“She did it, huh?” Sophie looked over at the sleeping figure on the couch. Ma looked over, too, and nodded.
“Just like you said she would,” Sophie said.
Ma turned up one corner of her mouth. “I didn’t know you remembered that.”
“I remember it exactly. You said everyone was going to have a Pilot except you and me, and we would be okay without them, even when everyone else has them.”
Ma pulled the elastic from her hair, then smoothed it back and redid her ponytail. “That’s exactly what I said. Did you believe me?”
Sophie shrugged. “I didn’t understand what you meant when you said it.”
“But now you do.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.”
“I still believe it, Soph. It’ll be okay.”
“I know.”
“You and me, right?”
“Right.” Sophie hugged her ma, then headed upstairs. At the top she turned and looked back. Ma still stood in the same place, looking at Mom. Maybe she saw the blood spots, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY
VAL
Julie didn’t suffer the same foreboding that had plagued David in the month between Pilot installation and activation. If anything, Val thought she looked impatient. Val, meanwhile, found herself trying to savor the days. She tried not to think of them as leading to some cliff, some unscalable before and after. David’s personality hadn’t changed; she had no reason to think Julie wouldn’t still be her Julie.
And yet she still found herself running extra miles in the morning, trying to excavate some new pit in her stomach. She climbed back into bed after showering, taking extra time to wrap herself in her wife’s familiar body. When they reached for each other that night, she tried not to acknowledge her fear that she’d never have Julie’s undivided attention again.
“You’re somewhere else,” Julie said, running her fingertips over the curve of Val’s hip. Irony of ironies. Then, because Julie always knew what she was thinking: “You know, the Pilot will make me more able to focus, not less.”
“I know—sorry. I’m here, I promise. Let me show you.”
She didn’t want anything to change.
* * *
• • •
She took an afternoon off to drive Julie to her activation. She had been there for David’s installation but not his activation, so she didn’t know what to expect. The same waiting room, the same current magazines, the same strange fresh-baked-cookie smell.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” she asked, eyeing the same mahogany door.
Julie shook her head. “I don’t think so. You’ll make me nervous. Remember our first date?”
Val laughed despite herself. The thing they called their first date had started out as a trip to a county fair with a group of mutual friends. They’d been flirting all night, with Julie daring Val to go on rides Val thought looked too rickety to be safe, and to try the deep-fried beer, which she hated and drowned in regular beer. It had taken Val the entire night to find something Julie didn’t want to do: the House of Horror.
“I don’t like being scared,” she’d said. “I get jumpy when I’m nervous.”
“Chicken!” Finally, Val had a way to turn the cute girl’s taunting around. A Tilt-A-Whirl with a loose bolt could kill you, and what if it had been damaged on the ride from one fair to the next, but haunted houses were a place to let go of your worries, to erase and replace them with a delicious mindless terror divorced from real life.
Except Val was standing too close behind Julie when some carny in a Leatherface costume stepped from the shadows, and Julie, as promised, jumped. Her head collided with Val’s lip, which collided with Val’s front tooth. Blood everywhere, real blood, which made Leatherface faint, and the House of Horror had to be closed temporarily to hose off the real blood. Lips and scalps both bleed an awful lot.
Julie drove them to the emergency room—they told their friends not to waste their evening going with them—and they each got seven stitches, which they both thought was a lucky number despite the circumstances. They’d since been in hospitals together far more than they’d expected, far more than they’d have preferred, but the family joke was not to make Julie nervous.
Julie looked at the door, and Val turned her face to hide the tears. This was the last time Val could hope Julie didn’t notice her tears. She already had trouble hiding her feelings; now she wouldn’t be more obvious, but Julie would be more observant. Either way. Before and after. Val leaned over and kissed her, trying not to think this was the last Before kiss.
* * *
• • •
She couldn’t point to anything different on the way home. Julie looked out the window, backseat driving from the passenger seat. That was usual. Julie chatted with her, her hand occasionally drifting up to touch the spot above her ear. That was usual for this past month, though it always reminded Val of when David had first gotten his Pilot. If anything was different, it was that Julie was a little extra talkative, overanimated.
“Do you feel different?” Val asked.
“Yes. More awake? Alert. Like some people describe too much coffee, but not in a bad way.” Caffeine never affected Julie.
“Is it like David says? Noisy?”
Julie closed her eyes like she was consulting something inside her own head. “No. I wouldn’t use that word.”
Val took a deep breath. “Do you still love me?” She meant this to sound lighthearted, but as it came out of her mouth it sounded scared to her own ears.
She glanced over at Julie, who frowned. “Of course I still love you. You know this could never change that.”
“Sorry. I know I’m being silly.”
Julie took her hand and held it until Val needed it to make the turn onto their street. She felt foolish for it, but the fear didn’t dissipate. There was no before, she told herself. There was no after. She’d get used to the blue light. She couldn’t even see it from the driver’s seat. They were fine.
* * *
• • •
She found it bizarre to watch her wife do the same exercises David had done. Times tables while doing crossword puzzles, head patting and stomach rubbing, repeating phrases Val supplied while she read about something else entirely. That weird heist game, when Julie had never gone for video games.
Val hated it. “How is this better than when we used to complain about people checking their phones while holding a conversation?”
“It’s better because I’m able to pay attention completely to what you’re saying, even though I don’t look like it.” Julie didn’t look away from her tablet.
“Can we try it the other way around, then?” She knew she sounded petulant. “Can you look at me while we talk, and make the tablet think you’re ignoring it?”
Julie frowned. “These are exercises. I won’t do this to you once I’ve got the hang of it, but I’m still learning.”
Val sighed. “I know. Sorry. Back to the script. ‘Sally sells seashells by the seashore.’”
“Sally sells seashells by the seashore. I wonder how that’s going in this economy?”
“Not much market for seashells these days?”
“If there ever was.”
If she weren’t so opposed to getting a Pilot herself, she could draft her student progress reports while reciting these stupid tongue twisters. She supposed that was her own fault, or her own decision at least.
“Spoons?” Julie asked, surprising Val. She had never been the first one to suggest family games, either; she usually preferred movies.
“If you can convince the kids.”
“Oh, they’ll play. I can be persuasive.”
Whatever she said worked. First Sophie, then David, came down from their rooms, quicker than Val would have expected.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” Sophie walked past them into the
kitchen, returning with three spoons for the bare table.
“I was just thinking it’s been a while,” said Julie, watching David. “And it may be a while before we get to do something all together again.”
David winced. “I’m going back upstairs if you’re going to guilt me.”
“Stay. No guilt.” Val kissed the non-Piloted side of his head.
“I’ll deal first.” Julie held her own cards in her left hand, dealing from the deck with her right. Val, in the fourth position, had a chance to watch. Julie had an expression on her face that Val didn’t recognize, a half smile that suggested amusement. The cards passed from her to Sophie, who passed them along without looking, her eyes on the spoons, as usual. Then to David, on the edge of his seat, all concentration.
David was the first to reach for a spoon, but Julie’s hand darted out almost simultaneously, and came away faster. Sophie and Val both grabbed at the third spoon, but Val got there first.
“Wait,” said Sophie. “Who had it?”
David fanned out four sixes.
Sophie frowned. “But Mom took a spoon before you. Mom, what did you have?”
“Nothing yet. I saw David reaching, so I took a spoon, too.”
“But you took before him. You can’t take the first spoon if you don’t have the cards.”
“Fine. I’ll take the s, kid. I didn’t mean to cheat.” Julie threw her spoon back on the table.
“I didn’t think so.” Sophie accepted the win with magnanimity, scooping the cards toward her to shuffle. Julie won the next round, and David the one after, but each time, Val could swear Julie’s hand reached out quicker. There was a hitch in the movement: she reached, then pulled back, slightly, to not get there first.
That was why she’d chosen this game, Val realized: to test her new implant. Julie holding back didn’t take away from the game. Sophie still grabbed for the spoons every time, David still tried to find the winning hand, and Val still took more pleasure in watching everyone interacting with one another than in the game, which, truth be told, she found more stressful than fun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JULIE
And just like that, David was gone. Julie blinked and the last few months with him evaporated. She had tried to savor them, to follow Val’s lead and not complain when he wanted to hang out with his friends instead of them. She played it casual, while on the inside she was screaming and clinging to him. She didn’t care what Fuentes said: David was still a boy; her boy.
She might have gone overboard. She forced him to write polite letters to the schools that had accepted him, then kept them in her purse until the last possible day to mail them, still hoping he’d change his mind.
He didn’t. If anything, he got more into the idea. He ran every day, sometimes with Val and sometimes farther and faster than her. He lifted weights in his room, EarPods blasting at obscene levels that he paradoxically said chased away some of what he called noise, while studying for final exams. Fuentes had made it clear to him he couldn’t blow off his classes, at least.
Graduation was a surreal experience. The sight of the auditorium full of boys in black caps and gowns, all with a pearl of blue above one ear, nearly bowled her over. She wondered how many of them had enlisted.
Then he was gone, leaving a David-shaped hole in their lives. They all compensated by spending more time with one another. Sophie, who had become fairly independent, asked for a night-light and refused to go to epilepsy camp that summer. It was only in August that she told them she hadn’t gone to camp because she didn’t think they were ready to be alone. They had laughed, and Sophie had been offended, and in the end Julie had to admit Sophie was right. They weren’t ready to be alone.
It was good she had the Pilot, since otherwise she would have found herself spending all of her time—time meant for work—trying to figure out anything she could about David’s unit. She was upset and glad at the same time that she couldn’t find much. It meant the program really was being kept low-key, which meant it really must have some importance.
They talked with David on the rare occasions he was allowed to talk. He always looked happy to see them, but distracted, like they’d caught him at a bad time, when he’d been the one to call.
“Are you eating well?” she asked him, sounding like her own grandmother.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Val asked, sounding like her father.
“When you come home will you take me to the Renaissance Faire without the moms?” Sophie asked, then added for their benefit, “No offense.”
What felt like seconds later, he’d apologize and go, leaving them staring at a blank screen, their questions mostly unanswered, even more unasked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
VAL
The David they met at the airport looked like the expanded director’s cut of the David who had left.
“You’re taller!” Sophie threw herself into his arms.
He caught her like she weighed nothing and hugged her back. “You, too, Softserve.”
“Only an inch. I’m still short for my age.”
Sophie was right. He’d grown a lot. Not just taller, but broader, with wider shoulders and better posture and a more angular adult face superimposing itself on the boy face. In the calls he always sat close, leaning into the screen so they saw him from the shoulders up; the differences in person were striking. When Val took her turn for a hug, she had to stretch. He had been her height, five feet ten, when he left.
“You’re solid muscle,” she said, squeezing an arm.
Julie didn’t stretch. “C’mere, boy.” She reached up and pulled him to her level, kissing the top of his head. “I’m so happy you’re home.”
He looked around. “Not home yet. Unless we’ve moved to the airport?”
“Surprise!” said Julie. “Do you want a gate for a bedroom, or the chapel?”
“How about baggage claim? I could sleep on the belt, round and round.” He circled his finger in the air.
Julie pointed to the conveyor, crowded with luggage. “You’d have to dodge bags.”
“And people would watch you while you slept,” said Val.
“And people aren’t allowed on the belt. It says so.” Sophie got the final word.
David grinned at her. “Good point. Wouldn’t want to get in trouble. I guess I’d rather go back to the house, if I can’t live on the baggage claim. Where’s the car?” He shouldered his duffel and stood at loose attention.
“E6,” said Julie. “We’ve got some walking to do.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He fell into line behind her, grabbing Sophie’s shoulders and making her shriek. Val followed, enjoying the sight of the two kids together.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” David asked his sister as they walked toward the skyway.
“I’m allowed to stay up ’til nine thirty these days.”
“Nine thirty? That’s pretty late. But it’s past eleven now.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“You could have seen me in the morning.”
“Yeah, but that would be different. I didn’t want to wait.”
Sophie fell asleep in the car on the way home, her head against the window. Val watched her in the vanity mirror, then shifted it again and caught David’s face instead. He smiled.
She smiled back. “Just checking that you’re really here.”
“I’m here,” he said. “For a couple of weeks, anyway.”
“We’ll take what we can get,” said Julie from the driver’s seat. “I imagine some of your friends are off partying somewhere instead of going home.”
“Yeah. Milo’s in New Orleans, but I needed a break from the South. I can’t believe I complained summers here were hot and sticky.”
“Summers here are hot and sticky,” said Julie. “But there are definitely hotter and stickier pla
ces.”
“Yeah, I know that now. And it’s good practice, I guess.”
“Good practice?”
“Yeah, for deployment.”
Val’s heart dropped into her stomach.
It didn’t take a Pilot to catch that Julie had stiffened and swerved slightly before tightening her hands on the wheel. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be deployed.”
“Everybody gets deployed, Mom. It’s a matter of when.”
“That Fuentes guy said control rooms, not battlefields.” Julie’s voice carried a knife edge.
“They have control rooms over there, too, Mom, but everyone takes a turn.”
“Where is over there?” Val asked, watching Julie watch the road. “And when?”
“When I get back. I can’t tell you where. Look, I—”
“For how long?”
“A year.”
Val’s breath left her. Could she hold her breath for a year? She’d find out.
David leaned forward between them. He’d outgrown this car’s back seat; his knees bumped Val’s seat and his head brushed the roof. “I didn’t want to tell you until later. I wanted a nice visit home, no worry or fuss. Can we still do that?”
“Yeah.” Julie wiped a hand across her eyes. Val didn’t say anything.
“Do you want me to tell the squirt? Or do you want to tell her?”
Julie said, “We can do it together, Davey, but maybe you were right about waiting ’til the end of the visit. Don’t ruin it for her.”
Val shifted the mirror to look at Sophie again, but she was sound asleep. For a moment, she envied the kid; she would have liked to miss this conversation, too. David was right. The whole visit was going to be tarnished, even more than it had been already. She envisioned a countdown clock, then blinked it away.
She could lock him in the basement, keep him from leaving. They could move to Canada. She could say those things alone to Julie, who would recognize them for what they were. David would misinterpret them, think she wasn’t proud of him, or wanted to keep him a child forever, though that wasn’t it. She didn’t wish him to stay a child, and she knew she couldn’t keep him safe. She just wanted to protect him.
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