Blood Kin by Steve Rasnic Tem Read Free Book Online

he struggled to get her in. It would have been easier to just let her mess herself and then clean up afterwards. But she would have none of that. Not that he blamed her. She still had her pride, and he guessed it was his job to help her maintain it. He’d been pretty ungrateful the past couple of weeks, pretty unkind. He certainly didn’t like doing things like this for her, but he wanted to do a better job of it.
    Of course he’d felt uncomfortable taking care of her. He’d never been good at taking care of anything. Once when Allison had taken a month-long trip his only job had been to water the plants, which he didn’t do, not once. He’d been too busy watching TV, smoking weed, or hanging out at a bar with a few — well, he would never have called them friends — acquaintances. He discovered that two of the plants were dead a few days before she got back. He didn’t know what else to do but dump a great deal of water into the pots as evidence that they’d been watered. They’d only died because, well, plants die, not because of any lack of diligence on his part.
    But another plant had thrived, despite his lack of care. She had it in the corner of the living room where it didn’t get much light. He had no idea what it was — some kind of thorny vine. And despite the lack of both water and light it had grown at least two feet in her absence, probably more.
    The only reason he’d noticed it was because he’d tripped over it one morning coming out of the bathroom. Sprawled on the rug he was able to see the pot of it there in the corner between the furniture legs. He had no memory of having seen it before. The pot was small, and yet the vine was long, sprawling. Where were its roots? Certainly there was no room for them in that little pot. He kicked the plant back into the corner. One runner of it clung to his shoe. He broke that piece off in disgust. Not knowing what else to do he flushed the broken piece down the toilet.
    By the next day the plant had extended itself back into the center of the living room. Another day, Michael imagined, and it would be tapping on the bedroom door. He couldn’t think about this anymore. He gathered up the whole thing, pot and all, and carried it out on the balcony and threw it into the alley below.
    Once Allison was back he showed her the two dead plants and told her how sorry he was. He wasn’t good with plants. After all, he’d said, he’d watered them and yet they still died. Better yet, when she said “It’s okay, that happens sometimes,” he’d acted upset that he’d “let her down” and said he would find four “great” plants to replace them with. She’d been impressed by his concern, and he never had to get around to buying those plants. He never brought up the missing plant and she never mentioned it. Maybe she’d forgotten she had it.
    He cleaned up his grandmother a couple more times that day, helped her get into a nice dress, made her some soup. After a while doing these intimate chores for her didn’t seem so bad. He was getting used to the embarrassing nudity and the smell, the mess. He thought about what it would be like if he ever got old. There was also something — “cleansing” wasn’t quite the right word but it would have to do — about taking care of someone in just this way. Lifting them on the toilet, wiping their butt if you had to. Taking care of someone else’s bathroom business. Someone famous had called it a “holy task.” Michael wouldn’t have gone that far, but he thought maybe there was some truth in it.
    Last night’s story had worked inside him long after she’d gone to bed. He’d sat out on the porch, the night pitch-black except for the antique kerosene lamp beside him. There were few places you could get a night like this, without street or house lights to bring detail out of the dark.
    As much as possible he tried to allow the immediate sensations of her young life to leave him, to dissipate and join whatever