David nodded and thanked him, knowing he wasn’t ever coming back.
CHAPTER TEN
VAL
In April, Sophie started seizing more often, though at least they weren’t the convulsive kind. Focal seizures, impaired consciousness, knocking out her awareness but not bringing her body down. She disappeared on an almost daily basis, disappeared for seconds or minutes to a place she couldn’t find words to describe.
“It doesn’t matter where,” she said at dinner one night. “It’s not here. I miss here when I’m there.”
“So long as you don’t miss there while you’re here,” Julie said, doling out the black bean spaghetti Val had made. Research pointed to high-protein diets as a path to seizure freedom.
“No, I like here, Mom. I just don’t know how to stay.”
Another piece of Val broke off, and she watched it beat its wings against the walls. That night, after Sophie went to bed and David had locked himself in his room to do homework and play video games, Val bent her own rule about not running after dark. Julie watched her change into shorts and nodded in understanding.
Dinner felt heavy in her stomach. Cool spring air usually energized her, but her limbs felt like lead. Still, she ran. She ran until her thoughts no longer lingered on their daughter who didn’t know how to stay, or their boy becoming an adult in a world that demanded so much more from him than she would ever have imagined. There was always a part of her that wanted to keep running, to run so far the problems disappeared behind her. The darkness amplified it.
When she got back to the house, it was quiet, except the sound of David’s game spilling under his closed door. She tiptoed past Sophie’s door.
“Mom?”
“No, Soph. It’s me.” She walked into the room, aware she was dripping sweat.
“Ma. You smell like you went running. You never run at night.”
“I needed some exercise. I promise I was safe.”
“And the moon is full.”
Val couldn’t see it from her angle near the door. She crossed the room and sat on the floor next to the bed, her head against the hated bedrail. From there, she saw the moon. Had she even noticed it when she was running? She had been so in her head, though surely she’d noticed the brightness. Or not.
“Is that a shooting star?” Sophie pointed at an object moving quickly through the sky. She let her hand fall gently onto Val’s head.
“No, it’s a satellite.” Val kept still so Sophie wouldn’t withdraw her hand. “See how steadily it moves? It’s circling the Earth, not falling.”
“Oh. Are there a lot of them?”
“Satellites? Yeah, I think so. Some relay phone calls and communication, and some are for navigation, like when the car’s GPS tells us where to drive, and”—she ran out of types, though she knew there were more—“others. The moon! The moon is a satellite orbiting Earth, too, in a way.”
“Do any of them run into each other?”
If Sophie was into this, Val would learn it all, but at that moment all she could do was try to remember. “I think it’s kind of like when people are running at the same speed in the same direction, so they never catch each other.” There were different orbits involved, she knew she was being reductive, but this would do for now.
“One of them should take a shortcut so they can meet and run together, instead.” Sophie hadn’t been asking if they would crash; she’d been asking if they were lonely.
They both fell silent. The moon was huge and reflected the sun’s brightness back at them in a way that made it seem like its own white glow. Sophie’s breathing changed, and her hand dropped away from Val’s head, the trailing end of a benediction she hadn’t known she was giving.
* * *
• • •
The next day, Val collected Sophie from school and took her to do some grocery shopping. The route home passed close to David’s school, and as she pumped her squealing brakes, waiting to take her left turn, she caught movement in the side mirror.
“I see David!” said Sophie, face pressed to her window in the back.
David’s cross-country team. Val searched for him and found him in the pack, his face serene. They all looked serene, their bodies straining and sweating but their faces showing no sign of exertion. A few joked with one another, sharing relaxed smiles. She hoped their multiple attentions included remembering to look both ways as they crossed the busy streets back to the school.
They were a strange collection of animals: a herd of boys, scrawny bare chests thrust forth and heaving, legs churning as they vied with one another for position. They would achieve great things, these boys. Their parents had given them everything they could. They would spend another year or two or three at their excellent school, with their excellent brains doing more than any brains had done before. How could they not succeed?
And yet, as she watched them navigate a perfect spring day, Val worried. What kind of society were they creating where kids voluntarily changed their brains to keep pace with all the input coming at them? She couldn’t help imagining the noise in all those Piloted heads, not as David described it.
A boy near David stumbled. Val watched her son reach out an arm to steady the other without breaking stride, but another kid behind him tripped and fell. Two more jumped over him before someone at the back of the pack stopped to help him stand. He brushed his bloody knees with his hands, then took off after his friends.
The traffic light changed and they left the runners behind. Back at the house a few minutes later, Val turned off the car but lingered, key still in the ignition.
She turned to face Sophie. “I have a secret to tell you.”
Sophie unbuckled herself and climbed between the seats and into the passenger seat to hear what Val had to say. She was all about secrets.
“I can see the future,” Val said in a conspiratorial voice. “Not all of it, but a little. In a few years, almost everyone is going to have a Pilot, except you and me.”
Sophie’s eyes grew wide. “Even Mom?”
Val considered, and realized she knew the answer. Not a prediction; an inevitability. “Yes. Mom will have one. People with Pilots are going to do some good things, but you and I and a few other people will be the only people without them. The others are going to make it seem like we need them, but it’ll be okay.”
“Because it’s okay to be different?” She looked skeptical; she’d heard that line before.
“Because we’re going to be different together. As long as you don’t have one, I won’t have one. We’ll both do fine.” She almost added, “I promise,” but stopped short. She didn’t believe in making promises about things outside of her own control.
Sophie nodded like she understood. Val kissed her daughter’s forehead and counted the hours until she could run all this out of her mind.
PART TWO
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JULIE
Julie stared at David through the vines. February rain on the aquarium rainforest pavilion’s glass ceiling enhanced the illusion they were someplace tropical. They went to the aquarium once a year, always on the dreariest, slushiest, most miserable February day. Some guesswork was involved in the decision. Was this the day? Or might there be a worse one?
She felt like they’d chosen right this time. Icy rain spattered the glass high overhead, but the rainforest humidity had already stripped their winter layers; her coat was heavy in her arms. Bright-plumed birds swooped through the upper reaches, unperturbed by the masses of running, screaming children. Her mind wasn’t on the children, or the birds, or the rain.
“You’re doing what?” she repeated. She didn’t know how many times she had asked already.
“Mom, you don’t need to raise your voice.” All David’s attention seemed to be on her and her reaction, and whether she was going to make a scene. She was.
“What do you me
an, you’re not going to college? Your applications are in. We visited fourteen campuses. Do you know how long those stupid financial aid forms took?”
“Mom, maybe we should talk about this at home.”
“You’re the one who brought it up here.”
“I, uh, think that might have been a mistake.”
“That’s the mistake?” She raised her voice a notch. He winced, and she dialed it back again. “The mistake is that you’re telling me in a goddamn rainforest, not that you’ve changed your mind about college?”
“I’ve thought about this. I just wasn’t sure when to tell you. It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s a big deal.”
David sighed and studied some moss. Julie took the moment to glance around. No sign of Val and Sophie, who had left to find a bathroom ages ago. David looked on the verge of tears. He cried only when he was really frustrated.
She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll tone it down, but you better start explaining. What’s going on, Davey?”
“This guy came to school to talk to us. He said they’d teach us how to use our Pilots better. He said it was a good match of skills, not making us fit into the old ideas of what we should do next.”
“What guy, Davey? Who is ‘they’? And why didn’t he talk to you before we paid the application fees?”
David stared at the moss, then scratched at his Pilot light and met her eyes. “The Army.”
“The what?” This time, it didn’t take a Pilot for Julie to notice people staring. She didn’t care.
“I thought you’d understand better than Ma,” he said. “I’m taking control of my future.”
Val and Sophie appeared beside them as if on cue.
“Did we miss something?” Sophie asked, looking from Julie to David and back.
“Your son,” Julie said, as if Val had spoken rather than Sophie, “has decided to get killed in some foreign country instead of go to college.”
“What’s she talking about?” Val posed her question to David.
This time he put some force behind his answer, a cannonball instead of a toe in the water. “I’m joining the Army.” He looked at Val’s face, then Julie’s, clearly trying to triangulate where the sympathy and understanding would come from. Julie set her expression.
Sophie furrowed her brow, trying to follow. “You’re not really going to get killed, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” David threw an arm around her. “I’m going to get trained. They said they have a special track for people who pass a fitness test and an academic test and have had a Pilot for more than two years. We did the tests in school. I made ninety-ninth percentile in both. That’s the best score I’ve gotten on any test ever.” The last bit was clearly for their benefit, not Sophie’s.
“Parents pay how much to that school and they let in recruiters?” Val muttered to Julie. Julie squeezed her hand.
“I’m serious about this. You know I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t thought about it.” That was true. He was not a boy who ever came to them with notions; by the time he verbalized anything, it was a plan.
“Is it me, or is it two hundred degrees in here?” Sophie asked.
“It’s definitely hot,” Val said. “And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to move on. Come on, the best part is still ahead.”
Sophie followed her toward the exit and the long ramp through the shark tank. Julie watched to make sure Sophie made it through the airlock vestibule designed to keep the birds in. Anytime Sophie noticed the temperature it was worth a change in situation; heat triggered her seizures as surely as anything did.
Julie put a hand on David’s arm to hold him back. “I get that you’re serious, but this one is going to take me a while to wrap my head around. Can we table it until some colleges respond? Maybe some school will offer you a scholarship for that ninety-ninth-percentile brain.”
Don’t do it! she wanted to say. He put his giant hand over hers, then removed hers from his arm. He did it with such tenderness she almost wouldn’t have realized it was a brush-off. Almost.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll wait until more colleges respond, if you need me to, but I won’t change my mind. We can talk about it until you’re comfortable with it, or until you realize I’m doing it whether or not you get comfortable.”
Julie tried to summon pride in his decision, but settled for mild respect for his resolve. She wished, not for the first time, that Pilots helped with executive function as well as attention and multitasking. There was still no way to rush good choices. He left the rainforest ahead of her, tall and strong and smart and young and dumb.
* * *
• • •
She attacked everything for the next several days. She attacked the drive back from the aquarium, attacked it so hard Val insisted she pull over and switch seats. She made Sophie cry when they got home, insisting she hadn’t promised to take the kid to a friend’s house when she knew she probably had. She wished it weren’t the ugliest day of the ugliest month, wished she could weed, or mow, or build something or hit something. No wonder David wanted to go to war. It must be genetic, this desire to do violence. Her desire was limited to plant life, but she understood how it might combine with testosterone in a more dangerous mix.
The recruiter agreed to see her more easily than she expected. She had wanted to show up at his office armed for battle. Instead, he suggested meeting at a coffee shop, maybe under the same theory that had inspired David to make his announcement in public.
She arrived exactly on time and scanned the room for uniforms. Shouldn’t a military officer be punctual? Maybe he wasn’t going to come and had arranged this to demonstrate what little power she had in the situation. He’d gone to David’s school and derailed eighteen years of hope and planning and he didn’t even have the decency to say it to her face.
“Mrs. Geller?”
She scanned the room until she found the speaker. The man at the corner table had risen from his chair, a welcoming smile on his face. He had a deep tan over an already-tan skin tone and white, white teeth. He looked like a movie star. Maybe that was how he sold children on war: you too can be a movie star if you sign on the dotted line.
“You aren’t wearing a uniform.” Good start, Julie. Play your hand early so he knows you’re hostile.
“I don’t like to wear it when I’m meeting with parents. It can be intimidating. Plus, this saves me on dry-cleaning bills.” He brushed a hand down his body with a self-deprecating air. His polo shirt and pressed khakis were as much a uniform as anything else he might wear, she realized; no creases in sight.
“I’m sorry, that was rude,” she said, then wondered why she was apologizing to the enemy. She grasped for level ground. “But you haven’t introduced yourself.”
“Sergeant First Class Fuentes, US Army. I thought you knew since you were the one who called me. And you’re one of David’s mothers?”
How much had he and David talked already? She nodded. He came to her side of the table and pulled out the chair for her.
“Do you want something to drink? On me.”
She stood again. “I can order for myself, thanks.”
No way would she let him buy her anything; she didn’t want to owe him. She walked over to the counter and ordered a large black coffee. She preferred cream and sugar, but she felt like the black coffee lent her extra mojo in a situation she was still trying to get a handle on. She didn’t order a pastry, to spare herself the indignity of eating in front of him.
She warmed her hands on the mug while she waited for Fuentes to return. He slipped back into his seat a few minutes later, dropping a plate with a bagel and cream cheese on the table and scattering poppy seeds. In his other hand, he held a mug of hot chocolate topped with a whipped-cream mountain, chocolate sprinkles, and cinnamon. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the
memo that his order might have significance in their encounter. There was a bowl of packaged creamers and sugars on the table beside theirs, and she reached over to steal one of each. Not a defeat if he didn’t know they were playing.
She waited until he’d taken a bite of bagel. “So, what do you want with my son?”
He chewed for a moment, then smiled. “That was direct.”
The poppy seed stuck to one of his perfect teeth gave her courage. “I don’t think we have anything else to discuss, so there’s no point to small talk.”
“Fair enough. I’ll be direct as well, then. We want your son because he’s exactly the sort of man we’re looking for.”
“He’s a boy.”
“He’s eighteen. He’ll be a man soon whether you want him to be or not.”
“He has plenty of time to be a man,” she said. “I wanted him to go to college, have a few more years to figure out who he wants to be.”
Fuentes smiled again. The poppy seed had vanished. “Is that what he wants? Maybe he knows who he wants to be already.”
She shook her head. “I don’t buy it. None of us know who we are at eighteen. We’re just full of ourselves enough to think so.”
He smiled again, but the wattage had dimmed. It seemed more genuine. “Fair enough. How about this? Maybe he doesn’t know what he wants, but he’s actively looking for it, and he doesn’t think he can find it in college or we wouldn’t be sitting here having this discussion. He didn’t check off the ‘send me more information’ box; he signed up.”
Julie was dumbfounded; she tried to hide it by sipping her coffee. It burnt her tongue, but she held the mug there anyway, buying a minute. David had already enlisted? He’d said “I’m joining,” not “I’ve joined,” which she’d assumed meant he’d made the decision but hadn’t done the thing yet. She didn’t know whether to act like she had known that, or to drop her facade.
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