Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

Some counselor once told impatient Shannon it was okay to ask for clear time limits—deadlines—if it would help her wait more patiently. I’d gotten used to it. She was much more patient with a deadline than without. But this was different. I hadn’t been able to figure this thing out in 30 years—how it happened, why it happened, how I felt about it, anything at all—and she wanted to know how long I needed ? Longer than I had obviously. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow night after dinner. I’ll cook. I have a Rachael Ray recipe I want to try with that chicken.”

“You sure it’s still okay? It’s been in there a while.”

“I just bought it a couple of days ago. It’ll be fine.”

“You don’t think I’m being selfish for asking you to help Aubrey?”

“Not at all. How could asking to help somebody else be selfish?”

“If I wasn’t thinking about how it might be hard for you. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, Jeffrey. I love you. You know that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay then. Tomorrow after dinner.” She sipped her coffee. “So you watch Rachael Ray every day?”

“She’s on when I break for lunch. What can I say? She’s hot. You’re going to love this chicken.”

To tell you the truth, I couldn’t remember Rachael Ray’s recipe exactly, but it involved some chopped herbs and garlic and olive oil slathered on chicken parts which were then baked. I recalled the close-up of Rachael Ray’s hands slathering breasts and thighs. She was always using her hands. I loved it. I’m a whole bird man myself, but I liked the concept. I figured baked was good, so I wouldn’t be standing over the stove while we were having this discussion. I didn’t expect Shannon to wait until after dinner to bring it up. My tarragon plants looked like they were up to a chicken-size harvest, and I threw in a little white wine, some chopped mushrooms, a dash of nutmeg, some salt, lots of black pepper and crushed garlic, and (of course) extra-virgin olive oil. It made a fine green goop.

I’d decided to say no to Shannon’s request that I attempt to resurrect Aubrey. Here was my reasoning: Most important, I suppose, was my gut said no. This was no surprise. It’d been saying no loud and clear for 30 years now—no wavering. But with Shannon’s petition, I’d been forced to rationally examine what I thought about it—in other words, to come up with some likely sounding reasons to validate my gut. If your mind doesn’t work like that, more power to you, and hurray for rationalism and all of that, but for me reason lives to serve the gut. In this case, it was persuasive as usual.

First, I doubted I could do it. When Ben came back to life, I really wanted it to happen. I’d never willed anything so strongly before or since. As for Aubrey, I could try to want his resurrection because Shannon did—though she seemed to have gotten along fine without him in the time I’d known her—but it wasn’t happening. Deep down, I felt if Aubrey were going to make a move, it should be in the other direction. So if my will and desire had anything to do with whatever process brought Ben back to life, there was little chance of success with Aubrey.

Assuming I was able to bring him back to life, the questions just began. Ben regressed from being a dying seventeen-year-old to (by all appearances) a four-year-old, and had remained unchanged for 30 years and counting. Would Aubrey, who had his accident at 26, find himself a permanent six-year-old? What effect would five years of unconsciousness have had on him? And as Ben pointed out, death is a necessary precondition of resurrection. Technically speaking, Aubrey wasn’t dead. He was in that huge gray arena known as, “as good as dead.” Even my silly father had casually described himself thus over dessert the previous night—but there’s no such thing, is there? A prescription and some psycho-babble away from a cure isn’t dead . Nothing’s as good as dead. Dead is unique, no known therapy or cure.

But let’s just say, everything were to go perfectly. Aubrey awakens from his deep sleep a new man of sound mental faculties who lives a long fruitful life and dies at a respectable age like the rest of us, a credit to his species, despite his previous sociopathic tendencies, having seen the light or whatever revelation the resurrected are privy to, and has been utterly transformed by the experience. Did I really want to be the guy who raised him from the dead? I wouldn’t make it out of the hospital before they’d be doing tests on me, driving me out to the cemetery to see what I could really do. No thanks.

I didn’t know why Ben came back to life and continued to live. I hadn’t a clue. Until I figured that out, that’s as far as it went. God might have a plan, in which case I was sure I couldn’t do anything to screw it up, lacking any clear instructions otherwise, but if God had no plan, I didn’t feel obliged to come up with one other than the status quo: Everyone dies. That’s the way things are. Except for Ben.

Would I get a chance to say all this to Shannon after she hears no? Would it matter to her? Would I lose her? That’s all I cared about: I just didn’t want to lose her. I knew I should care about her brother, but to me he was an extra out of an old movie with Genevieve Bujold. I couldn’t bear to lose Shannon, however. As Ben prophesied, she was the one for me. Trouble was, she had just one tiny little favor to ask, and I couldn’t do it.

And there she was, coming in the kitchen door with a bottle of wine, a half hour early, as I should’ve known she would be, and here I was with my hands dripping garlic, olive oil, and tarragon, anointing the chicken inside and out, lost in thought, reasoning and seasoning. If I could only manage to throw the bird in the oven before Shannon rushed straight to The Issue, we could talk while it baked.

She kissed my cheek, careful to avoid my slathered hands, and opened the bottle of wine, giving a half-hearted account of her day. Traffic was lighter than usual, she claimed, to explain her early arrival. I pretended to believe her.

Ben, who’d shown up to observe the preparations the minute I took the chicken out of the fridge, didn’t even glance her way. He was seated on a stool, eye level with his share of the bounty, the bag of innards I always gave him—liver, heart, gizzard—laid out on the cutting board awaiting preparation once the bird was in the oven. He liked them sautéed in butter and garlic with a splash of Worcestershire, devoured them like a lion on the veldt, if the lion had a chef. I kept the neck for making stock. I didn’t treat him to such delicacies often. He liked the Chow, he claimed. “I think they put something in it,” he said. “It’s highly addictive. Perhaps some extract of cat nip.” Ben’s always had a serious nip habit, but we all must have our vices, I suppose.

Shannon poured, laughing at Ben’s rapt attention to my labors. She scratched the top of his head, and he lifted it to press against her hand, arched his back to her touch, as her hand glided firmly down his back, but his eyes never left the prize. “I hope you washed your hands,” Shannon said. She held my glass to my lips to give me a sip of wine, careful once again to avoid my glistening green hands and the oily bird. “I’ll put your glass over here.” She set it on the counter out of the way and took the stool next to Ben’s. “So have you thought about Aubrey?”

Damn. “Of course. Let me get this in the oven first, okay? Then we can talk.”

“Okay.” She idly petted Ben a few strokes, growing pensive. She wrapped her hand around his tail, and he slowly pulled it through, like a napkin through a ring. “It must not be yes. If it was yes, you’d just go ahead and tell me.”