Warm Wuinter's Garden by Neil Hetzner Read Free Book Online Page A

for his collar, she
said, “Here, let me get that for you before it does you more harm.
For the want of a collar tab, the horse was lost.’
    Herlick stared at Nita trying to understand
whether she had done him a kindness or not. He pulled back a half
step before giving her a tight smile that indicated he was becoming
clear about her intentions. He brushed through the door in front of
her. Nita thought he might be eager to cool a throat grown hot from
the friction of an endless stream of words, or, maybe, his anger
from her few words. Despite her pain, Nita smiled.
    As he passed in front of her she thought
that, from the back, Herlick did look like a horse’s ass. A large
expanse of quivering flesh, a bar seat butt, sat atop long skinny
legs. A spasm wrenched her. Involuntarily, she moaned. Herlick
turned around.
    “You okay?”
    Nita waved him off.
    Herlick walked back and put out his hand.
    “Here, let me take that.”
    Nita hesitated before giving him her
briefcase.
    “You don’t look too good. Food? Flu? Let me
drop you off somewhere.”
    Nita whispered, “No. I’m okay.”
    “That’s perjury, counselor.”
    “Really?”
    “Where’s your car?”
    She pointed.
    Herlick wedged his arm under her elbow and
walked her to her car.
    “You want something cold? Why don’t you sit
here and I’ll go find some water or something.”
    “No, no, thanks. I’ll be fine.”
    “Okay. It’s your call.”
    “Thanks.”
    “No sweat.”
    “And sorry.”
    “For what?”
    “Back there. Being catty.”
    “Cats aren’t bad. I like cats. Especially,
when they purr. See you around, Koster.”
    Nita sat back as still as possible against
the warm leather seat as her car went through a digitized
synthesized equivalent of Herlick’s nattering. She wondered about
the culmination of American technological civilization being a
narcissistic car eagerly relaying mostly useless information about its ﾁ seat belts, its fuel reserves, its temperature, and the status of its doors. Nita was more concerned with how she, rather,
than the car, felt. She thought that if the automobile
manufacturers were smarter they would install sensors that would
measure the blood pressure, stress and pain levels of the car’s
occupants and make some accommodations for those factors. How nice
it would be to get into her car after a long horrible day and have
it say, “ Your fuel reserves are low. Eat a snack.” Or,
“ Your battery is low. Go right home and take a nap.” Or,
“ Your generator is malfunctioning. Go shopping. Treat
yourself.” The voice chip could be etched with the digitized
version of the owner’s mother’s voice. Whatever were the owner’s
family bromides for anxiety, fatigue, or depression, they could be
programmed onto the chip. Nita mused how, once in awhile, it would
be nice to be told what to do. It would be welcome if, right now,
her car were to tell her to go home to bed rather than to go back
to the office to finish the rest of the day’s work that she had
scheduled for herself.
    As Nita lay back surrounded by the comforting
hum the car made as it lowered its temperature, Nita thought
of how nice it would be to have someone put cold compresses on her
head and rub her stomach.
    When Nita’s periods first began, the pain
kept her in bed for, at least, one and, usually, two days each
month. Bett would minister to her. It had become a ritual that
every few months, as she rubbed away the spasms in Nita’s body,
Bett would tell Nita how sorry she was. She had wanted another
baby. She had done what the doctor had suggested. No one had known
the problems that DES would cause. Nita would reassure Bett that
one or two days of pain a month was a very small price to pay for
such a wonderful mother. Bett would expiate; Nita would absolve. In
all of the hours of intimacy, as the mother tended to the
daughter’s pain and the daughter reciprocated, there had never been
a moment so intimate that they discussed the fact, that eight