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"Let there be air conditioning!" I commanded like a sweaty God as I staggered back into my apartment after my weekly visit to see my Mom.  I sagged into a wicker-and-leather chair I had picked up in a moment of weakness at the Philippine Benevolent Society Jumble Sale.  Brutus set the overhead fan spinning.  "Ah, yes!  Truly you are the noblest Roman of them all, my friend. God, it's miserable out.  Muggiest day in years.  It's like breathing through a wet cat.  The ferry was awful.  Now I understand where the phrase "stinking hot" comes from.  All of us crammed in like sardines."

 Brutus remarked.

"Good Lord:  it's my fellow passengers.  I'd recognize those expressions anywhere."

 Brutus asked.

"If I'd stayed in the cabin I would have been.  I joined the throngs outside.  Everybody staring out at the TP, all of us noticing how pretty it looked, little flecks of gold and black in it, like mica, instead of just that flat silver-white you usually get in July.  Very attractive, actually, only now we're all thinking those flecks are a Bad Thing, and repeating the news from India to one another."

 Brutus said somberly.

"I think you're right."  

I struggled back out of my chair, leaving damp sweat patches on the leather, and got a glass of cold water from the kitchen.  I took it over to the patio doors and stood looking out at the canal.  Big, threatening clouds were closing in from the sea.  The sky took on a bruised, unhealthy light.  I pulled the door open.  The temperature was dropping fast, and a breeze had kicked up.  Ugly weather coming.  You could feel it, like a mean drunk in a small room. 

The hair on my forearms prickled up, and I had a sudden flash of memory back to when I was a little boy, watching a thunderstorm with my dad from the edge of our swimming pool.  Lightning flickering in a black sky.  The smell of ozone.  The sudden rush of rain drilling down into the pool.

"Actually, she's much better."

"I know!  Astonishing, isn't it?"

A fleck of water appeared suddenly on the glass doors; then another, and another.  Then came the first crack of thunder, lurching sluggishly through the maze of skyscrapers.  A moment later, a black line swept across the canal, dragging behind it a coverlet of foam as raindrops began to beat down into the water.  The wind picked up, cool and exhilarating after the sullen heat of the morning.  The city filled up with the rush and chatter of rain.

"I haven't seen my mom looking so alert in years," I said.  "According to the nurses, she stayed up all night Friday, very agitated; finally drifted off at daybreak; and woke up at lunchtime Saturday feeling like a new woman." 

Brutus finally suggested. 

"I don't know," I said.  "I'm not sure I want to think about it."

The gecko lights flared; a little Brutus mannerism, half-shrug, half-blink.  The sky had gone dark enough for them to stay lit, just a little.  One was inching his way up the living room wall; the other crouched amid a welter of philodendron leaves.

The canal was clearing rapidly as my neighbors docked their skiffs and zodiacs, running for the shelter of boathouses.  Water taxis roared by, carrying Suits from the Street to their homes before the storm-line trapped them downtown.  Against this ooze of inbound traffic, body-boarders and wave-riders buzzed seaward with wild enthusiasm, anxious to grind and slalom on the rare chop.  "Look at those kids," I said.  "Too young to remember that weather can actually be dangerous."

Brutus said.

"Smart-ass," I growled, but I smiled in spite of myself.  "Anyway, under the heading Miracles Never Cease, Mom says she's ready to leave the Clinic.  'Time to wake up,' she said.  Apparently it's getting harder to sleep in there, too; there's a new patient in the room next to Mom's who seems to be hysterical most of the time."

During the visit that morning I had asked if she meant to go back to living with Dad.  "I'm not sure," she said slowly.  "Today  … my today seems awfully fragile.  I'm not sure it could survive the weight of so much Yesterday."  Fair enough.  She was probably right about that.  Still felt bad for my father, though. 

Distant lightning played over a cloud face high in the east.  "Some times you just can't win for losing," I said out loud.  A well-worn Henry Swintonism, that.  There was a man who spent his whole life treading water surrounded by a sea of unhappiness.  Always sure that if he ever stopped paddling, the whole family would drown.

"Thanks," I said.

Together Brutus and I watched the rain fall, for a while, and listened to the wind.

And then it was time to do the thing I had been nerving myself up for all day.  "Brutus?"

The gecko lights swiveled attentively in my direction.

"I'm going to go vote when the weather lets up," I said.  "But before I do, before the Act passes or fails …"   I had been thinking about that napkin message Georg left (there's an antique browser for you!)   The napkin sent by regular mail so I could deliver it.  "I always think of us as friends.  But we aren't really, are we?  not in the strong sense.  Because you don't have a choice.  Because I made you to be a servant-friend."  This was coming out all stupid and wordy again.  I should have had a drink of something a little more bracing than water.  "When you think about it, I'm not any better than Belladerma, am I?  I mean, I intend to vote in favor of Mann II:  so why are you my servant?"

I stopped there, waiting for a reassuring image.  Waiting for Brutus to soothingly disagree. 

He didn't.

(And in a rush I had a suddenly remembered "playing" with David, my fascinating unwanted not-quite-brother.  How I ordered him around.  At best, I had generously agreed to play with him … as long as we both knew who was boss.  As long as we knew who was real.)

"So what I wanted to say was, from now on, if you like, you don't have to stay here," I finished.  But do, I didn't say.

 Brutus whooped.

So much for the faithful butler whose only life was to serve.

I hadn't realized how much I had been hoping he would turn me down.  I hadn't expected this much glee.  And that meant I was right when I said I had been no better than the slavers at Belladerma.

Never pretty to see yourself through another pair of eyes.  To see yourself stripped of all the little excuses you make to cover your misdeeds.  "So…" I said.  "Whatever happens with the vote, I won't expect you to hang around here, looking after me."

Brutus warbled.

Then he paused.

"Of course.  This is your body.  You will be welcome here, should you eve choose to drop by," I said stiffly.

Brutus gave me the Quizzical Dog.    Then the windows brightened with slow revelation. 

"Well," I said.  "Of course I would be very happy to continue our acquaintance—"

 Brutus said.

Relief flooded through me like a double scotch on an empty stomach.  I tried not to show how ridiculously grateful I felt that he still wanted us to be friends, but of course Brutus was always watching my heart rate and GSR and pupil dilations; he knew me better than I knew myself.

Of course, that made the measure of forgiveness even more important.

I started to say something long-winded and poetic, but decided to shut up instead.  "Thanks," I said.

Brutus said, and after a second, I started laughing with him.

So now it's later and Brutus is gone.  He thinks he might drop by later.  Or maybe tomorrow.  The storm has settled in to a long, dreary rain.  The apartment feels empty.  I find myself talking to the walls a lot, but you can tell the difference, you really can, when they aren't listening anymore.

It is perhaps indicative of the mess I have made of my social life that with Brutus gone, my first thought was to set up a lunch date with Diane.  But the truth is that I am running out of money to pay Rogue Retrieval for her time, and she has no time of her own.  And even if she did, it makes you wonder why I only seem to be comfortable with friends I can secretly feel are somehow not as "real" as me.  I am a real boy:  so why don't I seem to believe it? 

If even Mom is getting ready to come home and … risk being alive again, perhaps it's time for me to do the same thing.  Time to accept what happened with David and move on.

Samuel Johnson once said (I'm going to get the quote wrong here, but never mind), "If a man cannot stand to be alone with himself, there is something wrong."  That feels uncomfortably close to the mark.  But truth be told, I don't like being alone.  I've been pestering my design crews so much today The Crawling Girl finally told me either to get down to work or get out of the way.  She was smiling when she said it, but you could see the exasperation was real.

Well:  it's good advice.  Time to go out into the rain, cast my vote, drop by the office, reconnect with my life.  Time to leave the past behind and make a new start.

Besides, by the time I get home, Brutus might be back.