Adaptation: book I (14 page)

Carmella transformed the
broth into a luscious vegetable stew. She and Bilal sat at the butcher block kitchen table and had it with the fresh baked bread.

Carmella watched as Bilal spooned soup into his mouth. “How did you …” She gestured to his body.

“Become human,” Bilal said.

She grimaced. He wasn’t human because he had some man’s body. What about that crazy skin? When he was sick it had a distinct gray undertone, and now it was purple and pink like a soft bruise beneath the more normal looking bronze.

He noted her distaste but didn’t allow it to bother him. Despite her obvious disdain, he knew she would not be sitting across from him if he was in his old body. He gripped his spoon. “It’s complicated, more complicated than I could explain to you. But essentially I linked to the mother ship and allowed it to alter my physical makeup.”

She let her mind digest that for a while. “So, can you become Centaurian again?”

“No.” 

She spooned soup into her mouth. “Why? You changed once.”

“The part that was Centaurian is gone, not suppressed.” He eyed the bread before reaching for another slice, chomping on it before continuing. “Imagine a human male undergoing a sex-change operation. The parts that are gone can never return.”

“Ah …” She nodded. “So, do you … miss it?”

“I did when your wolf was attacking me.”

She grimaced. “That shouldn’t happen again.”

“And it’s been cold outside at night. I cannot regulate my body temperature in this human body.” He met her eyes and thought he detected some guilt. He didn’t know why since none of this was her fault. “But I have no regrets, at least not about my body.” He returned his attention to the soup and finished it. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. “How are the animals? I should check on them.” He stood.

Over the weeks that Carmella had watched Bilal in his human form from her window, she had gotten used to him. She didn’t acknowledge this, but Bilal had become the focal point of her life. He had become her entertainment as she plopped down in her armchair to watch him each day. She relished cooking again and seeing him enjoy the meals she prepared. She wondered about his intentions, his thoughts, and why he seemed so human. Other than his chameleon skin, he didn’t seem much different from any other person. She had lost her fear of him. He was polite and handsome in a nerdy Asian way, but she could also sense that he really did not mean her any harm. Besides, he’d done all of the chores for weeks without complaint.

She shrugged and waved her hand dismissively. “I already took care of it. Besides, if you even think about lifting anything, you’re going to open up that wound in your shoulder. You also just woke up after being unconscious for three days.”

Bilal blinked.

Carmella frowned. “Who do you think has been doing the work out there before you showed up?” She pointed to her stomach. “This isn’t going to stop me.” That wasn’t quite true. She couldn’t cut the wood or shovel or haul anything. For some reason she didn’t want to admit that.

Bilal didn’t know how to respond, so he kept his mouth shut.

She pulled herself up to her feet and gestured for him to follow her. She led him down the stairs to the lower level and a fully finished basement now used mostly for storage. There was a big screen television and nice sectional sofa. Once upon a time a family used to gather here for something like Tuesday movie nights. Bilal’s imagination tried to picture what human life must have been like in a house like this, but all he could think of were re-runs of old television sitcoms. He knew enough humans to realize that real life was nothing like sitcoms. He longed to know firsthand, but he only seemed to experience life from the outside looking in.

Carmella opened a box on a side table and began pulling items out of it. “You can see if these will fit you.” She handed him some of the clothes.

“Thank you, Carmella,” he said as he examined a pair of jeans. They might be a bit big, but he could make it work.

“Whatever you can find in here you can keep. It’s all men’s clothes.” She reached for another box.

Bilal pulled it down from a stack and placed it on the floor. They stood side by side as she dug through it and pulled up a nice parka.

He smiled. “That will do fine.”

She stared at his smiling face. For the first time it struck her that she was in the presence of another person, uh, a semi-person. She was talking and being talked to. She almost couldn’t grasp the concept of it.

I am not alone.

Carmella felt overwhelmed and looked at anything but him. “Um, this is pretty comfortable down here. And winter here can be brutal, so if you want you can crash down here …”

“Crash?”

Carmella cleared her throat. “You can
sleep
down here.”

Bilal raised his eyebrows.

“Soon it will be too cold for you to sleep outside,” Carmella said. “It’s too cold now. Besides, I can’t let you die before you can help me deliver this baby.”

“You are being sarcastic,” Bilal said.

Carmella looked away. “Sort of.”

“Thank you, Carmella. Thank you for the room and the clothes, and thank you for helping me to get better.”

There was a cold glint in her eyes as she headed back up the stairs. “Don’t thank me. My motivation was purely selfish. I need someone here to help me deliver. If not for that, your ass would be wolf shit right about now.”

“You are being sort of sarcastic again,” Bilal said.

“Not this time.”

He watched her disappear up the stairs.
It is good not to be wolf shit,
he thought.

“The couch pulls out into a bed,” Carmella called out. “Get some rest. You look tired.”

Bilal smiled.
She needs me,
he thought.
She wants me to rest. He looked at the couch. I will sleep well tonight.

Carmella sat on
the edge of her bed staring at the floor. She was trying to figure out how she had gotten to this place. She was pregnant, and an alien was in her basement …

She rubbed her face. Had she made a mistake? No. There was nothing that she would have done differently. She would not have allowed her wolf to kill him, and she couldn’t allow him to go hungry when she had food to spare. And she definitely would not watch him freeze out in the barn.

So then why did she feel so unsure? She closed her eyes and let her mind drift. A long time ago she had known a young man named Jody, and Jody believed the Centaurians were travelers who wanted to share knowledge. He never believed they meant humans any harm. Bitterness filled her that he was taken from her, but then the bitterness disappeared. Jody had never hated anyone or anything in his short life. If he was here and she was long dead, she believed Jody would study this alien as much as the alien apparently wanted to study her.

She smoothed the wrinkles from the covers of her bed and went downstairs. No matter how much she disliked them, events were moving in a direction she could not control. And as much as she hated to admit it, she needed the alien to be here. His presence was security.  He did the chores that would be difficult for her, he understood the life that was growing inside of her, and he seemed to be intelligent, non-threatening, and conscientious of her fears. He didn’t Bogart his way around her.

She went to the top of the basement stairs. Bilal scared her, but her fear was no longer because he was an alien. She feared him because he was another intelligent being, and it had been a long time since she’d had someone else for company. When there had been no other voice, no other face to gaze upon for years upon years, just about anything was welcomed.

She sighed and peered down the darkened stairs. “Bilal?” She felt strange about giving him a name other than “Blob” or “Alien.”

“Yes, Carmella?” He came to the foot of the stairs.  

“I need to know something.”

“Yes?”

“How long are you going to be here?”

His mouth formed a grim line, but his eyes didn’t move from her face. “I will be with you and the child for five years.”

Her mouth parted. “What?”

“My intent is not to interfere with your life. Once the child is born I can go away and leave you to your life. But I won’t be far away. I can’t go far.”

“Why? I mean, why are you doing this?”

He took a deep breath. “Because it was the only way that I could rectify the mistake I made.” His eyes moved briefly to her belly. “Carmella, please believe that my intention was never to rape you. Raj says that what I did was rape. I am truly sorry. At the time my intentions were good, but … ”

“But what?”

“But … I was stoned and I didn’t know what—”

“Wait,” she interrupted. “Did you just say you were
stoned?
”

He rubbed his hands across the leg of his pants. “Yes. At the time I was under the influence of a mood-altering drug, and I could not stop thinking that you were alone and had lost a child. I wanted to make it right for you. I couldn’t stop thinking about how you were alone.”

“You …” She closed her mouth and pursed her lips. “You are much too stupid to be intelligent enough to do what you did.” She turned and walked into the living room and out the front door.

Bilal’s head fell forlornly. He had been stupid, and he was sorry for the hurt that he had caused everyone.

But now there was a child and that was something that he could not feel sorry about.

~***~

Carmella shivered as
she returned to the house an hour later carrying the last of the laundry. She had been too mad to return to the house to pick up a gun and shoot the … Bilal. Instead she collected some kerosene for the lanterns inside the house.

When she opened the door she saw that Bilal had folded the couch blankets and was standing at the bookcase reading. He closed the book when he saw her and hurried to her aid.

“Let me take that, Carmella.” He took the basket from her hands and carried it up the stairs while she returned to the porch for the kerosene.

When he returned to the main floor, he studied her eyes, noting that she was trying not to look at him. He felt bad about that but knew that he would have to allow her to work it out. He was happy. He was close to her and liked looking at her even if she hated him. Maybe she would stop hating him, and one day they could be friends.

He thought about Raj and Lawrence and felt a stab of regret. He was selfish and stupid, and he had a lot to learn about being a human before he could expect to be a good friend to one.

“Carmella, is there anything that I can do for you?”

She stared at him as if he was a roach.

He almost took a step back at the dislike in her expression.
Well,
he thought,
I now know what the human expression “back to square one” means.

He returned to the lower level and lay down on the couch, not bothering with the pullout bed. The sofa was comfortable. His body was tired even though his brain couldn’t turn itself off, and he had a hard time processing all that had happened. Soon fatigue took over, and he fell asleep before realizing that it was happening.

Carmella refused to talk to Bilal for two full days.

Bilal refused to go outside because Wolf was out there waiting for him. He would stand at the window watching the animal in the same way that Carmella used to watch him.

Carmella went out and did the light chores like milking the cow and collecting the eggs while he dusted and swept the floors and kept the sink free of dishes.

One day she stormed into the house and stopped in front of Bilal, who stood at his normal spot at the window. “Okay, you stink!” she yelled.

“What?” he asked.

“You need to bathe!”

He looked down at himself, aware that he was dirty. His clothes had stains because sometimes the spoon spilled their contents down the front of his clothes even though he tried to be careful. Also he itched in places where it would be rude to scratch.

“Carmella, I’ve never had a bath.”

“Aliens don’t bathe?”

He scratched his greasy hair. “No. Why would we when we don’t have skin the way you do?” His cells multiplied so rapidly that he continued to renew himself. Dirt was turned inward and then expelled. Centaurians carried no true odor, and they had no hair or crevices that captured dirt. “I’ve never needed to bathe until I became human.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s get one thing straight, Bilal. You’re not human. Just because you have a human body doesn’t make you human!”

His eyes moved away from hers. “I know this. I know that I am not human.”