“Mommy is sick,” Daddy said to the little boy when he wandered into the bedroom. The little boy already knew that. He could tell by looking at her. Mommy stayed inside the house every day for months. She didn’t get up to make breakfast. She didn’t get up to take a bath. And she didn’t even answer the holo-phone when it rang.

But she wasn’t sick, not really. She didn’t have a fever. She didn’t have a cold. She didn’t even have a tummy ache.

Daddy had to take care of everything now. He would wake up with the little boy every morning and made his breakfast and sometimes, he even made pancakes. Then he took the little boy to school on his way to work.

“Kiss Mommy goodbye,” Daddy told the little boy, and he did, but he held his breath from the smell.

After they left, Mommy laid in bed listening to the silence in the empty house. Her hand moved on the pillow next to her face. She felt nothing. It was just an empty hand. 

But then, she was pushing herself up.

She brainlessly shuffled her feet down the hallway and when she reached the smart-box on the wall, she flattened her palm against the screen, and the house instantly came to life. The lights flickered on and the window blinds shut. The house plants were watered and the media center turned on. The vacuum scooted across the floor and the family pictures appeared on the walls. 

She screamed when she walked into the kitchen, startled to see the little girl sitting on top of the counter. “Get down from there!” Mommy scolded as she tied the belt on her bathrobe.

“Okay, Mommy.” The little girl hopped down and chased after her holographic ball bouncing down the hallway. Mommy squinted from the pain in her pounding brain.

“What do you want for breakfast, Madeline?”

“What?” The little girl called back.

“I said- what do you want to eat for breakfast?” Mommy screamed at her over the racket of the bouncing ball.

The little girl stood still with a look of confusion. “But it’s lunchtime.”

“Well then, what do you want for lunch?” Mommy said in a normal tone.

“Pancakes!” The little girl squealed and again chased the ball. Mommy smiled and rolled her eyes.

The little girl sat with her hands folded on the table and watched as Mommy ate pancakes. When Mommy looked up from her tablet and coffee, she saw light flicker around the little girl’s smile. “Why don’t you go out and play, Madeline?”

“Oh, but Mommy! I want to stay inside with you.” The little girl pleaded pitifully. “But maybe we can go swimming in the pool?”

“No.” Mommy rubbed her tired eyes.

“We can watch my birthday video again!”

The little girl was already stretching her body to reach the smart box before Mommy could protest. She pushed a button and the video began in the living room. Guests were already mid-lyric, “Happy birthday, dear Maddie, Happy birthday to you!” A reflection: both girls grinning at Mommy.

“Now blow out your candles, honey.” Mommy said in the video.

The little girl looked confused again. “Doesn’t it make you happy anymore? Mommy?”

Mommy looked up. The little girl could see mist at the edges of her eyes, even though she smiled. “It does, baby.” Mommy said sweetly.

Mommy stood up and walked down the hallway to her bedroom. The little girl watched the video until it finished and disappeared.

An hour passed before Mommy came out of her bedroom, cleaned and dressed. She walked down the driveway to get the mail as the little girl skipped a holographic jumping rope, singing loudly to herself. 

Mommy set the mail down at the table and picked up a laundry basket. She collected dirty clothes from all the corners and nooks of all the bedrooms as the little girl read aloud from a book called the Velveteen Rabbit. 

Mommy washed the clothes and then dried them and then dumped out all the fresh clothes onto the couch to fold them. Mommy listened quietly to the story until she picked up a small purple sock. She held it up and stared at it before bursting into tears. The little girl stopped reading and looked at Mommy, who slid off the couch and onto the floor. Mommy curled her body around the sock and sobbed.

“My sock.” The little girl said inconsequentially.  

Mommy stopped crying and sat herself upright. She did not look at the little girl. She walked down the hallway to the closed door of Madeline’s room and opened it. She stepped into the faint blue evening light coming in through the window and to the dresser. In the top drawer, she searched with her fingertips for a lone sock. When she found it, she whimpered, tucked the two companions together and placed tenderly laid them on the others. 

Mommy closed the bedroom door. The little girl was now standing in the middle of the hallway, watching.

“Mommy?”

“It’s okay.” Mommy told her.

“You’re sad, Mommy.”

“Yes.” It was the first time she could say it.

“But don’t I make you happy anymore?” The little girl sounded frightened. Mommy shushed her.

“Of course you do, sweetheart,” Mommy sat down on the floor and the little girl climbed into her lap. “I love you very much and I miss you very much. And you still make me happy, every day.” Mommy looked into the little girl’s transparent eyes. “But I am sad. And I can’t keep doing this.” She pulled the girl close again. The little girl’s holographic image flickered wildly. 

“When you drowned, a part of me died too. And I know you aren’t here anymore.” Mommy shut her eyes tight, trying to make it all go away. “But I am still here. I’m still alive.”

“Does that mean I have to go away now?” The little girl asked.

“Yes Madeline,” the name itself was a knife in her heart, “I’m so so sorry.” Choking on her sobs, just trying to get the words out now, to make sense. “I gotta get back to the living now.”

“I understand.” The little girl said, although she didn’t. “Maybe we can play again sometime?” She still had hope in her voice.

“Sometime.” Mommy said. 

When she kissed the little girl’s cheek, a small static charge danced between them. The little girl and Mommy stood up and waved goodbye to each other. Mommy touched the smart-box on the wall and the little girl vanished.

She caught her reflection in the hallway mirror in the renewed silence of the house. 

THE END

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