I loved that can opener with the thick yellow handle and grip. It reminded me of our mother teaching us to cook. She’d taught us to be quite careful with it, and I wondered if Dolores’s scar was at all related to why a third Mem existed, though I made certain never to ask. A part of me worried what I might hear about our mother and father if I ever questioned the origin of the third Mem. I worried I might learn that something horrible had happened to them, or to a dear friend, or to my kitten, Petunia, and I wanted to remember them all exactly as I did—though my Banker fixated on how I could. How did I recall so much? How did I recall anything besides the reason for my extraction? he would ask sometimes. Never mind that I shouldn’t have been capable of replying; he seemed truly desperate to hear my answer, though it was never satisfactory. I could no more explain the existence of my memories and affections than my Banker could have explained his, but of course he would never be required to.

When I first entered the Dolores room, I had no time to acknowledge the three beds that remained in the same place as when I had left or the new source of light and color that seemed to emanate from somewhere overhead. My attention immediately fell to the one other Dolores in our dormitory. She lay on her bed with her whole body drawn into a ball and looked like she’d been recently crying. Or rather, she was depicting a time when our Source had been crying, since the tears didn’t really belong to her.