study. They’d heard her coming—her typing had stopped.

  “It’s going well,” Edith answered. “You?”

  “Making progress.”

  “What’s your book about?” Carol asked.

  The words flew from Roz in her clipped BBC tones:

  “Linguistic and anthropological study of how endangered and isoted nguages encode perception, identity, and memory—with a particur interest in how these nguages express the sacred, the secret, and the self.”

  “Wow… that whole thing’s your title?” Carol asked.

  Roz ughed. “No. Haven’t decided on a title yet.”

  Carol had been wondering something since the day they met. She couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “Where did you grow up? I love your accent, but it’s so different from Ed’s.”

  “West Sussex. Near Chichester. I moved there with my mum and stepdad when I was very young.”

  “Far cry from Newcastle,” Edith said. “No wonder you sound nothing like your dad.”

  Roz’s mind fshed back to those early years—painful ones. “He started looking for positions closer to me as soon as he could. That’s how he ended up here. So he could be near.”

  Ed had mentioned his daughter to Edith, but never in detail. She wasn’t even sure he’d said her name.

  “You must’ve appreciated that. Getting to see him regurly.”

  “I did. My mum didn’t. She tried to erase him from our lives.”

  Delphine looked up from chopping celery. “Erase how?”

  “She tried to get him to agree to changing my surname to my stepdad’s. He refused. Then she tried to enroll me in school as Rosalind Hardwick—I screamed bloody murder. Same with our GP. She made a scene when I wouldn’t call Peter ‘Dad.’”

  “Peter’s your stepdad?” Carol asked.

  Roz nodded. “Peter Hardwick. He’s lovely. Said I should call him Peter—that I already had a dad. He just wanted to be my friend. My mum accused the whole world of being against her.”

  Edith tried to recall if she’d known anyone growing up with divorced parents. She couldn’t. “Sounds rough.”

  “It was. When I turned sixteen, I told her things had to change or I’d move in with my dad. That got her to a therapist. It didn’t fix things right away, but it’s why she and Dad are even speaking now.”

  The kettle clicked off. She dropped a tea bag into her mug and poured the water. Delphine moved on to chopping red onion. Carol tackled the dill.

  “Well, we’re gd you’re sticking around,” Carol said. “We can get to know each other.”

  Even off the rugby pitch—where she tended to fly at people like a wrecking ball—Carol was still imposing. Edith thought her shoulders were twice Roz’s width. But Roz wasn’t intimidated by Carol’s size.

  It was something else.

  “Will Aric be at the party?” she asked.

  Oh, pour l’amour de Dieu, Delphine thought.

  “Absolutely,” Edith said innocently. “He’s a key part of the team.”

  “I know. It’s just…”

  Edith waited. Roz didn’t finish.

  “Just what?” she prompted. She didn’t need the answer. She’d once stood in that same spot—drawn to him, wary of him. Like he was a beautiful creature that might sh out without warning.

  “I—” Roz tried again, and stalled.

  Carol rolled her eyes. “You know, for a linguist, you’re running short on words. We’re not charging you by the sylble. Spit it out.”

  That did the trick. Embarrassment gave way to irritation. Her ears, though unseen, turned bright red.

  “I know what happened in the b while I was asleep. I know where he went shopping—and how he got there. I know what he did for my father. What I don’t know is how comfortable I am being near someone who can do all that.”

  You haven’t a clue what he’s capable of, Edith and Delphine thought, almost in unison.

  “Well, I’ve worked with him for two years, and I’m fine being around him,” Carol said.

  “And you sat with him having tea for an hour,” Edith added. “You survived that.”

  Roz realized her tea bag was still steeping. She fished it out and tossed it, then took a sip.

  “That was before I learned he’d been in my head.”

  How dare she?

  Delphine’s instinct to leap to Aric’s defense propelled her to action. Her voice came out edged with equal parts anger and disbelief. This woman barely knew Aric. She hardly had the right to speak his name, let alone cast aspersions.

  “Il n’était pas dans votre tête, vous étiez dans sienne. S’il l’avait été, nous n’aurions pas cette conversation. Tu saurais tout ce que tu as besoin de savoir sur lui,” Delphine said, her voice tight—full of emotion. He wasn’t in your head. You were in his. If he had been, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’d already know everything worth knowing about him.

  Roz blinked. The French woman’s decration was littered with ndmines, and Roz heard every one of them: every pas and tu spit like shrapnel, the word besoin wielded like a club. She hadn’t expected this beautiful woman to be capable of such a harsh, targeted verbal attack.

  Then her brain put the pieces together and she realized who had taught Aric French—the version spoken in Provence. She’d spotted it when she put Aric through his paces, but at the time she’d been too caught up in what was happening.

  “You and he…” she started.

  “He and us," Edith corrected, nodding to Delphine. “He let us in—and we let him in.”

  Roz turned to Carol.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said, amused. “I didn’t measure up.”

  Silence. Carol dumped the potato wedges into the bowl. Delphine added celery and onion. Carol tossed in the dill, paprika, salt and pepper, then spooned in mayonnaise.

  “We didn’t start as friends,” Edith said evenly. “Not close. Not for a while. We thought he was… different.”

  Delphine continued. “And in some ways, he is. But in all the ways that matter? He’s just like us. That was our greatest discovery. And once we learned that—it brought us closer.”

  “Some of us are closer than others,” Carol said as she stirred, her pyful tone unmistakable.

  Delphine and Edith exchanged a smile.

  Oh my God, Roz thought, looking at them and drawing her own conclusions.

  “There’ll be others at the party who don’t know him,” Carol offered. “If you ever feel unsafe, just throw one of them at him.”

  “Then run,” Edith added.

  Delphine rolled her eyes.

  Pourquoi je m’en soucie?

  Why do I even bother?