Recall Zero. Джек Марс

in that moment, he knew. There would be no reconciliation, at least not tonight. This was a formality. This was Maya’s way of saying you deserve to know that I’m alive and well, but not much more than that.

      She stared at the carpet while Greg droned on about something or other, her gaze pensive. Her smile faltered, and as it vanished, so did Zero’s hope of getting his daughter back.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Maya dipped a crust of sourdough into the Polish stew and chewed it slowly. It was delicious, better than the food that the academy served, but she didn’t have much of an appetite. Her dad was seated across from her at the small dining table, with Maria on her left and Greg to the right.

      He was staring at her again.

      She wished she hadn’t come. She didn’t owe him anything. And she knew that she couldn’t bring herself to look up, to look into his eyes and see the unmasked pain of their rift. So instead she stared at a mottled chunk of kielbasa in her bowl.

      Being here, in this new house and seeing him living with Maria, dark circles forming under his eyes and weight pinched around his midsection, her own father felt like a stranger to her. He no longer had the youthful, playful light in his eyes like he did when they were growing up. She hadn’t heard his laugh in more than a year. She missed their sarcastic, quipping exchanges and at times heated debates.

      “Isn’t that right, Maya?”

      “Hmm?” She looked up at the sound of her name to find Greg gazing at her expectantly. “Oh. Yeah. That’s right.” Good god, is he still talking?

      Greg was not actually her boyfriend. At least she didn’t think of it like that. They were being casual about it, unofficial. She knew he liked her—they’d made out a few times, though she wouldn’t let him get any farther than that—yet she couldn’t help but think it was more of a status thing for him than anything else. He came from a good family, a mother in politics and a father high up in the NSA. She was top of her class and (depending on who asked) likely better than him at most things, particularly academics. Some of the other cadets in second and third class made jokes about the two of them being “the prom king and queen of West Point.”

      He was cute. He was athletic. He was generally nice enough. But he was also a blowhard, self-centered, and completely oblivious to his faults.

      “If you ask me,” Greg was saying, “Pierson should have done hard time. My mother says—my mother was the mayor of Baltimore for two years, did I mention that? Anyway, she says that his negligence was enough to impeach him, or at least indict him when he left office…”

      Stop staring at me. She wanted to blurt it out, to shout it even, but she held her tongue. She could feel how desperate her father was to talk to her. That was part of the reason she brought Greg, so that they couldn’t open any cans of worms during this visit. She knew he wanted to ask about Sara. She knew he wanted to apologize, to try to make amends, to put all the ugliness behind them.

      The truth was, she didn’t hate him. Not anymore. To hate someone required energy, and she was putting everything she had into school. To her, he was a non-issue. This visit was not reconciliatory; it was bureaucracy. Decorum. Etiquette. The values that the academy instilled in its cadets were not entirely applicable to Maya’s unique situation, but her takeaway was that she should at least have a check-in with the man who raised her, this shell of his former self. If for no other reason than to prove to herself that she could still stand to be in the same room as him.

      But now she wished she hadn’t.

      “So,” Maria said suddenly. Greg had stopped talking long enough to spoon some stew into his mouth, and Maria was taking full advantage of the temporary reprieve. “Maya. Have you spoken to your sister lately?”

      The question took her off guard. She had expected it from her dad, but not from Maria. Still, it was as good a time as any to practice the skills she’d been developing on her own time. She fought the instinct to display any betraying expressions and instead smiled lightly.

      “I have,” Maya replied. “Just yesterday, in fact. She’s well.” Only half of that was a lie.

      “You have a sister?” Greg asked.

      Maya nodded. “Two years younger. She’s in Florida on a work-study program. Very busy.” Another lie, but she told it with ease. She was getting better at that all the time, and often told small, off-the-cuff fibs just for practice—and, admittedly, for a bit of a thrill.

      “And, uh…” Her dad cleared his throat. “She’s getting by okay? She has everything she needs?”

      “Mm-hmm,” Maya answered curtly without looking at him. “Doing great.”

      Greg simpered as he turned to her father. “You ask that like you don’t talk to her, Mr. Lawson.”

      “It’s like Maya said,” her dad answered quietly. “Sara is very busy.”

      Maya knew that her own sudden departure was a blow to him. But if that was the case, then Sara leaving was a death stroke.

      In that first summer, just a few months after their father saved President Pierson’s life, after he told them the truth about their mother and the tension in their home was sky-high, Maya confided her plans in her sister. She told Sara that she had tested out of her senior year of high school and was running down admission to West Point.

      As long as she lived, she would never forget the panicked expression on her little sister’s face. Please. Please don’t, Sara had begged her. Don’t leave me alone with him. I can’t do it.

      As much as it broke her heart, Maya had made her plans and intended to see them through. So Sara made some of her own. She went online and found a lawyer who would take her case pro bono. Then she filed for emancipation. She knew it was a long shot; there was no proof or evidence of neglect, abuse, or anything like that.

      But in a turn that shocked both sisters, their father did not fight it. Less than two weeks after Maya left for military school in New York, her dad attended the court date and, in front of a judge, told his then-fifteen-year-old daughter that if she wanted freedom from him enough to do this, to take him to court for it, she could have her freedom.

      That same night came another event that Maya would not soon forget. Her father called her. She ignored it. She still hated him back then. He left her a voicemail that she didn’t listen to for two days. When she finally did, she wished she hadn’t. His voice wavering, breaking even, he told her that Sara was gone. He admitted that he deserved all of it and then some. He apologized three times, and told her he loved her.

      It would be another six months before they spoke again.

      But Maya did keep up with her sister. Upon emancipation, Sara packed up what she could carry and got on a bus. She ended up in Florida and took the first job she found, as a cashier in a thrift store. She still worked there. She lived in a co-op, a rented house with five other people. She shared a bedroom with a girl a couple years older than her, and a bathroom with everyone else.

      Maya made sure to call her sister at least once a week, and more when her schedule allowed. Sara always promised that she was doing fine, but Maya wasn’t sure she could believe it. She’d left high school with the assurance that she’d go back, but she never did. These days Maya didn’t bother trying to convince her to return; instead, she pushed for Sara to test for her GED. Just another thing Sara claimed she’d do. Someday.

      Maya lived at the academy year-round, and was given a stipend every semester for uniforms, books, food, and the like. She usually didn’t have much left over, but she sent her sister some money when she could. Sara was always appreciative.

      Neither of them needed anything from him anymore. They didn’t want anything from him anymore.

      They really had talked the day prior; that part wasn’t a lie. Sara was sixteen now, and one of the girls in her co-op was teaching her to drive. It pained Maya that she was missing out on such important parts of Sara’s life, but she had her own goals and was determined to meet them.

      Simply