by Delaney, JP
“…The Cullen family are not anti-technology,” she’s saying. “We are not anti-progress. This was about honoring my sister Abbie’s memory, and her life. We think it right that Scott Robotics should now pay for the suffering they have caused. But the entire sum will be donated to Haven Farm Ranches, a charity working with those affected by autism.”
Something stirs in your brain. You’ve come across that name recently. But where?
Then it comes to you. Dr. Eliot Laurence’s Wikipedia page. It was on the list of charities he consulted for.
While Tim makes some calls to key staff, you look up Haven Farm Ranches. More smiling faces, more shots of fields with learning-disabled people working in them. But nothing you can see that will help you.
You go to a section marked GALLERY. There are hundreds of pictures—fundraisers, mostly. You scroll through them, not even sure what you’re looking for. Endless shots of gala evenings, ball gowns, half marathons, sponsored skydives…
And then, so sudden you almost miss it and have to go back to check, a face you know.
Mike. Wearing a tuxedo and handing over a check. Dr. Mike Austin, co-founder of Scott Robotics, passes a donation of $18,000 to Dr. Eliot Laurence, founder of Positive Autism.
You click on a menu item headed OUR METHODS.
Here at Haven Farm Ranches we embrace the whole person, not just the disability. Following an approach called Positive Autism, we use good diet, outdoor work, and holistic therapies to reduce stress and manage anxiety…
Mike met Dr. Laurence at a Haven Farm fundraiser. Dr. Laurence consults to Haven Farm Ranches.
That’s the connection to Abbie. It must be.
TWENTY-THREE
We heard the terrible news about Danny from Mike and Jenny. Tim got a call to go straight to the Benioff Children’s Hospital—Danny’d had some kind of seizure and they were doing tests, he told Mike later by phone.
It was several days before we heard the words childhood disintegrative disorder. We immediately looked it up, of course.
CDD has been described by many writers as a devastating condition, affecting both the family and the individual’s future. As is the case with all pervasive developmental disorders, there are no medications available to directly treat CDD, and considerable controversy as to whether any treatments or interventions can have a beneficial effect.
Those of us with kids held them a little tighter that night.
It was a surprise to see Tim back at work on Monday morning. “It’s better to keep busy,” he told people. But people who had meetings with him reported that he was often distracted by whatever he was reading on his computer.
“He’s using PubMed to research his son’s diagnosis,” someone spotted.
That night Sol Ayode had to go back into the office late to fetch some papers he’d left behind. It was after ten P.M., and as we were in a relatively calm part of the development cycle there was no reason for anybody else to be there. As Sol walked toward his desk, though, he heard someone say, “Tim Scott, you are the cutest man in the world.”
He could see through the open door of Tim’s office. The only light was coming from a work lamp, so it was hard to make out who was in there—he could only see silhouettes. At first he thought it was Abbie, standing in front of the desk, with Tim crouched in front of her. But then he realized it wasn’t Abbie, even though it was speaking in Abbie’s voice. It was the A-bot.
“Tim Scott, you are the cutest man in the world,” it said again. Then, “Though you can also be a bit of a dork sometimes.”
Tim was weeping.
As Sol tiptoed away, he heard the A-bot saying it over and over again. “Tim Scott, you are the cutest man in the world.”
69
As soon as Tim’s asleep you call Mike Austin. It’s gone midnight, but he picks up immediately.
“I need to see you,” you tell him. “It’s important.”
He’s silent a moment. “Tim’s mad at me, isn’t he?”
“It’s not that. It’s Abbie—the real Abbie. She’s alive.” You pause. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
* * *
—
He arranges to meet you at the office. Jenny’s sleeping, he says, and he doesn’t want to disturb her.
You summon an Uber to the back gates. The roads are quiet and the app tells you you’ll be there in half an hour.
You spend the time in the car searching for memories. There’s a knack to it, you’re discovering. Instead of straining for them, you have to drift. If you reach for them, they slip from your grasp. If you go blank and just let them come to you, they will.
They do.
70
Within a few weeks Julian had assembled a whole team of therapists. Tim came to a training session readily. He was right behind ABA, after all.
“Okay,” Julian said, setting a chair in the middle of the room. “Tim, today you’re jack-in-the-box, and this chair is the box.”
He put a big red squeaky button on the floor next to the chair. Then he got Tim to sit on the chair. Eager to play now, Danny allowed his hand to be positioned over the button. “One, two…” Julian prompted.
“Free.”
Julian pushed down on Danny’s hand and the button, and Tim stood up.
“Hmm,” Julian said. “Maybe a bit more engaging. Like this.”
He took Tim’s place in the chair while you helped Danny push the button. Immediately Julian rocketed into the air, arms flailing. “Yeaaaaargh!” he yelled. Danny laughed.
Julian turned back to Tim. “Like that.”
Tim tried again, but he just wasn’t as naturally playful as Julian. His “Yeargh” sounded like a retch of disgust.
“Okay. Let’s try something else.” Julian switched to a game where Danny got tickled every time he made eye contact.
Watching them, it struck you that, even before Danny’s regression, Tim had never really done horseplay with him. He was trying to follow Julian’s instructions now, but you could tell he found it difficult.
“Gotcha!” Julian pounced on Danny, who giggled. Tim gave them both a dark look.
* * *
—
“I just don’t think what he’s doing can be proper ABA,” Tim complained later, when Julian had gone.
“It’s modern ABA. Same principles, but it’s moved on since Lovaas’s day,” you said confidently. Julian had been explaining this to you, in between sessions.
“But it hasn’t, has it? Moved on. Not in terms of results. It’s moved backward. No one’s been able to match Lovaas’s original success.”
“Lovaas’s therapists shouted and used electric shocks.”
“That’s what’s worrying me. What if those methods were actually integral to the results? You can’t just take one whole vector out of a study and assume it’ll work the same.”
“But we can see it’s working. Besides, Danny adores Julian.”
On reflection, you realized later, that may not have been the smartest thing you could have said.
* * *
—
You assumed it was Julian’s relationship with Danny that Tim was jealous of. It took you a while to work out that, actually, it was Julian’s relationship with you.
“You three seemed to be having a great time,” Tim said one day after he came home and found you in mid-session. You’d been lying on the floor, taking turns to hold Danny above you at arm’s length. Every time Danny made eye contact he got bounced off your tummy.
“We were, yes.”
“Remind me—did we do background checks on this guy?”
“On Julian?” you said, bemused. “Of course. He showed me his child protection certificates himself.”
“Well, at least Danny’s safe.”
Something about the way he said it made you turn to look
at him. “What do you mean by that?”
Tim shrugged. “Just the way he looks at you, that’s all.”
“You’re imagining things,” you said firmly.
* * *
—
One day Julian suggested a trip to the ocean.
“As a break from therapy?”
“As motivation for therapy. You say Danny loves waves. Let’s make waves today’s reinforcer.”
So the three of you drove out to the beach. You and Julian walked Danny down to the water. When a wave came, Danny had to say, “Jump,” and then together you’d pull him, squealing with pleasure, into the air, just before the wave crashed over his tummy. Or you’d crouch down and he’d have to look you in the eye, and you’d reward him by scattering a handful of glittering seawater in front of his gaze.
It worked, too. He loved those games so much, he tried extra hard.
Back at the beach house, you were euphoric. “That was the best session so far! This is working!”
Excited, you hugged Julian. And that’s when he kissed you.
Just for a moment, you kissed him back. Of course you did. You’d been lonely for so long. But just as quickly, you came to your senses.
“I love you, Abbie,” Julian said urgently as you pulled away. “I want to be with you.”
“Don’t be crazy,” you said slowly. “I’m married.”
“People can’t help who they fall in love with. I didn’t choose this. Abbie, I love you.”
But it was you who truly had no choice, although it took you a while to see it. If you had an affair, Tim would find out; and anyway, you weren’t the sort to do something like that behind your husband’s back. You couldn’t go on working with Julian, not now. Even if he could pretend this hadn’t happened—which you doubted—you couldn’t.
There were other therapists, you reminded yourself, but you only had one marriage. So after a sleepless night, you told Julian he had to go.
You felt furious with him, actually. By what sense of entitlement did men think their romantic needs trumped their professional obligations? Why couldn’t he simply have kept his mouth shut? What was so terrible about unrequited love that men just had to blab about it?
You told Tim that Julian had gone abroad. And you set about finding a replacement.
But it turned out Julian had been unique, after all. None of the other therapists you tried bonded with Danny the same way, or made therapy such fun. You ended up with a nice Romanian woman called Magda who was extremely competent and emphasized the data-collection side of things, which Tim liked.
You did suggest going to the beach, once, but she looked at you as if you were mad. “Time is precious,” she said. “Danny needs us to focus.”
The episode with Julian had one good outcome, though: It made you realize your marriage was drifting toward the point of no return. You told Tim you thought the two of you could benefit from some couples therapy.
“Why? We’re fine, aren’t we?” he demanded, puzzled.
“They say eighty percent of couples with an autistic child get divorced, don’t they? It can’t do any harm to give our marriage a refresher.”
Eventually Tim agreed to a Reiki ceremony in which both of you wrote down all the bad thoughts you’d had and burned them. You spent twenty minutes working out what to write.
As you lit the pieces of paper, Tim’s flipped over in the updraft from the flames, so you saw what he’d written. There were just two words. Fucking Reiki.
71
With a jolt, you realize you’ve arrived at Scott Robotics. The parking lot is empty except for Mike’s black Tesla. The Uber drops you off and drives away.
Inside, the place is lit only by the screensavers of the Scott Robotics logo that flicker from every screen—an animated S that chases its own tail, over and over, so that it becomes an upended infinity sign. Every screen is in perfect sync—that was something Tim had insisted on, you remember: He spent weeks niggling at the designers because there was a tiny lag, no more than half a second, between some of the screens.
It got fixed, of course. Everything Tim wanted got fixed in the end.
Mike’s over at the far side, by Tim’s office. “What makes you say she’s alive?” he says without preamble.
“I’m in touch with her.”
He’s silent a moment. “Does Tim know?”
“He’s always believed she’s alive. That’s why he built me—he thinks I can find her.” You pause. “I haven’t told him we’re in contact, though.”
Mike exhales. “Good. Don’t tell him. It’s the kindest thing. Think about it—he’s already done the hard part. Five years without her. Five years of grieving, of going all the way to the bottom. If he finds her now, and she doesn’t want to come back…It’ll break his heart all over again. And he won’t recover, not a second time—”
“Stop bullshitting me,” you interrupt.
Again he’s silent, considering you.
“I know you helped her. It’s what you do, after all. Sort out his messes. Protect him from his mistakes. And you didn’t like Abbie, you told me so yourself. She’d come between you and Tim, distracted him from the company…She knew you were the one person who wanted her gone so much, you’d help her vanish. How frustrating it must have been afterward, when you realized it hadn’t worked. When her disappearance, and Tim’s reaction to it, threatened the company all over again.”
“Fascinating,” Mike says. “To be able to take such tiny scraps of evidence and build a pattern from them…But sadly, wrong.”
“You don’t deny you tried to stop him marrying her?”
“I don’t deny that, no.” Mike’s face is impassive. “But not for the reasons you think.”
“What, then?”
“I was trying to protect her,” he says.
* * *
—
He takes you to another office, the office of their HR director.
“Only two other people have a key to this,” he says as he unlocks a sturdy filing cabinet. When he opens it, you’re expecting something more dramatic than the neat rows of files and DVDs it actually contains.
Each is labeled in thick black pen. Emma-Lou Hunter. Valerie Steiner. Jaki Travis. Kathryn Hughes. Karen Yang…
All women’s names, you realize.
“They’re all here,” he says. “The ones we know about, anyway. The ones we had to pay. What Tim calls the tramps.” He turns on the TV, pushes a DVD into the machine, and presses PLAY. The quality isn’t great—it’s been filmed with a cheap video camera—but what it shows is clear enough. A woman in a chair, facing the camera, talking. There are tears on her face, although her voice is flat and unemotional.
“…He took me out for dinner, waited until the food came, and then laid it out for me in a matrix: Either you don’t want me and won’t fuck me, in which case you’re a prick-teasing attention whore; or you don’t want me and will fuck me just to get a promotion, in which case you’re an actual whore; or you do want me and will fuck me, in which case let’s go to the very nice suite I’ve booked at the Plaza Hotel…” The woman blinks back tears. “I’d said nothing, nothing, that could possibly make him think I was interested in him that way…”
Mike presses EJECT and the image cuts. He reaches for another DVD. You put a hand on his arm. “Please…I get the idea.”
“He’s a great leader,” he says softly. “A visionary. A genius, even. Just not a great human being. At least, not where women are concerned.”
“Was he ever…” You can hardly say it. “Was he ever like that with Abbie?”
“Oh, Abbie was the exception. The one he adored, the one he was going to marry. The mother of his kids. Right from the start. No, even before the start. He’d seen a video of her online, being interviewed about her art. That was the only reason he offered her the resid
ency, because he thought she was insanely hot. And then, somehow, he got her to fall in love with him. But I knew it couldn’t last. I’ve seen it happen before. First he puts them on a pedestal, then…Wham. Suddenly they’re sluts and whores, just like all the others.” He gestures around the empty office. “Silicon Valley has a real problem with corporate sexism. Only ten percent of coders are female. Only five percent of leaders. At Scott Robotics, we’re considered role models for the industry because we have thirty, forty percent female staff. But then you look at the churn—the rate those women leave. Hardly any stay more than a year. And that’s because Tim only hires them if they’re hot. Then, if they won’t do what he wants, he freezes them out. You know what he said to me and Elijah, the last time we had to pay one off? ‘Women are cheaper to hire in the first place, so even when you factor in the payola, we’re still ahead of the game.’ As far as he’s concerned, it’s just part of the cost of doing business.”
“So what happened with Abbie? How did she fall off her pedestal?”
Mike shakes his head. “I don’t really know. Some guy she kissed. One of Danny’s therapists, I think.”
“She didn’t kiss him,” you protest. “He kissed her.”
“I’m not sure that’s a distinction Tim would have taken much notice of.”
“No,” you say, remembering. “He didn’t.”
* * *
—
Tim really liked the way Magda worked with Danny. He started coming home early, watching the sessions and taking notes. Then one day you got back from buying groceries to find he’d brought along five members of his development team to watch as well.
“What was that about?” you asked later.
“I think we can use some of the same methods Magda uses with Danny to train our AIs. Once you understand the science behind it, it’s fascinating.”
After that, Tim threw himself into researching different kinds of ABA. That was when he found this great place called Meadowbank. It used ABA in a school setting, he told you eagerly. And its results were far, far in excess of anything Magda’s data sheets were showing.