Analog SFF, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The party was being held at Emily's house in Scarborough, about an hour away, but an easy journey on the 407. They had Gunter drive them. Don was happy about that. He would have felt silly being driven about by a woman who looked like his grandmother; he still hadn't gotten his license renewed. He'd be required to attend the mandatory driver-safety lectures with a group of other people who were over eighty, and, although the examiner had the power to waive the actual in-car test, Don would still need to endure the gawks from the licensing staff and, even worse, from the old people who looked old, many of whom would doubtless resent that he'd managed to forestall the fate that the rest of them would face in the next few years.

  When they pulled into the driveway of the house—a large home that almost completely filled its lot—Don hopped out of the rear and ran around to help Sarah get out of the front passenger's seat. And then, cradling her elbow to guide her up the driveway, they went to the front door, leaving Gunter in the car, placidly looking out at the tiny strip of lawn. Carl and company were already here, but he'd parked his car on the street, leaving the driveway, and the shorter walk, for his parents.

  Although the kids’ biometrics were programmed into Don and Sarah's house, the reverse had never been the case, and so Don rang the doorbell. Emily appeared at once, looking out at them with apprehension on her face, and she hustled them indoors, glancing furtively back, as if concerned that her neighbors had seen the spectacle of her ancient mother arriving on the arm of some strange young man.

  He tried to put that out of his mind, and managed the heartiest tone he could. “Happy birthday, Em!"

  Sarah hugged Emily, and, as she did every year, she said, with a smile, “I remember precisely where I was when you were born."

  "Hi,” said Emily. Don sort of expected “Mom and Dad” to be appended to the greeting; the upward lilt to Emily's “hi” seemed to demand it. But she couldn't say the former without having to also give voice to the latter—and he hadn't heard either of his children refer to him as Dad since the rollback.

  This house, like Don and Sarah's own, had stairs leading up from an entryway. Emily took her mother's cane and helped her climb them, and Don followed.

  "Grandma!” shouted Cassie, who was wearing a pink floral-print dress and had her wispy blond hair tied into pigtails with pink ribbons. She came rushing over, and Sarah bent down as much as she could to hug her. When she released Cassie, the little girl then looked at Don without a trace of recognition on her face.

  Carl bent down and picked his daughter up, balancing her in a crooked set of arms, the way one might to let a child examine a painting in a museum. “Cassie,” said Carl, “this is your grandfather."

  Don saw Cassie's little brow furrow. She had an arm around Carl's neck, and she pulled herself closer to him. “Grandpa Marcynuk?” she said, sounding very unsure.

  Don felt his heart sink. Gus Marcynuk was Cassie's mother's father; he lived in Winnipeg, and hadn't been in Toronto for years.

  "No, honey,” said Carl. “This is Grandpa Halifax."

  Cassie scrunched her face up even more tightly, and she looked at her daddy as if to gauge his expression—see if he was playing some trick. But his face was serious. “No, it's not,” Cassie said, shaking her head so that the pigtails bounced. “Grandpa Halifax is old."

  Don tried to smile as much as he could. “Honest, cupcake, it's really me."

  She tilted her head. Although his voice had changed somewhat, she should still recognize it. “What happened to your wrinkles?"

  "They're gone."

  Cassie rolled her blue eyes in a way that said he was stating the obvious. He went on. “There's a process,” he said, but then he halted. “Process,” “procedure,” “technique,” “treatment"—all the words he'd use in describing this to an adult would be lost on a four-year-old. “I went to see a doctor,” Don said, “and he made me young again."

  Cassie's eyes were wide. “Can they do that?"

  He lifted his shoulders a bit. “Yup."

  Cassie looked at Sarah and then back at Don. “What about grandma? Is she going to get young, too?"

  Don opened his mouth to reply, but Sarah beat him to it. “No, dear."

  "Why not? Do you like being all wrinkly?"

  "Cassie!” exclaimed Carl.

  But Sarah didn't take offense. “I've earned every one of them,” she said. Sarah obviously saw the puzzled expression on Cassie's face, so she went on. “No, dear, I don't. But the process that worked on your grandfather didn't work for me."

  Don watched Cassie nod; perhaps he'd underestimated what little kids could grasp. “That's sad,” Cassie said.

  Sarah nodded back at her, conceding that.

  Cassie turned her attention to her father. “Grandpa looks younger than you do,” she said. Carl winced. “When I get old, will they be able to make me young again?"

  Don could see that his son was about to respond in the negative; he'd moved his head to the left, ready to shake it. But that wasn't the correct answer. “Yes,” said Don. “They will.” The process was bound to be cheap and common by the time his granddaughter needed it, and that thought pleased Don.

  Carl looked as though he was reaching his limit for holding Cassie. He bent down, setting her on the ground. But then Don crouched low, and turned his back to her. Looking over his shoulder he said, “Want a piggyback ride?"

  Cassie scrambled onto his back, and he straightened up. He swooped around the living room, Cassie hugging his neck from behind, and her giggles were music to his ears, and, at least for a few minutes, he was truly happy that he'd had this done to him.

  * * * *

  "Hey, Lennie, why so glum?"

  Lenore was filling salt and pepper shakers. She looked up to see Gabby regarding her, hands on hips. “Hmm?"

  "You've been down in the dumps all night. What's up?"

  This was the one evening a week that both Lenore and Gabby worked the same shift at the Duke of York.

  "I broke up with Don a few days ago."

  "How come?” asked Gabby.

  Lenore pondered how best to answer this. “For starters, he's married."

  "The fucker."

  "Yeah. But, you know, there are, um, extenuating circumstances."

  "Is he separated?"

  "No. No, he still lives with her, but..."

  "But his old lady doesn't understand him, right?"

  Lenore felt her mouth twitch. “Something like that."

  "Girl, I've heard it a million times before. You're better off without him."

  "Yeah, but..."

  "But what?"

  "I miss him."

  "Why? Was he good in the sack?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes. But it's not just..."

  "What?"

  "He's gentle."

  "I like it a little rough myself,” Gabby said, smiling lasciviously.

  "No, no. I mean in life. He's gentle. He's kind, considerate."

  "Except to his wife."

  Lenore winced. But she recalled when Don had been here before, how he'd defended Professor Halifax when Makoto had attacked her. “No, in his way, he's good to her, too, I think. And she's really sweet."

  "You know his wife?"

  She nodded. “A bit."

  "Earth to Lenore! Wake up, girl!"

  "I know, I know. But I just can't stop thinking about him."

  "Let me get this straight. You dumped Makoto because he was a messy eater—"

  "A girl has to have standards."

  "—but you want to go back to a married guy?"

  "No,” said Lenore. “I want to go back to him despite the fact that he's married."

  "I'm not working on any damn master's degree,” said Gabby. “Maybe that kind of hair-splitting means something in your circles, but..."

  "He's unlike any guy I've ever met."

  "Why? Has he got three nipples?"

  "Seriously, Gabs, I miss him so much."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah."


  Gabby was quiet for a moment. “Well, then, there's only one thing to do."

  "What's that?"

  She started transferring the filled shakers onto a serving tray. “Follow your heart."

  * * * *

  At dinner, Sarah ended up sitting next to her grandson Percy, who had turned thirteen over the summer. “So,” she said, “how is grade eight?"

  "It's okay,” he said.

  "Just okay?"

  "They give us a lot of homework. I've got tons to do by Monday."

  Sarah remembered being in grade eight, and getting her first calculator. Such things had only just started to appear on the market, and everybody was debating whether they should be allowed in the classroom. After all, with a machine that could do figuring for them, kids might never learn to really understand math, the critics said. A host of scenarios ranging from the unlikely to the downright silly had been suggested, including the notion that if civilization fell, we'd endure a protracted dark age once the supply of batteries had been exhausted, since the magic boxes that did math would no longer function. Sarah had often wondered if the early appearance of solar-powered calculators had been due to some anonymous Japanese engineer's desire to put that canard to rest.

  And she'd remembered the later debates about allowing datacoms into classrooms. Although that had affected all levels of instruction, it had gone down while she'd been teaching at U of T. Was there any point in asking students to memorize, for instance, that Sigma Draconis II was, according to data from the first Dracon message, a rocky world about 1.5 times as big as Earth, with an orbital radius of ninety-odd million kilometers and a year equal to 199 Earth days, when there was no conceivable working environment in which they couldn't access that information in an instant?

  "What sort of homework?” Sarah asked, genuinely curious.

  "I've got some for my bioethics class,” Percy said. Sarah was impressed: bioethics in grade eight; you certainly could move a lot faster if you didn't waste so much time on mere memorization.

  "And what do you have to do?"

  "Look up some stuff on the web, and do a report about what I think about it."

  "On any particular topic?"

  "We get to choose,” Percy said. “But I haven't picked mine yet."

  Sarah looked over at Don. She thought about suggesting Percy do something on the ethics of rollbacks, but Don was already too sensitive about that.

  "I was thinking of maybe something about abortion,” Percy continued.

  She was momentarily shocked. The boy was just thirteen, for God's sake, but—

  But abortion, birth control, and family planning were all things kids needed to know about. Percy's birthday was in July, meaning he wouldn't turn fourteen until after he'd finished this grade, but most of his classmates would have their birthdays during the academic year, and fourteen was plenty old enough to get pregnant, or make someone pregnant.

  "What do you think about abortion, Grandma?” Percy asked.

  Sarah shifted in her seat. She could feel the eyes of Angela, Percy's mother, on her, as well as those of her own daughter, Emily. “I believe every child that's born has the right to be wanted,” she said.

  Percy considered this. “But what about if a guy and a girl decide they want to have a kid, but then, before it's born, the pregnant girl changes her mind. What then?"

  There was definitely some of her in her grandson; she'd wrestled a lot with the very issue he'd raised. Indeed, now that she thought about it, that was one of the points the aliens at Sig Drac had been interested in. Question forty-six had asked whether the partner actually carrying the child had the right to terminate a pregnancy that was initially mutually desired. Sarah remembered struggling with her own answer to that question when filling out the survey herself, all those years ago.

  She took a sip from the glass of water in front of her. “I go back and forth on that one, dear,” she said. “But, today, I think my answer would be that the mother gets the final say."

  Percy considered this for a time, then: “You're pretty skytop, Grandma, to talk to me about all this."

  "Why, thanks,” Sarah said. “I think."

  * * * *

  Chapter 32

  Don sat on the couch early the next morning, browsing email on his datacom. There were two messages from acquaintances asking for the same thing Randy Trenholm had wanted, an email from his brother forwarding a cartoon he thought Don would like, and—

  Beep!

  A new message had just arrived. The sender's address was—

  My God...

  The address was ldarby@utoronto.ca.

  He opened the message, and his eyes flew all over it in mad saccades, trying to absorb it as a gestalt. And then, his pulse racing, he re-read it carefully, from top to bottom:

  * * * *

  Hey, Don—

  Guess you thought you'd never hear from me again, and I guess I don't expect you to answer cuz I know I wasn't that understanding the last time we were together, but, dammitall, I miss you. Can't believe I'm sending this—Gabby thought I was looped at first—but I was hoping you'd like to get together and talk a bit. Maybe play some Scrabble or ... Anyway, lemme know.

  L.

  * * * *

  Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle—Plato

  * * * *

  Don looked up. Gunter had a perfect sense of balance and could easily carry Sarah, seated in one of the wooden kitchen chairs that had now been conscripted for that purpose, up and down the staircase; they were descending now. “'Morning, dear,” Sarah said, the usual quaver in her voice.

  "Hi,” he said.

  Gunter put the chair down, and helped Sarah to her feet. “Any interesting email?” she asked.

  Don quickly turned off the datacom. “No,” he said. “None at all."

  * * * *

  Don and Lenore's first day back together had gone well, right up until the evening.

  They were just finishing a meal of take-out Chinese food in her basement apartment on Euclid, after an afternoon of walking around downtown, looking in shops. “Anyway,” Lenore said, continuing an account of what she'd been up to since Don had last seen her, “the university ripped me off. They say I didn't pay my tuition on time, but I did. I made the electronic transfer just before midnight on the due date. But they charged me a day's worth of interest."

  Don never ate fortune cookies, but he still liked cracking them open. His said, “Prospects for change are favorable.” “How much?” Don said, referring to the interest.

  "Eight dollars,” she replied. “I'm going to go by the registrar's office tomorrow and complain."

  Don motioned for her to show him her fortune. It said, “An endeavor will be successful.” He nodded, acknowledging that he'd read it. “You could do that,” he said, going back to their conversation, “but you'll end up spending half your day dealing with it."

  She sounded frustrated with him. “But they shouldn't be able to do that."

  "It's not worth it over eight bucks,” said Don. He got up from his chair and started clearing the table. “You've got to learn to pick your battles. Take it from me. I know. When I was your age, I—"

  "Don't say that."

  He turned and looked at her. “What?"

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Don't say shit like, ‘When I was your age.’ I don't need to hear that."

  "I'm just trying to save you from going through—"

  "From going through what? Going through life? Spare me from having my own experiences, from learning for myself? I want to learn for myself."

  "Yes, but—"

  "But what? I don't want a father, Don. I want a boyfriend. I want a peer, an equal."

  He felt his heart sink. “I can't just erase my past."

  "No, of course not,” she said, noisily wadding up the paper bag the take-out had come in. “They don't make erasers that big."

  "Come on, Sarah, I—"

  Don froze, rea
lizing his mistake at once. He felt himself turning red. Lenore nodded, as if a vast conspiracy had been confirmed. “You just called me Sarah."

  "Oh, God, I'm sorry. I didn't—"

  "She's always there, isn't she? Hanging between us. And she always will be. Even when she's—"

  Lenore stopped herself, perhaps realizing that she was about to go too far. But Don picked up on the thought. “Yes, she will be, even after ... even after she's gone. That's a reality we'll have to face.” He paused. “Anyway, I can't help the fact that I've been alive longer than—"

  "Than ninety-nine percent of all the people in the world,” said Lenore, which stopped him cold for a moment while he thought about whether that was true. He felt his stomach clench as he realized it must be.

  "But you can't ask me to deny that reality, or what I've learned,” he said. “You can't ask me to forget my past."

  "I'm not asking that. I'm just asking that you—"

  "What? Keep it to myself?"

  "No, no. But just don't, you know, always bring it up. It's hard for me. I mean, God, what was the world like when you were born? No home computers, no nanotech, no robots, no television, no—"

  "We had television,” Don said. Just not in color.

  "Fine. Fine. But, God, you lived through—through the Iraq War. There was a Soviet Union when you were alive. You saw people walk on the moon. You saw Apartheid end, in South Africa and in the US. You lived through the Month of Terror. You were alive when the first extraterrestrial signal was detected.” She shook her head. “Your life is my history book."

  He was about to say, “Then you should listen to me when I tell you what I've learned.” But he stopped himself before the words got free. “It's not my fault that I'm old,” he said.

  "I know that!” she snapped. And then, the same words again, but more softly: “I know that. But, well, do you have to rub it in my face?"

  Don was leaning against the sink now. “I don't mean to. But you think stuff like a few bucks in interest is a disaster, and—"

  "It's not a disaster," Lenore said, sounding exasperated. “But it does make my life hard, and—” She must have seen him move his head a bit. “What?” she demanded.