Free Hidden in Sight by Julie E. Czerneda Page B

to visit the twins,” I admitted in a voice made higher in pitch and softer by virtue of a smaller set of lungs, snatching enough of the woven blanket from the back of my chair to cover most of my now-shivering self.
    Paul ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, surely an uncomfortable procedure, then glared at me. “We agreed long ago there would— never —be lies about my family. Esen. You promised.”
    â€œI didn’t lie,” I protested, confused by his distress. “I only hinted. I said it had been too long since we’d seen Luara and Tomas. That’s true—it has been years. And their ship does the Urgia run from Omacron—you told me that. I’d like to see them, too. They’re so much older now—they must be different. I thought ...” Something quite desperate in his face stopped the words in my throat. I swallowed, hard, knowing what I hadn’t until now. “You don’t want to see your offspring again.”
    My web-kin turned over one empty hand; his eyes seemed just as hollow. “I said good-bye, Esen, when they left home. That wasn’t for a week, or a year, or a handful of years. It was forever.”
    â€œWhy?” Aghast, I stood up, clutching the blanket because my Human-self needed the comfort, trying to make some sense of what Paul was saying. I’d helped raise the twins—a very pleasant series of memories. And more. “How can you say that?” I heard my voice cracking. “You love them—I love them! Why?”
    â€œI have my reasons, Es,” Paul said heavily, getting to his feet. “I’m going to pack.”
    A younger me would have let him leave, afraid of the truth. I counted it as the penalty of maturity that I reached for his arm and grabbed it with my too-small hand, that I looked up into his troubled gray eyes and insisted: “Why?”
    â€œBecause—” Paul hesitated, studying my face—a version he could read all too easily—before coming to a decision. “I don’t mean to upset you, Es,” he said in a low voice. “But it’s because when they left, they were beginning to ask questions. Questions I couldn’t answer.”
    There was such a thing as too much truth. I dropped my hand and backed away, but my Human continued as if he hadn’t noticed, or as if he felt further mercy unnecessary to us both: “It’s bad enough I lie to everyone else. Did you think I could bear to lie to my own children?”
    â€œAbout—me.” This Esen had an annoying habit of leaking fluid from her eyes. And hiccuping.
    â€œNo, Es,” Paul said very gently, though his face had grown pale and stern. “About me. They wanted to know my past. It’s what Humans do, at the age when we start to contemplate our own futures. It gives us continuity . . . and a way to measure our own accomplishments. We talk to the older members of our family, gather the threads of their lives, make sense of our place in its history. But Paul Cameron has no past. I couldn’t, for their own safety, give them Paul Ragem’s.” He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, then said, almost lightly. “For all my practice with lies, I couldn’t utter one to answer them.”
    â€œPaul, I—”
    â€œIt’s all right,” he interrupted, as if it was his turn to fear what I’d say. “I keep track: where they are, how they are doing. It isn’t hard. They’ve become good, strong people, busy with their own successes. I’ve simply—faded—from their lives. It’s all right,” he repeated, more quietly. “They have their mother’s heritage. That’s something to be proud of, being a Largas.”
    I considered this from every angle, then made a rude noise. “So you have no past—many of your kind are orphaned. It’s you they deserve to know, foolish Human; you, they should measure