What I don’t transcribe I will forget, Antonio thinks as he reviews the metadata of his recording of his mother, which he has been jotting down on his sketchbook and which consists of timestamps at the beginning of threads, his mother’s phrases as headlines to these threads, downward L-shaped arrows linking headlines to subheadlines, stars next to significant headlines, checkmarks next to headlines he has already transcribed, and although Antonio suspects that what he doesn’t transcribe he will forget, he also suspects that what he does transcribe he will forget, too (already he has forgotten sizable portions of the Bogotá he spent twelve years writing about, for instance), so perhaps he’s been transcribing his recording of his mother not to document those horrible days of childhood so that one day he can write about them but to spend these horrible days of adulthood in the company of her voice — I’m tired of encountering mental institutes and lunar landscapes when I’m asleep let’s stroll to a carnival with Ada and Eva and wave at the college students dressed like salmons, Ida — one day I will jump-start a mother business, Antonio writes, a business that will warehouse recordings of your mothers so when your turn for the horrible comes you can press a button on your phone and receive not a call from your mothers (because what would you say to them if they called?) but a call with a recording of your mothers saying that when you were little you sold water for dogs — yes, Antonio thinks, what I don’t transcribe I will forget and what I do transcribe I will forget — nevertheless Antonio still wants to at least try to retain these moments he hasn’t transcribed — what is to be done with moments that have no place of their own in time, Bruno Schulz says, moments that have occurred too early or too late, after the whole of time has been distributed?—what is to be done about his mother saying when you were little the three of us were like a junta, which Antonio hasn’t transcribed yet (too fragmentary), or his mother saying Estela was very protective of you, I mean, your sister started to talk when she was eight months old, and one day, when you were still a newborn, you peed while I was changing your diaper on the couch, splashing me like a lawn sprinkler, and I complained and said something like uff, this darn child, and your sister admonished me and said but Mama, he’s little, which Antonio hasn’t transcribed yet (too sentimental), or his mother saying a man on the street in downtown Bogotá approached me and said your daughter is so beautiful, please be careful someone could steal her, which Antonio hasn’t transcribed yet (too foreboding), or his mother saying your sister painted stories and she would ask me to sew the pages to make them into a book just like Eva does, which Antonio hasn’t transcribed yet (too heartbreaking), or his mother saying I kept your childhood drawings in a box, but when we escaped from that house in Mirandela the box stayed behind, and I did ask your father to give it back but he refused, so unfortunately I was never able to save your drawings as you’ve done, Antonio, all those drawings of Ada and Eva on your kitchen walls, and a month after we escaped, Antonio’s mother said, thieves emptied that house in Mirandela, taking both televisions, your father’s expensive stereo, his collection of Italian shoes, his canvases with his abstract paintings, everything (and here Antonio can imagine Don Jorge, the old neighbor who would hand him toffees through the wire fence, snacking on popcorn and grinning as the thieves loaded their truck with his father’s crap), which Antonio hasn’t transcribed yet (too unbelievable due to how quickly retribution came to his father), or his mother saying every time I would tell your sister we have to talk about what’s been happening with your father, she would say no, I don’t want to talk about him (his father had remarried a woman who came with a fourteen-year-old daughter, and instead of taking this fourteen-year-old daughter to her confirmation classes, his father would take her to a motel), I want you to know what’s been happening to him (he was on the run now), because you can become entangled with his situation without you knowing it, Antonio’s mother said, because there’s people who could benefit from you intervening (the fourteen-year-old daughter’s therapist had also been Antonio’s mother’s therapist in Bogotá, so this therapist had emailed Antonio’s mother asking to please call her because she needed help confirming the accusations against his father), no, I don’t want to know, your sister would say, and that was my fear, Antonio, that by not supporting that fourteen-year-old girl (Antonio’s stepsister), or the newborn (Antonio’s half sister), that Estela or any one of us in the family might suffer repercussions, even your daughters, Antonio, so I would insist and she would refuse, to this day I can’t talk to her about what’s been happening with your father in Bogotá (even if Antonio landed in Bogotá, located his father wherever he was hiding (his aunt Elena, the Exorcist, knew where he was because Antonio contacted her before, when he was trying to talk to his father — I didn’t do anything wrong that girl seduced me she was mature beyond her years, his father said — the first time I’d spoken to that man in twenty-one years —), and knifed him so he would cease to spread misery, the misery across generations, according to my mother’s constellations, wouldn’t end — how else will we make it end, Mother? — we must bring the perpetrator into the fold — no —), please, Antonio’s mother said, there’s an energetic entanglement due to what has been happening with your father, no, my daddy didn’t do anything, my daddy this, my daddy that, as if to submerge that part of her pain, because she had too much already with what was happening to her in Baltimore, and so it came to a point where I told her yes, it happened, he wrote you a letter confessing and apologizing, and I read it, I couldn’t remember, Mom, your sister said, I thought nothing had happened, and I think because your sister was in so much pain, she mixed everything up, blocking out what had happened to her so many years ago, enough, Antonio thinks, it’s 9:01 a.m. already, time for SQL queries, proc means, nested where statements, so Antonio removes his oversized circumaural Sennheiser headphones, which have been transmitting his mother’s voice for months, buries his sketchbook with the metadata of his recording of his mother under his Prudential Investments binders, runs his first batch of SQL queries, tries to read The Unnamable online, receives a call from his sister’s attorney, who informs him his sister has at last agreed to a plea for three counts of disorderly misconduct, twelve months of outpatient treatment, twelve months of probation, and a commitment to leave the state of Maryland and never return — this has been one of the most rewarding cases of my career, his sister’s attorney says, to see your sister recovering — runs his second and third batch of SQL queries, packs his sketchbook that contains the metadata of his recording of his mother, the metadata of his recording of his former wife, the notes he’s been jotting down about his arrangements, about his sister, about the (so many) fictions that have been coursing through him for years (Antonio has been unable to write anything of consequence since summer #8, except the story of Dora and her dog, which contained no imaginative writing since it was an almost exact transcription of what Dora told him about her dog), switches off the fluorescence of his cubicle, rides his Shadow VLX to the apartment where his daughters live and where at last his former wife begins to speak to him, we need to talk, his former wife says, after the girls are asleep yes, Antonio says, Tata do Froggie Froggie, Eva says, not today, Antonio says, come on, Tata, Ada says, hey Froggie, Antonio says [in a severe voice], these girls want to talk to you come over here, what?, Antonio says [in an incredulous voice], you’re busy eating fly soup? [Ada and Eva laugh], and so Antonio huffs away and Froggie appears and says [in a dumb country voice] hiiii you all doing, good, Ada and Eva say [pretending to be unamused], hey is that a fly cupcake, Froggie says, noooooo, Eva and Ada say, oh, gotta go, wait come back Froggie, Ada and Eva say [in mock alarm], have you seen Froggie Froggie, Antonio says [reappearing as himself], yeah he was just here, Eva says [as nonchalant as possible], huh, Antonio says, didn’t see him, dinner’s ready, Ida says, knock knock, Eva says, who’s there, Antonio says, interrupting cow, Eva says, interrupting who, Antonio says, moo, Eva says, no you’re supposed to interrupt him with your moo, Ada says, again, Eva says, time to brush your teeth, Ida says, bedtime, Ida says, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew by Dr. Seuss, Antonio says, lights off, Ida says, one by one the lights were all extinguished, Virginia Woolf says, there’s a nostalgic appeal to the asinine Frog skit, Antonio jots down on his sketchbook, because Eva and Ada and I have been sharing the asinine Frog skit with one another for almost three years, since the time they would take baths together, do you want to be with us, Ida says, yes, Antonio says, switching on the extractor above the stove so the girls can’t hear them, do you want to continue being part of this family, Ida says, yes, Antonio says, we are not teenagers anymore, Ida says, I can’t be running after you, keeping tabs on you, and I won’t, Ida says, not anymore, but do know I have only so much patience left, Ida says, at some point I will just leave do you understand, yes, Antonio says, and do know that if a butterfly were to land on my shoulder, Antonio doesn’t say, I would burst from grief and say how will I ever repay you for everything you have given me, Ida, and thankfully Ida doesn’t sit on the slate steps and doesn’t explain to him, Antonio Jose Jiménez, patiently and for the thousandth time, that this was no longer his home (it still is), that the locks have been changed for this very reason (his keys still work), that he had to stop coming around here, upsetting her, upsetting the children, any news of your sister, Ida says, yes, Antonio says, pausing to compose himself (and show, with his composure, that what Ida has said has computed with him and that he is capable of complying), if all goes well my sister will be released tomorrow.