*Fiction — October 8, 2020
We Are Fine
To all appearances, it was a hand of flesh and blood just like my own, Odilon Redon, 1896, Lithograph, The Met Museum
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I had two children. A boy and a girl, twins.
One night, their father took the boy. Police searched for them. Their faces appeared in DMVs nationwide. When that failed, I hired a detective. I pleaded for help on local television.
Nothing, no trace. A year later, people started telling me, “You’re handling this very well,” and I would just fucking look at them.
Another two years. The only contact from their father was a white postcard with one sentence on it. “WE ARE FINE,” it read.
My daughter is six now. She has forgotten the theft. She endured it well.
Except she calls herself we.
For example, I asked her, “Do you miss your brother?”
She replied, “Yes, we do.”
I consulted a psychologist, a man with crumbs in his beard. His pastel office was several towns away. My daughter stayed home with a sitter.
“She thinks of herself as both I and another,” he told me.
“She thinks of herself as both I and another,” he told me.
I asked, “Is that healthy?”
He coughed then replied, “Lord no.” He listed various methods. Unconvinced, I repeated his words without trying to understand them. I rendered his terms meaningless.
“Operant conditioning,” he said.
“Operant conditioning,” I said.
I came home and she was lying on the foyer rug. A side window cast sunlight on her. Her sitter was in the kitchen. When she told me, “We missed you,” I couldn’t stand it.
I left the front door open.
I dropped onto the rug, laid next to her.
I said, “We know.”
Originally published in No Tokens Issue No. 4. View full issue & more.