To Hear Their Voices Again

"Daddy?"

Rob closed the checkbook, pocketed his pen. "Yeah, pardner?"

"Andy at school said my Mommy is dead."

Oh, dear God, Rob thought. There it is. And what can I tell him?

"Is that true, Daddy? Is Mommy dead?"

What could he say? She had called them just last night.

She called first on a Wednesday, two weeks after the accident. Rob had been so tied up with everything he'd forgotten she could.

Rob and the kids were watching television and eating popcorn. He had just noticed that Ali, twenty-two months old, was slipping every third or fourth kernel between the couch cushions. Four-year-old Nathan had gotten up to go to the bathroom a minute before. The phone rang, and Rob was struggling out of the couch when he heard Nathan talking in the next room:

"Hi, Mommy! Are you on your big trip?"

Rob felt the beginnings of anger, and another emotion he couldn't identify, just beneath. Nathan wasn't allowed to answer the phone, in the first place, and second, how would he ever learn to understand this thing with her calling?

Nathan ran back in. "Dad? It's Mommy on the phone!" He was jumping up and down, his face flushed with excitement. "She says to see if it's all right with you if I talk to her, Daddy, is it okay, is it okay?"

"Okay, but not too long." He added, "It's long distance." Wasn't that a good one, he thought. I should be a comedian.

Nathan ran back to the other room and Ali ran after him, her blond hair glowing in the hall's light. Rob found himself following. He briefly considered the idea of listening on an extension, found that he did not want to hear her voice.

"Mommy, we stayed at Granma's and I saw a frog, a big one, in her back yard. We went back to daycare yesterday."

Ali reached for the phone. "Mommy?"

"Ali wanna talk?" Nathan said, in the babyish tone he saved for his little sister. "Mommy, Ali wantsa talk to ya'. Heresheis."

Ali clumsily held the phone to her head, using both hands. "Hewo?"

Suddenly her eyes lit, and she beamed as if she would explode; laughing, she cried, "Mommy!"

Rob knew then that he couldn't take it away from them. If they couldn't see her, they could at least have this. He left the room and returned to his place on the couch, unable to reconcile it any further.

About four minutes later Nathan ran to him. "Mommy says she gotsa go. She wantsa know do you wanna talk ta' her."

"No," Rob answered without hesitation. Nathan paused, surprised, than ran breathlessly back to finish the conversation.

It took him a long time to get them to bed that night. They were very excited.

His own sleep did not come easier.

"Damn it, how could she be so disorganized!" Rob shouted, throwing the whole pile to the floor. A single drawer held clothes, a notebook of her poems, a picture of the two of them together, a plastic Mickey Mouse. This could keep till next weekend, he decided, and went out to the kitchen ...

... and saw his neighbor, Jerry Allen, at the screen door, about to knock. "If you're beatin' the kids, I can come back later," Jerry said. Jerry was tall, scruffy, and nearly bald. He wore a T-shirt that said, 'TOTAL GUN CONTROL NOW'.

Rob grinned back, embarrassed, and unlatched the door. "No, I sent the kids to my mother's for the weekend."

"Good man." Jerry said that in response to just about everything. Rob thought that Jerry would probably say "good man" if Rob confessed to being a serial killer. "I thought you might want one of these." He held a six-pack of Cho-Colas.

"Thanks." Neither of them drank much alcohol. Sharing Cho-Colas was a tradition for Rob and Jerry.

Rob took the drinks and headed for the kitchen. "Come on in."

"Wish my mom would take my rug rats for a weekend, or a month, now and then," Jerry complained, following him. "Man, they are drivin' me crazy. Wait 'till yours are teenagers."

"Why don't you send them to camp?" They sat at the table.

"Man, I need to put 'em in a monastery and a convent, and then pray that I don't get 'em mixed up." He sighed. "Bill's just become aware of the mating ritual. And some little delinquent calls Amy 24 times a day." He accepted the opener Rob offered him and opened a drink. "I need to get the dang phone disconnected. I thought they made phone solicitation illegal."

Rob smiled. The two men had very different personalities, but Rob had grown fond of Jerry in the years he and Susan had lived in this neighborhood. "Susan called last week." Jerry didn't bat an eye. "Did you talk to her?"

"No. The kids did."

Jerry nodded. "I didn't talk to Patty either, at first."

They sipped for a moment before Jerry spoke again. "Later on, I did. In fact, I talked to her the other day." At Rob's surprised stare, he continued. "I know what you're thinkin'. Three years, that's how long it's been. But why not? Sherry doesn't mind. And she's still out there, you know. All those years we spent together -- that still happened. I don't wanna forget it. I don't want the kids to forget her." He smiled. "Remember what the commercials said when we were kids? 'The Next Best Thing To Being There'."

Rob just stared.

"Well, maybe when I was a kid." Jerry shrugged. "It has been a while."

Rob looked at his drink, stared at the nebulous clouds of chocolate gunk pooled within. "I guess it's good for the kids. It's fine for you, if you want to go along with it. I'm just old- fashioned." He struggled for a complaint that would justify the way he felt about it. "Just doesn't seem dignified."

"Whatever. I can't blame you. Shoot, I asked Patty what to do about all the guys callin' Amy. You know what she said?"

"What?"

He grinned. "She said put her in a convent."

Rob found that he was grinning too.

Jerry hung around most of the afternoon. They watched a basketball game, then Jerry helped Rob box up most of Susan's clothes for the Salvation Army. The rest of her things they packed into boxes, labeled, which Jerry and he put away in the attic. "Some bridges aren't meant to be burned," Jerry said, patting his friend on the back when they were finished. "Your kids'll be glad to go through some of that stuff later. 'Specially those poems."

Around seven or so Jerry had left, staggering out the door, pretending to be drunk on Cho-Cola. It was an old joke between them and it didn't fail to get a laugh from Rob now.

"Take it easy," Jerry called, as he passed the next house.

"I will."

From somewhere down the street came the reply: "Good man!"

Rob cleaned up the kitchen, chuckling every few minutes when he thought of Jerry weaving down the street. The neighbors probably thought he was drunk.

He was catching up on office memorandums when the phone rang. He leaned forward, as if to rise from the couch, then paused. What if it's her?

He considered. If it were something important they'd leave a message. He knew that she would not. That had been part of the deal.

The phone rang again, and again. He felt his skin crawl. The picture he'd found of Susan and himself was on the table beside him; he picked it up. Her knowing blue eyes, the wide smile, the nose that was too big to be called pretty but which he'd always found to be just right, all stirred an almost-forgotten sense of longing. The phone rang a fourth time.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I just can't."

Just before the answering machine would have kicked in, the ringing stopped.

Rob put the picture in the table drawer. When he got up from the couch he slammed the drawer shut.

"Daddy? Where's the brown car?"

"Uh. We got rid of it, Nath."

"Did Mommy take the brown car? 'Cause it was hers?"

Rob hesitated. "Yeah, I guess that's right."

"I think I left my blue jacket in it, in the floor. Did she leave my blue jacket here?"

Rob swallowed. "No. She had to take it. I'll get you another. Is that okay, Nath?"

Nathan nodded. "Okay. She can have my blue one."

Rob remembered the jacket. They had asked him if he wanted it. He had said no, told them to dispose of it.

It had been covered with blood.

Rob sat on the couch, exhausted. It seemed to take longer to get them to bed each night. Maybe because I don't let myself get results by yelling anymore. He looked at the clock: 9:30.

Jerry had said he would call if he got the tickets.

The telephone rang. He picked it up.

When she said hello, it wasn't specific memories that surfaced; not flashbacks of things they'd done and said. What filled his mind at that moment was an overwhelming sense of remembering, of reliving, of returning to a place in which he had once lived. Just as drinking, on the rare occasions he did so, made him think of being a college freshman again, hearing her voice made him remember what living with her had been like. And all she said was, "Hello, Rob."

"Oh, Hi. Whatever you are." His voice felt hollow. "I have an important call I'm waiting for."

"Rob, I wanted to talk to you." Such a soft voice, and yet authoritative. As always. God, he had to admit: it was good to hear her voice again.

"Look, this is fine for the kids. But I'm not a kid. I can't pretend you're my wife, you're not."

"I know," she said. "You're right, and I won't try to pretend I am. You might try to think of me as a friend."

"Damn it, you're not even a person!"

"Don't you think you're being a little cruel, Rob?"

"Cruel?" He was surprised at the sudden depth of his anger. "I'll tell you what's cruel. My wife is dead, she died in a car wreck. And you won't let her die. I told you it was a stupid idea, but you wanted the stupid thing set up, so I said okay, but I didn't know you were going to die, damn it."

"A car wreck?"

He paused. "You -- you didn't know?"

"Well, no. They don't tell me those things. I knew it must have been something sudden. The last scan I remember was seven months ago. Was anybody else hurt?"

The Susan-ness of her question made him feel guilty. "No. You swerved to avoid a kid on a bike. You went off a bridge. It was almost instantaneous," he added, inexplicably.

"Well, that's good."

He hesitated. "You didn't wear your seat belt."

"Oh, Rob, are you serious? I'd been trying to get in the habit!"

"I told you you should! But no, it was too much trouble."

"I'm sorry, Rob," she sighed. "You were right."

"Well, okay."

"Rob..." He heard the soft release of air, as if she were sighing to hold her place in the conversation, deciding what to say next. How do they do that? It's incredibly realistic. "I know what I am. I'm part Susan and part program. I think about things she might have. I wonder what you and the kids are doing. But I know I'm not really a part of your life. I understand that."

"Hell, you're an insurance policy."

"I know that, Rob. You don't have to swear so much." She was becoming impatient, just as Susan would have. "If you don't want to talk to me after this, fine. But you agreed to it, too, so you ought to listen at least once. You know, there's supposed to be some benefit for the adults, too." She sighed. "My gosh, I never did understand 'AI'. Now I'm part of it."

"Artificial Intelligence," he corrected.

"AI." Then she laughed, and he did, too, feeling his anger dissipate. He had always hated buzzwords, slang and acronyms. She added them to her vocabulary and discarded them as quickly as hairstyles. He always corrected her; she always ignored him.

So much for getting mad.

"Anyway." She always said that before changing the subject, too. "Rob, I wanted to ask you about Nathaniel. Is he handling this okay? I think he went through a phase when he was scared of me."

"He's okay now. We had a talk about it. I told him you were like a tape of Mommy, except a little better."

"Good. That's a good analogy. Use the same idea with Ali, as she grows."

"Look." he said. "How long is this going to go on? Forever? Will you be calling my -- their -- grandkids?"

"I knew you didn't pay any attention when we signed up. I won't always be around to remember details for you."

"Okay," he smiled, "you were right. Answer the question."

"No. I can't call your -- our -- grandkids. It's an experimental program. They only keep me around for a month. That's the law, too, by the way. So that I won't become a curiosity. Congress settled that. You should read the contract, Rob, it explains all of this. "

"A month?"

"Yup. Tomorrow's the last day. Thought I'd give you one last shot, see if anything was on your mind."

"But … I didn't realize… can't they, I mean, isn't there a backup…"

"No, babe. The wind cries Mary and that's all, folks." She laughed. "I don't have any control over it, anyway. Write your congressman."

He didn't laugh. He didn't trust his voice, felt as though a bomb of emotions inside him had begun to tick. He hadn't realized the bomb was there.

"There's something else I want to talk to you about, Rob."

"What?"

"How are you doing?"

He swallowed. "Fine."

"Are you seeing anybody? Wait, scratch that. What I mean to say is, I don't mind if you are. And you don't have to tell me about it. I want you to be happy. Don't mourn me forever."

"They just tell you to say that."

She made a sound she'd often used in response to his blunders: something between a cat's cough and a baby's burp. "Wait a darn minute! They don't tell me what to say. Sure, I can't guarantee I would have come up with the same opinions I have now if I hadn't died, but the odds are good I would have. The way I feel about this is almost certainly the way the real me would have felt." She paused, seeming to take a breath. "Did that make any sense?"

"No."

She paused. "So are you seeing anybody?"

He forced a laugh. "Yes! Dozens of women. I'm a gigolo now."

"Hmphh!" she chided. "You didn't waste time. Do you take Nathaniel and Ali along on your dates?"

"No. I was kidding. I'm not seeing anybody. I don't want to see anybody else."

"Well, okay..."

"This is not like I thought it would be. I mean, talking to you."

"What did you think I would say? 'I'm back!'? Or 'Rob-bie ... I'm so cold'?" She laughed. "It's just me. I'm a pretty decent little piece of software, if I do say so myself."

He found himself smiling. "You always were."

"Robbie, when you're ready, you should see someone else. Get married. I won't mind. I don't think I would have minded. The kids should have a mother. Are you giving them baths?"

"Of course!"

"How often?"

"Well, pretty often. At least once a week."

"Robbie! What do they eat for dinner?"

"Different stuff," he hedged. "Daycare fixes them big lunches. We had fast food last night."

"Hardee's?"

"Yeah."

"Good. They like that."

"I'm glad I can do something right."

"Me, too. Will you promise me, Robbie?"

"Promise what?"

"That you won't spend the rest of your life moping over me. Go out with people, have a good time."

"Oh, sure. And how am I supposed to do that? I'm a single parent now."

"Take the kids to your mother's for the weekend."

"I don't want to go out with anybody!"

"Jerry got married again, after Patty died."

"Did you ask Patty how to handle this?"

She paused. "Rob, that was not funny."

"I wasn't trying to make a joke," he said, genuinely sorry. "I didn't know. I mean, I thought maybe you could hook into the Internet or something."

She giggled. "Now that really is funny. Okay, I forgive you. I thought you were being nasty again. You really were horrible at first, you know."

"Sorry."

"'Sokay. Wish I could talk to Patty. Maybe the real me can."

"Considering how much you and Patty used to talk on the phone, it would probably be a drain on the country's computer resources."

She giggled again. "You're right. Well, Robbie, time's up. Take care of the kids, okay?."

"Wait!"

"What is it?"

"I don't ... I mean, do you have to go? Just yet?"

"Well, I'm supposed to keep it under ten minutes but I can make an exception. Considering this is the last time, I can, for you. What do you need?"

"I don't know." He gnawed a fingernail. "I guess ... I guess I wanted to say that I know I wasn't the best husband."

How insane, he thought. To talk this way to a computer. He might as well talk to the wall.

But the wall didn't sound like her.

"You were fine," she said softly. "You were the best husband I could have had. You were just loud and blustery sometimes -- determined to keep the world running your way. You did that because you cared. That was the only way you knew to take care of us."

"Thanks. Susan, I ... I mean, you were ... I ..."

She waited, then when he could not fill in the words she did so for him: "You loved me."

"I loved you," he agreed. "I love you. Very much. More than anything, anybody. Damn it, I still love you! I ...

"Why?" he cried. "Why did you have to die?" He felt tears on his face, didn't care. "I don't want you to be dead. I need you, Susie."

"I know, babe," she whispered. "I know. I'm sorry. Out of my control. But I'm sorry."

A few minutes later, Rob hung up the phone.

He sat in the dark, listening to the clock. The clock was ticking, but that wasn't Time passing, just sounds, breaking up the moments, documenting the passing of one Universe into another one, a bit older, a little wiser.

What was that old picture he'd read about in college? Ceci n'est pas un pipe -- "This is not a pipe". Why not, he'd wondered. The answer: it was a picture of a pipe. But what was the difference?

He felt eased somehow. He'd needed to tell her goodbye. It helped in a way, and yet it was so wrong … so damn wrong. Debasing to her memory. Not Susan. Not even a picture of Susan.

Just sounds, breaking up the moments, tolling the passage of one Universe into another.

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