The Likely World by Melanie Conroy-Goldman

Author:Melanie Conroy-Goldman [Conroy-Goldman, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781597098083
Amazon: 1597098086
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Published: 2020-08-03T23:00:00+00:00

After the encounter with the documentarian, I had squeaked in with two minutes to spare. The taxi hit traffic on 93 and for the next twenty-three minutes, I was sure I’d get discharged. People show up sometimes, moms with trash bags and two-year-olds wedged into doll strollers, just hoping we have room. I am aware, constantly, of the women on the waiting list, of the children for whom our little efficiencies with the in-room laundry unit would be heaven.

Someone had called for me, in the days following, a man, on the Independence payphone, but I was in session.

“This guy’s your ex?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, he was sorry like he wants you back. He’s all: tell her she was right. I shouldn’t have involved her. If he’s letting you go, I asked, why’s he still calling? You get right, and they start to smell the money on you. Who wouldn’t want it? Someone to cook the meals and pay the bills?”

“He’s got that, maybe. This old woman he’s staying with.”

“He says, he’s figured it all out. He has something to tell you. But that’s a familiar tune. What he’s figured out maybe is that he can trade up from this old lady, get a little, along with the meal ticket.” says Marisa, “If he’s from the life, it’s nine out of ten he ain’t changed.”

Anyway, there are plenty of other things to worry about: Juni’s test results from the medical check, for example. My finances, which I know aren’t good. In quiet moments, I’ll look down at my lap and catch my fingers twitching like they’re scribbling on the pages of a book. My thoughts will drift toward the SUV man; where is he searching now? Or I will wonder about the thing in my paperback, whether it’s what he wants and what it would mean if he had it; I will think of Lew, and the sleeper program that perhaps I have promised to awaken—but, only once have I sneaked down in the middle of the night to gaze at the woman pacing back and forth. The documentarian hadn’t been lying. I found the link which led me to my name, to Lew’s and Valerie Weston’s. There were more videos there, art films of Valerie’s, but I didn’t click through. The view count had reached almost three hundred thousand. Still, when I watched, I could only feel sickness, could not understand what compelled about a woman in her underwear.

In the morning, I told my therapist to lean on the night staff to lock us out of the computers. I didn’t want to fall into the hole.

“This is good, I think,” she said. “Watching these videos feels like a brain trough for you. You go back, and you go back, but there’s not really anything new. At the same time, I’m observing something else here, which is that you are actively avoiding certain lines of inquiry.”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, the man who followed you. You were very moved by the fact that he knew your name.

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