by Nina Laurin
Just like that, my own argument has been snatched away from me—not only that but it was used against me. I stand there, knowing that I have nothing to say.
“Beach beach beach!” Taryn singsongs. And here I thought she was absorbed in her cartoon. “I want to go to the beach, Mommy!”
As if to prove his point, Scott makes a grimace over Taryn’s head. See? I told you so. And now, of course, I have to deal with this myself. I have to explain to her why we’re not going to the beach—because she’s going to day care as usual. And it’s my own fault.
Scott shrugs. “Your mom could watch her,” he says. “I’m sure she’d be happy to.”
“Therese?” I ask, appalled. I don’t know where I expected this conversation to go but this isn’t it. “You must be kidding. She hasn’t even set foot in the house. She thinks—”
“Taryn is her granddaughter. She’ll get over her dislike of the house for her sake.”
What Scott doesn’t know is that Therese has never met Taryn. I told him I brought her with me when I went to visit Therese a couple of times—but Taryn was at home with a sitter the entire time. And I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can.
“You really don’t know who you’re dealing with,” I say with a shaky laugh. God, he has no idea how much I mean it.
“It can’t be that bad. Ask her! Have you even called her lately? Think about it!”
Scott disappears with a distracted wave of the hand, leaving me with the mess. In every sense of the word. Spilled milk still dots the fashionable black counter like a reverse Rorschach test. Taryn is banging her fists on the table, chanting, “Beach, beach, beach.”
As for me, I’m still reeling from the very fact that he brought up Therese. He’s only met her once, and only on one of those did she act relatively normal. He met her for the first time shortly before we got married; and, to be perfectly honest, I waited until the date was set and the security deposit paid and until the engagement ring had had time to make a pale stripe on my finger before I introduced them. I would have gladly done without it altogether but he was insistent, and I finally decided it was even weirder to keep my still-living and relatively sane mother hidden like some leper.
I wanted to have a proper, civilized, and, most important, short little lunch together at some midrange restaurant not too far from where she lived but she invited us to her place. The address was unfamiliar. When we stopped in front of the tidy little condo building, I was shocked. Her new abode was a one-bedroom, filled with furniture that was dated but matching and ostensibly not from the curb. Hell, she had acquired a cat—a stunningly beautiful, profoundly misanthropic Siamese. She served us tea and butter cookies, the kind that comes in that big tin box. Granted, there was still the cross hanging over the mantel but as far as appearances went, my mother had rejoined the land of the living. At least until she declared loudly that she wouldn’t be attending our destination wedding because it wasn’t held in a church. That was before anyone formally asked her to come.
On our way out, as we took the two flights of stairs and then walked to the condo’s adjoining parking lot, Scott was quiet, and my heart began to beat faster. Then, finally, we were in his car.
At first I thought that his strained expression meant he was about to unleash a torrent of anger, to yell at me for having deceived him, having pretended to be a normal person who belongs in the normal world—his world. But he didn’t yell. He just sat there, looking ahead instead of at me. My alarm grew when I noticed his shoulders were shaking.
And then he burst out laughing and couldn’t stop until tears poured down his face.
“Well, Cece, you know what? That explains so much,” he finally choked out.
I bristled, demanding to know what exactly it explained but he only shook his head and laughed harder.
* * *
“Cecelia, would you like me to find a number for—Therese—in the directory?”
“No,” I bark, “I would not like you to find a number for Therese in the directory.”
“Would you like to add a number for Therese?”
“No!”
This seems to do it. For a few moments, the house grows silent, as if deep in thought. Then: “I have found the following contacts for Therese. Therese Gillam, mother. Would you like me to add Therese Gillam, mother, to the directory?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
The echo of my screech rolls through the house in a moment of perfect silence. Even Taryn stops fussing and looks at me with big round eyes, shiny like oil pools. “Oh my God,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
But Taryn isn’t about to cry. Instead, her pouty lips curl into a smirk. “Mommy, that’s a bad word.”
“Yes, honey. Mommy used a bad word, and Mommy is sorry. You shouldn’t say that word ever, okay?”
Her smirk doesn’t diminish in the slightest but I forget to be upset. I even forget to picture Taryn running around day care all day telling everyone, including inanimate objects, to shut the fuck up. Instead, I’m trembling. This is a little beyond weird. Where on earth did the house find my mother’s info? My techphobic, Luddite mother. Who doesn’t own a cell phone and probably still has a cathode-ray TV.
I shouldn’t be surprised. In fact, it’s all probably in the fine print somewhere. Like so many other things.
After I’ve dropped Taryn off at day care and made her promise not to say any bad words—if she manages to be good all day, she’ll get ice cream for dinner—I head home with a leaden feeling in my chest. I feel like I’ve hit a wall. “You know what, Saya? I would like you to call Therese Gillam.”
* * *
TRANSCRIPT: Session 9, Lydia Bishop.
Dr. Alice Stockman, PhD.
June 7th, 2018
AS: Is that how you see yourself—as the shrink who killed her patient?
LB: I don’t think how I see myself is the problem. But then again, Walter was a lot more than just a patient. I feel so stupid. For years, it was my bread and butter, telling other women to stay the hell away from guys like Walter. That’s what made me feel immune. I thought I could examine him, impartially, like an insect under glass. I had my own insecurities about my career, and he tapped into them with such ease that I hardly noticed.
AS: Insecurities?
LB: [flinches] I’m sure it sounds so pedestrian. For as long as I remember, I was the only one who believed in my career. Who thought psychology was good and useful and worthwhile. That helping people counts for something! It wasn’t exactly something that was valued and encouraged in my family. My sister’s a lawyer, so is my husband, working to make sure big corporations are never held responsible for their fuck-ups.
AS: So you feared that your chosen path might be a waste of time?
LB: Not exactly. I just thought— I wished I’d taken it farther. I’m almost forty, and I wish I hadn’t stopped my studies. I could have gone for the PhD, made a name for myself, the works. And instead, I was in my office, day in and day out, listening to other people’s predictable, self-created problems. Just like my parents always said I would end up doing. To them, I’m considered the help. [chuckles]
So you understand that when Walter came along, I was hooked. I should have referred him somewhere else immediately. I should have realized I was out of my depth. But his whole act, No one can help me except you—it was just what my ego needed in that moment.
AS: And why do you think that is?
LB: [sighs, followed by a long silence] You see, my sister…
AS: Yes?
LB: I’m…I’m sorry. No. I can’t tell you about it. I really—
AS: That’s all right. We can explore that another time.
LB: I’m afraid not. Not another time, not ever.
AS: You know what I think? I think it’s exactly the sort of thing we should discuss. Sounds important.
[pause]
LB: Oh, it is. But I can’t discuss it. Because she did something bad, and got me tangled up in it too, and don’t g
et me wrong, Dr. Alice—not that I don’t trust you but I don’t trust this place. Too much is at stake. So you’ll have to forget what I said.
AS: Will I see you next week?
LB: [no answer]
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It’s ridiculous but I feel like I’m sneaking out to meet my own mother. I don’t know why I bother but I turn off the car’s GPS. Not that I delude myself with any notions that I could outsmart the array of technologies that make my life so safe, so comfortable. I’m rather like a toddler playing hide-and-seek, hiding behind a flimsy living room curtain and bursting with pride thinking she’s now invisible.
If someone asked me why I even try, I couldn’t answer. The house already knows about my mother. Plus, I have every right to visit her, just like I have the right to leave for any other reason. We’re not prisoners here at SmartBlock; we’re in the golden cage quite voluntarily. I could find an excuse to leave every day: to go for a walk, to go shopping at some specialty store. After all, the shopping we’re helpfully provided with isn’t the cheapest, and the four parks aren’t all that spacious and look exactly like one another.
So why do so few people ever seem to leave? As I drive toward the northern exit, the road is all but empty. It feels eerie and unnatural. The mechanical arm of the gate is already open when I drive up to it. Cameras and sensors picked up every signal, analyzed and recorded everything, and decided to magnanimously let me through.
It’s like the new Middle Ages, I find myself thinking. I’m leaving the safe confines of the city walls at my own fear and risk. Within is reason and order; outside is chaos and the unknown. No wonder no one wants to leave.
I groan under my breath. I decided not to use the Maps app on my phone either, and now I’m regretting my decision. In front of me is a long stretch of highway, and all the signs and exit numbers might as well be in cuneiform. After all, our beautiful block used to be an industrial park, long ago bought up and decontaminated—factories and warehouses razed—and a twenty-first-century oasis built in its place.
But back when the factories and refineries spewed their fumes into the sky, this place was on the offshoot, far enough from the city proper to avoid bringing down the sacrosanct property values. And developers haven’t caught up yet, although no doubt they soon will.
For now, all I see on either side is emptiness, expanses of yellowed grass with a few trees sticking out of it here and there, looking unhealthy and misshapen. Low and gray industrial buildings break up the monotony once in a while, like flat warts.
Where is my exit? My mind scrambles in a panic, like I’ve suddenly forgotten something I’ve known my entire life. It happened a lot after Taryn was born, my brain fried by hormones and sleep deprivation.
Then the moments of confusion started happening again after the home invasion, and this time I blamed PTSD. Only now I’m overcome with a strange feeling as if not only do I not know where I’m going but I have no idea where I’m coming from either. As if I’d been sleeping and opened my eyes to find myself, in a nightmarish twist, behind the wheel of my car, careening down the highway into nothingness at a hundred miles per hour.
That’s why the soft but pervasive beep of the alert makes me jump. It’s just a little chime, the car letting me know that something is in my blind spot so I can react appropriately—yet it accomplishes the opposite effect. My hands on the steering wheel twitch. The car gives a swerve, right toward the motorcycle that’s been trying to pass me. It all happens so fast that, by the time my heart drops into my heels, it’s over. The bike avoids being hit in the nick of time, passing me and speeding away, but not before the biker treats me to a one-finger salute with a gloved hand.
My fingertips tingle as my heart continues to hammer. Now the motorcycle is in front of me, not receding into the distance.
And then three more appear in the rearview mirror. At first, I think I’m imagining things. But what started as three dots in the distance grows closer until I distinguish three identical bikes, their riders clad in black from head to toe despite the hot weather. Only one of them stands out with a red stripe on his helmet. Before I know it, I’m surrounded on all sides.
My hands grow damp and slippery, uncertain on the steering wheel. This is nuts. Are they trying to run me off the road? I could mow them down with my car if they try anything.
If the security system will let me, that is. I’ve turned off the assistant just as I did the GPS but who knows what failsafes IntelTech has installed—what else is in the fine print.
The inside of the car feels unbearably hot all of a sudden. I’m suffocating, sweat running down the back of my neck. And the silence of the superquiet electric engine becomes oppressive, leaden.
The bikes seem to be closing in, growing closer and closer to my car. Impulsively, I hit the gas pedal. But just as soon, they follow suit.
I glance at the dashboard, which hardly looks like a dashboard anymore, more like a tablet screen. I know the car has a preprogrammed speed limit—if only I could remember what it is. Nervous, I press on the gas pedal as hard as I can, just as a sign for the approaching exit appears in my field of vision.
If I take the turn, I’ll knock over the bike on my right. He’ll get out of the way—he has to. He’s not insane. The turn signal starts to blink automatically as I change lanes, the bike still stuck at my side even as the other two fall behind. Taking a deep breath, I take the turn onto the exit ramp.
He swerves out of the way, over the yellow line. I hear the faint shriek of tires. I see him in the rearview mirror, coming to a rickety stop, barely able to keep from toppling to the side. One moment later, he vanishes from sight.
The road unfolds in front of me as I merge with the much more abundant traffic, and I realize, to my relief, that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Back in reality, at last, thank God. I know where I am and where I’m going. Somehow the exit was the right one. My heartbeat slows down, and by the time I make my destination, I feel almost normal.
Except for my legs, which still tremble and refuse to unbend when I get out of the car in my mother’s condo parking lot. I will them to be still and stop wobbling. I smooth my hair down with my sweaty palms and try on a smile. She’ll pick up on my distress and use it against me to destabilize me even further, as she always does, without fail.
She knows I’m coming but takes forever to let me in. First, there’s one of those security systems at the front door of the building. I have to call her, and she has to let me into the lobby. I stand there awkwardly as the device beeps and beeps, so loudly the whole street can hear. Finally, she picks up, and her scratchy voice rasps from the low-quality speakers. “Who’s there?”
As if she doesn’t know.
“It’s me, Mom.”
Still, she makes me say my name before she buzzes me in. When I go up, at last, I still have to knock on the door and then wait and wait while she pretends to come to answer. I suspect she’s been waiting on the other side the whole time. Then, supposedly after checking through the peephole, she lets me through, opening the door just a crack—barely enough for me to slip in sideways.
“The cat,” she explains. “Always trying to get out. I don’t have the energy to chase after him at my age, you know.”
The Siamese sits on the couch, not looking the least bit interested.
“Well? Are you going to come in?”
I take off my shoes and proceed into the living room. It’s unchanged since the time I brought Scott to meet her. Or almost unchanged. The furniture and appliances are getting that unmistakable scuffed look. The living room rug is looking worn, not in the least thanks to the claws of the Siamese. I’m pretty sure I can see right through it in some places. It’s screaming for the trash can. Therese is sliding inexorably back into old habits. I knew the normalcy wouldn’t last.
“I’m sorry for giving you the third degree earlier,” she says. I suspect she’s not that sorry. “It’s just, there are a lot of scammers out there. Riffraff.
”
“You can’t tell your own daughter from someone trying to scam their way into your apartment?”
Her eyes are shrewd. “I was sure you of all people would understand.”
Heat rises into my face.
My mother gives a sigh that borders on the theatrical. She starts rearranging things on the table with no real purpose. “Some days, I swear, I can almost understand you. Doing what you did. May the Lord forgive me.”
“I didn’t do anything special, Mom,” I say, teeth gritting. “And the least you could do is come visit. If only for the sake of your granddaughter. You don’t need a microchip for that.”
“I light a candle for you every Sunday,” she says, unflappable. “Now, would you like something to eat?”
“Mom,” I repeat, “don’t start with this again. This is good. For everyone. Taryn will be safe there.”
“I know you don’t want my opinion, or you would have asked for it before you put a chip in your own child,” she says. “It’s the mark of the Beast. It’s—”
“I’m leaving right now if you don’t stop.”
She sets down a ceramic teapot with a clang. “Fine. Don’t listen to me. But when the time comes to regret it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Why is it so bad?” I blow up. “Why is it okay to put three locks and two chains on your door but not okay to have an AI that manages it all, and much better too? You know what? No sooner did I leave the house, I was nearly run off the road by some hooligans on motorcycles. So yeah, I’d much rather be safe. It’s the future.”
I realize I sound exactly like Scott but in the heat of the moment, I don’t care. I find myself actually believing what I’m saying. Contradicting myself in a heartbeat, out of spite. Only Therese can bring this out in me.
She goes into the adjacent kitchenette, where she clangs around with the dishes in the sink, her back turned to me. As far as I can see, she’s just shuffling them around. Why did I even come here? Why do I bother even trying to salvage a relationship with her? Haven’t I had enough?
