Silence part IV of VI

Luckily, Karl worked Saturdays as well. It was Tabatha's only respite from his suffocating ever-presence and the one day she could do as she wished, since his absence prevented him from monitoring and restricting her activity. Most Saturdays, therefore, Tabatha headed to Jimmy's house, and today was no exception.

Jimmy's was down the street from Tabatha's apartment. While hers was a rundown building, dirty and disheveled, his was cozy, a place that was obviously somewhere for real families to create their homes. His inviting red brick exterior was such a change from her stark grey that it gave her a little smile.

Jimmy buzzed Tabatha in just in time for lunch. Linda, his mother, set a stack of grilled cheese and a fruit salad on their circular dining room table, and rested her ample bottom on a padded chair. Linda was special: she knew Sharon in high school, and they kept in contact even after Sharon married and moved to the suburbs. Linda knew a lot about Tabatha's mother, and was in fact the source of the tidbits Tabatha could gather.

"So, Tibbs, anything exciting?" Jimmy asked, his smitten gaze meeting her timid one as she ate.

"The dreams..." she started out. "They... oh, nevermind," she sighed, shaking her head. "I'll look stupid."

"No, go on," Linda said with amused eyes. "I've heard all about your blue... thing." She laughed. "What is it, anyway?"

"Well, as of now, real. I thought it was a delusion at first, but now I'm not so sure. It's not bad or anything, but I know it's something real," Tabatha said, the others' attention fully in her control. "It gives me memories... I touch it, and all of a sudden it's like I'm watching a movie of my past."

"Wow..." Jimmy breathed, eyes wide. "Maybe it's like, this presence that wants something from you... maybe you're s'posed to figure out a mystery." He paused, contemplating, smiling. "Wish I had a haunt."

"I think you might be right that it wants something," Tabatha agreed, nodding. "That's why I want to ask what you know about how my mom died, Linda."

Linda winced, then smiled. "I knew you'd ask eventually," she said. "Well, you know your mom was always a little off. I was afraid of her moving out of the city, because I wouldn't be able to check up on her as well as I used to. I was afraid of how she would hold up without the city as her security blanket."

Linda cleared her throat, and took a sip of her diet soda. "Whenever she had a bad day, she used to come over to talk. Being far away, she had to call instead. And call she did: Lord knows that her marriage wasn't ideal. Those two should never have been together, in my opinion." She looked at the ceiling, and Tabatha knew Linda had some unpleasant facts to give her. "After you and your sister were born, Sharon went off the edge. Her mother had schizophrenic tendencies, and Sharon's started to show. She would tell me all her crazy urges, and as long as she knew they were crazy, she thought, she'd be in control. She was on meds for a while, but stopped for reasons I never figured out. I think, to tell you the truth, it was the stress of discovering Karl's affair."

Tabatha cringed, thinking of the full-bodied blonde. "The orb showed me a memory of Karl's girlfriend."

"Well, your mother found her and Karl... you know. She was devastated." Linda shifted to a more comfortable position. "Without her medications, Sharon went downhill fast. Not only did she argue with Karl about getting a divorce (he wouldn't hear it), she argued with him about taking you twins from him and coming back to the city. When he finally snapped at her obstinance and slapped her, she called him violent, he called her psychotic, a shouting match ensued, and he took you, her tiny little favorite, to go to his mistress."

"Wait... her favorite?" Tabatha looked confused and guilty.

"Oh, she adored you because of how tiny you were." Linda said, flipping her hair. "You were the smallest of her dolls; she loved it." She screwed up her eyes for a minute, finding her train of thought. "So... he took you. She lost hold of reality, and made her delusions real. Three days after he left, she stopped calling me, and a week later killed herself and Kylie in her car, carbon monoxide."

"Why do you think Karl never said anything?" Tabatha asked.

"Guilt?" Jimmy suggested. "Of course, that doesn't mean he has to be so cold to you."

A thought struck Tabatha. "The orb-presence has to want something, right?"

"Sure," Jimmy said. "Else, why would it bother?"

"Well... it has to do with my sister and mom, those are the only memories I've seen."

"Maybe it just wants you to know the truth, Tibby," Linda said, the most obvious solution, in Tabatha's opinion.

"Well, of course," Tabatha conceded. "But if that was all, it'd have just shown me and gotten it over with long ago. I think it wants me to do something with what I know." She glanced at the clock, hit by a revelation that made her want to leave, strangely, as she usually stayed as long as possible. "Guys, I really need to go do something... I'll talk to you later."

Linda smiled, almost as if proud to see Tabatha make connections. "Come back soon, darling," she crooned as Tabatha left.