What I Knew

We're at the beach, Goddard Inlet Preserve. Only a couple hours' drive south of the Compound, but it could just as well be another world.

Father has always encouraged me to imagine other worlds. So this place is good practice.

My eyes sweep over the sparkling water, the gleaming sand. I close my eyes and feel myself one with the place. My breath catches the rhythm of the breaking waves.

It's still safe to come here or so Father says. "Preserve" is right, they've shored it up, but most people are afraid and keep far from the coast – any coast, not just in Florida. I remember we used to have to pay to come here, but these days the ticket booth is empty.

"Even if people weren't afraid, they're not at leisure to come," Father remarks. "They have enough on their plates. Or perhaps I should say, too little."

We ourselves have plenty to eat, thanks to Father's job, but we don't overdo it. Father says it would be unseemly. He won't let us eat outside the Compound. We've brought nothing with us today except a water canister, even though we weren't likely to meet anyone else here. We ate before we left. Darlene made me corn fritters like I asked. Father laughs, that dry muted laugh of his, when he sees me eating anything with corn. He won't touch the stuff, says he'll finish the last of the NASA rehydratables before he'll stoop that low. Says he'll drink Tang, which I've never seen but doesn't sound half bad.

I'm not scared here. It's beautiful. Water spray like tiny bubbles bursting over and over on my face. It's the opposite of a dust storm, which I experienced a few times when Father took us to the base out west, the one we're moving to soon. They say the dust will be coming east someday, that there's no escaping it, but we'll be underground anyhow so it won't matter.

That dust wind was a death powder, like the disintegrated bones of everyone who ever lived being blown at you. This water wind is full of life.

"The stuff of life," Father says. I look up at him. He, too, is a life force, his red hair aflame. Like a second sun. He points; I follow his gaze and see a red-haired girl skipping along the shore. I laugh and run after her, she is me and I'm so happy that I finally share that fiery crown, the emblematic trait of my beloved father.

Yes, Father is life and Mother, whom I never knew, is death. Why would I want to resemble her? They say she was beautiful but when I look at the pictures all I see is a darkness that threatens to suck me in. When I imagine a black hole, I see her.

I overtake the redheaded girl and grasp her hands. We stand now - I and I - facing each other, a closed circuit. We smile into each other's faces and I marvel at the delicate coloring and the fine, almost dainty lines of the nose and mouth, which are now my own.

Then she glances aside, at something in the distance. She blinks her cat's eyes, a slow blink, as though pondering an enigmatic communication.

Without having to look I know what she sees, the source of her confusion, and I decide to help her. Serenity and joy wash over me like the surf washing over the sand. All I want is for this other me to know what I know; for her confusion to be resolved. It seems a fair trade - my more complete understanding for her gingery likeness to Father. When she knows what I know, our fusion will be complete.

I open my mouth, but no words come. The movement of my lips is enough to startle her, though. She drops my hands and turns and starts running.

I give chase, but can't reach her. My feet sink again and again into the muddy sand, as though subject to a stronger gravity. I try to shout it, that thing that she needs to know, but can expel no sound from my throat.

As I stumble along, the light ebbs and the sky blooms into an angry flower, reds and oranges and hot pinks, a mirror of my own rising rage. Father, man of fire, is in that sky. Has he orchestrated these pyrotechnics for me?

I summon all my strength and finally gain speed, closing the gap. Again I try to force the words out; though her back is turned to me she knows what I'm up to. Still running, she brings her hands up to stop her ears.

Finally I catch her in a rough hug; with difficulty I thrust one of her hands back down and lean my face toward her exposed ear. But before the words can explode from my throat, a wave surges beside us like an abrupt mountain and -

I wake up.

To the usual mechanical clicks and whirrings. If I could hear the outside from within the module, it would be only wind. If I could see outside from where my cot is located, it would be the modest expanse of dirt and rock illuminated by the lights of the camp.

"Everything's fine, Dr. Brand," CASE intones from the other end of the module. Like he does every night.

I wrap the red blanket around me more snugly, a layer of lumpy comfort under the silver space blanket, and settle back down for another staccato sleep session.

Oh Cooper, I think, as I do every night. Would I have been less broken if my father had spared me as you spared Murph? If only until I was a little older.

Would my honesty setting have been lower, and my talk setting higher?

Would a better dynamic between us have averted the disasters?

Had I felt safe as a child, would I be any better off now?