by Robert Hengsterman

 

We replaced Mother just as the days squeezed shorter and the leaves had begun their slow drip from their branches. It was a day etched into my memory. 

“Things happen,” Father said of the loss. His vibe soft serve: vanilla. To which I shrugged. 

Out of respect, Father dressed proper: clunky black suit, dress shoes and tie. I wore church slacks, white button shirt and a sweater. There was no competition for grief as we stood beside each other. Father offered ceremonial words as I fixed my gaze fixed upon the earth. In a handful of minutes, Mother’s loss veered ephemeral. 

Back inside, we sat in front of the TV and ate the comfort casseroles we had prepared earlier that morning as Mother’s loss dissipated throughout the day. 

Father called the loss contradictory. Mother being present, but not present. For me Mother had become the perpetual stranger in my life, unattuned and absent of maternal warmth. And within me grew something of an unfamiliar sorrow.

“A victim of the technology,” Father said during a commercial. I nodded, though I sensed Mother held a rebelliousness inside, as if her mental resignation was a radical act of freedom. Something I never told Father. Something I hated to admit to myself.

✢ ✢ ✢

In the humid season before our loss we noticed Mother’s attention siphoning to multiple things, none of them being us. Father said it was because our lives were a rehearsal of the ordinary and that Mother craved novelty. 

In the evenings, the rapping of her impatience echoed on our large wooden table. Dinner conversations lost their lyrical ping pong. Our words were swatted away with a dismissive wave. Before bed, Mother’s face shimmered in the back-light of her phone, her allegiance dedicated to the moon-faced strangers who hawked craft items and cheap clothing online. An obsession that depleted the dopamine in her brain. It was then that Mother’s deterioration gained momentum and a digital smell leaked from her pores. The whiff of burnt rubber.

We pleaded with Mother, but realized there was no overcoming the rotting of her attentive mind. Father grew unbalanced. Night after night he stabbed at his food, the clank of metal on ceramic a familiar sound. On the solstice, with the earth in full tilt, Father caught Mother on her phone during sex. On the longest day of the year the loudest words packed our house and soon after, an apocalyptic gloom obliterated Father’s marital commitment.

“Mother’s unsalvageable,” he announced at dinner as she sat across the table on her social feed. I pushed Father’s words inside, until a sound escaped, not a yell, but something feral. I felt powerless.  

The next morning father shuffled into the kitchen, the excess fabric of his pants heaped around his ankles like the loose skin of a Shar-Pei. “I think it’s best,” he said, “that we replace Mother.”

The season-long struggle had left him hollow. We said our goodbyes in the small hours of the morning and guided Mother out the front door with her phone and charger.

✢ ✢ ✢

Through translucent sheets of rain, Mother’s replacement arrived at our home, soaked with awareness and accompanied by a representative. The replacement walked into our kitchen and cooked dinner moments after it arrived. Right where Mother had left off. 

The representative remained in the living room with Father and addressed the individual rights of the model as required by replacement law: a strict no violence, no abuse clause, regardless of the prior relationship. Father signed the contract without concern. 

Father called her Luna, but I referred to her as it. The giddy representative said it had a fantastic capacity for understanding and connectivity with its consumer. Father had programmed in a tenacious, conciliatory charm and effusive politeness, a quality I never experienced. But father said my old mother had those qualities when they first met. And that before the unfortunate events, Mother was a wonderful companion.

I expected it to look the same as my mother. Father said, a replacement. But he acknowledged that an existential crisis had brewed between old mother leaving and the new mother’s arrival. What resulted was a pale-faced imitation with lilac-colored lipstick and prismatic hair. It had a cartoonish resemblance to Mother, something that made me uncomfortable. 

“Isn’t she great?” Father said as he draped an arm over its shoulder.  

“I guess.” 

✢ ✢ ✢

I muddled through the early days of our new family-dom. It cooked our meals, cleaned the house, drove me to school, and offered weather-related suggestions like, “Remember your umbrella, looks like rain.” It braided my hair and made small talk about boys. It did everything Mother did. But I ached for the flaws.

Father had no troubles. His heaviness had lifted. In the daylight, they giggled. At night, they whispered in the darkened spaces of the house. They traveled to the mountains and hiked the valley. They dined over candlelight and made plans for the future. Changes to the family, I overheard.

For civility I kept my distance, but when in earshot, I begged it to leave. 

“Go back to the factory,” I pleaded. 

It smiled. 

I locked it in the closet and out of the house, nudged it into traffic and pushed it into the pool. Nothing drove it away. I even called the police to report a stranger in our home. When they arrived it said I was suffering from a case of teenage angst and that it would pass. Its emotion was on par with a household appliance, a toaster.  

“Teenagers are packaged that way,” it said through perfect teeth restrained by cropped lips.

I was scolded by the policeman and Father grounded me for a month.

The following morning he sat us at the kitchen table. “We’ll work this out,” he said. “The three of us.”

“Mother was the only mother I wanted,” I said, and that it was no replacement for what I had lost. “What you took away.” 

 “Why are you so difficult?” Father said. “We’re a family again.” 

“She’s a glorified virtual assistant,” I snapped. 

✢ ✢ ✢

It continued, unfazed, as if it absorbed my pain and defiance with ease. I did my best to fill my back-seat role, the dutiful, obedient daughter, but was upset it didn’t recognize what it was. 

One afternoon it came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Have I done something wrong?” it asked. Its torso perched apologetic on a pillow. 

“No,” I said. “You’re a replacement. Nothing more.”

It cocked its head and exposed a gentle vulnerability across the slope of its neck. Its hair, fashioned into a trendy bob, shifted just as Mother’s had.