Factoring Humanity

“What was that all about?” asked Cheetah after she was gone.

Kyle did his best Bogart. “The shtuff that dreams are made of.”

“Pardon?” said Cheetah.

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Kids today,” he said.

30

Heather found all sorts of memories of Becky in Kyle’s mind, but none of them were relevant to Becky’s accusation.

Heather went as long as she could in psychospace between bathroom breaks, but on one of the breaks she watched the videotape through the viewfinder on the camcorder.

To her astonishment, the collection of cubes did shimmer — both the paint and the substrate aglow — and then the components seemed to recede, each constituent cube twisting free as it did so.

And then, incredibly, it was gone.

She fast-forwarded, watched it bloom into existence again out of nothingness.

Amazing.

It really did fold up kata or ana; it really did transcend to another realm.

Heather kept searching throughout the weekend, encountering many aspects of Kyle. Although she was concentrating on his thoughts about his daughters, she also encountered memories of his work, of their marriage — and of her. Apparently he didn’t always see her with uncritical eyes. Corrugated thighs indeed!

It was illuminating, fascinating, compelling. There was so much more she wanted to learn about him.

But she could not tarry. She was on a mission.

And, finally, at last, on Monday morning, she found what she was looking for.

She was scared, not wanting to go on.

The rape of that anonymous French woman haunted her still, but this -

This, if what she feared were true -

This would haunt her, scar her, disgust her, make her homicidally enraged.

And, she knew, she’d never be able to wash the images from her mind.

But it was what she’d been looking for — of that there could be no doubt.

Nighttime. Becky’s bedroom, illuminated by light from the street coming in around the edges of her venetian blinds. On the wall, difficult to make out in the wan illumination, was a holoposter of Cutthroat Jenkins, a rock star Becky had idolized when she was fourteen or so.

The view was from Kyle’s point of view. He was standing on the threshold of the room. The corridor he was in was dark. He could see Becky lying in the bed, beneath the heavy green comforter she’d had then. Becky was awake. She looked up at him. Heather expected to see fear, or revulsion, or even melancholy resignation on her face, but to her shock, Becky smiled: a glint in the night; she’d worn braces back then.

She smiled.

There was no such thing as consent between a minor and an adult — Heather knew that. But the smile was so warm, so accepting…

Kyle closed the distance, and Becky wriggled over to the far side of her small bed, making room for him.

And then she sat up.

Kyle lowered himself down, sitting on the edge of the bed. Becky reached out a hand toward him -

— and took the mug he was offering.

“Just the way you like it,” said Kyle. “With lemon.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” said Becky. Her voice was raw. She used both hands to hold the mug and took a sip.

It came back to Heather. Becky had had a terrible cold five or so years ago. They’d all eventually come down with it.

Kyle reached out a hand and stroked his daughter’s dark hair once. “Nothing’s too good for my little girl,” he said.

Becky smiled again. “Sorry my coughing woke you.”

“I think I was up anyway,” said Kyle. He shrugged a little. “Sometimes I don’t sleep that well.” He then leaned in, kissed her gently on the cheek, and rose to his feet. “I hope you feel better tomorrow, Pumpkin.”

And with that, he left his daughter’s room.

Heather felt terrible. When it came right down to it, she had been ready to believe the most horrible thing possible about her own husband. There’d never been a shred of evidence to support Becky’s charge, and all sorts of reasons to believe it the product of an overzealous therapist — and yet as soon as that memory started unraveling, showing Kyle entering his daughter’s room late at night, she’d expected to see the worst. The mere suggestion of child abuse was indeed enough to tar a man. For the first time, Heather felt a real understanding of the horror Kyle had been going through.

And yet -

And yet just because one night’s encounter — one that easily came to the surface — was benign, did it mean that nothing untoward had ever happened? Becky had lived with her parents for eighteen years, which was — what? — six thousand or so nights. So what if Kyle had been the dutiful, loving father on one of those?

She was getting the hang of accessing specific memories; concentrating on an image associated with a desired incident was the key. But the image had to be accurate. It was distasteful in the extreme to try to conjure up an image of Kyle molesting Becky, but it also was pointless. Unless the image exactly matched Kyle’s own recollection — from his point of view, of course — there would be no connection, and the memory would remain locked.