The Perfection of Theresa Watkins: A Tor.com Original

By Justin C. Key

Justin C. Key's "The Perfection of Theresa Watkins" is a skillful speculative exploration of the intersection of race, mental illness, and the American prison system.

Darius and Theresa Watkins confronted death once as fellow cancer survivors. Their lives are full and productive, their love a shield against Darius's bouts of anxiety and Theresa's occasional flare-ups. Yet when tragedy strikes, Darius will try everything to save his wife...even against his fears that she may have transformed into an entirely different person—literally.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Sep 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781250790255

Justin C. Key

Justin C. Key is a practicing psychiatrist and speculative fiction writer whose stories have appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and Lightspeed, and on Tor.com. He received a BA in biology from Stanford University and recently completed his residency in psychiatry at UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

Book preview

Perfect. Everything had to be perfect. The living room couch’s relation to our centrally framed wedding picture. The entertainment center’s arrangement of rimmed diplomas, captured memories, and diverse snow globes. The half-filled kitchen trashcan, scant dishes in the sink, and a bathroom between cleanings made for a homely smell, one that said we did when we could, and that could came less often than we’d liked.

If things weren’t perfect, I’d lose her again.

The water I poured to ease down the Xanax sloshed out of the cup, onto the counter, and dribbled cold onto my socks. I hated medication, but Resurrection, Inc. advised against the electronic limbic treatments that usually eliminated my attacks all together. They’d prescribed me a short-acting sedative to take as needed until things at home resembled normal. Despite warnings of the medication’s addictive properties, I found myself taking more and more lately.

My arm muscles were trembling tuning forks as I twisted off the medicine cap and popped a pill. Then I counted.

Onetwothree, onetwothree, one, two, three, one … two…three. My heart slowed to its background pace. Thoughts reformed from fragmented worries.

And then, a voice: It took me long enough.

I straightened, banged my head on the edge of the pantry door, and saw stars. One pair amongst them shone bright. One I’d feared I’d never see again.

A white woman stood under the dining room lights. I had spent the morning agonizing on this first moment, formulating the perfect greeting and gestures and phrases fitting for our happily ever after. Now my dead wife was here, and I stood clutching my head, my mouth leaking water. What’s more, I was unprepared to hide the shock. She looked like a distant relative of the wild-haired prisoner from the donor pictures. She looked nothing like my wife.

Except for the eyes.

She spread her arms. I’m white, Darius. Only in America. The voice was wrong; Theresa’s had been lower. Ian’ll have a field day with this.

Life lasts a lifetime, our love lasts forever. The rehearsed phrase had sounded a lot better in front of the mirror that morning.

She laughed. My skin went down a size. This wasn’t going well. I turned to busy my hands with another glass of water.

I’ve missed the shit out of you, she said, suddenly beside me. Her mouth fell over mine. The lips were thin. Her taste was sweet, different than what I was used to; I had kissed the same pair of lips for almost a decade.

I pulled away and touched her face. The skin was rough and pink beneath the makeup, where Theresa’s had been smooth umber.

Do you see me? she asked. I see you.

You have her eyes, I said. "Your eyes, I mean."

Long and thin with sunken cheeks, she had the face of a woman who had been through a few things, but a long time ago. This new face was without menace or malevolence—Resurrection, Inc. had gone through great lengths to reverse decades of incarceration—yet somehow darker in its whiteness than Theresa’s had ever been. Life-etched shadows lingered like erased pencil