Forever Magazine Issue 101 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction - Science Fiction, magazine, Science Fiction - Anthologies, Science Fiction - Short Stories, science fiction magazine, short fiction
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2023-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, November-December 2018.

Invisible People

Nancy Kress

1.

When I rushed into the kitchen, already late for work, Jen and Kenly were bent over her tablet, Brady was flinging oatmeal from his high chair, and the wall screen blared the animal channel. Leopards flowed sinuously through tall grass.

“Why didn’t you wake me? I have a deposition in twenty minutes!”

“I did wake you,” Jen said. “Why did you go back to sleep?”

“And why is the TV on at breakfast? Kenly, you know the rule!”

“It’s homework,” Kenly said. “I have to write a report. Look, Daddy! Scientists made a baby leopard!”

A blob of oatmeal landed on my pants leg. “Damn it, Jen—”

“Daddy said a bad word!”

Jen said, “Tom.” That’s all she had to say. In a marriage, good or bad, one word can say volumes. This word said It’s not my fault you overslept plus I may choose to be the stay-at-home parent, but that doesn’t mean I can control a one-year-old armed with oatmeal plus Lighten up. Now.

I lightened up. “Sorry. Kenly, what’s your report about?”

“Leopards. See the TV?” But she didn’t meet my eyes; she knew what was coming next. Jen took the oatmeal away from Brady, but not before another blob of it landed on the cast on Kenly’s wrist. She or her friends had decorated it with glitter and hearts and tiny glue-on mirrors, currently a necessity among second-grade girls.

I raised my voice to be heard over Brady’s howling about the loss of his blobby missiles and the shrieking of some jungle birds on the wall screen. “When is the report due?”

“Well . . . the outline is due today. An outline is when—”

“I know what an outline is, honey. When were you supposed to start it?”

“Monday.” Two days ago. Kenly never lies to me. And she knows I’m never really angry with her. Jen and I waited too long for her, struggled too hard, made too many sacrifices in order to adopt her. And Kenly is everything parents hope for: kind, honest, smart, sunny. All children, adopted or biological, are lotteries, and with Kenly we won big. Then we got lucky again: after all our years of failed IVF, Jen got pregnant “spontaneously” with Brady.

I said, “I’ll help you write from your outline tonight.”

Kenly knew a victory when she saw one and, like any good lawyer, she pushed for more. “If Mom would let me talk in the report like normal people, with spell-check and everything—”

“No, your mother’s right. You need to learn to write and spell.”

“Sophie’s mom lets her use spell-check!”

Jen said, “Your mom is not Sophie’s mom. And I don’t know what that teacher is thinking.” She walked with Brady, whose eyes drooped from the exertion of the Great Oatmeal War.

I kissed her and grabbed my briefcase, now really late for my deposition. The doorbell rang.

“Two people on the front porch,” the house system said. “No matches in facial recognition deebee.” The wall screen had replaced the exotic jungle birds with two strangers holding up badges.

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