Page 35 of Victorious

They were specters. There in body, but not in spirit.

They knew who they were—at least, who they were to him—and could access their own memories, if and when he told them to. When he asked Iris, for instance, to make his favorite meal, her hands moved with quick efficiency, chopping the vegetables and stirring the chicken in the pan with something akin to muscle memory. When he told Ian to draw a boat, or a plane, or a boy, he obeyed, the result no better or worse than the work tacked to their old fridge.

But gone was the clutter of his son’s makeshift games.

Gone was Iris humming to herself as she cooked, or read, or showered—something he now had to tell both of them to do. Along with sleep, and eat, and stop. They were like wind-up toys that could be made to run for some time by themselves, but eventually they ran out of steam, and needed winding up again.

When Gabriel guided them, they went.

When he gave them a command, they answered it.

They followed instructions without resistance.

But when asked what they wanted—neither one could answer. Their minds went blank. Their faces, too.

“Be the way you were before,” he’d told his wife, hoping to engender some sense of self. But she’d only blinked, as if the command was too broad for her to grasp, so Gabriel had pulled up videos to show her who she’d been.

Iris, singing an improvised ode to her cup of coffee.

Iris, on the rooftop of the advertisement company last New Year’s Eve, eyes dancing with mischief as she sipped champagne.

Iris, cheeks painted with frosting on Ian’s birthday, asking, deadpan, if she had something on her face.

She watched, and proceeded to parrot the expressions, the motions, the voice, but the result was an uncanny imitation, devoid of heart and so unsettling he finally ordered her to stop.

“Just be yourself,” he’d pleaded.

At which point she’d gone flat again.

Blank as paper, waiting to be written on.

The audio bar on the phone went flat as Gabriel trailed off.

He’d spent the last two months trying to revive his family. It was time to accept they weren’t coming back. If he was being honest with himself—and he prided himself on that—he knew, had known. Had held on, less out of hope than thoroughness. A dogged need to understand his subjects, to glean everything he could.

He stopped the recording, and looked up, surprised to find the sun had gone down, taking the warmth of the day with it. He got to his feet, side still aching dully in protest. But the pain, at least, was lessening every day. Gabriel alone seemed to be healing from the accident. Though he, too, of course, was undeniably changed. It wasn’t just the power he’d somehow acquired. The deadening he’d felt since waking up hadn’t given way to feeling. The mask of detachment seemed permanently fixed on his face.

As he shuffled back through the gardens toward the house, he was met by the whisper of music—the same song, playing on a loop—and the steady thud of the basketball hitting the drive.

Despite the lack of light, his young son was still out there, dribbling. Because no one had told him to stop.

Iris, too, stood exactly where she’d been, fingers still resting on the glass.

Behind her, the house was dark.

As if it had never occurred to her to turn on the lights.

“Tell me what you love,” he said, when they lay in bed that night, facing each other like brackets, a foot—and a mile—between them.

The old Iris would have answered “black tea with honey.” Or “dark chocolate.” Or, if she was being serious, “Ian.” But now, all she said was: “You.”

And Gabriel knew she meant it.

Knew that he’d done more than bring her and Ian back to life. He’d bound them in some way. Narrowed the scope and meaning of their world to him. Made them puppets, extensions of his will in a way he would have found fascinating, perhaps even useful, if they’d been strangers, and not his wife and son.

Gabriel looked at Iris now, as if committing her to memory.

He wondered what she felt now. If she felt anything.