Doubts on a Car Ride Home

In the nearly twenty years and counting that she'd spent as a memory traversal agent, Eva heard her share of criticism about the work she did. Whether from anti-Sigmund protesters or family members of clients, accusations of invading the privacy and disrespecting the original memories of dying people had been flung around more times than she cared to admit. The more radical of such people even deemed those who worked in memory alternation as fraudulent murderers, claiming that the latter didn't truly grant their patients' last wishes, but instead used the machine to kill them.

After almost half a lifetime of being a Sigmund Corp. employee, Eva liked to think that she had developed a pretty thick skin. Long gone were the days when a single protest outside headquarters could unnerve her enough to wonder if the critics were right. Still, it didn't mean that certain criticisms didn't bother her sometimes, particularly if they were less about her job itself and more about how her job affected other aspects of her life.

Driving home from a birthday party for one of Grace's kindergarten classmates, Eva found her mind wandering to the conversation she'd had with Mariko Reynolds, a fellow mother whose daughter was also in Grace's class. Well, it was less a conversation and more like an impeccably polite diatribe. As tempted as she'd been to take a leaf out of Neil's book and come up with some rude answer to Mariko's condescending remarks, she had forced herself to stay civil, not wanting to start drama at a six-year-old girl's party.

Eva glanced into the rear view mirror and smiled to see Grace napping peacefully in her car seat, her long black hair covering half of her face. In the passenger's seat, Neil looked over his shoulder and gave their daughter a quick, fond grin.

"Gracie's got the right idea," he told Eva. "Do you realise that I had about thirty minutes of my life stolen by a dad who thought I'd be interested in listening to him blather on about bathroom renovations? I was about to drop off to sleep standing up. That, or start throwing cupcakes at him."

"Hmm," was Eva's only response, her smile having faded.

"What, no clever quip?" Neil asked rhetorically. "Don't tell me you're bored just hearing about my boredom."

"No, it's not that, I was just..." Eva's voice trailed off as they stopped at a red light.

"You were just...?" he prompted after a few seconds.

"I was thinking about what Mariko said to me."

"Who's Mariko?"

"Cassie's mother."

"Was Cassie the birthday girl?"

"No, that was Jessica. Cassie's the one with long red hair."

"Oh." The light turned green and Eva resumed driving before Neil asked, "So, what exactly did Mariko say?"

"Well, for starters," Eva said, "she told me how difficult it must be for us, having to leave Grace with a nanny because of our full-time jobs."

Neil snorted; they were both quite familiar with subtle and not so subtle jabs about their decision to hire someone to look after their daughter while they worked. "Was that a dig at us for supposedly caring more about our jobs than our kid? Or did she think Grace loves Ruth more than us?"

"I didn't ask. She also said that children of parents who work in memory alternation are statistically more likely to have emotional problems and difficulties in school."

Neil was silent a moment. "I suddenly have the very strong urge to ask you to turn this car around and go back so I can yell at this B-I-T-C-H."

Eva shook her head. "It wouldn't be worth it, Neil."

"Sure it would," he insisted. "It'd get Mariko off her high horse."

"Kitties..." Grace murmured before Eva could reply. She looked into the mirror again and watched Grace happily smile in her sleep, her heart melting at the sight. Eva would have given up her right eye if it meant her daughter could always be so happy as to find joy in a dream about kittens.

"We are doing right by her, aren't we?" she asked after a moment.

"Hey, c'mon, Eva." Neil slid his fingers through her hair. "Everyone not totally braindead knows statistics are bunk. That woman doesn't know what she's talking about."

"No one said Grace would always be okay with us working so much."

"Grace knows we love her. That's gotta count for something."

When Eva didn't say anything, Neil sighed. "Y'know," he said, "I stopped caring what people think of how we live our lives a long time ago. I wish you would, too."

"I don't care if Mariko wants to insinuate things about us, but when it's about our daughter..."

Neil paused, his hand leaving Eva's hair. "You sure you don't want to turn the car around so I can yell at her?"

"And give her an excuse to sue us for emotional distress? Not a chance."

"Emotional distress, my foot," Neil scoffed. "If that was legit grounds for a lawsuit, I could've sued the maintenance department a million times over."

Eva rolled her eyes, but she still felt the corners of her mouth twitching upward at the image of Neil repeatedly suing the maintenance department for emotional distress caused by what he thought of as their incompetence. If that was his way of making her feel better, she couldn't say it wasn't working. And he wasn't wrong—Grace did love them dearly even if their jobs didn't allow them to spend as much time with her as they would've liked. As for Grace's school performance, her teacher hadn't given them any cause for concern so far—Grace hadn't had any nervous breakdowns or temper tantrums, and she was doing well in her lessons about the alphabet, shapes, and simple addition and subtraction. And even if—or when—problems eventually came up, not only could those problems be solved, it wouldn't make Eva or Neil love Grace any less.

"You know what?" Neil said at length, laying his hand on Eva's knee. "Grace had fun at the party, I survived banal suburbia, and you endured Mariko's judgemental ignorance. Why don't we order hamburgers for dinner tonight?"

"Neil, we have hamburger meat at home," Eva protested.

"Yeah, but that would involve one of us doing the cooking."

"You love cooking."

"Even the most awesome chefs need a night off, doll."

Eva raised an eyebrow. "And I can't just make hamburgers at home because...?"

Neil gave a half-shrug. "Consider it your reward for not biting Mariko's head off even though she would've deserved it. You didn't, right?"

"You'd be the first to hear it if I did."

"So whaddya say?" Neil squeezed Eva's knee, causing her to gasp a little. "You can choose the burger joint if you want."

"...I guess I can think about it."

"In Eva-ese, that means yes," Neil said, grinning.

Eva grunted softly, once again fighting back a smile. At this point, what Mariko Reynolds thought about anything was the last thing on her mind.