Rick Mofina - Free Fall

Her father’s work had always come first, but her mother, a busy doctor, had always been there, like the sun in Veyda’s life. Ever encouraging, ever nurturing, ever loving, and always rationalizing her dad’s absences.

Well, he’s working on an important project and they need him at the plant. We’ll do something together next time, honey.

Veyda had been a solitary child. She hadn’t cared much for other kids. Her books and computers had been her friends. Her craving to learn had been insatiable. At times her father, when he’d been home, would explain theories and solve the mysteries behind the abstract concepts that had puzzled her.

Yes, she’d loved him then.

School had been easy for Veyda. She’d studied first at Pepperdine, then received a master’s degree in computer science from UC Berkeley. From there she’d gone on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue her PhD in aeronautic computer systems engineering. Her doctoral thesis was going to be about advanced computer engineering. She had been working on it when she’d taken a break to return home to California to visit her parents. She’d ached to see them. The brutal New England winter had deepened her loneliness and isolation.

That visit home had been the last moment of happiness Veyda would know. It had been a beautiful time, right up to the point when her father had decided messages about his work were more important than her mother’s life.

In the quiet of the night she’d heard crumpling metal, breaking glass, seen the sky spinning… Through a curtain of blood, she’d seen her mother’s shoe. She’d been pinned under the car… Her father had been on his knees holding her mother’s hand as she’d cried Veyda! with her dying breath…

The world Veyda had known ended that day because of her father.

Vehicular manslaughter. That’s what he’d been charged with, but his lawyer had had it reduced to a misdemeanor and kept him out of prison.

In the forty-eight hours after the crash, doctors had been uncertain Veyda would survive. Her skull had fractured in four places and she’d suffered a concussion. But somehow she’d fought back, beating the odds, regaining enough strength to demand she be allowed to attend her mother’s funeral in Clear River.

Standing at her mother’s gravesite, Veyda’s thoughts had swirled in a maelstrom of medicated anguish. She’d kissed her mother’s coffin and placed a rose upon it before it descended into the North Dakota ground. But it had been the sight of her broken father, peering into the hole with his tear-soaked face, that had crystallized one clear thought.

You killed my mother .

Veyda had grown to hate her father more with each passing day, hating him for sacrificing his family incrementally over the years, until it culminated in their final, life-altering tragedy.

What was worth more to you than my mother’s life?

She’d hurled that question at him one night as he’d sat alone in the dark, drinking. She’d bludgeoned him with it until he’d fallen to his knees before her.

I am in hell because of what I did. Nothing will ever change that. I will never ask for your forgiveness, Veyda, because I have no right to it.

After the tragedy she’d lived in California with him-the doctors had thought it best-while she’d recovered. A nurse had visited regularly. For weeks Veyda had endured jackhammer headaches so severe they’d brought on spasms and hallucinations. Then there’d been the nightmares. She’d undergone drug therapy and counseling, telling her psychiatrist that she had changed, that she was no longer Veyda Cole.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

Months after the crash she’d achieved a degree of recovery. On the outside, she’d appeared to be coping with her loss and her injuries. Yet in her heart something had cleaved. She’d barely been able to stand looking at her father, let alone speak to him. She’d wanted to return to MIT and finish her PhD as her way of honoring her mother’s memory.

The estate had been settled, with Veyda receiving a large sum of money from a trust her parents had established and additional money from her mother’s life insurance policy. Veyda had been planning to move back to Cambridge, when one day she noticed her father gathering her mother’s belongings to donate to charity.

Don’t you dare touch her things! I’ll do that, Veyda had told him.

She’d waited for a time when he was out of the house then, through tears, began boxing up her mother’s clothes, jewelry, pictures and other items, selecting what to donate and what to keep. Touching a favorite sweater, holding it to her face, breathing in her mother’s scent, tracing her fingers over her rings…it had all been so hard, and the more she’d tried, the angrier she’d got, until she’d been consumed again with rage.

Why, why, why did he do this?

Her fury had boiled over, and she’d stridden into her father’s study and to his computer. He was careless with his passwords. She’d known where he’d kept them. She’d begun opening his folders, files, his emails, going to those dated around the time of the crash. Her university studies and her research had enabled her to understand his work easily-there were times they’d discussed it-but she hadn’t known what specifically had consumed him that day until then.

Flight-management systems.

That’s it? A debate over the interpretation of a security review? That’s what couldn’t wait? This is why my mother died?

Suddenly, Veyda’s brain had spasmed, pain knifing through her skull, so excruciating and piercing she’d found herself on the floor in a fetal position, her head clasped in her hands to keep it from tearing apart.

Her screams had resounded in the dark, empty house.

Veyda felt a hand on her shoulder, jolting her out of her reverie. She turned and looked at Seth.

“Everything okay?” he asked. “Do you want that last piece of pizza, babe?”

Hyattsville, Maryland

Seth stopped the video, concern rising on his face.

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He looked at her long enough to ease his worry before putting the last slice of pizza on his plate.

“Okay, then, I’m getting another soda. Want one?”

“No, thanks.”

Seth went to the kitchen and Veyda returned to her thoughts of that dark time after her mother’s death and how she’d rejected her father’s offer-more like a plea-to drive her to LAX. She’d taken a cab in the predawn light, leaving the house in darkness, knowing that she’d never return.

The life I knew is dead. It’s gone .

Her heart in turmoil, she’d been unable to sleep on her flight.

Veyda had read, finding comfort in her mother’s favorite philosophers. Then she’d turned to her own-Hegel and Nietzsche.

As her jet flew over America, she’d read nonstop.

She’d read with ferocity and yearning, squeezing meaning out of every word, sentence, concept and idea with desperation because somehow, at that moment, she’d felt like her life depended upon it.

At one point in the flight, she’d been hit with a severe headache, and took medication. As it did its work, Veyda had gazed down at the world below and had an epiphany.

I’m with the gods now and my purpose is true.

She’d continued reading, and as the hours melted away, Veyda realized that she had undergone a metamorphosis. By the time she’d landed at Logan, she’d known two things. Number one: she was no longer Veyda Cole. She would no longer bear the name of her mother’s killer. From then on she’d honor her mother by taking her mother’s family name, Hyde. Number two: she was going to change her thesis topic from aircraft systems engineering, computational engineering, controls, communications and networks, to blaze a path far more important. One that would elevate the world.