The Variables

“Good evening, Ms. Truman. Teddy will be so excited that you are home,” Allison said.

“Is he asleep?” Blair asked. She didn’t try to hide her disappointment that Allison hadn’t kept him awake to see her. All day she had been thinking of the reunion. It was strange how much she could miss him. Especially now. Especially after looking at Darla and seeing her longing and her pain. A real mother’s pain. She was filled with a temporary self-loathing at the very thought of even caring for him at all, and she felt herself growing agitated at Allison’s clear eagerness to leave.

She wouldn’t have minded the company for a little bit. She could make them tea.

“Oh, yes. He’s been going to bed at eight every night. With the time zone change, we had to adjust. Will you need me tomorrow?” Allison said. She shifted her bag up higher on her shoulder.

“Is there anything else I should know? About him? Has he been okay...without me?” Blair pushed.

Allison nodded her head. “He’s been great, Ms. Truman.” She waited, and then added, “He missed you.”

“Did he say that?” Blair asked a little too eagerly.

“Oh, yes,” Allison said. She hesitated. “I wasn’t entirely certain if my job as your na

“I won’t be needing you anymore,” Blair said and she offered Allison a tight-lipped smile. “My father will notify you about payment for your time…extra luxuries for several months, I believe.”

Allison smiled. “He’s already credited my account, Ms. Truman, but thank you.”

Clearing her throat, Blair nodded and mumbled something about it being late. She opened the door and Allison didn’t hesitate to leave, and Blair shut the door a bit too hard. The sound shook through her small apartment. The lights were dim, per the evening ordinances, but still Blair could see the small touches put into her living quarters. Built-in bookshelves flanked an entire wall, filled with knick-knacks and treasures from Blair’s previous homes. She walked up and examined the framed pictures. There was one of her and Gordy when she was a kid. They were on a beach. Gordy was clasping her hand and she was smiling widely. She could remember that picture as always having existed in her life—moving with her from place to place. But the circumstances of that moment in time were gone forever. She no longer knew that little girl or that teenage boy or what they were doing on that beach or whatever had happened to that puffy pink jacket.

Blair turned from the bookshelves and looked around the room.

Somehow it looked just like every other place her father had built for her. Her father must have a file on her: she likes built-ins and decorative pillows. Paint an accent wall some shade of purple, even though purple hadn’t been her favorite color in thirty years.

Upstairs she could hear Teddy shifting in his bed. Slipping out of her heels, she walked toward the stairs and her feet slid along the soft white carpet. At the top landing, she paused and looked at the railing. Silver. Sometimes he remembered that she hated gold.

“NO! NO! NO!” came a sudden scream from Teddy’s room and instantly Blair was there, throwing the door open and stumbling toward his bed, walking over a collection of small blocks that cut into her feet. She scooped up the crying child in one big hug, tucked him up on to her lap, and ran her hand over his brow. She sat there rocking him back and forth. His body was warm, and his hair was matted with sweat.

“Shhhh,” Blair said. “Shhhh, shhhh. It’s okay, sweet boy. It’s okay.”

“Allison?” Teddy said through tears. His small hands clung to Blair’s neck and she could feel wetness spread across her lap. She closed her eyes tight and clutched the boy—absorbing the feel of him, the smell of his hair.

“It’s Blair, Teddy. I’m home. You’re home with me.”

Teddy moaned. “I don’t like this place. I want to go back to Uncle Ethan’s house. I want my mom.”

They had been through this before. Each time she had made empty promises and lulled him back to a place of comfort with lies. She hoped that eventually these memories would fade and his tragic life would seem dreamlike, possibly even like a lie he had told himself once upon a time. But now his dead mother had a face. And a name. Now his dead mother pined for him across the waters and waited for Blair’s promised return. Her lies had become truths against her will.

“I know, dear Teddy.”

She couldn’t remember her own mother. Not real memories, not anything that she could grasp with any sort of confidence. Snapshots fluttered across her periphery every once in a while, and she tried to convince herself that she could feel all those stories people told her, but the truth was that she never felt anything at all.

Teddy began to wail louder, and his mouth twisted into a wrecked circle. Snot dripped out of his nose and the boy wiped it away where it stayed as a thick line against his hand.

“I’m here,” Blair comforted. “I’m here, Teddy.”

Downstairs she heard a knock on her door. Not the quiet and subtle knock of a tentative nighttime visitor, but a deliberate and determined knock of someone expecting entrance. Grabbing Teddy, still wet, Blair carried him down the stairs on her hip and walked to the door, opening it with her free hand. Her father stood on the other side.

“Good,” he said. “You found your apartment. May I?” he motioned toward the living room and Blair stood back. Teddy’s whimpers had subsided, and now the boy just watched as the older man came into the house, looking around the open space and assessing each nook and cra

“It’s late, Dad,” Blair said. She nodded toward the child. “Teddy just had a nightmare...I need to get him to sleep.”

“I’m imposing,” Huck said. His face was flush and he had unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

“It’s not the best time,” Blair answered. “But you can stay and I’ll be back?”

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Teddy said into Blair’s shoulder.

Huck nodded. And he sat down on the couch, clearly settling in to wait to talk to her. A

Blair went back to see her father.

“So, this is not some social call?” Blair asked, sitting down across from him.

“The System plan was a failure.”

“I’ve already talked to you about this, Dad. Do we need to do it again? It’s over. Done. And I’m tired.”

“I lost men. First in Saudi Arabia and now in Nebraska. Good men.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Even if it’s not me who should be sorry. You know that, right? That it wasn’t my fault?”

“But I feel like I’m missing something...”

Blair didn’t answer. Then she saw his narrowed eyes, his stern face. She wondered, for a second, if her father knew the truth. Maybe he was baiting her into telling him more lies and then he would tell her that he knew. Hank had told. Grant had caved. Cameras caught the survivors on the plane. Her father’s attempts at control knew no bounds, and she should have guessed that he would out her as a traitor.

Unless she gave them up. Unless she spun the truth, the real truth, to her advantage.

Beat him at his own game and tell the truth, which he wasn’t expecting.

“I talked to Grant tonight,” Huck continued. “He challenged your version of the events...said that he didn’t save you. He wasn’t a hero.”

Blair paused. She took a deep breath. “Take a look at the cameras if you don’t believe me,” she said and waited.

He winked and put a hand out toward her, and she hesitated before grabbing it. When he wrapped his fingers around hers, he squeezed, too hard. She tried to pull her hand back, but he kept a tight grip, staring at her with a co