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skinned out all distractions except the obligatory emergency channel before settling down with
my interface to do some serious research.
    Career inquiry , I entered into my Omni. How does one become a long-distance sailor?
    Fifteen minutes later, I knew. There was a school for it—but at least according to the cloud, most people learned to sail by simply sailing. Finding a captain who would take them on as
unskilled labor and teach them the ropes—quite literally.
    I also knew that it didn’t pay significantly better than staying on the dole. And that it was considerably more dangerous.
    And that I wanted it more than anything in the world.
    I closed up all the research windows floating in my peripheral vision, skinned back into reality and made myself another cup of tea—chamomile, this time, locally grown—while I
figured out the letter I was going to send to Shaun. My dad and Katy were easier: I just told them over the dinner table.
    “I’ll write,” I said. “I’ll telepresence. I’ll AR you. You’ll hardly know I’m gone.”
    Dad stood up to take my plate. “Who’ll do the washing up, then?” he asked, but I knew that was his way of saying he would miss me.
    “I’ll do it,” Katy said. “At least there’ll be one less plate.”
    The sun didn’t set that night until almost ten.
    •  •  •
    I used the daylight packing. Summers were better than winters—in summer, you never got enough sleep, but in winter it was always going to bed early so you didn’t
outrun your electricity allotment. Katy was downstairs with David, letting him nap in the shady part of the garden. I imagined they were both skinning out my sounds, not wanting to be reminded.
    While I was staring at jumpers spread out on my bed, I heard Dad’s step upon the stair.
    He paused in the open door to my room. I didn’t turn at first, but caught his eyes in the mirror, looking at me. I had his coloring, the same red hair and freckles, though his had gone
sandy with the years, but my cheekbones and pointed chin were all Mam’s.
    He didn’t say anything, just stared at me with love and sorrow. I held his gaze in the mirror until I couldn’t stand to anymore, and looked down.
    I wondered if he also saw Mam in my face just now, or now more than ever.
    “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said.
    He had two glasses of wine that had come by tallship from France. He saved it for special occasions. He handed me one, then went to the bed and pushed one of the jumpers aside to make an edge to
sit on. He looked up at me and pursed his lips, and the seriousness and hush in his voice made me strain to hear.
    “Don’t ever tell Katy this,” he said. “But when I was your age, I wanted to go to Dublin and be a musician.”
    I thought of the dusty guitar in the living room. I knew he could play it, so I must have seen him play, but I couldn’t summon up a memory of him with the thing in his hands. Certainly,
I’d always wondered why we had one when nobody in the house used it much—a wasted resource, just warehoused like that.
    Now I knew.
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    “Don’t be,” he said. “I made another choice, and I got you and Katy and David.”
    I nodded, too tight up for words. Was this what grown-up choices were like, then? This hollow feeling that nothing I could do would be right?
    He’d never gotten the regret rightminded away. The brain bleachers could have fixed it for him, made it not hurt anymore. The way they had my mam leaving, for me, when I asked.
    “Call every day,” he said. “Or if you don’t have the bandwidth, send email.” He stood, and got that particularly Irish rising stress in his voice as he said,
“And don’t you be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Anywhere in the world, we’ll get you home.”
    “I love you, Dad.” It was all I could say.
    He stood up. He kissed my hair on the way out of the room.
    Dearest Shaun,
    I don’t know how to start this letter, and I hope you won’t think