The Midlife Crisis of Commander Invincible: A Novel

Chapter Twelve

166 TWELVE Ending a Century of Violence. A Show of Good Faith. The Difference between Incarceration and Atonement. Resurrection within Our Lifetime. Unfinished Business. z The morning of my fortieth birthday, I’m lying in bed awake, waiting for the sun to rise. The space next to me, where Debbie should be, is empty, and I’ve been reminded of the months after Sheila and I called it quits, how I hated sleeping alone again. I’m hoping that soon Nate will wake up, and the two of us can spend the morning on the couch watching cartoons. In the hours since I woke, I’ve laid here trying to deny that at middle age, I am on the verge of becoming the thing I most feared—a man without ambition , direction, or purpose. But it’s impossible now, with the Chaos Plan in shambles, not to tally up the first half of my life and draw some conclusions . In my two decades as a grown man, I’ve racked up one failed career as a second-rate hero, one ruined marriage, one on shaky ground, one son embarrassed by me, one too young to know better. That I am a failure strikes me as more of a statement of objective fact than a judgment. I simply can’t bear being alone with myself any longer, and I flip back the covers, swing my feet to the floor. My head pounds from last night’s battle. I think of the Zone in my bathroom, then remember I destroyed it on a better impulse I now regret. When I stand, my back aches, and a wave 167 of dizziness nearly topples me. I wonder again how long I have until my recuperative powers disappear entirely. On Earth 1.7, I found my doppelganger, and he had no special abilities at all. That Vincent Shepherd had married a woman named Cindy I don’t even remember meeting. They had toddler triplets—Casie, Carol, and Jessica—and he sold ads for a radio station in Maryland. I’d tracked him down in hopes that he could help me get back to the right dimension, spied on him from the safety of a bridge a quarter-mile from his suburban home. As I watched him mow his lawn, sweat, run a hose into a faded plastic pool, sip at a beer while sitting on the edge of a deck in need of cleaning, I realized he’d be no help at all. I never spoke to that version of me, so I can’t say for sure if I was more content in that universe. Maybe he dreaded his crummy job and dreamed of saving the world. But from a distance, my ultrahearing heard him calling out his laughing daughters’ names as they splashed in a few inches of cool water, and he seemed happy. Maybe, from a distance, everybody does. I sneak into Nate’s room, fully expecting him to wake at the hinge’s squeak. He is a light sleeper. But today, he doesn’t shift as I cross the floor. The curtained window allows morning light to filter in. I stand over his bed and look down upon him, twisted in his blankets, at peace. As I often do at times like this, I wonder about the life he has ahead of him, the long stretches of challenges and disappointments, of triumphs and defeats. I wonder what role he will let me play. He may be the only reason I have left to live. This, I realize, is an unfair burden on the boy, and something he can never know. “Pssst,” I hear from behind me. When I turn, I see Ecklar’s green head leaning through the open door. I tiptoe into the living room, closing Nate’s door behind me. My alien friend follows me to the far table, where we sit and speak in hushed tones. He tells me, “They want you down at St. Clementine’s.” “They who?” I ask. “Clyde is the one who called. But I could hear Deborah in the background .” 168 “Is Arthur all right?” Ecklar nods. “Gypsy’s healing spell is working wonders. He’ll be laid up a day or two, but he’ll be right as rain.” I can’t imagine what Clyde would want with me. But if Ecklar knew, he’d have told me already. He...