Marin, Marin Mine

(TW: Passive suicidal ideation, depressive imagery.)

NOVEMBER

When you stand on the spun glass of a frozen lake, you find yourself freezing with it. It doesn’t get you across the ice, but I’ve found that the stillness keeps me out from under it — and that’s where my concerns are forced to align these days. Stillness in the face of death. Of screaming. Of crying. Of smashing plates and mirrors as thoroughly as I’d crush the fragile path beneath me, opening the window to the world below so eager to greet me. Of doing something crazy or stupid or selfishly destructive as absolutely anything at all.

It’s all I can think of to stop the world itself; it’s to find myself still within it.

And it’s all I can think to do when I see her in the box.

-

There’s a Katherine and a Chloe, a Xiran, and a Zoey, a Robin, a Lakitha, and a Sophie. Not that it matters, of course, when changing a name for an appliance is as flexible as the character limit and the filters on the childlock — But according to him, her name is Marin. Because they have to call her something, and there’s just something about “The Forever Girl — ages 9 and up sold separately” that gives the game away.

A practice daughter. A pretend daughter. 48-inches of reinforced titanium alloy hidden beneath windchafed pale silicon skin dotted with a cluster of brown freckles on her rounded apple cheeks. Like she had ever experienced anything but the craggy yellow sickness of industrial factory lighting and the darkness that followed. Like she had experiences at all.

A wire daughter, and her cloth mother.

I feel had. In another lifetime, this would be cruel. If this baby was cloth, plastic, rubber, or wood, the way he dangled it in front of my eyes would be obviously the insult to my intelligence he’s made it — even a dog I could take in better faith — but this is a computer. A very expensive, very advanced computer that I had been given as a gift.

So somehow that makes it different.

He still has a glimmer in his eye — a shimmer seen only in blurry streetlights outside the corner of your vision, an angel out of sight - but his posture had sunk radial degrees with the hunch of his spine. His hands shoot around idly like flies as if he could protect his torso from the teeming and screaming.

The teeming and screaming that surely would’ve come so long ago.

Oh how we forget.

He wasn’t thinking. He didn’t think it would look like that. That I would take it that way. That buying an android child advertised to jittery-first time parents and their inevitably coddled, lonely children would say something to the woman who has gone to the hospital over the things people didn’t say — RECENTLY, even.

He got it at a discount.

He thought I would like it.

He thought it was cute.

He thought I’d think it was cute.

He’s choking on his tongue in eight different refrains of throaty gagging. A parry to each and every one of my thrusts. There are some nights where I wish he’d swallow them all. There are others where I could find it in myself to help him to. He finds a 9th voice to sing his song in.

“Do you like it?”

The freeze wouldn’t carry his voice like this. It would get lost amidst the pine barren, which harbored its own banshee cries in crooks and crannies behind the frozen lake. In dead world, the ringing would never reach my ears.

And nothing had to change at all.

“She looks very nice.” I said, and waited for the ice to pull me under — call my lie for the bold-faced bluff it is.

But it never does.

-

DECEMBER

Every morning I tie her shoes, because every morning is just another chance to teach her how to. It fills the day, which is what I suppose Marin is there for.

Time spent teaching Marin how to fasten snaps and hold a spoon is time not spent scratching my skin raw in the bathroom, I will admit that, and time seems to be the very same question and answer these days.

Having a child myself would take time, on top of the time, and my sweet, wonderful coward of a husband would presumably await for a distant “topsy-turvy” future that may never come before agreeing to make that kind of decision amicably. Adopting a child takes time fostering a child takes time, and he didn’t exactly have time right now, so…just give it some time, please?

It was an unofficial performance of the role of motherhood — and my dance partner was a corpse in two left feet in shoes I have to tie for her. A performance I’ll be graded on, and harshly at that.

It’s not like anybody else is watching anymore.

She reacts with the same kind of furrowed brow concentration she’s heard about the rabbit going around the tree as she did the first time she heard it, and that’d be true whether that was today or yesterday.

“Now you try.” I said, and positioned her hands “just so” to be holding the laces properly. Mine over hers. I could feel her quietly looking at me. Quietly learning. Her fingers twitched but seemed to struggle around the string. Her fingers seemed to only bend at the first knuckle…unable to curl completely into a fist.

Tacky design flaw or safety feature taken to the extreme? Who could say. How condescended to have I been lately?

My rhetorical question felt almost satirical when I feel thick arms wrap around my torso and a warm kiss on the back of my neck. Ah, he must be done with breakfast by now.

Marin is quick to drop her head and push my hands away, leaving me to return his embrace.

“Look at you,” he coos, close enough to my ear I can feel his hot breath on the tip.

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? can’t I be proud?”

“…Why?”

“Or,” he chuckles sheepishly. “I guess proud isn’t the right word, is it? You, uh, you probably wouldn’t like that too much — you know, cometh before the fall.” And at that I am torn. “But look at this. Me reading the paper and you getting the kids ready…for school? It’s like…There’s a little vision of the future I get to see every day. And seeing you make it happen by doing even the most…basic parental stuff, it’s like…”

He swallows. I hope he doesn’t cry, but then again — why would he?

“You’re already fighting to live the future you want, when before…you’d say you couldn’t even see a future for yourself.”

I crane my head to try and see his face. I can’t tell if he’s grinning or grimacing? Even when I stroke his cheek, it’s all the same folds and lines under my fingertips.

He bows to kiss my forehead and I startle myself into something recumbent and soft. “And isn’t that worth being proud of?”

“You’d be proud of me if I remembered to water the plants.”

“Hey now, I’d be proud of either of us for that.”

I laugh. Because it feels like I should. “I just want something worth being proud of, you know?”

“I know, I know.” He sighs. He pulls away. “I’m working on it, really, I am, so just - I need a little more -”

“Time?” I fill in the blank, reclaiming the step he relented. I look up at him through my lashes daintily. He sighs even heavier and louder than he did before. He blinks himself back into the urgency of the rat-race like he’s waking up from a pleasant dream. His eyes dart back to the kitchen, prey-like and clever, searching for his briefcase. The move is inevitable; an answer is an answer.

I drew closer and closer and did everything I could to make myself look eminently more kissable than I’ve felt in a while. “My love, when will there be time?”

His face screams everything quiet and hesitant screaming would never allow, but his legs only speak the language of locomotion as he attempts to sidestep me. I follow his lead.

Hassling him like this helps collapse the possibilities into certainties — maybes into yeses — and sure enough, with a little fancy footwork, he rummages his mind for an answer he can live with, and I wait for an answer I can live for. “K-Korea. My trip to South Korea is in April. Can’t you wait until then?”

I turn sideways and let him pass. An implicit permission, but getting anymore judiciary about it becomes less and less of an option as he cuts through the room—unwilling to be swept up in another round of waltzing. He throws the door behind him and lets it bang against the door frame as he goes.

Marin is waiting for me, eyes owlishly unblinking from where I left her on the stairs. Her shoelaces are tied into perfect clean knots. She scrambles to untie them. It’s all I can think of to throw my hands on top of her stuttering fingers.

“What, no, hey? That was good. You’re doing good!”

She doesn’t look like she believes it, maybe it’s because I can hear the Kindergarten sing-songiness to the praise, but it looks like she wants to. Her fingers stop twitching.

“Good? I’m good?”

“You did a great job.” I amend. I don’t like how she says it, like it’s the first time she’s ever heard the words. I hate wondering if it is even more.

“Is it worth it?” She almost whispers, pulling the bows taut. “Is it something worth being proud of?” I wince.

“It’s different. We’re different.”

“Are we?”

“Oh, don’t get all philosophical on me, it’s semantics.”

“You’re semantics.”

“You’re —” I sigh, different strategy. “It’s not going to feel like love. If you think it will, it won’t. It fills you with wanting and leaves you three sizes too small in its shape, and then you wonder what made you want at all.”

“What does it feel like, then?”

Applause so loud you can feel it through the sole of shoes freshly worn to the quick. Sweat on your brow. Stage lights bright enough to burn. Color. Air. Life. Everything. Everyone. As ephemeral as clapping itself, it’s here and gone before I know it — back behind the wall of unfeeling glass, leaving me with “…nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all?”

I should correct myself. I don’t. I can’t.

“I feel nothing.” Marin says. “If pride feels like nothing, and I feel like nothing, can you say you’re proud?”

“Sure.” I sigh. “I’m so proud of you for learning how to tie your shoes for the first time, bud.” I clap her on the shoulder with two hearty pats. “How’s that?” She nods.

“I’m so proud of you for teaching me how to tie my shoes for the 22nd first time.” She replies with a thumbs-up jutting towards my face. Her lack of tone turns her sincerity into sarcasm, and it startles a snicker or two.

“Careful, careful.” I warn, but the smile stays. “That kind of flattery will get you everywhere., but… not bad.”

“Not bad like good?” She raises.

I surrender. How can I not? “Not bad like good.”

-

The next morning, Marin ties her shoes. All by herself.

I tell her I’m proud of her. She tells me she’s proud of me.

We both feel nothing.

It’s somehow less nothing than I’m used to.

-

FEBRUARY

We make a perfect pair in our perpetuity. Marin as the daughter who’ll never grow up, and me as her immovable mother.

Of course, you’d never know with how we talk. I almost wonder if we could blend in with the rest of the world of real, flesh and blood, mother and daughter…and how long it would take for anybody to notice the con—if they even did.

Marin’s face mold seemed to be exceedingly rare for Forever Girls — but she has such a funny little personality, it feels like she’s so uniquely mine. Despite being randomly generated to, she never cries. She fidgets with her fingers, even when I tell her not to. She doesn’t like eye contact. Even though she could read a book in seconds, she chooses to flip through the pages. She likes Matilda best. She wants to learn to dance.

It’s like I get to learn to love her a little bit at a time, by actually being able to meet her first.

In theory, the off-button would also be the option a parent would desire most in a child at least once in their lifetimes. Hell, I’ve desired it for myself at times, but even with a literal one, I’ve never had the inclination to press it. Even if she does have a psychic connection to my refrigerator.

I never not miss her.

Marin. Marin. Mine.

-

APRIL

“When you said it was a trip to South Korea, I assumed it was a…business trip.”

“It is. But what if it wasn’t…just a business trip?” He pontificated, gesturing to an empty luggage bag on my side of the bed, which is a great way to learn that you are also going to South Korea.

I felt sick, and I put in no effort to hide it. It’s ungrateful. It’s ungrateful. But why does he keep doing this? He grabbed my hands. “No, no, it’s - honey, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to spring it on you like this, but there had to be such a short turnaround and - honey. Honey.” His palms cup my cheeks, wiping away the hot tears I couldn’t help let boil over. “You’re going to be a mom.”

What?

“What?”

“It’s — it’s not a done deal. But I got us an interview at an agency. A good one. But I got “us” an interview, which means they need…both of us. There.”

My heart stilled in my chest.

“But! But- I, I think, you know, we pass the interview, we-we’ll have a chance to meet them on this trip…him or…her..it could be a, like, a baby you could raise from a birth or…13, like you’ve been practicing.” He gestured to the open doorway, where I turned to see Marin peeking her head from around the side. I stifled a laugh at the absurdity of her being startled back behind the door frame, like she wasn’t sub-categorized as a listening device — making leaning in the doorway entirely unnecessary.

He kissed my cheek. “We leave in three hours. You’re going to do great.”

I pecked his nose, tit for tat. “I’m already doing great.”

“See? There’s the girl I know.” He pats my shoulders twice. “Our flight leaves in three hours.”

“Cool. How many days?” I ask, apparently rolling with the punches as I walk towards the closet. I scan the top of his closet for…

“Uh, about…four for the convention, three for the paperwork…and then - uh, Dear? What are you doing?”

“I’m getting Marin’s suitcase.” I said plainly, striding to meet Marin in the middle. She should know what to do by now. He snorted.

“What? We’re not bringing Marin. She’d cost like, $600 to ship overseas.”

“Oh, uh…Couldn’t she just…ride in coach with us?”

“Are you kidding? She’d light up TSA like a Christmas tree!” He scoffs. Marin’s frozen two steps into the room.

“That’s not true, she’s a…it’s…Forever Girl, she’s…” I grumble. “I mean, christ, she’s for nine-year-olds.”

Air hisses through his teeth.

He doesn’t speak.

She doesn’t move.

My little rabbit. What has he done to you?

Why doesn’t he remember. Wouldn’t he remember? Why…

“Why did you say she was thirteen?”

He stuttered. “I. I was just rounding up. A lot of advantages, very self-sufficient. Autonomous. You seem to like that. Mommy’s little helper.”

I stumbled away from him. I shouldn’t have given him such a view. He can see the crazy in my eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey — whatever you think, you’re - look, you’re making connections that aren’t there, it’s…you’re going to work yourself up again, it’s -”

I catch Marin out of the side of my eyes, backing out of the room.

“All I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to bring your toy with you on vacation. We can talk about this later.”

“If it’s such a stupid toy, why don’t you just let me have it?” I’m being contradictory on purpose. It’s all I can do. I need her to back out of the room. I don’t like this two-step. It’s not on my terms, but…

If it looks like a scared child…and it acts like a scared child…

“Look, hon, hon. You’re — remember what the doctors said, you’ve been doing so good…you don’t need the training wheels anymore. You’re getting the real thing. Can’t you just last a week?”

“What do you know about what my doctors have said? You’re never here.”

It doesn’t feel like nothing. It doesn’t feel like nothing at all.

“We can talk about this on our 12 hour flight, okay, we can just — put a pin in this, okay?”

“No.”

“I’ll prove it. Do you even know where her off-button is? It’s -”

“I SAID NO!” I shriek. I can see it in his eyes. Human to hostage negotiator. Hottie to hysterical.

He looked between us once more and said, “Jill, it’s either her or me.”

“Her.”

“Are you serious?”

“Her.”

“I’m late.”

“Go.”

“I’m late for my flight.”

“I’ll be here when you get back.”

“We’ll talk about this then.”

“I’m sure.”

“Well..Not for long.”

-

MAY

Out on the lake, the last fish thaws.