Behind the light, a gross intrusion on his perfect brain. How could the positives have outweighed the risk? How could they do so much so easily? When the neurologists had considered surgery for Sophie they’d removed the top of her skull. They mapped her mind, gridded it with electrodes in a silk-based substrate that settled into the curves of her brain like it belonged there, all to discover her seizures were not the kinds that could be safely ablated or removed.
David’s new implant, threaded in through one small hole, would settle into his head, relax, get comfortable, put its feet on the coffee table. In an hour they’d be on their way home.
• • •
Val ran dozens of extra miles over the ensuing weeks in a futile effort to assuage her fears, though most of them had proved unfounded. No infection, no seizures, no noticeable change. David, whom she had started calling “Ze Brain” in her best Hervé Villechaize, did not act any different, except for an endearing tic where he raised his hand halfway to his head, realized he shouldn’t poke at it, and raised it in a fake stretch and yawn instead.
He did a lot of stretch and yawning. He dutifully attended the online follow-up classes, learning to access something that was still only theoretical. As his access date grew nearer, he began drumming his fingers on all available surfaces.
One night, while they all watched a movie together, the finger tapping got to be too much for Val and she tossed a pillow at him; he surprised her by bursting into tears. Sophie leaned over to wrap her arms around him. He hugged her back.
“What’s up, Brainy?” Julie asked him, lowering her tablet. She’d made it only a few minutes into the movie before pulling it out to see what she’d missed in the dinner-sized connectivity gap.
“What if it doesn’t work?” He lifted his hand to his head and then forced his arm down, clutching his sister to him. “What if I don’t like it?”
Val wanted to say, It’s not too late! Instead, she told him what she thought he needed to hear. “It’s what you wanted, kiddo. You’ll be able to keep up with your classes and spend more time doing stuff you like.”
“It’s natural to be scared, Davey,” Julie said. For all Val’s creative nicknames, Julie was the only one he allowed to call him Davey.
“I swear I want this. I really do.”
Sophie sat back. “You know what I do when I’m scared? I pretend I’m somebody who wouldn’t be scared. Like a superhero, or Mom.”
Val glanced over at Julie, who caught her eye.
“This is going to be great, David,” Val said. “You’ll see. Hey, I’m not into the movie. Who wants to play a game?”
“Ooh. Me! Spoons!” Sophie jumped up from the couch and returned with three soup spoons and a deck of cards. She had been obsessed with the game since Julie had taught her a few months before.
A game was a good solution. With the activation looming, David would do anything either mother wanted, and even Julie would have to put work aside to play.
“Those aren’t in the center,” David said, reaching for the spoons Sophie had spread on the table.
Sophie pulled them back in her direction. “My arms are shorter than yours.”
Val leaned over and positioned the spoons so two were in the center, and one angled slightly closer to Sophie. She was all for fairness in sport, but Sophie’s argument was valid.
“Jules, put it away.” Her wife tossed her tablet on the couch and joined them.
Val dealt first. She memorized her own hand, then started passing cards off the deck to the left, trying to keep an eye out for the remaining two jacks. To her right, David focused on his cards; she’d positioned herself on this side so she wouldn’t have to look at the strange little spot on his other temple. Julie tilted her head, one eye on the cards, one on the spoons. On Val’s left, Sophie passed cards along at a surprising speed.
A seven went by, then another, and Val wished she hadn’t hitched her chances entirely to jacks. Too late, unless they came around again. David grabbed a card, then she palmed the third jack. The fourth jack showed his face. Val darted a hand out and quietly pulled a spoon into her lap, even as she kept passing cards with her other hand. Sophie dived for the spoon nearest her, not bothering with subtlety. Julie grabbed the third.
David looked up and frowned. “But I just got my last ten.”
“You snooze, you lose,” said Sophie. “You don’t win with just cards. You watch the spoons.”
“But if everyone does that, nobody will ever win. Somebody has to get four of a kind, or we’ll go round forever.”
Sophie shrugged. “Grabbing a spoon is more important. Where did your cards get you? You’ve got the s in s-p-o-o-n-s.”
David sighed.
They played a few more times. Each won a round or two, and each got left without a spoon at least once, except Sophie, who took the second spoon every time and declared herself victorious.
• • •
At breakfast the morning of David’s Pilot activation, Sophie had a tonic-clonic seizure. Heartbreak city after a seizure-free month; another failed medication. David, closest, lowered her from her chair to the kitchen floor before she could hurt herself. Val wasn’t sure when he’d gotten big enough to do that so easily. He pulled his sweatshirt off and placed it under her head, then turned her on her side. Another piece of Val broke off and caught fire and burned out under its own fuel; she wished his actions hadn’t looked so routine.
Julie took David to the activation. Val stayed with Sophie while she dozed, updating her online seizure log, checking in with her doctor to say the seizures had broken through again, reading through various epilepsy parent groups to learn whether anyone had anything new or different to say.
