The Carbon Copy

by Christopher R. Martin

Chapter 5 – Persistent, aren't we?


The warm water streams from the tap to wash away the suds that have gathered around the kitchen sink. I rinse every glass, spoon, fork, knife and plate and leave them on the rack to dry. The feel of the water on the heel of my paws is cleansing, ridding me of the chaff inside my mind. After a day like today, I could use the relaxation.

Behind me, a pair of arms wrap themselves around me. From the deftness in their touch and the evenly combed pink fur, I deduce the identity of this person and nuzzle my cheek along the arm, allowing the embrace to engulf me.

Richard leans his face over my right shoulder and gazes at me with half-closed eyes.

"You could use a helping hand," he muses, laying a kiss or two on my cheek and the side of my neck.

Whatever his game is, I go along with it and pay his soft stare and kisses in kind by looking at him the same way. "I know," I tell him playfully so as to titillate his senses as well as mine. "This is a job for someone who's big, strong and reliable. But I don't know if you fit the bill."

"Are you kidding? I have all those three qualities," he mutters in oneupsmanship – to see who can outdo who in their teasing. "Isn't that why you have that ring on your finger, and why I have mine on right now?" He presents to me my left paw, which has my wedding ring, and his right paw, which has his ring.

I never took Richard to be smooth with his words. Where and when did my husband get this sharp, snappy tongue? If he picked it up from someone, I should call them up and thank them.

"Show me," I challenge him, smirking in a way that could be mistaken for seductive.

"If you say so, darling."

He and I continue teasing each other. At first it's strictly in the realm of words, but it soon escalates to more physical, intimate levels. He'd reach out his paw and hold my wrist in order to 'help out' – half-jokingly and half-serious. He'd do it at the worst of times, too; he takes me in his grasp when I have a plate, glass or utensil and the sponge to scrub them with.

That only tickles my sensibilities even further. Soon enough, we lose ourselves in our playfulness. In the rapture. The suds and water spill out of the sink and onto my bare feet. Richard and I get a little too rough, and I fall forward, splashing most of that water onto us. I yelp from getting myself soaked, but our good-spirited fun stays intact.

Rather than going ballistic on my husband, I laugh amidst my wetness. In spite of my now-drenched shirt clinging to my skin and fur. In spite of the bubbly beard below and around my chin.

My shirt being as wet as it is, I turn around and lean on the edge of the sink, still laughing to my heart's content. Richard is no better off than I am; some of the water has found its way onto his face, too, and his sudsy beard is bigger than mine.

Only now do I find that my husband has his uniform on. The uniform that he had gotten from regaining his delivery guy job at Fervidus Pizzeria. So far, the universe is in agreement with this change in the status quo. If the cosmos has no problem with that, there's no reason for me to.

I can say, with all the confidence in the world, that I'm proud of him. The fears that I had at first—fears that I never told him—have been abated.

"Richard!" I shriek, wiping the suds off of my face. "See what you do?"

"Afraid to get messy, huh?" Richard replies invitingly.

"Oh, you like that, don't you?" I dab my paws into the water and bare my teeth at him in a grin. "Then, here!" I flick my fingers at him, and he shields his face from the droplets with his arm.

He takes to the sink and proceeds to do the same, and he and I are locked in a childish exchange punctuated by plenty more shrieks and laughs. Back and forth we flick our dripping wet paws at each other. At this rate, our fingers are definitely going to get prune-y. In roughly ten seconds, he comes at me with arms wide open. He puts me in his arms, his own clothes now clinging to him.

A heat wells up in my chest, causing my heart to accelerate. In my want for a bit of relaxation, this excitement is more than I asked for. I put my arms around him, our laughter slowing down. I caress that pudgy, goofy face and become immersed in his gaze. The endearing childishness in them gradually transitions into that face of passion he had when he first came into the kitchen.

Our hearts synchronize. The heat in his chest burns as much as the one I'm experiencing right now. His breath washes over mine. So tantalizing… It puts me into a trance. An inescapable high. Not that I'd try to get away from it.

Then he leans forward, careful with how he handles me. I trust that he won't let me fall. My eyes flutter closed as our lips touch. As our tongues meet and pull. I'm on a whole new plane of being. High above ground. While my heart was just accelerating a while ago, this time it's speeding on a highway, with no stopping it any time soon. One paw holds his face, rubbing it in circular motions, and the other sits over his chest. It's warm there. It's pounding, like a drum.

I wonder when the last time we kissed like this was. I wonder if it had put the two of us in a temporary high like this one has. Potential differences aside, I'm sure that our feelings were the only thing that has stayed the same from then and now.

As our lips remain locked, Richard clasps his paw over mine. I peek at him with my left eye and notice that he does not even have to open his to know what he's doing or where he's taking his paw. It's second nature to him.

Yes, the unbridled 'me' screams. More. Give me more, damn you!

In our moment of passion, that irritating vibration from earlier today rustles my skirt. Richard pulls away, and I lift my body off of the sink. As I fish out the item in question from my pocket, my husband watches me with a pout on his face. Damn him! Damn these cute expressions that he can pull off and still work so well.

Taking out my phone, I resist the urge to fling it all the way to the wall on the opposite side of the house. A lot of people say that I'm stubborn, much to their detriment, of course. Yet it's got me thinking if my stubbornness is hereditary. This attempted call proves it right. What is wrong with this woman? What right does she have to insert herself into my life after I've removed myself from hers?

Who in the world does she think she is?

"Nicole?" asks Richard nervously, twiddling his thumbs. "Honey? Something wrong?"

"No. I'm okay, Richard," I reply, my answer unstable.

Knowing me better than anyone else, my husband picks up on my discomfort and walks me to the dinner table, where he pulls out a chair for me. "Leave the rest of the dishes to me." He fondles my cheek and then the corner of my eye, as if there's a teardrop there. There might as well be. Giving me a peck on the forehead, he goes to the kitchen and continues from where I left off.

The dishes might have usually been my chore, as are most of the other chores in this house, I'm glad for him taking the load off of my shoulders tonight. I'm grateful for him more than I already am.

It should give me the space that I need, the opportunity to answer this call. But if he believes that I will, I'm afraid he's wrong where he's concerned.


I turn the living room lights off and make it up the stairs to retire for the night. On my way to the hallway, I see the door to the kids' room slightly ajar. I spare a minute to enter and leave all three of them a kiss on the forehead. They may be getting less fond of it as they grow older, but just this one time wouldn't hurt.

First is Anais on the top bunk, who curls into a ball in her blanket. After her is Darwin, which proves to be tricky until I just kiss the surface of his bowl. For some reason, he seems to sense it anyway, because his mouth curves into a smile. Last but not least is my little man. My first born. He may not realize it, or if he does he might not believe it, but my pride in him outweighs my shame.

If there's one thing I've learned in my experiences that I want to pass on to my children, it's that every triumph, every accomplishment, that comes their way, big or small, are undeniably theirs. And nothing, no one, can ever take that away from them. The brief taste that I had this afternoon of my son's untapped promise is a badge that he can wear with confidence, with pride. I wouldn't at all be surprised if his accomplishes surpass mine.

Putting these musings to heart and to mind, I give Gumball a kiss on his cheek, and he lightly moans and turns in his sleep. I then continue on, closing the door behind me. Inside our room, Richard is already fast asleep, which is why I'm careful with how I open the door and how I enter. The air inside is filled with his snoring. His uniform hangs on the bottom of the bedframe.

Shutting the door, I take to the closet on ginger steps. There I slip out of my shirt and skirt, which I then cast to the side along with the other clothes that need to be washed, and into my nightgown. At my side of the bed, I lean over my husband's head and give him a kiss on his rotund cheek and then drift off myself.

I try to, anyway, but the vibrations of my cell phone return, pulling me out of my slumber at the last minute. Groaning, I take the blasted thing from the nightstand and read the screen. It's a good thing I set it to silent before coming in here.

For once this isn't a phone call. It's a courtesy text message from my service provider informing me about voicemails in my inbox. I call the number on the text and am astonished by the automated speaker saying that I have sixteen new voicemails. I'm tempted to get rid of them, but a tiny, meek voice in my head encourages me to listen to them. It spurs me on, and I heed its advice.

From the nightstand drawer, I fetch a pair of earbuds and plug them in my phone's headphone jack so that Richard won't be disrupted. I listen to the prompts and do as they instruct me to do. The oldest of these messages plays first.

It's her.

"Are you there, Nicole? It's me. I actually tried calling you earlier today, but I didn't know what I should say. I might not even have had it in me to say anything. If you get this message, you're probably wondering how I found out your number. That's not important. What's important is…I just want to speak to you. One more time. I know that given all those years of resentment you've had against me, you won't be willing to give me that chance, but you're still my daughter. I don't want to live the rest of my life knowing that the wedge between us hasn't closed. I don't want to live another day thinking about how you hate me so much. If you still hate me so, I won't hate you in return. But I would like to hear your voice again. Please, Nicole. Please…"

The sound of her voice speaking into my ear now leaves a different impression in me from when I heard it back then. Mother had my entire life mapped out for as long as I can remember. If I had known any better, she mapped it out since she bore me in her womb. When I was a child, I knew this much already. I would have learned of it even if she hadn't made her intentions so pronouncedly clear. Still, I loved her dearly, believing that she had the best intentions in mind for me. And she did. I loved her and Dad fiercely, believing that their love for me was there, too, if not immediately apparent.

What a lie that turned out to be. What was their example of parental love? Forcing their child to make it to their karate tournament on foot? Checking on me every ten minutes as I poured countless hours studying, after proving that I've been consistently getting straight A's? Making me jeopardize my friendships in the name of being better than anyone else? In the name of a competition that might not have existed? That didn't have to exist?

I scroll through the rest of the messages. They're all from the same sender, my mother, and they're all the same. She's pleading for me to give her a call, and the more I hear her begging, the less I'm inclined to carry it out.

They're not completely the same, though. Around the fourth voicemail, she's figured that while she's on the phone, she might as well start something resembling a conversation and recaps on the good old days. In one of her messages, she mentions that one time when I was in a ball pit and I had pushed a random kid for pushing me in the first place. In another, she brings up my first karate lesson with sensei Yoshida and how he took a liking to me the instant I walked in.

These memories comprise the later messages, and I listen to them up until the tenth one. After that, I hang up, put the earbuds back to their original place and set my phone down on the nightstand. I switch the lamp off and pull the blanket up to my shoulders.

I close my eyes. Just before I drift off, my mother's voice pervades my mind. She's uttering words I'd never thought I'd hear from her. Words that I might have heard her say, but have forgotten down the road. Words such as 'well done, Nicole' or 'I'm so proud of you' or 'have a nice day, sweetie'. They ease my departure to the dreamland.

Perhaps my concern for them wasn't a coincidence. It wasn't an accident. Maybe. I don't know. I'll have to see her face-to-face, for the first time in forever, to confirm this. If I ever do.


Author's Note:

I'm planning on getting the first video reading out there by next week at the soonest. Stay tuned to my channel and my social media pages for that.