THE COPY MOTHER, IN PARTICULAR

The father and the mother stayed up well into the evening watching the copy family stand. The father and the mother agreed they had to do something—something—what? They could not go on like this, even a little. The copy family had not moved an inch. They could call police but what would happen? Light from the backyard’s sensor-triggered flood lamps clicked on and off without clear provocation.

The copy family would not go away. The father worked himself into a state, shouting curse words, splaying arms. He went out to the car and got a softball bat he’d used for pickup games in college—he’d not once had a hit, though he’d been beaned more times than he could count on all the hands in all the houses on the street where his house stood—he could often still remember how the ball felt each time, banging fast into his muscle—how his chest would scrunch and then expand—how he sometimes seemed not there at all. The father stood at the window with the weapon. He threatened legal action. He spoke in unintended rhyme. He said his own name to the copy father. The copy father seemed to have more hair than him.

By the time the morning came on gnawing, the father had collapsed. He lay fetal-curled on the laminated kitchen floor, his back against the fridge door, shook. The mother stood over the father. The mother took the softball bat away. She smoothed a blanket over her husband. She covered up his head. She turned on the radio in the intercom that’d been wired to broadcast through the house. There wasn’t music, but people talking—many people all at once. She turned the volume louder. The speech sound filled the house—filled in on the air around their breathing bodies.

The mother clasped her hands. She went out on the porch and stood among the copy family, silent.

There she was.