"How did you feel about his work?"
I didn't answer that immediately. I wanted to interrupt and give Dr. Davidson a compliment-he was asking the right questions. He was very astute. But I realized I was sidetracking myself. And I realized why. I didn't want to answer that last question.
Dr. Davidson was very patient. The chair arms were warm. I let go of them and rubbed my hands together. Finally, I admitted it. I said, "Um ... I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but I think-no, I know-I resented my dad's work. Not the games themselves, but his total involvement with them. I was jealous, I guess. My dad would get an idea-say, like Inferno or Starship or Brainstorm-and he'd turn into a zombie. He would disappear into his office for weeks at a time. That closed door was a threat. Do not disturb under penalty of immediate and painful death. Or possibly something worse. (Beware of Yang the Nauseating.) When he was writing, it was like living with a ghost. You heard sounds, you knew there was someone in the house with you, but you never saw him in person. And if by chance you did, it was like meeting a stranger in your living room. He'd mumble an acknowledgment, but he'd never lose his million-light-year stare.
"I don't know how Mom learned to live with it, but she did. Somehow. Dad would be up before seven, fix his own breakfast and then disappear for the day-only coming out of his office to help himself to something from the refrigerator. Mom made a point of leaving plates of food for him, so all he had to do was grab the plate and a fork and he could vanish back into his study. Usually we wouldn't see him again until after midnight. This could go on for weeks at a time.
"But we always knew when he had reached a halfway point-he took three days off to recharge his battery. It wasn't for us that he took the break; it was for himself. He'd take us out to dinner and a show, or we'd take a couple of days and go to an amusement park, but it was always strained. Maggie and I didn't know how to react around him because we'd been tiptoeing past his office for so many days in a row. Now, suddenly, he wasn't a monster anymore; he wanted to be our friend-but we didn't know how to be friends with him. He'd never taken the time to give us a chance to learn.
"For a long time I was jealous of his computer, but then I learned how to survive without a real dad and then it didn't matter anymore. Pretty soon, the hard parts were only when he was trying to make up for lost time. We all felt so uncomfortable, it was always a relief when he'd finally stretch his arms out and say, `Well, I guess I'd better get back to work. Somebody's got to pay the bills around here.'
"Mom had her own work, of course-but she was able to switch off the terminal and walk away from it without looking back. Dad never was-when he had a problem to solve, he gnawed at it like a puppy with the legbone of a steer. Later, when I was old enough, I was able to appreciate the elegance of Dad's work. His programs not only played well, but they were so beautifully structured they were a joy to read. But no matter how much I respected the products of his labors, I still resented the fact that so much of his emotional energy went into his creations that there was only a little left for me. For the family.
"When Dad was finally finished with a program, he would be completely done. He wouldn't go near the machine for ... I don't know-it seemed like months. He wouldn't even play other authors' games. Those were almost okay times, because he'd try to make the effort to learn how to be a real human being again-a real father. But by then, we'd learned to recognize the signs-that he couldn't really do it. Whenever he got too close, he'd get just so close and then he'd retreat again. He'd suddenly-conveniently-get another idea and he'd be gone again.
"So Maggie and I-well, I don't know about Maggie, but it seemed that she felt the same way-had that gap in our lives, and we either had to look somewhere else for something to fill it or learn to live with the lack. Which is mostly what I did-lived with the lack-because I didn't know that a family wasn't supposed to be that way. Maggie-well, she found her own answer. We weren't that close.
"Anyway, that was before the plagues. When we went up to the cabin, something in Dad changed-not better, just different. At first I didn't notice, because I didn't have enough experience with him to know, and then when I did, I didn't know what to make of it. I guess it scared me. As if I didn't know who he was after all.
"Several times a week, he and I would make the rounds of our security sensors-no one could have approached within a mile of the cabin without our knowing about it, not even a deer. We never had any people come near, but the system kept us in fresh meat and I learned how to skin a carcass and hang it. At first, Dad and I each kept mostly to ourselves, but after a while, he began talking to me. As if I were a real person. As if he'd just been waiting for me to grow up first.
"It confused me. I mean-hell, how can you expect someone to suddenly be a real son when you've spent twenty years ignoring him?
"And yet, even as I resented the goddamned presumption of the man, I still wanted him to finally be my father. So I stopped hating him for a while and began to discover what an interesting person he really was. I'd never known some of the things he'd done when he was my age-you know, he once met Neil Armstrong!
"I guess that was when Dad and I finally got to know each other. And I know this sounds strange, but those days up at the cabin were probably the happiest time of my life. It was a vacation from reality, and for a little while, we were a real family. It was nice. For a while. . . ."
After a while, Dr. Davidson prompted, "Go on, Jim."
"Huh?"
"What happened?"
I shrugged. "We came down from the mountains too soon. And we got caught in the last wave of the plagues. And the boys died. And-um, Dad never forgave himself. My sister never forgave him. And my mother-well, she never stopped pitying him because she knew what private hell he was living with. I guess he couldn't take that."
"Jim-"
"Huh?"
"You didn't say how you felt."
"Yes, I did. I said I loved him."
"How did you feel about coming down from the mountain too soon?"
"Uh ... it was a mistake, but it was an honest one. I mean, anyone could have ... I mean, it wasn't his fault-"
"Jim," Dr. Davidson said very quietly, "you're not being honest with me."
I jerked my hands back from the arms of the chair.
"Yes," he admitted. "There are sensors in the chair-but that isn't how I know you're lying. I can hear the stress in your voice." I felt suddenly flustered-and angry. I jumped up out of the chair
"How did you feel, Jim?"
"None of your damn business! I'm tired of people telling me who I am, who I have to be. I'm tired of people lying to me! Everybody lies. Obama lied. Duke lied. You're lying now, I'll bet. I'm tired of it-tired of being used and manipulated. It isn't fair! It wasn't fair when my father did it!" The words were tumbling out now. I knew what I was saying, but I couldn't stop myselfI didn't even know if I meant any of it. "He didn't listen to me either! I wanted to stay up in the mountains longer! We were happy there!" The words caught in my throat and I choked. I started coughing.
After a polite pause, Dr. Davidson said, "There's water on the table."
I stepped over to it and poured myself a glass. I drank it, then poured another and downed half of it too. My throat still felt dry. I carried it back to the chair with me. I sat down again. I tried to perch on the edge of the seat, but the chair wasn't designed for it; I had to lean back.
"You said you were happy there, in the mountains," Dr. Davidson prompted.
"Yes," I admitted, glad to finally have it out. "I was. I wasn't competing with the computer anymore. We were involved with living. Surviving. I mean, it wasn't easy; we had to chop our own wood and do a lot of maintenance on the solar panels, but we were involved with what we were doing-and with each other. We talked to each other about what we had to do. We shared our experiences. We cooperated. Oh, there were fights, a lot of arguments-especially at first-but we were a family finally. And it wasn't fair to end it. We could have stayed up there longer. We should have waited. I didn't want to come back. I wanted us to stay up there-"