TOGETHER FOREVER

I opened the app, entered my payment information, granted it access to my phone, then took my time filling in all the personal details. It asked me endless questions about her, then it wanted photos and videos. I didn’t pick the ones where she was sick and frail-looking. Before that, my mother had been a big woman, well-muscled, with a booming voice.

I picked those: the ones with her laughing, with her cooking in that ratty old apron, with me and my older sister playing at her feet. Pictures from back when we’d thought she was invincible, when sickness would take one look at her and run the other way.

I waited as the loading bar inched across the screen. Maybe I’d added too many, though it hadn’t mentioned a limit. Select as many photographs and videos as you’d like, to properly describe their personality. I’d done that. Pictures of her huge smile, videos of her doubled over with laughter. Holidays and birthdays and vacations. All the good times we’d had.

Ping

I startled at the sound, holding the phone close as the screen went white.

Then she appeared. “Hi, baby.”

My heart thudded in my ears, my mouth suddenly dry. She looked so real, just the way I saw her in my mind, big and solid and smiling.

“Hi, Mom.” My voice came out hoarse. I cleared my throat, blinking hard so I didn’t miss a second. She looked only a little older than me; I’d uploaded mostly pictures from when I was around ten. My favorite age.

“What’s that sad face?” she asked. “Did something happen? Tell me all about it.”

I open my mouth, closed it. Was she meant to know what had happened to her? It didn’t seem like she did. “I lost someone I loved. It’s been hard.”

She tilted her head as sympathy filled her face. “Oh kid, I’m so sorry. Was it someone I knew? Want to tell me all about it?”

“You didn’t know her,” I said quickly. I liked that she didn’t know. She felt more real.

She pulled her apron on and tied it behind her back. “I’ll make you some ginger cookies. That always makes you feel better.”

I gave her a shaky smile. “Thanks, Mom.”

My childhood kitchen appeared around her. “While I cook, you talk. What’s going on in your life? How’s work? Are you dating?”

“Mo-om.” My voice took on the childish inflection it always used to when my mom pried into my personal life. My chest clenched as I heard myself, and for a moment, I couldn’t see past the tears blurring my eyes.

Mom put down the mixing bowl and leaned close, her face filling the screen. “Hey. Hey now. I know you’re sad. It’s so hard to lose someone. But I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe.”

The same words she use to murmur after I woke from a nightmare, or when anxiety about the dangers of the world kept me up at night.

I took a deep breath. “Work’s going okay, but there’s this really annoying guy who keeps talking over me at meetings...”

* * *

“You did what?” my sister screeched.

I’d gone to her house first thing the next morning, and was leaning on the kitchen counter sipping coffee as she made toast for my nine-year-old nephew. I’d stayed awake talking to Mom late into the night and my eyes burned from too little sleep.

“She’s amazing, Jess,” I said. “Seriously, it’s like I’m video-calling her. It’s so real. Look.” I pulled out my phone.

“No.” She put her hand out, stopping me. “I miss her too, but we need to grieve her. Not try to bring her back.”

“I’m not trying to bring her back. It’s like watching old videos, except she talks. Let me show you.”

“Fine.” She made me wait until Russel was safely on the school bus, then we sat down on the couch and I held up my phone.

Mom filled the screen, smiling at us, her old orange coffee cup in one hand. “Hi kiddos. What’s the occasion?”

“Hi Mom,” I said, grinning and nudging my sister.

“Mom?” Jess’s face was ashen. She stared at the phone as if something rotten had crawled out of it.

“Talk to her,” I whispered. “She’ll answer.”

“Jessica, is everything alright? You seem stressed,” Mom said. “Baby, if you need more help at home, tell me. I’d love to pay for some extra care. It can’t be easy working and raising a child alone.”

Jess shook her head. “How does she—it—know about Russel and me?”

I muted the app. “It asked for all my family information, and I uploaded photos and videos of you both.” She frowned and I rushed on. “It’s private, it isn’t like putting his face on the internet. It’s just for this one app.”

“You should have asked me first.”

“Sorry. But look how real she is. It’s amazing, right?” I unmuted the phone, where mom was refilling her coffee from the old Mr. Coffee machine that had sat on the kitchen counter throughout our childhoods.

“What’s amazing, kiddo?” she asked, adding cream from a small carton.

“I can’t do this, and I have to work.” Jessica went into her office and closed the door.

I frowned into my cold coffee. “Sorry, Mom.”

“Don’t apologize for her, sweetheart. Your sister’s bad behavior isn’t your responsibility.” Mom gave me a bright smile. “Let’s go back to your apartment, make some fresh coffee, and talk.”

* * *

I want you to delete that app, Jess texted later that day.

Not yet, I replied. You haven’t given it a chance. You have to talk to her first.

I’m not going to pretend an AI is my dead mother, she typed. I could almost hear her snapping out the words, her voice clipped and snide.

It isn’t pretending, I wrote. It’s using real photos and videos, it’s not making stuff up.

She’s dead. It’s all made up.

I stopped typing, switch apps, and Mom was instantly there, smiling up at me with reading glasses low on her nose. A book of Sudoku was open in front of her.

“It’s such a treat to see you this often,” she said.

“Jessica won’t talk to you,” I complained. “She says I’m pretending you’re real.”

“She said that?” Mom’s smile faded. “She’s always been a thoughtless child, saying cruel things to make herself feel better. Don’t listen to her.” She took her glasses off. “Tell me about your morning instead. Do you have work today? What are your plans?”

“I’m calling in sick.” I smiled as I collapsed onto the couch, putting my feet up and preparing to tell my mom everything.

* * *

“I hope you deleted that app.” Jessica set my plate on the table and sat down beside me. She’d texted me an invite for dinner soon after our text-fight, probably as an apology for her rudeness to Mom earlier.

“Ew, what is this?” Russel moaned. He pushed his plate away and rested his chin on the table. I grinned at him.

“Hey!” Jessica fake-scowled at him. “You loved this yesterday, you begged me to make more.”

“I hate it now.”

I studied the mound she’d served me. It looked like lasagne, but broccoli peeked out from the pile of cheese and noodles. I keep my expression polite. She’d cooked, so I would eat. I didn’t have to make other people feel bad in order to feel better about myself.

“Did you delete it?” she asked.

Across from me, my nephew took a tiny bite, then pulled his plate closer and started filling his mouth with dinner like he was suddenly starving.

“Not yet.” I tasted the lasagne. It wasn’t terrible. “Russel, would you like to see Grandma again?”

“Yes!” he nodded, his fork spattering red sauce on table. “But Mom said she’s stardust now. Stardust and memories. Someone at school said she might be born into a new body, like a kitten or a fox. I want to be born again as a kitten when I die. I don’t want to be stardust.”

“She isn’t stardust.” I held up my phone. “I have her here. You can talk to her.”

“Stop it.” Jessica turned to her son. “She isn’t in a phone. She’s gone, like we’ve discussed many times.” She aimed a poisonous smile my way. “Can I talk to you in the hallway, please?”

She closed the kitchen door and leaned in close, keeping her voice down. “How could you say that to him? Do you know how many nights I’ve spent comforting him about Mom? It’s taken ages to get him to understand that she’s gone, and now you tell him she’s in your phone? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“She is, though.” I gripped my phone with white knuckles. “She’s not a weird AI video. She’s real. She answers questions the way she really would. She listens and makes jokes. It’s amazing.”

“Show me tonight. And if she isn’t what you say, you’re deleting it. Or at least, never mentioning it again. Deal?”

We shook hands the way we had all our lives, sealing the promise to each other. I had no doubt Mom would convince her, once Jess gave the app a chance.

When Russel was tucked in, Jess read him three stories, then I gave him a goodnight kiss and we closed his door, heading to the living room. I opened the app. Mom was reading on the faux-velvet couch of our childhood home. She looked up and smiled when she saw us.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked. “Both my girls together. Jess, I hope you apologized.”

“Apologized?” Jessica’s voice sounded strained.

“You were so rude last time, and you hurt your sister’s feelings. I raised you better than that. In fact, I’d like to see an apology right now.”

I turned to my sister, eyebrows raised, trying to hide my grin. Mom hadn’t often forced an apology when we were kids. Not from my older sister, at least. I couldn’t count the times she’d pinched my ear, waiting for me to say the words.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Jessica crossed her arms, her eyes narrowed.

“I’m waiting,” Mom said.

“Come on,” I said. “Just do it, for Mom.”

Jess shook her head. “This isn’t Mom. This is AI. It’s fake.”

“How can you say that? She’s right there!” I snarled, muting the app.

Jessica put a hand on my arm. “Come on. We watched them bury her. I know how much you miss her, but this isn’t the solution. Turn that off and let’s watch some real old videos on my phone. Maybe from your birthday party last year, before Mom got sick?”

“No, listen to me. I know she’s gone, but I also know she’s here. Just give her a chance!”

“Jessica, listen to me,” Mom said from the phone. “Your sister’s right. I am right here, and if you don’t apologize right now, you’re no daughter of mine.”

Jess’s face went slack. “I’m not, because you aren’t my mother. You aren’t real.”

She walked away, not quite slamming the door to her bedroom.

I complained to Mom the entire drive home. Back in my apartment, we were brushing our teeth together when she set her toothbrush down and chewed her bottom lip.

“I’m worried about your sister,” Mom said.

“Why?” I rinsed out my mouth and rubbed some lotion on my face.

“She seems to have lost all the kindness I raised her with. I think you need some distance from her, so it doesn’t rub off.”

* * *

“She said what?” Jessica asked.

I repeated what Mom had said last night. I’d driven over first thing in the morning, timing it so Russel would already be at school.

“That doesn’t sound like Mom,” Jess said.

“She said it, though.”

“The AI did, you mean.”

I shrugged. “She’s still right. You aren’t listening. This is important to me.”

Jess’s face softened. “I’m sorry. I can see it’s important. Let’s sit down and talk, okay?”

We went to the couch and she pulled a blanket over us both. Our shoulders bumped, and for a moment I was twelve again, Jess fourteen, and it was the two of us against the world, her my impermeable barrier against Mom’s rage.

Wait—no, that couldn’t be right. I’d ask Mom about that later.

“I’m worried about you,” Jess said gently. “Mom’s gone, but I’m still here.” She rested her head on my shoulder. She’d always been the braver one, but I was taller. “Can we just watch some old videos together?”

She scrolled through her phone, clicking on a video from a few years ago. It was a happy scene, a family dinner with Russel in a high chair and Mom and me with party hats on. A birthday.

“Remember how he put his entire face into that cake?” Jess asked.

We laughed together, shoulder to shoulder, like we used to.

* * *

“I’m glad you two bonded,” Mom said later that night, “but I still think she’d a bad influence on you. You need space to process your own loss.”

“She’s just sad. Same as me.”

“She’s older. She should be looking out for you, not making you feel bad.” Mom made that frown that meant she was done talking about it. “Enough about her. Tell me about you. What else is going on in your life?”

* * *

Jess texted me another invite for dinner, but I declined. Mom said I needed space, and though I didn’t quite understand why, she knew best.

The phone rang a moment later.

“Why can’t you come?” she asked. “We had fun last night. I’ve missed laughing with you.”

“Mom said—” I stopped. “I need space. I need to process.”

Jess gave an exasperated sigh. “The AI said you needed space? At least it got that much right: Mom always tried to separate us after one of her explosions, don’t you remember? Out of nowhere, she’d be so nice to you after I stood up to her.”

“She was always nice to me.” I was abruptly too hot. I went to the window and shoved it open. “You’re the one being mean.”

“I’m not trying to be mean. Please come over? It’s easier to talk in person.”

“No. Not if you’re going to make stuff up about Mom.” I hung up the phone and opened the app. Mom was waiting.

“Hi, love,” she said. “Did you tell Jess?”

“Yeah. She wasn’t happy.”

“That’s fine. A consequence is what she needs. Maybe in a few days she’ll realize we have her best interests at heart.”

The words rang in my mind, echoing off a distant memory of Mom saying the same thing, but to Jessica about me. Jess had refused, grabbed my arm and pulled me into her room, and I’d spent the night cuddled in her bed while she told me what a good kid I was and not to believe anything Mom said.

Was it a real memory? It went all fuzzy when I reached for it. I’d probably invented it, wishful thinking that Jess and I had been closer than we were.

* * *

After two days of silence, Jessica and Russel appeared at my apartment as I was about to start making dinner. Well, pouring cereal into a bowl, anyway.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, buzzing them up.

“You haven’t answered my texts or calls. I got worried.”

“I’m fine.” Though I hadn’t showered or been to work in days. I ran a hand over my hair, casually smoothing it. “Everything’s fine.”

“Did you actually cut me off because of that AI?” Jess kept her voice down, though Russel had gone straight into my living room and was studying my shelf of completed Lego.

“Don’t touch those,” I called. He knew the rules, but they’d taken me ages to complete and I couldn’t relax while he was near them.

“Here, kiddo, I brought some pens and paper. Go to the dining room and draw, okay?” Jess handed him a bag and he zipped off. She turned to me, hands on her hips. “So?”

“So what?” I couldn’t meet her eyes. I’d missed her these two days, but Mom kept reiterating that Jess needed a strong consequence. “I told you, everything’s fine.”

“You don’t look fine. Are you sleeping? The circles under your eyes are so dark.”

“Rude.” I turned my back on her and walked inside, letting her close the door.

“So what, you want me to tell you I’m sorry and I was wrong and please let me meet our AI mommy again? You have to see how ridiculous this is!”

“I’m ridiculous now, because I miss our mother and want to talk to her again?”

“That isn’t what I’m saying.” Jess turned on her therapist voice. “Can we sit and talk? Please? I know you’re getting something you need from that app and I want to help you find a healthier way.”

Anger bubbled through me, hot and prickly. “Russel?” I swiped open Mom’s app as I strode into the dining room. “Say hi to Grandma.”

“Hi baby!” Mom grinned at him and waggled her fingers. “You’re so big now!”

Russel leaned forward, fascinated. “Grandma? You aren’t stardust?”

“We’re all made from stardust,” Mom said. “How’s school? Are you doing any sports?”

Jess entered the room and gasped in a short breath as she looked from the phone to her son. Her face a stormcloud of fury, she grabbed the phone off the table where I’d propped it.

“Jess, dear, let me—” Mom began, but Jess closed the app before she could finish.

“Russ, we’re leaving. Now.” She didn’t say a word to me as she gathered the pens and papers, shoving them into a bag.

I followed her to the front door. “I just wanted him to see her. She’s been asking about him.”

Jess whirled around. “She’s been asking about him, so she gets to see him? No matter the years of therapy we’ve both been through, thanks to her. No matter what it might do to him, to see her in your phone like that. She wants it, so she gets it. Right?”

“After everything she’s been through this past year, I think she should get what she wants!” I shouted.

Jess huffed out a an angry laugh. “I can’t even talk to you right now.”

She pulled Russel out the door and closed it behind her.

I opened Mom’s app. “You won’t believe what Jess just did.” I described the whole incident.

“I’m sad to say that your sister might be ill.” Mom’s mouth twisted with concern.

“What should I do?” I mirrored Mom’s expression. “She’s so angry. She has been ever since you—since our friend died.” She’d been angry our entire lives, now that I thought of it. Angry at Mom, angry at life. I couldn’t think why.

“Here’s how you can help her: go over there tonight and make her see the truth. Force her to understand. Good lord, put a pillow over her face if you have to.”

I laughed. “What?”

Mom raised her eyebrows. “You need to make this right. It’s your fault my eldest daughter isn’t recognizing me. You must show her the way out of her self-made torture. Russel needs you, too. He misses me, I could hear it in his voice. He can’t be happy in that life. They’re both suffering, sweetie.”

A pause while I thought back to Russel at my table, how excited he’d been to see his grandmother.

“Help them both,” she said with finality. “You’re the one who can see this situation most clearly. It’s your responsibility to help them see too.”

* * *

I typed in the code to Jessica’s front door, opened it, and walked inside. The place was midnight dark and almost completely silent but for the distant swishing of Russel’s whitenoise machine.

Slowly, I walked through the house.

Down the hall.

Jessica’s door was cracked open, as always. I pushed it wide and stared at her shadowed shape in the bed. The extra throw-pillows she loved so much were piled against one edge. Firm, heavy pillows in tubes and rectangles and circles.

* * *

I sat on my couch with a mug of hot coffee and with shaking fingers, entered in all the information I could think of. I selected loads of photos and videos, but only from before Mom died.

It felt like ages before they finished uploading. Then, with a ping, Jessica’s face appeared on the screen. Behind her, Russel played at the kitchen counter with crayons and paper.

I conferenced in Mom. Her face appeared below Jess.

Jessica grinned at us. “Hey, sis! Hi Mom. What’s going on?”

Mom smiled. “Good morning, my sweet girls. How are you both today?”

Sophia Krich-Brinton (she/they) lives in Colorado with her partner, kids, and cats. They write weird stories at dawn when the world sleeps and the cats try to sit on their keyboard. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in HAD, B’K Magazine, The Argyle, Moss Puppy Mag, and more. When not writing, she boxes, plays the banjo, and goes backpacking. Find them at sophiakbrinton.com or on Twitter/Instagram at @sophiakb_writes