Martin Greenberg - The Future We Wish We Had

Dr. Andrews called me again Monday. Grin missed another appointment.

I agreed to talk to her.

“My aches and pains are my own,” Gran said when I tried. “I can handle them. A few visits with those pill peddlers and I’ll be ready to pull the plug myself.”

“Gran,” I reminded her, “you’re not hooked up to anything.”

“Not yet.” She wiggled a finger at me, “But there’s a reason behind the expression ‘doctoring up.’ They want to change me. Or worse, to put me away. And I won’t have it.”

The Triage Trio, as Gran so eloquently called them, kept in contact with me. They asked that I report to them anything strange in Gran’s behavior, any indication that it was time to take action.

“What kind of action?” I’d asked.

Their answers made me cringe. Maybe a cranial implant would do the trick, maybe a short admittance to a holo-home. Maybe permanent admittance. They spent lots of time singing the praises of one particular holo-home. The best in the business and, after all, isn’t that what Gran deserved? This place, they insisted, would be virtually indistinguishable from her current home. And virtual commitment was their preferred method of treatment. She’ll love it, they said. Guaranteed.

But would the holo-emitters be able to capture the sun on the hyacinths? I wanted to know. The hyacinths were Gran’s favorite.

They suggested I visit the place, to feel better about sending her there.

They’d done their homework: I had to give them that.

Emily wiggled out of my arms and ran through the holographic house, calling, “Gannie!”

“She’s not here, honey,” I said. Yet.

How, I asked, had they managed the detail? The picture I’d painted when I was five was there, the awards Gran had won were there, even the smell of the baking cookies that permeated the room. Yes. They’d gotten that right.

Casual but prim, the woman in charge of admissions smiled, showing perfectly straight white teeth. Her nose crinkled like a ferret’s. “There’s no rush, you know. We can keep your grandmother’s house on our digital file indefinitely. We want you to be comfortable with your decision.”

“How did you do this?” My mouth was open, but I was too overwhelmed to be embarrassed.

“We sent an operative to her home,” she stage-whispered, though only Emily and I were there, “posing as a realtor needing information for a neighbor. Took digigraphs of the whole house. Did we get it right?”

She giggled, knowing full well that my answer was, yes, perfectly.

So why did I feel like crying?

Safely tucked in bed by eight o’clock, Emily went right to sleep. I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down to read, thinking that a good book would help me relax. When Don walked in moments later, I was surprised.

“You’re home early.”

“Yep.”

Don always went straight to bed or sat in front of the teleview when he got home. Right now he was standing in the family room doorway with his hands behind his back.

He’d gotten a haircut.

“These are for you,” he said all in a rush, and thrust a bouquet of roses at me.

“But…”

“Happy anniversary.”

“Don,” I said, taking the flowers, “our anniversary was in May.”

“I know that. But remember how hurt you were that I forgot?”

I didn’t remember being hurt in the least. He’d forgotten every anniversary except the first one, and frankly, I’d gotten used to it.

He knelt before me and took my hands in his. Too startled to think, I let him. He was still good-looking. His brown eyes twinkled and his mouth curved into the smile that I fell in love with so many years ago.

Encouraged, he took my book, closed it, and sat next to me. Tentative, his fingers stroked my forearms with light touches, moving upward in slow circles. He cupped my chin and kissed me, softly. My eyes sought his as we parted. What could have caused this change?

He pushed my hair behind one ear and pulled me close. “Tell me what’s new with you and Emily,” he said.

And so, with my head on his shoulder, I told him about the doctors and their diagnosis, and worries about Gran. I left out the part about the shuttle, which was tricky, but I sensed that he wasn’t analyzing my story too thoroughly anyway, probably because there was so much to catch up on.

We sat there for a long time and I talked. It felt wonderful. I turned to look at him. That sparkle in his eyes was what did it for me. I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, happy to feel the tingle again. The tingle I’d thought was gone for good.

When I described my visit to the holo-home, Don started to ask questions. Yes, it looked just like Gran’s house. Sure, she could have an outdoor and an indoor world. She could even plant flowers. Could she change the program? No. That would be up to me. The goal was to make her feel as though she was truly at home and not in an artificial environment. State of the art? Absolutely. Expensive, too.

He made a passing comment about wanting to see this holo-home, and in my naivete, I jumped at the suggestion.

“That would be great, Don. You have no idea what it would mean to me to have you see it too. I mean,” I shook my head, my hands making helpless gestures, “it just doesn’t seem right to send Gran to one of those places. You know?”

I should have known better.

Don grinned. “Yeah,” he said, “I would love to see one of those things. They’re supposed to be just like that Sensavision I want, only better.”

“Sensavision.”

“Now that you got your chance to talk, I thought maybe I could tell you some more about the Sensavision.” He reached into his back pocket, displacing me from his shoulder, and pulled out another brochure, different than the one we’d argued over. “You’re gonna love it, I just know.”

I was dumbfounded. He continued, oblivious. “Y’see what a nice time we had tonight, with me home? I’d be home every night if we had one of these. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Sitting up, I grabbed the flowers. “Is that what this is all about? You trying to look like a sweet and thoughtful husband so you could romance me into buying one of those?”

His eyes told me he was confused by the question. But his shrug told me more.

I threw the flowers to the floor. “You fooled me. I’ll give you that. Here,” I went to the banking console and inputted the code that transferred funds from my trust account into a debit disk. He watched me, the whole time, his eyes alert, not contrite. I waved the silver disk at him. “Buy the stupid thing. But don’t ever pull a stunt like this again.”

The next day we sat in Gran’s kitchen.

Emily sat at my feet, and I sighed with pleasure. For the past hour, she’d been pressing Gran’s door chimes over and over. Programmed to play Emily’s favorite song, “Whatsa Whatsa,” they’d been the hit of the morning. I was relieved she’d finally gotten bored with the game.

Gran sat down next to me, “So. What are you going to do about it?”

I bit my lip. Complaints about Don had just fallen out of my mouth. I usually tried to keep marital discord safely under wraps, but today something had snapped. And now Gran knew it all.

“Marry in haste, repent at leisure, isn’t that how it goes?” I asked. I was kind of kidding, kind of not.

Gran snorted. “I married your grandfather knowing him only two months,” she said, her blue eyes telling me an important point was about to follow. “And a finer man, a better lover, there never was.”

Settling in for a “talk,” Gran continued. “We knew. We both knew that no matter how many years we had together, no matter how many thousands-no-millions of moments we had-they were never going to be enough. A lifetime together was just going to be the start. And we knew that right off.”