Unfortunately, I realized that I still had a shitload of work to do back in Reality Inc. before I could possibly return home. The reconciliation between Lenny and Tanya, for instance, was all on me. I had to make an egotistical scientist make peace with a mentally-ill woman who'd murdered his only daughter. Oh, and not to mention that it was this scientist who'd made the woman go cuckoo with his defective nanobots in the first place.
Yeah. Piece of cake. Hmph.
Lenny wasn't done with his Sermon of Excuses. "After the tragedy, Anita was given a psych evaluation, which led to her institutionalization at Chambers' because of her volatile mental state. Wanting nothing else in my life that could remind me of that fateful day, I decided to cut off all contact with Anita. I asked my IT guy to wipe it all, giving me a clean slate―tabula rasa."
"So you never visited your best friend's incarcerated wife," I commented lightly.
"Look," Lenny snapped. "For the record, I didn't even know that Anita and Tanya were the same person, at least not until today. All I knew was that Tanya must be a poor, lonely widow, now that her husband is 'gone'. And I've never met with her face to face, for I knew if I did that, I would've to tell her the truth, which definitely was a strict no-no as it was a violation to Op Athena's terms and conditions."
"Figures," I muttered. "You'll have to do a whole lot better than that to get yourself back on Santa's Nice List by this Christmas."
Turning my attention to Tanya, I realized that she was still prostrate with the awful memory that had been haunting her for ten years. The memory that I'd reminded her of when I'd uttered her alias just now.
"Tanya?" I murmured tentatively. "Melinda's death isn't your fault, you know? You were under the influence of―"
At this point, Tanya muttered something inaudible.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Oh my God, I killed her, didn't I?" Tanya was now staring at her palms in horror, as if they were stained with blood. "She's dead."
"Tanya, hey―shh, shhh." As gently as possible, I grabbed at her trembling hands, steadying them as I did so. Tanya having a complete mental breakdown was the last thing I needed right now. "Listen to me, Tanya. It was all just an accident. You didn't want to kill her, did you?"
Tanya hesitated, before stuttering. "N...no. No, I didn't."
"Of course you didn't. It was the FallopFix that made you do it. You do remember FallopFix, don't you? And Lenny?"
I could see her recoil at the mention of the name. Both names, actually. The trauma had, no doubt, taken root deep inside her.
"Y...yes." She answered timidly.
"Good." I nodded approvingly. "Now, you have to trust me; you're not in any kind of trouble. I just need you to talk to a person who can help you find peace and resolve, if that's okay with you."
Tanya shook her head defiantly. "I don't want a shrink!"
I gave her a reassuring smile. "Relax, Tanya. He's no shrink, and he's here to help."
"Who?" Tanya wanted to know.
"Lenny?" I called out inwardly. "You ready for this?"
At that moment, all I hoped was that my plan would play out accordingly and Lenny will help Tanya confront her inner demons by showing that he bore no grudge against her. I knew the both of them were sworn enemies; Lenny blamed Tanya for killing Melinda, and Tanya blamed him for ruining her life. But mutual hatred wasn't the only thing they had in common.
Guilt.
It had been ten years since the incident―for Lenny maybe five―but it was long enough for the guilt to ferment within the two of them. Plus, with the trump card―Lenny getting to know that this Anita that he knew was actually his BFF Phil's wife―being played, it increased the chances for Lenny to see through his initial veil of hatred and understand that he, himself, had a part to play in his daughter's death. It wasn't entirely Tanya's fault, as she wouldn't have ended up at Lenny's house on that fateful Sunday morning looking like she was a few tacos short of a combo platter if not for Lenny's FallopFix Trials.
And that was what I let Lenny ponder upon before I asked him whether he would like to take the wheel and talk to Tanya personally.
"Never readier," Lenny muttered sarcastically. "I still have Phil to deal with, you know."
"Trust me, once you reconcile with Tanya, getting on Phil's good side will be as easy as finding a police officer in a donut shop."
Lenny snorted. It was a nervous kind of snort.
I didn't give up. "Lenny, I know what it's like to live with something unresolved."
He snorted even louder this time. "So does the rest of the planet."
I ignored the deliberate jibe. "But you wouldn't wanna die knowing that you'd let your daughter's death go unresolved when in the actual fact, you had the chance to atone it but you didn't just because you were being a pussy."
"I'm already dead," Lenny mumbled, but I could see that I've gotten through to him. It was only a matter of time before he agrees to―
"Okay, I'll do it."
Well, that sure as hell didn't take long.
I stared at him dubiously. "Are you sure you don't want to rehearse or anythi―"
"Just give me your goddamn mouth, Jarod."
"Okay, okay." I gave him my goddamn mouth.
Not very surprisingly, the first thing Lenny did was to clear my throat. His throat. "Ahem." He shifted uneasily. "Anita?"
His words had the same effect on Tanya as a cattle prod had on a cow. Her bleary eyes focused, and her head snapped towards the direction of his voice so quick that I could almost hear her neck crack in protest. She stammered for a few seconds, before gulping down her palpable fear, and spoke.
"L...Lenny? Is that you?"
At first, I thought he was going to say something smartass-ish, but luckily he didn't. "Yes, it's me." Lenny nodded awkwardly. "I don't know how to say this, but...I'm sorry. For everything."
Tanya burst into sobs. "Oh, Lenny, it's me who should be terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt her―I never, ever, meant to hurt her, not in a million years, I swear. I shouldn't have gone to see you that day."
"No, no, it's not solely your fault―" Lenny tried to interrupt her blubbering, but Tanya chugged on unhindered like a locomotive.
"I'd committed invidia, the vilest of the seven deadly sins, I shall not be able to ascend to heaven, and shall forever dwell in purgatory for perpetuity. I shall burn for my sins, suffer for my acts of violence and be punished for my absurd envy."
"Anita!" Lenny grabbed at her arms and gave her a firm shake to drag her out of her blabber before she started preaching Dante. Tanya gasped as their skins touched. She broke off mid-speech.
Lenny stared at Tanya right in the eye. "Please don't blame yourself, Anita. Melinda's death might be on your hands, but if it wasn't for me and that botched FallopFix trial, you wouldn't have came to see me that day."
Seeing that she wasn't quite convinced yet (of course, how could she be; he'd just accused her of first-degree murder), Lenny tried another tactic. "What is done cannot be undone; Melinda's dead, and no matter what I do, I shall never be able to bring her back from the grave. So let's honour her memory by putting the past behind us, for if Mel was here, she would've wanted me to 'forgive and forget'."
At this point, Lenny smiled, as a chunk of his happy memories whizzed past his mind's eye. "'Forgive and forget.'" He repeated the words, savouring them, his smile widening. Lenny's eyes were still on Tanya's, but they seemed to be gazing past her, travelling through time and finally focusing on Melinda's petite silhouette. It was a surreal experience, I must say.
Lenny spoke. "It was always her motto, you see. There was this one time when a fire ant bit her while she was playing in the garden, and her little ankle swelled up to the size of a grape. Strange enough, despite the excruciating pain, she didn't cry. She was always the bravest one in our family.
"I decided that our garden couldn't possibly be safe for Mel to play in while it was infiltrated by fire ants, so I turned the whole place upside down in search of the lil' monsters' hill. I found it eventually―hiding behind an old upturned china pot―and was about to flush them away for good when Mel caught me holding the pot of hot water.
"'What are you doing, daddy?' she asked. She still had the ice pack on her ankle that was supposed to reduce the swelling.
"I placed the pot of hot water on the ground, knelt down beside Mel, and cupped her face with my still-warm hands. 'Daddy's gonna get rid of the monsters that did this―' I pointed a finger at the purple glob on her ankle. '―to you.'
"'Does that mean they're going to die?' she pouted innocently. I was taken aback. Where did she learn that word? I thought. Certainly not from Emily and I; we'd agreed not to teach Mel anything about death and sex before fourth grade.
"Nevertheless, I replied nonchalantly. 'Yes, they are. And they're never going to hurt you again, baby.' As I leaned down to give her a kiss of the forehead, she spoke again. 'Can you just make them...go away, daddy?' she suggested thoughtfully.
"I reared back in surprise. She obviously didn't want me to kill those ants. What kind of love she had for those icky six-legged creatures, I had no idea, but I agreed to her request. 'Why, yes.' I forced a smile. 'Your wish is my command.'"
Lenny's chuckle jolted everybody out of their reverie. Yes, even me. Lenny was just too damn good at being a narrator. "Well, I ended up shovelling the anthill manually into a Ziploc bag before dumping them―rather unceremoniously, if I may add―at a nearby park. But, after the incident, I realized something. Something that was unfathomable to me before―Melinda's love for the fire ants. It was the kind of love a man shows a cat who'd scratched a hole in his newly-bought couch; it was the kind of love a mother shows her son when he'd broken the TV playing baseball; and it was also the kind of love an aggrieved wife shows a drunk driver who'd killed her husband in an accident. Some might call it 'mercy', others 'compassion', but I prefer the word 'magnanimity'."
Lenny gave Tanya's hands a tight squeeze. "Anita, you've been bearing this immense guilt for ten years―trust me, I know how awful that can be―and it's now time for you to let go. Melinda isn't gone; she'll always be in our hearts. But I wouldn't want for her to be a vindictive devil in yours, haunting you day and night―I want her to be the purest, cutest and kindest angel that appears in your sweetest dreams and lingers forever in your memories. I forgive you, Tanya, for everything, and I hope that you'll forgive me too."
"Great speech." I gave Lenny a mental pat-on-the-back. "Quick question: did you prep a script upfront, or was it off the top of your head?"
Although a little bit melodramatic (okay, very), Lenny's speech received, no doubt, a standing ovation, with me as the only audience clapping like an idiot. Duh. But wait, I heard another set of hands clapping along with me. "Phil?"
However, before I could be sure, Tanya was speaking again. The lady was a total mess; her eyes were sore and tears were streaming down her cheeks like the waters of Niagara Falls. "Oh...Lenny..." She sobbed. "Y'know, all these years, I've been replaying the scene in my head, again and again. I thought that, every time the scene was relived, the guilt within me would decrease by a little bit―I was terribly wrong. The guilt clawed away chunks and pieces of my heart, and with each rip, the pain became more and more excruciating.
"So now that you've forgiven me, oh―I can't tell you how grateful and relieved I am. And of course I forgive you too; the botched trial was merely due to an engineering error, and I understand that your ultimate goal―your Objetivo en la Vida―was to help those who were in need. In this case? You were trying to help the entire female race." Tanya smiled hearteningly.
Lenny seemed taken aback by her knowledge of his objective in life. I guess he was the type of guy who believed that translating a term into a foreign language would make it a big deal. "Phil told you about that?"
Tanya nodded, beaming widely.
Lenny chuckled. "He was always terrible at keeping secrets."
"I couldn't agree less." Tanya giggled.
After a while, Lenny gazed into Tanya's eyes, his expression dead-serious. "Thank you." He said.
Tanya gave a terse smile in return.
Ooh, things were getting steamy in here. Truth be told, I always knew this would happen. The reconciliation of two theatrics―this would definitely make a phenomenal soap opera act that would make Broadway go crazy. Well, as in Broadway in the Fifties, that is.
As Lenny surrendered mission control back to me, something incredible happened. Phil, appearing from nowhere, swung his brick-like fists and whacked Lenny in the face.
Lenny crumbled like a sack of potatoes.
"That's for punching me," Phil explained. And when Lenny scrambled up from the ground, totally disoriented and nursing his just-cuffed jaw, Phil smacked him again, this time aiming for his cheek.
Phil was quick to elucidate. "And that's for ruining Tanya's life."
As Lenny plopped down comically on his butt, heaving deeply, too stunned to get up, Phil stood stock-still and announced. "And now, for Tanya ruining your life by taking Melinda away from you, you may punch me as many times as you like."
Lenny stared at Phil bewilderedly. It took him a full twenty seconds before he finally got his breath back and answered. "T...that won't be necessary."
I wasn't sure which was the main reason of his refusal of that tempting offer (I, for one, would gladly take it); his wounded ego (getting punched in the face twice in five seconds sort of deflates a man's ego), or the fear of fracturing his fragile knuckles by punching Phil.
"Are you sure about that?" Phil peered down at Lenny curiously.
"Absolutely," Lenny confirmed. "Actually, you know what?" He struggled to get up. "I think I'm going to―"
What he was about to say was cut short when there was a knock on the door.