ReBoot
by Adam Stone
Amanda pulled the plates out of the dishwasher, stacked them, shifted the stack into the kitchen cabinet. She listened to Jack make his case and felt as if they’re already had this fight a hundred times before. Of course, they easily might have done so; she had no way of knowing.
“She says” — he had printed out his mother’s email and was pacing around the living room, pointing to the different lines as he read them out loud — “it’s too much work to keep the house clean. She hardly uses the upstairs anymore. She’s sleeping on the sofa.”
Maybe Esther really was losing her capabilities, Amanda reflected. She was eighty-two. Eighty-three? It certainly was true that all her friends in the neighborhood had long since moved away or died. What did she have in Toledo except her memories? And in any case, the old house really was too big for just one person. But A plus B didn’t necessarily equal C.
The conversation irritated her. She’d tried to tell Jack about Cleopatra over dinner, but he’d interrupted right away, launching in about his mother’s email.
“We don’t have the space,” Amanda pointed out. And being fairly sure she had pointed this out repeatedly in the past, she sorted the silverware aggressively, while Jack explained that Esther could have the spare bedroom, he could move his office to the basement, and so on.
“She’s playing you,” Amanda said, and Jack stopped pacing and stared at her. Of course you couldn’t say a negative word about Esther. Amanda tried to soften her tone. “I mean, not on purpose, of course. But she’s not really as helpless as she sounds. And if the house really is too much for her, there are other solutions.”
“You saw how she was last time we visited,” Jack insisted.
Laying it on thick; that’s how Esther was. Amanda could still see her fussing in the kitchen, insisting on making Jack’s favorite dish — was it his favorite? — and then turning the lasagna into an operatic production. Making Jack light the stove for her! She lit the stove every day to make her tea, when there was no one around for whom she needed to put on this performance.
Now Jack was sitting at the kitchen table working out a chart on the back of the printed-out email. Did he really need to print all her emails? Amanda sat down across from him and read, upside down. “I’m at home during the day,” he was saying. “So there’d be someone with her. On Thursdays I have to go into the office, but that’s the day when you have the most flexibility. We’d have to put in a chair lift, but I think Medicare would pay for that. She could have my office as her bedroom, and I could work downstairs. If I cleaned out my files from the closet, and we moved the extra dresser up from the basement...”
Amanda glanced at her wrist to confirm she had both of the day’s ReBoots available. Jack caught the look and frowned.
“We need to talk about this,” he said. “It wouldn’t be forever. We’ll get her here, get her settled in. Once she is used to the area we’ll find the right place for her. They’re building that new continuous care community on Allegheny Road. She could move into a cottage.”
“That’s a fantasy,” Amanda snapped, not caring what she said now, because she knew she was going to ReBoot. “Those cottages start at $800,000 and she can’t possibly afford it. And she doesn’t even want to. You know that. She wants to live here, with us. And I can’t, Jack. I just can’t. She’s too much to take.”
“Too much how?”
“She’s selfish and self-serving. She thinks you are supposed to serve her night and day, Jack. It’s what your father did; he was her servant, let’s face it. And look what it did to him. I can’t watch that happen to you, and you don’t owe it to her anyway. She’s a grown woman. She can manage for herself and if she can’t, then let’s put her someplace where people are paid to take care of her. I want to have my life, Jack. I want us to have our life.” All of this was true, but of course she’d never say it if she didn’t have a ReBoot available.
Jack sighed and shook his head. He gave her a long beseeching look, and she met it with a hard stare. They both knew what was coming next.
“What did she ever do to you?” Jack glared, and Amanda hit the button on her wrist. The room went dark.
* * *
The ReBoot button sent you back exactly 60 minutes. Since the charges were expensive to make, the government allotted only two per person per day. A lot of scientific studies had shown the advantages of ReBooting. With a do-over available, people tended to make better choices, navigate their lives more smoothly. They were statistically happier.
Of course there were the more obvious benefits as well. How many people had survived a car crash that never happened, ReBooting at the last second before they plowed into a tree or flew off the highway at a high rate of speed? No one knew the answer for sure, since those events got erased and then were avoided on the second try.
But everyone who wore the wristband had a Plan B that ran something along those lines. If things get really bad, I’ll ReBoot and try again. If nothing else, the promise gave people peace of mind. Amanda supposed that lots of folks went days or weeks at a time without pushing the button. She herself often went to bed with both charges still intact, so she knew she hadn’t ReBooted during the day.
Some people never used it at all, mostly religious fanatics.
* * *
Jack ate the stir fry without really tasting it. He hadn’t read the email from his mother yet, but knew it was there waiting for him. Amanda was saying something about a co-worker whose cat had had kittens. He only half listened. Something about a tortoise?
He sighed. “I got an email from my mother.”
“Oh?”
While Amanda cleared the dishes, he wandered into the spare bedroom he’d used as his office for the last couple of years. He sat down and read the email, then printed it out and brought it with him to the kitchen.
“She says it’s too much work to keep the place clean. And she can’t climb the stairs. She’s afraid of falling. She’s sleeping on the sofa.”
Amanda banged a cabinet door closed. Or did she? Jack knew how she felt about the prospect of his mother coming to live with them, and so maybe he was being hypersensitive. But the way she was emptying the dishwasher sounded spiteful. Then she started loading in the dinner dishes, slamming them aggressively into the rack.
He sat down at the kitchen table and tried to keep his tone light-but-practical, reminding her how the hours would work out well, with him mostly working from home. How easy it would be to accommodate Mom in the spare bedroom. When you got down to it, he’d really be the only one inconvenienced, working down in the basement.
Amanda sat down at the kitchen table and picked at the fringed edge of the woven placemat.
“And it wouldn’t be forever,” Jack said. “Just until she gets used to the area.” He snuck a look at his wife’s wrist and saw she’d already used up one ReBoot. Maybe she’d just farted out loud in an elevator? But he guessed she had pushed the button more recently, maybe only a few minutes ago. Two could play at that game. He still had both his ReBoots left.
“I know you don’t like her, and damned if I know why. She’s never been anything but polite to you. Maybe you could be a little less judgmental, you know? She’s eighty-three years old, her husband died—”
“Three years ago!”
“Sure, and she still hasn’t recovered. She’s all by herself now. What’s she supposed to do? It wouldn’t kill you to have a little understanding.” He edged his fingertips toward his wristband. Amanda saw him and then the brakes were off.
“She’s a selfish old leech!” she screamed. “She’s a bloodsucker, Jack, and it’s not just your blood. When she comes for Christmas it’s like I’m her slaving maid: “Get me this, bring me that, take me to the fancy market. And she doesn’t appreciate any of it. None of it. There’s no gratitude at all.”
Jack smiled placidly. Let her get it off her chest. In another few seconds all this would be forgotten. In fact, it would never have happened, never have been said.
“Grow a pair and tell her to take a step back! You know why your sister doesn’t talk to her anymore? Because Esther is awful. She’s just an awful goddamn human being!”
And everything went dark.
* * *
There were some curious aspects to ReBooting, such as the fact that no one involved had any recollection of the pre-Boot moments. No one understood quite how it worked, though the neurologists and psychologists had pondered it extensively, those first few years.
The mechanism was uncertain but the outcome was clear. The Blank Slate Effect, as they called it, left people free to enact scenes like this one, venting their feelings with impunity. Therapists had debated at first whether that was a maybe healthy thing. Did it release internal pressures, or offer some psychic alignment? But since no one remembered what they’d said pre-Boot, the experts had concluded that the therapeutic value was nil.
* * *
Amanda knew Jack wasn’t listening and she knew why. She’d already finished her stir fry and as she watched him push the food around on his plate, she knew he’d heard from his mother. He always got that same look. The poor guy. He did everything he could to please the woman, and it was never enough.
But she stifled that feeling, toying with the fringed edge of her placemat. Amanda’s sympathy for Esther had been used up long since, and now even her desire to support her husband was starting to wear thin, as far as his mother was concerned. Every visit with her was an ordeal and every conversation they had about Esther turned into a fight. It was putting a strain on her marriage, and Jack wouldn’t even consider the possibility that his connection to his mother was in any way unhealthy.
But Amanda had something else on her mind. “You remember Karen, at work? Her cat had kittens,” she said. “She brought them into work, five little orange ones and a beautiful tortoiseshell with the big slanting eyes. She looks Egyptian, like Cleopatra.”
Jack sighed and pushed his plate away. “I got an email from my mother.”
Maybe he could let her finish a sentence, once in a while?
Amanda got up and started clearing the dishes, while Jack went into the office and printed out his mother’s email. Why did he have to print them out? Was he keeping a scrapbook? Sometimes Esther would copy her on these messages, and Amanda would hit Delete as soon as she’d read them. Sometimes even before she’d read them.
She put the plates away and closed the cabinet door, maybe a little too hard. Started sorting the silverware. Checked her wrist: One down. They’d probably had this conversation already, not just last week and the week before, but within the hour.
“Once she’s gotten used to the area, we’ll find her a place. They’re building that new continuous care community on Allegheny Road. She could move into a cottage.”
Esther wasn’t going to get used to the area because she was going to die in Toledo. Amanda thought she would be glad to drive to Ohio and hasten the process, ha ha. What she said was: “They have senior homes in Toledo.”
Jack was taking pains to be casual about it, pointing out that it was just an idea, after all. Mom hadn’t actually asked to come and stay with them. “But there would be a lot of advantages for us. She could help with the cleaning, do some of the cooking,” he said, using the trying-to-sound-reasonable voice that grated: It was so disingenuous.
The fact that he was being so careful seemed like a tell. Had he already ReBooted the conversation twice? Well, Amanda still had one charge left.
“A minute ago she was too feeble to light the stove, and now she’s going to help with the cooking? Come on, Jack. Let’s at least try to realistic.” She sat at the table just a little sideways, so he couldn’t see her wrist. He knew what she was doing: Everyone had learned by now to read body language, especially in tense situations. Counting each other’s ReBoots, or strategically trying to keep their own ReBoot count hidden.
“I was telling you about the kittens—”
“Please don’t change the subject.” His voice heating up a little. “Something really has to be done for her. She’s going to fall going down the stairs one of these days. And anyway, you know she shouldn’t actually be driving anymore. It just makes sense for her to come here.”
“It makes sense to put her in a home. Just not my home.”
They stared at each other in silence.
“Our home,” Amanda corrected herself.
“What did she ever do to you?” Jack glared. “And anyway, she’s my mother.”
Which wasn’t an answer to anything, and Amanda sill had one ReBoot left. “There’s a reason your sister doesn’t talk to her. Because Esther is awful. You know it, Jack. She’s selfish and self-serving. Your father spent decades trying to make her happy and he never succeeded. She doesn’t want to be happy. And she’s not nearly as helpless as she pretends.”
“She isn’t pretending!” Jack banged his fist on the table. “How are you going to feel when she breaks a hip, or crashes her car? I’m not sure you would care at all...”
She decided he hadn’t used up his ReBoots, after all.
“Even if she died! It would probably be a relief to you. Just because your mother moved to France with that new man of hers and maybe sends a postcard every few months. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? It just makes you sick that I still care about my mother and that she cares about me! I’m sorry about your family, I’m sorry they don’t treat you right. But what’s going on with my mother is real; she really is very old, she really does need our help.”
“You,” she said very quietly, “are pathetic. You know that, right? That woman is wrapped around you like a snake, and she’ll squeeze until she gets every last drop out of you. And you let her. What kind of man are you? You’re forty-five years old and you call your mother three, four times a week. It’s just pathetic.”
Both of them now staring openly at their wrists.
“Why don’t you grow a pair already?” Amanda said, and everything went dark.
* * *
“Egyptian, like Cleopatra.”
“I got an email from my mother.”
Jack saw Amanda check her wrist and scowl. Likely she was out of ReBoots. People couldn’t remember what had happened pre-Boot, but they could infer, and as he watched her scowl deepen, he understood. She was realizing that whatever she’d been trying to tell him just now, something about Egyptians, she must have tried before. And he’d interrupted her before, to talk about his mother’s email. She glared at him and got up from the table.
“Go sit on the couch,” she said and when he did, she walked out the front door with the car keys dangling from her hand. She was back a minute later carrying a cardboard box. She set it down on the coffee table and the flaps bulged, like something was pushing at them from inside the box. “I already named her Cleo.”
The kitten was just a few months old, a tortoiseshell patchwork of deep espresso and glowing salmon-pink. Big green eyes that slanted up at the corners. Amanda placed the kitten on Jack’s lap and it turned circles twice, then curled itself down into a little ball and purred contentedly. Jack stroked its head and back, tentatively at first and then with more confidence. The kitten yawned and stretched, looking up at him with those huge green eyes, then curled back into a purring little fluffball.
He looked at her with a crooked grin. “My mother’s allergic to cats,” he said.
Cleo rolled halfway on her side, and he petted her exposed belly. She extended a languid paw and pushed against his chest.
Jack still had a ReBoot left, but didn’t see any reason to use it. He’d clearly been outplayed, and if he saved it, maybe they could have sex twice tonight. He stroked Cleo’s back, scratched behind her ears.
“I guess Mom will have to stay in her house a while longer,” he said.
Copyright © 2025 by Adam Stone
