The Relive Box
By T.C. Boyle, first published in The New Yorker
In a contemporary home in Southern California, a box that allows people to relive past moments of their lives complicates an already-strained father-daughter relationship.
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Wes is a single father living in Southern California with his daughter, Katie, in the 2010s. Wes's wife and Katie's mother, Christine, had left to move to Hong Kong and live with her lover. Although Wes and Katie found a way to bond in the early moments of their abandonment, a new technology called the Relive Box has strained their relationship. The Relive Box allows people to revisit any of their memories. Both Wes and Katie are addicted to the box, leading to fights over who gets to use it and when. While Katie uses the box to look back at times spent with her mother, Wes's longer life allows him to view many more moments, although he concentrates mainly on his past lovers. Often, Wes spends the entire night reliving memories, which has gotten him into trouble at work. Katie leaves for a ski trip with one of her friends, leaving Wes to himself for the weekend. He uses the Relive Box to spend time with his college sweetheart, Lisa, beginning at the good moments and moving up until she broke up with him, calling him a "control freak." From there, he makes his way to Christine: the sweetness of her declaring love to him, golden moments with their daughter, the day that she decided to leave him. Hurt, Wes makes his way back to more mundane memories: a summer vacation as a child, a baseball game, a family vacation. Katie reenters the home, surprising Wes, who's still hooked up to the box. He spent the whole weekend reliving past moments of his life. Katie asks if her father's there; Wes grimly admits that he's not.
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