In the end, I had to go way back to our childhood, when Del’s mom was still alive and Stan hadn’t gone off the rails. And my dad was alive, too. We were five or six, and Mom and Dad took all of us—me, Del, Leo, our friend Nina, plus Kevin and a couple of his friends—to the Wissahickon Gorge. We played in the creek and ran around the trails, then hiked all the way up to the top of what seemed like a mountain back then. Del climbed up on this outcrop and spread out his arms and beat his chest and danced around, grinning like a maniac the whole time. He wouldn’t come down until my parents made the rest of us pretend we were leaving without him. It was the happiest I ever saw him.
It took Rex and me weeks to find that spot again. But searching for it gave us an excuse to go hiking in the woods a couple of times a week. That time was special, too—somber but peaceful. As we wandered the woods, we shared memories of when we were little. And of Del. Later, I would realize it was the process of remembering him that was the real goodbye.
Finally, we found the spot. The years since we’d been there had changed it quite a bit, but we both recognized it immediately.
A week later, we had the ceremony. It was quiet and simple. Mom and Trudy were there, and all our friends came out, even Doc Guzman and Jerry. None of them had gotten to know Del all that well, but I appreciated their presence. Even Kevin came up from school for the weekend. He’d known Del, of course, as a kid, but he was there for me, too, and it meant a lot.
I reached out to Roberta, Ogden, and Zak, the only people I’d really known from CLAD, but none of them showed up. I totally understood, too. They were dealing with their own fallout, processing things their own way. And this wasn’t about Cronos. It was about Del.
I said a few words that I don’t remember now, but I do remember that they felt right. Then I climbed up on the rock and scattered his ashes, and we watched as they slowly drifted away through the trees.
Claudia’s mom and dad hosted the reception afterward, because their house was just across the gorge. It was very sweet, especially since Chris was still recovering—the whole family was still recovering, really. It didn’t last long and soon it was just me and Rex, and Mom, Trudy, and Kevin, along with Claudia, of course. We didn’t stay much beyond that, either. I guess we were still recovering, too.
Two weeks later, the federal government released Dymphna’s body, as well. They had confiscated it to run all sorts of tests, trying to learn all they could from the splices she had given herself. We couldn’t get too mad about the protracted scientific process, because that’s probably what Dymphna would have wanted.
St. Peter’s offered to host the funeral in their brand-new megachurch, but Dymphna had a will, and—in addition to leaving the bulk of her substantial estate to fund E4E and Chimerica, with a bit each for Mom and Trudy and Kevin and me—she left specific instructions for a green funeral.
Her body was placed in a casket of woven bamboo and buried atop a hill in the woods overlooking a lovely creek, not unlike Del’s rock. Trudy wept when she saw the place. Apparently, Grandma and Grandad had taken her and Dymphna and my dad camping there when they were little.
It was in the middle of nowhere, out in the zurbs, but word had gotten around, both about the funeral and about how Dymphna had saved humanity from Wells’s plot. In addition to all of our family and friends, and Dymphna’s comrades from Chimerica—some of whom she’d known for decades—several thousand other chimeras came out to pay their respects. Some of them might have been there for me, too, faces I recognized from Pitman and Omnicare, even people I just knew to say hi to at the coffee shop.
It was a lovely ceremony; sad, but not without moments of joy. Autumn leaves swirled around us as people sang songs and recited poems, all of them chosen by Dymphna. Audrey was the officiant, and afterward, people were invited to come up and say a few words. They did, too—dozens and dozens of them, so many that even at just a minute or two each, it took quite a long time. But it was perfect, especially for me—by the time the last person spoke, I felt like I had gotten to know Dymphna even better. Mom and Trudy and I were overwhelmed. Even Kevin was choked up.
And then it was over.
The crowd dissipated, many leaving without a word to any of us—I guess not wanting to overwhelm us. They paid their respects to Dymphna, and then they faded away.
By the time we spoke to each person waiting to speak to us, everyone else was gone. Jerry hosted the reception at the coffee shop, and he and Ruth and Pell left early to help set up. Trudy went with them. I think she welcomed the excuse to get away.
As Mom and Kevin and Rex and I walked back to the car, a cold breeze kicked up, rustling the leaves. I heard a Lev train race by in the distance, and I realized we weren’t in the middle of nowhere, after all. It occurred to me then that it was almost exactly a year ago that Del had run off to get spliced. I felt an instant of vertigo as I considered how much my life had changed, how much the world had changed, since that day.
Rex had his arm around my shoulder, and he slipped it down around my waist, supporting me. “You okay?” he murmured, not loud enough for anyone else to hear.
I smiled up at him. “Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
Mom drove and Kevin sat up front with her. Rex and I sat in the back. I knew the reception was going to be nice, and I wanted to go—knew I had to go—but I also knew we were all exhausted. I snuggled up next to Rex and he rested his chin on my head.
As we got out of the car a block down from the coffee shop, I could sense that Mom wanted to talk to me. Rex seemed to pick up on it, too, and as we walked along the sidewalk, he paced alongside Kevin, and asked him about college.
As Mom and I lagged behind, she ran her fingertips up and down my back, something she used to do when I was little. “He’s a sweetheart, that Rex,” she said.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “He really is.”
We walked in silence for another few moments, long enough that I was starting to wonder if that was all she wanted to say. Then she stopped, and I did, too. We both turned to look at each other.
“Jimi,” she said. “I don’t know what your plans are going forward, but I just…If you decide you want to get spliced, I just want you to know, I’ll…I’ll support you in that. In whatever. I’ll always love you, no matter what you do.”
She started to cry, and I did, too. It had been an emotional day, but I was touched by the sentiment, and touched by the reality, too.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. Then I smiled. “I’ll keep you posted.”
We hugged and resumed walking.
Frankly, I didn’t know if I would ever get spliced. Sometimes I thought about it, but I didn’t feel compelled, and it seemed like the kind of thing you should only do if you felt strongly about it, not on a whim.
Rex loved me just how I was, and it occurred to me that I did, too—I loved him, but I loved me, too. I teared up again at the thought of it, at the realization that I was happy with who I was. Who I had become. Who I was still becoming.
Up ahead, Rex opened the door to the coffee shop. Kevin walked in, but Rex waited for me with a smile on his face.
Maybe I would get spliced someday, and maybe I wouldn’t. But it was comforting to know that I had a mom who wouldn’t reject me if I did, and that perhaps, in some tiny way, I had helped shape a world that wouldn’t reject me, either.