Charles Stross: The Family Trade

“So. What are you going to do about it?”

Miriam met her mother’s penetrating stare. “Ma, I spent three years there. And they fired me cold, without even trying to get me to shut up, at the first inconvenience. Do you really think I’m going to let them get away with that if I can help it?”

“What about loyalty?” Iris asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I gave them mine.” Miriam shrugged. “That’s part of why this hurts. You earn loyalty by giving it.”

“You’d have made a good feudal noble. They were big on loyalty, too. And blind obedience, in return.”

“Wrong century, wrong side of the Atlantic, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Now Iris grinned. “Oh, I noticed that much,” she conceded. “No foreign titles of nobility. That’s one of the reasons why I stayed here-that, and your father.” Her smile slipped. “Never could understand what the people here see in kings and queens, either the old hereditary kind or the modern presidential type. All those paparazzi, drooling after monarchs. I like your line of work. It’s more honest.”

“Harder to keep your job when you’re writing about the real world,” Miriam brooded gloomily. She struggled to sit a little straighter. “Anyway, I didn’t come around here to mope at you. I figure I can leave job-hunting until tomorrow morning.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” Iris asked pointedly. “You mentioned lawsuits-or worse.”

“In the short term-” Miriam shrugged, then took a deep breath. “Yes,” she admitted. “I guess I’ll be okay as long as I leave them alone.”

“Hmm.” Iris looked at Miriam sidelong. “How much money are we talking about here? If they’re pulling fake lawsuits to shut you up, that’s not business as usual.”

“There’s-” Miriam did some mental arithmetic-“about fifty to a hundred million a year flowing through this channel.”

Iris swore.

“Ma!”

“Don’t you ‘Ma’ me!” Iris snorted.

“But-”

“Listen to your old ma. You came here for advice, I’m going to give it, all right? You’re telling me you just happened to stumble across a money-laundering operation that’s handling more money in a week than most people earn in their life. And you think they’re going to settle for firing you and hoping you stay quiet?”

Miriam snorted. “It can’t possibly be that bad, Ma, this isn’t goodfellas territory, and anyway, they’ve got that faked evidence.”

Iris shook her head stubbornly. “When you’ve got criminal activities and millions of dollars in cash together, there are no limits to what people can do.” For the first time, Miriam realized with a sinking feeling, Iris looked worried. “But maybe I’m being too pessimistic-you’ve just lost your job and whatever else, that’s going to be a problem. How are your savings?”

Miriam glanced at the rain-streaked window. What’s turned Ma so paranoid? she wondered, unsettled. “They’re not doing badly. I’ve been saving for the past ten years.”

“There’s my girl,” Iris said approvingly.

“I put my money into tech-sector shares.”

“No, you didn’t!” Iris looked shocked.

Miriam nodded. “But no dot-coms.”

“Really?”

“Most people think that all tech stocks are down. But biotech stocks actually crashed out in ninety-seven and have been recovering ever since. The bubble last year didn’t even touch them. People need new medicines more than they need flashy Web sites that sell toys, don’t they? I was planning on paying off my mortgage year after next. Now I guess it’ll have to wait a bit longer-but I’m not in trouble unless I stay unemployed over a year.”

“Well, at least you found a use for all that time in med school.” Iris looked relieved. “So you’re not hard up.”

“Not in the short term,” Miriam corrected instinctively. “Ask me again in six months. Anyway. Is there anything I can get you while I’m here?”

“A good stiff drink.” Iris clucked to herself. “Listen, I’m going to be all right. The disease, it comes and it goes-another few weeks and I’ll be walking again.” She gestured at the aluminium walking frame next to her chair. “I’ve been getting plenty of rest and with Marge around twice a day I can just about cope, apart from the boredom. I’ve even been doing a bit of filing and cleaning, you know, turning out the dusty old corners?”

“Oh, right. Turned anything up?”

“Lots of dustballs. Anyway,” she continued after a moment. “There’s some stuff I’ve been meaning to hand over to you.”

“ ‘Stuff.’” For a moment, Miriam couldn’t focus on the problem at hand. It was too much to deal with. She’d lost her job and then, the very same day, her mother wanted to talk about selling her home. “I’m sorry, I’m not very focused today.”

“Not very-” Iris snorted. “You’re like a microscope, girl! Most other people would be walking around in a daze. It’s not very considerate of me, I know, it’s just that I’ve been thinking about things and there’s some stuff you really should have right now. Partly because you’re grown up and partly because it belongs to you-you might have some use for it Stuff that might get overlooked.”

Miriam must have looked baffled because Iris smiled at her encouragingly. “Yes. You know, ‘stuff.’ Photograph albums, useless things like Morris’s folks’ birth certificates, my old passport, my parents’ death certificates, your adoption papers. Some stuff relating to your birth-mother, too.”

Miriam shook her head. “My adoption papers-why would I want them? That’s old stuff, and you’re the only mother I’ve ever had.” She looked at Iris fiercely. “You’re not allowed to push me away!”

“Well! And who said I was? I just figured you wouldn’t want to lose the opportunity. If you ever felt like trying to trace your roots. It belongs to you, and I think now is definitely past time for you to have it. I kept the newspaper pages too, you know. It caused quite a stir.” Miriam made a face. “I know you’re not interested,” Iris said placatingly. “Humour me. There’s a box.”

“A box.”

“A pink and green shoebox. Sitting on the second shelf of your father’s bureau in the guest bedroom upstairs. Do me a favour and fetch it down, will you?”

“Just for you.”

Miriam found the box easily enough. It rattled when she picked it up and carried it, smelling of mothballs, down to the living room. Iris had picked up her crochet again and was pulling knots with an expression of fierce concentration. “Dr. Hare told me to work on it,” she said without looking up. “It helps preserve hand-eye coordination.”

“I see.” Miriam put the box down on the sofa. “What’s this one?”

“A Klein-bottle cosy.” Iris looked up defensively at Miriam’s snort. “You should laugh! In this crazy inside-out world, we must take our comforts from crazy inside-out places.”

“You and Dad.” Miriam waved it off. “Both crazy inside-out sorts of people.”

“Bleeding hearts, you mean,” Iris echoed ominously. “People who refuse to bottle it all up, who live life on the outside, who-” she glanced around-“end up growing old disgracefully.” She sniffed. “Stop me before I reminisce again. Open the box!”

Miriam obeyed. It was half-full of yellowing, carefully folded newsprint and elderly photocopies of newspaper stories. Then there was a paper bag and some certificates and pieces of formal paperwork made up the rest of its contents. “The bag contained stuff that was found with your birth-mother by the police,” Iris explained. “Personal effects. They had to keep the clothing as evidence, but nobody ever came forward and after a while they passed the effects on to Morris for safekeeping. There’s a locket of your mother’s in there-I think you ought to keep it in a safe place for now; I think it’s probably quite valuable. The papers-it was a terrible thing. Terrible.”