Redshirts: A Novel Part 36

"She was pushy," Bryan says, smiling. "She didn't mind telling you what she thought, whether you had asked for an opinion or not. I also didn't think she was that attractive, to be entirely honest. She definitely wasn't the sort of woman I thought was my type."

"But you came around," Samantha says.

"I can't explain it," Bryan admits. "Well, that's not true. I can. Jen decided I was a long-term project and invested the time. And then the next thing I knew I was under a chuppah, wondering how the h.e.l.l I had gotten myself there. But by then, it was love. And that's all I can say. Like I said, I can't explain it."

"It sounds wonderful," Samantha says.

"It was," Bryan says. He finishes his wine.

"Do you think that's how it works?" Samantha asks. "That you have just that one person you love?"

"I don't know," Bryan says. "For everyone in world? I don't think so. People look at love all sorts of ways. I think there are some people who can love someone, and then if they die, can love someone else. I was best man to a college friend whose wife died, and then five years later watched him marry someone else. He was crying his eyes out in joy both times. So, no, I don't think that's how it works for everyone. But I think maybe that's how it's going to work for me."

"I'm glad that you had it," Samantha says.

"So am I," Bryan says. "It would have been nice to have it a little longer, is all." He sets down his winegla.s.s, which he had been fiddling with this entire time. "Samantha, I'm sorry," he says. "I've just done that thing where I tell my date how much I love my wife. I don't mean to be a widower in front of you."

"I don't mind," Samantha says. "I get that a lot."

"I can't believe you still have that camera," Margaret says to her husband, once again behind the lens. They are walking through the corridors of the Intrepid. They have just been a.s.signed together to the ship.

"It was a wedding present," her husband says. "From Uncle Will. He'd kill me if I threw it out."

"You don't have to throw it out," Margaret says. "I could arrange an accident."

"I'm appalled at such a suggestion," her husband says.

Margaret stops. "Here we are," she says. "Our married quarters. Where we will spend our blissfully happy married life together on this ship."

"Try saying that without so much sarcasm next time," her husband says.

"Try learning not to snore," Margaret says, and opens the door, then sweeps her hand in a welcoming motion. "After you, Mr. Doc.u.mentary."

Her husband walks through the door and pans around the room, which takes a very short amount of time. "It's larger than our berth on the Viking," he says.

"There are broom closets larger than our berth on the Viking," Margaret points out.

"Yes, but this is almost as large as two broom closets," her husband says.

Margaret closes the door and faces her husband. "When do you need to report to Xen.o.biology?" she asks.

"I should report immediately," her husband says.

"That's not what I asked," Margaret says.

"What do you have in mind?" her husband asks.

"Something you're not going to be able to doc.u.ment," Margaret says.

"Did you want to make a confession?" Father Neil asks.

Samantha giggles despite herself. "I don't think I could confess to you with a straight face," she says.

"This is the problem of coming to a priest you used to date in high school," Father Neil says.

"You weren't a priest then," Samantha notes.

The two of them are sitting in one of the back pews of Saint Finbar's Church.

"Well, if you decide you need confession, you let me know," Neil says. "I promise not to tell. That's actually one of the requirements, in fact."

"I remember," Samantha says.

"So why did you want to see me?" Neil asks. "Not that it isn't nice to see you."

"Is it possible that we have other lives?" Samantha asks.

"What, like reincarnation?" Neil asks. "And are you asking about Catholic doctrine, or something else?"

"I'm not exactly sure how to describe it," Samantha says. "I don't think it's reincarnation exactly." She frowns. "I'm not sure there's any way to describe it that doesn't sound completely ridiculous."

"It's popularly believed theologians had great debates about how many angels could dance on a head of a pin," Neil says. "I don't think your question could be any more ridiculous."

"Did they ever find out how many angels could dance on the head of a pin?" Samantha asks.

"It was never actually seriously considered," Neil says. "It's kind of a myth. And even if it weren't, the answer would be: As many as G.o.d needed to. What's your question, Sam?"

"Imagine there's a woman who is like a fictional character, but she's real," Samantha says, and holds up her hand when she sees Neil about to ask a question. "Don't ask how, I don't know. Just accept that she's the way I've described her. Now suppose that woman is based on someone in our real world-looks the same, sounds the same, from all outward appearances they could be the same person. The first woman wouldn't exist without having the second woman as a model. Are they the same person? Are they the same soul?"

Neil furrows his brow and Samantha is reminded of him at age sixteen and has to suppress a giggle. "The first woman is based on the second woman, but she's not a clone?" he asks. "I mean, they don't take genetic material from one to make the other."

"I don't think so, no," Samantha says.

"But the first woman is definitely made from the second woman in some ineffable way?" Neil asks.

"Yes," Samantha says.

"I'm not going to ask for details of how that gets managed," Neil says. "I'm just going to take it on faith."

"Thank you," Samantha says.

"I can't speak for the entire Catholic Church on this, but my own take on it would be no, they're not," Neil says. "This is a gross oversimplification, but the Church teaches us that those things that have in themselves the potential to become a human being have their own souls. If you were to make a clone of yourself, that clone wouldn't be you, any more than identical twins are one person. Each has its own thoughts and personal experiences and are more than the sum of their genes. They're their own person, and have their own individual souls."

"You think it would be the same for her?" Samantha asks.

Neil looks at Samantha oddly but answers her question. "I'd think so. This other person has her own memories and experiences, yes?" Samantha nods. "If she has her own life, she has her own soul. The relationship you describe is somewhere between a child and an identical sibling-based on someone else but only based, not repeating them exactly."

"What if they're separated in time?" Samantha asks. "Would it be reincarnation then?"

"Not if you're a Catholic," Neil says. "Our doctrine doesn't allow for it. I can't speak to how other faiths would make the ruling. But the way you're describing it, it doesn't seem like reincarnation is strictly necessary anyway. The woman is her own person however you want to define it."

"Okay, good," Samantha says.

"Remember, this is just me talking," Neil says. "If you want an official ruling, I'd have to run it past the pope. That might take a while."

Samantha smiles. "That's all right," she says. "What you're saying makes sense to me. Thank you, Neil."

"You're welcome," Neil says. "Do you mind me asking what's this about?"

"It's complicated," Samantha says.

"Apparently," Neil says. "It sounds like you're researching a science fiction story."

"Something like that, yes," Samantha says.

Sweetheart, Welcome to Cirqueria! I know Collins has you cranking away on a project so I won't see you before we go to the surface for the negotiations. I'm part of the Captain's security detail; he expects things to proceed in boring and uneventful ways. Don't wait up any longer than Collins makes you. I'll see you tomorrow.

Kiss kiss love love, M.

P.S.: Kiss.

P.S.S.: Love.

Samantha buys herself a printer and a couple hundred dollars' worth of ink and prints out letters and photographs from the collection that she was given a month previously. The original projector had disappeared mysteriously as promised, collapsing into a crumbling pile that evaporated over the s.p.a.ce of an hour. Before that happened, Samantha took her little digital camera and took a picture of every doc.u.ment, and video capture of every movie, that she had been given. The digital files remained on the camera card and on her hard drive; she's printing doc.u.ments for a different purpose entirely.

When she's done, she's printed out a ream of paper, each with a letter from or a picture of Margaret Jenkins. It's not Margaret's whole life, but it's a representation of the life that she lived with her husband; a representation of a life lived in love and with love.

Samantha picks up the ream of paper, walks over to the small portable shredder she's purchased and runs each sheet of paper through it, one piece at a time. She takes the shredded papers into her small backyard and places them into a small metal garbage can she has also purchased. She packs the paper down so that is loosely compacted, lights a kitchen match and places it into the trash can, making sure the paper catches. When it does, Samantha places the lid on top of the garbage can, set slightly askew to allow oxygen in while keeping wisps of burning paper from floating away.

The paper burns down to ashes. Samantha opens the lid and pours a bucket of beach sand into the trash can, smothering any remaining embers. Samantha goes back into her house to retrieve a wooden spoon from her kitchen and uses it to stir the sand, mixing it with the ashes. After a few minutes of this, Samantha upends the trash can and carefully pours the mixture of sand and ashes into the bucket. She covers the bucket, places it into her car and drives toward Santa Monica.

h.e.l.lo.

I don't know what to call you. I don't know if you will ever read this or if you will believe it even if you do. But I'm going to write like you will read it and believe it. There's no point in doing it otherwise.

You are the reason that my life has had joy. You didn't know it, and you couldn't have known it. It doesn't mean it's not true. It's true because without you, the woman who was my wife would not have been who she was, and who she was to me. In your world, you played her, as an actress, for what I believe was only a brief amount of time-so brief that it's possible you don't even remember that you played her.

But in that brief time, you gave her life. And where I am, she shared that life with me, and gave me something to live for. When she stopped living, I stopped living too. I stopped living for years.

I want to start living again. I know she would want me to start living again. To do that I need to give her back to you. Here she is.

I wish you could have known her. I wish you could have talked to her, laughed with her and loved her as I did. It's impossible now. But at the very least I can show you what she meant to me, and how she lived with me and shared her life with me.

I don't know you; I will never know you. But I have to believe that a great part of who my wife was comes from you-lives in you even now. My wife is gone, but knowing that you are out there gives me some comfort. I hope that what was good in her, those things I loved in her, live in you too. I hope that in your life you have the love that she had in hers. I have to believe you do, or at the very least that you can.

I could say more, but I believe the best way to explain everything is simply to show you everything. So here it is. Here she is.

My wife's name was Margaret Elizabeth Jenkins. Thank you for giving her to me, for the time I had her. She's yours again.

With love, Adam Jenkins * * *

Samantha Martinez stands ankle deep in the ocean, not too far from the Santa Monica Pier, and sprinkles the remains of Margaret Jenkins' life in the place where she will have one day been on her honeymoon. She does not hurry in the task, taking time between each handful of ash and sand to remember Margaret's words, and her life, and her love, bringing them inside of her and letting them become part of her, whether for the first time or once again.

When she's done, she turns around to walk up the beach and notices a man standing there, watching her. She smiles and walks up to him.

"You were spreading ashes," he says, more of a statement than a question.

"I was," Samantha says.

"Whose were they?" he asks.

"They were my sister's," Samantha says. "In a way."

"In a way?" he asks.

"It's complicated," Samantha explains.

"I'm sorry for your loss," the man says.

"Thank you," Samantha says. "She lived a good life. I'm glad I got to be a part of it."

"This is probably the worst possible thing I could say to you right this moment," the man says, "but I swear you look familiar to me."

"You look familiar to me too," Samantha says.

"I swear to you this isn't a line, but are you an actress?" the man asks.

"I used to be," Samantha says.

"Were you ever on The Chronicles of the Intrepid?" the man asks.

"Once," Samantha says.

"You're not going to believe this," the man says. "I think I played your character's husband."

"I know," Samantha says.

"You remember?" the man asks.