Page 2 of Technical Advances

“I guess I was a little out of it back then,” he continued. “I know you remember that.” His voice carried an apology I’d hoped Dad and I had long since outgrown. Those years had been hard, but we’d made it through. I tried to nudge the conversation back toward something more positive.

“And now I’m interviewing at New Day Tech!”

Dad heaved a heavy sigh. I could have kicked myself for bringing his mood down. He’d been so excited about his trip. I literally tapped my calf with my other foot and opened my mouth to tell him more about the company. But he got there first, taking the conversation in a surprising direction.

“Anyway, I think I would have remembered you talking about Anson Day, or if I saw his picture or whatever back then because …”

I had kept that picture private at the time. Kicking myself again, I interrupted him.

“So, yeah, Anson Day. I get why you didn’t know about him when I was a kid, but you said his name like it sounded familiar, so you have heard of him, right? I mean, you know about New Day Technologies. His work is so innovative and noteworthy that even a general contractor in the middle of Arizona has heard of the famous Anson Day, right?”

“Well, actually, no, that’s not it. I mean, yeah, I’ve heard of New Day Technologies, their logo is on those vending machines at the airport, after all! But the thing is, kiddo, that I went to middle school with an Anson Day. Quiet, shy type. We were in the same grade. But he moved away after a few years. Our freshman year, I think, maybe?

“Anyway, you know the yellow house a few doors down from us? On the cul-de-sac? The one where … Anyway, he grew up there, or, well, he and his family lived there for a bit. I would walk down the block with him off the bus, and sometimes we would hang out back by the creek.

“They didn’t live there for long, and we never hung out together at school. If I recall, he mostly kept to himself when we were there. His head was always in a book, or I think he spent a lot of time in the computer lab. I don’t think he had many friends.”

“And you were the popular captain of the football team dating the equally popular head cheerleader,” I said distractedly, repeating the family lore I’d heard over the years, having grown up in the same small town where my parents had had a vastly different experience growing up than their nerdy son. Was it possible that the Anson Day had attended that school as well? Had my parents gone to school with Anson Day?

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. I put my dad on speaker, and my fingers flew over my phone as I tried to search for proof that Dad’s errant friend was … Holy fucking shit.

There it was, a throwaway line in an article from a few years back. Day’s family spent some time in Arizona before the teenaged phenom was accepted, at the age of fourteen, into the Robotics Engineering program at Hampstead University.

I’d been fully aware that Anson Day had started college at fourteen; it was something I thought about often as I somewhat impatiently sat through advanced math and science classes that were way below my own skill level, back when I was in high school. But had he really moved to Hampstead Valley from the yellow house down the block? That house never had happy memories for me as it housed a family with a kid my age while I was growing up as well. But not a kid I ever played with off the bus. I had avoided Elliot like a healthy cell dodges a viral vector.

Holy fucking shit.

“Hey, you know your mom was also captain of the volleyball team, right?” Dad’s voice broke through my churning thoughts but not through my shock. I wanted to hop on a plane, go home, and stare at the house two doors down that I had only ever avoided before. As far as I knew, Elliot’s family still lived there, and who knows, the bully himself might continue to live with them too. I knew he hadn’t gone to college, but I never paid any attention to him after I was big enough to either avoid him or defend myself, and I never paid any attention to that yellow house. Anson Day’s house!

Dad was still talking about Mom.

“She was so focused and so driven, just like you, Benj. A doctorate,” He said reverently, like he always did, making my chest swell with pride. “She’d be so pleased. So proud.” Dad was truly proud enough for both of them.

His tone was melancholy, and my thoughts drifted from Anson Day back to an image of my mother: tired, drawn, ashen, yet smiling brightly as if twelve-year-old me was some kind of toggle switch that flipped her to “on,” no matter how much pain she was in.

“You’re going to do such amazing things, Benji,” she’d said, ignoring the tears I was fighting to control. “Just keep your head down, keep learning all you can. Then take the world by storm, Benji-boy, okay?” Right before she’d gotten sick, I’d asked Mom to stop calling me Benji-boy. I was growing up, and it had begun to irk me.

In those last months, she started using the nickname again, and for some reason, I really didn’t mind it anymore.

I think I can take the world by storm, Mom. Or at least do some good and help people. Especially if a place like New Day Technologies hires me.

Maybe I did believe a little bit in that highly unscientific notion that my mom was looking down on me because I looked up as I thought it and smiled. Dad continued his reminiscing, and I tuned back in to the story he was telling about how Anson fucking Day and he had known each other as kids.

“Anyway, it would have been way before we played varsity sports that Anson lived next door. Middle school, I think. And I was never the captain of the team, son, just the quarterback. Now, your mom, on the other hand, was captain and had a volleyball scholarship before …”

Dad’s voice trailed off again, but I could hear rummaging, and I pictured him opening and closing drawers in the kitchen where I’d grown up. My dad had grown up there before me and had lived in the house most of his life.

“Hang on, kiddo. Yup, I still have it.” I could hear paper rustling as he said distractedly, “The Days moved to Upstate New York when Anson was, I’m gonna say, fourteen or fifteen. He only lived here for a year or two before that.” Holy fucking shit. Yeah, he did.

“Grandma and his mom were friends, and if I remember correctly, she told her they were moving because Anson was actually going to be taking a class at Hampstead University even though we were like, barely in high school. It should have been a big deal, but the Days asked Gram to keep it quiet. They didn’t want Anson to feel extra pressure. I don’t think any of the other kids knew. Gram didn’t tell me for a long time, and even then she asked me to keep it a secret. None of my friends really knew Anson, so it was easy to keep the secret. I told your mom, of course.

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure your grandma stayed in touch with the Days, and last I heard, they still lived in New York, near the university. But that would have been a while ago.

“Let’s see,” Dad said. “Ah-ha! Yup, I’ve got your grandma’s old address book right here, and there they are. Howard and Beth Day, in Hampstead Valley, New York. This has cell phones listed and everything. Maybe his parents still live there or at least still have these numbers?”

I considered myself a fairly smart person, but for some reason, I was having trouble absorbing what my father was saying. Like, how had I possibly missed this crucial fact?

“Hold up, Dad. Are you really telling me Anson Day, the Anson Day, lived in that yellow house at the end of our block, and Gram is friends with his parents? How did I not know this?” I shouted.