The Perfect Wife(61)

“You know that’s not possible,” he says gently. “Physically, I mean. You’re just not built that way.”

“We’ll figure something out. Even if I can’t feel anything myself, it would give me pleasure to give you pleasure. That’s what love is, when it comes right down to it, isn’t it? Wanting the other person to be happy. And I need us to be intimate. To have a physical relationship. Otherwise, how am I even your wife?”

He’s silent a moment. “I’d like that, too, Abbie. Very much.”

“Then let’s—”

“But it would be wrong,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry. I just can’t get around that.”

“But why?” you plead. “Why would it be so terrible to have a sexual relationship with me?”

“Because it would feel as if I were being unfaithful,” he answers quietly. “You see, in my heart of hearts, I know you didn’t die.”





48


You stare at him.

So he’s known all along. About what’s on the iPad. What Abbie did. You take a deep breath to say something—

“I can’t put my finger on it,” he adds. “And I don’t have any proof. I just know you weren’t the sort to leave me and Danny all alone.”

“What, then?” You force yourself to sound casual. “You think I just upped and left?”

He shakes his head. “God, no. Something must have happened during those last few days, when you were at the beach house on your own—something catastrophic. We didn’t communicate much during that time. That was deliberate on my part; I was trying to give you space to work. But what if you were going through some kind of crisis? What if you had a breakdown? I’ve imagined so many different scenarios. Maybe you were abducted. You were—are—a beautiful woman, and I left you there on your own, without any kind of protection. I’ve tortured myself over that. There’s that lawyer who lives down at the beach—Charles Carter. I always got the impression he had a thing for you. What if he’s got you locked up in a basement somewhere? But the police refused to even consider it. They followed the evidence, they said, and there was no sign of a break-in or a struggle that would implicate anyone, let alone Carter. It was sheer laziness on their part. How could they follow the evidence if they never got off their backsides and went looking for any?”

He has no idea, you realize. You feel relieved and sad at the same time. Because you know one day Tim will have to learn the truth about how his wife abandoned him, and this time you think it’ll crush him completely.

“Of course, it didn’t stop me grieving for you,” he adds. “In some ways it made it even harder. I kept seesawing between hope and despair—one day convinced you were dead, the next expecting you to walk through that door as if nothing had happened. I even prepared a little speech, telling you how sorry I was if I’d neglected you, how much I loved and needed you. And when the judge confirmed what we all knew—that my arrest had been a travesty—but the cops still refused to investigate any other possibilities, I realized it was up to me now. That was when I saw the potential of making something that could train itself to become self-aware. To become you.”

“But it hasn’t worked, has it?” you say sadly. “When all’s said and done, I’m no replacement for the woman you loved. You just said so—you still grieve for her, obsess about finding her…”

“I never thought you’d be a replacement for the real Abbie,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. But that wasn’t the reason I created you, not at all.”

“What, then?” you say, confused.

“Do you remember what an algorithm is?”

“Of course.” You could hardly be married to Tim Scott and not know what an algorithm is. “It’s a kind of equation. A formula for working something out.”

“That’s right. Like when you did long multiplication at school. It’s just a tool, really. A process to bring about a certain result.”

“But what does that have to do with me?”

He says calmly, “You see, you’re a kind of algorithm, too. An algorithm to help me find her.”





49


“I don’t get it,” you say, bewildered. “You told me I was a cobot—a companion—”

“I said you were special,” he cuts in. “I just didn’t tell you why.”

“But how can I find her? If the police couldn’t—”

“The police didn’t try. Like I said, I realized it was up to me now. But I didn’t have the right tools.” He gestures at you with both hands. Voilà. “I had to build the right tools. That was the first step. Then I had to let you acclimatize. If I’d told you all this right at the beginning, it would have been way too much for you to handle.”

It still is, you think numbly. “But I still don’t see what makes you think I can succeed in finding her. Given that no one else has.”

Tim begins to pace the width of the kitchen, his face dark with concentration. “You remember we talked about how deep-learning machines may be capable of intuition? How they can see things even their programmers can’t? That’s what I’m hoping for here. That you’ll be able to…walk in her footsteps, as it were. Make the same decisions she’d have made. And then make the leap to working out where she is.”