Gadsby

IRREPLACEABLE

By Alison Gadsby

Late again, Darren raced down Lake Street toward St. Adjutor Primary School, focusing on not running any red lights again. Chasing shadows around the playground; peeking his head into every classroom, the library, the toilets, and finally into the administrator’s office tremoring from head to toe. His wife Kristina was dead only two months and he’d lost their daughter.

“Miss Richards offered to walk her home,” Mrs. Stone said.

Kristina thought Mrs. Stone was a judgmental bitch and they both joked about how precisely Phantastic Phorms had programmed the worst traits of every terrible teacher they’d ever had into one horrible specimen.
Mrs. Stone tugged on her herringbone tweed jacket, pressing it over the waist of a matching skirt that hung a few inches below her knees. She’d tied a sky-blue ribbon under the Peter Pan collar of her brown silk blouse. She used to be a category 3 like Miss Richards, but when the mayor discovered her in the paper aisle at Staples, he contacted Phantastic Phorms, made an offer and paid a little extra for some upgrades.

“As I mentioned the last time this happened, I’d appreciate Miss Richards minding her own business,” Darren said.

“Sir, while you have suffered a tragic loss, we cannot ignore that your child, only seven years of age and quiet as a church mouse, is fragile and in need of special attention.”

Quiet as a church mouse. He could hear Kristina snickering. He harnessed his wife’s fearlessness when he spoke next.

“That’s not at all who Amelia is, and as my wife explained to you last year, it’s the overwhelming number of Category 3’s at St. Adjutor that is the problem. Amelia doesn’t know who to trust.”

“As we discussed last year, there are no available humans to fill the positions. While many of you continue to choose arts degrees, wallowing in your poetry and your art, we are left with the monumental task of educating your children.”

“Wallowing. Do you know anything about me?” Darren was the best-selling author of eight novels; three collections of stories and two of his award-winning plays continue to be performed for global audiences. One of Kristina’s glass pieces just sold at auction for $23,000. Darren stood because that’s what you were supposed to do when they tried to criticize the human experience, a subtle reminder that humans still had the power to push the pause button.

Mrs. Stone lifted her elbows, tucking her hands under the oversized oak desk, and dropped her head.

“I don’t want Miss Richards anywhere near my child. Do you hear me?”

Darren found Amelia and Miss Richards sitting under the big willow tree on the lawn of St. Giles Presbyterian, two blocks from their house. Not only had she taken Amelia off school grounds, but she was also taking her sweet time getting her home. Darren was annoyed they’d stopped, but as he approached them, he saw Amelia’s tears. His daughter had soaked the front of Miss Richards’ beige cardigan and the moment she saw him, Amelia pressed her palms into her eye sockets and breathed four times deeply before offering him Kristina’s fake smile. The one Kristina had painted on her face before sitting him down with the diagnosis and prognosis, the sad-for-you-not-for-me closed lipped smile she held right up until the end, the smile was meant to make him feel better.

He kneeled and Amelia ran straight into his open arms.

Miss Richards watched with a genial grin, her hands clasped under her chin, like she was praying. Her glassy blue eyes reflected the sun giving the impression of tears. She looked empathetic, human almost. She wore the uniform of a kindergarten teacher, light grey slacks speckled with paint, a denim shirt rolled up at the sleeves and Crocs with every hole filled with widgets she’d have received from students. Kristina had been over the moon when she learned Miss Richards would be Amelia’s first teacher. The kindergarten teachers were considered 3 plus educators. They had the patience and understanding of a Level 4 or 5, but the dedication of a Level 2, whose singular purpose was to make humans happy. As protectors of young children, 3+ had also been given the Level 10 exception: to kill anyone should they pose a grave threat to the humans in their care.

When Darren and Miss Richards made eye contact, she immediately dropped her head and turned her eyes toward the school.

“Thank you,” he managed to spit out before she disappeared around the corner.

“Sweet pea, you scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry daddy. I didn’t want Mrs. Stone to call and wake you up.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Darren had stopped the school bus drop off because he thought if he was forced to get out of bed, he could somehow shake himself free of the debilitating depression. The doctor gave him drugs, but he didn’t like how they made him indifferent to everything, including Amelia.

“It’s okay, daddy. Miss Richards is nice. She made me lunch today. We had chicken quesadillas.”

Fuck. Did he forget to pack her lunch again?

“Does she always eat lunch with you?” he said.

“Yes. I don’t like sitting with the other kids, especially Haley and Hamlet.”

The twins had two moms, and their two dads lived three doors down from them. Too much love and contentment for one kid, Kristina used to say. We’re not going to have any artists if we keep raising children with unconditional love and acceptance. If he were Amelia, Darren wouldn’t want to hang around Haley and Hamlet either.

Amelia admitted that Miss Richards also walked her to the gymnasium for Phys. Ed. And played hopscotch with her at recess. When they got home, he’d call the school.

“I don’t like how much attention she’s paying to my daughter,” he said.

“But that is her role. She must provide intimate emotional support to students who are suffering, and your daughter is suffering,” Mrs. Stone said.

“Her mother just died,” he said.

“We are aware. Her grades are dropping. She sleeps through most of her classes. If you ask me, Amelia would be better served with more attention from Miss Richards.”

“What the hell do grades mean at this age?”

“Have you ever thought about homeschooling, Mr. Newbury?”

“I don’t have time for that,” he said.

“The school board makes exceptions in situations such as yours and will provide a live-in tutor for up to two years. Miss Richards has indicated she would be quite amenable to such a situation should the opportunity arise.”

“Amenable? Would she be, amenable? I’m not having a Cat3 living in my house,” he said.

“Well, she does not need to live in the home. A waterproof mat on the floor of the garage would suffice,” she said.

“A waterproof mat?”

“Yes. We can also provide the mat should you agree to the proposal.”

He knew two people who had Cat3’s in their homes and they’d both paid mid six figures. They were nannies, tutors and his publisher had one especially built to be a wet nurse. His wife had pumped and the Cat3 did all the middle of the night feedings for their six children.

He didn’t care if it impressed other people that he’d have a live-in tutor. He and Kristina were always financially able to purchase one if they wanted, but as artists they opposed the programming of emotional labour. The more human the Phorms became the closer they themselves would be obsolete. Currently protected by legislation banning the production of art by artificial intelligence, the current Prime Minister was chomping at the bit to throw it all out. There were rumours the PMs children were Cat1, Gen3, with the ability to grow hair, teeth and store memories. Rabble posted before and after photos of the two girls, taken two days apart last year. They’d obviously been upgraded, but he ignored all allegations and insisted his children would not be used as political pawns.

“I can’t do it,” Darren said, “If anyone found out, I’d look like a hypocrite.”

“Nobody needs to know Mr. Newbury.”

When he slipped the phone into its charger, he turned to see Amelia sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her hands rested palms up on her knees with her thumbs and third fingers pressed together. She breathed in and moaned out a few times before opening her eyes.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Meditating,” she said, “Miss Richards taught me.”

“Jesus Christ, Ams.”

“Don’t swear, daddy.”

“Jesus Christ is hardly swearing,” he said.

“Miss Richards says there’s a right word for everything we feel, an exact word.”

“Does she?”

Darren and Kristina never wanted Amelia to be afraid of swearing. A solidly loud and expressive Fuck could alleviate any emotional situation. A pointed go fuck yourself could be very satisfying final words in any argument.

“For fuck sakes, Ams, I am not going to have my language policed by a fucking kindergarten teacher.”
Amelia jumped up quickly and ran upstairs, slamming her bedroom door.

Darren had slept 20 of the last 24 hours and he was still exhausted.

He dragged himself upstairs and tapped on Amelia’s bedroom door before opening it slightly. She was face down on her bed crying into a pillow. Her school uniform had been tossed to the floor and she lay in her underwear and tank top. He tiptoed inside and opened her closet, lifting an unfolded, unlaundered nightgown from the built-in drawers.

He sat on the bed, resting his hand on her calf for a moment.

“Leave me alone daddy.”

“I’m sorry sweetie. I am. It’s just. I’m tired.”

Amelia turned herself on to her back and sat up.

“I know daddy. I’m sorry too. But don’t you think that’s why it’s good for Miss. Richards to live here.”

She’d heard the phone conversation and knowing Amelia, her seven-year-old brain had already thought of a counterargument to anything he might say.

He simply said he didn’t want her here, and how important it was that he have space to write and with Amelia and Miss Richards in the house he’d never get anything done.

“You’re not writing anymore daddy.”

“Yes. I am.” He promised Kristina that he’d finish the novel while she was at the hospital getting treatments, but he didn’t. He also promised he’d get on with it after she died. They’d had a year to work through it all, but Kristina’s dogged determination to have a good death left him staggering around trying to find a place in the final plot point of her life. And that she never cried, not even once, had him believing she was happy to go. Intellectually, he’d understood it was a façade meant to trick everyone, including herself, but did she have to die with a smile on her face?

“I can’t fucking deal with this right now, Ams. I’m going to add you back to the bus route and I don’t want you hanging around Miss Richards.”

“Mom never swore as much as you,” she said.

“Yes, she did. She just didn’t do it in front of you.”

“Why do you do it?” she asked.

“Because I don’t have the exact words I guess.”

She nodded her head like the wise old lady she was and lifted her arms so Darren could place the nightgown over her head.

“Miss Richards thinks that you need to cry,” she said.

“I don’t need to cry. I need to get back to work. And I can’t do that if she’s here.”

If Miss Richards only knew how much of every day he spent sobbing.

“Miss Richards said you wish you died instead of mummy, and I told her I wish I could die too.”

Amelia focused on fastening the little buttons at the top of her purple and pink striped nightgown as though she hadn’t just punched him in the gut with her words. Her perfectly exact words. Many times, Darren dreamed of driving them both off the Burlington bridge after Kristina died. The ecstasy in that sort of happy ending. Would anyone blame him? No. Everyone would sigh relief at the unbelievable unknowable lie that they’d all be together now.

“I can’t,” he stumbled around for the words because all that came to mind was a loud agonizing fuck. He saw all the pieces of his broken heart scattered among the flowers on her duvet cover.

“It’s okay, daddy. I don’t want to die anymore because Miss Richards said she loved me too much to let that happen.”

He wanted to be angry that a Cat3 had told his daughter that she loved her, but Amelia’s eyes sparkled with the same joy she felt when Kristina read her all the happy endings in all the books on her shelves.

“Are you going to be okay with her sleeping in the garage?” He blurted the words out before thinking.

Amelia bounced off her bed and into his lap. She kissed him on his forehead and both cheeks.

Three months into the arrangement, Darren returned home from the studio he’d rented to find Miss Richards stirring a bowl of whisked eggs into a pot of steaming pasta. She made Amelia’s favourite carbonara again. He loved it too. She used a pinot grigio with the pancetta, and she’d harvested the garlic that Kristina planted last Fall. Amelia finished grade 2 with all A’s and a couple of B’s. It had taken a few weeks, but Amelia eventually convinced Darren to bring Miss Richards to Ogunquit for their regular summer vacation. For years before Amelia came along, he and Kristina rented a cabin on the ocean. Before she died, he promised to never miss a summer.

“She knows how to drive, too,” Amelia said.

When Miss Richards lifted her eyes from the breakfast table, she informed him that her Level 10 programming included police level driver training.

He agreed to all of it because he’d just received notes on the draft of When the Tree Fell, his first literary thriller to include a humanoid detective disguised as a human hopelessly investigating a string of killings in small town Ohio. He was hoping for a series, but his editor wasn’t sure readers would connect with the protagonist.

While he and Amelia ate dinner, Miss Richards tidied up the kitchen. She wore pink rubber gloves with a floral fringe and an apron she tied in a perfect bow at the small of her back. She didn’t like using the dishwasher because it disrupted her train of thoughts, and she didn’t enjoy the casual way Amelia and Darren poked fun at her disordered parts of speech and run on sentences whenever they used the microwave. Miss Richards washed dishes at the sink. It felt natural she said, like she was born to clean the dishes.

Darren had started to think about the human model that inspired her phorm. A woman who might have been a dancer or a high jumper, maybe a swimmer like Kristina. If Kristina were here, he’d say to her, she might not be able to think like an artist but whomever created the form was definitely an artist. And Kristina would slap his hand, sending linguine noodles flying, because only she would see the perverted thoughts running through his head.

Technically not built to fuck like the Cat2’s, specimens in categories 3-6 can provide enjoyable sex with the right programming. PornHub had a specific subsection of videos with unprogrammed specimens. Essentially men fucking blow-up dolls with blank stares that felt moderately rape-y. He didn’t understand why people who could probably afford the extra 20 grand didn’t get the basic programming, at the very least. It included moans, push-button wetness, and a contoured vaginal canal. It was another 20 grand to have voice-activated wetness and a vagina that contracted during orgasm. He didn’t usually navigate to the sites that included Phantastic Porn, but lately he started watching them. He hadn’t yet jacked off to one of the videos and he wasn’t ready to masturbate to Miss Richards hanging laundry naked in the backyard, but it was there, an image stuck in his head like the lyrics of a shitty pop song. He stuck with his usual girl on girl, which was the only porn Kristina said he could watch.

The radio played Amelia’s favourite classic pop station and when Katy Perry came on, she leapt from the table and grabbed Miss Richards’ hands before she could remove the gloves and untie her apron. Cat3’s, especially the 3+ programmed to teach small children, were expected to wear padded bras. Miss Richards didn’t have a bra under her white t-shirt. It was hanging on the line outside.

She twirled Amelia with the tips of her fingers and pulled her into her chest. They shimmied and kicked to the beat of the song. He distracted himself by twirling the pasta into a spoon like his mother had taught him. A perfect bundle wrapped around his fork before he stuffed into his mouth. He averted his gaze but was a bit concerned when Miss Richards swung Amelia between her legs preparing to lift her high into the air. She pulled Amelia back out and as her legs floated in the air, Miss Richards’ skirt lifted, revealing a mound of perfectly groomed pubic hair.

He coughed and in trying to catch his breath inhaled a linguine which snaked its way down his throat and into his lungs. He stopped breathing and calmly counted to ten while reaching into the back of his throat with his fingers. He gagged and a pile of chewed pasta landed on his plate. It didn’t dislodge the pasta stuck in his trachea. He stood with his hands firmly gripping the edge of the table, lifting and dropping it to the floor like that might somehow get the pasta out.

Miss Richards had him on the ground within seconds, she pried his mouth open with her delicate fingers and pulled the end of the linguine out. When he gasped, she instinctively lifted him into her arms, holding him firmly and rocking him back and forth on the linoleum floor.

Amelia cried, daddy, over and over until Miss Richards held her arm out to her, too. They embraced each other until Darren felt himself crash into a moment of joy. He wanted more moments like this.

He unwrapped Miss Richards’ arms and scooted away from them both.

Amelia noticed it first. He saw it flicker in her yellow brown eyes as they moved from Miss Richards, her jutting nipples, her exposed crotch as she sat with legs splayed and then to Darren, his eyes ablaze with wanton desire. Amelia didn’t like it.

On the drive to Maine, Darren managed to finish the first round of edits. It would take a couple of weeks for his agent and editor to get back with comments, so he’d get to enjoy two weeks of beach time with Amelia and three homecooked meals a day. When it was just Kristina, Amelia and Darren, they subsisted on hotdogs, French fries and lobster rolls from the food trucks. He reminded Miss Richards that vegetables weren’t vacation food, but she responded with a list of reasons young children should maintain a healthy and well-balance diet.

“We don’t care about being healthy in Ogunquit,” he said.

She turned abruptly at the kitchen sink, holding a carrot in one gloved hand and a peeler in the other.

“You don’t care about Amelia’s health?”

Her pupils dilated, spreading quickly over the stippled sapphire and teal orbs until he thought he could see through them, like a window into her mind had opened and if he wasn’t a bit scared of her in that second, he’d have asked to peer inside.

It was that Cat10 programming. A few weeks earlier, she’d kicked her way into the basement bathroom because Amelia screamed at the top of her voice. Darren knew a centipede had likely scurried out from behind the toilet. He’d warned Amelia the dampness attracted all sorts of bugs and that she should use the upstairs shower, but she liked to plug the bathtub and feel the water covering her feet. He hadn’t noticed Miss Richards’ eyes then, but he did notice the nipples. He tried hard to not think about her, to not share space with her when Amelia wasn’t around, but images of her naked phorm invaded his mind. Like purple loosestrife along the highway, a root system of desire grew inside of him.

In Ogunquit, when Amelia caught him staring at Miss Richards in the two-piece bathing suit he’d purchased for the trip, she scolded him with her Kristina eyes and reminded him that she was her teacher, a Phorm that could only love her.

“Why did she have to wear a bathing suit anyway. It’s not like Phorms can swim,” Amelia said.

“I thought it would be nice to sit on the beach like a normal family,” he said.

“We’re not a family,” Amelia said.

In the last month, he’d been surviving on eight hours of sleep, he went to the studio every day from 9 to 5, and he hadn’t cried once. He missed Kristina, but she’d stopped being the first thing he thought of when he opened his eyes, her absence wasn’t the alarm clock ringing in his ears or the pit of despair he crawled into every morning. Instead, every morning he heard the CBC come on and listened as Miss Richards answered each of Amelia’s enquiries with the preferred politically left opinions he’d requested before Phantastic Phorms delivered her to the house.

“Why can’t we be a family?” Darren asked.

“Because she’s my teacher, not my mother.”

“Would it be so bad if she were your mother?” he asked.

“Daddy, gross. If you’re going to get married again, can it be to a human?”

“I don’t want to get married again,” he said.

“Because you’re too sad about mummy?”

Yes. Of course, he was sad about Kristina, and of course his obsession had grown out of a healthy amount of horny, born from a year of girl on girl inspired orgasms, but wouldn’t it be easier for them to welcome Miss Richards into their lives permanently?

“Do you know it costs a million dollars to turn Miss Richards into a mom?”

“It doesn’t cost a million dollars,” he said. An upgrade to a Cat 4 or 5 would be $280,000 plus tax, and after paying the mortgage off with the life insurance money, he had ten times that in home equity. He’d spent several evenings calculating the sales of the next book, the royalties from the last and the upcoming off-off-Broadway production of his first play. If the last two glass pieces of Kristina’s sell, they wouldn’t have an outstanding equity loan for longer than three months.

“Did you already decide?” Amelia said.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you already decide she’s going to be your wife?”

He’d been thinking about it since the linguine incident. He read three memoirs written by respectable authors with humanoid spouses. He alluded to his desires with his therapist, the one Kristina forced him to see months before her death. He assured him he wasn’t a pervert for wanting to screw his child’s teacher. Had he mentioned her status, or that she slept in the garage on a checkered yoga mat? He thought about telling him, and that he wanted Amelia to call her mummy, or at least mother.

“I wanted to talk to you about it,” he said to Amelia.

“I want her to go back to St. Adjutor to teach the babies. Now that I’m going into Grade 3, I don’t need her,” she said.

She’d turn eight at the end of August and she thought she was a fucking grown up already? Old enough to make that sort of decision for herself?

“I’d like her to stay,” he said.

They sat silently watching Miss Richards build an incredibly accurate reproduction of their house in the sand, including a sculpture of Amelia building a sandcastle surrounded by a front lawn of kelp.

“I want her to go,” Amelia said.

“It isn’t your decision to make,” he said.

The you-wanna-bet look appeared behind her hooded squinting eyes, and he stood to leave, asking her if she wanted a hotdog from Mr. Wiener’s truck instead of the carrot sticks and hummus Miss. Richards had packed.
At the footbridge to the parking lot, he turned. Miss Richards tossed the beach ball into Amelia’s lap. Amelia pulled the plug and squeezed the air out under her arm. She threw the deflated ball behind her before stomping toward the sand house and kicking her foot through the front door. She sat at the shore as the tide came in over her legs.

He believed she’d come around after the upgrade. Miss Richards would be a different person, a mother, with a first name. He’d chosen Michelle. Darren hadn’t known a single Michelle in his life, so he knew the reprogramming couldn’t be influenced by any memories or past experiences, she’d be all-new, all his, and everything he wanted in a wife, and in a mother for Amelia.

Without thinking, he ordered a Hawaiian and two Mexican hot dogs from their usual truck. Jimmy was cutting open a bag of wieners while his grandson Jake took Darren’s order. Last summer Kristina had worn a big straw hat over a floral skull cap to conceal the bald head, but Jimmy knew. He was the first to ask about her health. His wife died of cancer a few years ago and if there was one thing he knew, he said, was how a woman’s skin lost its lustre.

“Where is she?” Jimmy said, searching the beach for Kristina.

In that moment, in Jimmy’s eyes, Darren saw her mouth opening around the thick slices of grilled pineapple, and he and Amelia pretend gagging while Kristina gorged herself on that hotdog. Jimmy had stepped out of the truck to hug Kristina, placing a firm hand on Darren’s shoulder, lifting Amelia off the ground, and dipping his face into her neck and blowing raspberries into her cheek. He said he’d met many fine folks over the years, but they were his favourites. That hotdog was the first thing she’d eaten in days and after a few hours without vomiting it up, she said, “I guess it’s Hawaiian hot dogs for breakfast lunch and dinner.”

“She died,” Darren said, “she passed away, she succumbed to her illness, peacefully, painlessly.” He couldn’t stop. He recited the words he’d written in her obituary. A prolific novelist should have many words to describe the love of his life, but he faltered and leaned into the ordinary. Beautiful and beloved. Fondly remembered, cherished, and treasured, a heartbreaking loss of an irreplaceable wife and mother. Irreplaceable.

Jimmy removed the Hawaiian hot dog from Jake’s hand and passed the two Mexican dogs through the window to Darren.

“On the house,” Jimmy said, “Come back every day if you want. It’s on me.”

Darren walked back to the footbridge, swiping at his eyes with the inside of his sun screened shoulder, making matters worse with the zinc oxide.

He saw the empty beach blanket, the tilted umbrella a few seconds away from flying away and the rebuilt sand house. He scoured the beach with his watery eyes, all the way down to the big grey house in the distance. Where were they?

In the shallows, a man carried Amelia from the water, waves crashing into his back, dropping them both underwater every few feet. Darren dropped the hotdogs and ran as fast as he could toward them, diving under the water until he reached them both. The man carrying Amelia breathless and tired.

“Your wife,” he gasped.

The man pointed out past the waves.

“She tried to save your daughter, but she went under. My husband is out there looking for her,” he said.

“What happened?” Darren asked Amelia.

“I wanted to go swimming,” Amelia said.

“I watched her go in and my first thought was boy she’s awful young to be going in that deep, but my husband said, would you just look at her, she’s a great swimmer, so we minded our own business and let her go. I figured your wife would stop her if she needed to. Then we heard the screaming,” the man said.

“Screaming,” Darren said.

“Sure. Your girl was bobbing up and down and screaming and it was clear she’d a drowned out there if your wife didn’t dive right in after her.”

Darren knew one thing for certain, that his daughter could never drown. Kristina had taught her to float on her back before she could walk. Amelia had mastered the butterfly before she graduated kindergarten.

“But then before I could drop my beer, she went under. I just started swimming out to your girl and Ricky went after for your wife.”

“She’s not my wife,” Darren said, “she’s the nanny.”

While Darren pulled the umbrella closed and folded the blanket, Amelia collected the buckets and spades, shoving the deflated ball into one of the plastic brick molds and placing it all into the red and white striped canvas bag Miss Richards packed that morning.

The man who’d saved Amelia shouted after his husband, declaring to the world she was just a Phorm and that the beach trawlers would get her later.

As they came toward Jimmy’s, Amelia asked for a hotdog.

“A hot dog,” Darren shouted, “A fucking hotdog.”

“Yes, please. I want to try a Hawaiian like mummy’s,” she said.

While he explained to Jimmy that he’d accidentally dropped them in the sand, Amelia clapped her hands, excited to have her first Mr. Wiener of the summer.

END

Alison Gadsby’s short fiction appears in a bunch of great literary magazines including, The Ex-Puritan, Dreamers, Fleas on the Dog, and the most recent issue of Synchronized Chaos. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. She hosts Junction Reads, a prose reading series, in Tkaronto where she lives with her family writing another novel.