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irretrievably gone. Of course, maybe it would be a kindness to make her understand that. But I didn't have it in my heart to be that kind.
    "No," I said, "they don't move your soul. They just copy the patterns that compose your consciousness."
    "Copy? Then what happens to the original?"
    "They — see, you transfer the legal rights of personhood to the copy. And then, after that, the biological you has to retire from society."
    "Retire where?"
    "It's called High Eden."
    "Where's that?"
    I wished there was some other way to say it. "On the moon."
    "The moon!"
    "The far side of the moon, yes."
    She shook her head. "When would you do this?"
    "Soon," I said. "Very soon. I just — I just can't take it any longer. Being afraid if I sneeze or bend over or do nothing at all that I might end up brain damaged or a quadriplegic or dead. It's tearing me apart."
    She sighed, a long, whispery sound. "Come and say good-bye before you leave for the moon."
    "
This
is good-bye," I said. "I'm going to have the process done tomorrow. But the new me will still come to visit regularly."
    My mother looked at her husband, then back at me. "The new you," she said, shaking her head. "I can't take losing—"
    She stopped herself, but I knew what she'd been going to say: "I can't take losing the only other person in my life."
    "You're not losing me," I said. "I'll still come to visit you." I gestured at Dad, who gurgled, perhaps even in response. "I'll still come to visit Dad."
    My mother shook her head slightly, unbelieving.
    I drove sadly to my house in North York, thinking.
    I hated seeing my mother like that. She'd put her whole life on hold, hoping that somehow my father would come back. Of course, she knew intellectually that the brain damage was permanent. But the intellect and the emotions don't always end up in synch. In some ways, what had happened to my mother affected me more profoundly than what had happened to my father. She loved him the way I'd always hoped someone would love me.
    And there
was
someone special in my life, a woman I cared about deeply, and who, I think, felt the same way about me. Rebecca Chong was forty-one, just a little younger than me. She was a bigwig at IBM Canada, worth a lot of money in her own right. We'd known each other for about five years, and saw each other often socially, although mostly with a few other friends. But there was always something special between just the two of us.
    I remember the party last New Year's Eve. Like many of our little group's get-togethers, this one was held at Rebecca's place, a luxury penthouse at Eglinton and Yonge. Rebecca loved to entertain, and her home was central for everyone in our group — and her building had direct access to the subway.
    I always brought Rebecca flowers when I visited. She loved flowers, and I loved giving them to her. On New Year's Eve, I took her a dozen red roses — I asked the guy in the flower shop to make sure the color was perfect, since I couldn't tell myself. When I arrived, I gave Rebecca the flowers, and, as was our habit, we kissed on the lips. It wasn't a long kiss — we were, at least overtly, just good friends — but it always attenuated a bit more than it needed to, our lips pressed against each other's for a lingering few seconds.
    I'd had lots of sex in my life, but those kisses truly excited me more. And yet—
    And yet, Rebecca and I had never gone any further. Oh, her hand would occasionally rest on my arm, or even my thigh — gentle, warm touches in response to a joke or a comment or, sometimes, best of all, to nothing at all.
    I did so want her, and I think — no, I
knew
: I did know it, beyond any doubt — that she wanted me, too.
    But then…
    But then I'd go with my mother to see my father again.
    And it would break my heart. Not just because my mother's life had been ruined by what had happened to him. But also because it was likely that I was going to have the same thing happen to me … and I couldn't allow a