by Platt, Sean
She closed the front door and took out her phone.
Called Anderson so she could ask him to pretty please — and without any judgment — pick up her meds at the pharmacy on his way home.
She called three times, got the voicemail each time, then left a message on her fourth unanswered call.
“Hey … it’s me … I need you to pick up my prescription on the way home … if you can … I mean, I think I really need you to. It’s not a big deal or anything, and please don’t come home yelling at me about it or calling me names … I just—” GODDAMN IT “—I’m just feeling a bit out of sorts right now and think I should probably listen to the doctor … and I know how you feel about — maybe I can just pick up the prescription myself. No need to call me back.”
Liz hung up, hating herself and wondering if she should leave a more assertive, or at least more definitive, message. Instead of something so frantic and nonsensical, that would only leave her open to ridicule.
She dropped the phone into her purse, set her purse by the door, and headed up the stairs and down the hall to Junior’s room.
His door was ajar, so she gave no mind to entering.
But Liz screamed when she did, startled to see Junior standing in the middle of his bedroom, holding a knife to his own throat.
Not knowing what else to do, Liz ran in and smacked the knife out of his hand. Then she grabbed him by both shoulders and began to shake him.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, Mommy?” Junior was already starting to cry.
“The knife! What were you doing with it?”
“What knife?” he asked, sounding confused and on the edge of tears.
Liz looked down, but she didn’t see the knife.
She looked harder, looked everywhere, including inside herself, to confirm that she might be crazy.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?”
“Nothing, honey.” She hugged him tightly against her. “I’m so, so sorry.”
And then it was the other way around, with Junior holding his mother as she sobbed.
Anderson came home early from work with her meds and a surprising amount of compassion. He kissed his wife and made her feel special. Told her that everything would be okay. His voice was like honey, and Liz loved that. At least for tonight, she believed him.
Everything will be okay.
But something was wrong. And something terrible was going to happen. She could feel it as sure as she could feel him against her. She tried to tell herself it was just her panic as she took her pills and waited for them to go to work.
Twenty minutes later, she felt a bit calmer, but was still upset about what happened, and started softly crying again while tucking her son into bed.
“You know I would never hurt you, right?”
“I know, Mommy.”
Thirteen
October 17, 2011 …
Night had fallen.
After taking too many anti-anxiety meds, she had accidentally passed out on the couch and slept the day away.
When she woke to the smell of dinner cooking, Junior’s culinary skills growing yet again, she felt fuzzy and off.
She went to the bathroom, then made her way to the kitchen where Junior was sitting at the table, pushing gooey pasta around on his plate.
“You made dinner?”
“Yes,” he said, without any of the smiles or pride he’d displayed at breakfast.
She made a plate for herself, got a bottle of water from the fridge, then sat across from him and started eating. The pasta was good, despite it being about a mile from al dente.
He was quiet. Too quiet.
Then, as if he’d read her mind, he smiled. “Do you like it, Mommy?”
His mouth is smiling, but his eyes are not.
“Yes, it’s great,” she said, forcing a smile back.
“You okay, Mommy?”
“Yes. Just … still groggy.”
“Yeah, you sure did sleep.”
“Did my friend Colette come by?”
“Everybody’s gone.”
“Right,” she said, not wanting to argue.
They continued eating in silence as she sneaked glances to see if his mask would slip. But the disingenuous smile stayed on his face.
She felt horrible for thinking the worst of her son. Then a disturbing thought occurred to Liz as she remembered the time she’d imagined him holding a knife to his own throat. What if he wasn’t the one who had done something they didn’t remember? What if it was her?
What if I did something to Anderson?
She tried to shove the thought away, but the more Liz considered it, the more likely it seemed. Her mother had lost her mind. And she was abused by her father for years. She had forgotten most of her childhood. What if that, along with Anderson’s abuse, had fractured her mind?
What if Anderson found out she was leaving and confronted her? And she did something.
Except that didn’t make any sense. Anderson and Junior went out together, and only one of them came home.
What if Junior saw me do it, but he split when it happened, and he’s not letting himself remember what I did because he can’t handle the truth?
The more she circled that possibility, the more it made sense, and the more frightened she became. Because no matter what kind of monsters might be lurking outside, there was nothing more terrifying than the one that might be lurking inside her mind. The one that might hurt her child.
She looked up at him, tears welling up in her eyes as she became convinced of her own madness.
He was staring past her, out the kitchen window to the shed.
“Can you hear it?” He slowly turned to meet her eyes.
“Hear what?”
“Them.”
She probably imagined the sound of distant clicking, then shook off her chill and offered him a smile that felt like manual labor. “Who, Andy? Who do you want me to hear?”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to hear, Mommy. I asked if you could. Can you hear them?”
“Can I hear what or who, Andy? You have to help me understand.”
His smile widened again; her son delighted to assist. “The things that came from the sky. But it’s okay, Mommy. I will protect you.”
Protect me from what? “How are you going to protect me?”
Still smiling, Junior whispered, “They’re scared of me.”
She swallowed. “What do they look like?”
“Like smoke and darkness and liquid. All of it rolled into a blob. But they can also look like us.”
“Like us?”
“Yes.”
And his smile now scared the hell out of her.
Is he saying he’s a fucking alien? Does he think he’s an alien now?
“Why are they afraid of you?”
“Because they don’t understand me. They can’t figure me out, Mommy. They keep trying and trying and …” Junior finished the thought with an obnoxiously long laugh.
“Why can’t they figure you out?”
“Because I’m …” This time, he finished by using his pointer finger to make tiny circles at his temple. He giggled as he said the word. “Cuckoo.”
She swallowed again and barely managed to get the knot down her throat. “Are you scared of them?”
“Only sometimes.” He blinked with his lips pursed, as if ready to speak but still processing his next thought before sputtering back to life like a freshly buffered video. “Do I scare you, Mommy?”
“No!” Immediate and emphatic. “Of course not!”
Andy stared at her, seeming to look through both her and the lie. It felt like he was somehow peering into her soul, seeing every fiction and falsehood of her artificial life.
She tried to swallow but couldn’t.
Looking at her son, Liz suddenly realized part of the problem. She still had no idea what had happened with the woods and that crazy storm, or where her husband had run off to, but at least she finally understood what w
as making her feel so crazy, why she had been treating her only child with such suspicion.
Andy had been looking more and more like Anderson.
That was unsettling enough, but lately, he had been acting a lot more like him, too. Liz didn’t know if that had anything to do with his neural disorder, or the organic result of nature and nurture harmonizing for the last dozen years, but the blend made her more paranoid than she would otherwise be. Looking like his father, and lately, treating her like his father did made Liz realize that she’d begun to hate him a little, even though it wasn’t his fault at all.
Surely he could feel it. No wonder he didn’t want to be called Junior anymore.
Andy was still staring at her, just like his father would, waiting for Liz to collapse and finally confess whatever it was she had been withholding from him.
But then the moment popped, and he said, “It’s okay, Mommy.”
“What’s okay?”
“I scare me too, sometimes.”
She flinched.
“Like right now,” he added.
Then more of that obnoxiously long laugh.
“You don’t scare me, Andy. I think you’re really interesting.”
“Bullshit!” Andy snapped. “Interesting is a bullshit word! Say what you mean, Liz!”
“I think you’re special. Like—”
“Like a short bus, Liz?”
“Stop it!”
A long beat, two blinks, then, “What is it, Mommy?”
“Nothing …”
“You know I would never hurt you, right, Mommy?”
Liz could swear she heard an echo of her own voice saying the same thing two months ago after she thought she’d caught him with the knife.
Fear tightened its grip around her heart and slithered into her guts.
“I know, Andy. Of course, you wouldn’t.”
She turned her face as she stood, then scurried toward the sink to hide her falling tears.
But the little alien could probably smell them.
See, Little Miss Holier-Than-Thou. I told you so!
Liz felt awful for feeling this way, but if she’d had something to make Andy sleep, she’d put it in a cup of hot cocoa and wait for him to start snoring.
She needed to get out of the cabin, away from her unreasonable thoughts.
She needed to know what was in the shed and find out what had happened to Anderson.
But she couldn’t do any of that until Andy finally stopped staring out the window and got some goddamned sleep.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asked after late turned into later.
“Not at all, Mommy,” he said, still staring out the window.
Andy spent the next few hours mumbling to himself.
Liz spent them crawling in her skin, before finally falling asleep.
Fourteen
One week ago …
“Goddammit!” Anderson yelled. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me with this shit!”
Liz had been drifting off, but her husband’s outburst woke her immediately.
She was out of bed and running downstairs toward the sound of Anderson’s roar. She didn’t remember any dirty dishes or unswept floors, none of the other things he had been bitching at her about lately. She was a full-time stay-at-home mom now — the place should look like a Real Simple centerfold.
But Anderson wasn’t in the kitchen. Liz found him in the laundry room, kneeling on the floor, rooting through a laundry basket, and reeking like a service station.
He shook a handful of sheets in her face. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“What are you—” She got it before Anderson cut her off.
“You didn’t tell me E.T. started pissing his sheets again.”
“He didn’t start anything … it was one accident.”
“Suuuure it was.” Anderson stood, and the smell nearly knocked her over. “Your little mama’s boy and me are gonna have a chat.”
He shoved his way past her into the kitchen and marched toward the stairs.
“Stop! Anderson, don’t. Not now. You’re drunk!” Liz begged, catching up with him at the foot of the stairs.
He reeled around, standing three steps higher than Liz, looming over her like a temple statue. “Don’t you tell me what I am. I’ve barely had anything.”
“You’re slurring your words, and you’re really upset right now. This isn’t going to end well. Can you just—”
“I’ll end you well!” Then he laughed and turned back around.
He made it two steps before Liz tugged on his shirttail.
“Please—” she said.
He reeled around again, but this time Anderson got right over her face. Reeking spittle tickled her nose as he yelled at her. “Call me a drunk again and see what happens.” Three heavy inhales and exhales, each one worrying her further. “Tell me how I’m feeling and see what happens.” Another pair of heavy, labored breaths. “Yank on my clothes again and see what happens.”
He stared, waiting to see if she would dare to talk back.
After breaking another piece of her, he turned and trudged up the stairs.
Liz waited several seconds, then scurried like a coward behind him. She approached Junior’s already open door, heart about to explode by the time her body filled the threshold.
“Wake up!” Anderson barked, glaring down at his sleeping son. He waited a second before kicking the bed, then less than that before he slammed it with his foot again. “I said, wake up!”
Junior blinked his eyes open to the wash of unexpected light. “Dad?”
“You expecting Santa?” Anderson laughed. “Or someone from your home planet?”
“No one is allowed in my room after lights out.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the one who made that rule, and I made it because I didn’t want your mother in here breastfeeding you all the time.”
“She doesn’t do that.”
Anderson laughed again. “It’s metaphorical. Jesus, kid.”
“Anderson …”
He turned around and glared at her.
Again she shrank back.
“Rules are rules,” Junior said.
“You’re right!” Anderson’s anger returned, and now it was his son’s turn to get the alcohol-tinged spittle raining on his face. “And you know one of the rules we have in this house? Not having an idiot son who pisses himself like a little fucking baby. Now get out of bed.”
“It’s already lights out,” Junior whimpered.
“I SAID, GET THE FUCK OUT!”
Liz hated herself for her paralysis.
Junior was out of bed, on the floor crying.
“We still have that dog mattress?” Anderson asked the room. “If we could teach that mongrel not to piss inside, I’m sure we can do the same for you.” He kneeled next to Junior and growled, “Go get the dog mattress and training pads.”
Still crying, Junior scurried from the room.
Liz finally found her backbone. “You can’t make him sleep on a dog mattress.”
“At least it’s a mattress. Not like I’m making him sleep on the planks.”
“Abusive is abusive,” Liz said.
“You don’t know the meaning of that word.”
“I live with the meaning of that word.”
“You really don’t want to push me, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“Not now or not ever?” He grinned, but this time it sickened her.
Junior slumped into the room, went to the corner and laid the dog mattress on the floor with the pad on top of it, then curled into a fetal position and quietly whimpered.
Liz went over and offered her hand.
Junior looked up. Saw both of his parents and shook his head.
“It’s okay,” she promised him, because fuck Anderson.
“I’d think really hard about what I’m about to do if I were you, boy. And whether you like being able to bend your arm at the elbow.”
&
nbsp; “Don’t you threaten him!” Liz yelled.
“It’s lights out. Rules are rules. Everyone has to get out of my room.”
“Junior, honey …”
“I can sleep like a dog,” he said with a note of finality, cutting her off and rolling over toward the wall.
“See,” Anderson replied on his way to the door. “He can sleep like a dog.”
Liz went to Junior, kneeled down, and kissed him on his forehead. “Come on, let me take you back to bed.”
“It’s okay, Mommy.”
“No, Junior. It’s not. We—”
“Bad things will happen. It’s okay, I can sleep like a dog. Lights out now.”
“Okay,” Liz said, knowing that was that.
She turned out the light, left his bedroom, and went looking for Anderson.
He wasn’t hard to find, but Liz was still surprised to see him drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels in the living room, even though she had zero reason to expect anything else.
“Don’t start in on me.” Anderson didn’t even look at her. Just grabbed the remote, aimed it at the TV, turned it on, then tossed the remote onto the coffee table without even seeming to care what was on.
“We need to talk about what happened in there.”
“I told you not to start in on me.”
“Anderson. Look at me. You can’t—”
“You really want to do this?” Now he was looking at Liz and scaring the liquid shit out of her. He leaned forward, grabbed the remote, then dramatically turned the TV off, and stood with a serpentine smile. “So let’s do it. What would you like to talk about, sweetheart?”
Liz entered the living room to prove she wasn’t afraid. Then with all the courage she could muster, and with her shoulders straighter than she had ever made them before, she said, “You are traumatizing our child.”
Anderson laughed, smirked, and laughed again. “I’m not traumatizing anyone. Least no more than you’re coddling him to a tantrummy little death.”
“There’s a difference between—”
“You think I’m being mean, or that this is all arbitrary. You think I discipline that little fucko according to my moods. But guess what, Liz? There isn’t anything arbitrary about it. You’re the problem here, always making me into the bad guy for not following all your goddamn rules. Junior needs discipline, and you’re always acting like the best thing we could do is to give the little alien a hug.”