In Things Unseen

by Gar Anthony Haywood

  Diane Edwards waited a long time for Milton to speak. “Well? Say something, Mr. Weisman, please.”

  Milton shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to believe. God did this thing? What God? Whose God? Yours, mine. . .?”

  “The God,” Edwards said.

  “The God?” Milton almost laughed.

  “I’m a Christian. So yes, I believe there’s only one. But I don’t think He belongs to anybody. Not the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims. . . .” She smiled with embarrassment. “I used to think that way, but not anymore. I think we give Him different names and worship Him in our own way, but we’re all praying to the same god in the end.”

  “And this one god performed this ‘miracle.’ Turned the whole world upside down just to bring one dead child back to his mother. Why? I don’t understand. Why one child, your child, when he could bring back a thousand children if he wanted? A million?”

  “Maybe He has. Maybe Adrian’s not the only one He’s brought back like this. I don’t know the answers to your questions, Mr. Weisman. I don’t know anything more than what I’ve told you. I don’t blame you for wondering. I would wonder, too, if I had any reason to care. But I told you: I don’t care. Adrian is back, my son is alive again, and if I live to be a hundred without ever knowing why, that’ll be just fine with me.” She had changed before Milton’s eyes, hardening like molten glass pulled from the fire. “Just as it should be with you.”

  “Me?”

  “You ran my son down with your car. You crushed him like a doll and killed him, right there.” She nodded toward the slide to their right. “You told me yourself—you’ve been living with the memory and the guilt of that ever since it happened, and you were going to go on living with it the rest of your life. Only now you don’t have to. Your nightmare’s over just like mine is. You’re free.”

  Free. The word gave Milton pause. Having Adrian Edwards’s death on his conscience had been almost more than he could bear. Ironically, it had somehow made him a better man, attuned him in a way he had never been attuned before to the damage he’d been doing to everyone around him. But killing a child was too high a price for such small benefit. Up until two days ago, he would have gladly traded his redemption for Adrian’s life, without hesitation or regret.

  But now? Now that such an impossible exchange seemed within his grasp, was the “freedom” Diane Edwards spoke of really what he wanted?

  Milton knew the answer was yes.

  “How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick? That things won’t go right back tomorrow to the way they were if. . .if. . . .”

  “If you decide to believe me? You don’t,” Diane Edwards said. “And neither do I. Nobody can say what will happen tomorrow.”

  “And that doesn’t frighten you? Not knowing?”

  “When I stop to think about it. But I don’t. I won’t. I can’t do anything about the future, Mr. Weisman. All I can do is deal with what life holds for me today, right now, and right now my son’s alive and my husband’s my husband again, and I have everything I’ll ever want or need in this world. Everything.”

  Milton fell silent. It was too much. The woman didn’t realize what she was asking, expecting an old man to suddenly believe in something he had written off as nonsense long ago. God? Even Milton’s dead mother, who had wielded the Torah like a sword, had not possessed such faith. God for her had only been a prop to justify her authority, an excuse to get the last word in any argument. For Milton’s father, the God of Moses had meant even less than that.

  But now Milton was supposed to believe?

  As he had gradually changed in the aftermath of that terrible day here at Lakeridge Park last March, giving up alcohol and fathering his daughters with a level of attention he had never demonstrated before, he came to believe none of it was of his own doing. His rehabilitation was neither a matter of choice nor a consequence of chance. He imagined it was part of God’s grand scheme, but only because Milton didn’t know who or what else to assign it to. God was still as preposterous an idea to him as leprechauns.

  Milton shook his head, hands over his eyes. “I can’t. I’m too old.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes! I’m too old. A man can’t believe overnight in things he’s never believed in before!” Finally he was angry. Not at Edwards alone, maybe not at Edwards at all, but no one else was there to take his abuse. “I’ve done without God for almost seventy years. I have no need for God! And now suddenly I have to accept His existence as fact. I have to believe that this god hears and answers prayers and brings little boys back from the dead, and makes everyone who knew them forget they were ever dead in the first place.” He shook his head again. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Then I’ll ask you again: What will you do? Now that I’ve told you what you wanted to know? How do you intend to proceed from here, knowing what you do?”

  Milton didn’t answer.

  “This isn’t all in your head, Mr. Weisman. And you aren’t dreaming. Surely I’ve managed to convince you of that much. But if you go on telling people what you remember, or worse, what we’ve just talked about here this morning, you know what will happen. You know what they’ll think.”

  “They’ll think what they already think. That I’m a senile old fool who’s losing his mind.”

  “Yes. In the same way they think poor Laura Carrillo, Adrian’s teacher, is either losing her mind or abusing drugs. It doesn’t matter that she’s forty years younger than you. What she’s telling people sounds just as insane coming from her as it would from a seventy-year-old man.”

  “But she’s telling them anyway.”

  “Yes. She has that right. I warned her not to. I told her how pointless it would be. But she wouldn’t listen. She’s going to lose her job and possibly her teaching career. Even her fiancé doubts her sanity. What’s happened isn’t meant for the world to know, Mr. Weisman. By now, that should be obvious to all of us. Trying to make people believe something God’s gone to great pains to keep hidden is futile and ungrateful.”

  “Ungrateful?”

  “Yes, ungrateful. Adrian’s my child, having him back means more to his father and me than anyone else, of course. But we aren’t the only ones who should be thankful. You and Miss Laura should be, too. You, for reasons we’ve already discussed. And Laura. . .she loved Adrian, she was inconsolable at his funeral. Regardless of how it happened, she should be ecstatic that he’s alive again. Instead, all she can see fit to do is question it. Deny it. As if nothing would make her happier than to see Adrian back in his grave.”

  She smiled, and for the first time, Milton wondered if it was the devil and not God to whom this woman was beholden. “Well, he’s not going back. I lost him once. I won’t lose him again.”

  Milton frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

  “What I’m saying,” she said, “is that this is the way God must want it to be: for four people to be aware of what He’s done, and no more. And if we can’t accept that, if we refuse to accept it. . . .”

  “He’ll take the boy back?”

  “I know that sounds contradictory. How could God be so generous one minute and so cruel the next? But it’s a fear I have, Mr. Weisman, I’m sorry. And because I have it, I’m going to do everything in my power to keep what’s happened to Adrian a secret, and I would strongly encourage you to do the same.”

  “You want me to shut up. Is that it?”

  “You’ll only be hurting yourself if you do anything else. Let it go. Accept what’s happened as God’s will and never speak of it again to anyone.”

  “’God’s will,’” Milton scoffed despite himself. “What if ‘God’ had nothing to do with this? Have you thought about that? What if I decide to go on believing what I’ve always believed, that there is no such thing as God?”

  “You can believe what you like. Tell yourself men fr
om Mars brought Adrian back and erased every record of his death on Earth, if that’s what you want. Just know that if you continue to talk about it, trying to convince people that what you remember really happened, Laura Carrillo will be the only one listening. And the only one willing to speak so much as a word in your defense.”

  Milton didn’t need her to elaborate. The threat, like the steel in her eyes, was crystal clear.

  “I want to see him,” Milton said.

  For a moment, he thought he would have to repeat it. “Adrian?”

  “What, did you think I would do what you’re asking me to do without seeing him for myself? I want to see him.”

  Edwards stared at him as if struck mute. Surely she had known he would ask. What fool wouldn’t?

  “Please,” Milton said.

  “He doesn’t know anything. He’s like everyone else. He doesn’t remember what happened. So if you were planning to ask him what it was like to be dead—”

  “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. I just want to see him, that’s all.”

  Edwards continued to stare at him in silence. Milton wondered if he’d demanded too much. Finally, she surrendered a nod. “All right. Tomorrow—”

  “No. Today. I can’t wait until tomorrow.” He showed Edwards a steely glare of his own.

  “Okay,” Edwards said. “We’ll meet again after I pick him up from school. But not here.” She glanced about the park and shook her head. “Not here.”

  “I’ll meet you anywhere you want.”

  “He likes the hamburgers at Kidd Valley, on Lake Washington. Do you know it?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “We’ll be there around three. But we won’t stay long. We’ll order our food to go and sit with you inside for five, ten minutes at the most. No more.”

  Milton nodded, satisfied. “Five minutes will be fine. I just want to see him for myself, that’s all.” And in saying the words again, he realized how true it was: he did want to see the boy. Breathing, laughing, moving. Alive again.

  He wanted that more than anything else in the world.

  TWENTY-ONE

  UNLIKE MILTON WEISMAN, who around the same time was hearing much the same story from Diane Edwards at Lakeridge Park, Allison Hope peppered Laura with questions throughout her account of the last forty-eight hours. Questions were the journalist’s stock in trade, but Laura could tell most of the ones Hope had were coming from personal curiosity, not professional necessity. Hope simply could not believe what she was being told.

  “Is that it?” she asked when Laura had finished.

  “Yes. That’s all I know.”

  “You’re saying—”

  “I’m not ‘saying’ anything. I’m just telling you the truth. You asked for the truth and I gave it to you.”

  Hope looked over her handwritten notes and shook her head, with amazement or glee, Laura wasn’t sure which. “True or not—and I’m not saying it isn’t true, exactly—I don’t suppose I have to tell you how unlikely this all sounds? Resurrection and mass amnesia. The boy’s parents conspiring to cover it all up.”

  “Of course I know how it sounds. If it weren’t all happening to me, I’d be just as skeptical as you are. More so, in fact. But it’s all true nevertheless.”

  “And if I asked the mother—”

  “She’d deny it. She’d say I was crazy, like everyone else. That’s what she promised she’d do if I didn’t keep quiet, and I believe her. She and her husband don’t want anyone to know what really happened, and they’re willing to sacrifice my life and career to keep it a secret.”

  “But why? That’s the piece that doesn’t fit. If she prayed for a miracle and got one, why would she not want anyone to know about it? I thought people like her were all about bringing glory to God by making things like miracles as widely known as possible.”

  “Look at your notes again. I told you, she’s afraid. She thinks it’s God’s will that nobody knows, with the exception of herself, her husband, and me, and she’s not going to do anything that could be perceived as running counter to His wishes.”

  “Because if she did, He might decide to take her son all over again?”

  “She didn’t say as much, but I imagine that’s what worries her, yes.” Laura smiled. “And yet I’m the one people are insisting seek psychiatric help.”

  Hope seemed about to say something, only to think better of it.

  “I know: She’s not the one talking openly about dead children rising from the grave. I am. And maybe I’m a complete idiot for doing so. But I don’t care, Ms. Hope. I don’t care because I know what I’m telling you is true, and nobody’s going to make me pretend otherwise just because they think that’s what their ‘god’ wants me to do.”

  “But what is the truth? That Adrian died in a car accident last spring—”

  “And was raised from the dead exactly like his mother says. Precisely.”

  Hope was taken aback. “Sorry?”

  “You don’t believe such a thing is possible. Neither do I. So that leaves us with just one other explanation, doesn’t it?”

  Hope refused to bite.

  “The accident never happened. They faked it. Adrian’s death, his funeral, everything.”

  “His parents?”

  “Not her. Him. Michael Edwards. I think Diane Edwards honestly believes everything she told me. For her, the accident is just as real as it is—or

  used to be—for me.”

  “You’re saying her husband staged Adrian’s death and resurrection for her benefit?”

  “Not necessarily for her benefit alone. But yes, I think he staged it.”

  “But why? And how could he possibly pull off such a thing? There would have been witnesses to an accident like that in a public park. And what about the old man you say was driving the car?”

  “He was a part of the ruse, too. Obviously.”

  “You said his name was”—Hope consulted her notes again—”Weinman?”

  “Weinman or Wiseman, one or the other. I’m not sure.”

  “First name?”

  “I can’t remember that either. I’m sorry.”

  Laura had been trying to remember the old man’s name for two days now without success. She could recall seeing him on television, and had read about him in the few stories about the accident she’d had the stomach to skim through, but the old man’s full name continued to elude her.

  “Even if Michael Edwards could do everything you say—fake the accident in the park, pay off Weinman and all the alleged witnesses, arrange for a fake funeral—that doesn’t explain why no one remembers any of it now except you.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Then. . .?”

  “Look—I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers, I wish I did!” Laura couldn’t contain her frustration any longer. “You’re the reporter, not me. It’s your job to explain it all, not mine!”

  Hope gave her the same look Laura had been getting from Elliott for two days now. Laura leaned forward in her chair to get right up in the writer’s face.

  “Listen to me. Look at me. Ask me a question about anything else. Anything. Math, science, geography. World history, you name it. I’ll give you an intelligent answer. A sane answer. Do you know why? Because I am sane. I’m not a drug abuser or the victim of a nervous breakdown. I’m neither deranged nor confused. I’m just afraid, Ms. Hope. I’m caught in the middle of something I don’t understand, and if I don’t find a way to understand it, to make sense of it to people like you, I’m going to lose everything I have. Everything.”

  Laura refused to cry. She wanted Hope to see how strong she was, not how weak. She sat back in her chair and let the reporter go on examining her like she was a slide under a microscope. Hope would see the truth eventually.

  Laura was as sane as she was.

  * *
*

  Allison was stunned. Carrillo was the most cogent crazy woman she had ever met.

  That she was crazy seemed hardly worth questioning. She wasn’t claiming Adrian Edwards had arisen from the dead, as Allison had halfway been hoping she would, but the conspiracy theory she was offering instead was almost equally outrageous. Diane and Michael Edwards were religious fanatics who wanted Carrillo to believe—but only Carrillo, no one else—that God had indeed brought their son back from the dead. To this end, they had faked his death and burial, kept him hidden away for eight months, and then sent him back to school, having bribed everyone at Yesler Elementary to pretend the child had never gone missing at all. As for the why of it—for any part of it—Carrillo had no idea.

  It was impossible.

  And yet, the young teacher’s telling of it could not have sounded more credible. Her account was laden with fine details, about small, relatively unimportant things, things Allison had learned were usually products of memory, not imagination. If, to cite only one example, the funeral for Adrian Edwards Carrillo had just described had never taken place, it was the most fully realized delusion Allison had ever encountered.

  The teacher’s demeanor, too, was an ill fit for someone out of touch with reality. There were no hysterics, no wide-eyed stares, no sudden outbursts of fury or outrage. She had raised her voice only once, when Allison pressed her for an answer she didn’t have. Aside from that moment, Carrillo had been calm and in control, as reasoned as a lawyer delivering her opening arguments.

  This wasn’t what Allison had been expecting at all.

  She didn’t believe Carrillo’s story because it defied belief. She couldn’t give any part of it the slightest benefit of doubt without calling her own sanity into question. But implausibility was the only basis Allison had on which to judge Carrillo an unreliable witness. Had she any faith whatsoever in the supernatural, Allison realized now in amazement, she would have been more inclined to think the teacher was telling the truth than not.

  “Why did you change your mind?” she asked, finally breaking the uneasy silence that had made its way between them. “About talking to me, I mean.”