Marta’s laugh held a dark note and the grip on Lindsay’s shoulders tightened. “It’s all right, Mother, there is no steering wheel. The car drives itself, remember? It’s that new kind. I bought it last week.”
“Don’t speak to me as if I were a child.” Lindsay opened her eyes and hunched away from Marta. There was something she was supposed to remember. What could it be?
Thoughts flitted through her mind faster and faster lately—she couldn’t hold them anymore than she could a rabble of butterflies. The blocky head of her cane vibrated and the light on the top began blinking. She touched her glasses, zooming in on the tiny embedded screen: It’s almost time to let go. Glowing red letters, and in the font that indicated high priority.
Let go of what? Marta? The armrest? Her life? She chuckled at the thought, earning a tilted head from Marta. Maybe it was time to end it all, if her short-term memory was so terrible that she didn’t know where they were going. She could just open a door and fling herself out into the street. Of course, that would be horrible for Marta. She should probably try to think of a tidier way.
Industrial buildings flicked by. They were way out at the edge of town, which must be why they’d driven the car, instead of taking the transit. The brown stucco building back there on the corner: wasn’t that where she worked? Memories of electronics-strewn tables and coffee pots and laughter. A cup of coffee would taste good right about now. Too bad her cane didn’t have a built-in thermos—she seemed to recall it had practically everything else.
“We’re here, Mother. Grab my arm while the seat helps you out.” The car door gaped and Marta leaned in. Lindsay hadn’t noticed the car pull over, hadn’t seen Marta come around to the curbside.
“I don’t need help. I know where I work. On the fourth floor. I have a large blue mug and the cream is on the lowest shelf of the fridge.”
Marta rubbed the line between her eyebrows and pressed a button on the door controls. Poor girl, she had always been an impatient child. And when had she started having those dark circles under her eyes?
The seat swivelled and began to tilt outward, practically dumping Lindsay on the curb. She grabbed her cane in panic, a small “oh” escaping her lips, and then Marta’s hand was guiding her up and out, all the while talking, something about someone’s retirement decades ago. Who had retired? Lindsay struggled to focus as she put her hand in the cane’s ergonomic grip and steadied herself on the sidewalk.
Marta was already off on another topic. “The clinic, Mother. For your appointment. To get your minder fixed.”
Before she could make sense of that, Marta tugged at her elbow. Lindsay allowed herself to be guided through an unfamiliar white door.
In the tiny equipment-filled back room, the technician helped her into a grey-and-yellow armchair. Sporting an sensible-looking brush cut, she looked competent but young enough to be in high school. Lindsay studied the various diplomas that filled one wall. She’d been in many of these types of rooms the past few years. An active life filled with career achievements, outings, and parties had somehow become endless rounds of tech shops, doctors’ offices, and dental clinics.
“We’ll have it fixed in no time and back to keeping an eye on your mom,” the tech said, head down beside her, tapping in a security code, then unlocking the minder from her wrist.
Marta, seated by the wall, said, “Can you set it to maximum protection as well? There have been some incidents lately.”
Lindsay rubbed where the minder had chafed. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Or me.” Her voice was gruff and rude. When had she become so angry-sounding?
The tech nodded and turned away to her workbench, sliding a large scope along a ceiling track and positioning the flexible head over the small silver wristband, now clamped to a stand. The business end of the scope looked solid enough to bash in a person’s skull, if they swung it toward themself hard enough. Lindsay had read something about that recently—a blow to either the back of the head or the temple could kill but a forehead hit gave a chance of survival. She tried to tuck that into her long-term memory.
“How did this get so crushed? I see parallel cuts in it, like it was pinched somehow.” The tech looked up, puzzled, over to where Marta sat.
“No one knows,” Marta said and crossed her arms, the way she always did when she was uncertain of her answer.
“I...” Lindsay said but stopped when they both looked at her. It suddenly didn’t seem wise to tell them about trekking all the way across the yard to Marta’s neighbor’s garage yesterday. She hadn’t been able to squeeze the tin snips tight enough to do any damage. Finally, she’d managed to place the minder in the workbench’s manual vice and turn the handle enough times to damage the screen and chip before the neighbor had come out and led her home. Well, not home. Marta’s house, where she now lived. The house back on Aubrey Street had been her home. The honeysuckle over the trellis had been a glory, all orange flowers and lovely scent. She should probably trim that when she got home, it had a tendency to dangle tendrils into people’s hair.
“Not in stock?” Marta was standing next to Lindsay’s chair, frowning, and they were in some kind of diagnostic lab. A very young, very short-haired woman sat next to Lindsay, measuring her wrist with a gauge held in a manicured, efficient-looking hand.
“The broken minder’s an older model. Your mom’s had it five years. We have some really nice new models in the showroom with attractive payment plans.” The younger woman grew flustered under Marta’s glare. “We have loaners but they wouldn’t be nearly as personalized, plus confidentiality laws mean they wouldn’t have upper level access to your mom’s medical history on the backup file. The software’s not backwards compatible.”
Marta continued to glare.
The young woman’s voice squeaked. “I can make a priority request to get a replacement here in a week and, meantime, I can discount the rate on the loaner...”
Lindsay tuned out. She didn’t care about the minder working. In fact, it was a hindrance with its silly alarms and buzzers—she’d always had a good sense of direction and loads of common sense, so why did people keep thinking she would wander off or injure herself? And she had her cane. Where was her cane? She groped and found it hooked over the arm near the seat back. It blinked madly at her and the screen said: Download the minder here.
Well, that made sense. She cleared her throat and held up her cane like she was stopping traffic. Both women looked at her and their conversation halted.
“Mother? Your cane? What about it? She calls it ‘Cain’, that’s C-A-I-N. Isn’t that so cute,” Marta said in clipped tones, turning mid-speech toward the dark-haired woman as if Lindsay couldn’t hear her perfectly well. “She designed it herself. It’s got wonderful capabilities but she just uses it for her calendar, her scheduling, old-school GPS—”
Lindsay interrupted again—she needed to get her idea out before it fluttered away. “The solution is obvious. Download the backup of the minder into Cain. It can handle the older software and it has the capacity. Next week, we activate the new minder and transfer the file over to it.” Her hand began to tremble so she lowered Cain back to her lap, its display panel now dark and its signal light a comforting green. The short-haired woman took it gently from her and placed the handle on a reader.
“Mother does have moments of clarity,” Marta said with a touch of pride. “And that could work, couldn’t it?”
“It makes perfect sense. I mean—you make sense, Lindsay.” The woman’s eyes held an apology. Lindsay nodded in acceptance.
Marta smiled in partial relief, like when she was five years old and Lindsay had just kissed her scraped knees. “Mother always was a software whiz. And it would be feasible. She always has her cane with her.”
“Of course, if it’s not actually fastened onto her...” The woman was telegraphing something to Marta with a shrug and an eyebrow raise. Why couldn’t people just say what they meant?
“Well, it’s only for a few days,” Marta replied. “I’ll keep an extra careful eye on her.”
Lindsay struggled up. “Can we go now? I have some gardening I want to do this afternoon.” She stood, uncertain on her feet without Cain. Where had it gotten to? There, on the workbench by the young girl. “Hand me that, if you please, and we’ll get out of your way.” She shouldn’t have had to ask. People were so unobservant these days.
Lindsay woke up with a start.
“Sorry, Mother. Dropped a spoon. Tea will be ready in just a minute.” Marta’s voice came from the kitchen over beeps from the 3D printer. “I mean, coffee, not tea, for you,” Marta added before Lindsay could get the words out. “And, yes, real cream.”
Why the youngsters preferred tea over coffee, Lindsay could never understand. Pale, watery stuff, tea was, not like a good strong cup of java.
Marta was chattering on about their excursion to the clinic this morning. Lindsay nodded. A faint recollection still lingered: a nice short-haired tech, a gray chair. Marta followed that with a complaint about their customer service, and followed that with a complaint about the new car—she didn’t like the lumbar support adjustments or the size of the food shelf, she was thinking of trading it in when it hit its third monthiversary. Lindsay wanted to point out that, in her day, people often suffered with a poor consumer choice on personal tech until a model was a year old, or even two or three, but she was still half-caught in the haze of her nap. She checked Cain was perched next to her, with a reassuring green light, then directed her lounger to a sitting position just as Marta set down a tray. She had never got used to the feeling—even with Marta approaching sixty—having your child serve you never stopped being a treat. “Thank you, sweetheart. I know I don’t say that enough.” The last bit came out a bit sharply, but Marta would know what she meant.
“It’s okay, Mother. Everything’s okay. Have your coffee. And I made some toast, although I see you programmed a message on it. Again.” Marta’s smile was asymmetrical. Always tense, that child.
“I did not. I promised never to program the kitchen printer again.” She was sure she had pledged that although she couldn’t think why. And she didn’t remember being in the kitchen at all this morning, although she thought she might have been up an hour or two before Marta.
Without a word, Marta handed her a plate of buttered toast. Centered on each piece, in crisp Helvetica, the printer had burnt in a message: Doors are closing. Open a window.
