The Conversation He Lost

"Because you were supposed to be there," Mara said.

Elias waited.

"Not that night. Earlier. We had an argument on the fifteenth, two days before I left. Same kitchen. Same weather, almost. I was holding a cup. You were wearing the coat. I told you about Fallow and you kept asking for documents."

Elias felt the scene approach but not arrive.

"What did you say?"

"A lot of things I regret. A few I don't. I told you they were changing how I remembered Mum. You asked what specifically had changed. I told you that was not the point. You said if I couldn't identify a concrete false memory, we couldn't know whether Fallow caused anything."

"That sounds like me."

"Painfully."

"Did you say the line then?"

"Not exactly. I said if I left, you would probably let Dad tell everyone I'd had a breakdown because it was easier than believing me."

Elias looked at the water. Mara continued. "You got angry. Said I was turning people who loved me into enemies. I said love didn't make you accurate. Then you left for university the next day still angry."

"And on the seventeenth you recorded the video."

"Yes."

"I watched it when?"

"Not in 2011. The police kept the device. You didn't see the full recording until 2018. But the morning I disappeared, you heard Dad describe part of what police found."

Elias turned toward her.

"Dad saw the recording?"

"Not all of it. Police told him I'd left a message saying I wasn't sick and that you weren't there. He told you badly."

A memory flickered.

Gabriel in the hallway. Pale, unshaven. Saying, She left some bloody video. Says she's not crazy. Says you weren't even there. Elias felt his pulse jump.

"I remember that."

"Maybe."

"No, I do."

Mara's expression sharpened. "Careful."

He stopped.

She continued. "You were exhausted. You'd been awake most of the night with police. You already felt guilty about our argument on the fifteenth. Dad's summary, your memory of the earlier kitchen argument, the weather, the coat, the fact I used the same phrase about not being sick. They blended."

"By the police interview I had already told them I was with you on the seventeenth."

"Yes."

"Before Dad told me about the video?"

Mara shook her head. "No. That's one of the timeline mistakes. Dad told you around eight in the morning after police first reviewed the device. Your formal interview was later that afternoon. The transcript time in the copy you had was wrong."

Elias stared at her.

The apparently insignificant document error.

"Wrong by how much?"

"Seven hours. Someone entered 08:40 instead of 15:40 when the transcript was digitized years later. The paper original has the correct time."

The whole origin rearranged itself. There had been no impossible fully formed false memory before evidence existed. There had been an earlier real kitchen argument, an emotionally charged family summary of Mara's recording, exhaustion, guilt and ordinary source confusion. Elias's mind had fused them before Morrow ever touched him.

"So Fallow didn't put the original memory in me."

"No."

"Morrow didn't."

"No."

"I did."

Mara shrugged slightly. "Your brain did. I don't know if assigning blame to an organ helps." Elias laughed under his breath.

"Then in 2018 I discovered it was false."

"Yes."

"And instead of correcting it, I turned it into something stronger."

"Yes."

"Because it hid where you were."

"Partly."

"And because I wanted the goodbye."

Mara looked away.

"That part made me angrier than the privacy argument," she said. "You took my recording and made yourself the person I was talking to."

Elias had no defense.

"I know I consented," he said. "But you didn't."

"No."

"I'm sorry."

Mara rubbed her palms together against the cold. "I know why you did it. That doesn't make it mine."

He nodded.

"The first time we met in 2018," she said, "you asked me to tell you the exact truth of every year. Where I'd lived, who helped me, why I hadn't contacted you. You thought if you could reconstruct the whole sequence, we could start again clean."

"What did you want?"

"Lunch."

Elias looked at her.

Mara smiled sadly. "I hadn't seen my brother in seven years. I wanted lunch. You brought a folder." He covered his face with one hand.

"Please tell me I didn't."

"Tabbed sections."

"Oh God."

"You highlighted things."

"I deserve the slap."

"That came later."

They both laughed, and for a moment the horror of the story loosened enough to reveal two siblings underneath it.

Then Mara grew serious.

"At our second meeting, you didn't bring the folder. You brought noodles from that place near Alder Row I liked. It had closed, so you found another place that made them badly. We argued anyway. But you listened."

Elias wanted that memory with sudden desperation.

"Can you tell me everything?"

Mara looked at him.

He heard himself.

"No," he said before she could answer. "Sorry."

"You can ask."

"But I don't need to turn your account into a replacement memory."

Mara's expression softened.

"We ate terrible noodles," she said. "You apologized without explaining why you were right. That was new. I told you I was using Aster because Mum used to read us those ridiculous space books and you couldn't remember the reference. I enjoyed that more than I should have."

"I still don't remember."

"Good. Something I get to keep."

He smiled.

"After Pember," Elias said, "did you ever want me to recover the memories?"

"Sometimes. Then I remembered why we made the decision. The procedure went further than anyone expected. I was angry about that. But I also built a life in which you weren't checking the edges."

"Were you happy?"

Mara looked toward the sea.

"Sometimes."

It was the most honest answer possible.