Elaine Vilar Madruga

trans. by Toshiya Kamei

EXpiration Date

The cat roamed all over the house as though it owned every inch of it. I loathed it, but you said with a smile and a wave of your hand: “Ania, the kids will love it.” You were right. The kids and the cat were almost inseparable. The cat lived with us for what seemed like an eternity so it eventually grew on me, so much so that I practically forgot it was a copy.

You did everything for Nia and Robbie. More for Nia than Robbie. You were willing to do anything for her including bringing home the cat that cost half your paycheck.

“Money grows wings and flies away,” you said as I stared down at our checkbook. You sensed my torment, so you said, “Money’s but a cloud, life’s but a walking shadow.” The phrase rang a bell, so I answered, “Don’t copy Shakespeare.” I faked a grimace, but you hugged me from behind. Then I said, “It doesn’t matter. In the end, it’s all for the kids.”

Nia adored the cat. In her own way, of course. Robbie christened it “Thor.” One day, to our surprise, Nia whispered the copy’s moniker. A strange mixture of joy and envy filled me. Nia called the cat by its name but not us. No “Mom” or “Dad.”

“It’s still something,” you consoled me. I could never tell whether you felt joy or envy. You often wore a blank face. You hid your emotions better than I did. Like that time, in intensive care, Nia was hooked up to tubes and monitors. She was more like a ghost than a girl. Her organs were failing, our debts snowballed, and my mind was bogged down with red numbers, but we had to give everything, give more than everything, sell even our souls, to save Nia’s only kidney. So we did. We saved her. We were heroes, heroes in misery.

When we left the hospital, a family friend embraced me.

“How lucky you are, Ania,” she said. “How lucky you are to have him.”

I didn’t understand her. “Have her,” I corrected her. “We still have Nia. Is that what you meant?” My friend shook her head.

“Do you know how many mothers end up raising special-needs kids alone?” she asked. “You should be proud of your hubby. He’s a hero.”

She was right, but I hated her for saying that. Nia was ours. Your responsibility and mine. It was a silent covenant between us, a family drowning in debt.

You’d be pleased to know our boy is all grown up now. He’s got no mustache yet, but a few weeks ago he brought home a skinny tattooed girl with an orange streak in her hair. I hated her right away. Later, she grew on me. Nia loves her tattoos. She runs her fingers across the girl’s skin as if those drawings were the most precious treasure in the world. You’ve always said I’m suspicious by nature. With an orange streak in her hair and a coquettish voice, the girl seems like a video game character.

“Don’t pretend to be old, Mom,” Robbie whispers behind me. Then he hugs Nia and she stirs. Robbie noisily kisses her cheek. Nia gets ticklish and says, “Bobob.” That’s how she says Robbie’s name. I’m “Amam.” You’re . . . “Api.”

You weren’t here when she said it for the first time. It happened four years ago. You would have given Nia smooches while smearing her face with tears. You were always an optimist.

“Someday she’ll walk. Someday she’ll talk,” you predicted. Not everything has come true. Nia still has special needs. She babbles, but she walks with her robotic walkers which she received for her fifth birthday. Thanks to you, thanks to Api. Api the hero.

I’ll learn to love the girl with an orange streak who looks like something out of a video game. It always happens like that, doesn’t it? I used to hate the cat, but I cried over its death. But according you, it didn’t really die because a copy isn’t flesh and blood. Its disappearance should weigh less heavily.

I never imagined a copy would come with an expiration date. To my surprise, the cat lay on the floor as if asleep. I poked it in the ribs, but it didn’t stir. Nothing seemed out of place except that it was too quiet. I buried the dead cat in the garden before Nia and Robbie saw it. That is, the copy’s lifeless shell. I sobbed alone as my waiting began in earnest.

Being a hero’s wife, the mother of a hero’s children, has aged me. At first, our debts carved years in my face. “Take it easy,” you told me, but it was impossible. I cut our expenses to the bone. Robbie’s infancy was marked by misery. Nia had it all. Everything we could give her. But it wasn’t enough either.

Sometimes I’m tormented by the decision you made because of me.

“Life’s but a walking shadow. You’ve got to make the right decisions at the right times,” you whispered to me one night and then kissed my neck. “You don’t have to be afraid. You won’t be alone.”

You had skills, a great body, and youth. Youth was worth more than anything. It was your only valuable property in a world where Nia’s life was measured in debt.

Before you left, you bought the kids that odious cat for which I later bawled like a child when its expiration date came.

You never told me where you were being taken away. In which circle of asteroids you were going to be secluded, what factory had purchased your youth, the next fifteen years of your optimism.

“It’ll be over before you know it. I’ll be back in no time,” you swore. “You won’t be alone.”

A couple of years had passed before I learned your body’s fate when your first message arrived. Before that, your salary was deposited into our account with bureaucratic punctuality. Money in exchange for a father, a husband.

Your message was brief and contained no trace of optimism. You told me your body had been annihilated in one of Tau Erena’s independence uprisings. I remember the word: annihilation. But you weren’t dead. You had become an amorphous mass with a consciousness. A piece of man. A piece, no longer a man. You called yourself a monster and asked for death, but only between the lines, because the message still contained something of you, clinging to the hope of finding robotic compatibility.

“This thing I am now will be able to come home at some point, when military technology develops the exoskeleton they promised me, so you won’t be alone.”

A couple of months later your gift arrived. Someone knocked on the door. When Robbie opened it, he screamed, “Dad! Dad! Dad!” With each cry, my soul came out of my mouth. I carried Nia as best I could. I ran with her to the door, to Robbie. There he was. There you were.

“Hello, Ania,” he said in your voice. “I’ve got a message for you. You should read it before you shut the door in my face.”

What made you think something like this would do us any good? You wanted to be heroic as always, but when you repeat heroism, it gets tiresome. It stops making sense.

“The kids need a father. If the kids grew up next to the copy, they would somehow remember me.”

I dragged Robbie back inside and slammed the door shut.

“That’s not your father!” I screamed. “It’s fake, like the cat over there!”

“Life’s but a walking shadow,” the copy whispered in your voice behind the closed door. “Nothing is false. Everything is relative.”

The next few days were torture for us. Robbie spat on the floor for the first time. “Let my father in. Don’t you like him anymore?” It did no good to remind him that this being was nothing more than a replica of his father’s physical image.

“For the first time in your life, could you do something just for me?” my son pleaded.

Finally, the copy came into our house. He was kind to the kids. Robbie still called him “Dad.” I was thinking of you, the exoskeleton promised to you. I was thinking about how Nia would adapt to that stranger.

“Hello, baby,” the copy said, hugging our daughter. “I’ve missed you so much.”

During all these years, I’ve hated you more than once. Or I’ve hated your memory. I can no longer tell where memory ends and imagination begins.

Then your letters arrived with your questions.

“Do the kids like him? Is he like me?”

“Have you ever wondered if copies can make love?”

“Have you seen him naked?”

“Do you call him by my name?”

“Has he begun to grow on you?”

Nia grew up beside him. One day she called him Api. Until then, I had given up naming him in any way. But I had trouble staying faithful to your shadow when my two children called him “Dad.”

I remember when the cat’s expiration date came. I buried it in the garden, alone. I didn’t want the kids to know. But he was there.

“Are you sorry for the cat?” he asked. “It didn’t feel anything. I can assure you.”

“Leave me alone, I pushed him away.

“Will you be sorry for me when my expiration date comes?”

I looked at him in panic.

“Are you going to die?”

“I’ll be turned off when your husband comes back,” he replied. “But the kids won’t miss me then.”

This is my curse—loving heroic men, heroic things. It didn’t matter if it was a copy or the real thing. At that moment, I didn’t feel like being alone.

Three years passed before I allowed him to sleep in our bed. At first, I was afraid to touch him. Surely it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be your skin, your smell, or your real body. But when that night came, it felt the same.

Your messages kept coming all this time.

“Do the kids call him ‘Dad’?”

“Do you know if you love him?”

“Does it hurt to think you love him when he’s not me?”

“Do you consider him part of our family?”

“What will you do when I come home, Ania?”

“Do you still want me back?”

“Are you still lonely?”

Time has passed. Robbie’s girl, the one with the orange streak in her hair, has learned how Nia likes to be kissed. Robbie recently made love for the first time. Is it beautiful? Is it terrible? He didn’t come to me for advice. He went to his father. Do you understand me? Our son went to him, hugged him tight, and then said, “Dad, I love you so much.”

I wasn’t there, but he told me everything afterwards. I felt jealous.

“C’mon.” He kissed my neck. “We’re still young. We’ll show them what lovers do,” he said and led me to our bedroom.

That night I didn’t sleep a wink. I searched his skin for any signs of his expiration date. Did he have a mark, an expiration code invisible to the naked eye?

Maybe even he doesn’t know.

How about you? Are you keeping this secret, as your revenge?

“Honey, it’s up to me to decide when he disappears,” you said. “Did you know that?”

This morning your message arrived. It was still early. Nia had passed a terrible night. After dawn broke, I could finally get some shut-eye. He got up to make breakfast. Robbie’s girlfriend had stayed overnight. She moaned as Robbie made love to her in his bedroom. How beautiful to be young. What a terrible price to pay for it. Youth you sold for us. For Nia and Robbie. For me.

“Baby,” his voice woke me. “You’ve got a new message.”

He didn’t have to tell me your name. Now the name also belongs to him. His eyes told me who it was from.

“Aren’t you going to read it?” he asked.

It was marked “Urgent.”

“Have you read it?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but I knew he had.

“Should a copy get jealous?” His voice cracked as he mumbled.

“What did it say?” I asked.

“Read it.”

“No. Why don’t you tell me? That’s better.”

“‘I’m coming home, Ania. Have you missed me? I’ve got you another gift. A copy. I hope you’ll like it as much as the last one. Hopefully, it’ll grow on you,’” he recited.

Chills ran through me as I tried to keep fear at bay. I hugged him and ran my fingers through his hair, revealing the gray roots that had begun to show.

“We’re getting old, honey,” I mumbled.

Nia stirred and woke up in her room.

“Api, Api,” she chirped.

“Good morning, baby.” He averted his eyes and ran to meet her.

Elaine Vilar Madruga is a Cuban poet, fiction writer, and playwright. Her most recent book is the novel Los años del silencio (2019). Translated by Toshiya Kamei, Elaine’s work has appeared in venues such as the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Star*Line, and World Literature Today.

Toshiya Kamei is a fiction writer whose short stories have appeared in New World Writing, Trembling With Fear, and Utopia Science Fiction, among others.