The Slab

by Michael R Collings

  He caught it.

  “Just this once.”

  “Just this once,” Sams piped in imitation. “Light?”

  Catherine hesitated. To make an issue of it would probably reinforce whatever it was that was bothering Sams. But she didn’t want to give in completely.

  “All right. We’ll leave the hall light on and the door open. That okay, Sams?”

  He nodded, already relaxing under her touch.

  She laid him back, tucked his covers around him-careful not to hide his blanket-and crossed to the door. Willard had already turned on the hall light. She snapped off the one in the boys’ room.

  “Good night.”

  “Night” came quietly from both bedrooms.

  6

  “What were you thinking in there?” Catherine was almost whispering, even though she and Willard were at the opposite end of the house from the boys.

  Willard shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I didn’t think it really mattered that much. Just this once.”

  Catherine shook her head. “But after they were punished for fighting over the game…”

  “Punished?”

  “Having to put it away like that. We’ve never done that before. We’ve always given them at least one more chance. Then knuckling under to Sams…”

  “Knuckling under?”

  Catherine started. She heard anger in Willard’s voice, not right at the surface yet, but there nonetheless.

  She reached out and laid her hand on his.

  “Willard, what’s wrong? This isn’t like…”

  “Nothing,” he said curtly. Then he took a deep breath and sighed. “Nothing, really. I guess I was just tired. First that horrendous trip home-the freeway was like glass, the rain was so hard that the wipers could barely keep up, and red lights kept flashing right and left like crazy. There were so many cars jammed together that it seemed like there had to be a roadblock or an accident somewhere up ahead, but there never was, just car after car after car creeping along like slugs.

  “Then the garage door not working when I got home, and me getting drenched like that. And then the cracks…”

  “Sweetie, don’t…”

  Willard’s hand slammed against the table top. “Dammit, don’t tell me to…”

  Startled at the hurt expression in her eyes, he stopped, placed his hand over hers, and sighed.

  “It’s like all of a sudden everything is going wrong. The kids arguing like that, us arguing, the rain…and this house, falling apart and we haven’t even been in it three months. And that creep Maxwell shrugging it off like it was nothing.

  “We were cheated! And then he just blows us off like it was nothing. ‘The house isn’t going to fall in any time soon. Maybe in forty or fifty years, but not tomorrow.’

  “Right. Only it isn’t his kids that have to live in it, his wife that… I feel like a total failure.”

  “Willard.”

  He looked at Catherine, suddenly realizing that he was holding his breath in…anger? No, fury. He had never felt this way in his life, so impotent, so helpless, so…so cheated! Screwed!

  “It’s not worth it, honey. Not tonight. There’s nothing we can do right now. Tomorrow we’ll call the county inspector or something, get someone out here who can help us. It will all work out. You know it will.”

  Willard took several deep breaths. “Okay. You’re right. Maybe tomorrow everything will look better. Maybe the rain will stop.”

  7

  But the rain didn’t stop.

  If anything, it was pouring harder when Willard struggled awake at 5:00, showered and shaved, threw on his clothes, grabbed a left-over corn muffin from yesterday’s breakfast, and shuffled off to work.

  It was pouring even harder than that-solid sheets of water that almost obscured the world outside and left eerie dark patterns on the windows-a few hours later when Catherine finally had all of the kids up and seated at the breakfast, putting the finishing touches on their school lunches.

  “I don’t want peanut butter and jelly,” Burt muttered. “I always have peanut butter and jelly.”

  “But that’s your favorite, isn’t it?” Catherine knew that he insisted on the same thing every day for his lunch, had insisted on it since his first day in kindergarten.

  “No. I hate it.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but your lunch is already made and packed and you’ll just have to eat it.”

  “No!”

  Catherine turned to stare at him. Will, Jr., and Suze were staring at Burt as well. Sams ignored his bigger brother, intent on destroying his bowl of Sugar Crisps and drawing circles in spilled milk on the tray of his high chair.

  “Burt!” Catherine’s voice was sharper than she intended. “It’s made and you’ll eat it.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t argue with me.” She glared at him, unsure herself why it was so important that she win this small tug-of-wills. Usually she wouldn’t have minded, just made him a tuna sandwich like she made for Will and Suze. And peanut and butter was his favorite. The whole family knew that. Burt would almost rather have that than a bowl of chocolate fudge ice cream, his second favorite thing. But today…

  “Okay,” Burt muttered, lowering his gaze to his plate. He spooned fitfully at his own bowl of cereal, complete with milk, slopping soggy bits onto the table.

  “Burt! Don’t do that…” Catherine suddenly broke off.

  With the part of her mind that mother’s use to keep track of everything going on around her even while dealing with her children, she had heard something on the radio that she turned on each morning while setting breakfast out. The announcer’s voice was low, almost inaudible, and rarely intruded into her conscious awareness.

  “…reports the following school closures because of unexpected flooding in the…”

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” Will turned to look at the radio.

  “Shhh.”

  “For the Newton Park area…”

  “It sounds like they’re closing some of the schools today. Too much rain. Shhh.”

  “…and for Tamarind Valley, Reagan Jr. High, Pitt Elementary, Redwood Heights Elementary, Greenwood Elementary, Charter Oaks Elementary…”

  Hearing the name of their school, Burt and Suze broke out into spontaneous cheering. Will was quieter but a broad grin creased his face.

  “No school, no school, no school…,” the younger two chanted. Sams waved his arms up and down and joined the chorus. “No school, no school, no school…”

  Will restrained himself.

  Catherine sighed. No school today. Great.

  8

  It wasn’t half an hour after she had herded the four kids into the back bedroom to play and settled herself down to cleaning the kitchen and finally making herself some toast and tea when the front door opened, then slammed shut.

  “Willard?” She jumped to her feet and started toward the entryway just in time to see him stamping his feet and dropping his sodden raincoat onto the tile.

  Oh, no. The garage door opener again.

  “What happened?” Somehow he looked different than he had when he got home last night, even though he was just as drenched. Did the car break down? Was he feeling ill? After all, last night had been difficult for him.

  “You’re not going to believe this.” Willard looked as if wanted to laugh and curse at the same time. She’d never seen such an expression on his face before.

  “What?”

  The freeway’s flooded. The freeway!”

  Catherine didn’t quite know what to say.

  “Just before you get to the San Fernando Valley, you know where the freeway takes that deep dip before the final hill? Well, apparently it’s flooded there. All eight lanes. Traffic both directions is stopped completely! I couldn’t believe it.”

  “But you’ve been gone for hours.”

  “Yeah.” Now the odd look was replaced by a grimace. “It took nearly two hours for the highway patrol to funnel everyone off the freeway and on
to that little, single-lane access road heading back toward Tamarind. You wouldn’t believe the mess.

  “And even that road was nearly flooded in a couple of places, so we had to slow down to ten miles an hour or so. It’s unbelievable.”

  By this time, he and Catherine were back in the kitchen, sitting around the table. She was pouring Willard a cup of tea and refreshing her own.

  “Then it took another hour or so to negotiate the surface roads. Half of them were either shut down completely or restricted to one-way traffic only because of mud slides along the hills. I didn’t think I was ever going to make it home.

  “But that’s not even the worst of it,” he said after taking a long sip and shivering slightly at the sudden warmth. “I was listening to the radio the whole time, trying to figure out what roads to take. The freeway is shut at the northern end of the valley as well, just before the Camarillo grade, right where the eight lanes narrow to six. No way out to the north.

  “And the road at Norwegian grade has actually slid halfway down the hillside at one place. There’s only part of one lane left, and the cops have shut it down completely as well.

  “Basically, were cut off. There’s no way out of Tamarind right now, at least not until the rain stops. Literally, no way out.”

  Catherine stirred her tea. “The schools are closed as well. Here and in Newton Park both. And a lot of the houses in the higher parts of Coastal Crest are in danger of sliding if the hills get any more unstable.”

  “All this after only a day and a night of this rain. What will happen if it continues as long as the forecasters predict?”

  It did. The rain didn’t ease for four days, when traffic was finally allowed to travel north and south on the freeway. Norwegian grade wouldn’t be usable for seven or eight months, depending on how long it would take to carve a new roadway out of the hillside. And in the lower parts of Tamarind Valley, some of the housing developments were cut off stores and businesses for almost a week.

  Charter Oaks fared better.

  It was built on a small rise, not quite a hill exactly but one of the higher parts of the valley. The Huntleys were not totally isolated. When they ran out of milk on the third day, Willard could negotiate the rain-sodden streets far enough to buy more-along with toilet paper, that other necessity for any household with multiple children. But for all intents and purposes, even they were housebound.

  Two adults. Four children. Two hamsters. And a dog.

  The rain continued to fall so hard for three of the four days that, except that single trip to the store, none of them left the house.

  It was a big enough house. Everyone had a place to go for a moment of peace and quiet. But mostly they spent the days in the family. Willard watched TV, alternating between whatever sports events he could find and the incessant “Storm Watch” reports on half the channels. He missed going to work. He felt almost uncomfortable stranded in the house, with nothing purposeful he could do. He fidgeted, finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything. Several times, when one of the kids raised a voice-whether in pique or even once when Sams abruptly shrieked with laughter at something Will, Jr., had done-he felt a deep irritation, something like the infant cousin of the fury the first night of the rains. A couple of times he couldn’t keep himself from almost yelling at them to be quiet. He wasn’t at all happy. He wanted to get out of the house.

  Catherine watched with half an eye, mostly when reports on the “Storm-of-the-Decade” were on, and the rest of her attention on knitting scarves and sweaters for nieces and nephews that lived in colder climates. Although not an imperceptive wife, she noticed nothing particularly wrong with the way Willard was behaving.

  The kids played Monopoly. One marathon game. The three oldest sat in their usual places around the board, rolling the dice and moving their tokens-there was an odd bit of squabbling at the beginning, when Burt grabbed the Boot, Suze’s favorite, and Will took Burt’s favorite piece in retaliation. It took an intervention by Catherine and a warning from Willard that the game would be put away for the duration if anything like that happened again to settle things.

  Sams seemed perfectly happy to squat along the fourth side, holding out handfuls of money whenever it was needed. When he got tired, he simply rolled over and fell asleep on the floor, his blanket tucked securely along his cheek.

  So they played, breaking only to eat and go to the bathroom and, somewhat later than usual, head unwillingly to bed. When Suze ran out of money on the first day, Will loaned her some. When Burt hit “Go Directly to Jail” three times in a row, Suze calmed him down.

  And the rain continued. They could hear the constant drumming on the roof, and the splattering of drops on the picture window behind the couch. Oleander Place became a small river of runoff.

  And the rain continued.

  9

  When it came, the break in the monotonous routine was sudden and devastating.

  On the morning of the fourth day, just before the rain tapered off, diminished to a restless drizzle, and finally stopped completely (although none of the Huntley family ever thought of that as the day the rain stopped), about an hour after breakfast and well into the never-ending monopoly game, Sams suddenly stood up and wandered down the hall.

  No one paid any real attention.

  A few minutes later, he returned carrying one of his favorite toys, a clear plastic ball in which either Yip or Yap, the boys’ hamsters, could race around the floor, constantly delighting Sams as well as the rest of them. The short-nubbed carpeting in the family was just right for the ball-it slowed Yip or Yap sufficiently that Sams could keep up with whichever one was exercising at the moment, yet allowed the hamster to race along fast enough to keep everyone entertained.

  Solemnly, Sams placed the ball on the floor by the game board. The he went to stand beside Burt.

  “Help me?”

  “What?” Burt kept looking at the board, intent on the fact that if Will threw a seven, his older brother would be confronted by the horrifying fact of landing on Park Palace…with three hotels. Burt waved his little brother away absently.

  “Help me?”

  “Burt,” Willard said from the couch, barely removing his eyes from the television, “help your brother.”

  Burt finally glanced up, saw Sams, then saw the plastic ball sitting on the floor. He understood at once what was needed.

  “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t roll until I get back,” he instructed Will, Jr. He wanted to be there for the big moment.

  The two boys disappeared down the hall.

  They were gone for several minutes, longer than it should have taken to retrieve either Yip or Yap from its hiding place in the cedar chips.

  Neither Willard nor Catherine noticed the time, although Will, Jr., wriggled in impatience at the wait.

  Finally, Burt came down the hall, followed by Sams.

  “Dad,” Burt said quietly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dad, Yip won’t play with us.”

  “Then bring Yap out,” The boys could apparently tell the two hamsters apart, although to Willard’s adult eyes they looked identical. “Maybe Yip’s eating or something.”

  “No, he’s just laying there. He won’t get up to play with us.”

  This time Willard heard a note of anxiety in Burt’s voice. He stood, casting a knowing-almost an accusatory-glance at Catherine. They had been waiting for this to happen ever since she had talked him into letting the kids have the things. Neither of them were particularly eager for what they both knew was coming. Catherine put aside her knitting and rose as well.

  Will, Jr., and Suze simply sat at the game board, as if standing guard lest some errant breeze shift the playing pieces.

  Willard led the way down the dark hallway toward the back bedroom. The room itself was cast into murky shadow by the cloud cover outside. The little Mickey Mouse lamp was on but not the ceiling light.

  He walked over to the small table that held the hamsters’
cage. One of them, it must be Yap, was running circles on the exercise wheel, spinning away as if his little life depended on it. The other one, Yip, lay half hidden in cedar chips at the back of the cage.

  Willard reached in.

  Yap ignored him and kept the wheel spinning at breakneck speed.

  Yip didn’t move, either. Willard closed his hand around the bit of fur.

  Nothing.

  He lifted the hamster out of the cage, glanced over his shoulder at Catherine, and nodded. They had both had small pets as children. Small pets, however much loved and however well cared for, often did not live long.

  He led the small parade out of the bedroom and back into the family room.

  “Will, put the ball away, will you?”

  Will started to object, then took in the fact that his father-who almost never played with the hamsters-was standing quietly above him, holding something in his hand.

  “Okay.” He picked up the toy and disappeared down the hall. He reappeared only a moment or so later.

  “Come here, guys,” Willard said, voice softer, more gentle than it had been for the past several days.

  The children gathered around his knees, their eyes on the mound of fur. Will, Jr., already had tears forming in his eyes. He knew. Burt probably guessed but was still processing. Suze looked confused. And Sams seemed to wonder why Yip didn’t get up and look at him.

  “I’m afraid that Yip…well, that Yip has…gone away.”

  “No he hasn’t, Daddy,” Suze replied immediately. “He’s right there. In your hand.”

  “Right there,” Sams added, pointing.

  “I know, but…” Willard looked up at Catherine.

  “What Daddy is trying to say is that Yip has gone to sleep, and he is going to stay asleep for a long, long time,” she said, her voice as gently as Willard’s.

  “You mean he’s… dead?” Burt had finally accepted what he already intuited. “Dead for good?”

  Before Willard could answer, Suze breathed a quick “No,” and bust into tears. Perhaps she didn’t truly understand death, but she watched enough television-even the children’s programming that Willard and Catherine preferred-to know the word. And to know that it wasn’t a good thing.