1n1REzE

Peter Watts 118 Blindsight
"Helen, what are you talking about Back from where"
"Just from the places he'd take you." Something like a shiver
passed across her facets. "He was still around back then. He
wasn't so important, he was just an accountant with a karate fetish,
going on about forensics and game theory and astronomy until he
put everyone to sleep."
I tried to imagine it: my father, the chatterbox. "That doesn't
sound like Dad."
"Well of course not. You were too young to remember, but he
was just a little man, then. He still is, really, under all the secret
missions and classified briefings. I've never understood why
people never saw that. But even back then he liked to—well, it
wasn't his fault, I suppose. He had a very difficult childhood, and
he never learned to deal with problems like an adult. He, well, he'd
throw his weight around, I guess you'd say. Of course I didn't
know that before we married. If I had, I—but I made a
commitment. I made a commitment, and I never broke it."
"What, are you saying you were abused" Back from the places
he'd take you. "Are—are you saying I was"
"There are all kinds of abuse, Siri. Words can hurt more than
bullets, sometimes. And child abandonment—"
"He didn't abandon me." He left me with you.
"He abandoned us, Siri. Sometimes for months at a time, and I
—and we never knew if he was coming back And he chose to do
that to us, Siri. He didn't need that job, there were so many other
things he was qualified to do. Things that had been redundant for
years."
I shook my head, incredulous, unable to say it aloud: she hated
him because he hadn't had the good grace to grow unnecessary
"It's not Dad's fault that planetary security is still an essential
service," I said.
She continued as if she hadn't heard. "Now there was a time
when it was unavoidable, when people our age had to work just to
make ends meet. But even back then people wanted to spend time
with their families. Even if they couldn't afford to. To, to choose
to stay working when it isn't even necessary, that's—" She
shattered and reassembled at my shoulder. "Yes, Siri. I believe