by Pete Kahle
Danielle sighed and pulled a torn envelope out of the pocket of her robe, wiping off a section of the glass table with her cuff so there was a dry place to set it down.
She used to buy special notepads just for her to-do lists, all fancy and embossed around the edges. They used to represent everything her day could be, the infinite possibilities that lay before her. Now the lists were just a depressing necessity, the details different enough each day that you couldn’t remember everything without writing it down, yet also so similar that the days all blurred together into an endless litany of drop-offs, pick-ups, doctor visits, and play dates. The entries related to work were just as repetitive: submit so-and-so report, revise such-and-such grant, call somebody and apologize that it wasn’t done sooner.
As she wrote her list this morning, a familiar caged feeling washed over her, intensifying with each bullet point. Her list would take her through the entire day, and then she’d collapse into bed next to her husband and start the whole thing over again tomorrow. It was like Groundhog’s Day. Only less exciting. And no Bill Murray.
At the very bottom of her list, she wrote “exercise,” but having the time for that would be more or less a miracle. When was the last time she really exercised, like sport-bra-and-sneakers exercised? She’d gained so much weight lately that the sports bra probably wouldn’t even fit.
A thump shook the sliding glass door behind her and Danielle flinched. She turned around in her chair to see three-year-old Cheyenne pressing her face against the glass.
“Mommy!” Cheyenne exclaimed as if they’d been playing hide-and-seek. Her breath fogged the pane around her plump cherub face.
“Good morning!” Danielle exclaimed back in her faux-cheery mommy-voice, all the while wishing her kids could just for once stay in bed until she woke them up. When she stood and slid open the door, Cheyenne threw herself at Danielle’s robed legs in a hug, nuzzling her like a teddy bear and making Danielle feel like an awful person for being annoyed at something so cute.
Danielle stepped into the tiled dining area and closed the door, then Cheyenne smiled up at her. Her sepia-colored cheeks were smeared with what had to be jelly. Grape jelly, it appeared. It was streaked across the front of her passed-down spaceship pajamas too.
“Where’d you get that?” Danielle asked.
In answer, Cheyenne held up a squished piece of toast that dribbled jelly down her forearm.
Danielle glanced over the dining room, the kitchen, the hallway. There wasn’t anyone there, but on the counter that separated the dining room from the kitchen, there were a pair of plates, each with an omelet, a piece of toast, and a few dollops of yogurt.
Kalani, you sneaky, sweet man.
She turned back to Cheyenne. “Did Daddy make you that, Honey?” Now that she’d turned, Danielle could see that the plastic kids table here in the dining room was decked out with breakfast too. Fruit loops, a wedge of toast, and a little cup of orange juice sat by each empty chair.
“Mommy makes bre-fast,” said Cheyenne, taking a big bite of her soggy, purple toast.
Danielle got a napkin and wiped up Cheyenne’s face one-handed. “Not today, Hon.” She’d never have put that much jelly on the kids’ toast.
Footsteps scuffed against the hall carpet. “What Daddy make, Ku’u Le?” croaked her husband, Kalani. His eyes were opened about as much as a newborn kitten’s, his black hair poked up every which-way, and his shiny blue basketball shorts were rumpled. He hugged his arms to his bare chest and gave a pathetic, trembling yawn.
“You know what Daddy did,” said Danielle, smiling. “Come and eat the omelet you made, you big galoot.”
He stopped and squinted up at Danielle, yawning again. “Omelet I made?”
Danielle chuckled. He was really trying to sell this whole I-just-woke-up thing. “Oh, I’m sorry. The omelet Cheyenne made.”
“Mommy, what’s an onlet?”
Kalani’s face was two parts sleepy and one part utter confusion. Danielle never knew he was such a good actor.
She sat down on a stool by the counter and pulled over one of the plates, tilting it so Cheyenne could see. “That’s an omelet, Sweety. Now go eat your Fruit Loops.” Cheyenne toddled over to the kid’s table and Danielle turned to her husband. “You going to join me?” she asked, unable to keep a smile from her face.
He shambled over in answer and plopped onto the stool beside her. He looked at her for another moment, and then grabbed the other plate and took a bite. “’S good,” he said.
“Mm-Hmm,” Danielle said, holding in her laughter. “I haven’t had omelets this good since some Hawaiian guy was trying to convince me to marry him.”
He cocked his head to the side and stared at her, brow all knitted up.
Danielle just shook her head and laughed. Once Kalani got it in his head to do something, he stuck with it. She kissed him on the cheek. “Mahalo, my love.”
She didn’t press him any further, just enjoyed sitting beside her slightly-crazy husband, eating the breakfast he refused to acknowledge that he’d made for her.
Soon afterwards, Bryce, their kindergartner, came into the room talking about how two-year-old Gregory had wet the bed and it stunk like pee in there.
The day veered right back to normal then. Kalani left for work on his bicycle. Danielle got all the kids dressed and in the car so they could take Bryce to school. Her smile, though, stayed with her through it all.
It wasn’t until she went to cross out “Drop off Bryce” from her list, that she noticed something odd. Where she’d written “make breakfast” before, the words had been scribbled out with a dark red pen.
Not only had Kalani made breakfast, but he’d found her list and crossed it off. Something about the way he’d done it bothered her though. The scribbles looked… violent. Angry. Like they were trying to obliterate the words completely.
He hadn’t looked angry, though. Maybe he was just rushed? She put the list back in her purse and banished the uneasiness from her mind.
# # #
When Danielle came home for lunch that day, Cheyenne and Gregory in tow, she found that Kalani had already gotten the groceries. The fridge and pantry were full, and what’s more, he hadn’t made any of the dozens of little mistakes he usually made when he went shopping. The eggs were cage-free, the lettuce was fresh, and the cereal was off-brand.
And inexplicably, the list, which had been in her purse the whole day, had been somehow crossed out again, using that same red pen.
# # #
The next day, Danielle watched the sunrise like she always did, her back to the sliding glass door, her to-do list sitting on the patio table beside her coffee mug. Today though, she kept her ears perked up for the sounds of someone sneaking about, making breakfast. She wanted to catch Kalani in the act, but she didn’t want him to know she knew. This game was too much fun to risk it stopping.
She didn’t go inside until dawn had truly claimed the yard, and even then she made lots of noise and moved slow so Kalani would have a chance to rush back down the hallway to the bedroom.
When she opened the door, she was greeted by the smell of syrup. Pancakes were piled high on a pair of plates at the counter, and over at the kids’ table, they were cut into neat squares.
That sneaky bastard!
“Kids,” she called, not having to fake her cheerfulness like she usually did. “Time to get up.”
She set down her mug and her list on the counter, heading for the bedrooms. Then she froze, incredulous. “Make breakfast” had been crossed out again, even though it had gone straight from the patio table to her hand! How was that possible?
She picked up the list and turned it over. It was just a piece of scrap paper. On the back was a notice about picture day from Bryce’s school.
How was Kalani doing it?
# # #
The day after that, there was an entire breakfast casserole waiting in the oven. The next morning, it was pastries from Safeway, a bowl of fresh-cut pineap
ple, and a slice of cooked ham. It was like the twelve days of Christmas, and no matter where she sat on the patio, she couldn’t catch a glimpse of her Santa Claus.
Every morning too, “make breakfast” would somehow get crossed out. She’d take her eyes off it for one second, and then she’d look back and see that red ink.
She decided to stake out the kitchen the next day, and felt foolish for it almost immediately. Kalani did not show up. Nor did food magically appear on the counter. It was just her and her coffee and a list that was conspicuously without any red on it.
She left list and mug both to go wake up the kids and drag her husband out of bed, mentally kicking herself for ruining his sweet game.
She smelled the bacon just as she got to the end of the dark hallway and lifted her hand to open the bedroom door. When she walked back into the kitchen, fried eggs stared up from plates on the counter beside crispy strips of bacon and a small bowl of oatmeal. The kids’ eggs were scrambled.
The list, of course, was crossed off.
# # #
Danielle figured that there were two possible explanations for what was going on: 1) she was going crazy and was doing things without even knowing she was doing them, and 2) her lists were magic.
She decided on a test. The next morning, she dug up that old sports bra, stuffed herself into it, and went for a jog first thing. She hated every sweaty, wheezing minute of it, but when she finally shuffled home, not only was the breakfast made, but Bryce’s lunch was packed too. She crossed off “exercise” from her list with a pencil. It was written just under “make breakfast” and “pack Bryce’s lunch,” which were now both barely visible under masses of red lines.
Kalani herded the kids out of their rooms not much later and they descended on the waffles that Danielle had not made. She knew she had not made them, because her skin was slick with sweat and her right side felt like it’d suffered blunt-force trauma.
Magic it was.
# # #
The first time Danielle’s boss called to thank her for sending a grant she hadn’t finished, she was practically dumbstruck. By then, breakfasts had been making themselves for two weeks, and lunches and dinners had started appearing too. But her work, that was another matter entirely. It wasn’t some mindless chore, it was complicated.
And now this magical force was submitting things with her name on it? She cringed at the thought.
Danielle was so surprised she missed most of what her boss said afterwards and had to make him repeat it. “The D.O.E. is going to eat it up,” said her boss, “especially the simulation. A simulation like that is money in our hands. How long did that take?”
She’d been working on it for weeks, but it was half-done at best. Had the list finished it, or just sent it as-is? Surely if it was still unfinished Carl wouldn’t be so gung-ho about it. But was it done right?
She was apparently silent for longer than she realized, because Carl interrupted her thoughts and said “Listen. No martyrdom complex, okay Danielle? Log your full hours on this one and don’t skimp. We clear?”
She wanted to tell him she hadn’t sent it. Now was really the only chance she could do it. But what could she possibly say? A magical list sent it? No, her only course was to play along and then go back and fix any mistakes the list had made before too many people saw the grant. She could resend it then, tell them she’d accidentally sent them an old version the first time, something like that.
“Yes sir,” she found herself saying. “We’re clear.”
When he hung up, she sprinted over to her laptop bag, frantic, almost tripping over Cheyenne and Gregory, who were playing with blocks in front of the couch. She yanked the computer from its bag and thrust it open.
The computer took forever to boot up, but when it did, the file for her grant was sitting right there on her desktop. She opened it and scrolled down to the last part she remembered doing. The grant kept going, written just as if she’d done it herself.
Then she loaded the graphic simulator linked in the proposal and her jaw dropped in amazement.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, her rendering of Oahu’s power grid had been flat and lifeless. Now, the island of Oahu was centered on the screen in crisp 3-D, the grid superimposed over it like a roadmap. You could zoom in on miniature power lines, and buildings, and transformers, cute and slightly cartoony. The buildings with solar panels glowed yellow. The wind turbines on the north side of the island glowed blue. The power plant merrily puffed smoke. Even the waves were animated, frothing against the shore of the island.
She plugged in cloud cover percentages, wind speed, and time-of-day, and then watched in awe as the grid sprung to life, solar and wind energy feeding to the power plant via pulsing blue and yellow lines. The smoke puffing out of the plant decreased, and when you hovered your mouse over it, more detailed output information popped up.
It was… beautiful. A prefect representation of the system they hoped to put in place.
Danielle realized she wasn’t breathing and took in air shakily, eyes glued to the screen. It was everything she had imagined. No. It was better than she’d imagined. No wonder Carl had been so excited.
It was as if the list had taken the ideal version of the simulation directly from Danielle’s mind and then made it a reality. The things she could accomplish with such a power were staggering. It’d be like working full-time again! No, more than full-time.
It was a wonderful, marvelous gift. So why did looking at the screen make her so sad?
# # #
Danielle missed work, but what kind of mother would she be if she turned down the chance to spend more time with her family? With the list handling everything, she could actually hang out with Kalani at night, could go to the beach with the kids while Bryce was at school. She still logged onto her work email every day, but it became a simple checking-in. What did the list do today? Whom did it email? What new projects did it agree to?
Week after week, the list completed every task just as she would have. Its email responses were just what hers would have been. One coworker sent her a snarky email, and the list shot him down with equal snark.
The kids’ naps were now a time to leaf through a magazine or read a novel, to breathe a little. No more frantically trying to cram eight hours of work into forty-five minutes. Sometimes she even took a nap with them.
For the first time since Bryce was born, Danielle had consistent leisure time. She was closer to her husband, more engaged with her kids, and her friends marveled at how she could do it all. Still, there was a nagging restlessness, a dissatisfaction that she couldn’t talk herself out of. She tried to put her angst to death by running in the morning while the list was making breakfast, but even all the weight she lost exercising didn’t silence the whispered voice in her head that she was useless.
Even with this feeling, however, Danielle couldn’t give up the list. Her family’s happiness was more important than one little nagging feeling.
Then everything changed.
The list showed its face.
# # #
It was a school-day and Danielle was about to head out the door when she realized she’d forgotten to print out Bryce’s form for science club. Flustered, she rushed to the bedroom to print it out, and when she came back to the living room, the kids weren’t there.
Figuring they were out in the car, she reached for her purse. It wasn’t on the hook by the door.
She stopped short, and looked around. No purse. She had a moment of confusion and then an image sprang to mind of Bryce taking the purse out to the car tucked under his arm, all proud for helping Mommy.
Danielle smiled and opened the front door.
When she stepped outside, panic shot through her like lightning. The front door opened right out onto their driveway, but her red Nissan Leaf wasn’t there.
It was backing into the street.
She bolted after it.
The car turned onto the road as Danielle pounded closer and saw the kidn
apper through the driver-side window. The woman looked just like Danielle. Then she smiled, and the proportions of her face went askew, her mouth becoming a grotesque slash that bisected her face and folded her cheeks all wrong.
Danielle slammed into the side of the car, scrabbling for the door handle just as the car lurched forward, wrenching itself out of her grasp. She got only a glimpse of her kids in the back, car seats three across. They were… singing, eyes ahead, taking no notice whatsoever of the big thump that she caused by ramming the side of the car.
Danielle ran after them for several paces, but the car was too fast. She staggered to a halt, watching it round the corner at the end of the lane with a desperate cry. Her babies! She whipped around and ran back to the house to call the cops.
Her cell phone was in her purse, which was presumably in the car, but Kalani was a staunch believer in house phones, thank the Lord. Danielle barreled through the front door and over to the kitchen counter, where she ripped the phone out of its cradle.
It rang in her hands. The number on the screen was her cell phone. Had one of the kids managed to get to it?
She answered in hushed tones. “It’s me, Honey,” she said in a breathless, desperate whisper.
“You don’t need to call the police,” said a voice on the other end. “It’s not on your list.” The voice was like Danielle’s, but somehow different. Wetter.
“Who are you?” Danielle blurted out.
“I’m a mother taking her child to school. Who are you?”
“Bring them back. Now,” screamed Danielle, starting to shake with dread at the thought of this delusional woman holding her children captive.
“But I have to take Bryce to school. It’s on the list. You’ve got to do what’s on the list.”
Danielle fought to think straight over the rapid-fire hammering of her heart. The list. How would she know about the list? Unless… “You’re behind the list.”
