Christina Dalcher - VOX

The pain knocked me flat.

Our bodies have a mechanism, a way to forget physical trauma. As with my non-memories of the pain of birth, I’ve blocked everything associated with that afternoon, everything except the tears in Patrick’s eyes, the shock—what an appropriate term—on my sons’ faces, and Sonia’s delighted squeals as she played with the red device. There’s another thing I remember, the way my little girl raised that cherry red monster to her lips.

It was as if she were kissing it.

FOURTEEN

Finally, they leave.

Reverend Carl slides into his Range Rover; the Secret Service men and Thomas ride in the other cars. Patrick and I are left in the living room with eight empty glasses of water dripping rings on the coasters beneath them.

Nothing has been decided yet.

He’s pacing the length of the room, sweat making his usually gelled-down hair stick in blond clumps around his face. Right now, he looks less like my husband and more like a caged feline. Or maybe a wild dog is the better choice; they’re pack animals.

“They won’t take off Sonia’s counter,” I say.

“They will. Eventually. Think how it would look if she turned up at school without that—”

“Don’t you dare call it a bracelet.”

“Okay. Counter.”

I load the tray with glasses, using only my thumb and index finger so I don’t touch them more than necessary. Shaking Reverend Carl’s hand made me want to scrub myself with lye. “Can’t you do something? You’re the one who called it a trade, so let’s trade. I go to work for the bastards; they let my daughter talk.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Patrick, you’re the president’s fucking science adviser. You’d better be able to do something.”

“Jean.”

“Don’t ‘Jean’ me.” I slam down the glass I’m holding hard, and it shatters.

Patrick’s over like a shot, catching the blood as it leaks from my hand.

“Don’t touch me,” I say. There’s a single sliver of glass wedged in the soft pad of flesh under my thumb. And there’s blood. Quite a lot of blood.

As water rolls over the wound, I travel back thirty minutes, back to when Reverend Carl was holding court in my living room, educating me on the plans for the future.

Something was wrong. Maybe it was his eyes, which didn’t smile along with his mouth, or the pattern of his sentences. They were too well rehearsed, almost, too practiced in their even cadence and intonation. Even so, the hesitance was audible—a few too many um s and ah s littered his recital of the president’s intended changes, modifications, dispensations.

I couldn’t put my finger on exactly the moment when I realized I didn’t trust him.

“What if they’re playing some game, Patrick?” I called over the running water while he cleaned up the bits of broken glass and dumped them into the trash bin. I didn’t turn to look; those pieces of glass looked too much like our marriage.

It wasn’t always this way. You don’t have four kids by accident.

He joins me at the sink, scrubs his hands as only a doctor can, all the way up to his elbows, and looks a question at me before reaching for my wrist. He’s still got that gentle touch. “You want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Good news.”

“Okay. The good news is you’re not going to die.”

“And the bad?”

“I’ll get my sewing kit.”

Stitches. Shit. “How many?”

“Two or three. Don’t worry—it looks worse than it is.” When he comes back with his black bag, he pours me a short glass of bourbon. “Here. Drink this. It’ll take the sting away.” Then he sits me at the kitchen counter and takes the equipment out, ready to play doctor on the gash in my hand.

I take a long swallow of the hard stuff, and the needle slides into my disinfected skin without much pain. Still, I won’t look, only hand Patrick the pickup when he asks for it.

“Damn good thing you didn’t go into nursing, babe,” he says, and there’s tenderness again between us.

For a moment.

He makes an expert knot, cuts off the excess thread, and pats my hand. “There you are, Dr. Frankenstein. Good as new.”

“Dr. Frankenstein wasn’t the one with the zipper neck,” I say. “Anyway, what do you think? Are they playing a game, or are they serious about what they said?”

“I don’t know, Jean.” ‘Jean’ again. He’s pissed.

“Look, if I take this job, how do I know they won’t—I don’t know—use my research to promote worldwide evil?”

“With an anti-aphasia serum? Come on.”

The blood loss and bourbon cocktail have made me light-headed. “I just don’t trust these people.”

“All right, then.” He pours a drink for himself, then slams the bottle on the counter with enough force to hurt my ears. “Don’t take the job. We’ll deal with the AC when my direct deposit comes through next week, you can put your goddamned bracelet back on, and we’ll all go back to exactly the way we were this morning.”

“Fuck you.”

He’s mad, he’s hurt, and he’s frustrated. None of this justifies the next words out of his mouth, though, the ones he will never be able to take back, the ones that slice deeper than any shard of broken glass and make me bleed all over.

“You know, babe, I wonder if it was better when you didn’t talk.”

FIFTEEN

Even without the metal contraption on my wrist, dinner is a quiet affair tonight.

Steven, normally garrulous in between forkfuls of food, hasn’t mentioned school or Julia King or soccer. The twins seem confused and shift a little in their chairs. Sonia alternates between staring at her plate and staring at my left wrist, but she’s been silent since she got home from school. Another thing—there hasn’t been a single fist bump between her and Steven.

As for Patrick, he eats, takes his plate into the kitchen, and escapes to his study with a tumbler of bourbon and a few curt words about having to meet a deadline. It’s impossible to tell whom he’s more angry with—me, or himself.

“You explain it to them, Jean,” he says before shutting the door to that book-lined sanctuary of his.

Well, this is awkward.

I haven’t had a real conversation with my kids for more than a year. What once would have been an animated debate over whether Pokémon Go was a time waster or the cleverest innovation in gaming since Xbox is now four young faces staring in silent expectation. And I’m the main event.

I might as well get it over with.

“So, Steven, what’s going on at school these days?” I say.

“Two exams tomorrow.” It’s as if he’s the one with the daily word quota.

“Want me to help you study?”

“Nah. I’m cool.” Then, as an afterthought, he adds, “Thanks anyway.”

Sam and Leo are slightly more eager, pummeling me with news of their new soccer coach and how they played a trick at practice this morning, each one pretending to be the other. The two of them do most of the talking. I suppose that’s what they’ve grown used to.

Only Sonia watches me with wide eyes, the kind of look that makes me feel as if I’m a new person. Or have grown fur. Or turned into a dragon. She’s eaten none of the meat loaf on her plate, and only a few of the potatoes I’d run to the store to buy after the falling-out with Patrick this afternoon.

“Will I have another bad dream?” she asks.

Automatically, I respond with the wrong kind of question. “What makes you think that, honey?” I rephrase. “No. I won’t let the bad dreams happen. And I’ll tell you a story when I tuck you in, okay?”

She nods. The number on her wrist glows 40. “Scared,” she says.

“No reason to be.”