The Startup Wife(71)

There must be some kind of law against this, I figure. At the very least, it’s an idea ripped off from a TV show. I consult our lawyer, and she does a little digging, and two hours later, she calls to tell me that although it’s a gray area, the thing itself is so new that the law hasn’t really caught up. The people who invented messaging didn’t imagine they’d have to be solving for this particular situation, so we have no legal way of handling it.



* * *



I try to get Cyrus to change his mind. “Is it possible that I’m the only one here who thinks this is a ticking time bomb?”

Cyrus looks at me and I know he’s secretly calling me the girl who cried Marco is insane.

Jules has doubts too, I know he does—he and Gaby and I have gone over it all again and again—but it’s like he is programmed never to disagree with Cyrus out loud.

“I agree, there are risks,” Cyrus says. “I’ve thought about them, and I have to tell you, I believe this is the culmination of everything we dreamed of when we started this company.”

“What, that dead people will speak? What does that make you, the Night King?”

Cyrus lowers his voice to a near whisper. We are in his office, and there is a song playing in the background that I can’t place. “When I think of the number of times I’ve wished I could talk to my mom just one more time, and what that would’ve meant to me, I feel it’s my responsibility to offer this to the WAIs.”

So this is what it’s been about all along. How could I have been so stupid? This whole romance with Marco is about Cyrus and his dead mother and the fact that he still has things he wants to ask her. Questions that had been left unanswered by her death, and goddammit if he isn’t going to raise her from the grave and have her answer them. “This is about your mom.”

“It’s too late for me,” Cyrus says. “But for a lot of people, it could be a lifeline.”

I recognize the song. It’s Mama Cass singing “Dream a Little Dream.”

“I understand that this is important to you, Cyrus, but surely you can see that preventing people from grieving might also be dangerous.” I turn to Jules. “Jules, come on, you can’t let him do this.”

Jules shakes his head. “Technology allows us to stop doing the things we no longer wish to do. Like hailing a taxi on the street or sending faxes. Nobody wants to confront death. And now we don’t have to.”

“I don’t think death is optional.”

“But it could be.”

I want to bang my head against the wall.

“We have a board meeting in two weeks,” Cyrus says. “I hope you’ll agree that presenting a united front is the best approach.”

Cyrus will not change his mind. The young man who lost his mother will not be swayed. He’s going to take it to a vote, and I’m going to have to decide where I live: in peace with my husband or alone with my conscience.



* * *



I take the subway uptown to get some advice from Mira. She and Ahmed started dating in high school, got married young, waited for a long time for Gitanjali, and through it all, I still see them laughing at each other’s jokes.

“Having a kid is like throwing a hand grenade into your marriage. So we are not exactly loved up at the moment. But the small things make a huge difference—last week I actually slept through the night and when I woke up and I was like, ‘Damn, I am so nice when I’m not tired.’?”

I feel guilty. I’ve been so obsessed with my own life that I’ve hardly stepped in to help her. “I’m a shitty sister,” I say. “It’s just… the whole thing is getting away from me.” I tell her about Cyrus and Marco, how I feel like everyone is ganging up against me.

Mira sighs. She slides her hand across the table and squeezes my shoulder. “Do you think Stevie Wonder changed diapers?” she says.

“Why do all your stories involve poo?”

“Because they do. He has nine children. Do you think he changed their diapers? Do you think he stayed up at night and rocked them to sleep? Do you think he walked them to school in the morning and went to the parent-teacher meetings and cleaned out the crusty bottom of their backpacks?”

“No.”

“And would you want him to?”

I can’t pretend anymore that I don’t know what she’s talking about. “No.”

“No. You would want him to write ‘My Cherie Amour.’?”

The world would be a dark place without that song. “Yes.”

“Someone else had to do all of that.”

“You’re telling me that all greatness happens on the backs of other people.”

“Yes, that is what I am telling you.”

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” It’s not news to me, but it’s the first time someone has spelled it out this way, like she’s telling me the story of my own life, which is not just my story but a really, really old story that has been playing out for centuries.

“Let me tell you something,” she says. “Last week Ahmed went to a conference for three days in some small town in Louisiana. There’s a hospital, a Walmart, and a separate gun store even though they also sell guns at the Walmart. That’s it. He shows up and he’s the first brown person they have ever seen. I mean, the mayor of this town has actually banned CNN, so all they watch is Fox News.