She paused. She wondered if Gregory knew the details of Tri-Tech’s recent troubles. Industry websites had been reporting on the topic for a year, and last week rumors of layoffs had been posted on TechCrunch. Gregory didn’t seem like the type to keep up with industry gossip, though.
Before she could say anything, the waitress came by to ask him for his drink order.
“Coffee,” he said. “Black.”
“And how’s Kathryn?” asked Ada.
Roughly, he ripped off another piece of the bread with his teeth, and chewed it with a sort of aggressiveness, to make it clear perhaps that he could not speak. He looked out the window as he did so.
Ada took a sip of her tea. She wasn’t certain what to say. The silence went on for longer than was comfortable.
“I was hoping to save that for later,” said Gregory. “But what the heck. We’re getting a divorce.”
He shrugged at her, looked at her with wide, defensive eyes.
“I’m sorry,” said Ada.
“Yeah,” said Gregory. “Really knocks the wind out of you.”
She had a vision of him, suddenly, as he had been in middle school: broken, scurrying from place to place, avoiding anyone’s eye. These days he stood up straighter, looked intently at anyone speaking to him. He might even be called handsome, in a way that was subtle enough to present itself slowly, over the course of a long conversation. It was funny, she thought, what adulthood did to a person; William had grown into something nearly unrecognizable, his only attractive quality the unshakable confidence that he had acquired as a child. Gregory, on the other hand, had grown interesting to look at. He had fine dark eyebrows that he raised, one at a time, to emphasize a point. Thanks to years of braces he had excellent teeth, straight and white, and as an adult he smiled frequently. Ada imagined that new acquaintances of his suspected nothing of the trauma he had endured at school when he was a child. But his voice had retained a hint of it: there was a slight, almost imperceptible quaver to his speech, and he still occasionally stammered. Ada heard both qualities, now, as he spoke.
The waitress returned, delivered his coffee; and then, perhaps sensing the gravity of the moment, departed swiftly once again.
“She’s keeping the house, too,” said Gregory.
“No,” said Ada.
“Yup,” said Gregory. “Mom’s house. I’ve got half my stuff in my car already. Mostly old gear and cables and stuff, antiques.”
“Where are you moving?”
“Some new apartment building in Cambridge,” he said. “With a bunch of college kids. Can you believe it?”
“When do you have to leave?” Ada asked.
He shrugged again, ripped off more bread. He was clutching the crust of it in his hand too firmly. It was disintegrating in his grip. “Soon as possible,” he said. “I’m already paying rent at the new place. We’ve been separated for a year already, and she’s at her new boyfriend’s now most of the time, anyway. They’ll probably move into the house together as soon as I’m gone.”
They sat in silence, briefly, until at last the waitress returned to take their order.
“Two scrambled eggs,” said Gregory.
“Nothing, thanks,” said Ada.
Ada sipped her tea. She pictured Liston’s house and David’s house, too, sitting a few lots apart on Shawmut Way. Soon she would know nobody who lived there, and the thought made her feel hollow. For as little as she saw Gregory, she still took comfort in the thought of him living on their old street, bearing inside him the story of his mother, of David, of Ada. It connected her, in some intangible way, to her past.
He stared down at the table. He looked incredibly forlorn.
“Tri-Tech’s failing,” she said, abruptly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they folded in a year.” It was true, and it seemed right to tell him. A fair trade, a secret for a secret.
“On top of that,” she continued, “I think they might be edging me out. I was supposed to be leading a meeting right now that I was disinvited to this morning.” It was almost funny, as she told it to Gregory: it was a relief to say it. She felt the deep absurdity of it welling up inside her, softening its edges, lessening the blow of having wasted most of her professional life to date on a company that was fundamentally unsound, subject to the ignoble whims of an egomaniacal leader. She was working for an outfit that prized money over ideas. David, she knew, would have predicted a different future for her: and this was the thought that needled her, that pierced her sometimes unexpectedly as she was driving to work each day. This was the guilty whispering voice that kept her up at night.
“I’m thinking of quitting,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. “I guess we’re both screwed.” And, for the first time, he smiled.
Gregory reached into the inner pocket of his overcoat then, and from it he produced an object. Silently, he offered it to her.
It was the original floppy disk that David had given her twenty-six years ago. It was lost; she had thought that it was lost. That Liston had donated the dictionary in which it had been housed.
“My God,” said Ada, and instinctively she reached for it, as if reaching for her father.
“I found it while I was going through the house,” said Gregory. “Packing to leave.”
“Where was it?” she asked.
“The attic,” he said.
“How did it get up there?” she asked him, and he told her he didn’t know.
It had been many years since she had held a floppy disk. Even longer since she had held this one, the original, which she had years and years ago stashed away for safekeeping, working only from copies after that. This one was a five-and-a-quarter-inch disk—an obscure link between the eight-inch disk and the more famous three-and-a-half-inch disk—that just happened to be the standard format for saving data when David had created it. It was enclosed in an opaque white clamshell case, For Ada scrawled in black permanent marker across it. She opened it. Inside was the disk itself, made of matte black plastic. A sticker with the brand name, Verbatim, was affixed to the upper left corner. The upper right corner was the one with the label. There, too, was David’s familiar handwriting, which felt, as always, like a punch to the gut. It had been so long since she had seen it.
Dear Ada, it said on the label. A puzzle for you. With my love, your father, David Sibelius.
“I put it into an ancient disk drive and opened it,” said Gregory. “But the file was corrupt.”
Ada was distracted. She put a finger up to the inscription.
“So no one’s solved it,” said Gregory.
Ada shook her head. She looked at him. In his face she recognized an old glint of the self-satisfaction that had annoyed her as a child, but now it gave her hope.
“Do you have the encryption memorized?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought you would,” he said. “Here. Write it out.” He fished in his pockets once again, produced a pen, pushed a napkin across the table at her.
She wrote:
DHARSNELXRHQHLTWJFOLKTWDURSZJZCMILWFTALVUHVZRDLDEYIXQ.
Gregory took the receipt back. Studied it. A light moved across his face.
“Do you have any ideas at all?” Gregory asked.