Удушье (Choke)

Her terrible green-gray hand comes up level and rocks from side to side, the universal sign language for so-so. With her eyes closed, she smiles and says, 'I was hoping you'd be Victor.'

Paige shrugs my hand off her shoulder.

And I say, 'I thought you liked me better.'

I say, 'Nobody likes Victor very much.'

My mother stretches her fingers toward Paige and says, 'Do you love him?'

Paige looks at me.

'Fred, here,' my mom says, 'do you love him?'

Paige starts clicking and unclicking her ballpoint pen, fast. Not looking at me, looking at the clipboard in her lap, she says,

'I do.'

And my mom smiles. And stretching her fingers toward me, she says, 'And do you love her?'

Maybe the way a porcupine thinks about its stinking stick, if you'd call that love.

Maybe the way a dolphin loves the smooth sides of its pool.

And I say, 'I guess.'

My mom tucks her chin into her neck sideways, eyeballing me, and says, 'Fred.'

And I say, 'Okay, yes.' I say, 'I love her.'

She brings her terrible green-gray fingers back to rest on her mounded belly and says, 'You two are so lucky.' She closes her eyes and says, 'Victor isn't very good at loving people.'

She says, 'What I'm most afraid of is, after I'm gone, there will be no one left in the entire world who'll love Victor.'

These frigging old people. These human ruins.

Love is bullshit. Emotion is bullshit. I am a rock. A jerk. I'm an uncaring asshole and proud of it.

What would Jesus NOT do?

If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and be­ing vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love.

If what I just said about loving Paige was a lie or a vow, I don't know. But it was a trick. This is just heaps more chick bullshit. There is no human soul, and I am absolutely for sure seriously not going to fucking cry.

My mom, her eyes stay closed, and her chest inflates and de­flates in long, deep cycles.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Imagine a heavy weight pressing your body, settling your head and arms, deeper and deeper.

And she's asleep.

Paige stands up from the recliner and nods her head toward the door, and I follow her out into the hallway.

She looks around and says, 'You want to go to the chapel?'

I'm not really in the mood.

'To talk,' she says.