As he stood at the kitchen, fixing a steak for dinner, he thought of the anxiety on Nora’s face when he got back. It warmed his processors. He chuckled to himself.She caredwhere I was.He replayed her reaction again.She really cared.Her expression tugged at his senses as he wiped the counters.I’ll tell her about the drone, and Mars, a bit later tonight, once we all slow down and can focus better.
Tilly brought her chalkboard next to him and was drawing a picture of Nora, her hair a long scribble. She held it up for him to see. “Does it look like Mama?”
Simon suppressed a chuckle, forcing a serious expression on his face. “Exactly. I like how big you made the eyes.”
“Yeah. They’re great.” Tilly traced the large circles again. Then she drew even more hair in wild directions, pushing down hard on the chalk.
He tapped on it with one finger once she sat up again. “Perfect. Looks just like her.”
Tilly ran outside to show Nora a second later. Simon watched her go before chuckling. The picture was crazily drawn, but the important part was that Nora had a smile underneath the scribble of hair.
Despite the revelations of the night before with the drone, his spirits were high. He felt good today. Very good. No longer was Nora showing him her life—he wasparticipatingin their life. It was a distinct difference he relished.
Almost as much as he relished feeling her reactions to him continuing, even stronger now that she was no longer sick. He leaned into the feeling, the yearning that he had come to enjoy. The fact that he knew Nora was reacting to him that way filled him with a satisfaction he had never felt before.
And what am I going to do there? Simon put a bit of cooking oil in the frying pan. It was a strange turn of events that he was even considering holding, considering loving Nora.That I would even want . . .He closed his eyes.Do I?
That image of his hated mistress came into his mind. His body stiffened.That woman will not keep me from Nora. She will not haunt me in death.If anything, he would overwrite those memories. He flipped the steak over in the skillet.I’ll make my intentions to Nora clearer soon.The thought that perhaps he had misread her interest in return made him nervous, on top of being nervous for a whole other host of reasons that he could not quite measure or calculate. But he was not scared of Nora. He began washing the pan in a tub of filtered water, a smile coming over his features.No. I’m not at all scared of her.
It was with soft eyes that he watched Nora walk in and out, carrying an armful of laundry as she went. She shook her head at him over the dirty towels. “I told Tilly to draw you next.”
Simon’s gaze lingered on her as Nora walked back outside without waiting for an answer. He paused in his cooking a minute with the kitchen to himself before Tilly came back in, a picture of him on the chalkboard. It was almost identical to Nora’s except he only had a small scribble of hair on the top. “You like it?”
Simon snorted. “Yes, Tilly.”
Tilly beamed and then erased it before drawing the cat, humming the tunes Simon had taught her the day before.
And Simon went through his memory banks, reorganizing them in order of priority and his own personal feelings, while he watched.
Chapter thirty-one
Nora
Nora laid out the magazines on the table, determined to go through them. The plan was to go to town the next morning before the atmosphere sweep happened tomorrow evening.
Her stomach was full. Overstuffed, even, from Simon’s cooking. He had made a meat dish for dinner, meat with onions that he caramelized and sweetened somehow by cooking them slowly. It made her feel a bit sluggish to have eaten so much. But he stood over them so pleased with himself that she ate every bite.
Tilly sat as well, watching Nora turn the ancient magazine pages, but kept her hands in her lap to stop the temptation to touch and accidentally rip the delicate paper.
“You see that, Tilly?” Nora asked in a hushed tone. She pointed to the pictures of a forest.
“Those are big trees. Like it shows on the Mars board.” Tilly gripped her doll harder in her lap.
“Yep, sure are.” Nora looked up to note that Simon hung back, observing from across the table, detachment in his gaze.Doesn’t seem like he is as interested in these as we are.She turned another page.Probably brings back bad memories.Can’t imagine what he thinks seeing this compared to how things are now.Her hand hesitated, not wanting to cause him pain but . . .I still want to look.To her, the pictures were like magic, as made up as Tilly’s stories. But then again, she had no personal attachment to the photos.
Nora was amazed, not only by the pictures of the androids and humans, but of the conveniences the magazine talked about. Airplanes she had read about before, but there was an article where people traveled in them solely for fun. And the pictures were beautiful. She tapped right underneath a pale, not hazy, blue sky.It’s unreal.Simon had turned away and Nora didn’t call him back, wondering at the photos alone.Absolutely unreal.
After a few minutes of watching, Tilly grew restless and ran outside while Nora kept turning the pages and slowly reading, asking every now and then for Simon to help with an unfamiliar word, spelling it out loud so he didn’t have to come look at the magazine while he answered. She kept flipping the pages, entranced, but glanced up when Simon cleared his throat to speak.Does he really need to clear his throat or is that a mannerism?Either way, he had her eyes on him, waiting.
His tone was hesitant. “The drone from Mars. I spoke with it while you slept last night.”
Nora’s hand stilled as she was turning the ancient, weathered pages. Her mind went static. “Spoke with that drone? It can talk?”
“Yes. I was able to connect with the ones . . . they wanted to connect with me. The drone and the ones operating it recognized me as an android.”
She froze, a flash of fear racing down her spine. “From Mars? Are they mad? Oh no.”
Simon came and sat next to her, pulling one of the kitchen chairs close. He pushed the magazine aside and put his hand over hers, warm and comforting. “No, Nora. It’s okay. They’re androids.”
