Kevin Anderson - The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

John-William’s mother thinks he ought to be home right now. She doesn’t like him out at night, but boys didn’t know about the dark, didn’t know what happens out there when the sun goes down and the day hides out of sight.

Amos ’n’ Andy were gone. The radio plays a song she likes a lot.

She and Jack used to hear it all the time when they’d take his daddy’s big LaSalle out and park. That was when they first began to date, before they even thought about getting married or anything else besides parking, feeling up, and having fun. And even after that, sometimes, before Jack pumped her up like a tub with John-William inside, they’d hear that song and everything would be fine. Betty Ann’s father didn’t trust Jack at all. He knew what they were doing in the back of that LaSalle. Jack didn’t wear overalls, wore a Searsucker suit and a snappy bow tie. He came from Paul’s Valley, which didn’t say much, even for an Oklahoma town. Still, like Betty Ann’s mother Sarah said, anyone don’t have shit on his shoes is worth looking at twice. Well that was a lie, considering Mr. Searsucker suit didn’t hang around all that long after John-William’s mother, Betty Ann, brought two more babies in the world who curled up and died.

John-William’s mother walks from one shadow room to the next. The furniture is dim, like chairs and tables and beds all covered in a ghosty kind of light, the pale green glow like the fireflies John-William’s mother used to capture in a jar.

It was the first brick house she’d ever lived in in her life. The first time she’d lived in town except once. Betty Ann and her mother had moved to Atoka from the farm when Mama Steck took sick and they had to live there till she died. When it happened, Betty Ann was right there, Betty Ann saw it, watched the night come until the room was inky black, watched while it hovered over Mama Steck a while, then plunged down into that dry and withered mouth and sucked her life away. Betty Ann peed her britches right then, and never, ever, told Mother what she saw.

Jack’s wife, John-William’s mother, walks through the dark, walks from one room to the next. To the living room, the big bedroom where she sleeps alone now, through the bathroom and John-William’s room, even in the closets, out through the doorway that leads to the shed that sags against the house. Light from a half-moon slants through the holes that Jack never fixed. Truth to tell, Jack never fixed shit, never put a nail in a wall, never fixed a leak.

Lord, what a mess, thinks John-William’s mother, Betty Ann. It’s like your whole life’s stacked up in there, gathering dust, soaking up time, hours used up and tossed away, moments dead and gone, rusted and frozen where they lay. Jack’s hammers and his nails and his saws and his files and his broken axe, waiting to finish some goddamn thing he never even started at all. John-William’s bike, broken and twisted, one wheel missing and one wheel bent. Wasn’t anyone going to fix it. Why in heaven’s name was she hanging onto that?

Just too much to bother about, thinks John-William’s mother, and not enough time, not any time at all….

Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, perches on the edge of the tub and turns on the hot water tap. John-William’s clothes are wadded in a pile. He’d ridden out for crawdads with bacon on a string, down by the creek behind the park. He’d gotten all soaked, peeled everything off, left it on the floor. John-William’s mother gave him a proper scolding, the boy knew better than that. She’d scrubbed him good, tossed socks and underpants into the bin. Picked up his shirt and shook her head. His brand new Ferdinand the Bull shirt and already ruined for good.

In John-William’s pockets she found a Krazy Kat button and a string from a top, a cap from a Nehi Orange and a broken lead soldier with his legs cut off above the knees. When Betty Ann was fifteen, she stayed with her cousin Helen for a while. One night they drove into Lawton for a picture show and ice cream. Helen took her daddy’s new Packard. They were supposed to be back before dark. They told Helen’s daddy they had a flat. What happened was they met two soldiers in town from Fort Sill. The soldiers were both nineteen. They had a pint of gin and a carton of Wings cigarettes. Helen made Betty Ann drive while she and the best-looking boy sat and giggled in the back. Betty Ann knew they were doing more than that.

Betty Ann and the other soldier spread a blanket on the grass. Helen and her friend never left the back seat. Betty Ann couldn’t stand the taste of gin. She drank a little all the same and smoked a lot of cigarettes. She let the boy kiss her, and he kissed real fine. After a while she let him reach in and touch her breasts. Just on the tops and not any lower than that. She hadn’t meant to but the boy was real nice and he came from out of state. He said he’d like to see her naked. Betty Ann said absolutely not. They kissed a lot more. Betty Ann was flattered he was getting so hot. The cigarettes made her too dizzy to stop. She let him get on top and rub against her through his clothes. His hardness touched her once and that was that. The boy made a noise and walked off in the grass for some time. On the way home, when they’d let the soldiers off, Helen made Betty Ann tell her everything that happened in the grass. Then Helen told Betty Ann things she hadn’t even thought about before.

John-William’s mother lets the water run in the tub. Back in the bedroom she peels the sticky dress up over her head, drops it on the floor. Just like John-William, she thinks. Doesn’t get all his bad habits from Jack. On the way back she stops, stands there in the hall. Something seems to move, something in the almost not quite corner in the dark. Something nearly there, something nearly out of sight. John-William’s mother turns around fast. Gives a little jump, a little start. And there’s Betty Ann looking back, just as surprised, just as naked as Betty Ann herself. Betty Ann knows she ought to look away, knows she shouldn’t stand there staring in her birthday suit. Still, the sight in the mirror holds her fixed, holds her still, like a doe caught frightened in the light.

My lord, who’s that , thinks John-William’s mother. It sure isn’t me, isn’t anyone that I ever knew! It looks like her. But it can’t be John-William’s mother, can’t be Jack’s wife. Betty Ann feels sticky from the heat, from the sweat between her breasts, from the tingle in her nipples, from the heat between her knees. The woman in the mirror has beaded points of light in the dark between her thighs, has slick-silver flesh, has an opalescent glow like she’s just stepped out of a moonlit sea. The woman in the mirror doesn’t think about meatloaf at all, doesn’t think about carrots on the stove. She thinks about the soldier and the need in his eyes and the hard thing pressed against her belly that night.

The woman in the mirror remembers every feeling, every moment with the soldier in the grass, later with a boy named Freddie and one named Alex, and Bob after that, and every single night, every morning with Jack, even the moments when he hit her too hard, when her face swelled up and she went out back to cry….

Goodness sake, thinks John-William’s mother, uneasy with the thoughts in her head, and the warm spots farther down than that. “Well that’s what you get,” she thinks out loud, “gawking at yourself like a Fort Worth floozie struttin’ down Third Avenue.”

John-William’s mother remembers the water in the tub. Lord, she’d gone and left it on. There’d be water running out the door, into the hall and onto the carpet, and Jack’s wife, Betty Ann, running naked ’round the house with a mop and John-William’s supper in the stove.