In cybersecurity, ways to verify an identity: 1) things you know, e.g. a password; 2) things you have, e.g. a keycard; 3) things you are, e.g. a thumbprint.

#

He knew her birthday: September 8, 1983. He knew her social security number: 312-46-9215. Her mother's maiden name: Bakker. Her first pet was a hamster named, incongruously, Puppy. Her favorite pet, however, was her rescue Heeler, Gregor. She loved going hiking with Gregor, and posted selfies with him every few days. Sunset hikes were their favorite. Her passwords, though predictably varied, invariably included Gregor: Gregor312. Gregoris5today! Gr3g0r! Her first car was a Chevy Cavalier; by now she had upsized (because of Gregor) to a Traverse.

#

He knew where she kept her keycard: it was clipped, like all employees', to a lanyard. At home, she piled it into a bowl in the kitchen; at work, she tucked it into her purse. She used to wear the lanyard around her neck, like the millennials, but stopped after one of them asked her to dinner; she did not wear a ring—they were both embarrassed. Ever since, she stowed her keycard away in her purse, under her desk, where it sat most of the day. He knew she did not take her purse to the bathroom or on breaks. He also knew that, within that same purse, she also kept her credit card with security chip and three-digit code. Of course, he knew the account number and her purchases. Last month, she had purchased two additional items to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. The tenth was traditionally celebrated with tin or aluminum, so she had been cheeky: she had booked a weekend in a tiny cabin-in-the-woods with a tin roof, and bought enough low-grade beer in aluminum cans to last them through the weekend. He loved this about her: her nonchalance, the way she mocked and yet venerated traditional romantic gestures. They had spent the weekend drinking and tumbling as a steady downpour snuffed out any other plans they might have had. Nonetheless, she considered the weekend—and the several hundreds of dollars—well spent.

#

He knew her thumbprint, which she had pressed inadvertently into the wet varnish of the dining table. He could see it there, peeking out from under his daily crossword. Nowadays it was a comfort, and sometimes he laid his thumb atop hers, feeling the ridges in the surface. His "minutiae" did not match hers—the breaks, bridges, and spurs occurred at different spots. He knew her voice, the rapid-fire cadences of excitement or indignation, the hesitation noises of insecurity. And he savored every unconscious sigh, trill, or moan that she emitted in slumber. He knew the irises of her eyes, their brilliant hue in the afternoon light when she started from a nap. She had, long ago, measured him, assessed him, with those eyes—and, by extension, with her mind and her heart—and judged him worthy. He still did not know why.

#

He knew all these things and more about her. He had learned them through dedicated study over the last ten years. But he could not shake the feeling that, in some substantial way, he did not know her, nor she him. And that was the work of love, he supposed. To know that the thousands, millions, of minutiae do not add up to a definitive match; but that somewhere beyond the surface of her skin, behind the quivers in her voice, and in the maddening silence between exhale and inhale as she lay next to him, there lay authenticity.


.

Yasuko Taoka is Dean of Arts and Humanities at Wayne State College. This is her first published story.

Read her postcard.

Detail of art on main page courtesy of Godino.





W i g l e a f               01-31-19                                [home]