The day before her mother closed her eyes forever, Adeline finished the third and final photomosaic quilt. In the sewing room, she held it up for her mother to see.
She smiled and nodded, as if she was seeing something more than the quilt, as if she saw the missing piece in the photos or possibly the sum of them, a life complete. That thought gave Adeline some comfort.
She sat beside her mother for the rest of the evening, listening to classical music. When she left, she looked her in the eye and did what she always wished she could have back then: she said goodbye.
*
In her youth, her mother’s memorial service had gone by like a dream, some surreal happening that didn’t seem real. Now, Adeline drank in every detail. The way the funeral home smelled. The feeling of dampness on the grass in the cemetery. The birds calling out in the quiet afternoon. The weight of her father’s arms around her. Of Nora hugging her, and Constance, and Hiro, and Elliott.
In a way, they were all broken now.
And strangely, they were about to heal the world.
*
In the weeks and months that followed, Elliott withdrew. His replies to personal texts and emails took days, sometimes weeks. He blamed himself for Charlie’s death. There was nothing anyone could say or do to change that.
Sam wasn’t much better.
With the ending of pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions, Constance redoubled her efforts to find those in her past. Perhaps the loss of two people in her life had reminded her of how precious time was.
Hiro slipped deeper into his addiction. Adeline didn’t know if it was because work had virtually ended or because of the loss of his immediate social circle, but he became borderline obsessed. His late-night calls were more frequent. The debts were larger.
Adeline tried to keep him solvent.
She soon found herself with a new challenge—in a different kind of environment: government bureaucracy. Adeline had never really had to sell anything before. She soon learned that the sales process wasn’t something that came naturally to her. As a venture capitalist, she had been literally handing out millions of dollars. Even in competitive funding rounds, there was typically very little arm-twisting, assuming the fund had a good track record （and hers did）。 The closest she had come to selling anyone on something was negotiating valuations and deal terms, but she had to admit, she typically left money on the table （which didn’t matter much in the long run if you were investing in a good company）。
Selling a technology like Absolom to the United States government was a completely new challenge for her. It was complex and frustrating. She felt like a fish out of water. It total, she spent six months spinning her wheels. Perhaps the only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that this had already occurred, so it must be possible.
It turned out, there was an easy way to get the government to do what you wanted （within the bounds of reason）： hiring a lobbying firm.
She did, and the first sale happened soon after.
Absolom was licensed by the United States, and the lobbying firm made sure the announcement was front-page news （and that they were mentioned as representing Absolom Sciences）。 There would need to be testing, but the promise of it shocked the world.
Adeline didn’t need the lobbying firm for the next sales. Governments around the world came to her after the news broke. They wanted Absolom, and they were willing to pay for it.
The initial licensing payments and funding for animal testing brought billions into Absolom Sciences. They moved operations to Absolom City and began testing the machine.
That seemed to help Hiro, but Elliott and Sam remained detached, alive but not truly living. Sam had moved his wife’s grave to Absolom City, and Elliott had done the same for his son, but even that didn’t seem to help them. Adeline’s heart ached every time she saw the two men.
While Constance had been vehemently against using Absolom on prisoners, she surprised Adeline by working night and day to make sure the machine was safe for humans.
Adeline’s once close relationship with Nora faded for reasons she couldn’t quite grasp. Nora was different. Maybe it had been the move from Palo Alto to Absolom City or perhaps she regretted the decision they had made about Absolom, or maybe it was simply the way it was, that the friendship had run its course, that time and distance had taken its toll on their bond.
Adeline had to admit: she was different too. She was now the chair and CEO of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, one that was written about endlessly in the press. She was in the public eye, relentlessly scrutinized.
She had never felt so alone. Even in the past, when she had landed on that grassy patch in the middle of Lomita Mall, she hadn’t felt this isolated. It was a strange kind of isolation. With her wealth and access to power, she could have almost anything she wanted. Yet nothing made her happy.