Kate’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what to say, Ian. I’m so sorry. It sounds like he was a wonderful person.”
“It’s okay, sweetness,” he said soothingly. “The story ends well, I promise. After my dad died, my mom had to get a job and she was just so angry all the time. She couldn’t stand the sight of me on that computer, so I moved it into my bedroom and the two of us went our separate ways even though we lived under the same roof. I was lucky though, because I had an advisor in high school who’d picked up on the fact that I didn’t have any parental involvement when it came to planning for college. She’s the one I credit for helping me gain admission to MIT, which is not an easy thing to achieve even when you’re a 4.0 student like I was. I’d always shown a strong aptitude for math and science, so she made sure that everything I did from tenth grade on would benefit me during the admission process, whether it was encouraging me to sign up for extracurricular activities or asking my teachers for letters of recommendation. She knew I had no money for college but assured me that MIT had a great financial-aid program and that if I got in, she’d help me with the paperwork. I took every AP class available and several at the local community college so I could start earning credit while I was still in high school. When it came time to write my admissions essay, I made sure it would pull on the heartstrings of every person who read it. I spared no detail about my dad because I’d already figured out that playing upon the sympathies of the admissions board was just another way of identifying their weakness and using it to my advantage. No one was more excited when I got into MIT than my advisor.”
“Do you stay in touch?”
“I send her an e-mail every now and then. I wonder sometimes if she’s ever figured out where the extra money in her bank account comes from.”
“You put money in her bank account?” Kate loved that.
“I can tell by her average balance that she needs it, so a few times a year I make a deposit and make sure it can’t be traced back to me.”
“Your dad would be so proud of who you’ve become and the things you’ve accomplished.”
“I think he would,” Ian said, stroking her hair. “After I graduated and left for college, I never looked back. MIT was a perfect fit for me. It’s where I came alive, Kate. I met other students who were every bit as driven as I was, and it was like being reborn. To everyone else, I was this computer whiz kid from Amarillo who was desperately trying to lose his accent, but I knew I could be anyone I wanted to be. They knew nothing about my history, and I spent my first year of college trying my best to forget where I’d come from. One day I realized I could use my growing skills to go anyplace I wanted. I hung around with other computer science majors, and we spent hours in our dorm rooms trying to one-up each other, competing to see what systems we could hack into. It took me a while to track down the man who’d cheated my dad, but I’m very patient and eventually I found him. Then I made his life a living hell by crippling every single scam website he attempted to launch and corrupting every computer he ever tried to use. Eventually I learned how to steal from people like him.”
“What about your mom? Do you ever talk to her?”
“She’s remarried now. I keep track of her, out of curiosity more than anything. I call and leave a message once or twice a year. She doesn’t call back. I don’t give her money. I would if she asked for it, but she can’t be bothered to learn enough about me to know I have it. So I give it to others, people who are more deserving. It makes me feel good.”
He grew quiet then. Kate shifted her body so she was lying on top of him. She pressed her lips tenderly to his and said, “I think you’re amazing.”