Made for Love
Alissa Nutting
DEDICATION
FOR DEAN—
WHO CAME TO GET ME,
AND DID
I
THE GOALS WE PURSUE ARE ALWAYS VEILED. A GIRL WHO LONGS FOR MARRIAGE LONGS FOR SOMETHING SHE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT. THE BOY WHO HANKERS AFTER FAME HAS NO IDEA WHAT FAME IS. THE THING THAT GIVES OUR EVERY MOVE ITS MEANING IS ALWAYS TOTALLY UNKNOWN TO US.
—MILAN KUNDERA,
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
1
AUGUST 2019
HAZEL’S SEVENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD FATHER HAD BOUGHT A DOLL. A life-size woman doll. The kind designed to provide a sexual experience that came as close as possible to having sex with a living (or maybe, Hazel thought, a more apt analogy was a very-very-recently deceased) female. Its arrival crate bore an uncanny resemblance to a no-frills pine coffin. It made Hazel recall the passage from Dracula where he ships himself overseas via boat.
The ravaged crate now sat in the middle of his living room, surrounded by an array of tools, both legitimate and makeshift. One of the items on the floor was a can opener. Getting the doll out by himself had required tenacity. There were small pieces of chipped wood everywhere. They made it seem like the crate had harbored an animal that had escaped and was prowling the house.
The mechanical crawl of her father’s Rascal mobility scooter announced his arrival behind her, but Hazel’s eyes had locked upon the crate. It was big enough for her to climb inside. She could sleep in it. Now that Hazel was technically homeless, she was looking for “available bed” potential in everything she saw.
So could I sleep inside that, or upon it? suddenly seemed like a great question to ask about everything in sight. Maybe the crate would bring the best sleep of her life? It might feel nice to sleep without any extra space, especially after years of trying to sleep with the most space possible between her and the other person in her bed, who was always Byron. In the box there’d be no room to fidget around. No trying to attempt the best position since only one position would be possible. Maybe she’d be able to just lie down and shut off. Recharge like one of the thousand electronic devices Byron owned.
“Owned” was a simplification. He’d also invented them. Byron had founded and built a technologies empire. His wealth and power were a terrifying glimpse of the infinite.
She’d left Byron for good that morning, along with all forms of available funds or identification. Hazel understood that things were not going to end well for her.
Her father would let her stay with him, wouldn’t he? It was selfish to ask for asylum—there was nothing harmless about Byron—but she liked to feel she had no other choice. Marriage to an eccentric tech multimillionaire had been kind of isolating.
Her best option was not to think about how she was putting her father’s life at risk. But she didn’t want to think about the current situation in her father’s living room either. There was actually nothing she wanted to think about, so she decided to administer a series of firm bites to her bottom lip and really try to focus on the pain.
“Haze!” Her father’s voice was a celebratory roar void of embarrassment. “How the hell are you! I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I let myself in,” Hazel said. Walking up his driveway, Hazel had felt presumptuous entering her father’s home with a suitcase, but now, seeing the sizable detritus his newest guest had brought with her, she found some comfort in the fact that she wasn’t putting him out luggagewise, even if her presence might be endangering his life. She hadn’t come with a giant casket, for instance!
Instead of greeting him, Hazel went to the window and peeked out of the blinds to make sure she hadn’t been mistaken. “I didn’t see your car parked anywhere so I figured you weren’t home.”
“Sold it!” her father barked. “I’m not going to need to leave the house much anymore. I’m entering a sort of honeymoon phase with Diane here.”
“You sold the station wagon to buy a sex doll?”
Her father cleared his throat over the low purr of the Rascal’s motor. The throat clear had been a signal between them for as long as Hazel could remember, a reprimand. It meant she’d used improper terminology and offended someone. For example, Shady Place, the retirement community where her father lived, was a trailer park for adults over fifty-five. Except calling them trailers was frowned upon. Hazel had made the mistake of using the word “trailer” just once when talking to Mrs. Fennigan, her father’s garden-obsessed neighbor. Your flowers are like supermodels! Hazel had said. Except in only good ways that aren’t entangled with the violent forces of sexism! When I look at the front of your trailer, I feel like I’m watching an action film starring colors instead of people. The cones and rods in my eyes are starting to ache a little, actually—and the woman had immediately stopped pruning, turned around toward Hazel with the clippers, and started taking tiny steps in Hazel’s direction while opening and closing the clippers in a deliberate way, as if they were the jaws of a giant insect. Her father had conspicuously coughed, grabbed Hazel’s arm, waved to the neighbor, and pulled Hazel away. Manufactured homes, he’d whispered sharply, you call them manufactured homes, what the hell were you thinking, who the hell raised you?
“Not a doll. This is Diane, Hazel,” her father said. “I’m going to have to ask you to acknowledge her personhood. Come on, turn around and say hello. Don’t be shy.”
Hazel took a deep breath and told herself to be a good sport—she was about to ask him if she could move into his house, after all—but when her eyes took in the entirety of the situation she couldn’t stop a petite scream from leaving her mouth. Diane was “riding” on her father’s lap; the weight of the doll’s torso had tipped it forward against the Rascal’s handlebars and the two of them were positioned in such a way that he could very realistically be enjoying her right then. They were both wearing bathrobes. She recognized the faded fleece butterfly print on Diane’s; the robe had belonged to Hazel’s dead mother.
Hazel knew her father couldn’t be expected to pick up on the desperate nature of her drop-in visit, but still. She was finished with pretending objects were human. Byron treated his electronics like lesser wives.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’d prefer to opt out of this particular delusion.”