Ping! Susan’s eyes fluttered open. Ping-ping!
Her eyes roved the small room and landed on a rotating, 3-D image of a human brain on the right-side wall. With each ping, little bursts of light flashed inside the brain folds. The number eighty-four blinked in the upper left corner next to “% Reinstated Connections.”
She spied the date, bolted upright, and shouted. “2037? What the hell?”
Two men just outside the door rushed to her bedside. The younger one knelt beside her and patted her shoulder. “Calm down, Mom. It’s me, Brandon. It is 2037. I’m thirty-nine now.”
Susan clasped her hands around the young man’s chin and searched his face. OMG, she thought, it’s him. Same blue-green eyes. Same crooked smile. “I’ve missed you, honey. Where have you been? Why have you been gone so long.”
“I didn’t go anywhere, Mom. But you did. You were diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s sixteen years ago.” His eyes glistened. “The last time you recognized me was 2023.”
“Where am I?”
“Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.”
She glanced at the 3-D image on the wall. “Is that my brain?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve done something to my brain and now I don’t have Alzheimer’s?”
“That’s the hope.” He gestured to the other man dressed in medical scrubs. “This is Dr. Patel, your neurosurgeon. He’ll explain.”
“Welcome back, Susan.” The doctor smiled, pulled a short wand from his chest pocket, circled it around her head and across her core, then checked the numbers on the display. “Your vitals look good. How do you feel?”
“Like I had my best night’s sleep ever.”
“Excellent. Four days ago, we injected microscopic bots into your brain that repair damaged memory connections and dissolve when their work is done.” He pointed to “Reinstated Connections” on her rotating brain. “Your progress is outstanding. By day’s-end, ninety percent of your pre-Alzheimer’s memory will be restored. Can I ask you a few questions?”
She nodded. He quizzed her about her pre-Alzheimer’s life, and she answered every question without hesitation. He ended by asking what her occupation was.
“I wanted to be an artist. Wound up as an economist. I taught here at Columbia University, until . . . ” Painful memories surfaced. Whispers among colleagues when she asked the same questions over and over. Odd expressions on students’ faces when she lost her way in lectures. The bewildered look in her husband’s eyes when he found her handbag in the microwave.
Dr. Patel touched her shoulder gently. “Those days are gone. You passed the memory test with flying colors. I’m optimistic you’ll have a full recovery.”
Susan jumped out of bed, wobbled, then caught her balance. “Can I go home now?”
The doctor flexed his hand. “Not so fast. Look in the mirror.”
What she saw – a skinny older woman with a bald head full of wireless electrodes – made her flinch. “Ugh! I look like a lab rat.”
“We need a few more days to be sure you’re 100 percent, mentally and physically.”
She groaned and crawled back into bed. “Speaking of home, Brandon, where’s your dad?”
“Long story, Mom.”
Her stomach lurched. “Is he dead?”
Dr. Patel politely excused himself and Brandon pulled a chair next to the bed.
“He’s fine, but he moved to California.”
Her head spun. “Why?”
“You were lost to us, Mom. He was depressed. His law partners asked him to open their West Coast office. I urged him to go. He transferred guardianship of you to me, sold the house, and moved to La Jolla.”
She looked down and choked back tears. “He sold our beautiful home in Connecticut?”.
Brandon’s eyes grew watery as he stroked her cheek. “I was hoping you’d live in Jersey with me and my wife, Mira, for a while.” He paused and grinned. “And your two grandkids.”
Susan’s jaw dropped. “You’re married? I have grandkids?”
She threw her arms around him and hugged him hard. They both wiped away tears when they finally parted.
“We named our firstborn Susie, after you. She’s three. Looks just like you. Has your beautiful blue eyes. We named our one-year-old, Ravi, after Mira’s dad.”
She clasped her hands to her chest. “When can I meet them?”
“Soon as the doctor says I can take you home. For now, I have a video.” Brandon pulled a thin glass tile from his shirt pocket.
“What’s that?”
“A holophone. They replaced smartphones in the early twenty-thirties. They take holographic videos like this one.”
A half-foot-high, 3-D video popped from the tile in Brandon’s hand. Susan watched as almond-eyed Mira, baby Ravi on her hip, and little Susie blew kisses saying: “We love you, Grandma!”
A soothing warmth filled her chest. She reached for Brandon’s hand. “I haven’t been this happy since the day you were born.”
Brandon pocketed his phone and kissed her forehead. “I’ve dreamed about this moment for most of my adult life.” He glanced down and sighed. “I have something awkward to tell you, though. Dad lives with a man now. They’ve been together six years.”
She gasped. Gut-wrenching memories of the night she returned home early from a business trip swept through her mind. Brandon was in college so he never knew about it. She looked down and smoothed her bed linens. “Your father had a few affairs after you left for college. He was honest about his . . . urges. We discussed divorce, but then my mind started to go.” She looked up at her son. “Is he happy in his new life?”
“Yes.”
Susan turned her head to the pinging light bursts in her rotating brain for what seemed like a long time. Slowly, a pleasant feeling – like a sunrise – permeated her core. She reached for her son’s hand again and squeezed it. “I just realized this is the first day of my second life. I’m a blank canvas now. I can paint me however I want.”
INSTANT NOODLES 