The Variables Read Free

his prized white sheet with excitement. Josephine made a grab for it, but Huck pulled it way. “No, no. Not yet.”
    “It’s just a stupid school paper, Huck. You’ve put so much into it...like it matters. Like any of this,” she waved her hand, the side of it hit the chair, but she didn’t flinch, “matters.”
    “What makes today different?” he asked her. He folded the paper and held it in his lap.
    His wife looked at him and then hiccupped a lone, reluctant sob. Straightening her back, she tilted her head toward the sky. “Because it’s over.” Then he turned to him, her eyes wet and glistening.
    “In one sense...”
    “In every…single…sense.”
    “Kymberlin believed. She believed in greatness and she had her own ideas! She was going to be a great engineer someday.”
    Josephine laughed. “Oh...to be dead . Everyone remembers you how they wanted you to be.”
    Huck recoiled from the statement. “But—”
    “She was perfect. But she was lost. Amazing. Brilliant. Kind. But flighty. You hold that paper like it’s a key to our daughter...but it was just a fantasy, Huck. She wrote that paper to impress you . You think if our daughter was still alive, she’d want you throwing everything into her hippy-dippy ideas of communal living? Abandoning your business, your friends...because you thought that you could save the world?”
    “We are at war.”
    Josephine brought the glass to her lips and threw back the rest of the wine. Then she took the glass and held it out over the chair and let it drop, the stem cracking and the bowl shattering into tiny pieces.  
    “We will always be at war,” came her reply.
    And Huck ran his fingers over the crease in the paper again and again.
    “Give it to me,” she commanded, and he handed the paper over. She examined it, shaking her head. “It’s kid stuff. Science fiction. There is nothing even remotely possible about building this utopia of hers. You are so blinded by what you wanted her to become. She was a child when she wrote this. A child!”
    “She was still a child!” Huck replied. “Maybe, just maybe, if we listen to children—”
    Josephine raised a finger and cautioned him with one look. Then she stood up and brushed herself off and stepped over the shards of glass with delicate tiptoes.
    “At least say goodnight to Blair before you pass out,” Huck whispered to her back. “At least pretend like you give a damn about her.”
    “I have nothing to give that child,” she replied, and she waltzed to the edge of the building, putting her hand on the protective lattice.
    “You fought for that child,” he snapped. He rose to his feet. “You can’t give her back because she isn’t Kymberlin! You can’t punish her because she wasn’t the clone you hoped for.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he hung his head, his chin resting against his chest. “I’m sorry—” he looked up, but Josephine hadn’t turned. “That was wrong.”
    “You are right,” she said to the wind. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Blair would be better off if she had never have been born.”
    “I didn’t mean that,” he pleaded, practically begging. “We wanted joy...we wanted happiness...peace.”
    She turned and exhaled, the edges of her mouth rising in a snarl. “Go find it.”
    Huck paused. He stepped forward. He felt the glass under his feet. “Jo—”
    She took a step onto the cement wall and brought her legs up under her. She tottered for a second and then kicked the lattice swiftly to the street, where it fell with a distant crash. “You have my blessing to find happiness. Peace.” She balled up the paper he had taken so much time to locate; crushed it in her hand and tossed it out to the night air. Huck watched the paper disappear and he spun to the rooftop door, taking several steps before turning and then taking a step back toward Josephine.
    She stepped up and over the cement barrier and to the ledge below. Then she turned and reached her