“It doesn’t matter where,” she said at dinner one night. “It’s not here. I miss here when I’m there.”
“So long as you don’t miss there while you’re here,” Julie said, doling out the black bean spaghetti Val had made. Research pointed to high-protein diets as a path to seizure freedom.
“No, I like here, Mom. I just don’t know how to stay.”
Another piece of Val broke off, and she watched it beat its wings against the walls. That night, after Sophie went to bed and David had locked himself in his room to do homework and play video games, Val bent her own rule about not running after dark. Julie watched her change into shorts and nodded in understanding.
Dinner felt heavy in her stomach. Cool spring air usually energized her, but her limbs felt like lead. Still, she ran. She ran until her thoughts no longer lingered on their daughter who didn’t know how to stay, or their boy becoming an adult in a world that demanded so much more from him than she would ever have imagined. There was always a part of her that wanted to keep running, to run so far the problems disappeared behind her. The darkness amplified it.
When she got back to the house, it was quiet, except the sound of David’s game spilling under his closed door. She tiptoed past Sophie’s door.
“Mom?”
“No, Soph. It’s me.” She walked into the room, aware she was dripping sweat.
“Ma. You smell like you went running. You never run at night.”
“I needed some exercise. I promise I was safe.”
“And the moon is full.”
Val couldn’t see it from her angle near the door. She crossed the room and sat on the floor next to the bed, her head against the hated bedrail. From there, she saw the moon. Had she even noticed it when she was running? She had been so in her head, though surely she’d noticed the brightness. Or not.
“Is that a shooting star?” Sophie pointed at an object moving quickly through the sky. She let her hand fall gently onto Val’s head.
“No, it’s a satellite.” Val kept still so Sophie wouldn’t withdraw her hand. “See how steadily it moves? It’s circling the Earth, not falling.”
“Oh. Are there a lot of them?”
“Satellites? Yeah, I think so. Some relay phone calls and communication, and some are for navigation, like when the car’s GPS tells us where to drive, and”—she ran out of types, though she knew there were more—“others. The moon! The moon is a satellite orbiting Earth, too, in a way.”
“Do any of them run into each other?”
If Sophie was into this, Val would learn it all, but at that moment all she could do was try to remember. “I think it’s kind of like when people are running at the same speed in the same direction, so they never catch each other.” There were different orbits involved, she knew she was being reductive, but this would do for now.
“One of them should take a shortcut so they can meet and run together, instead.” Sophie hadn’t been asking if they would crash; she’d been asking if they were lonely.
They both fell silent. The moon was huge and reflected the sun’s brightness back at them in a way that made it seem like its own white glow. Sophie’s breathing changed, and her hand dropped away from Val’s head, the trailing end of a benediction she hadn’t known she was giving.
• • •
The next day, Val collected Sophie from school and took her to do some grocery shopping. The route home passed close to David’s school, and as she pumped her squealing brakes, waiting to take her left turn, she caught movement in the side mirror.
“I see David!” said Sophie, face pressed to her window in the back.
David’s cross-country team. Val searched for him and found him in the pack, his face serene. They all looked serene, their bodies straining and sweating but their faces showing no sign of exertion. A few joked with one another, sharing relaxed smiles. She hoped their multiple attentions included remembering to look both ways as they crossed the busy streets back to the school.
They were a strange collection of animals: a herd of boys, scrawny bare chests thrust forth and heaving, legs churning as they vied with one another for position. They would achieve great things, these boys. Their parents had given them everything they could. They would spend another year or two or three at their excellent school, with their excellent brains doing more than any brains had done before. How could they not succeed?
And yet, as she watched them navigate a perfect spring day, Val worried. What kind of society were they creating where kids voluntarily changed their brains to keep pace with all the input coming at them? She couldn’t help imagining the noise in all those Piloted heads, not as David described it.
A boy near David stumbled. Val watched her son reach out an arm to steady the other without breaking stride, but another kid behind him tripped and fell. Two more jumped over him before someone at the back of the pack stopped to help him stand. He brushed his bloody knees with his hands, then took off after his friends.
The traffic light changed and they left the runners behind. Back at the house a few minutes later, Val turned off the car but lingered, key still in the ignition.
She turned to face Sophie. “I have a secret to tell you.”
Sophie unbuckled herself and climbed between the seats and into the passenger seat to hear what Val had to say. She was all about secrets.
“I can see the future,” Val said in a conspiratorial voice. “Not all of it, but a little. In a few years, almost everyone is going to have a Pilot, except you and me.”
Sophie’s eyes grew wide. “Even Mom?”
Val considered, and realized she knew the answer. Not a prediction; an inevitability. “Yes. Mom will have one. People with Pilots are going to do some good things,
