Chiral Mad 3

by Stephen King

  “Well, that was weird,” I finally said.

  “Weird, but good,” said Lou. “It’s been a long while since Mom’s been anything like that.”

  “If only she could stay that way.”

  “I don’t think that’s really possible, Jo. She’s getting old. This is just what happens to people. We’ve got to face that. Unless we do, we won’t be able to deal with it.”

  “What if it didn’t have to happen?” I said. “What if …”

  I was afraid to put out there what was clattering about inside my head. It sounded crazy up there and would sound even crazier coming out of my mouth.

  “What if what?” said Lou. “What do you mean? Even that social worker you dragged to see her was baffled. Getting old means losing it. And even though we love her, we’re going to have to admit—Mom’s lost it.”

  “Look, I know how these things go,” I said. “I know what getting old means. But this seems … different. Surely you noticed what happened each time right before she perked up? Some of her stuff was gone, and—”

  “It was more than just gone. You destroyed it.“

  “Yes, I destroyed it. I admit it. I didn’t mean to, but I did it.”

  “Oh, you meant it. Don’t deny that. Be honest with yourself.”

  “Will you forget about the blame for a moment and listen to me? I know what you said. That she only roused because her anger momentarily empowered her. But it’s more than that. It’s got to be. Didn’t you notice, staying with her over the years, that the more of Mom’s things there’s been, the less of Mom there’s been? Even I could tell that, just over the phone, but I never put two and two together. She’s slipping away and …”

  I could hardly bring myself to say the words.

  “Of course she’s slipping away,” said Lou. “Someday we’ll slip away, too.”

  “Not like this, we won’t,” I said. “These possessions, they’ve become so important to her that she’s slipping away into them. Her hoarding sickness has been willed into something stranger. Something greater. This stuff … it’s absorbing her soul. And once I destroyed them, once they could no longer contain her, she got it back. Pieces of it anyway. But not enough pieces. We can’t let this go on. We can’t. We’ve got to free her.”

  “Oh, come on, Jo. That’s woo-woo crazy talk. I’m sorry if saying this sounds like a cliché, but you’ve spent too much time living in California.”

  “And you’ve spent too much time not living anywhere but here. If this has done that to her, who knows what it’s done to you?”

  “Enough!” said Lou, snapping. He stood up stiffly. “Why don’t you just go home, Jo. Check out of your motel, hop a plane, go back to that simple, uncluttered life you’ve chosen, and leave all of this behind. It’s clear you’re not ready to deal with our family.”

  He went back inside, leaving me to sit on the steps alone, staring out in the darkness at grass that should never have been allowed to grow that tall.

  But he was wrong.

  I was ready to deal with the family.

  I was the only one ready.

  I pulled out the card Marco had given me and phoned for him to come take me back to the motel, which he said that after he was through with his fare, he’d do. I didn’t really care how long he’d take. I was fine with waiting. I had a lot of thinking to get done. And sitting with the house at my back, both the one from my memory and the one that was real, I came to realize what I was in for. But even though I knew what must be next, knew in my heart, knew in my soul, there was still the part of me that thought—what if I was wrong?

  Which is why by the time Marco arrived to pick me up, I’d changed my plan, and instead of having him head back to the motel, I merely had him drive me a couple of blocks away and let me off there. I apologized for the short fare, made sure to tip him well, and explained what I needed from him next. He didn’t seem to mind. The desperation was probably spilling off me, and he could probably sense that.

  I walked back to the house, keeping to the shadows, and watched from across the street until lights went on upstairs in Lou’s room … and then off again. Once I figured he had to be asleep, which his snoring from the night before told me he would do solidly (and a good thing, too), I entered via the back door, which led directly into the kitchen.

  Off to the side, I could see Mom back in her cot, asleep this time, or so it seemed, no longer staring off at things unseen. I watched her for a while, wondering if the part of her that mattered really could have gone where I’d thought it had gone. I looked away, scanning the ephemera around us, enough for multiple lifetimes. Could I possibly be right?

  There was only one way to find out.

  I started with a box above the refrigerator. As quietly as I could, I unfolded the lid and filled a bag with sock monkeys, Raggedy Ann dolls, and packages of cookies with long-passed expiration dates (why were those things even together?), then resealed the box so no one could possibly notice anything had been taken. Until I was proven right, everything had to be done surreptitiously. I moved through what once was a kitchen and what once was a dining room, looking for the most easily reachable boxes, ones which I could ransack and still leave appearing undisturbed. I took nothing that was in plain sight, loading bag after bag until I’d reached the limit of how many I thought would fit in the back of the cab, and dragged them through the backyard to a side street. I left them there, knowing they’d be safe—as far as I knew, Mom was the only one who rummaged through trash in this neighborhood—then went back to say goodbye. But also a hopeful hello.

  Her eyes were open this time, staring straight ahead, and she didn’t turn to notice me. I walked into the path of her gaze, hoping to attract her attention, but though I smiled, though I waved, I couldn’t raise a response.

  I leaned in and gave her a kiss.

  “See you soon,” I whispered, and then returned to the hoard I’d made off with, where I called Marco again. This time, I did have him take me back to the motel.

  When we got there, I told him to skip the main entrance where he’d left me before and instead circle around the back. I pointed to a large rectangular dumpster in a far corner of the parking lot. He pulled up beside it and looked back, puzzled.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “Give me a hand,” I said, climbing out and pulling one of the bags out with me.

  “What’s this all about?” he said, popping open the trunk.

  “You nailed it when you first dropped me off and asked me whether I wanted to get out,” I said. “You were right. I didn’t. But I had to. That’s how family works. And this, this is just one more thing I have to do whether I want to or not.”

  Marco helped me line all the bags beside the dumpster, and then gave me a hand as I climbed up a ladder built into its side. I pulled one of the bags with me, reached in, grabbed a whiskey bottle molded in the shape of Elvis, and let it drop. The crackle as it burst was satisfying.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather sell these things?” he asked. “Maybe donate them to Goodwill? You could bring in a couple of bucks. Maybe even help someone. Just saying.”

  “There’s only one person I’m thinking of helping right now,” I said.

  I dropped a collectible plate bearing the Mona Lisa, followed by a Rubik’s Cube from which a corner cube was missing. As I did so, I pictured Mom as she used to be. Younger, yes, but it wasn’t just younger I was hoping for. I wanted her to be present, to once more have a life of conscious action, rather than the tropisms which had swallowed her, driving Dad away, driving me away, driving Lou to sacrifice his life for hers.

  “Can I help you with that?” said Marco. “You’ve got a lot of stuff here. Doing it one at a time like that is going to take you all night.”

  “I think I’m going to have to do this by myself,” I said, tossing in a handful of well-chewed tennis balls. And we’d never owned a dog. From what gutter had she gathered those? “I don’t know how I know that. But I know.”

&nb
sp; He shrugged and drove off, leaving me alone in the darkness, where I finished offloading the rest of the junk. But I didn’t remain in darkness for long. Because I knew the things that would not break needed to be burned. I lit a newspaper I’d set aside and dropped it atop the mountain of things Mom couldn’t let go of, watched the flames catch the fringe of a pillow, then leap to a stained polyester blouse, and onto the tape spilling out of a cracked cassette cartridge, eventually bringing the whole pile ablaze. The flames danced and dark smoke rose, and as they did, I hoped that whatever was being released to the skies would release Mom, too.

  I stayed by the fire until it was mostly ash with lumps of melted plastic poking through, then went upstairs to pack my bag. Because the next day I’d be flying home.

  Or at least pretending to.

  Lou wasn’t happy to see me once he opened the door to my knocking, obviously believing that after having turned his back on me the night before on the porch, I’d be gone. I didn’t care, though. The only thing that mattered was whether Mom would now be capable of being happy to see me.

  I pushed past him, leaving him behind me, staring out at Marco’s cab (since I’d told him to wait), and on into Mom’s room. I had to stop thinking of it as that, though. It was not Mom’s room. It was only the kitchen in which she had become frozen.

  She was sitting on the edge of the cot, tapping a pencil against a partially filled crossword puzzle in a yellowed newspaper, and looked up the moment I walked in. She smiled, her eyes bright. I sat beside her and took her hand while Lou hung back in the doorway, glaring at us both.

  “How are you going, Mom?” I asked.

  “I’m doing fine,” she said. There was no sign of her old self. Only her older self, the one I remembered from before things began to go bad. “How have you been, dear?”

  “I’m doing fine, Mom,” I said, my voice thickening. “But I’m doing even better today.”

  “I feel the same way,” said Mom. “I managed to get a good start on today’s puzzle. I can’t remember when that last happened.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that wasn’t today’s crossword puzzle. It wasn’t even that year’s puzzle. But it was at least a puzzle. That was good enough for now.

  “See?” said Lou. “You’re not needed here any longer. It turns out there’s nothing wrong with her. I guess she was just under the weather for a bit, but when she woke up this morning, she was better. False alarm and all that. Sorry I bothered you. I’ll try not to do it again. But you can go home now.”

  “Oh, do you have to go already, dear?” said Mom, tightening her grip even more. “It would be wonderful if you could stay awhile. I don’t get to see as much of you as I used to.”

  “I wish I could, Mom,” I said, leaving unsaid, there’s a reason for that. “But I have to get back to work. And Lou’s right. Since you’re feeling better, I really should go. But I promise—I’ll be back soon. Don’t you worry about that.”

  I gave Mom’s hand one final squeeze and looked up at Lou, standing there framed by towers of boxes, some of which, unknown to him, I’d emptied. Emptied so that something else, someone greater, could be filled. I hadn’t been dreaming. My plan had worked. But I knew it wouldn’t work for long.

  Unless …

  “Goodbye, Leo,” I said, forcing a hug on him I knew he did not want.

  “Bye, Jo,” he said, reluctantly returning my hug. His voice was slightly softer, but only, I imagined, because he knew I was on my way. “Don’t worry about us. I’ve got everything under control.”

  No, I thought. You only think you do. I’m the one who’s got everything under control.

  I walked back through the narrow passageway Mom and Leo had conspired to create, imagining the hoard melting away, remembering how free and open it had been when I was young and could barely stretch my arms to reach both walls at once. I looked into the living room and saw it not how it was, but how it had been, with stuffed couches which used to beckon me. Out on the porch, I turned toward where the swing had been made invisible by lawn mowers and a tangle of rakes. It would have been nice to take one final swing. But that wasn’t possible.

  I got in the cab, slammed the door, and looked at the house in daylight for what I knew would be the last time.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I told Marco, even as I knew … I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I let him drive me to the airport not because I intended to fly out that day, but because I needed him, needed everyone, to think I was leaving town. When I’d arrived, I hadn’t thought I’d need an alibi, or suspected, when Mario had first leaned back and handed me his card, that he’d be part of it. But I guess the universe knew better than me what I needed all along.

  I went inside the terminal and paused by the plate glass window instead of checking in, making a show of puttering with my luggage until I saw him pull away. I’d get a different flight later, after I did what needed to be done. I took the escalator down to the arrivals area, went back outside, and hailed a different cab.

  I returned to my old neighborhood again, thinking how odd it was to cruise those streets more in a few days than I had in the past decade. I had this driver drop me in front of a house where I knew no one would be home, took a few slow steps toward the front door, and watched him drive off. Then I walked the few blocks to my own street and waited for it to be night. Once it was dark, both outside and in, I crept to the back porch that led to the kitchen, and peered through at my mother.

  She was awake, leaning back against a pillow, and staring up, but whether she was gazing at the ceiling or something much further away, I couldn’t tell. The way her eyes were unfocussed, though, she probably wasn’t seeing anything at all. From my angle, the tower of clutter tilted against the far wall looked like a wave about to come crashing down on her.

  She deserved better than this. She was going to get better than this. She was living in a firetrap, her soul leached away, and the only way to free her from that constant drain was to make the firetrap achieve its potential.

  I opened the door slowly and tiptoed inside, twisting to get around a stack of boxes. What a waste. How long had it been since the kitchen has been usable anyway, thanks to an oven filled with outdated encyclopedias and a range that was now topped with bicycle tires? Let it go, Mom. Let it all go. She would be lost until everything was lost.

  I started dropping lit books of matches on the mess near the bottom of the staircase first, so that Lou would be woken by smoke and then wake Mom and get her out. I then moved through the rest of the main floor, lighting ancient newspapers, landscape paintings which would have embarrassed a cheap motel, old clothing worn to rags, craft supplies for projects promised but never done, whatever was flammable enough to get this going. It all caught more easily than I would have thought. I guess even the things themselves knew it was time to let go.

  Outside on the back porch, I set the corners of boxes on fire, then I moved around to the front porch and did the same. I looked for a moment at the machines, but there was no point in attacking them. The house itself would take care of those when it all came tumbling down. The bags mounded against the garage caught quickly, their plastic skins melting into flaming goo that set the contents ablaze.

  Take it all away, I thought. Take it all away and bring my mother back.

  I retreated from the house and hid behind a bush across the street, watching as the flames outside grew higher and the flames inside illuminated the windows more brightly, imagining Mom’s soul returning to her body with every object that burned or melted or burst. Any moment now, Lou would come running out of the house with our mother in his arms, and I could rush back to the airport for the last plane out.

  I wondered how much of her I would get back how quickly, how much of her absence would become once more a presence. And as I waited, and waited, and waited still more, I grew nervous, because … no one was coming. Did Lou sleep that deeply? Or had I done too much too soon, and the fire had spread too quickly?
>
  Whatever the reason, I was sure something had gone wrong, and could wait no more. I raced across the lawn, through tall blades of grass close to the house already blackening, and leapt up the porch steps and through the front door. I was instantly pushed back by the heat and the light and the smoke, and had to fight against them all to move forward. As I pressed through the blaze into the crowded hallway, shoving my nose into an elbow, I cried, my tears drying instantly, and thought no, screamed no. They can’t die, I did not mean for it to end this way.

  I alternated between gasping and coughing, pulling in more smoke with each futile breath, and as my lungs were overcome, my knees began to buckle and my head grew as smoky as the air around me. Then I felt a hand wrap beneath my arm and tug. I tried to rise as it pulled at me, but instead fell away into darkness.

  And came to flat on my back out on the front lawn, looking up at my mother, her face lit by the dancing flames.

  “Are you all right, Jo?” she asked. She placed a hand to my forehead as she used to do so long ago.

  I tried to answer, but coughed instead. I tried to sit up, but fell back again, too dizzy to move. Attempting to kill what had been killing Mom had almost killed me. But had the risk proven worthwhile?

  “I’ll be all right,” I answered, my throat raw, my voice raspy. “What’s more important is … how are you?”

  “Much better, dear.” She smiled, and by the flickering of the light, I could almost see her younger self, and I smiled, too. “But the house. What could have happened?”

  Flat on my back, I shrugged as best as I could. She put her arms around my shoulders in a way that felt familiar, and helped me up, so I could see what she had no idea I had done, and would never admit to anyone but myself. The house was engulfed, the outer walls blackening, the roof beginning to sag. No firemen had yet arrived to put out the blaze. I couldn’t even hear the sound of approaching sirens.