At the same time Luther Koskela was drinking tea from a mug in the Espinosa's wigwam, the Shoreff family had been sitting around their dining table, two miles away. They'd begun eating supper at home, instead of in the staff dining room. Lee wanted to get away from Millennium in the evenings, and just be with family.
Ben had not only agreed, as the family's best cook, he'd volunteered to prepare the suppers. Meals that could be reheated—casseroles, meat loaf, pastas—and things that were quick, like omelettes and frozen pizza. They'd "eat out" at the staff dining room twice a week, for variety and to give him a break.
Over dessert, Becca and Raquel began to argue about a friend. "It's natural for her to act like that," Becca said. "She's a mature artisan in the caution mode." "She's not either! She's an artisan-cast scholar in the observation mode, with an attitude of skeptic. She spends half her time reading the encyclopedia!"
Lee frowned, half afraid to ask. "What are you girls talking about?"
"We're sorry, Mom," Becca said. "It's nothing."
Lee shot a glance at Ben, who pretended not to have heard. Inexplicable fear and anger rose in her. "Nothing or not," she said, "I expect you to tell me, young lady!"
Becca looked at her stepfather apologetically, then back at her mother. "It's about overleaves. Basic personality traits, that is. Each month, each study group is given a book we're supposed to read and discuss. This month's is The Michael Primer. That's all."
"Yeah!" said Raquel. "It's neat! Between lives you decide the kinds of lessons you want to learn in your next life, so you pick overleaves that will help. They give you personality tendencies"—she said the words as easily as an adult might have—"to help you experience those lessons. Each set of—"
With a stricken expression Lee jerked to her feet, bumping the table and knocking over two water glasses, then turned and fled to her bedroom. Becca gave Raquel a dirty look. "And you're a young sage with a mode of big mouth and an attitude of stupid," she muttered.
"Okay, girls," Ben said, getting up, "enough of that. Help me take things to the kitchen. Then you can finish the cleanup." "Yes, Dad."
"Sorry Dad."
With the table cleared and the girls wiping up the spillage, Ben went into the bedroom. Lee lay on her back with a forearm across her eyes.
"Hi, kiddo," he said. "Want to talk?"
"Oh, Ben, talk is useless. I just want to leave this place. The girls! They're being turned into cultists!"
"Because they talked about overleaves?"
She nodded. After a moment she spoke again, coldly, with a tinge of a sneer. "I suppose that's part of Life Healing."
"No, it's part of the Michael teaching."
"Michael who?"
He didn't answer at once. She wondered if he was trying to compose a reply or avoid one.
"I think of Michael as—possibly the source of stories of an Archangel Michael, but that's just a notion that occurred to me."
"Archangel!? Are you serious!?"
He nodded. "Yep. I was then anyway, more or less."
"Good grief!" She paused. "Where did you run into that?"
"The Michael teachings? I heard about the books maybe twenty years ago. Read them and reread them. They were one of my New Age interests."
Lee sighed—perhaps in resignation—and sitting up, turned on her reading lamp. "I need to be alone awhile," she said, "to read something; clear my RAM. I can't deal with this stuff right now."
Ben nodded. "You produced a marvelous pair of daughters," he replied. "As you know. I'll check the mail, and maybe browse the Web a while—let the girls work things out on their own. They're good at that."
The suds had risen well above the rim of the sink before Raquel turned off the water. Then, with her small bare hand and forearm, she swept the topmost layer off into the other half of the sink. Her older sister watched. "You know," Becca said, "it wouldn't foam up so much if you didn't set the head to spray. Or at all if you waited till near the end to add detergent."
"I know."
"Then why do you do it?"
"Because I like to watch it foam up. It's fun."
Becca shrugged. "That's why you like to wash by hand, too, instead of using the dishwasher."
Raquel nodded. "Uh huh. I'm an old sage with a goal of acceptance and a mode of passion, only I think of it as enthusiasm. In the intellectual part of moving center, so usually I act first and think later. You're an old scholar in moving part of intellectual center, with a mode of observation and a goal of dominance. The only overleaf we have in common is a soul age of old, and strictly speaking, soul age isn't an overleaf."
Becca regarded her thoughtfully. "You know, we really have to avoid upsetting Mom like this. It's mean and thoughtless."
"I know."
Raquel got down from the sink stool and dried her arms and hands, then pushed the stool to the refrigerator. Opening the freezer door, she got out a carton of ice cream and put it on the kitchen table, Becca watching critically.
"We already had dessert," she pointed out.
"Mom didn't." Raquel took the ice cream scoop from a drawer, then a dessert plate from the cabinet, hoisting herself onto the counter to reach it. Finally she put a slice of peach pie on the plate, for a fifteen-second shot in the microwave before adding abundant ice cream.
"That's Neopolitan," Becca said.
"I know."
"Neopolitan doesn't go with peach pie."
"I like it okay. And Mom will. She'll like it because we took it to her. She'll like it better than if we used vanilla. To her that'll make it more loveable, and she could use feelings like that just now."
Becca's eyes widened a bit, dispelling her frown. "You're right," she said. Sages, she told herself, could not only get really good ideas sometime, they could be really insightful. Especially old sages like her sister.
Ben had seen the girls go to their room some time earlier. Now he stood with an ear to their bedroom door. Quiet. He went to the living room, turned on the night light and turned off the reading lamp. Then he went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. There, too, only the night light was on. Very quietly he went to the open closet door, undressed, hung up his clothes and took out his pajamas.
Lee's voice took him by surprise. "What the girls did, that was sweet. Did you suggest it?"
"Nope. It was their idea all the way." He pulled his pajamas on. "I thought you were asleep."
"I was thinking. Wondering how they got so—wise."
He got into bed. "Wise. That's the word, that's what they are. I don't think I ever knew children quite like them before. Good genes. From their mom."
"What happened to Mark's genes? That asshole."
"Uh-oh! Maybe I'd better sleep on the sofa tonight."
She grabbed his arm. "Don't you dare. I need a friend by me tonight." She paused. "You three are awfully good to me. I'm afraid I get overwrought sometimes."
"Mature warriors in the passion mode can be like that now and then," he said playfully, expecting a swat with her pillow.
She didn't take the bait, simply lay staring at the ceiling. "Is that what I am?"
"That's how it seems to me."
"That's more Michael, I suppose."
"Yep.""And you've known this—stuff for years. Pretty well, apparently."
"Yep."
"Apparently it hasn't hurt you. That's what helped me get over my upset. I won't ask you to explain it though. My head hurts just thinking about it."
Again she lay silent. Ben too said nothing, not wanting to interrupt her thoughts. "What did happen to Mark's genes?" she asked finally.
"They did what they were supposed to do. They helped produce two lovely children. Picture Mark, then look at Becca, and you'll see what I mean. Coloring, the chin . . ."
"Mark is an asshole though."
"Inarguably. Spoiled. Totally self-centered, overbearing and intolerant." He avoided adding a young warrior in aggression mode, with a goal of rejection and a chief feature of greed, with a secondary feature of self-destruction. "That's why you divorced him and married me. But those things aren't genetic."
"You don't think so?" she said thoughtfully.
"Consider the girls. And he's their dad."
"I'm glad Mark paid so little attention to them when they were little." She sighed, and snuggled up to Ben. "I did a much better job on my second try. You're more the reason than anyone else for what they're like."
"I'll accept a little of that. A supporting role. But each and both of them started out superior. I'd say both you and I are learning from them."
Lee raised herself on an elbow and kissed him softly. He returned the kiss with interest. After a moment she laid a hand on his belly, sliding it under his waistband.
Later they lay quietly, letting sleep gather. "Why do we always make love after I've been upset?" she murmured.
"Because it feels so good. And because with people who love one another, it's almost the human ultimate in closeness. That's what makes it healing."
"Healing. I seem to need that at times."
He chuckled. "Happy to oblige, ma'am. Just call me Dr. Ben. My motto is, 'I make house calls.' "
She elbowed him softly. "Husbands!" she murmured, then turned onto her sleeping side and closed her eyes.