Man of the House

by Abigail Graham

  He does though, doesn't he?

  I'm so glad for the bright sun. No one can see my blurry, irritated eyes or puffy tear-stained cheeks beneath the sunglasses and broad-brimmed hat I wear.

  I hate everything about this, even the clothes he makes me wear. I want to tear off my own skin and go running across the road.

  A large section of the redevelopment area has been cleared out, and grandstands set up. Philadelphia police in spotless uniforms stand guard with their hands resting on their broad duty belts, eyeing everyone beneath the visors of their caps, sweat streaming down their arms. There are three thousand people in the crowd. My father and I are on the bottom row. A few seats down, Jason and Tim are eyeing me expectantly.

  Aiden is nowhere to be seen.

  Screens are set up all around so we can watch the action as the automated, self-driving car Aiden's company has developed weaves through obstacles and challenges to demonstrate its safety and reliability.

  A hush falls over the crowd. My father grunts, a sound like dust being squeezed out of a desiccated fruit. A car rolls up, and every head swings to track it. It's not the cutesy little pod car I saw earlier. This is one of Aiden's other prototypes, I think. A luxury model. Long and black and sleek, it doesn't quite look like a car, with its wheels hidden behind smooth skirts that blend into the body panels.

  Moving in near silence, it comes to a stop and the gull-wing door lifts. Aiden steps out and reaches in his pocket and the car's door smoothly closes. The vehicle glides off on its own.

  "Don't mind me," he says, his voice caught by the microphone on his lapel. His voice hitches just a fraction when he spots me, but he rolls right over it.

  He doesn't look at my father.

  Maria, his assistant, sits down on the other side of my father's chair and leans in his ear, whispering something. She jumps up and runs off, doing that half-bent crabwalk people do to try not to bother other patrons at a movie theater. It doesn't work.

  Aiden pats the car. "You're all familiar with the B26. As I'm sure you're all aware, this model is a little out of reach of middle America—lack of charging stations, dealerships, and of course, price."

  Father chortles, a sick, wet sound soon drowned out by forced laughter from the audience.

  "The luxury line was always intended to be a test bed—we took a standard practice in American auto manufacturing and refined it. Luxury cars have always been a way to recoup costs for testing advanced features, and that's what we've done here."

  Tim and Jason are starting to look bored. Jason scratches at himself, constantly looking at me.

  The car behind Aiden rolls away, out of sight.

  "Today represents the dawn of a new spring in America. Unfortunately we didn't make actual spring. I apologize for the heat."

  More nervous laughter.

  "You've heard enough from me. You're all here for the real star of the show. Come on, Lilah."

  Father flinches. The crowd goes quiet. I feel eyes on the back of my neck. I shift in my seat, wondering if he's calling me, and then the car wheels around the corner…by itself.

  It's the same cutesy shape I saw in the concepts, painted white and a bright, cheery blue, with big buggy headlights and a bumper that makes it look like it's smiling in anticipation of approval, without a hint of slyness. It rolls up, and its door swings open silently on automatic hinges.

  A mechanical voice, in a cutesy tone, calls out, "Your ride has arrived! Your ride has arrived!"

  A glance around the crowd tells me they love it. Laughter, smiles, hushed conversations. It's surprisingly adorable, a big four-seater bubble with lots of glass, very open and airy.

  "This is Lilah," Aiden says, looking right at me. "The most important thing in my life these days. Technically she's LIL-36-12, but she doesn’t look like an LIL-36-12 to me. Does she?"

  The crowd laughs, genuinely this time.

  "As you can see, I've set up some cameras around the course we've set up through the neighborhood. I'm sure you've all reviewed the materials and seen the redevelopment plans. The city government has been most cooperative and gracious, and entirely too generous with us in bringing my dream to life. This is where my life's work begins in earnest: A safe, secure, clean neighborhood. No emissions, no busses chugging along coughing out smog and… There I go talking to myself again.."

  No one is looking at me anymore, but I feel heat creeping up my cheeks anyway. Father's chair lets out a little whirring sound as his hand jerks against the control stick as he closes his fist.

  "Thinks he can tweak my ear, does he?" he mutters. "I'll show him. They'll eat out of his hand today but—"

  "You know what?" I say, my voice low and hard. "Just. Shut. Up."

  He looks at me angrily, though more than a little surprised.

  Out on the street, Aiden steps into the car, and the door swings shut. He appears on the big screens.

  "Now, you can see that this car has a wheel and pedals. Full production models will have an emergency manual control system locked behind a door, but for safety reasons this unit has ordinary controls. However, I won't be touching them. If you look at the bottom corner of the monitors you'll see my feet and… Look, Ma, no hands."

  The crowd laughs softly. Aiden beams.

  "Now, we could be accused of having a pre-planned route. I assure you I have nothing up my sleeve, and I'm going to tell the car where to go right now." He starts tapping the screen. "First, it'll take me to the midpoint of the trip, then smoothly bring me back here. Let's go!"

  He taps a big green button and Lilah, the car, starts rolling.

  "Okay, so far, so good."

  One screen shows Aiden, another shows the car processing the route, drawing lines on a map, and the others show the car progressing down the street.

  "Oh, what's that?"

  A bouncing rubber ball bops out into the street, followed by a scientist in a lab coat.

  "Warning," the car's cutesy voice announces, inside and out. "Warning. Pedestrian."

  The car comes to a smooth stop as the demonstrator stands in front of it. He waves to the camera and runs off, dribbling the ball.

  The car rolls forward. “Resuming route. Caution."

  It starts rolling again. "Lilah is very polite. She doesn't want you to spill your coffee, so she'll—oh no, a pothole!"

  "Warning, evasive maneuver," the car chirps out, swerving around a crater that punches all the way through the asphalt to gravel .

  "Lilah, how long until we reach our destination?

  "Six minutes."

  "Lilah is a full-service system, not just a car. Lilah, what's the weather today?"

  "Today it will be eighty-seven degrees and sunny with a chance of thunderstorms later tonight. Looks like a beautiful day, Mr. Byrne!"

  "Thanks, Lilah. What else can you do for me?"

  "I can read the news, access your account settings, or play videos for your children on my backseat monitors if you have a connected streaming account."

  The crowd is entranced. Father's chair jerks slightly every time he flexes his hand and mutters under his breath.

  The demonstration goes on. Aiden's testers throw things at the car, run out in front of it, swerve in the way in other cars, and it handles it all flawlessly.

  "Lilah has an enhanced gyroscopic suspension system."

  I swallow, hard, hoping no one is looking my way.

  "We're about halfway now, starting back."

  The demonstration continues. The car brings Aiden around, and he sits back in the seat. "I think that was a success," he says.

  Something blinks on the touchpad inside the car, and it slows to a stop.

  "Lilah?" he says, a mild agitation in his voice. "What are you doing?"

  "Processing new route. There has been an accident on the road."

  The crowd looks around nervously. Aiden wasn't expecting this. I can see it in his eyes.

  The car backs up and turns until it's pointed straight at the stands. A dozen war
ning lights go off at once. The front wheels lock, and the back wheels begin to turn, the skinny tires kicking up dust, then smoke as they start to burn out, gripping the road.

  "Ah, I guess we'll take a look at the emergency override," Aiden says, smoothly, trying to play it off. "If there's an emergency, it's easy to…"

  He's jamming the emergency override button on the panel, and nothing is happening.

  "Have to do it manually," he says, pulling open a panel beneath the steering wheel.

  The car rockets forward.

  "Lilah," he shouts, meaning me, not the car. "Get the kids!"

  Aiden grabs the wheel. In the chaos I hear a screech, and the car's cutesy voice wailing.

  "Warning: Excessive maneuver! Overriding manual control!"

  "What?" Aiden bellows.

  The crowd is going insane. I bat my father's clawing hand and run to Tim and Jason, taking their hands. I break into a run.

  The onlookers clear the stands just in time. "Lilah" clips the corner and sends wood and metal flying, turning sharply as Aiden wrestles the wheel.

  "Everyone clear the area," he barks, his voice echoing over screams and shouts.

  The entire scene is chaos. The police are directing protesters away. My heart skips a beat when I see one draw his gun, maybe thinking he'll shoot out the tires on the driverless car.

  Aiden is kicking at something under the dashboard. He rips a fistful of wires loose and turns the wheel sharply, spinning it almost all the way around. The wheel turns in his sweat-slick hands and comes spinning around, and brings the car with it. Aimed right at us.

  I shove the boys into the back of Aiden's car and clamber into the front seat. The whole interior lights up.

  "Enter destination," a smooth baritone says.

  "Shut up," I blurt, grabbing the wheel.

  "Manual control," it drones.

  I jam down on the pedal and the all-electric car surges forward. I make the turn hard, and Aiden just misses us, zooming past the tail end in the prototype. It screeches around, ignoring his desperate attempts to regain control.

  "Lilah, can you hear me?"

  "Yeah," I blurt out, wheeling around the corner.

  "I can't stop it. It keeps taking control away from me. I'm going to have to disable it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean I have to crash it."

  "What?" Aiden wait, you can't—"

  "I'm sorry," he says.

  He gains control just long enough, and physics take over. The little car doesn't turn very sharply, so it can't avoid smashing right into the stoop of a vacant house.

  I watch in horror, my chest clenching like a fist. The prototype leaps up over the brick stoop in a shower of dust and debris and turns halfway over in midair. It lands hard on the driver's side—Aiden's side—and skids across the road in a shower of sparks before it rolls again onto its back, the mostly glass roof crushing inwards.

  "Don't look!" I scream at his sons, too late.

  The car only stops its momentum when, still on its ruined roof, it wraps itself around a decrepit lamppost that teeters for a moment before topping right into the body of the car, crushing it in further.

  It barely looks like a car anymore except for one spinning wheel. Distorted and tinny, a bleating voice calls out, "Collision alert. Collision alert. Collision alert…" in an endless loop before it fades into a demonic “Coollllission allerrrrrrr” and finally shuts off.

  I step out of the car, my head swimming. I have enough instinct to grab the boys and hold them back as an army of paramedics run from the ambulances to the car, joined by a fire crew and police. Tim sobs into my side, and Jason stares in mute, broken horror, tears steaming down his face.

  It takes half an hour to pry him out. He's alive. I can see him breathing, and he looks at me through a sheet of blood on his face, but his arm is broken, and they have to strap him down.

  "We'll follow," I tell the ambulance driver.

  I take a half turn, and something happens. Like a first thumping my chest, followed by a lightheaded swirl in my skull. I grab my throat, feeling my pulse under both fingers. It’s like a hand closing inside my ribcage, squeezing.

  Beat. Pause. Beat beat beat beat, pause. Beatbeatbeat…pause. Beat. Pause.

  I'm on my knees, before I realize it, then I'm on the ground, and Jason is cradling my head in his lap.

  "Help her!" he's screaming, somebody is screaming, and then it goes black.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Aiden

  I jolt awake, diving from the blackness of anesthesia into the painful shock of awareness. My body is a map of agony—my left arm, bound by something, hurts like hell, and my ribs are a network of sharp pains and grinding hurt. A hand on my shoulder pushes me down.

  "Aiden, please," a calm voice says.

  It's Maria, my assistant.

  "What happened? I don't remember—"

  "The car went haywire. You had to wreck it to stop it. You broke your arm, cracked a few ribs, and got a bad cut on your head. No concussion, thankfully."

  As I start to come around, I sit up through the pain. "Where are my children? Where's Lilah?"

  Maria's expression is unreadable. Her voice totally flat. "She had a cardiac event."

  "What?" I bellow at the top of my lungs. "Out of my way."

  "Sir, you need to—"

  "Shut up," I roar, hurling myself off the bed. My legs are like jelly—I may not have broken them, but my left thigh is a bruise from knee to hip, and the muscle feels like it's barely holding together. I grab something--my intravenous line pole—and lean on it, making my way out of the room.

  "Where is she?"

  "Sir, I must insist—"

  "Why are you even here? I fired you. Where is she?”

  "Room 4216. Cardiac observation ward."

  "Leave. I'll find it."

  Ignoring the nurses running up, I hobble through the ward on bare feet until they finally bring me a wheelchair and push me. I hate every second of it, fury burning in my chest. The last thing Lilah needs me to be right now is helpless.

  When I arrive, I stand up from the wheelchair and walk into her room.

  Jason and Tim are there; Tim is asleep in a side chair, and Jason is standing over Lilah, watching her. She looks absurdly small in the hospital bed, her skin waxy and sweaty, her hair splayed out over the pillow. Leaning on the anti-fall rail on the edge of her bed, I watch her vital signs on the monitor.

  Her heart is in a normal sinus rhythm, her breathing normal, temperature and oxygen all fine. She's healthy.

  "What happened?"

  "She fell down," Tim says, softly. "It was like she just switched off."

  The dread in his voice mirrors the ice in his heart.

  "Excuse me," a soft voice says.

  A nurse. I step out of the room with her.

  "What happened to her?"

  "Are you family, or…?"

  "Her boyfriend. What's wrong with her?"

  "Right now, nothing. She's recovering fine. She's still under sedation. Should take her an hour or so to come around."

  "I'm a medical doctor. Don't patronize me. Tell me what happened."

  The nurse gives me a hard look, but softens.

  "She has non-valvular atrial fibrillation. It's a chronic condition, but it seems mild. She was able to talk to the doctors a bit before they put her under. This was her first event. It should be manageable with medication. She'll probably have to give up coffee, and will need to avoid any stress for a while."

  I nod. "I see. Why was she sedated?"

  "She didn't respond to intravenous drugs, so we had to sedate and defibrillate her. It’s a standard procedure for uncontrolled aphib. She's going to be disoriented when she comes around."

  God, they had to strap her down and run a high-voltage current through her chest.

  “We were able to anaesthetize her,” the nurse adds, quickly.

  As if on cue, Lilah's tiny voice croaks, "Aiden?"

&
nbsp; I lurch into the room on my sore leg and lean against the side of the bed, taking her hand in mine.

  "My hands feel funny," she says, her dry lips sticking to her teeth. "Did it work?"

  "It worked."

  As she comes around more she looks at me, and I wince as her pulse speeds up.

  "You're hurt," she says.

  I glance up at the bandages on my head, the cast and sling on my arm. "I'm fine now."

  She squeezes my hand weakly, fingers shaking.

  "Boys, would you step out?"

  Jason eyes me the longest, but takes his brother's shoulder and walks out.

  "They came on the ambulance with me," Lilah explains.

  "I'm so sorry," I whisper, pressing her hand to my cheek. "This is my fault. My hubris."

  "Did you build it wrong?"

  "What?"

  "The car, did you build it wrong?"

  "No, I went over everything a hundred times. The engineering team is going over it with a fine-toothed comb now. They're my best people, hand picked. I don't even care. It's dead. It's all dead. The stock will have tanked by now."

  "I'm sorry."

  "None of that matters as long as you're all right. They said you need to rest up a little, and no coffee."

  She sighs. "I'm already jonesing for a cup."

  I smile and caress her hand with my thumb.

  "Oh God," she blurts. "I stink. My breath smells like pickled goat ass, and I look like someone dipped me in olive oil. Don't look at me."

  I kiss her forehead, oil and all.

  "I don't care. You're more beautiful now than I've ever seen you. Marry me."

  I blurt out the words without thinking. Lilah's heart speeds up, and I wince. She stares at me, wide-eyed.

  Her heart rate increases just a little more.

  "Yes," she says. "Yes I will. Take me out of here, and let's go home."

  "We can't leave yet." I sigh. "Not until the doctors say you're ready. I don't want this to ever happen again."

  She rubs her cheek against my palm. "I hate hospitals."

  "So do I."

  I hear a rubbery grinding sound behind me and stand up.

  Here comes Roland.

  He wheels into the room, his damned nurse trailing behind him. She steps back when I glare at her, as if pushed by an invisible hand. Roland wheels forward.