by Jill Smith
Imms takes his hands out of the water. “I’m sorry.” His voice is as soft as the sound of water droplets rolling from his hand into the tub. “Sorry,” he tries again, looking up when B doesn’t respond.
“You scared me.”
“I don’t know what… I hate feeling this way! I want it to stop. I’m not mad at you.”
“I think you are, a little bit.”
Imms’s fingers curl into fists. “Don’t do that to me again, B. Do you hear me? Don’t just go ahead when I tell you to stop. You don’t get to make all the decisions.”
“I know,” B says. “I won’t.”
“It’s not just this. You always do what you want.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Wait here just a minute.” B slips past Imms. He’s just out of the bathroom when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He stops. Imms carefully winds both arms around his neck. Imms’s touch never hurts. He feels Imms’s cheek between his shoulder blades.
He turns to take Imms in his arms. He’s feeling something he can’t identify, some combination of shame, love, anxiety, and sadness. Months ago on the Silver Planet, he’d wanted to make Imms angry. He’d refused the possibility that a being so human could be so incomplete, naïve, simple. Is that what this is about? That B has taken innocence and twisted it? Torture couldn’t draw harsh, violent emotions from Silvers in Project HN. But B’s disastrous attempt to love Imms, to protect him, has made Imms feel all the worst things a human can feel.
*
When they are in bed, still damp—an old Smuckers jar of Silver water hidden behind a mountain of socks in the bedroom closet—Imms opens the package. Inside is a book. The cover is black and glossy with pinprick silver stars. The pages are filled with pictures of the Silver Planet. Pictures of Silvers, of the lakes, of the blue flowers that turn to quilopea. A snake. The Byzantine nestled on the bright earth. Pebbles on the ground. A human’s shoe print. A Silver holding a hand out as if to block the camera.
And among the pictures is writing. Scraps of paper with dates, notes.
The Silvers learn so fast, reads one scrap. One in particular is already speaking English like a native. Loves Tin Star. Tomorrow will try
Will try what? Imms wonders. Then he remembers—the next day Grena read aloud the scene where Tin Star and Thunder Sam are reunited, over and over until Imms had it memorized. Then they acted it out together.
“Grena and Vir’s notes,” B says. “And Gumm’s pictures, mostly. A couple are mine.”
I think they are smarter than humans. This note is in different handwriting. Vir’s. Even though they have not invented much, or created. They have created something out of just themselves. They don’t need canvases, or gadgets.
Imms holds the book, afraid if he shuts it, it will disappear. Anything sour left over from their fight disappears. He lets the book slide from his lap as he throws his arms around B and squeezes, harder than he squeezed Don Welbert’s wrist. “Thank you,” he says into B’s neck, letting the heat of the words blast back into his mouth.
“Merry Christmas.”
Imms can’t say what he wants to say. His own gift to B—his heart sinks as he thinks of it—is painfully inadequate, stacked against all this.
B eases him back on the bed, kisses him again. “Tell me your favorite things about your home.”
Imms isn’t sure he wants to talk about this at first. He remembers answering the Breakthrough II team’s questions. But once he starts, he can’t stop. Telling B is different than telling strangers. He feels like he’s making B a part of his old life, like when he almost brought B into the ground with him that night on the Silver Planet. His stories maybe aren’t as interesting as B’s. He’s never super glued anyone’s hands to their pockets. But B listens, and B never stops touching him, and Imms’s heart presses against the front of his chest as though it wants out through his skin.
When B is asleep, Imms takes the book into the kitchen and flips through it again. Once, twice. Three times. Then he goes to the living room. He tears the paper off his gift to B and opens the box. The vase is slightly lopsided. Brid says that gives it character. He doesn’t like the glaze color he chose—reddish brown, like dried blood. He turns the vase over. He’d carved To: B in the clay at the bottom, on an impulse just before the vase went into the kiln the first time. The letters are clumsy and childish. The whole thing is ugly, inexpert. Not enough.
He takes it to the kitchen and grabs a plate from the cabinet. Holding the plate in one hand, the vase in the other, he counts to three and drops both at the same time.
They both break in big chunks, though the vase leaves some small, scattered pieces as well. Imms quickly sweeps the vase into a plastic bag, bundles it tightly, and throws it in the trash. He has just started sweeping up the plate when B reaches the kitchen.
“What’s up?” B asks sleepily. “You okay?”
“Sorry.” Imms lets B see the shards of familiar ceramic. “I broke a plate.”
“You shouldn’t clean up barefoot,” B says, kicking his slippers toward Imms. He heads back to bed.
Imms finishes sweeping. He goes to the closet where he left the bags from Christmas shopping and finds the poster from the joke store. He takes it to the living room and slides it into the box. Rewraps the package. Makes a new tag.
Goes back to bed.
Chapter Thirty-One
Christmas Day begins with cocoa, but Bridique introduces a bottle of wine early on and they all partake. Bridique lied, she does have a present for Don—a watch. “Not very fancy,” Brid says, “but it’s waterproof. And it’s got a stopwatch feature. For when you start running.” Dave snickers. Brid doesn’t look at Don when she talks. In fact, she hardly looks at Don at all. Don looks at her. A lot, thinks Imms. Don gives Brid a book about a lion that saved an African soldier’s life and bonded with the man. The soldier and the lion are pictured together in the author photo.
Imms loves his gifts. A set of leather-bound classics from Mary. A gift certificate for a pottery class from Bridique. A Game Boy from Dave. “These things are like, antique,” he says. “But you seem to like the older systems. And you can play it anywhere.” Don gives him a shot glass that says “World Poke-Her Championship,” and a set of naked woman playing cards.
“Classy,” Brid says. “I’m sure he loves the titty pics. That’s totally his jam.”
“Yeah, well, I saw the picture of you two at Mistletoe Junction and figured he’d switched teams.”
“What picture?” B asks.
“You didn’t show him?” Brid hops up and runs with her wineglass to the kitchen.
“I shoulda got him a muzzle for this damn dog,” Don says. Lady is curled in his lap, eyes half-closed as Don rubs her ears.
Brid returns with the photo. “Mom put it up on the fridge. How cute is it?” She thrusts it at her brother.
“What’d the photo elf say?” B asks.
“He said Merry Christmas—go buy a thousand fucking copies.”
“Charming.” B hands the photo back.
Imms’s stomach sinks as B picks up his gift from Imms. He seems puzzled when the box lifts easily. “It’s not much,” Imms says hurriedly.
“Oh please,” Brid says. “If you won’t tell them how hard you worked on it, I will.”
B tears off the paper, opens the box, and pulls out the poster. He unrolls it. Stares at it.
“What the—?” Brid says.
“Let’s see.” Mary motions B to turn it toward her.
B sets the poster down in front of him, holding it flat. Everyone crowds around to look. Dave bursts out laughing. “Did you make that?” he Imms asks.
“No,” Imms says. “I bought it.”
“That’s hilarious.”
Imms stares at the figures—the oblivious Silver and the human stalking it. The truth is out there. It’s a quote from an old show called The X-Files, Brid had explained to him. “It means there’s life on other planets.”
Don snorts. “I don’t get it.
”
B doesn’t laugh. Just stares at the poster. Finally, he looks at Imms and says, “Thank you.” Nothing beneath the surface of the words.
“Imms, come get more wine with me,” Brid says.
He follows her into the kitchen.
“What the hell?” she demands. “What happened to the vase?”
“I broke it,” he says, with just enough defiance that she’ll know he means on purpose.
“Why?”
B enters. “I’d like a filler-up, too, please.” He squeezes Imms’s shoulder. “Thanks for my present,” he says. “It’s funny.”
“Hilarious,” Brid mutters, jamming the corkscrew into a bottle of red.
Imms would like to disappear. Into the floor won’t be enough. He’d like to vanish completely.
They return to the living room and finish off the presents. Brid squeals when she opens her necklace from Imms and ignores Don when he offers to help her put it on. She is much quieter when she opens a small box tagged From Bill and Cena and pulls out salt and pepper shakers shaped like dancing penguins.
Imms gives Don a gift card to a sporting goods store, and Don seems genuinely pleased.
Dave leaves to go to some girl’s house, and the rest of them gather in the kitchen to eat. Mary didn’t cook this time, but she has frozen lasagnas in the oven and Dave brought Christmas cookies. Imms tries to enjoy the meal, but all he can think about is the poster. Whether it’s funny or not, it is certainly inadequate. After dinner Imms sits with Brid on the front steps. It is chilly, but they are wearing jackets and sitting close. They have switched from wine to brandy, because it’s warmer.
“I screwed up my first Christmas,” Imms says.
“No you didn’t.” Brid rests her head on his shoulder. “I love my necklace. Mom loved the prints.”
“He gave me the most beautiful things last night. And I just thought—”
“You can make him another vase. At your class.” Brid hiccups, then laughs. “You’re not the only one who screwed up. Want to hear something horrible?”
“What?”
She leans close to his ear. “I slept with Don last night.”
“No.” The brandy makes him loud.
“Shhhhh!” she slaps his shoulder, then whispers, “Yes.”
“You haven’t before?”
“No, gross. He’s almost mom’s age.”
“Then why—”
“He was kinda drunk, I was kinda drunk…” Suddenly Brid is sobbing. And laughing. Imms can’t tell which she is doing more. “Don’t tell Mom. Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.” Imms puts an arm around her. She lets him pull her close.
“You’re the nicest,” she says, “of anyone I know.”
“You’re nice,” he says. It almost sounds like an accusation. “Sometimes you’re nicer to me than B is.”
“That’s not saying much.”
“Hey! You two drunkards up for Scrabble?” Don yells.
Brid sits up, puts a hand to her head. “I’m ready for a nap,” she says. “Hey, don’t tell anyone. Okay? What I told you?”
“Okay,” Imms promises. He helps her up. They go in together.
*
That evening, at home, Imms has sobered up and waits for B’s judgment. When it doesn’t come, Imms is puzzled. “B? Can I talk to you?”
B sits on the bed next to him. “What’s up?”
“I made you something.”
“Oh?”
“I made you a vase. At the Potter’s Wheel. But I broke it.”
“Last night?” B asks.
Imms nods. “I did it on purpose.”
B waits.
“I did it because your present was so good. And the vase wasn’t. It just—seemed like, if I was going to give you a stupid present, it should be a stupid present I bought, not a stupid present I tried to make.”
“Would it be incredibly corny of me to say that it doesn’t matter what you get me, because spending this Christmas with you is a gift?”
Imms’s mouth falls open. “You were watching the Hallmark channel when I came home the other day!”
“I was not. I sat on the remote by accident. But seriously, I’m sorry that you thought I wouldn’t like something you’d made me. I like the poster.”
“It’s mean.”
“It’s somebody else’s idea of us. We know the truth. It’s not out there. It’s in here.” He takes Imms’s hand in his own and tried to place both on Imms’s heart. “Here,” he says as Imms’s heart drifts away. “Here.” B chases it again. Imms laughs.
“Hallmark,” he pretend-coughs.
“Never.” B clears his throat. “I want to make an addendum to my gift last night.”
“Oh no.” Imms flops back on the bed. “Don’t give anything else. I’ll feel worse.”
“Hey, listen.” B tugs Imms up. “I wanted to tell you that things are going to be different.”
“Different how?”
“Better. Between us. I haven’t been very good to you lately. I just want you to know that I’m going to try harder.”
“To be in love with me?” Imms claps a hand to his mouth. “Sorry. I think I’m still a little drunk.”
“I’m going to try harder to be there for you. To work with you. Not against you.”
“Okay,” Imms says. “Me, too.”
“You have tried hard. I know it’s not easy. I know you must miss home.”
“I like it here.”
“You can still miss home.”
Imms stares at B’s arm. The skin with its freckles and the light hairs that arc from it. Imms has never been as close to anyone as he is to B.
“I almost forgot.” B reaches into the nightstand and pulls out a long, flat envelope. No return address. “This came for you in the mail. You got a secret admirer?”
Imms opens the envelope. Inside is a handmade book of cryptowords.
B is in the bathroom. Imms slips downstairs.
He stays up the next two hours solving all the puzzles, collecting letters and numbers, arranging and rearranging them. When he’s done, he has:
59 QUEEN ANNE ST
BRIDGETOWN
IF YOU EVER NEED ME.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Things do get better for a while. B tries to spend more time at home and less time at work. He takes Imms out with him when he goes to the grocery store, to the bank, the post office. Imms gets as excited as a kid about errands. Once, at the grocery store, B puts his arm around Imms in front of a bin of cantaloupe. Just for a few seconds, but the way Imms looks at him, so surprised and delighted that B feels guilty. Pleasing Imms is so easy, and yet he so seldom tries.
Imms seems to enjoy his pottery class. He makes a vase for B to replace the one from Christmas.
Vir enters B’s mind at the oddest times. He’ll reach for a glass and remember her eyes as she told him that vivisecting a Silver was like chopping up a fucking manatee. He’ll walk in the park with Imms and wonder when the last time was Vir saw snow. He’ll think about her family—parents both living. No spouse or partner, no kids. No pets. He’ll read a book and instead of the words on the page, he’ll see Vir’s scrawled journal entries.
Vir didn’t sabotage the ship, didn’t hurt anyone. But she was hurting, and B didn’t notice. Or he noticed and didn’t act. He has never been able to see past what he wants right now. That’s why Imms is stuck on Earth with him. That’s why Vir is a villain. That’s why his sister thinks he is, among other things, a coward, a doubledouche, a total ass clown, and a fuckup.
He looks sometimes at the copies he made of Vir’s journal entries.
Talking to Grena would help, but Grena wants nothing to do with him.
“Imms?” B says one night. He shakes Imms gently, and Imms’s eyes flash in the dark. Imms yawns and his tongue gleams. He grabs B and curls against him, and B strokes his back. A Silver’s spine is lighter, more delicate than a human’s. B remembers that from lifting Silver bodies, from throwi
ng them into the lake.
“B?” Imms asks. “You all right?”
B doesn’t answer.
“Don’t be sad.” Imms kisses the corner of B’s mouth. “I have an idea.”
Imms is awake now. He ushers B out of bed. B doesn’t speak. He watches as Imms takes the comforter off the bed, then follows Imms downstairs and out the back door.
“Come on.” Imms picks a spot in the center of the yard. He lies down.
B eases himself onto the ground, not liking the way his joints pop. He stretches out beside Imms. Imms pulls the comforter over both of them.
“It’s cold,” B says. The grass pricks the back of B’s neck. “You’ve been scooping up after that dog, right?”
“B” Imms says quietly.
B shuts up. He looks at the sky.
“Imagine it’s just us. You don’t have to fit anywhere.”
B tries to imagine. No expectations. No guarantees. Nothing but the two of them surviving together.
The stars are bright, and when they blur together, when there’s a sort of fuzz warping the sky, B wonders if it’s because his eyesight is shot, or because there are some things humans just aren’t meant to see clearly.
*
Two NRCSuckers come to the house while B is at work. Imms isn’t supposed to answer the door, but he doesn’t feel like listening to B today.
Two men, one tall with sandy hair, the other shorter and dark-haired, stand on the porch. They show Imms NRCSE badges and tell Imms he needs to come with them to a special session at the facility. Imms doesn’t like them. They are in a hurry, anxious. Lady growls and hides behind Imms’s leg.
“I’ll call B,” he tells them.
“He’s already been informed,” says the first man.
“What’s the special session?” he asks the men.
The NRCSuckers look at each other. “We’re going to interview you,” Sandy-hair says.
Imms has already been interviewed dozens of times. He doesn’t know why he needs to be again. “Will it take long?”