Twenty-eight
David sat before the computer screen Thursday
morning, contemplating the move of a rook on a three-dimensional chess
board. He smiled when he sensed her presence at his side.
"Hi, Mom."
"David."
He looked up at her and smiled. Her own smile looked
different. She had changed again.
"For better or for worse?" she said gently.
"Kind of sad?"
"Yes, I would imagine that I am a bit sadder."
David did not want to know who had joined her. He
avoided those thoughts, and she no longer volunteered the information.
"Queen's rook to king five," she said.
David rejected the suggestion with a shake of his
head. He made another move that put him within three moves of checkmate
knowing the mirror was probably smart enough to beat the computer, but
aware as well that his mother could never have. And the mirror was
pretending to be his mother.
"Deliver a message for me, David?"
David dropped his hands into his lap with a sigh.
Another message meant that she and his father had not as yet met face to
face. They had used him as a go-between in the past when they had argued,
although it had been more of a family game back then and never anything as
serious as this.
"Okay," he said. "What is it?"
"Tell your father he will need my help soon. You saw
what happened on the slope this morning."
"The car wreck and all the deputies?" He finally had
to ask the question that had been bothering him. "Nobody got hurt, did
they?"
"No one was hurt."
"But the deputies are watching the slope."
"I need to be moved, David."
"Move the mirror?" David was doubtful. "I could do
it. Dad just thinks you're trying to trick him."
"Am I?" she said with a smile.
"How am I doing?"
Everything she did was a trick. David ignored her
humorous bantering. He didn't think it was funny.
"It is important, David."
"I'll tell him, but he's been grouchy. And drinking
too much. It scares me when he drinks."
"You needn't fear your father, David."
"I don't know why he has to do it."
"It makes him forget things that cause pain."
David thought about it for a time. "Like Mom?"
She didn't answer. She didn't like being reminded
that she wasn't really his mother.
David tapped the keyboard and left the chess
program. It had been giving him a headache anyway. He wanted badly to
get out of the house and into the fresh air, except that his father had
forbidden it after all the excitement on the highway below the Ridge.
David got up and went to the top of the stairs in the
kitchen. He could smell alcohol in the den below, and he dreaded
interrupting his father's drinking.
"Dad?"
David wasn't sure whether or not he heard a muffled
response. He went on down the stairs trying to act cheerful. His smile
faded when he saw his father staring at a blank monitor. His father
wanted to be a writer, but David could see that it wasn't working. It was
hard to imagine what his father was going to do with only one good hand.
"What is it, David?"
David sat on the bottom stair. "Mom wanted me to
tell you that the mirror needs to be moved."
"Gene's got the slope under surveillance, son."
"I know. I don't think it matters."
"She's playing games with us, David. I don't think
we're going to be winning too many of them."
"Mom's not going to hurt us."
"Mom never did anything to hurt us," his father said
and looked around at him with fire in his eyes. "Mom's dead, David.
She's not in any position to hurt anyone."
It was a good point, one David hadn't anticipated.
He got up, went back upstairs, and sat at the kitchen table. He tried not
to cry. It wasn't fair getting caught between two grown adults.
His mother's image knelt before him and gave him a
sad, reassuring smile.
"Why do you have to try to be my mother?" David
didn't like the whine in his voice, but he was more than a little angry
with her. "Can't you see it isn't working?"
"It's something I must do, David."
David shook his head stubbornly. "Grown-ups don't
like make-believe. Dad will never pretend that you're my mother, not even
a little."
He put his forehead on the table and closed his
eyes. A solid hand on his shoulder snapped him back to alertness a few
minutes later, his father’s hand.
"I wish you wouldn't encourage her, son."
"Did you see her?" David said eagerly.
"I heard you talking to her. I haven't seen her as
yet. I don't want to see her. It can't be Mom. I don't care how hard it
tries, it's just a trick. Whatever that mirror of yours is, it's fooling
even itself."
"Why is it so important for it to be Mom?" David
wanted to know.
"I don't know."
"She tries so hard. I don't want her to go away,
Dad. I don't care if it is a trick. I miss her."
His father opened his arms. David leaped from his
chair and flung himself against his father's chest and held tight. A hug
from his father was a rare occasion and not one to be wasted.
"That thing is not your mother. You know that."
David stared off into dark space, wishing his father
wouldn't be so stubborn. He wanted to play the mirror's game, but it
wasn't going to work, not if his father was getting angry and drinking too
much.
His father poured himself a cup of coffee, and went
back downstairs. As soon as he was gone, his mother's image returned.
"Do you know how to play a better game of chess than
you used to?" David asked despondently. "I used to beat Mom all the
time."
She raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Did I try really
hard?"
"You sure did."
"I wasn't just letting you win?"
"No way! Do you want to see how good I am?"
She gave him that same look of mock challenge David
remembered so fondly. "I think I have time for one game before dinner,"
she said. Even though she would not be making dinner, it was the most
natural thing she could have said to him.
They played at his desk alongside the computer with a
real chess set she had bought it for him ages ago. It had a wooden board
and glass pieces, clear and frosted.
She had to tell him her moves, or point them out.
David shifted both sets of chess pieces on the board and glanced up at her
halfway through the game when he saw that he didn't stand a chance of
beating her ever again. He suspected nobody in the world could have
beaten her.
"Is Dad going to help you, do you think?" he said.
She gazed at him for so long that he grew
frightened. "When your father and I met, David, we helped each other with
everything, but your father had problems from his life before that I
didn't know about, terrible problems he believes caused my death. He
feels so alone now, and lost."
"I didn't know that."
"It's not a secret he wants to keep, just one he
feels he cannot share, especially with you. Children have no way of
knowing how complicated the world can become for their parents."
He wanted to point out to her that he would never
know. He would not live so long.
But she knew that already.
