Amy Sterling Casil - Motherwife

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2024-11-25 0 0 59.7KB 13 页 5.9玖币
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illustration by Judith Huey
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Tommy uploaded Mother right before the Mets won their third World Series. She died coughing blood
six days later. In the hospital, he held her hand and told her that the uploading was his tribute. He guessed
in a way, he really meant it.
"It's like insurance," he said, clasping her cold wrist right below the IV needle. "I know you're sure you're
going to Heaven, but you know, it can't hurt to have a copy of yourself around." Tommy didn’t want to
tell Mother he didn’t think there was any heaven at all.
"I don't believe in this," Mother said. "When I go, I go. Jesus will come for me."
Tommy didn’t believe in Jesus, either, though he didn’t mind Him as long as he stayed on bumper
stickers.
Mother’s skin was parchment-yellow. Her lips were dry and cracked. Dark blood showed in some of
the faint lines.
As he poured water from the plastic ice-water jug, he said, "don't be afraid. It's not like people have to
die—dead-die—any more."
She smiled. "I'm not afraid. But I will miss my boy."
Right then, Tommy did want to cry.
She sipped the water, then closed her eyes for a long moment.
"Yes," she said at last. "But it's for you, Tommy. Not for me. Because I know it will make you feel
better."
Then came the lonelytime. Two, maybe three years of it. After that, Tommy found Katie.
Three years they were together. A thousand days. Tommy had been married before, of course, but it
was nothing like Katie. Some days, he could only remember his first wife's name and nothing else about
her.
He'd met Katie coming out of Pep Boys one spring day. She had a bottle of Armor-All. Tommy had
three quarts of 30-weight oil.
The sun was so bright that day that he could hardly make out her features. He had the impression of a
pair of bright, glittering eyes and a broad smile.
Katie was a children's librarian, he learned later as they talked over a cup of coffee and a couple of
cookies. Walnut chocolate chip. Tommy's favorite. Tommy told her what he did for a living. Even though
most people didn't understand much about network administration, Katie said she thought it sounded
very interesting. A few weeks afterward, when she'd moved into the house, Katie told him that her
favorite cookie was peanut butter, but she'd eat the kind Tommy liked, since they were good, too.
And that said everything anybody needed to know about Katie, Tommy thought.
Tommy remembered the day he knew that something had changed in his life forever. The day Katie
imprinted herself on his heart.
Turning in bed, he saw the long, straight shadows from the Venetian blinds falling across her soft, golden
brown hair and her bare shoulders downed with faint golden hair. He touched her cheek, and she sighed.
The corner of her mouth curled upward in a faint smile.
Then, he touched her eyelid, tenderly.
She woke.
"I may not be a handsome man," he said. And his voice sounded so strange. Strange even to his own
ears, as if it was someone completely other who was speaking, though these were his words. This was
what he wanted to say.
She smiled and said in a sleepy voice, "you are a handsome man, Tommy. You're my love."
"I may not be a handsome man," he said again, because he did not believe her, no matter how he loved
her. "But I will take care of you always. I'll never would leave you, Katie. I never could."
This, too, was true. For it was not Tommy who left Katie.
But before that, he had uploaded her as well.
#
"Pot roast?" Tommy smelled the rich meat. Gravy and potatoes and carrots and a tender slab of beef that
he could cut with his fork.
Mother was in the kitchen, polishing the silverware.
"You don't need to do that," he said.
She smiled, shaking her head. "It's Friday night." She knew Tommy was tired by the end of the week.
His boss was a cold bastard who didn't know a thing about networks or programming. Tommy didn't
think that the man had ever actually looked at him. He wasn't sure whether he even remembered his
name five minutes after he stopped ordering him around. He figured that his holographic I.D. tag was the
only reason the guy ever called him "Thomas" instead of "hey, you!"
During lunch, Tommy had fantasized about punching his boss in the stomach. Just one good one. Bang!
Like that, the guy would double over. Maybe vomit all over his effeminate patent leather shoes.
"Long day?" Mother asked.
The table was set. She'd lit tapered white candles.
And they sat down and ate.
It was as good as he remembered. They talked. Tommy told Mother about some crows he'd seen in the
park at lunch, dozens of them, circling overhead. He thought they were on their way somewhere, perhaps
flying south for the winter. Even though they were ugly black crows, he'd found a kind of beauty in them.
"You have a poet's soul," Mother told him.
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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：13 页 大小：59.7KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-11-25

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