Rollback

No. No, they hadn’t faced it. Sarah had faced it — facedown, on the hard wooden floor, waiting hour after hour for him to return while he fucked a woman less than half — Christ, less than a third! — his age.

He rolled onto his side, his back to the sleeping Sarah, his body tucked into a fetal position, hugging himself. His eyes focused on the softly glowing blue numerals of a digital clock on his night-stand, and he watched the minutes crawl by.

For the first time in years, Sarah was sitting in the La-Z-Boy with it reclined. It was, she said, easier and more comfortable to have her injured leg stretched out.

Despite hardly sleeping at all the previous night, Don was unable to rest; he kept pacing. She had once quipped that they’d both fallen in love with this house at first sight — her because of the fireplace, him because of the long, narrow living room that just cried out for someone to march back and forth in it.

"What are you going to do today?" Sarah asked him. The foot-high digits on the wall monitor showed 9:22 a.m. The windows on either side of the fireplace had polarized, reducing the August sunshine to a tolerable level.

He halted in his pacing for a moment and looked at his wife. "Do?" he said. "I’m going to stay here, look after you."

But she shook her head. "You can’t spend the rest of your life — the rest of my life — as a shut-in. I see how much energy you’ve got. Look at yourself! You can’t sit still."

"Yes, but—"

"But what? I’ll be fine."

"You weren’t fine yesterday," he said, and he resumed walking. "And…"

"And what?" said Sarah.

He said nothing, his back to her. But people who’d been married so long could finish each other’s sentences, even when one of them didn’t want the other to do so.

"And it’s only going to get worse, right?" said Sarah.

Don tilted his head, conceding that she’d guessed correctly. He looked out the brown-tinged window. They’d bought this place in 1988, just after getting married, his parents, and Sarah’s, too, helping with the down payment. Back then, Betty Ann Drive had had a few skinny trees here and there, plus one or two large blue spruces.

Now, those skinny trees, planted for free by the City of North York, a municipality that didn’t even exist anymore, had grown to be tall, luxurious maples and oaks.

He continued walking, now approaching her. "You need me here," he said, "to take care of you."

She looked down at her leg encased in the armature. "I need someone, yes. Maybe Percy—"

"Percy starts grade eight in two weeks," he said. "He’ll be too busy. And Carl and Emily both work during the day. And we can’t afford to hire a home-care worker."

"We could if…" she began, and he mentally finished that sentence: if we sold the house.

He looked out one of the windows again. Yes, this house, small though it was, was bigger than they needed, and had been since Emily had moved out more than twenty years ago. Maybe they should sell it. As was now painfully obvious, Sarah was having real trouble with the stairs. Moving to an apartment would free up money and deal with that problem.

He’d reached the far end of the room and turned around, facing his wife again, and he saw her expression brighten. "You know what we need?" she said. "A Mozo."

"Mozo?" He said it the way she had, with two long-O sounds.

She nodded. "You know what that is?"

"I know it’s worth fifteen points."

Sarah frowned. "It means ‘male servant,’" she said. "It’s from the Spanish. But it’s also the brand name for a line of robots designed to help the elderly."

Don narrowed his eyes. "They make such things?"

"See what I mean?" said Sarah. "You have got to get out more. Yes, they make such things, if by ‘they,’ you mean McGavin Robotics."

He stopped pacing. "Even a low-end bot costs a fortune."

"Sure. But Cody thinks I’ve got some special insight into decrypting the response from Sigma Drac. I’ll tell him I need a Mozo. It wouldn’t be a lie. I could easily get more done with someone to serve as a research assistant, get me coffee, and so on.

And it would mean I’d never be alone. You could go out without worrying about me."

He thought about complaining that the last time they’d taken charity from McGavin, it hadn’t worked out so well. But Sarah was right. He’d go nuts if he had to stay home all the time, and, well, a housebot would make a lot of things easier, wouldn’t it?

Chapter 29