The Apple Falls Near

It turns out that Mother had harbored the same thoughts and feelings that I had. "I've always known that I was sheltering you, Conrad," she told me with a tinge of regret in her voice while we talked about it in bed after putting Amity to sleep. "At times, I even realized it WHILE it was happening. Every once in a while I tried to let you branch out and interact with the world, but every time you came back with a sour demeanor. Maybe it was partly my fault, due to how I raised you, or maybe it was something our father had taught you when you were younger, I don't really know, but I came to realize that you didn't really WANT much contact with the outside world. You took a few bites of it and simply found that you didn't like the taste."

I nodded thoughtfully about that. "I guess, yeah, that makes some sense," I answered. "Everything just felt... I dunno... alien to me in some way. Like there was a joke that everyone understood and I just wasn't getting it. I felt frustrated out there, really."

Mother smiled sweetly in agreement. "I know. Part of me was relieved when I realized that about you, but part of me was a little sad. Before my mother died, I got to see some of the outside world. It's a big place and there's no shortage of things to learn out there. I... I wanted more of it, truth be told. But then she started getting sick and Dad needed me more... so I just... let it go. I had more important things to think about and do."

"And then I came along," I added sourly.

My mother's face became stern. "I don't ever want you to think that you robbed me of anything, son. Nothing could be further from the truth. You've given my life meaning and value from the moment you were born. You've given me everything I could ever want, including a daughter. I gave up any dreams of going out there NOT because of you, but because the presence of you gave me more than the outside world ever could, or will. And I don't regret it for even a second. The world goes on just fine without us and we can go on just fine without it."

I nodded to the wall that separated our bedroom from the nursery where Amity was soundly sleeping. "And what about her?" I asked. "Do you think the world will get by just fine without her, too?"

My mother grew quiet and pensive. She was like that for a few minutes, silent and thoughtful. She breathed quietly, staring off into the distance, her hand draped gently across my broad chest while I waited for her reply. Finally, she said, "When we were in Maryland, maybe you think I was too focused on the fact that I was about to give birth to our daughter. But I assure you, I saw pretty much everything you did, son. While we've been squirreled away here in our little homestead, the world seems to have gotten much bigger and much smaller at the same time. I see the writing on the wall. This Internet thing- it's going to explode soon. The nurses kept talking about AOL, so I started paying attention to the television and news more while you were out getting our meals or napping. America Online, that's what they're calling it. People from all around the world are getting hooked into it. Before long, it'll get bigger. Things are changing. Technology is growing exponentially. Our father would've LOVED to be alive in this day and age, I think. And I think, because of that, because of that alone, the Internet, our daughter is going to need to grow up right along with it. She won't be able to hide from it and neither will we. The System we have in place to protect us is going to have to change, too. And we need to be ready for that."

I lay there, my mother snuggled up beside me in our bed, and mulled it over. She is not a foolish woman and never has been. I think, if I'd never come along, if she'd never had sex with her father, if her mother had never died, she might've grown into one of the most powerful women in the country. She was shrewd and objective about everything. As a mother, that made her an outstanding ally. As a businesswoman, that would've made her dangerous. So, after a moment of consideration, I found myself agreeing without especially liking it.

"You, more than I, will have to do the most changing," she said abruptly.

"What? Why?"

She grew quiet again, but not as long as before, until she answered. "Because I'm not going to live forever. I'm in my late thirties now, Conrad. Even now, just a few weeks after giving birth to Amity, I'm starting to feel my insides changing. I fear that she will be our only child, that I'll start going through menopause soon. When that happens, I won't be able to have any more children and..." My mother heaved a great sigh. "I'm going to be too old, son. Hell, I'm ALREADY too old. I'm... the world I saw is not the world I know anymore. I see glimpses of it in the movies we see on TV, in the new books I read. I guess I've always sort of known that it was changing, but it didn't really hit me how much until I saw it with my own two eyes. Everything's being computerized now. I barely even know what a computer IS." She let out a small chuckle. "You know what a computer was when our father was a kid?"

"No, what?"

"A Chinese man, sitting in the back of a room with an abacus and a notepad." She let out another giggle but managed to squelch it into a snort. "Oh, don't look at me like that! I WASN'T being racist. Back when he was a child, that's literally what they called a computer- someone who COMPUTED arithmetic. Accounting, inventories and what-have-you. Not always a Chinaman, mind you, but usually so. Hmm. Maybe that WAS a bit racist. As may be, it was a hallmark of his time, when he was younger. When I was a child, a computer was a fictitious device in sci-fi novels and Batman episodes. The smallest computers we had when I was a kid were as big as a sofa and only a few dozen people in the country knew how they worked and not many more than that actually USED them. But now? Now it's this little box of plastic and metal that makes a typewriter look like an abacus. The technology I grew up with and understand is provincial by comparison. I... WE have been so secluded from the world for so long that we can't possibly catch up to it. Well, I can't, anyway. You're young enough that you might be able to."

"I know what a computer is, Mother," I said drily.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Perhaps. But I don't think you know yet what they can do. You've read a lot of science fiction here over the years. The same stuff I read. Asimov, Heinlein, Bova, Robinson, Gibson... those gentlemen had glimpses into the future and I think we're about to see a lot of their dreams become reality. Maybe not space ships and robots and Star Wars, but certainly a large world made smaller by computers. You're a smart man, son. If you want to do our daughter any favors in the coming years, you'll learn as much about them as you can. BEFORE I die."

That alarmed me. "What? Mother! Don't say things like that!"

She put a calming hand on my chest and locked eyes with me. "Conrad... son... listen to me carefully: SOME day I WILL die. It's a fact of life. And, God help me, it'll happen sooner rather than later. There is every good likelihood that you will be left holding the bag where Amity is concerned. We will ALWAYS have money with which we can live comfortably. That will never go away and you know it. But if you're going to raise our daughter responsibly-"

"I'm not," I interjected and leaned up a bit in alarm. "Not alone. I couldn't, not without you."

"You can and you will," she said sternly. "In due course I will get too old to keep up. By the time she's your age now, I'll be in my fifties. I'll be an old fossil by then, son. And I'm going to have to rely on you to chase after her, to make sure she's okay, to keep her safe. You're her father and you're going to keep that busy, dangerous world at bay when she's ready to jump into it head first. And she will. I know she will, because I'm her mother and even though she's a harmless, witless bundle of cute and dirty diapers right now, she's going to be a handful when she's older."

"Not if I can help it," I rejoined sourly.

"Son, you CAN'T help it. Or, rather, you're GOING to help it. You're going to help her, when I can't."

"But-"

She placed a silencing finger on my lips and then kissed me. Hard. When our lips parted, she said, "Do as I say, son. Promise me."

I wanted so much to say no, to absolutely refute the idea that she'd ever leave me, to rail against the notion that I would have to raise our daughter alone. She was my mother, dammit, and I couldn't imagine my life without her. She was the woman I loved. She was my wife. She was everything to me. And yet there I was, almost 19 years old, having to struggle with realities that I couldn't possibly be ready for. I looked into her eyes, ready to argue, but I saw in her gaze something that stopped me cold: fear. She was just as afraid as I was. She was terrified. And she was looking to me, her son and the father of her only daughter, to be the rock that she'd always been for me. She was looking to me for strength and resolve. She needed it.

I blinked and said, "Yes, Mother. I promise."

A week later we had a computer in the house and a modem line installed.

Amity was incredible. There's no other word for it. As my mother had prophesied, Amity grew up WITH the technology that was taking the world by storm. She played the games, used the computer, studied programming- she ate it all up almost as fast as I could. Almost.

I converted my workout area, the old building that my father had used as a lab before he died, into a technologically thriving office. It was constantly changing as the technology advanced, and I did yeoman's work to keep up with it. I learned how to do web design, coding in various languages, 3D modeling, hacking... everything and anything that had to do with computers, I devoured it wholesale.

Amity, of course, followed right after me. Eventually she had a place of her own in my computer lab and used it almost as much as I did. All of her schooling was done at home, conducted by our mother and myself. If she missed being around other children, she never mentioned it. That isn't to say we didn't give her the opportunity to explore her social potential, as it were, but she simply didn't seem interested. All she wanted to do was explore the digital age that she'd been born into. On the few occasions when she'd interact with children her own age, she found them to be ploddingly stupid and mundane. They'd talk about some band or movie that just came out; she'd talk about the new Pentium processor. Clearly, our daughter spoke a different language from her peers. So, rather than beat her head against the wall with the communication barriers, she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with "idiots." Online, through the use of UseNet and online communities, she found a wide variety of human interaction- all of which she could choose from at will instead of having to make do with what Life threw at her.

She never made light of the fact that her mother knew just as little, perhaps less, as her peers did about technology. And that was absolutely true. But our mother was far from an idiot. She knew about history, science, law, practical home matters, finance... for whatever she might have lacked in regards to technical knowledge, our mother was a walking Encyclopedia about everything else. And, yes, she did learn SOME things about computers. She certainly showed a surprising aptitude for using them, if not completely understanding how they worked.

So it was just us three. We were our world, our own microcosm of Humanity. Amity, whose name meant "peace," enjoyed a blissful upbringing filled with limitless knowledge and encouragement. She loved to learn and she had a mind perfectly geared for it. By the time she was 12, our daughter was easily smarter than your average third-year college student. And, miraculously, she was every bit as emotionally stable as any full-grown adult, too. Possibly more so, if I'm going to be honest. When her hormones started to hit, she realized it and took it in stride. She was fully and completely self-aware to the point of it being almost spooky. The lack of contact with her peers didn't seem to affect her adversely in the slightest. As part of her home-schooling agreement with the state, she had to undergo regular checkups with a state-approved psychologist. The general consensus from the shrink was that Amity was easily the most well-adjusted, grounded, insightful, intelligent young woman she'd ever met and could find no fault with her mental faculties whatsoever. Believe me, she looked.

As the technology of the world grew, so did The System change, also as my mother had predicted. Everything eventually went online for us. In some ways, it became easier and more fluid. There was still a learning curve, however, and it took some adjusting for both mother and myself, but Amity accepted it with barely a second thought. To her it was a boon and a blessing and she knew how to use it better than we did. By the time she was 13, she was almost independently running everything for the house. For her it wasn't a chore; it was something that she actively wanted to do. Who am I kidding? Once she learned about the existence of The System, she flat-out demanded that she be able to use it.

And that was amazingly easy to explain to her, by the way. The System. All of the lessons I'd learned from my father about how to protect our family from the outside world, Amity accepted with equanimity. For her, it was simply a foregone conclusion and explained perfectly how our world worked. And when she pointedly asked WHY such a thing was put into place for us, we told her the stark truth. We told her everything. She didn't bat an eye, mostly because she confessed to already suspecting as much. We'd never really been all that discreet about our relationship around her when she was growing up, so I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised when she took our confession in stride. She even took joking about it in subtle ways, like calling her mother "Gran-Mommy," which at first annoyed mother to no end but eventually she took to liking it.

Mother, for her part, aged gracefully. She developed a few wrinkles here and there, acquired a few gray hairs as the years went on, but her figure and beauty were as vital as ever. For a woman in her forties, she could easily have passed for 25 if she really wanted to. But she wasn't vain. She ate well, exercised regularly, kept busy around the house and generally doted on me and our daughter with boundless energy. I never forgot that conversation we'd had when Amity was still only an infant, about her worries of not being able to keep up as she got older, but the truth of the matter was that Mother, if anything, seemed to grow younger. We made love almost every night and never tired of each other. We tried every sexual position we could think of and some we learned about from the Internet. When Amity was very, very young we often got interrupted by a sniffling little girl who wanted to be close to her parents- and we never turned her away. Eventually, Amity grew out of that needful stage but as she got older, after we explained everything to her, she never tried to pretend that she didn't know what we were up to in our bedroom. On rare occasions she would jokingly complain that we'd woken her up in the middle of the night, but that was it. She never seemed bothered by our relationship in any way, even though she had long-since learned that the rest of Society frowned upon such couplings. If anything, she encouraged us in her own, quiet manner. She gave us room to love and be. Like I said, our daughter was an exceptional girl.

We never did have a marriage ceremony- who would've attended?- so we were married only on paper, but Mother was positively my wife in every way. Yes, menopause overtook her and made her infertile, but we never lacked for enjoyment when it came to our sex life, which was rich and plentiful. Making love to my mother was as powerful, exciting and pleasurable as it had been on our first encounter, most especially now that Amity had made it clear that she wasn't bothered by it.

We were perfectly happy. Until we weren't.

Understand that this stage of our life was a nightmare that I couldn't have endured alone. If not for Amity, our beautiful daughter, I think it's very likely that I would've committed suicide when Mother died. It was an accident of nature, something that no one could have predicted or prevented, and I have been assured by the doctors that Mother's death was both painless and instantaneous, which is a blessing for her. She deserved that at the very least. I can't imagine having to endure the agony of cancer that her mother had gone through, not for her, not for me, certainly not for Amity.

The simple story of it is that, while walking along the wood line that ran beside our house, a tree that had been there for many years fell on her. It had been struck by lightning in a storm a few weeks before, which damaged it horribly. The tree was most likely killed by the lightning strike, but we had no real way of knowing. It had been torn and mangled by the strike, but seemed to be still rooted to its spot. Mother had been enjoying a bright, sunny spring day with a simple walk on our property. There was a light breeze in the air and the trees were swaying gently as she strolled by. Amity, who was 15 at that time, and I were locked away in our computer lab, working on a custom operating system that we'd both dreamed up. We were blissfully unaware of the world outside of our hut.

Until we heard the massive, ground-shaking thud of the tree as it fell.

We both went outside to investigate, immediately saw the tree and went to it. We were still some thirty yards away before we saw the lower half of our mother's body protruding from the fallen oak tree, her top half entirely covered by the dead monstrosity.

It was a closed-casket funeral, attended by only a handful of mournful family members whom I barely knew but were kind enough to keep up the charade that she was my wife and not actually my mother, even though they all knew the truth. Our family's masquerade with Society had to be maintained, after all. I have no idea who was related to who or how, but I did notice this: Amity was the only child present.

Suddenly I was 34, alone with a 17-year-old daughter, and I was completely and utterly lost. Amity, though, was a beacon during my months-long, painful night of suffering.

Time passed slowly after Mother Rose had died and although I missed her terribly every day, I had eventually learned how to live without her. Amity had helped through that process by stoically taking care of the house while I struggled through the stupor of grief. That whole time, which lasted a good 5 months, I felt like I was living under water, my thoughts were sluggish and it always felt difficult to breathe in a weird way. Not physically breathe, of course, but mentally and emotionally. I didn't laugh, didn't work in the lab, didn't do much of anything except wallow in my own self-pity and despair. One day, though, I just snapped out it. The pain and grief were still there, but some sort of switch in my head had suddenly been flipped and I rejoined my daughter in the Land of the Living. It was slow-going at first and Amity never pushed. She simply did her best to accentuate the positive and cherish any time we spent together. When I needed time alone, she gave it to me and when I needed to be around her, she celebrated in it.

It wasn't long after I'd come out of my fugue that I realized Amity had to have gone through her own measure of it. She never showed it to me. Certainly, after our mother had died, she was as grief-stricken as I, but she somehow managed to bounce back from it and picked up where her mother had left off- tidying up the house, cooking, cleaning and all of the other household chores that Mother attended to with seeming effortlessness. I'd had my head buried up my own backside for so long that I didn't even notice it. Until I did. And then I deeply apologized, which she accepted with grace and explained that it wasn't necessary.