Exolegacy, page 9
He must have fallen asleep reading, he thought. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes, the right text could both intrigue him and bore him to just the right amount to knock him out in situ. As his eyes acclimated to the room, he noted the empty bottle of wine on the now-stained side table adjacent his chair. Ah, he realized, that explains the headache too. But only when he finally stood to make his way to the kitchen for a glass of water did the implications of his evening start to dawn on him. A dull thud echoed in the room as he lifted from the chair, something had fallen from his lap in the folds of the blanket. He turned to find what it was and to pick it up but paused when he realized what it was, the open and empty box, left unnoticed next to the similarly empty wine bottle. The Sentite crystal lay on its side just beneath the low hem of the chair.
His thirst momentarily forgotten, he reached for the blanket and being careful to not touch the surface of the object, placed it back into its case, snapping it shut after. He had no recollection of making a conscious decision to investigate his father’s memories, or even moving to open the box the night before.
Only once he had replaced the case in its rightful place on the mantle did he proceed with his morning. A glass of water to ease the aching in his throat, and a bowl of yogurt and müsli to fuel his day. When the ache wasn’t eased by the water, he realized that it was less a dryness of the throat, which would be caused by the wine, or even his method of breathing in the seated position, but more of a feeling one gets when they have spoken or yelled too much the previous day. He put the kettle on for tea, hoping that that would remedy the pain, all while puzzling over why his voice would be lost if he lived alone and hadn’t spoken aloud for days, let alone to another person.
As he carefully chewed his breakfast and sipped his tea, Ehrenfeld’s mind turned toward more comfortable topics. His work. He had left relatively abruptly upon the news of his father passing two weeks previously and hadn’t taken the appropriate steps to assign colleagues to cover any work that might come in during his absence. It wasn’t like most of his colleagues would care whether or not he had, they may be adequate at their own jobs, but he was really the only one in their department who deigned to pay any attention to proper processes. The thought of unfinished business itched slightly in his mind, but he was relatively confident that things would not have fallen apart in his absence. He worked for the Staatenbund after all, the most comprehensive political entity in the history of the human race. It wouldn’t have succeeded as far as it had without an organized bureaucracy, and he was part of that success, albeit a small one. But a small weight on the scale of government wasn’t a fulcrum, and his failures—however imagined—wouldn’t tip the scales.
He would be required to appear at the office on Monday, but today was Saturday and so he had two days to get himself together. He had resisted the urge to return to work early a few days ago and had taken the time to catch up on his reading list. In hindsight, it had been a good decision. He didn’t take enough vacations anyway, and even if his mind longed for work, his body longed for rest.
However his body had been rested yesterday, today it felt like a wreck. It felt like the day after those long first hikes of spring when his body had been used to the comfortable laziness of winter, but still different. He wasn’t quite sure what exactly hurt, just that he was exhausted, perhaps sleeping in the armchair was to blame. But there was still the mystery of why he had removed the memory crystal from its box, what deeper part of his mind had cracked and moved him to do such a thing? He had been thinking of what he remembered of his father’s childhood as he looked at the box, wine in hand, but he had returned to the chair then, hadn’t he? Ehrenfeld couldn’t recall his exact motions from that point onward, at least until he woke that morning.
Perhaps some air would help, he thought. He prepared himself for a short run around the Stadtpark, as he often did on weekends. It helped to keep his middle-aged body in tune, and he figured it was only a matter of time before that failed him. So, even if running felt like a chore sometimes, he did it, if not for his own health, his sanity.
After stretching, he descended the stairs of his building and struck out around the park, clearing his mind to let the endorphins do their job. They would have too if he had made it very far, but twenty minutes later, Ehrenfeld was sitting on a wet and cold park bench across from the playground. Thankfully it was vacant, and the playground was on a direct line between his home and the office, but he would often go far out of his way to avoid it if it was full of children, their emotionally tethered minders clinging to the fence watching. It unsettled him that he found himself there this morning, not the least because his pants were now cold and wet. He stood and started walking back home to change. Perhaps fresh air wasn’t what he needed after all.
An hour later, he was showered and changed, though he disrobed in a haze after putting on fresh clothes to put something more comfortable on. A nap sounded too good to ignore, especially given the fiasco that the last night was. So Ehrenfeld crawled into the bed his parents had shared, in the middle of a Saturday.
The next time he awoke, it was Sunday morning. Ehrenfeld’s eyes snapped open at the recognition of morning light, but nevertheless lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, grasping at the last threads of the memories that had plagued him for the last eighteen hours. They were of his grandparents, from his father’s perspective he assumed. That he hadn’t experienced these memories two nights ago when he was connected to the crystal was a mystery. But they were there in the forefront of his mind now, at least some of them.
He had dream-remembered a house, two bedrooms, and in disrepair seated on a short dead-end street near the airport. The sidewalks crowded by the third-hand cars and pickup trucks of the neighbors. This was San Jose. He recognized it, either in his own memories from his university days or his father’s memories of childhood. It was his father’s childhood home. The young people who lived in the house were his grandparents, decades younger than he could have possibly known them, yet recognized through the eyes of their own child.
He remembered chores, cleaning up after the children that his mother watched during the day as she sat on the couch in a chemically induced haze, the inhalers and spent cartridges strewn on the table. He knew that she would come out of it before his father came home hours later. The sorrow lingered in Ehrenfeld’s mind, and the pity for his mother from the perspective of a child, but mixed with the understanding and love of an adult.
Other flashes of memories continued to float to the surface of Ehrenfeld’s mind. His father and mother, no, grandfather and grandmother arguing about finances as he washed out the bed of the truck after a day’s work. It was all Ehrenfeld could do to separate the memories of his father from his own. Sunday progressed thus, and so Ehrenfeld found himself trapped in his house, forced to deal with the now surfacing memories of his father. This wasn’t how he had planned to spend the last day before work.
But as the evening approached, the flashbacks faded and quieted in his mind. By the time Ehrenfeld had prepared, eaten, and cleaned up after dinner, his mind was as at peace as it had been two days previously.
That didn’t mean that his mind wasn’t still working behind the scenes as Ehrenfeld drifted off to sleep. This time, in the comfort of his bed, suit and alarm set for the beginning of the work week. That night, he didn’t dream of his father’s childhood, but of his own. Only similar in the way that he was a single child for the first ten years of his life, his childhood was that of privilege, his mother occupied with whatever projects she had when she wasn’t playing with him. His father, perhaps as absent as his grandfather was, but gainfully employed in a government position that would eventually lead to his assignment as ambassador. Ehrenfeld experienced little hardship in his young life, no pressures of responsibility were pushed on him, every one of his needs were met, even if he hadn’t thought to ask for them to be.
Not even after ten years old, when his mother’s attention was split between him and his siblings did he ever want for anything. The age difference was so great in his mind that he never really considered his younger siblings competitors for attention.
He woke a full hour before his alarm with a single image fading from his dream, his father writing in his mechanical style the word ‘perspective’, centered on a clean sheet of stationery.
22 Inner Child
Álvaro’s father sat on the side of his bed softly, trying not to wake him. But he had heard him come in and was only pretending to be asleep. Sometimes his father would do this after a long day at work, but not often, so he would lie there quietly, enjoying the companionship in silence until his father would gently rise and go to spend time with his mother.
This evening was different though, after ten minutes, his father was still there. When he let out a long sigh, Álvaro spoke up “Papi?”
His father started slightly, then chuckled, “Of course you’re not asleep, I should have listened to your breathing.”
“Is there something wrong? How was your day?” Álvaro asked.
His father sighed again, prompting him to sit up in bed and swing his legs over the side so that he was sitting facing in the same direction. His father looked down at Álvaro solemnly, “Als, I need to talk to you about something I learned at the doctor today.”
When Álvaro was silent, he continued, “You know those canisters of fertilizer that I use in my work? You’ve probably seen them in the back of the truck before.
“Well, a few weeks ago, there was some news about the company that makes it. It turns out that they didn’t tell people how bad it could be to use without a mask. There’s a big trial going on right now…”
His father’s voice faded into a muffled sound as if it were coming through a pillow. His words weren’t clear, but the meaning was understood. Álvaro’s vision blurred as the tears began to well, his father was sick, and it was bad enough that he woke him to tell him about it.
It took a month for it to happen, both the trial and the sickness. The courts ruled in the company’s favor and Álvaro and his mother were left with nothing. They buried his father three days later.
My son Ehri,
I was ten years old then. My mother was earning only a few hundred dollars a week in childcare, and what didn’t go to groceries or utilities, went to her habit. I was charged with finding a way to take care of my own needs beyond that. Every minute that I wasn’t in school or studying, I was delivering food, or maintaining lawns across town. At least my father trained me enough to do that.
When he left us, we had been living paycheck to paycheck, and he was only thirty-five years old, so he didn’t qualify for any sort of pension. His last words to me were that I could do anything, and to not live my life taking care of my mother. To never quit anything I had put my mind to accomplishing, and to never settle for a career that didn’t give me joy.
My childhood ended that winter. I struggled for every dollar to pay for books and school supplies. But as my father bade me, when I was accepted to University, I left my mother behind. She had tried her best to keep me fed, but that had been the extent of her ability.
Now that I am a father though, I see you coming into your own. You’re only seven years old now, but I see how you play with the others in the park. All I want for you is to have the childhood that I never did. It made me bitter and emotionally stunted. I wish that I had had a model for how I need to act, but the best that I can do, is to make sure that you and your mother are supported. Even if that takes me away from you emotionally, know that I love you and I want the best for you. Be the child that I never was.
I love you.
Vati
Álvaro Hernandez’s hand signed the letter that he had just penned to his son as the memory faded.
“Vati…” croaked the hoarse voice of the now-grown Ehrenfeld. He had collapsed on the toilet mid-shave as his vision darkened and began to play back his father’s childhood memory of losing his own father. The shaving cream was still on most of the right side of his face, but with tearful streaks cutting channels through his jawline. His chest and throat hurt from the physical effort of trying to contain his emotions, more of a trained reflex than a conscious effort.
But the pain of a child losing his father coupled with the pain of his father not knowing how to love him, but wanting to, was too much for Ehrenfeld. He doubled over and sobbed like the child that he had never let out. His whole life, Ehrenfeld had assumed that his father hadn’t loved him. He strove for his approval in everything he did, but never received it. At least that’s how he remembered it before the puzzle piece of his father’s perspective completed the circuit.
Memory-laden emotions now flowed through and out of him, it didn’t matter whose they were, his own repressed memories, or his father’s. The dam had broken without as much of a warning of a leak. Each memory of his father’s was a wave of water washing through his own bitter memories, wiping away his unrealized pain and rebuilding them from three points of view now. His own misunderstood ones, with the perspective of his father’s childhood, and the wisdom and regret of his grown father—Vati—as the long-hidden letters to his son were remembered with each phase of their early lives.
23 Autodrive
Ehrenfeld’s eyes opened to the view of his bedroom ceiling. It wasn’t the gradual, lazy waking that one might experience if they had slept restlessly, but a completely rested and ready-for-the-day type of waking. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was light outside, which didn’t mean much, this time of year became light early, but when he checked his watch, he found that it was nearly ten in the morning and two days later than he had anticipated. He was supposed to have started work again on Monday. Thankfully, his digital assistant had sensed his emotional episode that past Monday morning and had filed the proper paperwork online for an extended bereavement leave until Thursday. He didn’t even have any messages blinking incessantly in his queue. What people did before digital assistants, he couldn’t comprehend.
Relieved that he didn’t have to rush off to work, Ehrenfeld lay back down in bed, only to swing out and stand up. He didn’t need the rest anymore. Two days of sleeping straight through was hungry work, and he had energy despite his hunger. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from his psyche as he went about his now late morning routine. The usual didn’t seem appetizing though, so he opted for the full spread of cheeses, fresh vegetables and cold sliced sausages. Then he went back for seconds, even the food tasted differently today.
An hour later, he was out the door and walking briskly through the park, breathing the rare spring air deeply. Eventually, his body caught up with him and he was forced to take a break. Ironically, he found himself adjacent to the children’s park, now bustling with a handful of eager, winter-worn kids and their minders. He watched them running up and down the ladders and slides without the usual agitated feelings and even found himself chuckling to himself when he observed one of the young girls trick a boy in a nonsensical game they were playing. The vibration of the chuckle caught him off guard, it was such a rare occurrence for him, and it felt foreign in his throat, but not unwelcome for once.
After a moment, he stood and made his way north, exiting the park into the heart of the Innere Stadt. His feet moved him out of memory along the path he often walked to his office at the Handelsbehörde, the Confederation’s Trade Authority. The workday was more than half over at this point, and he wasn’t expected in the office until tomorrow, but he wasn’t planning on working. Maybe he’d just check in, and say ‘hi’ to a few people. Whatever his motivations, something was nagging at the back of his mind that kept his feet moving in that direction. The whole time he moved methodically through the city, his mind skipped back and forth between his childhood and his father’s. The images were so clear, not muddled like he expected they would be. He appreciated the clear separation. His father had apparently foreseen this and formatted them specifically for him.
Still, there was more than just his father’s childhood. There was something that seemed to be at the front of his mind but hiding just behind a corner. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe being distracted at work would shake it loose.
The blocks passed in a blur, his mind wasn’t occupied with any one thing in particular though. He often found that the best way to clear his mind was to perform some repetitive action where he could dedicate his mind to motor movement instead of higher thought. Perhaps it was that or the crisp air, but his mind relaxed and cleared to the point that the one thing that had been dangling at the front of his mind finally dropped into his forebrain.
His mother. What did she have to do with anything? He hadn’t been as close to her in her later years as he had been when he was a child, but her passing had hit him harder than he liked to admit. She was his mother after all. But when she had passed, it had been without warning. She and his father had been on some tour in Russia, and then he had gotten the call that she had suddenly passed away. An aneurism it had been officially ruled, but there had been no history of such illness in her family before, and she regularly had checkups given her age. Nothing had indicated a predisposition to the event.
At the funeral, his father had been as stoic and straight-faced as ever. Ehrenfeld had tried to stay the same, but it was a strain on his psyche to do so. He realized that now and had paid the price for it if only to further bury his emotion. Regardless, his father hadn’t seemed phased at all by his wife’s passing, almost as if he had expected it. The thought had nagged at Ehrenfeld for years afterward and served to separate him from communicating with his father, letting it fester in the recesses of his mind.
The mostly dormant resentment now was thrust into his conscious mind, but it wasn’t so that he could dwell on it further. The urgency he now felt in regard to his mother’s passing was now bolstered somehow by thoughts of his brother. The last two times he had seen Alsón was at their mother’s funeral and then at their father’s wake. Communication between the two was as it had ever been, nonexistent. He had nothing against his brother’s life choices, but their age difference growing up and their vastly different personalities had served to build a subconscious valley between the two siblings that was seldom bridged.
