PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 24 Blindsight
I even suppressed my gag reflex long enough to give her a hug.
Jim had his inhaler in hand as we emerged from the darkness. I
hoped, without much hope, that he'd throw it into the garbage
receptacle as we passed through the lobby. But he raised it to his
mouth and took another hit of vassopressin, that he would never be
tempted.
Fidelity in an aerosol. "You don't need that any more," I said.
"Probably not," he agreed.
"It won't work anyway. You can't imprint on someone who isn't
even there, no matter how many hormones you snort. It just—"
Jim said nothing. We passed beneath the muzzles of sentries
panning for infiltrating Realists.
"She's gone," I blurted. "She doesn't care if you find someone
else. She'd be happy if you did." It would let her pretend the
books had been balanced.
"She's my wife," he told me.
"That doesn't mean what it used to. It never did."
He smiled a bit at that. "It's my life, son. I'm comfortable with
it."
"Dad—"
"I don't blame her," he said. "And neither should you."
Easy for him to say. Easy even to accept the hurt she'd inflicted
on him all these years. This cheerful façade here at the end hardly
made up for the endless bitter complaints my father had endured
throughout living memory. Do you think it's easy when you
disappear for months on end? Do you think it's easy always
wondering who you're with and what you're doing and if you're
even alive? Do you think it's easy raising a child like that on your
own?
She'd blamed him for everything, but he bore it gracefully
because he knew it was all a lie. He knew he was only the
pretense. She wasn't leaving because he was AWOL, or unfaithful.
Her departure had nothing to do with him at all. It was me. Helen
had left the world because she couldn't stand to look at the thing
*