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“Even my La-Z-Boy. Man, that thing is ancient. I’ve re-covered it twice. It was my father’s. But why do you ask?”
    “I don’t know.” My memory of the day we moved is still so fuzzy. “It’s just… some of our belongings went missing when we moved. Mom swears she packed them. She thinks it’s my fault, that I misplaced the boxes or something. We still fight about it sometimes, but I swear I was as careful as she was and didn’t throw anything away. I wouldn’t.”
    Gus glances around as if someone besides the dead bodies can hear us in this noisy, bouncy truck. “What went missing?”
    “Mostly my dad’s stuff. So, it shouldn’t matter, but I’d like to have his things to remember him by.”
    “I bet you miss your dad quite a bit.”
    “I think about him every day.”
    Gus frowns. “I’m sorry about that.”
    “Isn’t it weird how everybody says they’re sorry? It’s not like they had anything to do with it. It’s not their fault. They’ve nothing to be sorry for.”
    He pats me on the back. “Well, I’m sorry just the same.”
    I stare at my hands. “My therapists told me Dad’s death made me grow up faster.”
    “You kids grow up too fast already. Full time jobs by fifteen—or highly specialized schooling.” He pauses. “That’s where you should be, you know.”
    “Where?”
    “Medical school. They need more students who are ‘empathetic.’ Plus, you’re whip-smart. You remember everything I tell you. I never have to explain things twice.”
    I frown, thinking of the real reason I’m not in medical school or at the Plant Production facility. The Suits and the therapists would never let me. Tears sting my eyes. “You’re the only one who says nice things like this to me… besides my mom, I mean. But she has to. I’m her daughter.”
    “Well, you deserve it.” His voice is kind. “And everything I said is true.”
    I shake my head. “My therapists didn’t think so. That’s why I turned to running and yoga to fix myself because they make me feel better. Therapy only ever made me feel worse. All my therapists told me I was too emotionally unstable for higher learning and that no one would bother teaching me.”
    Gus shakes his head. “They’re wrong. I’d be happy to teach you anything I know. And, as you well know, I
am
a genius.”
    I smile weakly. “I’ve learned a lot from you already, more than my mom would probably like.” I rub the scars on my wrists. They itch every time I think about my first suicide attempt.
    A shadow crosses Gus’s face.
    “You know, when I tried to kill myself, sometimes I think the only reason I didn’t succeed was because I didn’t know how to.” I trace a line down my veins. “Now I do.”



us covers my scarred wrists with his two large hands. “Silvia, have you talked to your mother about this?”
    “Argued is more like it.”
    He clears his throat. “What I mean is: did you tell her what the therapists said to you?”
    I turn away as if to examine the metal racks housing the dead. “No, I didn’t. She had enough troubles, anyway, with work and dealing with her own grief, but things should get better now that she’s playing again.”
    Gus is still watching me when I turn back. “It will look good for your family to have her perform again. People loved to hear her play. You might have been too young to know this, but Yoshe Wood was a famous name in performance music in her day.”
    “Once, when I was alone in the apartment, I found an old recording of one of her concerts in The Archives. You should’ve seen her face when she got home. She looked so sad and begged me to turn it off, but maybe, now that she’s back in the orchestra, things will be different.”
    “If I’m cooking something special, I always play one of those government-sponsored programs in the background.” Gus grins. “Makes me feel real high class. When The New Order rebuilt after the last war, they put a heavy emphasis on the arts.”
    “Why?