by Cat Rambo
I drove the old POS home because I was so tired I was afraid I’d get into an accident and I didn’t want to ruin the new car on the first day we’d bought it. I should’ve felt good, I should’ve felt exhilarated, our first new car. Instead, small and worn and dirty, I paused with the key in the lock. I looked in the window framed by black nighttime at our children and our young sitter. Under the lamplight’s glow they looked so golden they couldn’t possibly be mine.
You’d parked the new car. You came up behind me.
I said, “He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know who I am.”
You, who had heard the one-sided conversation’s end, said only, “I know.”
Dear Tobias,
New dress code today. The email from the university president landed in our inboxes about noon. People are bitching about it. You know how faculty talk: 90 percent idealism and academic freedom and 10 percent I’m-not-going-to-do-it-because-I’m-supposed-to-do-it. It’s endearing, really, but the truth is the only women still wearing pants have tenure. The NTTs gave it up years ago. I haven’t had a pair in my closet for five years. Can’t find any that fit when thrifting and department stores don’t sell them.
Skirts are more comfortable anyway.
At least I can console myself with something: they’re right. There is a liberal conspiracy at Western Washington University.
A conspiracy among women to sew their own damn pants.
Dear Tobias,
I met the woman at Woods. You remember how I used to refuse to buy coffee there because that Fundamentalist guy owned it and he poured all that money into fighting marriage equality?
Well, I bought my coffee with a Praise the Lord on my lips and we walked along the boardwalk to Fairhaven.
It was one of those days. Remember, Tobias, when I used to ask you to turn around so that we could drive down State Street again so that I could sit in our warm car and look at the sea? The air so cold and sharp the San Juan Islands cut the sky. Canadian winds roared along Bellingham Bay, churning its silty green waters into waves that glittered like cracked glass. My short hair whipped at my forehead.
I should let my hair grow out. Weird, isn’t it? I can pretend in so many ways to be a person I’m not, but I can’t do this one thing. I can’t grow my hair out.
Between the wind’s howl and the sea spray, we could speak frankly. She seems legit. I booked an Airbnb in Richmond.
Dear Tobias,
I think about that day all the time.
You know the one. We’d talked about it. We’d planned for it. I knew, going in, exactly what I’d do should the worst happen. You always said, “No, I won’t go on without you. I can’t raise them without you. We’re married. It won’t be a problem.”
How did you manage to protect your fragile heart for so long, love?
I wish life hadn’t broken it.
Dear Tobias,
Got through the border no problem, but then it’s not the Canadians we have to worry about, is it? Wore a low top, bright makeup, and told the border guard I’d booked an Airbnb. “The bars down south aren’t any good anymore, you know?”
“You still have bars?” he said. Border guards don’t joke. He waved me on.
The woman met me at the Airbnb. Sometimes they want to talk. Sometimes they cry. I dread that, I really do. I’m so tired. But this one waited in silence. She’d brought a book. I respect that. The only thing she said, closing her book over a finger to mark her spot: “If this hadn’t worked out, I would’ve killed myself. Shot myself in the head.”
These little things remind me why I keep doing this.
Dear Tobias,
I hate Canada. It reminds me of you. Everything does, really, but that’s beside the point.
Do you remember when we told the border guard we’d brought the kids up for the night market in Richmond? We said we’d only booked an overnight stay because we didn’t want to drive home with screaming, overtired children in the back. Your parents had purchased the tickets out from Vancouver, then mailed them to my parents so we wouldn’t be flagged and stopped from crossing the border?
As foreigners, we couldn’t use the auto check-in booths even though we didn’t have any luggage except for one overnight bag—toothbrushes, toothpaste, snacks, diapers, a day’s worth of clothes.
We couldn’t speak to a robot. We had to see a real customer service agent. She said—do you ever think about this? It would be like you not to.
She said, “Ma’am, you have a U.S. passport.”
She printed out three tickets instead of four.
Dear Tobias,
It’s our second day here. The woman is still dazed from painkillers.
Tomorrow she’ll be okay to drive. If she seems off, she’ll be able to pass as hungover. I know from experience that her bleeding has already slowed, pale and thin, easily soaked up by a single pad. Even an invasive search won’t give her away. Usually the guards are too grossed out to go that far anyway.
Dear Tobias,
Do you know what it’s like to drive home from an airport with two empty car seats and no one in the passenger side?
My breasts, overfull with milk, ached. I couldn’t contemplate that moment when I’d watched you three pass through an archway into what was, already, an unreachable land. Instead, my thoughts circled: Had we packed enough expressed milk? We’d planned on breastfeeding during the flight. Would the stewardesses have formula? I imagined them, how they’d pity you when Eleanor cried during takeoff, how they’d volunteer to hold the overtired baby when he screamed, rocking him softly, holding him gently, as if their lives depended on it.
I pulled over to wrestle the car seats out and left them on the roadside. You would have hated that, but you didn’t get a say. I drove again. I kept on pulling over because I couldn’t see the road. It wasn’t raining out. It was August.
Dear Tobias,
I’ve decided. I’ll slip this letter into a Vancouver post office box before I go home after all. One day you’ll call. Maybe the babies will be too big to argue over who gets to sit on your lap, maybe they’ll be too big to care about a phone call to a woman they hardly recognize. Maybe they’ll be too busy playing soccer in Baden Baden, showing off for Syrian girls and boys afraid to take these white half-Americans home to meet their parents. That’s why I’m mailing this.
One day, love, you’ll call and I won’t answer.
About the Author
Langley Hyde’s short fiction has recently appeared in Podcastle, Terraform, Persistent Visions, and Unidentified Funny Objects 6 and 7. Her novel, Highfell Grimoires, was named a Best Book of 2014 in SF/Fantasy/Horror by Publishers Weekly. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, two children, and a rickety old cat.
Editor’s Note
As I mentioned in the notes to “But For Grace,” one theme that appeared in multiple stories was that of women and reproductive rights. Women have fought in the past for the right to control their own body and are still doing so—what happens when we lose ground in that battle, currently being conducted by waging war on Planned Parenthood and other organizations devoted to women’s health as well as removing information from the Internet?
I loved this story, told in the form of secret letters accompanying the officially sanctioned weekly videochat communication, a covert correspondence where the narrator reveals what she is doing, there in the front lines of an America so bent on policing women’s bodies that they can no longer find pants in stores, even thrift stores, and have to sew their own. Bravery and heartbreak mingle in this story.
A Pocketful of Dolphins
Judy Helfrich
Nanites swarmed under the translucent skin of Vanda’s wrist and displayed her racing pulse, numbers flashing from green to yellow to orange. She swallowed. Stay out of the red zone. C’mon, c’mon. Happy thoughts, Vanda.
The fireworks effect.
A slick of dread oozed into Vanda’s belly. Don’t panic. It’s not the fireworks effect. This is just normal kid stuff.
Except it wasn’t. It was normal afflicted stuff. And Vanda’s pulse had been flirting with the red zone just a little too often. Every time Toby dropped a toy and stood enthralled, exactly like someone watching fireworks. He was hallucinating, a sign she was damn well supposed to report. Stop it. Be calm. Think of . . . ocean waves. But that brought to mind the dolphins Toby chatted about incessantly. The dolphins only he could see. Her mouth went dry. She’d always been crap at biofeedback. If she didn’t control herself, her nanites—that army of traitorous microscopic busy-bots—would prompt Counsellor Evra to descend on her doorstep and flay open her secrets with nani-chemicals and a razor-blade smile.
Vanda bit the palm of her hand, then froze. The numbers on her wrist were purple.
Holy shit. Her nanites should have bathed her brain in a calming chemical-cocktail long before she entered the purple zone. Unless—
Unless Counsellor Evra was on the way. Because that particular bitch preferred to stew her victims in the noxious juices of their own biochemicals before she ripped open their psyches like a rotted melon.
Vanda’s auditory nanites chimed. Counsellor Evra’s jingle.
Vanda moaned. She wasn’t so much a deer in the headlights as a mangled corpse on the bumper. The result of this visit was a foregone conclusion: Counsellor Evra would suss out Toby’s affliction and take him away. Oh God oh God oh God.
“Toby. Hey, sweetie. Don’t do that.”
Toby stood oblivious. Watching the fireworks.
“Toby.” She held his face in her hands. “Please, honey, stop.”
The nanites chimed. Vanda’s pulse numbers turned livid as a bruise.
Screw biofeedback. Time to pull out the big guns. Vanda raced to the pantry and threw open the door. “Look at the pretty Uzi, sweetie!” She whirled around with the antiquated weapon and slammed the magazine home with a loud clack, jerking Toby from his reverie.
He goggled at her.
Yes! Distract him. “Mommy’s going to pump some serious lead into that bitch if she tries to take you away. Isn’t that funny?”
Toby grinned and clapped his hands.
Vanda stuffed the Uzi between the couch cushions as her nanites chimed, tones insistent, the final warning that Counsellor Evra was about to override Vanda’s home security.
“My goodness, dear. You’re positively purple.” Counsellor Evra strode into the kitchen, her eyes close set, round, spider bright.
A spider. “There was a spider on me,” Vanda blurted.
“How odd. Your biochemical profile doesn’t seem consistent with that sort of scare.” Counsellor tapped her wrist console. Nanites swarmed her forearm, mobile pixels forming blocks of text she scrolled through with a finger. “I have no record of a phobia.”
“It’s embarrassing.” Vanda laughed weakly. “After I freaked, I was mortified you’d come here. I think my anxiety fed on itself.”
“Mmmm, your stress hormones should have fallen by now.” Her eyes flicked to Toby.
Oh, God. He was mesmerized.
“And your pulse just spiked.” Counsellor pursed her lips. “Let’s have a look at your genetic seal, shall we?”
Vanda nodded and tugged down the waistband of her leggings, exposing her hip. The mass of raised nanites monitoring her genetic health showed no sign of darkening. Of course not. She glanced at Toby, still agog. Because he didn’t inherit—that—from you. The seal was scarlet: a government-approved tramp stamp broadcasting Vanda’s fertility.
“Lovely.” Counsellor tapped her nani-console. “Why, you ovulated fifty-three minutes ago. You could become pregnant today!”
To replace my defective child. Vanda shuddered.
“You’re so young, dear. I think it best if we matched you with a genetically compatible partner this time.”
This time.
Counsellor snapped her fingers under Toby’s nose. Vanda flinched, but Toby only gazed into space.
“Classic fireworks effect,” Counsellor murmured.
“Please, Counsellor—”
Counsellor backed Vanda into the living room. “Elevated parental stress hormones during morning reveille—absolutely textbook.” She glanced at Toby. “Reveille is designed to invoke the fireworks effect in those afflicted.” She tilted her head in an incontrovertible gotcha.
Vanda collapsed to the couch.
“You’ve known for some time that Toby is afflicted—no, dear, don’t try to deny it. Yet you chose not to notify us, even though it was for the greater good. Even though your stress hormones were harming your health.” Her dark eyes brightened. “Even though you knew there would be consequences.”
Vanda yanked the Uzi out and swung it around, training it on Counsellor’s bosom.
Counsellor tutted. “An obsolete weapon. Some enterprising black-marketeer took advantage of you, dear. There hasn’t been a murder in nearly forty years.”
“You even think about taking Toby, I’ll blow both our heads off. Yours first. I was going to kill myself anyway, after Toby’s father—” She choked back a sob. “But then I found out I was pregnant.”
“You think you chose not to commit suicide, but the moment your nanites sensed a dangerous chemical imbalance, they blocked the neurotransmitters responsible. No suicide, no violence, no murder.”
“Bullshit. Because—”
“Toby’s father was afflicted.” She spat the word like it was poison. “That’s why he was able to commit suicide. You, my dear, are not.”
“You heartless bitch.”
“Oh? Would you prefer to go back to when we were slaves to biochemicals? Depressed, anxious, murderous? Because that’s how you’ve been feeling ever since I muted your nani-chems to catch you out. That’s how people felt all the time. But the moment my nanites sensed my danger through my elevated stress hormones, they automatically stabilized yours.” She studied Vanda. “Feeling better?”
Vanda lowered the Uzi and stared at Toby. The urgent swell of love for him she always carried was deflating. Counsellor was a spider, remotely injecting venom into Vanda, paralyzing her emotions. They could turn off her love, just like that.
She raised the Uzi. “Reverse it. And don’t even think about sedating me, because if I get an inkling I’m about to go under, I’ll . . .” Vanda frowned. It’s crazy, what I’m doing. Counsellor is only being logical.
“That Toby ‘sees’ fireworks merely heralds the affliction.” Counsellor turned on Vanda. “Before long his reality will coalesce into a jumble of nonsensical hallucinations. They all commit suicide without our help.”
“You couldn’t help his father.”
“We did try, dear.”
Vanda closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. I don’t know what I’m so upset about. I can have another child. A normal one. She dropped the Uzi. “Toby will cause me nothing but heartache. Just like his father.”
“Of course he will.”
“Mommy?” The weight of Toby’s gaze pulled her, as his father’s always had. Malik. She should have resisted him.
“Mommy, I want pocket. For dolphins.”
Not the dolphins again. As if fireworks weren’t enough. She drew an exasperated sigh. “Toby, there are no dolphins.”
Toby’s lower lip trembled.
Counsellor advanced on him.
“No! Mommy!” he shrieked. “Spider! Spider eat me!”
“Don’t be silly, Toby.” Vanda patted his cheek. “Counsellor is only trying to help.”
Vanda stood posture-perfect beside her bed, her mind as heavy as the nectar-drunk bees droning outside her barred window.
Bees. Malik and his busy-bee nanites.
She gazed outside. Cloud shadows raced across fields of sky-blue flax, the play of light and dark seeming to form words—
Malik loved words.
Vanda smiled lazily as the memory bubbled up through her nani-chem haze. They had lain in a field of flax, Malik’s arms crossed beneath his head, Vanda propped on an elbow. She leaned over and kissed him, trailing her fingers across the letters on his arm. He’d inked poetry for her there, words that tinted her greyscale world with colour.
“You’re on fire,” he murmured against her lips.
She laughed. “God, you’re so afflicted.”
“Would you still love me if I really was?” He pulled her to him and she was lost.
Later, “You saw fireworks, Vanda.” He smiled wickedly. “Admit it. You’re the afflicted one.”
Vanda didn’t return his smile. The poem on his arm: it was squirming.
Because it was never inked. He was coaxing his nanites like bees from a hive, teasing them into pixels and letters and words: “You’re a sky full of dreams.”
It should have enchanted her.
She scrambled to her feet. “How—?”
“I love you, Vanda. That’s how I see our love.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Don’t be scared.” He climbed to his feet.