He sat down in the chair and rested his arms on the table. “Rovil,” he said, his voice radiating pleasure. “I know that Gil is so pleased to see you.”

Rovil glanced over at me, his eyes wide. He turned back to the camera and said, “I think there’s been a mistake. I’m to speak with Gilbert Kapernicke.”

The man laughed, and it wasn’t until then that I could see that he was Gil. He’d lost at least 150 pounds. He looked simultaneously more healthy than the Gil I’d known and much older than he should have been.

“Gil is here,” Gil said. “Anything you say, he’ll hear.”

Rovil blinked at the screen.

I took the pen from Ollie. “Ask him if he’s Gil’s god.”

“Are you Gil’s god?”

“Not just Gil’s,” he answered. “But yes, I speak, and Gil repeats what I say. Years ago he decided not to fight me, but to get out of the way. He has surrendered his life to me. I decide everything—what he eats, when he should exercise, what he should do for recreation, and…” He nodded at the screen. “Who he should talk to.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“That’s … fascinating,” Rovil said.

Gil shrugged. “It’s Gil’s choice. He chooses, every day and each moment, to let me guide his life. He could stop listening to me at any moment.”

“But he doesn’t?” Rovil asked. “Not ever?”

“Gil would be the first to say that he was not doing a very good job of managing himself. Surely you could understand that better than anyone, Rovil. Don’t you think your life would be better if you gave it all to me?”

“To you?” Rovil asked.

Gil tilted his head. “There’s only one god. Even if I take a different form for each person.”

I said into the pen, “Ask him to tell you something that only you would know.”

Rovil glanced at me, frowning.

“Jesus Christ,” I said into the pen. “Why’d we give you the earpiece if you’re going to keep looking at me?”

“Breathe,” Dr. Gloria said.

Gil said, “Rovil, put Lyda on the line.”

“I’m sorry,” Rovil said, “I don’t know what—”

“It’s all right,” Gil said. “The guards don’t pay any attention to these calls. We have been such a good prisoner, for so long, that they let us talk to whomever we want.”

I covered the pen and looked at Ollie questioningly.

She shrugged. “Your choice.”

I handed Ollie the pen and walked into the living room. I didn’t sit down. My heart was racing, and I felt a rush of heat across my chest. The wall screen was gigantic, and Gil’s face was as big as the Great and Terrible Oz. In the corner was a small mirror window that contained a miniature version of me and Rovil.

I sucked in a breath. “How you doing, Gilbert?”

The giant face smiled slightly. “I’ve been expecting you to call. Gil had hoped you’d visit in person before his parole, but this will have to do.”

“You think you’re going to get out on parole?”

That head tilt again. I could remember the old Gil doing that. “We’ll be out in a year.”

It was a shock, but I absorbed it. “That’s … good,” I said.

“Gil is in no hurry to leave,” he said. “We teach art here. We counsel troubled inmates. It’s been a rewarding period. But he accepts that it’s time for us to move on.”

I said, “And what did Gil want to talk about before you moved on?”

“He wanted to ask your forgiveness.”

I wasn’t ready for that. The emotion hit in a rush, the gates of the limbic system thrown wide open. I didn’t know what I was feeling—rage? confusion? sorrow? The flood washed everything downstream and knocked me to hell.

At the trial Gil had said that he had only fragmentary memories of killing Mikala. He testified that his first fully conscious thought came as he stood over her body with the knife in his hand and he realized what he’d done. He confessed immediately. He told the police he’d become obsessed with Mikala. It was absurd, an obese white man falling in love with a beautiful black lesbian, but that was why, he said, he’d never admitted it before, not even to himself. In the frenzy of the overdose, his jealousy had taken over. He cried several times during the trial.

It was a performance. Gil didn’t kill Mikala. And we both knew it.

“Yeah, well…” My voice was shaky. I cleared my throat. “You can shove your apology up your ass.”

“Lyda, please…”

“Tell me about the paintings, Gil. The ones you gave to Edo.”

Gil sat back. His hands dropped to his side.

I said, “I know he’s been talking to you. Did he ask you to build a machine, Gil?”

“We only paint,” Gil said. “We don’t build machines anymore.”

“Fine. Did he ask you to paint a fucking machine?”

He tilted his head. “Have you seen our paintings? I know that you have. If you’ve seen them, then you know.”

“Are there more, Gil? Are you still painting them?”

He smiled, but didn’t answer.

I leaned against the wall with both hands leaned close to that smug face. “Give Edo a message, Gil. Can you at least do that?”

“What would you like to say to him?” Gil asked.

“Tell him to call me—now—or I will tell the world about his printers. And you and your god will never get out of jail.”

*   *   *

Within twenty-four hours, a message appeared on my pen:

1 White Mesa Drive, Los Lunas, New Mexico. Gate code: 7221. Do not come until after Saturday.—Your old friend, E.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Since the time she was very small, on the days that Grandpop was coming home she would wait in the hallway, out of sight, listening for the sound of the door. (If it was only Eduard and Suzette returning, she would stay in her room with her music on loud and pretend to hear nothing.) Grandpop would step inside and yell, “Where’s that little girl who lives here?” Sasha would launch herself across the room and crash into his legs. This giant man would stumble back in a show of how strong and fast she was, and then scoop her into his arms. She would direct him around the house, pointing out all the things she’d painted and made while he was gone.

She was older now, and too big for Hello Tackles. She waited with Esperanza in the foyer, and when the maid opened the door Grandpop looked at Sasha in mock confusion. “I’m sorry. Where’s that little girl who used to live here?”

She could not help herself; she threw herself into him and hugged him tight. He laughed and said, “Ah! There she is.”

Eduard and Suzette stepped around them. Suzette handed her coat to Esperanza, and Eduard gave her his briefcase. Sasha released her grandfather and presented herself to her parents. Eduard said, “Hello, Sasha.” Suzette patted her on the back as if she’d seen this greeting behavior on a nature documentary.

Sasha knew that she was adopted, and she knew that it was Edo who wanted her, who loved her. Eduard and Suzette did not have to say a word; they deferred to Grandpop for all decisions about her. It didn’t occur to her that this was unusual; stories were full of children who were unloved by their False Parents, and had to search for their True ones. She felt lucky that the search had ended before it had begun. She had Grandpop, and she didn’t need anyone else.

He was tired tonight, but still glad to be home. They ate together in the big dining room, and Grandpop cried only once, when Suzette mentioned seeing homeless people in Chicago, but quickly recovered. Afterward, Eduard went upstairs to his office. Later Sasha heard him yelling at someone over the phone.

Suzette, as usual, went out to the patio. Sasha did not know what her mother did by the pool at night; she didn’t swim, didn’t look at any of the screens, and didn’t even look at the stars. The few times Sasha had interrupted her mother out there she found her staring at the water with a tablet of paper on her lap. The top page of the tablet was always blank, but with some portion of it torn away, as if she’d written something there and then destroyed it. Sasha imagined that Suzette was writing an invisible diary; each day, once recorded, could be disposed of. No one could ever steal her thoughts.