Bottled Abyss

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  Janet got dressed into some black jeans, UCLA sweatshirt and tennis shoes. There was no time for a shower, but she did run a comb quickly through her greasy black locks. She took her spare car keys from the dresser, pushed the coin purse into her pocket and collected her wallet. She also grabbed the bottle, for fear of Faye discovering it.

  Faye’s clanging of pots and pans seemed to provide enough cover for escape, but the water running in the sink suddenly stopped as she sneaked to the front door.

  Janet froze.

  Silverware clashed together and the water started again.

  The door whined open. Janet slipped outside and gently closed it. She hurried to the truck and hoped Faye didn’t come running out.

  Janet checked the bottle was securely corked before stashing it in the glove compartment. Moving her wallet to the driver’s seat, she put the truck in neutral and rolled back into the street, where the truck coasted past Sam’s house. She noted he wasn’t out in his backyard doing work, which was atypical of him, but very good for her.

  She turned the ignition and put the truck in drive. Her heart raced and her palms sweated. In less than ten minutes, for the first time in a year, she would be visiting Horrace’s childcare.

  Janet couldn’t stop staring at the lawn. She considered every corner, every sprinkler pit and sundried yellow patch, and thought about where the impact of the car might have happened, where had Melody’s body come to rest? Over there, by those bushes? On the driveway, blood running down like an old oil stain—knock that shit off.

  This older neighborhood had quite a narrow sidewalk, which undulated from root intrusion and all the minor earthquakes that had shifted it about over the years. It would be easy for a car to glide over the low curb. It was something she’d considered when choosing this place. If the curb had been as high as some she’d seen, Melody would most likely still be alive. She and Herman just hadn’t looked for the right things, hadn’t asked the right questions. Hell, they didn’t even know the children were allowed to play out front.

  And that activity hadn’t changed since the murder. Even today five kids ran across the yard, involved in overlapping games of chase. A clear plastic toy box had been brought out, but other than a Frisbee, the rest of the bright neon items had been neglected. One of the childcare helpers stood on the sidewalk leading from the front door, dressed in floral patterned medical scrubs. Her shoulder was turned to the kids. She held an infant in her arms and rocked it. Judging by her cooing and ahhing over the baby, the helper enjoyed playing a surrogate mother.

  A boy with a brown bowl-haircut, ten or eleven, winged the orange Frisbee and it sailed sideways through in the air, building speed as it raced down. The trajectory of the disc landed it upside-down in the middle of the street. The bowl-cut boy and a companion his age plunged into the street with one casual glance over their shoulder.

  The helper tapped the baby’s nose and smiled goofily.

  Janet slammed her car door. She brought her wallet and the coin purse but decided, unfortunately, the bottle should stay in the glove box. She couldn’t explain it, but she liked having the bottle around. It didn’t put her at ease, but it redirected her thoughts better than booze sure ever had.

  The trip up the driveway was tedious and uphill. The sun blared down around a blotchy arrangement of gray clouds. It would be another Southern Californian winter day; you could already smell the sidewalk cooking and it wasn’t even noon yet. Janet was tired of it, like so many other things.

  For a moment the helper was so oblivious she didn’t notice Janet walking up to the house.

  She kissed the baby on top of the head before meeting eyes with Janet. “Hello, can I help you?”

  Janet didn’t recognize her as a helper from Melody’s time here. “I’m looking for Mrs. Horrace.”

  “Oh, go right in, she’s finishing up Shakespeare Circle.”

  With a nod of thanks, Janet reached for the push-handle door knob. She’d forgotten about Shakespeare Circle, Pythagoras’s Practice and Play, and Mozart’s Music Mastery. Her daughter had spoken of them fondly. And often. The hallway was decorated in projects from Greek Philosophers up to illustrations of John Donne poems.

  She was ready for all this… so sharp.

  Janet tapped on her teeth as she came to the end of the hall. She could hear Mrs. Horrace finishing a section of some Elizabethan play.

  “End of Act III. Okay, so does everybody know what they’re going to draw?” Mrs. Horrace asked through labored breaths.

  A choir of mumbles answered her. “The King,” one boy said.

  Janet came around the corner. Mrs. Horrace appeared to be squatting in the middle of a large throw rug decorated in Roman pillars and ivy, but her morbid obesity had obscured the rather tiny elementary school chair she sat on. Like the helper, Horrace was also dressed in scrubs, these patterned in blue stars upon a black field of night. Her eyes widened a little as she recognized Janet.

  “Well, my Lord!” She put down one massive knee to push herself up to stand. “Children, go to it.”

  The band of kids around her, all of whom stared intently at Janet, scrambled to their feet and walked crookedly to desks lined up against the mauve painted walls. Their eyes never left the interesting new adult.

  Mrs. Horrace shuffled over, her paperback Macbeth held to her lower ring of belly fat. Beautiful coffee ringlets swayed around her rosy face. The woman had always heaved for air and moved with great pain clenched in her jaw, but the small walk across the rug seemed even more now. The last year had aged Mrs. Horrace.

  “Jan-Jan.” She hugged Janet with one tremendous arm.

  Janet had forgotten her ridiculous nickname and wasn’t so glad to hear it again. “How are you, Mrs. Horrace?”

  “The same, we’re the same.” Mrs. Horrace glanced around. “What brings you by?” She lowered her voice and dipped her head closer to Janet. “This isn’t about you-know-who they’ve got up in that hospital.”

  “No,” said Janet, shaking her head. “I didn’t come to talk about that. I came to talk to you. I realized that we never talked after…everything.”

  Horrace gave a micro-nod that jiggled her double chin. “Come sit up at the counter. Would you like some lemonade?”

  “Sure.”

  Janet walked across the carpet, feeling all eyes prod her, and pulled out a bar stool.

  “Do your illustrations, kids,” Mrs. Horrace instructed. She opened the refrigerator and took out a half full pitcher of lemonade. “How’s Herman doing?” She stretched breathlessly for a green plastic cup in the overhead cupboard.

  “He’s… working a lot.”

  Mrs. Horrace frowned and poured lemonade into the cup. Janet took it gratefully from her and had a taste. Plastic lemons and sugar.

  They now sat across from each other. Janet was eye to eye with this woman that for so long she’d wanted to give a piece of her mind, but she was tongue-tied. She told her herself not to be a coward, not to bend or be intimidated, but she didn’t have a clue where to begin.

  Which turned out to be a good thing, because Mrs. Horrace excused herself to the bathroom.

  Janet sat there at the counter, listening to children giggle, looking around at the hideous conflicting décor while nursing her polyvinyl lemonade.

  Fifteen minutes later, looking flush, Horrace returned. The scent of baby powder room fresher trailed after her.

  “Are you finished with your sketches?” she asked the children. Different responses abounded and she added, “Just leave them on your desks. Go have your free play. Ten minutes.”

  Horrace sat awkwardly on the stool next to Janet. The children piled out of the room, some shouting wildly in the pre-ecstasy of play.

  “So Jan-Jan, I think of Melody so often. I still speak to her in my prayers. I can still hear her little voice. What a wonderful child, so bright. She was thriving here. Absolutely thriving. A point of brightness went out of the world for me on that day. It really did. I just try not to think
about it too much anymore.”

  “Yes, I see kids still play in the front yard.”

  Horrace moved some errant hairs from her narrowing eyes. “And what would be your point, dear?”

  “I’d think that’s very obvious.”

  Horrace’s bald eyebrow lifted and a snort escaped her nose. “Sorry Jan-Jan, but here at the childcare, life goes on.”

  “For the living, sure it does.”

  “Wait—did you actually come to pick a fight with me? A year later?”

  “Of course not.”

  Horrace twisted her mouth in thought for a second. “Well then I apologize for asking, but what brings you here today?”

  Closure, thought Janet.

  “I just wanted to visit. To remember Melody.”

  Tell her, let it out, let it all out…

  The severity in Horrace’s face softened. “We provide the safest environment we can for the children. What happened to Melody was a freak mishap, and I incidentally fired the helper, Ms. Kramer, who had been assigned supervision duty that day. And it wasn’t entirely her fault either. The rules here are no feet on the pavement. Only grass. Melody wasn’t following instructions—”

  Janet wanted to slap her across her lardy face. She thought of some choice words but held them in.

  “You’re not… thinking of get litigious on me, are you Jan-Jan?”

  “I told you I just wanted to visit,” Janet reminded her.

  Horrace looked away, flustered.

  “And to ask…”

  How you sleep at night, you miserable bitch?

  “… if you know anything about coins?”

  Mrs. Horrace put a plump hand on the tile counter and swiveled herself to face Janet completely. “Why would you think I do?”

  “Well,” said Janet, her mind screaming, asking what the hell she was doing, that this wasn’t what she’d come for, but nevertheless, she took out the coin purse and let the coin strike the counter with a clang of bronze. “It looks like something out of one of your fairy tales or myths. See, I found it with some heirlooms and wondered if you could tell me if you recognized it.”

  The woman’s lips went thin and colorless. It was a purposefully aristocratic expression, something Janet imagined Horrace practiced in the mirror when trying to appear vastly more intelligent than the rest of the planet.

  “Greek coinage is not my expertise, but it appears to be some sort of fake drachmae. The impressions don’t look to be of the Classical or Hellenistic. It’s probably archaic.” She leaned over the coin with giant, fascinated eyes.

  “Sounds like you know quite a bit about coins.”

  “I know a lot of things, but my expertise is only in the art of sharpening minds.” Mrs. Horrace clucked with consideration. “I wonder what this little dot is in the center? It almost looks like a tiny picture.”

  Janet shrugged, not about to tell her about the fly. “The pawn shop couldn’t determine its origin… How much do you think a coin like this is worth?”

  “Nothing dear. It’s not real,” Mrs. Horrace concluded. “So it’s probably worth just a little over the cost of the metal itself. Ten dollars maybe?”

  “Not even worth trying to sell then I guess.”

  “This design reminds me too… one of the boys here loves the Greek tale of the Ferryman who accepts coins for the passage of souls into the Underworld.”

  “Maybe that’s what this is.”

  Ms. Horrace snickered. “Yeah, may-be.”

  “Sounds kind of a creepy story for kids though.”

  “It’s included in Classic curriculum,” she said irritably. “It isn’t my fault that children find stories of ghosts the most entertaining.”

  A gathering of children migrated into the room, trailed by the helper, who with great zeal still cradled the newborn.

  “There he is,” said Horrace, pointing to an anemic looking boy with curly blond hair. “Jerry, you’re the one who enjoyed the Ferryman tale. You drew a picture last year, remember.”

  Jerry’s head tilted a bit. “That’s with the boat and the guy in the robe with the skeleton face?”

  “Yes, yes, the coins, remember?”

  The boy nodded. “People used to put them on their tongue when they died.”

  “I have an idea! You should give the coin to Jerry,” Mrs. Horrace said. “He’s our best behaved and I told him he would get a reward today. I think he would like that. Wouldn’t you Jerry?”

  The boy’s face colored with joy. “You’re giving me money?”

  “It’s not mine to give,” replied Janet, sitting up straighter. “I would have to talk to my family.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Horrace snorted petulantly. “Sorry about that, Jerry.”

  “Well I guess it doesn’t matter. I mean, if it really isn’t worth much.”

  “It’s not.”

  “He can have it then, if he wants it.”

  Though it needed doing, you didn’t come here to get rid of the coin, you came to give this woman an earful of shit. Does she even know what day it is? Fuck no, she doesn’t know. Say something you friggin’ idiot!

  Jerry walked up to the counter and slid the coin off the side in his small hand. “Smells nasty in here,” he mumbled, before heading to a desk. A couple other children protested his gift, but the adults ignored their whines.

  “Thanks for doing that,” said Mrs. Horrace to Janet, “you’ve always been so kind. I know Melody got her good nature from you. Always finished her projects and she never had to sit out of free play. Ever. She always got to go outside.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Do you want anymore lemonade?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Have any other trinkets for analysis?” she chortled obnoxiously. “I promise I won’t make you give it away!”

  “No, no, that’s it.” Janet semi-laughed politely. “I’ll just be going. Nice to catch up with you.”

  With great effort, Mrs. Horrace slid off the stool and staggered at her momentum. “Come back and visit whenever you like, and who knows, maybe you’ll bring another child to us someday.”

  “Who knows?” Janet agreed.

  She left for the front door, not waiting for Mrs. Horrace to walk her out.

  Since Herman had gone missing, there was a particular memory that kept swimming to the surface of Janet’s mind. One morning, not long ago, she caught her daughter wandering into the bathroom while Herman showered. Melody’s eyes got wide and she shouted belligerently. “Daddy! What’s that?”

  She remembered Herman had shampoo running down half of his face, so he could hardly see. “Melody, why aren’t you eating breakfast?”

  “Daddy! What’s that?”

  He laughed. “I use it to go pee-pee. Now get out, little girl.”

  “Pee-pee?”

  “Yep. Go on now, go out to your mother.”

  What a funny thing to recall, thought Janet. She supposed it made sense though. Her heart had felt so warm watching them interact: the man who had just begun to take steps as a father, the baby who had just begun to take steps as a person. They were both so alive in the recollection. God, she just wanted to hold them both, feel their skin, smell their hair. She even longed to hold that person she used to be. The Janet back then, good god, she just had so many mountaintops still to climb. She had no idea the mountain was short and ended in a sheer cliff.

  As a child Janet had once tried to hang herself in her closet with an old bungee cord. The cord stretched and the knot always came undone, and then there was the problem of her feet touching the ground. So that never took. Later that same afternoon, the perfume she drank was promptly all vomited up.

  She couldn’t bring herself to go for it again.

  A week after her secret attempt at taking her life, her father left the house, taking all of his rage and sorrow with him. There was no more need to “sleep forever,” as she liked to think about it, but Janet was pretty sure if she ever had to try it again, passing out from drugs or hanging y
ourself was the only way to go—you black out and your body remains whole. Guns and knives were more violence than she’d ever intended to do to herself.

  Now her thoughts returned to what needed to happen. Taking pills might be a similar experience to her drinking episode, so that didn’t appeal anymore. A nice clean jump from the rafters in the garage with some braided nylon rope though—that would suit her. Maybe even put Herman’s ankle weights on, to get more velocity, more snap.

  It would be disturbing for her friends to find her body hanging there, but did they really expect more from Janet Erikson at this point? This was cowardly and selfish, and she was at peace with that. Perhaps leaving Faye and Evan this mysterious bottle would readdress their sorrow? She would have to write a detailed note about what she’d discovered so far. It would have been nice to leave the coin for them too, but she’d failed to have a spine on that matter as well.

  Enjoy your Ferryman coin, little boy.

  She came to stop at a red light. Speaking of the bottle, she hadn’t checked on it since getting back into the car. She popped open the glove box and glanced inside.

  Her throat tightened.

  Scattered over the Dodge owner’s manual, brown and saturated and crumbling, were pieces of cork. It had rotted out.

  The light turned green and she pulled through the intersection, glancing from the road to the glove box in disbelief. She felt inside for dampness. Nothing. Hand tight on the steering wheel, she leaned over and touched the floor. Nothing.

  Thankfully, another red light came and she stopped the car. She took the bottle out. It felt empty, but then, it had always felt empty…

  The light turned green and she absently stepped on the gas.

  A big rig blasted its horn as it bulled through the intersection. Janet slammed on her brakes. Liquid sloshed over her hand. She gasped and dropped the bottle. At once a surge lifted in her chest and throat—a new coin sprung free, clipped her front teeth and sailed under the steering wheel to land black and messy over the speedometer.