“You’re unique.”
“Bullshit.” She turned over to her back. “Tell me. I want to know. How many others?”
He rolled over, too. In the dark, he had a hard time telling where the ceiling was. It was a shadowy void far above him that made his voice echo strangely. He hated the largeness of this house, he realized. It was huge and empty and wasteful. He wanted something small. He wanted the treehouse back.
“I never counted.”
“Of course you did. You’re a computer. You’re telling me you don’t index the humans you sleep with? You don’t categorize us somewhere? You don’t chart us by height and weight and income?”
Javier frowned. “No. I don’t.”
Brigid sighed. “What happened with the others? Did you leave them or did they leave you?”
“Both.”
“Why? Why would they leave you?”
He slapped his belly. It produced a flat sound in the quiet room. “I get fat. Then they stop wanting me.”
Brigid snorted. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But at least make up a better lie, okay?”
“No, really! I get very fat. Obese, even.”
“You do
“I do. And then they die below the waist.” He folded his hands behind his head. “You humans, you’re very shallow.”
“Oh, and I suppose you don’t give a damn what we look like, right?”
“Of course. I love all humans equally. It’s priority programmed.”
She scrambled up and sat on him. “So I’m just like the others, huh?”
Her hipbones stuck out just enough to provide good grips for his thumbs. “I said I love you all equally, not that I love you all for the same reasons.”
She grabbed his hands and pinned them over his head. “So why’d you hook up with me, huh? Why me, out of all the other meatsacks out there?”
“That’s easy.” He grinned. “My kid has a crush on yours.”
The next day were Junior’s jumping lessons. They started in the backyard. It was a nice backyard, mostly slate with very little lawn, the sort of low-maintenance thing that suited Brigid perfectly. He worried a little about damaging the surface, though, so he insisted that Junior jump from the lawn to the roof. It was a forty-five degree jump, and it required confident legs, firm feet, and a sharp eye. Luckily, the sun beating down on them gave them plenty of energy for the task.
“Don’t worry,” he shouted. “Your body knows how!”
“But, Dad—”
“No buts! Jump!”
“I don’t want to hit the windows!”
“Then don’t!”
His son gave him the finger. He laughed. Then he watched as the boy took two steps backward, ran, and launched himself skyward. His slender body sailed up, arms and legs flailing uselessly, and he landed clumsily against the eaves. Red ceramic tiles fell down to the patio, disturbed by his questing fingers.
“Dad, I’m slipping!”
“Use your arms. Haul yourself up.” The boy had to learn this. It was crucial.
“Dad—”
“Javier? Junior?”
Abigail was home from school. He heard the patio door close. He watched another group of tiles slide free of the roof. Something in him switched over. He jumped down and saw Abigail’s frightened face before ushering her backward, out of the way of falling tiles. Behind him, he heard a mighty crash. He turned, and his son was lying on his side surrounded by broken tiles. His left leg had bent completely backward.
“Junior!”
Abigail dashed toward Junior’s prone body. She knelt beside him, her face all concern, her hands busy at his sides. His son cast a long look between him and her. She had run to help Junior. She was asking him if it hurt. Javier knew already that it didn’t. It couldn’t. They didn’t suffer, physically. But his son was staring at him like he was actually feeling pain.
“What happened?”
He turned. Brigid was standing there in her office clothes, minus the shoes. She must have come home early. “I’m sorry about the tiles,” Javier said.
But Brigid wasn’t looking at the tiles. She was looking at Junior and Abigail. The girl kept fussing over him. She pulled his left arm across her little shoulders and stood up so that he could ease his leg back into place. She didn’t let go when his stance was secure. Her stubborn fingers remained tangled in his. “You’ve gotten bigger,” Abigail said quietly. Her ears had turned red.
“Junior kissed me.”
It was Saturday. They were at the playground. Brigid had asked for Junior’s help washing the car while Javier took Abigail to play, and now he thought he understood why. He watched Abigail’s legs swinging above the ground. She took a contemplative sip from her juicebox.
“What kind of kiss?” he asked.
“Nothing fancy,” Abigail answered, as though she were a regular judge of kisses. “It was only right here, not on the lips.” She pointed at her cheek.
“Did that scare you?”
She frowned and folded her arms. “My daddy kisses me there all the time.”
“Ah.” Now he understood his son’s mistake.
“Junior’s grown up really fast,” Abigail said. “Now he looks like he’s in middle school.”
Javier had heard of middle school from organic people’s stories. It sounded like a horrible place. “Do you ever wish you could grow up that fast?”
Abigail nodded. “Sometimes. But then I couldn’t live with Mom, or my daddy. I’d have to live somewhere else, and get a job, and do everything by myself. I’m not sure it’s worth it.” She crumpled up her juicebox. “Did you grow up really fast, like Junior?”
“Yeah. Pretty fast.”
“Did your daddy teach you the things you’re teaching Junior?”
Javier rested his elbows on his knees. “Some of it. And some of it I learned on my own.”
“Like what?”
It was funny, he normally only ever had this conversation with adults. “Well, he taught me how to jump really high. And how to climb trees. Do you know how to climb trees?”
Abigail shook her head. “Mom says it’s dangerous. And it’s harder with palm trees, anyway.”
“That’s true, it is.” At least, he imagined it would be for her. The bark on those trees could cut her skin open. It could cut his open, too, but he wouldn’t feel the pain. “Anyway, Dad taught me lots of things: how to talk to people; how to use things like the bus and money and phones and email; how stores work.”
“How stores work?”
“Like, how to buy things. How to shop.”
“How to shop
He pretended to examine her face. “Hey, you sure you’re organic? You sure seem awful smart …”
She giggled. “Can you teach
“No way!” He stood. “You’d get caught, and they’d haul you off to jail.”
Abigail hopped off the bench. “They wouldn’t haul a
“Not an organic one, maybe. But a vN, sure.” He turned to leave the playground.
“Have
“Sure.”
“When?”
They were about to cross a street. Her hand found his. He was careful not to squeeze too hard. “When I was smaller,” he said simply. “A long time ago.”
“Was it hard?”
