I tried, and couldn’t remember.
She said it would probably take me a lot longer than I’d think. “It’s a cruel trick of nature that personal memory seems to be the first to go. You’ll remember Alka-Seltzer long past the point where you’ve forgotten your children.”
She then said to me, “Try
I walked onto the back patio, and looked over Silicon Valley, clear, but vanishing into a late afternoon fog, unexpected, fanning in from the west. Karla was wearing a sweater, and her breath was like the swimming pool’s wafting heat, there in the coolness. I told her that it was always in the fall when the crops were in, that the wars were called.
She said to me, “We all fall down some day. We all fall down. You’ve fallen and we’ll all pick each other up.”
In the distance I saw the Contra Costa Mountains, and their silhouette was blurred as I confused the mountains for clouds, and Karla dried my eyes with fallen leaves and her sweater’s hem. I told Karla about a Lego TV commercial I saw twenty years ago … a yellow castle and the camera went higher and higher and higher and the castle never ended. She said she had seen it, too.
Dad came by with Misty, and we all went for a walk. Down La Cresta we went, and Dad had brought along the electric garage-door opener, and we pushed its red ridged button, randomly trying to open strangers’ doors.
When we returned to the house, my friends were gathered around Mom, in front of a monitor, their faces lit sky blue; they had forgotten to turn on the lights in the kitchen. Mom’s body was upheld by Bug and Abe inside a kitchen chair, with Michael clasping her arms. On the screen, in 36 point Helvetica on the screen of a Mac Classic were written the words:
i am here
Dad caressed Mom’s forehead and said, “We’re here, too, honey.” He said, “Michael, can she speak …”
Michael put his arms over Mom’s arms, his fingers upon her fingers and assisted her hands above the keyboard. Dad said, “Honey, can you hear us?”
yes
He said to her, “Honey, how are you? How do you feel?”
;=)
Michael broke in. He said, “Mr. Underwood, ask your wife a question that only she and you would know the answer to. Make me sure that this isn’t me doing the talking.”
Dad asked, “Honey, what was your name for me, when we went on our honeymoon on Mt. Hood. Can you remember?”
There was a pause and a word emerged:
reindeer
Dad collapsed and cried and fell to his knees at Mom’s feet and Michael said, “Let’s push the caps-lock button. Capitals make easier words; consider license plates. You’re a State of California vanity license plate now, Mrs. U.”
The caps were locked and the point size lowered. The fingers tapped:
beep beep
Dad said, “Tell us how you feel … tell us what we can do …”
The fingers tapped:
I feel U
I cut through the crowd. I said, “Mom, Mom … tell me it’s you. Tell me something I never liked in my lunch bag at school …” The fingers tapped:
PNUT BUTR
Oh, to speak with the lost! Karla broke in and said, “Mrs. U., our massage … is it okay? Is it helping you?” The fingers tapped:
GR8
I LK MY BDY
Karla looked at the words and, hesitating a second, declared, “I like my body now, too, Mrs. U.”
Mom’s assisted hands tapped out:
MY DOTTR
Karla lost it and started to cry, and then, well, I started to cry. And then Dad, and then, well, everybody, and at the center of it all was Mom, part woman/part machine, emanating blue Macintosh light.
Joy lapsed into silliness lapsed into relief and cocktails.
The kitchen lights went on. Amy said, “This is so first-contact!” Messages lost became messages found:
MIST’Z OVER ETING
DAN CT UR HAIR
GTTNG BETR
LUV U ALL
Here it is: Mom speaking like a license plate … like the lyrics to a Prince song … like a page without vowels … like encryption. All of my messing around with words last year and now, well … it’s real life.
After an hour, the message, GR8LY TIRED came onto the screen and Dad said it was time to wrap it up for now. It was dark, and the fireplace had been lit by Todd. Amy came in with a pile of old horse blankets and flashlights and a set of pen-size laser pointers from last Christmas, and said,
She placed these things on the tired old Broyhill, and we carried it out next to the blue-green pool, and the sky above the Valley was filled with a cobalt-gray fog.
Amy turned on one of the portable lasers Abe gave us for Christmas, the ones we use to point at walls during meetings, and cut the sky with a thin red beam. Dusty carried Mom out and placed her on the couch, head skyward, and Dad lay down beside her on this couch, and wrapped her in blankets.
Amy said, “Mrs. U., you’ve probably always wondered what kids do on weekends. Well, the truth of the matter is, they smoke pot and go to Pink Floyd laser shows at the planetarium. Michael: hit the tunes …”
An art rock anthem from another era filled the air, and we turned on all of our lights and cast them into the sky, a chaotic symphony of lines and color.
The dozen of us stood out there on the patio, out in the January evening’s foggy dark: Michael and Amy, still in their clothes, diving in the brilliant blue pool, rescuing the R2D2 pool cleaner from its endless serflike toil; Dad next to Mom on her bed, cradling her head in his arms, watching our lasers, positioning her head so that she could see the beams; Ethan, pale and feisty, testing batteries with a small device, arguing with Dusty over some small matter; Lindsay nearly asleep, lying next to Mom; Abe on his trampoline bouncing into the fog with Susan, Todd, Emmett, and poor, lumbering, overweight, Misty, their four lasers cutting the heaven and joining my laser and Karla’s laser and Dad’s and Ethan’s and Dusty’s.
Karla and I lay down on the cement next to the pool atop a threadbare promotional towel for
