"Maybe." Jack passed him the ball. "She looks just like my wife. The spitting image."
"What was she like?"
"My wife?"
Javier shook his head. "Amy. Before."
Jack shrugged and sat against the wall. "The same as she is now, I guess. More innocent, of course." He lifted his hands. "At least, I thought so. And then I watched her eat her grandmother. She just–" he skimmed his palms together with a sharp clap, to indicate speed "–took off like a shot, trying to save her mom. I didn't teach her that. Nobody taught her that. That was all her."
"Yeah," Javier said. "I know how that goes."
Maybe Amy's dad had a point. Javier dribbled the ball a little bit between his hands. What if Portia had only augmented what was already there? Her threats, her strategy, the lengths she was willing to go – maybe they came in the original packaging. Maybe he wasn't afraid of Portia hiding inside of Amy so much as he was of Amy, the real Amy, who she'd always been and who she'd always be.
Jack knocked on the wall behind him. "But I can tell you that what she's doing now is what she loved to do then. She has a mighty big sandbox to play in."
Javier remembered another sandbox, on another night, under another sunflower lamp. It felt like years ago. "You've got that right."
"What was she like after that?"
"Excuse me?"
"I know what happened with the island, Javier. I know she rebuilt herself." Jack tried to smile. "I guess I just want to know what the 1.5 edition was like."
"You mean when she had Portia with her." Javier looked at his hands. "She was scared. And she kept trying to–" The words snagged in his mouth. "She made some pretty dangerous choices. Most of them for me. Us. Me and Xavier." He rubbed the invisible seam in his belly. "She helped me iterate him, you know? I was out of my mind, simulating the worst possibilities, but when she touched me it just…"
"Faded away," Jack said.
Javier nodded. "But then…" He tried harder to say it this time. "It was like she really did have a failsafe after all, only it worked on a delayed reaction timer, or something. She kept trying to k-keep everyone safe from P-Portia, and then, she j-just…" He covered his face with both hands. "Fuck."
Jack said nothing. He didn't touch him, or move closer, or anything like that, for which Javier was profoundly grateful. He just sat there, breathing evenly, and eventually Javier calmed. Just as he was about to apologize, Jack spoke up. "I know you arranged that call between my daughter and me, before she built this place," he said. "I didn't come here to have some sort of man-to-man with you, I just came to say thanks for that. It meant more to me than you can know."
"I did it for her, not you."
Jack smiled. "I know. That's why I like you."
A knock sounded at the door. "Dad?"
"What?" both men asked.
Xavier opened the door a sliver. He grinned. "Dad, close your eyes."
Javier scowled. "The last time, this ended with a dead spider."
Xavier leaned on one foot. "Don't wuss out, Dad. Close your eyes."
Javier rolled his eyes and squeezed them shut. "Eyes are closed."
He felt his son's hands circling his wrists. Xavier tugged on them, opening his arms, then rearranging them, his left a little higher than his right. He had seen a sculpture like this somewhere, had admired the folds of drapery in the stone. Then his son placed something warm and alive in his arms, and his flesh knew its flesh before his eyes even opened. But when they did, Javier saw Matteo and Ricci standing before him, arms across each other's shoulders.
"We got stuck on the name," Ricci said. "Thought that maybe you could help."
Jack leaned over to look at the child. "Is that your grandson?"
Javier did the count: ten fingers, ten toes. The fingers of the child's left hand reached decisively for his index finger and gripped – a firm, strong grip, a grip designed for trees. "Yes," he said. "This is my grandson."
"I want one," Jack said.
"Hold your horses, old man." Amy leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, a smile at the corners of her mouth.
"You knew," Javier said to her. "You must have known."
"I wanted to keep it a surprise," she said. "I hope you like it."
I love it, he wanted to say. I love you.
But she didn't give him the chance. She ducked out of the door, saying something about a new design.
He found her on a tiny new island at the head of them all, a silhouette against the distant lights of the human world that trembled, barely visible, across the waves. Her hand hovered above the beach. She didn't look up, but she made room for him on the beach and broadened the tree behind them so they would have cover from the few errant drops of nightly rain. He sat beside her. As he did, she wiped away her work in the sand.
"He's beautiful," Javier said.