Factoring Humanity

The microphone on Cheetah’s console was very sensitive; doubtless he heard. Still, he was quiet for a time — a programmed affectation. “Oh,” he said at last.

Kyle could see lights winking on the console; Cheetah was accessing the World Wide Web, quickly researching this topic.

“You’re not to tell anyone,” said Kyle sharply

“I understand,” said Cheetah. “Did you do what you are accused of?”

Kyle felt anger growing within him. “Of course not.”

“Can you prove that?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?”

“A salient one,” said Cheetah. “I assume Rebecca has no actual evidence of your guilt.”

“Of course not.”

“And one presumes you have no evidence of your innocence.”

“Well, no.”

“Then it is her word against yours.”

“A man is innocent until he’s proven guilty,” said Kyle. Cheetah’s console played the first four notes from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. No one had bothered to program realistic laughter yet — Cheetah’s malfunctioning sense of humor hardly required it — and the music served as a place-holder. “I’m supposed to be the naïve one, Dr. Graves. If you are not guilty, why would she make the accusation?”

Kyle had no answer for that.

Cheetah waited his programmed time, then tried again. “If you are not guilty why — ”

“Shut up,” said Kyle.

3

Heather wasn’t teaching any courses during the summer session, thank God. She’d tossed and turned all night after Becky’s visit and hadn’t managed to get out of bed until 11:00 AM.

How do you go on from something like this, she wondered.

Mary had died sixteen months ago.

No, thought Heather. No — face it head-on. Mary had committed suicide sixteen months ago. They’d never known why Becky had been living at home back then; it had been she who had found her sister’s body

How do you go on?

What do you do next?

The year Becky was born, Bill Cosby had lost his son Ennis. Heather, with a newborn sucking at her breast, and a two-year-old bundle of energy racing around the house, had been moved to write a note to Cosby, in care of CBS, expressing sympathy. As a mother, she knew nothing could be more devastating than the loss of a child. Tens of thousands wrote such notes, of course. Cosby — or his staff, at any rate — had replied, thanking her for the concern.

Somehow, Bill Cosby had gone on.

At the same time, another father was in the news every night: Fred Goldman, father of Ron Goldman, the man killed alongside Nicole Brown Simpson. Fred was furious with O.J. Simpson, the person he was convinced had slaughtered his boy. Fred’s anger was palpable, exploding from the TV set. The Goldman family published a book, His Name Is Ron. Heather had even gone to meet them when they’d autographed copies at the Chapters superstore down by the university. She knew, of course, that the book would be remaindered a few months later, like all the other flotsam tied into the Simpson trial, but she bought a copy anyway, getting Fred to sign it — showing her support, one parent to another.

Somehow, Fred Goldman had gone on.

When Mary had killed herself, Heather had looked to see if the Goldman book was still among their collection. It was indeed, standing on a living-room shelf, next to Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, another hardcover Heather had broken the budget for at about the same time. Heather had taken down the Goldman book and opened it. There were pictures of Fred in it, but all of them were happy, family shots — not the face she remembered, the one seething with fury, all of it directed at Simpson.

When your child takes his or her own life, where do you direct the anger? At whom do you aim it?

The answer is no one. You internalize it — and it eats you up from the inside, bit by bit, day by day.

And the answer is everyone. You lash out, at your husband, your other child, your coworkers.

Oh, yes. You go on. But you’re never the same.

But now -

Now, if Becky was right -

If Becky was right, there was someone to aim the anger at.

Kyle. Becky’s father; Heather’s estranged husband.

As she walked south along St. George Street, she thought about that framed alien radio message on their living-room wall. Heather was a psychologist; she’d spent the last decade trying to decipher the alien messages, trying to plumb the alien mind. She knew that particular message better than anyone else on the planet did — she’d published two papers about it — and yet she still had no idea what it really said; she didn’t really know it at all.

Heather had known Kyle for almost a quarter of a century.

But did she really know him at all?

She tried to clear her mind, tried to set aside the shock of the night before.