We Are Satellites

by Sarah Pinsker

  “Huh? No. Where?”

  She named the intersection.

  “Oh. I didn’t see you. Guess I was distracted.”

  “You were more than distracted, honey. Cars were pulling around you because you sat there for so long.”

  “Huh.”

  He looked uncomfortable. She knew it would be smarter to stop, but she couldn’t. “What’s going on with you, Davey? Talk to me. No judgment.”

  “Nothing. I’m tired. It’s two in the morning.”

  “It wasn’t two when I sat behind your car, and it wasn’t two when I saw you sitting in the park. What’s going on? For real.”

  “Are you following me?” He frowned and rubbed his head. “None of this is any of your business.”

  “It is, sweetie. You’re living in our house, and technically that’s our car you’re driving.” Wrong tack. She knew it. No good ever came of that kind of conversation, and she’d always tried hard to be a chill parent, at least to their faces. She tried to walk it back. “I don’t care about any of that, though. I just want to help. You were so distracted in the park, and the other day when you spilled your coffee . . . Is it your Pilot? Are you having problems since you had it turned off?”

  David groaned. “You don’t know anything about my Pilot. You never have.”

  Julie opened her mouth, but David kept talking. “And you know what? I don’t need you telling me that I’m living in your house and driving your car. I don’t need your car or your help.”

  “Davey—don’t you, though? You’re not working.”

  “I’ll be fine. I haven’t been trying. I can get a job tomorrow, or else I can reenlist.”

  She froze. Not that; she’d never be able to go through that again. If she didn’t weigh what she said next, that would be the first thing he did in the morning, given how this conversation was going. What could she say that wouldn’t influence the outcome? “You’re right, David. I only want you to do what’s best for you. I’m sorry for prying. Let’s go to sleep and talk about this in the morning. It’s too late to argue. I just wanted to help.”

  “Help. Huh. How could any of this help?” He was still upset, but she couldn’t tell which way the upset was directed. “Telling me I’m leeching off you? Telling me something is wrong with me, as if I don’t know that already?”

  “I didn’t say you were leeching. I just want to help fix whatever’s bothering you.”

  “Tell me how your Pilot feels.”

  “What?” That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say.

  “Tell me what your Pilot feels like.”

  “I don’t know. I’m so used to it. That’s like asking me the mechanics of breathing, or reading.” She saw his frustration and fished for something more. “It’s—I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like a particular thing. If I think about what it’s like when it’s cycled down, or if I try to remember what it was like before? It’s exactly the same, just, like, the opposite of morning before I’ve had coffee, or the opposite of hungover or that thing where you have the flu and everything is underwater? It’s the opposite of that. That’s all.”

  “No noise?”

  The noise again. How many times had he said that, and they’d dismissed it? She’d assumed it had gotten better, because he hadn’t mentioned it in so long. He’d gone to work for BNL and talked about how it had saved him; she thought he’d learned to live with it.

  “No noise, Davey, I’m sorry. Is that what this is about?”

  “That’s what everything is always about. Nobody ever believes me, and nothing helps, so I don’t know how you expect to help.”

  “I can try. I want to help, you have to believe that. I just don’t know what to do. We’ll talk to BNL again.”

  “I don’t want to talk with them ever again.”

  That was new. “How are you going to get this fixed if you can’t talk to the people who caused it? The VA?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, then. How about we start over with getting you a new job, then. And maybe someone else can address the noise? A psychologist?”

  “Mom. Did you honestly just tell me I need my head checked? You said you want to help, that you want me to talk to you, then you suggest I’m imagining it?”

  His face flushed. He was angry, and she didn’t want to be angry back, but she couldn’t help herself. It was late, and she was tired, and he misinterpreted everything she said. “I didn’t say you were imagining it, just that if it’s not the implant it must be something else. In the meantime, you need to deal with it, the same as you always have. Get a job. Maybe staying here has you thinking it’s not a priority? Pull yourself together, so you’re not scaring me by sitting at stop signs, and you’re not sitting in the park all day like some old man without better things to do.”

  He fished in his pocket, then tossed his key chain on the floor. It had a small flashlight on the end, which switched on when it hit the ground. “I don’t need your car. I don’t need you to help me get a job. I don’t need a shrink. I need some quiet, and I can’t get it here.”

  He was out of the house before she could say another word. Unlike Sophie, he didn’t slam the door; he left it open, so she could see him walk away, shoulders soldier-square, never looking back.

  She watched him go, replaying the conversation in her head. Had she really said anything that bad? Was he already on edge and she’d hit a sore spot without realizing it? She shouldn’t have given him a hard time for living in the house or using the car they’d been about to junk in any case. Had she kicked him out? She’d told him to get a job. Had she told him to leave? She didn’t think so. She’d only been trying to help.

  Val would be furious. All either of them wanted was to know the kids were safe, and now she’d driven Davey out in the middle of the night. Hopefully he’d go to Milo’s, or else he’d walk it off. Maybe she’d even said something he needed to hear, and catalyzed change. That was the optimistic view, anyway. She waited a few minutes to see if he’d come back, then left the door unlocked so he’d be able to return if he wanted to.

  She slipped into bed beside Val, who stirred and shifted over. “Everything okay?”

  She should tell, Julie thought. Instead, she spooned herself around her wife. “I love you. Go back to sleep.”

  She’d tell in the morning. She’d find a way to frame it so she hadn’t driven their son out into the night, or she’d find the thing to say to bring him back before she had to tell. They always came back; they usually did. She played the argument over in her head again and again until the sun rose.

  “Did the kids come home last night?” Val asked as she got out of bed.

  “I don’t think so,” Julie lied. She realized why Val had lied that time years ago when she’d had her narwhal meltdown, and why sometimes lies embedded themselves before you could tell the truth. Some truths were too painful to look in the eye.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  DAVID

  Milo and Karina said David could stay while he found a place, and he added an apartment hunt to his job hunt. He should have moved out of his parents’ house while things were good; nobody would rent to him now that he was unemployed. He should have canceled the appointment with Dr. Pessoa, too, held off making his prospects worse by turning off the light, but the day came, and he committed. For one moment that night, peeling back the bandage, he imagined his Pilot had finally been silenced, but the fantasy didn’t last any longer than the thought.

  In the first weeks after leaving BNL, he’d applied for the kinds of job he thought that position had prepared him for: communications, outreach. Whether because he didn’t have a college degree or because he couldn’t explain why he’d left BNL, nobody bit. He needed a different approach.

  The first place he applied after getting his light turned off was the prison where he’d promoted Pilots not long before. He could be a compas
sionate guard; his parents would flip at the danger, but it was one option. He applied for jobs at the VA, security guard positions, a few others where his military experience might be valued.

  When he came across a listing for a safety officer at his high school, he threw an application that way. The interview request came two days later: his first in weeks, with radio silence on all the others.

  He arrived for the high school interview twenty minutes early, which put him squarely in Lunch Period One. He hadn’t taken a pill that morning, though he craved it. He waited in the car as long as he could, knowing the school would be all noise at this hour, from the second he exited the car, and his mission through the entire interview would be to hide that it bothered him; he’d forgotten how much it had bothered him as a student. He’d learned coping mechanisms that came back to him now, though none had been as effective as Quiet: count the tiles as you walk, or the bricks, or the lockers. Focus on that and only that. Tune out the voices, the chaotic movement, the knots of students everywhere. Sweat pooled in the small of his back, and he was glad his moms had insisted that if he owned only one suit it should be a dark one.

  The interview was in the vice principals’ office. He didn’t recognize their names and didn’t remember whether any of them were the same as when he’d attended. It hadn’t been that long, even if it felt like a lifetime; they probably still had access to his student records. Would that affect his chance at the job, if they saw he’d been a mediocre student whose teachers always wrote that he was strangely distracted for someone with a Pilot?

  The receptionist looked at him like she was trying to place his face.

  He smiled, to confuse her, since he never smiled in the commercials. “I’m here for an interview with Mr. Redding.”

  “The chemistry teacher position?”

  He shook his head. “Safety officer.”

  “Ah. Great. Fill this out, please, and he’ll be with you shortly.”

  The application she handed him basically asked for all the same information that had been on his résumé and the online application he’d already filled out. He had copies of both those documents with him, and would have liked to just hand them over instead, but he supposed this was part of the process. He balanced the clipboard on his knees to transfer the information from one page to the other in his best handwriting.

  By the time he handed the clipboard back, it was five minutes past the interview’s scheduled time. The woman nodded and buzzed the intercom.

  A tall Black man with a shaved head emerged from the office behind her. He looked young, maybe a few years older than David. A Pilot gleamed on his temple. “You’re David, of course—I’ve never had a celebrity in my office before. It’s an honor. Come in! Let’s chat.”

  David shook Mr. Redding’s hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  They entered an office that breathed private endowment. The furniture was modern, all metal and glass and sharp angles, in contrast with the ivied outer walls. Redding gestured toward one of three orange chairs on the near side of the desk, then surprised David by sitting beside him, instead of behind his own desk. He had David’s clipboard in front of him and a tablet that displayed his résumé.

  “So, David, is it strange to be back here?”

  “A little,” David admitted. “I had to remind myself—” He was going to say that I was older than the students, but that sounded terrible in an interview. He finished with “—that it’s been a few years,” which sounded silly, but at least didn’t imply he couldn’t separate himself from the students he’d be protecting.

  “I know the feeling,” said Redding. “I graduated a few years before you got here. They make it pretty easy to want to come back, I guess. I wasn’t famous like you, though. What piqued your interest in this position?”

  “I wanted a new challenge.”

  Redding raised an eyebrow.

  David tried again. “I wanted a new challenge that didn’t involve selling something I’m not as enthusiastic about as I once was.”

  “You were at BNL, I see. I wasn’t sure if you worked for them or just did their commercials.”

  “Yeah. My position involved convincing people to get Pilots. They sent me everywhere: schools, hospitals, health fairs, prisons. I adapt well to new situations and meeting new people. I like being a friendly face.” He’d practiced ways to tie the two positions together. “And before that, I was in the military, so I’m comfortable in stressful and dangerous situations. I keep my head.”

  There was a shout outside, and David turned toward the window.

  “So what would you do in a situation where you found a—I’m sorry, I should have offered you something to drink. Do you need some water?”

  David nodded, and the man crossed in front of him and left the room, returning a minute later with two mugs. The one for David had #1 teacher written on it and a cartoon cat. “Sorry for the mug; this is a coffee town. So, I was going to ask whether you have current CPR and first aid certification?”

  “No, but I’ve taken them before and I can get them again. This weekend, if you want.” That hadn’t been the question he had started asking before he left the room, David was pretty sure.

  “And why did you leave BNL?”

  “I wanted to do something better reflecting my skill set. I’m not a salesperson.”

  “What do you consider to be your skill set?”

  “I’m a quick thinker. I’m good at being aware of my surroundings, and what should and shouldn’t be there. I’m good on a team. People trust me.”

  “The familiar face probably helps with that.”

  “Well, yes, sir, I guess, but even before that. Part of what I learned as a soldier was how to put people at ease, since my presence was by nature an intrusion in many situations.”

  “And this is where your career has led you?” Something had changed around the time Redding had gone for water, but David couldn’t tell what it was. David thought he was still making a good case for the position, but Redding looked done.

  “It was great to have you in, David. We’ll be in touch. Wait until I tell my wife you were here.”

  It had been a bizarre interview. The one hypothetical question had been cut off midsentence, and after that, Redding hadn’t asked anything that felt applicable. What had caused him to go from enthusiastic to awkwardly uncomfortable?

  It took a few days for David to realize. A few days, and three more interviews, all of which seemed oddly curt. It was his Pilot, or the lack thereof. Redding had been on the other side of him when he entered the office, and hadn’t seen that David didn’t have a Pilot until the noise outside had made him turn his head the other way. Then he’d gone for water to get a look at that side of David’s head and confirm it.

  It was illegal to discriminate in a job interview because somebody didn’t have a Pilot, but how could you prove that was happening? They’d just say there was a more qualified candidate. The proof was right there on the side of your head, saying you were not as fast as you said you were, couldn’t possibly be, and even if you were, maybe something was wrong with you that you couldn’t have one.

  It didn’t matter that his Pilot was still going strong, that his brain had adapted, that things were as chaotic as ever in his head. He had no light, so they didn’t think that was the case. They didn’t have to say it, or say anything; they simply wouldn’t call back. Not even at his alma mater, for a stupid security job he was overqualified for. He was screwed, and he’d brought it on himself.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  SOPHIE

  It took Sophie longer than she cared to admit to realize her brother wasn’t living in the house anymore. She wasn’t unobservant, but it was easy to assume they were keeping different hours and missing each other; that had happened often enough. She didn’t exactly go out of her way to see him, and vice versa, except when he’d come to her for help
with his Pilot. There had been a moment where it had felt like that might bring them closer, but then he went and wrecked it again, leaving the light on, keeping the status his Pilot conferred. Making clear that he wasn’t interested in real change, just changing his own situation.

  So if she didn’t encounter him at breakfast or dinner for a few weeks, that didn’t seem overly strange. It wasn’t like she was there for most meals, either, and they’d gone stretches before without running into each other. He’d been using the basement bathroom for several months, saying it wasn’t fair to make her share when she’d had theirs to herself for so long, so there hadn’t ever been any beard hairs in the sink for her to notice an absence.

  No, the thing she noticed was the laundry. His basket had sat downstairs, unfolded, uncollected, for a month now, the same coffee-stained BNL shirt still on top. He’d have to have run out of work shirts or underwear or something, but nothing had moved, and everyone else had gone on doing laundry around it. She checked every day, not because she had to, but because she was curious. Where was he, and why was nobody talking about his absence?

  She tried raising the subject at dinner one night, but the reactions were odd.

  “He’s away,” Julie said. “He said he’ll be back soon.”

  The way she said it reminded Sophie of when they’d evaded her questions during David’s early deployments, except this time Val looked at Julie like she was also interested in more information, and found that to be oddly short on details.

  “Is it a work thing?” Sophie asked.

  “I think so. He doesn’t need to tell us everything he’s doing.”

  That answer won another look from Val. The whole thing was highly suspicious. Either they were lying to her, or Julie was lying to them both. Sophie wouldn’t be particularly surprised by either of those scenarios, but she was curious what would bring about the latter.

  Curious enough that when she overheard them through the air vent between their bathrooms later that evening, she kept quiet and listened.