The Silvers

by Jill Smith

  He throws his arms around her, and for a second he doesn’t want to let go.

  She steps back. “How are you?”

  “I’m good.” He wants to tell her everything—about B and Bridique and Mary and Lady. About Don and Dave, the park, the cliffs, being sick, and how he and B might move to where the cowpokes live.

  “I, um. We have to go in now. But maybe we can talk after?” She glances at the NRCSuckers. “If that’s okay?”

  One of the NRCSuckers nods. They all go into the room. Imms has been nervous about the meeting, but now he’s excited. He can barely focus when the head NRCSucker introduces Imms to the team. He keeps looking at Grena in the back of the room. She is mostly the same but thinner. He can’t tell what she’s thinking. Once, she smiles at him, and he thinks he’s going to turn in circles like Lady does when she’s happy to see Imms.

  Imms answers the team’s questions as best he can. Some are formal—questions of logistics, survival. Some are personal. Team members want to know about Imms’s experience growing up on the Silver Planet. The more questions Imms answers, the stranger he feels. He is describing a place that used to be his home, a place he is never going back to. This room has white walls and harsh fluorescent lights. Is this what’s normal now? He is telling these humans how it will feel to go to the Silver Planet. He is helping them figure out how to interact with Silvers.

  But what if their intentions aren’t good? The NRCSuckers have told Imms this team is not going to harm Silvers. They’re just going to learn more about them. But Imms suddenly can’t shake the feeling he’s betraying the Silvers.

  “Why did you come here?” one man asks him.

  For a second, Imms can’t remember. Why would he come here when he could have a place without walls, without lights, without people asking him questions? A place where he fits, where he is not a stranger?

  Then he remembers being forgotten. He remembers Alone, and B saving him, and wanting to be different from every other Silver. But he can’t talk about B here.

  “The same reason you’re going there,” he says finally. “I wanted to see what it was like.”

  “Do you miss home?” the man asks.

  “I…” he looks at Grena. She looks back at him. He swallows. His body is tense, and his mind is stuck.

  Imms turns to the head NRCSucker. “I miss it sometimes.” He feels dizzy, confused. The NRCSucker doesn’t respond. Probably because Imms meant to address the answer to the man who asked the question. He gets it wrong again when he turns to his audience and says, “I don’t want any more questions.”

  That’s what he should have said to the NRCSucker.

  “I don’t want any more questions!” he shouts at the floor.

  He doesn’t know what to do now. He feels like he’s swimming, like the current is rushing past him, like there’s nowhere to set his feet. He jerks away when someone tries to touch him. Then Grena is beside him and she’s telling everyone else to get away. She walks him into the hall, where it’s cooler and darker.

  “Imms,” she says. “Look at me.”

  He tries. He would rather go into the ground.

  “Imms. I’ve been talking to NRCSE about getting you on the Breakthrough II.”

  Now he does look at her. “What?”

  “There might be a way back. If you’re unhappy here. If you need to go home.”

  For just a second, everything inside him stills. He might be able go home. Back to his clan, the lakes. Grena might rescue him.

  But he can’t. He does like it here. He does love Mary and Brid and the big cats and Dave and Lady. And B.

  He can’t leave. B can’t even know he wants to.

  And the truth is, he doesn’t want to. Earth might not truly be his home, but neither is the Silver Planet, not anymore.

  He shakes his head. “No,” he says softly. “I don’t want that.”

  “You can think about it,” Grena says. “If you decide you want to, I’ll do everything I can to help you.” She pauses. “This isn’t good for you, Imms. What they’re doing to you here.”

  “No,” he says again, not sure if he’s agreeing with her or still protesting the idea of leaving Earth.

  She touches his shoulder. “Think about it.”

  Now the NRCSuckers are crowding around, assuring Grena they’ll take care of Imms. At some point, Grena is no longer touching him. Then she’s gone.

  *

  Matty brings B a casserole the day before Thanksgiving. Imms is out with Bridique.

  “We made two, but there’s gonna be so much food at Greg’s parents’, and now our fridge is crammed. Something had to go. It’s good, though. Really good.”

  “Thanks,” B says. So that’s the cyclist’s name. Greg.

  “Where’s your friend?” Matty asks.

  “Out,” B says.

  B has been trying to get information out of Imms about his talk with Grena. Grena still won’t answer B’s calls, and B knows she said something to Imms that’s upset him, but Imms won’t say what. Imms says they just talked about how he’s doing on Earth.

  “I get so much crap from everybody. ‘Have you seen your replacement? He’s out of this world.’ Greg was like, ‘It’d be bad enough if you’d turned him straight, but this…’”

  B doesn’t laugh. “He’s not your replacement. What makes you think he and I—?”

  “Why does everyone assume I drove you away?”

  B stares at him. Matty doesn’t know. Couldn’t know. Only B’s mother and Bridique know what Imms is to B. No reason to panic. “My mom and sister don’t. They blame me.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “It was my fault,” B says, nodding at the wall. He says it to Vir, and to Matty, to Imms and to NRCSE.

  “Nah. It takes two.”

  Matty never did understand. He would have been happy forever with this house and the ugly carpet and every evening the same. Matty’s never wanted to leave town, let alone leave Earth. B knows he’s probably every bit as afraid of being alone as Matty. The difference is that B can’t be with someone who’s already decided once and for all who he is. Who can’t even imagine himself in a life, a world, other than the one he occupies.

  Matty thanks B for taking the casserole off his hands. He says they should get coffee sometime. He goes back to Greg the cyclist. For just a second, the past is spread out on the floor, like the instructions for assembling a piece of furniture. B is on his knees, throwing rivets, cursing manufacturers. He will never build anything that stands using these blueprints.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Imms isn’t sure he wants to go back to the Welberts’. He is afraid Don will still be mad about Imms telling him to leave Mary’s and grabbing his wrist. Dave assures him it will be fine. “My dad never remembers what happens when he’s drunk. Seriously, I bet he hasn’t given it another thought.”

  Dave is right. Don—sober, flannel shirt, checking the status of some items he’s auctioning online—is as friendly as ever. He asks if Imms is feeling better, asks after Mary and Bridique. He has a quiet ease in his voice and body when he’s sober that flees when he drinks.

  “Don’t give him any more booze,” Don tells Dave, with a wink at Imms.

  “Yeah, man, that was rough,” says Dave. “We’ll be careful.”

  They go down to the basement and play an old Mario Bros. game while they wait for Dave’s friends. “Can you believe this shit used to be, like, state of the art?” Dave makes Mario jump onto a flying turtle shell. “Why do you think your people never invented stuff like this? I mean, you’re obviously pretty smart.”

  “We didn’t need to.”

  Dave nods, eyes on the screen. “Makes sense.” Mario runs off a cliff. Plunky music plays as the screen goes black.

  Imms is Luigi, wearing green. He runs through a world of flat-topped trees. He bounces on clouds. Plants with teeth leap from pipes, and strange creatures throw fire at him. He has to keep jumping, dodging, stepping on heads. The wor
ld moves as he does, so he can’t always see the next obstacle, and can’t go back if he misses a coin or one of the boxes with question marks on it. The screen edges him into the unknown, toward the finish.

  “Do you know what you’ll do?” Dave asks. “Are you gonna get a job or anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Imms says.

  “My dad could probably get you a job at the plant, if you want.”

  “Plant?”

  “He works at the meat packing plant. I dunno. It’s kind of sick, but you could make okay money.”

  Imms pictures a plant with teeth, like the ones that keep shooting out of pipes in the video game, putting hamburgers into a suitcase. “Where’s your mom?” he asks Dave.

  “She died when I was a kid.”

  “Sorry,” Imms says. That’s something he’s learned on Earth. It’s good manners to apologize when somebody is dead.

  Dave shrugs. “I don’t really remember her.”

  “Is your dad in love with Mary?”

  “Dude.” Imms isn’t sure what the “dude” means. He waits, and after a moment, Dave says. “Naw. I think he’s into Bridique.”

  Imms is so surprised he runs Luigi into a turtle. “Bridique?”

  “Yeah, hey, you don’t have to tell me. But, yeah, they’re kinda—they used to see a lot of each other. Not like—I don’t think they ever—but yeah.”

  “Does she like him?”

  “I dunno. I try not to think about it. I think she sort of encourages him because he promised to help her get her kid back. ’Cause like, he was in law school before he dropped out. And I’m pre-law. So dad thought between the two of us maybe we could help her. And Brid knows it’s like, a joke, pretty much. But still.”

  “Why can’t she have her kid back?”

  “Ask her about it, man. I don’t want to go spilling stuff that’s not my business.”

  The pounding upstairs means Dave’s friends have arrived. Imms hears them exchange greetings with Don. Dave calls to them to get their asses down here. They put in a war game. The next few hours are crashes, explosions, electric sparks of gunfire. Imms pretends to want to kill. He tries not to think about Bridique and Don.

  *

  Thanksgiving is at Mary and Bridique’s. Imms asked if Grena could come, but B said she didn’t pick up when he called. Imms likes the smell of the food, especially the baked apple cobbler Dave made.

  “You bake?” Brid asks.

  “Yeah, I’m not half bad in the kitchen,” Dave says.

  They go around the table and say what they’re thankful for. Mary is thankful B is home safe. She’s thankful Imms is here. Don is thankful he has such kind neighbors, and for his new washing machine. Dave’s thankful for the break from school, and Bridique is thankful for the fucking food and could they hurry up please she’s starving.

  B squeezes Imms’s knee under the table and says he’s thankful for his time on the Silver Planet, but he’s glad to be home. Imms doesn’t know what to say. On the Silver Planet, nobody says what they are thankful for. If you are thankful for someone, you curl up next to them. You take their hand.

  In the Silver language, Imms tells them, “I’m thankful for all of you. And Lady.”

  “In English,” B says.

  The others look at him.

  Bridique says, “Why the fuck can’t he be thankful in whatever language he wants?”

  “He can. But if he’d like to communicate with us—”

  “He’s right there,” Brid says. “Tell him.”

  B turns to Imms. Imms tries not to let anything show on his face. If B is mad, it’ll be worse if nobody takes B’s side. B will sit through the meal with his anger balled tight, and later it will come unraveled. “We didn’t understand what you said.”

  “We don’t need to,” Brid says. “It’s up to you, Imms.”

  “I said I was thankful for all of you,” Imms says.

  “There we go.” Don slaps the table lightly. “Doesn’t matter how you say it. It’s the thought that counts.”

  Dave reaches for the turkey. “Let’s dig in before Bridique wastes away.”

  The food is good. Imms eats a lot of turkey and tries not to think about it having been a live bird. After dinner, they go into the living room and turn on the TV, but nobody really watches. Dave takes off for another dinner at a friend’s house. Imms sits next to B, who slings a casual arm around him, and Imms can tell that he’s not mad, but he is frightened. His heart races. Imms imagines he can see through B’s clothes and flesh into some uncertain hollow, a place where B is lost, or hidden, or wounded and cold. B is trying to be a son, a brother, and also to belong to Imms. He is trying to be home. But he might as well be beneath a black sky with no stars.

  So Imms puts a hand on B’s ribs. Over the worst tear in the curtain that hides that empty place. He keeps his hand there until B stops talking to Mary and looks at him. B doesn’t understand exactly what Imms is doing, because B isn’t even aware of the hollow. He has lived with it so long that it has become part of him. He thinks of it not as an empty space, but a growth, a burden. Something in B’s face softens as he looks at Imms, something in his eyes apologizes, not just for his words, but for what is missing inside him. He lets Imms touch him.

  Later they play a board game called Scrabble. Imms wins twice.

  “English isn’t even his first language,” Don grumbles.

  Imms wants to tell him it’s not just about the words. It’s about counting the spaces, seeing where each tile will be best utilized. Looking at other people and figuring out what they want to do, then thwarting them.

  When Imms and B go home, B is quiet. They get ready for bed on opposite sides of the bathroom. They go to sleep, and B takes almost no breaths that Imms can count before B reaches for him. Imms curls closer, stroking B’s skin, the satisfying lines of his muscles. Imms holds B until the sleep breaths start. B needs this.

  This is one way Imms can rescue B.

  *

  Bridique tells Imms to meet her at the picnic shelter in the park. The entourage follows him dressed to blend in, their weapons concealed. When Imms reaches the picnic shelter, Bridique is there with a little girl. The girl has Bridique’s wide-set eyes, and the tilt of her jaw reminds Imms of B.

  “This is Cena,” Brid says. She looks down at her daughter. “Say ‘hi.’”

  “Hi,” Cena says.

  “Hi,” Imms replies. “I’m Imms.”

  “You’re gray.” Cena turns away to watch the kids on the swings.

  “Tell Imms how old you are.”

  Bridique is not herself. Her voice is higher pitched. She seems desperate for the girl’s attention, and for Imms to approve of her and her daughter—the two of them together.

  Cena doesn’t answer.

  “She’s almost eight.” Brid jostles Cena’s hand. “Right?”

  Cena doesn’t look at her.

  “I’m sorry.” Brid turns to Imms. “She’s sort of in her own world.”

  “You have nice hair,” Imms tells Cena. She does. Loose, reddish brown ringlets.

  Cena swings her head toward him. “Thanks.”

  He counts thirty-five stickers on her backpack, which is blue plastic with astronauts on it. She has one hundred and sixty eyelashes on her left eye. When her thumb goes into her mouth, her lips pulse around it twenty-one times before Bridique says, “Stop. You’re way too old for that.”

  They walk around the playground, but when Bridique asks if Cena wants to swing or see-saw, Cena shakes her head. It’s too cold to be out long, but they walk downtown, past the shops decorated for Christmas. Bridique asks Cena questions, and when Cena doesn’t answer, Bridique proceeds with the one-sided conversation as though she has. Imms wonders if he should also try to ask Cena questions. If between the two of them, they could get Cena to open up.

  “What do you want for Christmas?” Brid asks.

  Without looking at her mother, Cena replies, “A bike.”

  “What kind of bi
ke?”

  “Blue.”

  “A blue bike,” Brid says. “Maybe we should look for one while we’re out.”

  “I already asked Daddy.” Cena sounds bored. She sounds like she has a hollow like B’s, but nothing has hardened around it because she is soft and small.

  Cena sees a friend from school out with her family. They all go into a toy store. Bridique watches as Cena runs off to the back of the store with her friend.

  “Do you want her back?” Imms asks.

  “Would it make me a horrible person if I said I don’t know?” Brid folds her arms across her chest. “I used to. For sure. Now I kind of…I feel safer, knowing she’s not with me. I love her so much. But I think maybe I just want to be able to call someone so special mine without actually having to take care of her. I should be strung up, right?” She doesn’t wait for Imms to answer. “It runs in the family. It’s how my dad felt about my mom.”

  It is, Imms is fairly sure, how B feels about him.

  Cena returns to them, a stuffed animal in tow, and Imms knows why the girl doesn’t answer Bridique’s questions. She is smarter than Imms. Smart enough not to give her heart to someone who will always maintain a distance. Who cannot—will not—protect it.

  Cena tugs Imms’s hand as Brid pays for the stuffed animal. “I’d like you to come to my house sometime, so I can draw you,” Cena says solemnly. “You can say no, but the offer’s on the table.”

  “You draw?” Imms asks.

  “Yes. I’m good at it. And you have an interesting look.”

  “I’d love that. When could I come to your house?”

  “Imms can’t go to your house, sweetie,” Brid says, joining them. She herds them toward the door. “He can only go certain places.”

  “Like you?” Cena asks.

  “I can go anywhere.”

  “Not to my house.”

  Brid is silent as they exit into the chilly air. “I want to go home,” Cena says.

  “I’ll have you again in two weeks,” Brid says. “Imms can come over to grandma’s. You can draw him then.”

  “I won’t have my easel.”