Version Control
Page 56
He is already expressing a desire to attend art school after he graduates. This is troubling. Down that path lies penury and parental dependency. They will have to have a serious talk soon, mother and father to son, and she will have to be a parent rather than an older pal who provisionally plays the part. But not tonight: it can wait.
“I’m going to bed,” says Sean, and without another word, he heads down the hallway to his bedroom, leaving Alicia and Philip behind. Then he hesitates, turns around, comes back into the living room, and sticks out his hand toward Philip.
But when Philip takes it, he feels that Sean’s grip is strong (and he realizes that Sean is tall, with a voice that has stopped cracking: he’s nearly a man now). Sean pulls his father, and Philip feels himself being pulled, and now father and son are in an awkwardly masculine embrace, with Sean’s arm loosely slung across the back of Philip’s neck. Philip has not touched Sean in years.
“Dad,” Sean says, his mouth at Philip’s ear. “You did real good.”
Now Philip is in bed, and drifting off to sleep. Alicia is snoring lightly in his arms, her hand slipped up his shirt to press against his chest, cold but becoming warmer.
It is always at this time, just before he slips into unconsciousness, when the voice comes to him: not as loud and snide and insistent as it once was, but still there, still hounding him from behind, still trying to drive him stumbling forward. Is this the best you can do?
Tonight, for the first time in many, many years, Philip chooses not to ignore it: he answers. It is. It really is.
Then say it, and shout down the darkness.
“It is,” Philip whispers between clenched teeth as Alicia mumbles and stirs in her slumber. “It is!”
And as Sean climbs into bed and closes his eyes, Mother comes, riding astride a lion the size of a house, blowing a clarion from a horn made out of a hollowed-out elephant’s tusk. Her eyes have a faint crimson glow from the lasers that are mounted behind her irises, ready to fire at will.
“I touched a prince’s chest today and made his heart stop,” she says. “I’ll do it again if I have to: they’ll see what happens if anyone gets in my way. Good night, my son. Remember that I will always keep you safe; that I am always everywhere and always here.”
“Good night, Mom,” Sean says, and falls asleep.
And Mother recedes, wise and beautiful and strong, a genius and a hero, a punisher of thieves and a slayer of wicked men, to watch over her son in all her different versions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank the following people:
At Pantheon Books: my editor, Edward Kastenmeier, and Emily Giglierano.
At Writers House: my agent, Susan Golomb.
Sylvia Smullin provided a number of helpful comments on an early draft of this manuscript.
Certain elements of the novel arose from conversations with Sarah Batterman, Christopher W. Morris, Kendrick Smith, and Meghan Sullivan. I am also indebted to the work of Harry Collins, Ilana Gershon, and Joseph Hermanowicz.
And thanks to my family for their support, as always.
—Dexter Palmer
May 19, 2008
July 28, 2015
Princeton, New Jersey
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dexter Palmer’s first novel, The Dream of Perpetual Motion, was selected as one of the best fiction debuts of 2010 by Kirkus Reviews. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
www.dexterpalmer.com
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