Family Bliss
written by: Andrea Tillmanns
“This is Alena, my new girlfriend,” says Frank as he walks through the door. Behind my son appears a pretty dark-blonde woman, perhaps in her early twenties.
“Oh, how interesting,” I reply, looking at her closely. Frank’s last girlfriend was really fabulous; she knew all of Wystan Hugh Auden’s poems by heart. No wonder, since she studied classical literature or something similar. Of course, she soon realized that I am far too realistic to enjoy these old verses. But the months after I accidentally found her e-mail to her lover, while my son had no idea that he was about to lose her – that was a really exciting time. I forgot her name long ago; the people around me change so often that I really can’t remember every single one of them. I’m curious to see what this new girlfriend has to offer.
“Alena is a dietitian,” says Frank, as if he had read my mind, and mixes her a drink. Très chic, I think. I can’t handle alcohol this early in the day. Back when I was young, as young as this Alena, whose name I’ll soon forget … Back then, I wouldn’t have been content just watching these two beautiful young people standing at my home bar, looking so alive in their youth.
Today, all that remains for me is the role of mother. But I am still attractive; my dermatologist always removes the first wrinkles when he comes for his monthly visit. “Maybe in another twenty years,” he says when I ask him for stronger injections and other methods. It is so important that I continue to look good. My son is young and will probably stay that way forever, at least that’s how it seems to me. And my husband – he hasn’t aged a day since we first met all those years ago. Only I am changing. And even that seems doubtful to me sometimes.
“I’m pleased to meet you. You should try the new Happy Slim,” says Alena with a friendly smile, sitting down next to Frank on the couch opposite me. “It helped me, too. I used to be really fat, but now – just look at me, not an ounce to spare! Not that you really need it …”
“A few pounds less certainly wouldn’t hurt,” I admit. I reach for the remote control for the food unit, and Alena dictates the code for the product to me.
“We could have another cozy movie night,” Frank suggests. He seems to think I can’t see him stroking Alena’s legs under the coffee table, but of course, he’s wrong.
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” I agree, even though I actually find my family much more exciting than any movie. I don’t like these interactive stories where you have to constantly give the right commands to get to a happy ending. I turn on the plasma screen controls and repeat the movie codes Frank gives me.
“We’re going to retreat for a bit,” my son grins as I turn off the screen, puts his arm around his girlfriend’s waist, and the two of them disappear into the stairwell. It seems a little unusual to me; he usually takes more time, both for me and with his girlfriends, but maybe it doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure I’ll find out more in the next few days if an exciting episode is brewing here.
Immediately afterwards, my husband appears at the apartment door at six o’clock sharp, as he does every day, but somehow it’s different this time.
“You look so pale today,” I say to him with concern.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he waves it off, leaves his briefcase and coat in the coatroom, and sits down across from me. “Have some cognac, it’ll calm you down.”
But the cognac doesn’t help. “You still look so pale,” I finally say hesitantly, even though I don’t want to contradict him. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
“I’m actually feeling a little low on energy,” my husband admits. “Maybe you should do something tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow will be too late,” I reply. He now looks almost transparent. “Do you think the problem is outside again this time?” I ask hesitantly. I can hardly recognize him anymore, but because I thought I knew the answer beforehand, I am now sure that he is nodding.
I take the code card from the top drawer of the dresser and swipe it through the reader between the vid foils. It’s not difficult to open the balcony door; I watched the maintenance technician do it last year. The sky blurs a little as the foil on the door trembles in the breeze.
With my first step outside, I feel a sharp pain in my bare legs. Do I know it? Cold, yes, that must have been the right word many years ago. If I ask my husband if he knows of a remedy for the cold, I may not have the courage to go out into this cold and windy outdoors a second time. Besides, I’m not sure if I could still see my husband if I turned around now. I couldn’t bear to spend an entire evening without him. Sometimes the maintenance service doesn’t arrive until hours after I call them. Maybe they wouldn’t come until tomorrow?
I have no choice, I think, and open my eyes again. I wonder how tall the buildings around me are, before I realize that I, too, am far above the ground. I don’t have the courage to count the floors of the other buildings. Do I know a number that’s big enough?
There was a woman who knew even bigger numbers, I remember. Maybe she looked like me. The white powder glitters on the solar panels. It must have been lying there for quite a while; at least the batteries, which now seem almost empty, should be able to maintain the power supply for a few days if the solar panels fail. With both hands, I laboriously push the flaky cold aside. When this woman was a child, she once played laughing in the powder whose name melts off my tongue. Maybe she had a child of her own once, I think, and it hardly hurts anymore. Because surely this child would not have been as well-behaved as Frank, and surely it would have left me long ago, after all, it did so once before, far too early, but it was still a child, hopefully it’s wearing gloves in this weather, “Agatha!” it calls, no, it would have called me mother, and again “Agatha!” I hear my husband’s worried voice. He can’t follow me, can’t hold me when I fall. The panel is clear, the cold bites my hands and arms and legs and feet, my husband is already waiting for me, so I go back inside. I quickly close the balcony door behind me and put the code card back in the dresser.
My husband looks at me with that inimitable smile he always shows when he has to reprimand me. His face flickers a few more times until the power supply normalizes. Now it’s back to normal.
My son and his girlfriend had apparently switched themselves off as a precaution, but now they reappear at the top of the stairs and jump down the steps hand in hand to sit next to my husband on the couch. I immediately notice that Alena is sitting between the two men, which Frank doesn’t seem to like. This promises to be exciting. Fortunately, I can be sure that my husband would never cheat on me.
“If something like this happens again, you will inform the maintenance service,” he says firmly. “Think about what could have happened to you!”
“Of course, my dear,” I nod with a smile. I would never do anything that displeases my husband. After all, I only have this one family.
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