Neighbors Part 3

It took me 30 years to complete what she had created. When it was completed I pulled out that aged book and gently opened the pages. The binding was loose from years of being looked at. The photo of us is still glued into the back. The ink from her handwriting was fading and could only be read if I held the book at the right angle under a lamp.

The kitchen table held a box. It was a black hobby box about 18 inches cubed on all sides. A Serial ATA port and a power supply were the only things marring its black surface. It was complete. I went to the last page of the binary and looked at the last sentence.

"Plug it into the PC in my bedroom. Power it up and follow the instructions."

I had seen it before.

I never turned it on. She had rarely used it as a teen. She normally used mine if she needed it. And there were nights I had stood in her room and just looked at the clothes in her closet or pictures she had on the wall.

I never moved anything. It was a shrine, one more probably unhealthy reminder of high-school love.

I gingerly walked through the room, avoiding the furniture as best I could, afraid that touching anything might break whatever magic this project was supposed to perform.

I dodged between her bed and her dresser. I apologized to her bedside lamp when I accidentally hit it. The absurdity of that hit me only after I did it. I was alone in this house. I knew it, deep inside I knew this was one more unhealthy coping mechanism. If this project failed, then and only then, could I convince myself that I had done ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING to bring her back? Only then could I really move on.

I had plans to move on too.

Having no house payment for 30 years had left me with a stockpile of cash. I was flush for retirement. When this didn't work I was going to quit my job, and buy a house in the smallest backwater town in Iowa I could find. And I was going to start over again with a dog and an old truck. I'd do hobby electronics repair and hopefully, the stigma of my life and Marie's disappearance would finally fade.

I took her computer out into the kitchen. I dusted everything off, opened up the case, and blew it clean with duster gas. I set up the individual parts marveling at how cobbled together this whole thing looked. The case was a dull aged yellow that only old-school computer parts could get.

The monitor was something newer, a flat-screen that looked advanced for the time we were together. The mouse and keyboard were a cheap black combination that looked as if it had come from some cheap parts store's own personal in-store brand.

I got everything together.

I found a serial ATA port in the back and unwrapped and plugged in a brand-new cord from my project into the back of the PC.

With everything connected I finally powered up the power strips. I saw the LEDs in the power supply turn green and knew that at this moment, I would get my answer.

I turned on the monitor first and watched the backlight come on. It worked still to my amazement. I reached over to the yellowed power button and pressed it.

The old PC case gave that satisfying click that modern computers lacked. With that click, I heard fans kick on. The hard drive spun up and two beeps happened as the board checked the bios.

It felt like forever.

I know it was probably less than a minute but my life's work to this point was predicated on what happened next.

The pc cycled through options before finally booting to a white screen with a Red and Black logo that looked like two objects chasing each other.

A prompt on the screen calmly blinked "New hardware detected. Initialize and reboot? Y/N"

I pressed y and hit enter.

The screen blinked twice, I heard everything spin down, the board beeped twice and the computer rebooted.

I waited again.

Watching the screen for any kind of change. I racked my memories to see if I remembered this screen at any point in time during my high school years. I couldn't think of once I had actually seen this screen while she was using it.

Finally, the white screen blinked back to life and a new prompt was brought up. "New interface detected. Connection inbound. Accept transfer? Y/N"

I stared at it. I didn't see a wi-fi card when I installed it.

The new box I built had some very interesting coils in it. I had built up 4 sets of Delta-Wye coils inside the contraption that were wired in an odd combination of parallel and series. I just assumed they were some form of an odd signal rectifier.

I pressed y and hit enter again. I had plunged down the rabbit hole of obsession this far. I either had to commit fully or admit my folly. I dove after that rabbit earlier, let's see just how deep I can go. I have nothing to lose here but a little more of my time.

The computer screen blinked twice, a connection prompt showed up on the screen and it just started blinking three dots.

I watched it in silence.

I listened, and I looked at it for what felt like forever. I sat and thought back on all the choices I had made to this point. This was my magnum opus or my biggest delusion.

I sat in the chair, leaned forward, and stared at the screen with my head in my hands. Waiting for something to happen. The dots just kept cycling.

My mind wandered as I watched the screen, letting my brain wander through old memories and the smell of ozone from heated components.

I felt two warm hands on my shoulders disturbing my peace. At first, I dismissed it as a ghost sensation. And then I felt the weight. They were real. I turned around to see her face and I threw myself from the chair.

"What the hell…" I said standing just feet from where I had been previously sitting. The chair hadn't even stopped moving yet. It was still rocking on the floor slightly from being thrown as I jumped out.

"Oh, sweetheart. You got old…" She said and took a step forward with her hand stretched out to my face.

I froze. I knew in that instant what a deer feels like. I saw the hand come towards my face. I felt it up against my cheek. I looked at that face. It wasn't the one from graduation. It was the one from the photo, only slightly older.

"How…." I muttered. I reached my hand out but stopped short. I was debating if I had snapped fully or if, this was real.

She stepped forward and put her cheek in my hand. "You read the book. I had no idea it would take you so long." She was warm, so warm. So much warmer than I remembered.

I looked at her. She was exactly like I remembered. But how? How had she aged so little but me so much? "Why now?"

"I can't explain that right now. Do you still love me?"

"I…" I stammered and paused.

I hadn't loved anything in a very long time. "I loved you.

I mourned you, I grieved for you.

I took all the blame for your death…"

"But I'm not dead, you have me back. If you could do it again, would you? Would you have those years back again?"

I looked at her. "I do still love you but this." I pulled back and motioned to myself. "This is wrong. I've aged and you haven't. Not more than a few years at best. I remember this face. I remember this body. I still have your room. I swore to prove to myself that you were actually really dead. And instead, I have this. I can't breathe, I can't think, and I was resolved to finally give up. And now, here you are. What am I supposed to do…"?

She grimaced. "So you don't want this anymore?"

I reached down and grabbed her hand. It was soft and fresh, just like I remembered. Mine was aged. My hands were rough from years of working with small electronics and the rigors of age.

"I would give everything in the world for none of this to have ever come true. But time doesn't work that way. If it was possible to start over I would but no one would assume you were anything but my daughter. We would get in more trouble if we tried. I do still love you. I know I wouldn't have gone this far if I didn't." I choked back tears.

She reached up and wiped my cheeks. "I love you too. You grew up so handsome. You need a haircut"

I looked at her and laughed.

"I gave up fashion. I'm just an eccentric old nerd now…"

"Just like your dad eh?" She joked with me.

I smiled. "Yeah, just like dad. Do you want to go say hello while you are here?" I hoped she would say yes, so I could prove to them that I wasn't nuts this whole time.

She smiled at me and shook her head. "No, it's better that we don't."

I nodded slowly.

"Okay." Maybe she is just a figment after all…

"If I could start it all over. If we could just have us all over again, would you? I had hoped you would have finished this earlier so I could return but it took so long. You never gave up. I hope this means that in your heart you always dreamt of a life with me."

"I wanted answers. I wanted to see your body or get a postcard from some far-off land. Or just find out that you ghosted me. I always dreamed of us building something together.

Buying that house across town with the crazy white rock front wall and having our own family. We can't do that now. Hell, I feel weird even touching you right now. You look… just like… and it's just what I remember. I think I've finally snapped. I finally broke."

She was making that face that every woman makes when she wants to cry but feels like she must remain strong. That smile curled up on her mouth just slightly. Her eyes started to turn just a little red. She pulled her hair behind her ears and took a deep breath. She took a step back and put a little distance between us.

"If I could make it all over start over. If I could make this all start over. Would you let me? Would you go back and do this all over again? "

"Like a fairy tale?" I muttered as I reached down and grabbed the chair.

"Something like that… Our own happy ending…"

"That never happens in real life."

"It can."

"It won't."

"You don't trust me when I say it can happen?"

"I trusted you when you said you were coming right back."

"And I did come back.

It just took both of us working on it to make it happen."

I sighed. "And how are you going to make this miracle happen?"

"You made it happen.

This will let it happen."

She pointed at the PC. "You finally fixed the connection between us.

We will never glitch again. We can stay connected forever. Or we can live our separate lives."

I looked at the computer.

"That? Really?"

"Can you please just trust me…" She said with the tears finally breaking free of her tense face.

"Please just trust me this one last time. I can do this but I need you to be willing for it to work."

I sighed. "I always trusted you. I always loved you. If this will answer my questions and set things right then do it. You gave me this, I built it, and I want to know why."

"That's all I can get I guess. I love you.

Always remember that." She said between wet sniffles and tears across her face. For a minute I wanted to reach out and hold her. I really wanted to comfort her and feel like a teenager again.

I was just at my limit of suspended disbelief. I had wanted this for ages, it was here now and I couldn't figure out how to deal with the swell of raging emotions. I wanted to yell, scream, kiss and never let her go at once. It was the single most confusing thing ever in my life. It was amazing to me that I could sit here calmly.

I think the calm on my face was a product of just being so damned confused.

She walked over to the computer. She typed in a few things. She scratched at her ear again. That old habit I had forgotten about until now. She occasionally looked over to see if I was watching. I was thinking about old memories of her and having deep internal debates with myself if I had gone absolutely nuts. She kept looking at the screen and then looking at me as she typed.

She hit enter and then walked over to me. She sat down in my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck as she sat across my lap.

I could smell her, and at that moment I could sense how real she was. My heart finally broke free and I started to cry, that damn of emotions broke free as the last of that bottled-up damn in my heart broke free. She cried into my neck as I cried against her head. I hugged her as tight as I could.

She sobbed. "I really do love you. I really am sorry for all of this. I promise I will make it better."

I cried as she spoke to me.

Unable to find the words to express myself, let alone make her feel better. I just rubbed her shoulder and rubbed my wet cheek against her hair. "I love you too. I wish this was all different. I wish this wasn't how this turned out."

"Promise? You really mean that…"

"Yes, I do wish all of this was different…"

We cried there for a very long time.