Fiction from The Literary Review

When the Aliens Came

Aaron Goranson

The aliens came and took our mothers away. On the third night of the month, under a crescent moon, I saw my mother float away while asleep in her silver nightgown. It was an amazing sight. Like a flock of geese out of my window, she joined the other Moms in the ray of light of the waiting flying saucers. When the last one was taken, the ray closed and the aliens rocketed home to their planet far away. It was strange the next morning. Dad made coffee and took me to the store to get donuts for breakfast, only to find many other Dads there too. Bill’s Dad was even there, in a plaid shirt and jeans, not the blue suit he wears when he arrives home late at night. The chocolate donuts sold out right away. The Dads kept asking each other when they thought the Moms would be brought back. I had a feeling they were gone for good. A lot of kids cried, but the Dads either spanked or bought them another donut.
           When Dad and I returned home, he went upstairs to watch the game on tv and to think this all over. He said to give him a holler if I wanted anything. I went outside to play with my friends. We were gone all day, past dinner and I came back with my shoes tracking mud in the house behind me. Dad was still watching tv. I asked him about dinner, and he told me to look for it in the refrigerator. I stayed up late that first night. Dad fell asleep on the couch as I watched late night cable while eating potato chips with soda. I saw a woman with her shirt off and a man singing in Spanish. I dozed off to a black and white show about a couple screaming at each other while the audience laughed out loud.
           There were still girls. Sisters and daughters and unmarried women still around. They were scared to have a baby, to float away up into the alien’s light. When I asked Charlene, a girl who lives on my street, if she was sad, she shook her head. “They wanted to go. They wanted to see what it was like in outer space.” She pointed to the sky, just above the roof of the Olson’s house. “There, I think they went there.”
           The star was bright and I closed my hands around it and squinted like I was holding a telescope. “I don’t see anything.”
           She rolled her eyes, “You will one day.”

           School changed. The teachers had new classes for us in school: Learn- ing Apologies and Giving Praises instead of English. Getting Dressed took the place of Math. My best friend stayed after many times for his untied laces. He sat in the principal’s office eating chocolate cake with milk and watched tv until he felt better about himself. My favorite class was You Can Be Anything. This is where we wrote down what we wanted to be and read it in front of everyone. The teacher would smile and always tell us to follow your dreams, never give up, and believe in yourself. My grades got better.
           We kept the house clean. Dad did the dishes and laundry. I took out the trash. We picked up things that fell down and put them back after we had used them. What I never heard again was the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Dad swept things up with a broom or mopped the floors down. The machine stayed in the closet.
           Dad worked less at the office, and stopped wearing ties. He was home when I got out of school. He took up gardening. In fact, a lot of Dads quit their jobs. Lawyers became painters. Doctors turned into poets. The stock market collapsed, then disappeared. I bought candy without money. Dad said just to remember to say please and thank you.
           I told him I missed Mom. I wanted to visit her on the star that Charlene pointed at. He said to say a prayer for her and that some day she would take us there, that in the end, everything would be all right. We had a picture of Mom in the living room. It’s a picture of her before I was born. Her hair is cut short, the edges upturned like wings. She’s sitting on some steps smiling, looking at us ready to say, “Can I come along?” I tell her what Dad and I have been doing. I ask her if she misses us or does she like the aliens and their planet better.
           One night, I couldn’t sleep so I got out of bed to find Dad. I heard the tv on, but he wasn’t there. I found him in the kitchen holding a necklace in his hand. I stayed just outside the door. He dropped the necklace in a glass of water and stared at the jewelry sitting at the bottom like it was a coiled snake sleeping. The next morning, I discovered the glass at the center of the breakfast table with some flowers cut from the garden and the necklace gone.
           The price of babysitters went up. They were making enough to buy cars and own houses. Even boys were doing it. Maddie was mine. She was a senior in high school. You knew her name because it was spelled out on a ring with the letters m-a-d-d-i-e. When Dad was gone we would rent movies and she’d tell me which actors she thought were cute. She was saving money to buy a house in Paris where she would have fifteen cats. She would swear at me in French whenever I got her angry. I thought she was pretty.
           If you’re wondering, Dad didn’t remarry. He went out on a lot of dates, however. I would meet some of them when he brought them back from dinner or a movie. I don’t remember many of their names, but I do remember Sarah. She was younger than Mom and older than Maddie.
           “You’re going to be a catch when you get older,” she said shaking my hand.
           “I don’t want to catch anyone,” I said.
           “Don’t you want to be happy?” As she bent down, I noticed the necklace she was wearing. It was different than the one I saw Dad with the other night. This one had a heart shaped pendant with a sparkling diamond at its center.
           “I want my mom back.”
           She kept smiling. “She’s far away. It takes a long time to return.”

           I got older. I went to high school, played on the tennis team and kissed a girl for the first time. I kissed her while swimming in a lake with friends. We all tried to swim as far to the center as we could. She was behind me, and when we got to a distance where the bottom disappeared and we could feel the cold at the end of our toes, she started to panic. I heard her splashing and turned back to help. She grabbed me as if I was a buoy. I felt her arms tight on my shoulders, her heart beating, her breath rising and falling. That’s when she kissed me. We swam back and when we got to shore she kissed me again.
           “I’m sorry,” she said.
           “Don’t be scared.” The stars had come out and we could see the reflection in the lake, ourselves suspended between the horizon as if trapped in the sky. “It’s safer if we kiss during the day,” she said, looking upwards.

           Then someone got pregnant. They stopped the regular broadcast to report it. It was a couple down South. They waved at the camera from the front lawn with their house behind. Excited? Yes. Happy? Overjoyed. Then another couple up North. Then one in our state. The lists were in the paper everyday. The government was giving money to those planning a family.
           Maddie told us it happened to her.
           “I still can’t believe it,” she said, while feeding her cats in the kitchen. “I didn’t think it was possible after what happened to the planet and all.”
           “You’ve been feeling all-right, not sick or anything?” Dad said.
           “Fine. Cravings now and then, but just great.”
           “Do you think it’s a boy or girl?” I asked.
           “I don’t know. Travis thinks it’s a girl. I just feel lucky it happened.”
           “You still going to France?”
           She picked up a gray cat. Its green eyes looked at me like I was guilty. “Not anymore. My life is different now. Maybe I’ll go with my new family to visit one day.”
           On the drive home Dad stopped at a gas station to fill up the tank. I went in for a candy bar and the clerk behind the counter asked for a dollar. I gave him a look.
           “Sorry, but times a changing. Gotta think about the future,” he said, as the cash register rang.
           I told my Dad about it. “I’m getting old,” is all he said.

           One of the last things I remember Mom doing was cutting my hair. She took me to the barber, but when I got home she looked at me funny. “He missed a few spots,” she said, reaching for some scissors. I sat on a chair in the kitchen and Mom circled over my head clipping away. “Now hold still,” she said, as she faced me, cutting the bangs on my forehead. Snip . . . snip . . . snip. “There, much better,” she stepped back smiling. “You’re perfect.”
           I went to see Maddie after her baby was born. It was a boy. I couldn’t believe how small he was. He was lying in the crib with his eyes open, his face blank. She said I could pick him up. I reached over and raised him high enough that he bumped the mobile hanging from the ceiling. It was of stars, planets and rockets and they spun around the sun in a crooked orbit. Maddie reached over to stop them. It’s okay she whispered. The baby’s mouth turned at the corners and formed a smile as curved as a crescent moon.