“Yeah, well, read this.” I showed her lines from the journal I’d opened. He wanted me to touch him, but I wasn’t in the mood. Still, decided to do something. Told him to lie perfectly still and …

“Ugh,” Nin said. She handed me back the journal. “Wait, that’s Dad she’s writing about, right?”

I scanned the pages and grimaced. “Yeah,” I said, and shut the book.

“Well, there’s plenty here,” Nin said, “but you’ve got to be kidding me. We need to scan all these? It’ll take forever.”

Which was what Devi told us when we clicked back on the fox. Yes, we could do it, blinking photos of every page and uploading the files one by one, but that would be a complete nightmare. For an additional fee, Nostalgia’s scanner-bots would do everything for us. If we blinked the Order Now button, an overnight mailer would arrive within the hour. Simply put the materials in the box, return it to the driver, and they’d take it from there. It only required a one-year commitment plus a per-page scanning fee. Everything, he assured us, was insured against loss. It was expensive, but Dad needed help, and I needed to get home. So we blinked the ArchivePlus Membership, and sure enough the FedEx boxes arrived within the hour.

“I’ll pack everything,” Nin said.

“It’s okay, I’ll do it,” I told her. Sending Mom’s valuable treasures across the country seemed risky and Nin was only ever half-there. She was rolling her eyes to delete text messages while watching some stupid video in her peripheral vision. Would she even attach the mailing labels correctly?

“Leah, I’m not dumb. I got this. Go take care of Dad.”

I took a deep breath. Nin and I were starting to get along after all these years of silence. Don’t be a patronizing bitch, I told myself. So I left her in the basement with the boxes and went upstairs to see if Dad was hungry.

Nostalgia received our boxes that evening. Devi sent us hourly updates that showed the percentage of journals the scanner-bots had uploaded, and he guided us through the setup once everything was complete.

Loved ones often have memories better left unknown, Devi warned us. Affairs, addictions, abuse. It sounds like your father’s in a vulnerable state?

“Yes,” we told him.

I suggest using Parental Controls. Our AIs have created folders from your mother’s history so you can tailor your mom to your family’s preference. For an extra charge, you can add up to three users, each with customizable profiles. You’ll each have the mother you’d like to remember!

We scrolled through the categories. Legal. Romance. Drugs & Alcohol. I considered the brief glimpse we’d had of our parents’ sex life. Sure, we let him know—we each wanted our own accounts. Nin clicked on Legal. There were some parking tickets and a DUI that neither of us knew about. I clicked on Romance. Next to the checked box for our father was a long list of names. Rodrigo, Shane, Desert Dog, Antonio …