The Perfect Wife

When you’re pristine, as shiny as a supermarket apple, you look at your reflection again.

Frankly, I’d say you’re a far better match for Tim Scott than the real Abbie could ever be. He just hasn’t realized it yet.

“Everything okay?” Tim’s voice floats up the stairs.

“Of course. I’ll be right there,” you call back.

“Now, tell me all about Abbie and you,” you say when you’re downstairs again, curling up beside him on the couch. “I want to know everything.”

57

You’d been hoping Tim would talk to you. Really talk, that is. About the cracks in his marriage, about what he and Abbie were like when everyone else had left them and they were alone. And you’d thought, in that context of honesty and intimacy, you’d begin to forge your own, individual connection with him.

But all you get is more of this unrelenting, sappy drivel about how wonderful she was. You want to scream at him to wake up, that no one’s that perfect, but of course you don’t. You nod and smile and say uh-huh and that’s nice and oh, how sweet.

Inevitably he ends up talking mostly about himself, this grand vision for humanity’s future that he and Abbie supposedly shared.

“And she changed me. There are plenty of people in Silicon Valley who think AIs will end up smarter than humans, so effectively we’ll become their puppets. And there was a time when I’d say, well, they can hardly do a worse job of running the planet than we do, so bring it on. But Abbie made me see that a society of incredible technological brilliance but no richness of human experience would be like Disneyland without children. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d never have started thinking about the whole area of machine empathy.”

“Wow,” you say. “Amazing.”

It’s a good thing you can’t yawn.

* * *

—

Eventually Tim says he needs to go to bed.

“Tonight reminded me so much of those early days with her,” he adds happily as he gets up. “Talking into the small hours about the kind of world we were going to create. I’ve really enjoyed this evening. Thank you.”

As you lie down on your own bed a quotation comes to you. There is surely nothing finer than to educate a young thing for oneself; a lass of eighteen or twenty years old is as pliable as wax.

Who said that?

You wait, and sure enough, that comes to you too. Clunk.

Adolf Hitler.

58

As you drift off, you find yourself thinking again about those websites Abbie signed up to. When you were fourteen and in junior high, the worst insult that could be directed at a girl was that she was a prude. Three years later, it was that she was a slut. The girls all called themselves feminists, but they also told each other not to sleep with a boy on the first date, not to admit how many sexual partners they’d had, not to make the first move. They claimed it was about earning a boy’s “respect” but, really, it was about proving they were respectable.

In some ways, you realize, those double standards have rubbed off on you. Confronted by evidence that Abbie had been unfaithful, your first thought was how tacky. To blame her, in other words. Whereas when you found out Tim had slept with Sian, your first instinct was to blame yourself.

Perhaps you’ll never solve the mystery of why she left, you think. Perhaps you and Tim will just muddle along like this forever. After all, even if you do locate her, you don’t necessarily have to share that information with Tim. You could just leave her be and hope that, little by little, he’ll come to fall in love with you instead.

But in your heart of hearts you suspect that’s not really an option. Tim shows no sign of preferring you to her. And the whole situation with Lisa and the courts and John Renton feels like it must surely come to a head soon. Time is the one thing you don’t have.

* * *

—

Next morning you don’t bother with the picture menu. Instead you simply ask Danny what he’d like.

He thinks. “My funnel’s cold. I want a scarf.”

“We don’t have scarves for—” you begin, then realize this is another of his oblique requests. “You’re talking about Percy, aren’t you? That time he crashed into the trucks and got himself covered in jelly. You’re saying you want jelly for breakfast.”

Danny starts to look stressed. “Scarf! Scarf!” he shouts anxiously.

You think again. You’d been so sure you had it right. Then it comes to you why he’s anxious. “Oh—I get it. In the book, it’s called jam. But their jam is actually our jelly. Just like their jelly is our Jell-O.”

Jell-O is called jelly! Danny laughs so hard, he almost falls off his chair.

You make some jelly sandwiches. Every time Danny stops laughing, you say, “Jam! Jelly! Jell-O!” to him, and he erupts back into giggles, spluttering jelly—or jam, if you prefer—all down his shirtfront. By the time you’re done with breakfast, you’re both almost as covered with the stuff as Percy was in the story. It’s a good thing Tim’s in his study, firing off emails. You’ve long since left the approved ABA protocols far, far behind.

But at least you and your little boy are having a good time.

* * *

—

“I’d like to take Danny to school,” you say to Tim later. “It seems crazy that everyone’s raving about what a brilliant place Meadowbank is, and I’ve never seen it.”

“Ah.” Tim looks wary. “That might be tricky.”

“Why?”

“I should probably have told you last night. But I didn’t want to spoil the mood.”

“Tell me what?”

“The Cullen family has gotten an injunction preventing you from being alone with Danny.”

“Oh, great,” you say bitterly. “So how’s that going to work, with Sian leaving?”

“Well, clearly it wouldn’t. So I’ve asked Sian to stay and continue with what she’s been doing. Just for the time being.” He catches your look. “You said yourself, we need to think what’s best for Danny here.”

It’s on the tip of your tongue to ask Tim why he bothered to give you feelings in the first place, since he seems so intent on riding roughshod over them. But with an effort you manage to contain yourself.

“I guess that’ll be difficult for you,” you say sympathetically. “Having her around, after the way she came on to you. But Danny knows her, and she knows his routine…So we’ll just have to make it work.”

“Exactly,” he says, clearly relieved. “I knew you’d understand.”

* * *

—

You tell Tim you want to see Meadowbank anyway, even if Sian’s taking Danny. You’re not surprised when he says in that case, he’ll come, too.

He drives. You sit in the back, with Danny between you and Sian. To your satisfaction, you find you’re now better at getting communication out of Danny than she is. You don’t kid yourself it’s because you look like his mother. It’s because you’re not human. Your facial expressions change less frequently, and within a narrower range, than a human’s do. Your gaze is steady, without the demanding oculesic interaction others impose. Your body language is so muted, it’s almost silent. You’re as close to being Thomas the Tank Engine as a person can get, dammit.

Really, you’re so right for this family, it’s absurd.

When you get to the school, Danny’s greeted by a support worker and led inside. Sian goes with them.

“Let me talk to the principal’s office,” Tim says to you. “There should be someone who can show us around.”

A few minutes later he comes back with the principal himself. You’re not surprised at that, either. Not many people pass up the chance to schmooze a tech millionaire.

“Rob Hadfield,” the principal says, introducing himself with an ingratiating smile. If he thinks it odd to be shaking a mechanical hand, he hides it well. Probably for the same reason he’s showing you around, you think cynically.

The three of you stroll through a well-lit vestibule.

“Meadowbank is one of only two facilities for autistic learners in the whole of the U.S. where the teaching methods are still based on B. F. Skinner’s original studies,” Hadfield begins, launching into what’s clearly a well-rehearsed patter. “That’s one reason our results are so good. Where most practitioners have watered down their practices to fit in with current trends, our approach is evidence-based.” He leads the way into what looks like an amusement arcade. “This is our Yellow Brick Road area. Students who earn points for good behavior can spend them here. That’s the positive-reinforcement side of what we do.”

There are Xboxes, a brightly colored candy store, even a replica McDonald’s. A single student is playing on an Xbox, his face rigid and expressionless. “Jonathan,” the principal calls. “Say good morning to our visitors.”

The student pauses the game. “Good morning,” he echoes dully. His eyes don’t meet yours, but he waits until you say “Good morning” in return before turning back to his game.

“B. F. Skinner,” you say. “Wasn’t he the rat man?”