Year's Best SF 15 - By David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer Page 0,173

far away. I knew now I would never go home. What would I say? How many lies would I tell just to be comfortable?

She says, You always avoided the truth when it made other people uncomfortable.

I listen for something severe in her voice, but I don’t hear it. I say, I’m telling everything the best my memory will allow.

I know. That’s what I love about this visit. You know, she says, the subject changing with her tone of voice, I always wondered why you wouldn’t change. I did want to try out a life as a man, and I always thought you didn’t love me enough to be a woman.

You understand now? I ask. After all those men, after their insistence on their needs…the only time they cared about my arousal was when they wanted to boost their own self-confidence…after all that, I could never sleep with a man again. You probably would have been a great man, but I couldn’t bear to sleep with another one, no matter how nice.

I said I understood. But now I wonder this. Did you stay with me because you loved me or because you wanted a secure life?

There’s a giant difference between why I first sought your attentions and why I’m with you now.

It’s an awkward moment, given the way our bodies are touching, given the years of abstinence in our last life together, so I return to the story.

When the newborns came, it was a rush. I now dreaded the sight I had once longed for. Many of the newborns had not seen enough battle to afford a guesthouse, so Amanda Sam and I traded off with the apartment. There would be an occasional woman soldier who hired my services, but mostly I listened to men lament their lives after they’d relieved themselves of their burdens. I kept an eye out for Noriko, but now my plan was to spot her first so I could avoid her.

I started to hang out more with the nurse and the therapist, just to know people who had nothing to do with the Wake and Amanda Sam, though Haven is a small enough place that I’m sure they knew what I did. I’m sure when I got up from lunch, they probably said, He’s not so bad. Everyone’s got to make a living somehow.

Some nights, I decided just to do nothing, and I stayed in the Wake and drank. Sometimes Amanda Sam would rest her hand on my shoulder and I’d turn to her and she’d tell me it was time to go home. She’d make love to me, comfort me, and I’d pretend to be comforted. “I’ll always take care of you,” she said. “I’m so glad we found each other.” And the next morning she’d take her twenty-percent cut. So I sat in the Wake and foresaw years and years of this, and sometimes in the Wake, but never on my walks, which were just for dreams, I would tally up how long it’d take to build up savings, how long it would take to get off Haven, and how much I’d need to start a new life when her hand fell on my shoulder. I turned and Noriko was looking at me.

“I’ve been told you’ve been asking about me,” she said.

Oh, no, she says. She doesn’t recognize you. She died before she had another neuromap, and she doesn’t know you.

I hear the sadness in her voice. For decades and decades I couldn’t mention Noriko to her; now, after all these years apart, she sympathizes. How different life would have been if so much separation wasn’t necessary to erase whatever had made us bitter.

I stood up to face her. I thought for a second she looked older, as if the job had worn away her friendliness, but then I recalled this look, the way she’d gotten when she’d given out instructions to her companions. There was no recognition on her face, no joy at seeing me, just this military face accustomed to giving orders.

She said, “I thought you’d be gone by now. I made sure the cost of everything was covered.”

“I couldn’t go.”

She stood and waited for me to say more.

“I didn’t know what happened to you. I didn’t know what happened to me.”

She looked around, took my hand, and led me to a table. She sat across from me and ordered herself a beer. She held the glass in both her hands, and I wanted her to hold my hand again. She said