Alien vs. Alien

fact that without a big wedding, or at least a reception where I can show Amy off, no one believes we want her in the family.”
    This was a twist I hadn’t seen coming. “Why not? I can’t believe that in all A-C history no one’s chosen to skip the big wedding parade and just get married quietly.”
    “Oh, of course, many don’t do a large wedding. However, Christopher’s position within the community and our family . . .” Her voice faltered. “It’s so hard to deal with talented children when you have no talents yourselves.”
    I chose not to ask what this had to do with anything we were discussing. “Oh?”
    “You can’t hide the things from them that you can from other children. So when you’re cross or they’ve been bad and you have to punish them, they think you hate them. They can’t understand why you might be jealous of someone even though you love them. They just see the negative and assume that’s all there is to your feelings for them.”
    She was talking in generalities, but it was easy for me to put in the specifics. Christopher’s mother, Terry, had been an empath, which was rare for A-C females. Because his powers had been off the charts at birth, she’d had to take Jeff when he was a baby, so she’d been like his mother, too. When Terry had died, the boys had come to Alfred and Lucinda, and I knew they considered Christopher their “other” son.
    But as far as I knew, Christopher didn’t think of Lucinda as his mother, and his father was alive. And as the most powerful imageer in the galaxy, I had to guess the odds of him touching pictures of his parents and Jeff’s parents would be hig s wowerfulh. Alfred and Lucinda were big on pictures—they had photos of their family all over their humongous house, and I knew Alfred had photo albums at work.
    That Lucinda had been jealous of Terry was something I’d known early on. Jeff and Christopher knew this, too. Of course, I didn’t know all the reasons why. I could pussyfoot, but it seemed extremely relevant, so I decided to go for it. “Why were you jealous of Terry?”
    “She married my brother, she had to take my only son, my son and hers still love her more than me even though she’s been dead for over twenty years—you tell me why I wouldn’t have some jealousy issues.”
    Nice to know where Jeff’s jealous streak came from. “Ah. But weren’t you happy that Richard was happy?”
    “Of course! I loved Terry. She and I were friends, that’s how she met Richard and I met Alfred.” She sniffled. “I lost someone precious to me, too, when she died. But the boys only see the loss as their own, and all I ever hear is how much happier they were when Terry was alive.”
    “I can see how that would hurt your feelings.” I could. Lucinda wasn’t a monster, she was just a regular person with failings, like anyone else.
    “And Christopher didn’t even take the time to bring Amy down to meet us before they started living together, let alone before they got married.”
    “Well, things happened pretty fast. And Amy wasn’t in a great position to meet parents at the time.” Since she’d found out her father had murdered her mother at the same time she discovered he was a charter member of the Evil Lunatic Scientists Club.
    “I know. I’d hoped that maybe Amy would see us as her new parents. But we barely got to know her name before they were married. I can’t tell anyone anything about her, because much is classified, and I don’t know anything else.” Tears ran down her face. “And all our family, all my friends, they think we’re ashamed of her and Christopher. I’d hoped that by focusing Amy on traditions and protocol, I could convince her to let me throw a reception. And now Mister Reynolds says we can’t, and by the time he lifts that ban, everyone’s opinions will be set.”
    “Why didn’t you just say this, straight out, to Amy?”
    “And have her realize that she wasn’t fully accepted into the community?” Lucinda looked and sounded aghast. “Better she should only hate me, rather than feel as if she’s an outsider all the time.”
    Wow. Lucinda was taking one for the team, and no one had known about it. I felt particularly crappy that I hadn’t picked this up in the slightest way. I’d been here a month, watching the interactions and hearing what she was saying, but none of it had registered.
    Of course, I could do something about this now that I knew. But
what
was the big question.