Vox(27)

“They’re doing daily contests first,” Patrick says, settling onto the barstool across from me after grabbing a beer from the fridge. It’s early for him, but I don’t say anything. “Ice cream for the girl in each grade with the lowest”—he takes a rather large swig from the bottle—“with the lowest number on her counter.”

So it was exactly as I expected.

He continues. “At the end of the month, they’ll tally all the counts, and—”

“Words,” I interrupt. The black band on my left wrist pulses once.

“Right. Words. There’s a grade prize of what they’re calling an age-appropriate gift. A doll for the younger girls, games for the middle graders, makeup for the over-sixteens.”

Super. Trading voices for crap.

The worst part is that Patrick is smiling.

“Enough of this,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.” The contraption circling my wrist pings four times and I watch the number tick up from 46 to 50. Then it emits a sound like a diseased frog, and the 50 becomes 60. Okay. “Hell” is now out of my vocabulary. So much for George Carlin’s list of seven dirty words. I wish I knew why Patrick was beaming at me.

As if he’s read my mind, he leaves the kitchen, retrieves his briefcase from the front hall, and sets it on the counter dividing us. “Present from the president, babe,” he says as he removes an envelope from the leather case. In the upper-right-hand corner is the presidential seal. In the left, where the return address would normally go, is a silver embossed capital P, the model for Steven’s new pin.

And speak of the devil: the boys are home.

Leo and Sam bound into the kitchen first, kiss me hello, and make a beeline for the snack drawer. Steven, more composed than even he usually is, goes for the fridge after a curt “Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom.”

He’ll be looking for milk, which of course I forgot to buy.

“Nice,” Steven says, shaking the last teaspoon of milk in the carton. He seems surprised when I don’t come back with a response, then sees the latest addition to my wardrobe. “You got the new model! Awesome. Julia has one too, except hers is purple with silver stars. Just got it today. She showed me when I was walking home from the bus.”

I don’t hate my son. I don’t hate my son. I don’t hate my son.

Except right now I do, a little bit.

“Read the letter, Jean,” Patrick says.

President Myers was on television again today. He’s always on television, it seems, always trumpeting a new plan to turn the country around, constantly telling us how much better off we are. The economy’s up—but not in our household, as the broken air-conditioning reminds me; unemployment is down—as long as you don’t count the seventy million women who lost their jobs. Everything’s great and everything’s fine.

Everything wasn’t so fine today as he fielded questions from the press.

“We’ll find someone,” he said. “Whatever it takes, we’ll find someone to cure my only brother.”

Like hell you will, I thought. The same slight smile on Anna Myers’ lips told me she thought it, too. Good for you, sister.

Even if I agreed, there were no guarantees of success. Wernicke’s aphasia is a tricky devil. Maybe I’d have a chance if I could make sure Lin Kwan was actually on the team, and not just the backup Reverend Carl mentioned. Even better, Lin and Lorenzo.

But I don’t want to think about Lorenzo just now. I don’t like to think about him when Patrick is around.

“You going to open it?” Patrick says.

I slide a nail under the flap of the envelope. Inside is a single trifold sheet of bond paper, off-white letterhead. It’s addressed to me, Dr. Jean McClellan. So I’m back to “Dr.” for the time being.

The body of the letter is one sentence long.

“Well?” Patrick asks the question, but his eyes tell me he already knows what the president has to say.

“Hang on.”

He gets another beer from the fridge but doesn’t drink it with the same celebratory mood as he did the first bottle. This one is medicinal, liquid anesthesia to get him through the wait while I remove myself from the kitchen with my yet-unvoiced decision. Maybe he expected me to do backflips on the tile. I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s too hot in here to think. The back garden, under Mrs. Ray’s magnolia, is better.

Please call me with your price, the president says. It’s rather pleasant to see that the bastard is begging.

My price. My price is to turn back the clock, but that’s not feasible. My price is to eradicate the Pure Movement from the ground up, like pulling weeds from what was once a lively garden. My price is to see Reverend Carl Corbin and his flock hanged or torn to shreds by wild dogs or burnt to cinders in hell.

The back door creaks open and slams shut, and I expect to see Patrick coming toward me, but it isn’t him. It’s Sonia. She’s holding a sheet of pink construction paper, the same color as her lips. When she reaches me, she holds it out.

For a six-year-old, she’s got some talent, and this drawing is among her better ones, in a way. The six figures actually resemble us—Patrick, Steven, the twins, me, and Sonia. We’re all standing in our garden, holding hands under a tree that’s blooming with white stars. She’s got the twins in matching outfits and she’s drawn something that looks more like a suitcase than a briefcase in Patrick’s free hand. Steven wears his new pin; my hair is pulled back into a ponytail. Around my wrist and Sonia’s are bracelets: red for her and black for me. We’re all smiling under a sun she’s decorated with orange hearts.