The Whispers

by Greg Howard

  Frank laces his fingers together on top of his basketball of a belly and smiles again. I don’t like his smile. It looks like a plastic piece of Mr. Potato Head’s face that he can pop on and off anytime he wants.

  “And where were you while your mother was lying down in the living room?”

  I roll my eyes at him. Daddy wouldn’t like that.

  Be respectful of authority, he would say. Frank is just trying to help.

  But I’ve answered this same question so many times. If he can’t remember, then why doesn’t he write it down on one of his five thousand rainbow Post-it notes, or turn on a tape recorder like they do on TV. I wonder where he went to detective school. Probably one of those online courses, but poor Frank got ripped off. If Mama were here, she’d add a bless his heart. It sounds nice, but I don’t think it’s meant to be.

  “I was outside playing with my friends,” I say.

  Frank raises a bushy eyebrow at me. “And . . .”

  “And when I came back inside, Mama was lying on the sofa in the living room. Like I just said.”

  “And then what did you do?” the world’s worst police detective asks.

  “I touched her hand to see if she was asleep.” I say it like I’m quoting a Bible verse I’ve been forced to memorize and recite on command.

  Frank looks down his snap-on nose at me. “And how did it feel, touching her hand?”

  This is a new one. What the heck does he mean, how did it feel? It felt like skin and Jergens hand lotion, that’s how. And how is this going to help them find Mama? Why doesn’t Frank ask me more about the suspicious car that was parked in front of the house that day? I told him about it the first time they hauled me down here for questioning, but he hasn’t asked about it since. Instead he’s wasting time asking about me touching Mama’s hand. World’s. Worst. Police. Detective. Ever.

  “She felt a little chilled, so I pulled the cover up over her hands. I didn’t want to wake her, so I went back outside to play.”

  Frank scrunches his face like that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. He thinks I’m hiding something. Like I’m a suspect, which is crazy because I want them to find her. I promise I do.

  “And that’s the last thing you remember?” he says. “Touching your mother’s hand while she was lying down on the sofa? Nothing else?”

  He knows it is. Unless he somehow found out about Kenny from Kentucky. Or the ring.

  Stick to your story, I tell myself. That’s what people on TV who are accused of a crime always say—stick to your story and everything will be fine. No one has actually accused me of anything yet. But they might as well, the way they all look at me—like they know I’m hiding something.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, being respectful of authority. Even Frank’s authority. “That’s the last thing I remember.”

  Frank squints his eyes at me. Yep. He thinks I’m lying. Or crazy. Or both. But technically I’m not lying. Kenny from Kentucky is long gone and they’ve never asked me about the ring, so I’ve never told them. Besides, Daddy will blister my hide if he finds out I have it. I wonder if the ring is considered evidence. Can they put me in jail for withholding evidence? I think there was an episode of CID: Chicago about that. I can’t remember what happened, but I’m sure Detective Chase Cooper solved the case in forty-four minutes.

  Frank’s talking now, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. His voice sounds like that teacher from The Peanuts Movie, which Mama and I watched together.

  . . . wah waah wah wah, waah wah waah . . .

  I nod my head every now and then to be polite and respectful. Frank has some real wacky theories about what might have happened to Mama that day, so whenever he starts speculating like this, I turn on my internal Charlie Brown teacher translator.

  Speculating is like when poorly educated police detectives make dumb guesses about a case without having any evidence.

  Use it in a sentence, Button, I imagine Mama saying.

  Frank needs to get off his big round behind, stop speculating about what happened that day, and go find Mama before it’s too late.

  Frank glances over at the clock and lets out one of his this isn’t getting us anywhere sighs because he knows I’m not listening anymore.

  “Your father’s probably waiting for you outside,” he says. “You know, Riley, it’s been nearly four months now. I’d much rather you tell me what happened on your own, but if you can’t—or won’t—I can help you fill in some of the blanks if you’ll let me.”

  Oh crap. I know what Frank’s talking about from the cop shows on TV. It’s when they start telling the perp what they think happened. They make their accusations over and over, louder and louder, until the perp finally confesses.

  “How’s the case going?” I ask, changing the subject. “Any new leads? New information? Have you found their car yet?”

  Frank inhales slowly, then releases a long stream of sour-smelling air through puckered lips. “There’s no new information, Riley. You know that.” He stands and waves me toward the door. “If you remember anything before I see you again, have your dad call me, okay? It’s very important.”

  I get up and walk out, shaking my head so Frank knows what a disappointment he is to me. What are we paying these people for with Daddy’s hard-earned tax dollars if they can’t even find my mama?

  2

  TWENTY-EIGHT WORDS IN THREE DAYS

  We eat supper early that night—just the three of us at the kitchen table. We haven’t eaten in the dining room since Mama disappeared. We used to eat dinner in there every night. Now it sits dark and empty like a tomb or a shrine. I don’t think we’ll use it again until Mama comes home safe and we can all sit in there as a family again. We can eat, and talk, and laugh like we used to. Daddy will tell lame jokes, Mama will ask us about our day at school, and my brother won’t be mean to me anymore. But for now it’s just a dark room collecting dust on our memories of her.

  We sit in silence, Danny wolfing down his mashed potatoes like it’s his last meal ever, and Daddy staring at his plate like he’s reading tea leaves. Every couple of minutes, he moves some food around with his fork, but that’s about it. He hasn’t always been like this, just since Mama was taken. I don’t think he knows how to be, without her here holding us all together. That was her department, not his.

  Before Mama disappeared, Daddy laughed a lot. And he always loved scaring Danny and me, or pinning us down on the floor and tickling us until we almost peed ourselves. He’d do the same thing to Mama sometimes until she would scream and laugh and holler like a crazy person. Now when I look over at Daddy, all I can see is the bald spot on top of his head. I don’t think he likes to look at us anymore, least of all me. I know it’s because I can’t remember what happened that day. And because I look the most like her. And because Mama and I share a name and a birthday. But also because of my condition.

  Or maybe he blames me and that’s why he can’t look at me. Maybe he thinks I could have done something to save her. Called out for help. Gotten the license plate number of the fancy car that was sitting in front of the house that day. Locked the front door after I went outside. But Mama was in the house, so why would I lock the door? And how did I know something bad was going to happen to her? She just disappeared without a trace, right out of our front living room. That’s another reason we don’t go in there anymore. It’s like a crime scene that no one wants to disturb in case there’s still some undiscovered shred of evidence hidden in there. Fibers in the carpet or something. I’m surprised Frank hasn’t put bright yellow police tape across the door. Maybe he should. Who am I to say? Detective Chase Cooper would know what to do.

  Since no one is talking or looking up, I glance around the kitchen as I pretend to eat. I see Mama in every nook and cranny. Like the dish towels hanging on the oven door handle with the words As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord embroidered o
n them in red frilly letters. I was with her when she found those at the Big Lots in Upton. She loved them so much she bought two sets. But that’s not a lot of money at the Big Lots. Probably like three dollars or something. And the Precious Moments cookie jar on the counter—she found that at the Salvation Army store. It has a picture on the front of a boy and a girl with really big heads and droopy eyes sitting back to back on a tree stump.

  Love one another.

  Mama likes things with nice sayings printed on them.

  She says, It can’t hurt to be reminded to love each other every time you reach for a cookie, right, Button?

  Mama loves baking cookies. She makes them for me to take to school for my teachers and to sell at Mr. Killen’s Market to raise money for the church. She even made a big batch last Christmas for the prisoners at the work camp outside of Upton. She’s real good at cookies, but one time she tried making me blackberry jam like in the story of the Whispers and it was terrible. It was so bad that we laughed and laughed while we ate some of it on toast that I burnt. Another time she tried to teach me how to make biscuits and gravy, but I burned my hand on the stove, so that was the end of my cooking lessons.

  All I’m allowed to make now are frozen fish sticks and Tater Tots in the oven. Frozen fish sticks are gross but we’ve eaten them a lot the last four months. I don’t mind the Tater Tots. But Grandma supplied tonight’s meal even though Daddy tells her she doesn’t have to do that anymore. Grandma hates the idea of us eating fish sticks and Tater Tots so much. I wonder what Mama’s eating right now. Or if she’s been eating at all. What if whoever took her doesn’t give her enough food to stay alive until the police can find her?

  “Frank said there aren’t any new leads in the case,” I say, breaking the unbearable silence. My words hang in the air like lint.

  Daddy looks up from his plate and stares like he doesn’t even recognize me. Danny stops eating and glares at me from across the table. He never wants to talk about Mama’s case. Even Tucker lets out an anxious groan under the table, like he knows I should have kept my big mouth shut. He misses Mama too. He hasn’t been the same since she disappeared, but the vet can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. I think he’s just depressed.

  “Finish your peas and take Tucker outside,” Daddy says, looking back down at his plate.

  I think that makes a total of two dozen words Daddy’s said to me in three days, so I hit the jackpot this evening. I eat my peas one at a time and with my fingers. I know it annoys him. If Mama were here, she’d give me the Mama side-eye. But she’s not. And Daddy doesn’t even look up to scold me. He just plows circles in his mashed potatoes with his fork. If Danny or I did that, he would yell at us and tell us to stop playing with our food.

  Daddy used to like me. He even took me on my very first roller coaster ride, and he wanted it to be the same one he took his first ride on—the Swamp Fox at Family Kingdom Amusement Park in Myrtle Beach. It’s one of those old-timey wooden coasters that make that loud clack, clack, clack noise when they go up the first climb. The newer coasters don’t make that sound anymore and Daddy says it’s not the same without it. I was so scared and screamed my butt off the entire ride, but Daddy didn’t mind. He just laughed and laughed like a crazy person with his hands raised high in the air the whole time.

  When I was six, we were on vacation in Florida and Daddy took us to an alligator farm. He picked me up so I could get a better look at the big, slimy creatures. Then he thought it would be real funny to pretend like he was going to throw me over the fence like gator bait. A fat one spotted us and slowly came crawling our way while Daddy kept up his act for way too long, swinging me back and forth and back and forth.

  One, two . . .

  On three, I almost crapped my pants. But he never got to three, so I’m pretty sure Daddy wasn’t trying to feed me to the alligators. I screamed bloody murder anyway. But Daddy didn’t mind. He just laughed and laughed like a crazy person. To this day I can’t even look at an alligator on TV. But I have to admit, it was fun. Daddy was fun. Not anymore.

  Danny’s phone vibrates on the table, which gets him a hard look from Daddy. His phone is supposed to be off during dinner. Danny grabs it and tucks it into his lap. It’s probably some girl from school calling. Danny likes girls now. Ugh.

  “Sorry,” he says to Daddy without looking him in the eye.

  Daddy stares at him a moment, and finally his face softens. Just a tad. He doesn’t yell at Danny. He would have yelled at me, but Danny’s a daddy’s boy just as much as I’m a mama’s boy. And I don’t have a phone yet. It’s okay. I wouldn’t want any girls calling me anyway.

  Daddy gets up and goes to the window over the sink. He mumbles as he lifts it open, “It’s stifling in here.”

  Wow. Twenty-eight words in three days. But those last four I have to share with Danny.

  “What does that mean, Daddy?” I say, although I have a pretty good idea. I just want him to notice me.

  “What does what mean?” he kind of grunts back.

  “Stifling.”

  He looks over his shoulder at me and gives me a flat look. “It means it’s hot and stuffy.”

  I push my luck, trying to lighten the mood. “Use it in a sentence, Daddy.”

  He squints at me like he can’t remember my name or why I’m here. “What?”

  “Use the word stifling in a sentence,” I say, feeling hopeful.

  “I just did.” He looks out the window, dismissing me with a slight shake of his head.

  Danny stuffs his mouth and grunts his agreement with Daddy. Danny eats like a pig and always sides with Daddy. Actually Danny does everything Daddy does, so now that Daddy doesn’t like me, Danny doesn’t either. He used to play with me before Mama disappeared. Now he just acts like I don’t exist. He barely even talks to me. Stays in his room with the door closed doing Lord knows what, and hangs out with his new high school friends in Upton. He’s only three years older than me, but he treats me like a baby.

  Tucker must have sensed the tension in the room, because he lets out a long, flappy fart that sounds like a balloon deflating under the table. Danny looks at me and his lips curl up, exposing teeth caked with mashed potatoes and gravy. Danny never smiles at me anymore, but he thinks farts are hilarious. Especially dog farts. Even I can’t help but smirk, just a little. But we both freeze, waiting to see how Daddy will respond. It could go either way. The seconds tick by long and slow like they did during the sermons at North Creek Church of God when we used to be churchgoing people.

  I dare to look over at Daddy standing at the sink. His shoulders are shaking a little. Laughing or crying, I can’t tell. He turns to face us and I see that it’s both. He’s laughing softly, but at the same time his eyes are moist. I’m surprised because I don’t think I’ve seen Daddy crack even a polite smile to anyone in the last four months. His laughter sparks life into the room and we know it’s okay now. We have permission to join him, and we do. Hard. It’s the first time since Mama disappeared that there’s been any laughter in this house. It sounds amazing, echoing around the kitchen and then drifting out the window. Tucker scrambles from under the table, barking excitedly and joining in our rare moment of happiness. Daddy’s laughter eventually dies down, though. His smile doesn’t totally disappear, but it fades a little. His eyes are still misty.

  A strong honeysuckle-scented breeze rolls in through the open window and brushes my cheeks. I close my eyes and breathe it in deep. It’s almost like she’s here, like she heard us laughing and rushed into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. Mama loves the smell of honeysuckle. She always yells at Daddy for cutting back the bushes in the yard. It grows like crazy around our house. Mama taught me how to pinch off the bottom of the blooms, slide the stem out, and lick the nectar off. She calls it nature’s candy. Now whenever I catch a whiff of honeysuckle, I think of her and I wonder if I’ll ever see her again. Right now,
it’s like she’s reaching out to me from wherever she’s being held captive—calling to me to come find her. To rescue her. The police are useless, so I may be her only hope.

  “Take that gassy mutt outside, Riley,” Daddy says, his smile completely fading.

  Wow. He said my name. And he wasn’t yelling or cross sounding or anything. Just said it like normal. Like he would say Danny’s name. I hop out of my chair with a small jolt of satisfaction, or pride, or something pumping in my veins and guide Tucker to the kitchen door.

  Looking back over my shoulder, I smile at him. “Okay, Daddy.”

  But he doesn’t see me. He’s already turned his back on us again. He stands at the sink, his shoulders shaking. I’m not sure if he’s laughing again or if he’s gone back to crying. I don’t think I really want to know for sure, so I grab Tucker by the collar and hurry out the door.

  3

  PENTECOSTAL CORN CHOIR

  Tucker shuffles down the steps ahead of me and goes directly to his favorite tree near the back of the yard. When he’s finished marking his spot for like the thousandth time, he trots over to the edge of the Mathews family’s cornfield, circles exactly three times, and squats to do his business. We don’t charge Mr. Mathews for the extra fertilizer to that spot.

  As I step down onto the grass, the warm glow of the setting sun blankets my face and a bully of a breeze comes out of nowhere and shoves me back. I hold up my hand, letting the honeysuckle-scented wind weave through my fingers like I do with Mama sometimes. But tonight it’s like I’m trying to feel what direction she’s in, as if the wind could tell me. It’s that dimly lit sliver of the day when anything is possible. So why not look for magic? Why not hope? That’s what Mama always says.

  Walking over to the edge of the yard where Tucker is finishing up, I peer into the cornfield. Rows and rows of tall limber stalks sway back and forth in the wind, like a gospel choir of Pentecostal corn waving their green leafy hands in the air, praising Jesus. I can’t stop myself from joining in and waving back at them, like I’m directing the Pentecostal corn choir, the way Mama and I used to do together almost every day at twilight.