The Settlers (15 page)

It didn't work, though.
I searched and searched through the application, looking for other people who were using it, but there was nobody.
I thought it was broken.
I was paging through the directory, looking for other users, but everybody in the system was inactive.
 

Except for one person.
 

Their username was Icarus.
 

In this application, you could select a person to write to, and they would become your pen pal forever.
You could never unchoose a person, and you could never choose another person.
You became inextricably linked through my father's limited vision of how people would be connected.
 

There was nobody else to select, so I chose Icarus.
 

Did you write to Icarus?
Gretchen asks.

I did, Emil says.

Did he write back?
 

He didn't.

That's too bad, Gretchen says.

But
she
did.

I had written a letter that was too personal for any pen pal.
I think I had assumed that Icarus, whoever he was, would certainly not be actively participating in this lonely world my father had created.
So while I began writing to Icarus, I found myself writing to my father instead.
I wrote to him about all of the things that had transpired since the morning he died.
I told him about my foster families, about school, about how I was just like him these days, how I couldn't sleep.
 

I sent the letter without thinking much about it, and then I skipped dinner with my foster family and just went to bed.
 

I forgot all about the letter, but I had rediscovered my father's old tablet computer, and I started to carry it with me everywhere.
I did homework on it.
I read books.
I even slept with it under my pillow.
It was all that was left of him, and it was precious to me.
 

Weeks must have passed before I got a letter from Icarus.
By then, I'd completely forgotten writing the letter, and it all came back in a rush.
I was embarrassed.
What would this boy think of me?
I'd spilled my guts to a stranger, but pretended that I was writing to my dad.
 

I was afraid to open the letter, but I did.

Dear Emil,

I was very pleased to receive your letter.
I didn't think there were any other pen pals left in the world.
Your letter arrived during a very trying week for me, so it was very nice to feel that there was something special for me.
Someone chose to write me!
Someone was interested in me!

As I read your letter I realized that my terrible week was not so terrible.
I am so sorry about your father.
(I think maybe you were writing to me by mistake.
It didn't seem like you were that interested in who you were writing, just that writing what you had to write was very important.
That's a big logical leap for me to make, so I'm sorry if I'm wrong!)

In any case, I hope we can still be pen pals anyway.
I'd like very much to know that you are okay and feeling better, and that there are some happy things in your life despite all of the things that make you sad.
 

Some happy things we can talk about:

What is your middle name?
 

What color are your eyes?

Do you have a pet?
 

Have you ever seen a shooting star?
 

Do you like clowns?
(They scare me.)

Please, please write back!

Your new friend,
 

Isona

Isona, Gretchen whispers.
Pretty.

Her name was Isona Carus, Emil says.
I.
Carus.
Icarus.
I had just assumed.
 

Gretchen nods.
Did you write her?
 

I did, for many, many years.
 

That's lovely.
Did you meet?
 

We did more than that, Emil says.

Isona and I once counted how many letters we had written to each other.
Altogether there were two thousand or so.
When we started, I was thirteen years old, and she was sixteen.
I lived in Butte, Montana, and she lived in Veria, Greece.
I was a foster child, and she worked for her uncle in a cotton mill.
Her world seemed far more real than my own.
She seemed older, more experienced.
I was just an immigrant child owned by the government, rented out to strange families who wanted to feel good about themselves.
 

But we wrote and wrote.
She wrote to me about college, and I wrote about high school and my first after-school job, shelving books at a public library.
She wrote about picking cotton seeds out of her clothing each night, and I told her about moving into a new foster home and sleeping in an unfamiliar bed.
 

We didn't meet until Isona was twenty-eight, and I was twenty-five.
She was a college graduate, and had moved to Athens.
She was a research assistant at a university, and I was starting medical school very late.
She had encouraged me to do that.
It was Isona who made me feel vital, like more than an orphan.
 

She came to America on a work project with a team of professors.
They were going to be in Boston for three days, meeting with academics from all over the world.
She told me she wished Boston was close to Montana.
 

I made it close.
 

I borrowed my friend's van -- I didn't have a car of my own -- and drove for forty hours, sleeping as little as I could.
I spent most of my money paying highway tolls.
When I got to Boston, I hadn't showered, I was exhausted, and I couldn't find Isona fast enough.
I sat in the parking lot of the hotel she was staying in, and waited behind the wheel for her to walk out.
She didn't answer my calls.
I sent her text messages that she didn't answer.

In those days, it wasn't unusual to find out that someone you'd met online was not who they said they were.
I'd been talking to Isona for twelve years -- half my life -- and I had never wondered if she was real.
But sitting there in that van, I had the darkest thoughts.
A beautiful teenage girl who lives in Greece?
Who picks cotton and is studying archaeology?
 

Come on.
She wasn't real.
I'd fooled myself.
She had sent photos over the years, but she'd probably stolen them from the Internet.
 

I fell asleep, a bundle of nerves.
And I slept for eleven hours right there in the front seat of my friend's van.
 

And when I woke up --

Gretchen's head slides down Emil's chest.
 

-- she was there, he finishes.
 

He lifts Gretchen's head.
Her eyes are closed, her mouth slightly open.
 

He kisses her forehead, then lowers her to the glass floor.
He brushes the snow-white hair away from her eyes.
He carefully extends her arms and legs, and tugs her gown to her knees.
Below her, the dark side of the Earth has become light again, and the oceans seem a little brighter.
 

He presses a thumb to his wrist.
 

Nurse Allen answers.
Yes, sir?