American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,254

She just keeps smiling, and says, “You would be happy.”

“No, I wouldn’t. These are just—just pictures, Momma. They’re not real things. They aren’t.”

Mona blinks back more tears. When she opens her eyes, they’re back in the 1980s West Texas house.

“Are you sure?” asks her mother. “Maybe you don’t know all I can do…”

Mona fights to remember where they are, what’s happened, and who her mother really is, and a question comes bursting out of her: “What do you want with my daughter? Do you want to hurt her?”

“Hurt your daughter? Why, no, my love. I would never do such a thing.”

“You want something with her. What?”

“I want to take care of your little girl. I want to keep her safe—finally, really safe.” Mona has never heard someone sound so painfully earnest before. “I don’t want to be cruel to you, Mona my love, and I don’t want to say that you didn’t take care of her, originally… but she did die, Mona. She died. You weren’t able to protect her, and she died.”

Mona bows her head. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“Maybe not, but you weren’t able to do anything about it. I can, my love. Let me help you. I want to take care of you all. I want to save you from danger. I want to help.”

And as she says this, something slides into place in Mona’s mind, like tumblers in a lock. There was something Mr. First said…

“To save us all from danger,” Mona says quietly.

“Yes.”

Mona starts thinking. She tries to disguise how fast she’s breathing.

“What’s wrong, dear?” asks her mother.

“You’ve said that before, haven’t you?” she asks.

“Did I? When?”

“When you first brought the rest of your family here. The rest of the children. You brought them here when you wanted to save them all from danger.”

Something in her mother’s eyes flickers. “They told you about that?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, but I was right then,” says her mother. “Our world on that side… it was falling apart.”

“But why? No one’s ever been able to tell me why.”

“It just… was. We were too great. There were too many of us. That world, that plane of reality, it could no longer support us.”

Mona opens her eyes again. And, as she has so many times before, she sees two things: she sees this quaint, homey living room, a pleasant mishmash of Mid-Century furniture, perfumed with the aroma of baking bread; and she also sees, just behind it, a broken, smoking town, and an enormous, dark form standing over her…

“When you made me,” Mona says, “you put a piece of yourself in me. You made me like you. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, in a way. I helped you. I made you stronger, smarter. Bigger and greater than you could ever be.”

“But you made a mistake,” says Mona.

For the first time, her mother’s smile retracts, but just very, very slightly. “W-what? A mistake?”

“Yes.”

“I… I couldn’t have. I don’t make mistakes, love. I don’t.”

“You did. The part of yourself you put in me was one that could see. One that could see farther and clearer than anyone else. And now I see you, Mother. I see you so clearly. You’re still the woman I knew in West Texas. I knew you then and I know you now. You always liked fresh starts.” Mona takes a deep breath in, then lets it out. “You were the one who ruined your world over there, weren’t you?”

Mona’s mother is silent.

“You did it because otherwise, you’d never get your family to move,” says Mona. “And that was what you really wanted. Wasn’t it? You wanted a new beginning.”

Her mother’s smile slides away.

“That’s why you took so many places, there on the other side. But one day you ran out of things to take. And you almost despaired. Because you still didn’t feel happy, did you, Momma? No matter how many children you had, or how beautiful and powerful they were, or how grand your homes were, you never felt good about it. Not once.”

“That’s enough,” she says softly.

“And then you found out about another place,” says Mona. “Several planes of reality lower, or… whatever. And you thought—Why don’t we try there? But the only way to get your family to make that move was to convince them their own world was falling apart.”

“Be quiet,” whispers Mona’s mother.

“And now you’re here,” says Mona. “You’re finally here. You’re ready to start your simpler, easier life. Even if you’ve killed many of your own children, or made them so… so awfully wrong.”

“That’s not my fault,” her mother