Read Choke for Free Online Page B

chest, she says, “What if we could completely restore your mother’s mind?” Clicking and unclicking her pen, she says, “What if we could make her the intelligent, strong, vibrant woman she used to be?”
    My mother, the way she used to be.
    “It may be possible,” says Dr. Marshall.
    And not thinking how it sounds, I say, “God forbid.”
    Then real fast, I say that’s probably not such a great idea.
    And down the hall, the nurses are laughing, their hands cupped over their mouths. And from even that far away, you can hear Dina say, “It would serve him right.”
    On my next visit, I’m still Fred Hastings and my kids both get straight A’s in school. That week, Mrs. Hastings is painting our dining room green.
    “Blue is better,” my mom says, “for a room you’re going to put any sort of food in.”
    After that, the dining room is blue. We live on East Pine Street. We’re Catholics. We save our money at City First Federal. We drive a Chrysler.
    All at my mom’s suggestion.
    The next week, I start writing things down, the details, so I won’t forget who I’m supposed to be from one week to the next. The Hastings always drive to Robson Lake for our vacation, I write. We fish for steelhead. We want the Packers to win. We never eat oysters. We were buying land. Each Saturday, I first sit in the dayroom and study my notes while the nurse goes to see if my mom is awake.
    Whenever I step into her room and introduce myself as Fred Hastings, she points the remote control to turn the television off.
    Boxwoods around a house are fine, she tells me, but privets would be better.
    And I write it down.
    The best kind of people drink scotch, she says. Clean your gutters in October, then again in November, she says. Wrap your car’s air filter in toilet paper for longer service life. Prune evergreens only after the first frost. And ash makes the best firewood.
    I write it all down. I inventory what’s left of her, the spots and wrinkles and her swollen or empty skin and flakes and rashes, and I write reminders to myself.
    Every day: Wear sunblock.
    Cover your gray.
    Don’t go insane.
    Eat less fats and sugars.
    Do more sit-ups.
    Don’t start forgetting stuff.
    Trim the hair in your ears.
    Take calcium.
    Moisturize. Every day.
    Freeze time to stay in one place forever.
    Do not get frigging old.
    She says, “Do you hear anything from my son, Victor? Do you remember him?”
    I stop. I feel my heart ache, but I’ve forgotten what that feeling means.
    Victor, my mom says, never comes to visit, and if he does, he never listens. Victor’s busy and distracted and doesn’t care. He’s dropped out of medical school and is making a big mess out of his life.
    She picks at the lint on her blanket. “He’s got some minimum-wage kind of job as a tour guide or something,” she says. She sighs, and her terrible yellow hands find the remote control.
    I ask, wasn’t Victor looking after her? Didn’t he have a right to live his own life? I say, maybe Victor is so busy because he’s out every night, literally killing himself to pay her bills for constant care. That’s three grand each month just to break even. Maybe that’s why Victor left school. I say, just for the sake of argument, that maybe Victor’s doing his frigging best.
    I say, it could be that Victor does more than anybody gives him credit for.
    And my mom smiles and says, “Oh Fred, you’re still the defender of the hopelessly guilty.”
    My mom turns on the television, and a beautiful woman in a glittering evening dress hits another beautiful young woman over the head with a bottle. The bottle doesn’t even mess her hair, but it gives her amnesia.
    Maybe Victor’s struggling with problems of his own, I say.
    The one beautiful woman reprograms the amnesia woman into thinking she’s a killer robot that must do the beautifulwoman’s bidding. The killer robot accepts her new identity so easy you have to wonder if she’s just faking the amnesia and was always