“Right. Can I just dissolve the senate and rule with an iron fist?”
“I don’t think the Casselton Regional Council has a senate, Ames.”
“Boo. How are the girls?”
“They’ve been good,” he said.
“You sound weird,” Amy said. “You all right?”
“I’m having a… I thought… I don’t know. I’m having a weird day.”
“Weird how?”
“I’ll tell you about it tonight. I’m on my way home now.”
“You should go talk to Erika,” she said.
“Maybe I will.”
“See if you can talk her into cooking,” Amy said.
“Your ulterior motive is revealed,” Kaito said. “You know it’s her birthday tomorrow.”
“Tell her I’ll get her TV show a tax break.”
“We’ve told her that before,” Kaito said.
“Tell her I’m not lying this time.”
“But you are lying this time.”
“Of course I am. I can’t force that through the budget.”
“I’ll see what I can do. We’re coming up on home; see you tonight, love.”
“Love you.”
He ended the call and pulled into the driveway of his house. A glance in the mirror showed that he was looking haggard. He looked over to the house next door, seeing his sister sitting by the window in her lounge room, typing away on her laptop. He pulled out his phone and called her.
“Hey, brother,” Erika greeted, waving through the window. “What’s up?”
“Mind if I come over for a cuppa?”
“No worries. I don’t need to pick Emi up from football practice for an hour.”
Kaito extricated his two daughters from their safety seats, leading Hana by the hand and carrying Jace across the yard and up to the door, where Erika opened it to greet them. Erika brewed some tea while Kaito settled the girls in the lounge. Erika and Kaito then sat in the dining area where they could keep an eye on them.
“What’s got you so frazzled, brother? You don’t look so good.”
“I’ve been… seeing things. Since this morning. The first time, I thought it was a weird reflection, then that I just saw something wrong. I mean, it had to have been my imagination, but I just kept seeing him, over and over.”
“Him?”
“Jason. I went out, late this morning. Some shopping, some chores. Everywhere I go, there he is. I know I’m just seeing things, but I can’t stop seeing them anyway.”
“Well,” Erika said. “Maybe you should talk about this with your wife. See if you can’t figure out some reason you might feel guilty about something.”
“Erika.”
“Don’t ‘Erika’ me. You know what this is, Kaito. Ultimately, it’s better that she ended up with you than Jason, but that was going to be a train wreck in the best-case scenario. The way you actually did it? It’s like you found a psychological warfare specialist to devise the most effective way to hurt him, and you never had the chance to make amends for that.”
“He’d never agree to see us.”
“Because he knew that he’d stab you in the face.”
Kaito sighed.
“You really think that she’s better with me than him?”
“Long term, yeah,” Erika said. “Jason was a lot to deal with. He had a lot of hard edges and he never stopped pushing. I like Amy, I do, but she was always going to get consumed by Jason. You’re Jason with the hard edges sanded down. You know when to stop.”
“There was no stopping Jason,” Kaito agreed.
“Yes, there was, Kaito. You and Amy stopped him like a speeding car hitting a wall. He was finally starting to get it together when…”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’ve heard this from me before and I don’t mean to go dredging up the past. We all have sins behind us.”
“I just never had the chance to make amends.”
“I hate to break it to you, Kaito, but that isn’t the tragic part.”
“I know, I—”
He was interrupted by his phone.
“It’s Benny,” he said. “I should take this.”
“Go ahead,” she said.
Kaito took the phone into the kitchen. Shortly after, Erika started hearing incredulous sounds coming from Kaito.
“They what? Yellow? Wait, the bad guy from those movies? I’m not coming in if there’s paint fumes. I have the girls with me. Because she’s the frigging mayor, Benny.”
Kaito came out of the kitchen looking disgruntled.
“What happened?” Erika asked.
“Benny’s been maintaining the helicopter in the off season, but he went in today and someone had painted it bright yellow.”
“Someone painted your helicopter?”
“Yeah. They got into the hangar somehow, painted it yellow, and wrote the name of the villain from those superhero movies across it. What do superheroes have to do with my helicopter?”
“Are you talking about Thanos?”
“Yeah, the purple one with the weird skin beard.”
Erika erupted into laughter.
25
UNCOMMON MISTAKE
“You should come to your sister’s party tomorrow night instead of just showing up after,” Hiro said.
“Not a good plan,” Jason said. “Ooh, smell that. I missed garlic.”
They were in the kitchen of Jason’s cloud houseboat as Jason prepared an evening meal.
“How much garlic are you putting in there?” Taika asked.
“Sopa de ajo literally means ‘soup of garlic,’ so a lot.”
“It’s a costume party,” Hiro said. “You could come in disguise.”
“Erika does love those,” Jason said. “What would I go as, though? I’m not looking to steal Erika’s thunder on her birthday. I wouldn’t want anyone finding out who I was in the middle of it and causing a huge commotion. It’s not like I packed a Zorro outfit and I’m not running around in the outfit they keep showing on the news.”
“I got you this,” Taika said, putting a shopping bag on the table. He took out a spring-action lightsaber toy. “I went with the red blade because your outfit seemed pretty dark.”
“You think I should go as a lord of the Sith?”
“Bro, you pretty much are a lord of the Sith. You look less evil without the villain beard, though.”
“I needed to shave it for something I was doing today. I’ll grow it back after dinner.”
“You can just grow back hair?” Taika asked.
“I have some magic hair growth ointment.”
“Of course you do,” Hiro said. “So, are you going to go to the party?”
“I’ll think about it,” Jason said. “I would like to see how they’re doing before I come back from the dead.”
While the meeting with his sister awaited him in the evening, the morning found Jason uncharacteristically restless and nervy. He went through his training routine, including combat training with Shade. Shade had a comprehensive expertise with the Order of the Reaper’s techniques, and his ability to generate physical force and create multiple bodies made him a useful instructor.