Ill Will

by Dan Chaon

“Where’s the light coming from?” I said.

  “Windows,” she said. “It’s afternoon. Peter is missing and I’m waiting for some kind of news and I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Okay,” I said. I kept my eyes closed. I imagined myself sitting there in the kitchen with her. We are at the table. NPR is playing, those soft, novocained voices, background music. She’s reading about the young soldier who was disfigured in Iraq, now winning the hearts of millions of viewers on Dancing with the Stars.

  “I’d like you to lift your head from your magazine and look around the room,” I said. “There’s something here that you might have forgotten. Something that’s important.”

  “The telephone? The telephone is going to ring?”

  “And…?”

  “It rings. And it’s Peter. I don’t understand why he would call me on the landline. Usually he texts me on my cell phone. That’s the way everything is, these days.

  “But I remember that I put down the magazine and I went to the phone and when I picked it up. It was Peter. I know it was his voice, even though he was whispering and there was a lot of static. And he said, ‘Mommy.’ He said: ‘Mommy, help me.’ And I heard it. I heard him say it and then the phone went dead.

  “Afterward…I called the police afterward,” she said. “I told them, ‘He’s out there, someone has him, someone is hurting him,’ and I could tell by the sound of their voice that they didn’t believe me.  And when we looked at the phone records. We looked and the only call that had come to my landline that afternoon was from one of those…telemarketing things. Robocallers, is that it? Registered to a company in Houston. And then I didn’t believe it myself anymore. I must’ve dreamed it, I thought.

  “They were probably right. I just imagined it. The call came, I don’t know, was it seven—ten? Ten days after he disappeared? He was already dead by then.”

  —

  Just remember: It’s not reliable.

  This kind of hypnosis—I explained to Aqil—is looked on with suspicion. Many feel that it’s a kind of quackery, I said. Though it can be very useful in certain therapeutic situations, you can’t say these memories are real. I told him about the research of Elizabeth Loftus, about the misinformation effect, how our recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information. I’m sure he knew already about the case I myself testified in and how that turned out.

  “I get it,” he said. “Not suitable for a court of law.”

  “Well,” I said. “Not suitable for a lot of things.”

  But Aqil only shook his head sadly. “What if she was right?” he said. “What if Allingham was being held prisoner? What if he might have broken away—got to a phone somehow? I’d guess he was pretty drugged, but he managed to remember his childhood home phone number. That’s the one thing you don’t forget, isn’t it?”

  “Well,” I said. “They did check the phone records. Unless he was being held prisoner by a telemarketing firm in Texas.”

  Aqil shrugged. “Could have been a dummy phone number, maybe? Happens all the time.”

  “That seems far-fetched,” I said. “And anyway, wasn’t he already dead?”

  “No, no,” Aqil said. “Here’s the thing that I’m thinking. I know you’re not crazy about this thing with the dates, and I agree with you in principle. But let’s for a minute pay attention to the dates.  What’s the day after she talked to him?”

  “Uh…” I said. “November eleventh?”

  He raised his eyebrows and nodded. “What I’m saying is,” Aqil said, “he disappeared in the early-morning hours of November first. But what if he didn’t die on November first? What if…? It’s like I was telling you before—we know they drowned, but do we know that they were alive when they went into the body of water that they were discovered in?  I have this idea that he was held and that his captors kept him incapacitated with drugs, maybe some kind of restraints that wouldn’t leave a mark?

  “Because I do think that they want to kill him on a certain date, for probably ritualistic or religious reasons. November eleventh, 2011: 11/11/11. I realize that it doesn’t all line up the way I would like it to, but I still keep going back to it. You can tell me that I’m confabulating, Doctor; I need you to be my skeptic. But just let me lay it out.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was not a fan of the ritualistic-dates theory, but I didn’t object. You don’t know what you’ll find if you let a patient’s story spin out. Sometimes something important.

  “Let’s say this,” Aqil said. “They saw the opportunity to kidnap the young man on Halloween, and then they probably kept him caged or something until the time and then he was taken to some sort of sacred site. And he was ritually drowned. And then only much later was his body dumped in the river.”

  “Hmm,” I said. And in some ways I could picture it all very clearly. I couldn’t say that it was factual, but it was vivid. It was a way to explain the discrepancies. Possibly there was a glint of reality in it, somewhere.

  “The call placed to his mother on November tenth. Maybe he got loose for long enough to make a call. Or maybe they let him make it. Maybe they put the phone in his hand. Call for help, they told him. They knew he wouldn’t get away, and they liked the power of it. They liked that he was crying, that he called out for his mom. They loved that he used the word Mommy.”

  “I’m not quite following you,” I said. This is how it always seemed to go. I would feel almost convinced, and then Aqil would spin off into a new set of speculations, and I would think to myself, he’s making this up as he goes along.

  “I think maybe they drown them in some sort of ritualistic pool or fountain of some kind,” Aqil said. “Possibly the boys are tied up and they put their heads down in some kind of container filled with water. And they do their chants and pray to the devil, or whatever….”

  “But I don’t see—why would they hold them prisoner for such a long period? The chance of at least one of the victims escaping would be very high, wouldn’t you think? What would be the motivation?”

  Aqil gave me a frustrated look. “Really?” he said. “I thought you studied Satanists, man,” he said, almost as if I’d hurt his feelings. “What does Satan want? Doesn’t he want you to laugh at suffering? Doesn’t he want you to lick the tears off the cheeks of the children calling out for their mommy? Don’t you think there’s a lot of people out there who would get their kicks out of this kind of thing?”

  NOVEMBER 2012

  NO ONE EXPECTED her to die as fast as she did, and she was the most shocked of all. “This can’t be right,” she said to the doctors. “I think you need to recheck these results,” and she was a prosecuting attorney to the end. The oncologists stuttered and equivocated like bad witnesses under questioning, mincing words, wincing, gesturing submissively, and looking toward me for help. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jill said. “I’m only forty-three! This is not acceptable!”

  But no matter the arguments and counterarguments, the disease ate her down swiftly and steadily. Between April and October, she lost sixty pounds. The color saturation of her skin faded and faded until it was almost gray scale.

  She still insisted that we not tell the kids. “It’s too much for me,” she said. “We don’t have to rush into things—we don’t need to…”

  In November, when the doctor said she should go into hospice, she shook her head. No!

  No!  She was at the stage where she was mumbling; no one could understand her but me, and I stood there as she appealed to me hopefully. “Nuh,” she said, “uh-uh,” a mushy garble, not words. And our eyes met, and I knew that she really, really didn’t want to die. There was no grace or acceptance.

  “It’s just for a few days,” I said reassuringly. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

  NOVEMBER 2012

  NOVEMBER 2012

  Her last breath.

  It has been hard to breathe for a long time.

  She is sucking air through
her bared teeth, and there’s only just a trace of oxygen in it. Her eyes rake back and forth along the contours of the ceiling.

  Rictus.

  Rictus.

  It looks like a horrible, clownish, unnatural smile and that is the worst thing.

  That in the end, her body forces on her the expression that she hates the most. The fake grin of celebrities and prom photos and pleased to meet ya’s, and I’m pretty sure she is blind, she can’t see me, and her hand scrabbles wildly for a moment across mine

  And her eyes say: This isn’t possible. Wait! Even as her mouth smiles her eyes plead with me and her body arches

  Wait!

  The boys are sitting in the TV room with Rabbit, and there’s something about seeing Rabbit dressed up in a suit—this slump-shouldered, six-foot-four, two-hundred-fifty-pound boy, melting into his chair like a snowman, holding his paper plate of hors d’oeuvres, his face a mask of blank discomfort. And I don’t know why this should be the image that makes my voice go tight, that forces me to press my teeth together to keep from bawling.

  Dennis and Aaron stand up, maybe sensing it, alert and wide eyed as deer.

  And I press the hams of my hands against my eye sockets and push hard and then I’m giving them a melancholy but together smile, I’m saying, “Boys, we’re all going to gather in the living room and people are going to share some of their memories of your mom? And I was hoping you’d be able to join us?”

  NOVEMBER 2012

  NOVEMBER 2012

  When Jill died it dawned on me that I had few friends. It was not something I’d noticed before. Jill—and to some extent, the boys—had taken up so much of my mental space that I honestly hadn’t realized. I had a lot of pleasant acquaintances, who sent cards and flowers, and I sent thank-you notes.

  It wasn’t until my meeting with Aqil Ozorowski, two weeks after Jill’s death, that I realized the extent of it. He was sitting in the waiting room and when I came in he stood and opened his arms and wrapped them around my shoulders.

  It was a sudden, surprising gesture, and at first I just stood there with my arms at my sides. I don’t, generally, like to be touched by random people.

  But it also occurred to me that I had not been hugged—genuinely embraced—since before the death. There had been shoulder-patting and hand-rubbing and awkward quick busses on the cheek. Not

  Do you believe in demons? Do you believe in bad luck? Do you believe that someone up there doesn’t like you?

  Retrospective patterning is the fallacy of seeing planning where there is none. A design that doesn’t exist.

  Do you believe that there is a cult of people who are drowning young men in Ohio?

  There is a difference between stopping and concluding. Rain stops falling. A song concludes. Only one is deliberate.

  Do you believe that Rusty killed your parents? Do you believe a mistake has been made?

  “Sorry for your loss,” Aqil said, and his voice was actually shaking with emotion, he put his arms around me and I found my face pressed against his shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he whispered into the hair near my ear. “So so so sorry, Dr. Tillman.”

  He was a kindhearted person, and I may have wept for the first time onto his shirt that morning.

  “You’re not okay,” he said. “Doc, look at your face, you shouldn’t be at work!” He released me from his grip and held my shoulders at arms’ length. “Oh my God, you can barely stand up!”

  I watch as Rabbit puts his hand to his thick neck and the fingers touch the knot of his tie.

  So awkward. Unspoken thoughts floating, almost tangible.

  “Yeah, sure, of course,” Dennis says. And he and Aaron look at each other, and Aaron says, “Uh…yeah. Okay.”

  Aaron is holding his hands behind his back, and I’m aware of the smell of marijuana smoke in the room.

  “Well,” I say. “People are beginning to gather. So”

  Do you believe that what happened to you is real, Dr. Tillman?

  The gibben? The hands behind the back?

  Do you think that the best way of killing yourself is to take pills and put a plastic bag over your head? In a bathtub, maybe?

  Do you think that probably Dennis would be fine, but Aaron is so vulnerable—he does still need you, even though he’d like to pretend that he doesn’t.

  Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children be drowned in the River Nile.

  And then you realize that in some versions of the story the river is the main character.

  Her cremated remains in a clear plastic bag. About a gallon’s worth of dust and stones. You think ashes, but in truth it is more like gravel, like the jagged little pebbles you find at the bottom of fish tanks.

  The bag is cinched at the top and there is a tag that says: “Cremation certificate enclosed. This is not a permanent container.”

  A precious phone message from her saved on the cellphone, hoarded, listened to again and then even downloaded to the computer:

  “Hi honey it’s me I’m on my way home from work and just wanted to see if you needed me to pick something up—but since you didn’t answer your phone, I guess I can’t ask you. Okay. I love you. See you soon.”

  There are so many vases that flowers came in. Most of the vases are very pretty, made of glass, expensive looking, and when the flowers die the vases have to be cleaned in the dishwasher.

  Maybe they should be saved? Maybe they should be taken to Goodwill, so poor people can use them?

  The boys look at you blankly.

  The cremation jewelry purchased from the funeral home. Tasteful small lockets that you can hang around your neck, and the boys and I kneel on the floor of her study and I try to use the tiny spoon the funeral home provided to scoop a portion of her ashes and pour it into the locket.

  Little bits trickle out and spill onto the floor, and get tangled in the lint.

  One of her hairs by the foot of the desk chair.

  The boys sit in their room listening to Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, Bob Marley singing “Three Little Birds.”

  The odor of marijuana smoke fingers through the cracks in the doorframe, and you hesitate there, holding a tumbler of whiskey.

  “Every little thing gonna be all right,” Bob Marley is singing. And your children sing along.

  “Dad, listen,” Dennis says as we are watching TV. “Listen. I think I’m going to go back to Ithaca. I’m in good enough shape to finish up my finals and I don’t want the whole semester to be, like…a waste—”

  And the look on Aaron’s face: reddening envy.

  Because of course he has nowhere to go. He’s stuck here.

  Driving down to the offices in Kent for the first time since she died, about 45 degrees and foggy and muddy the sky the same cement color as the interstate, textureless and dense. The sun and sky are underneath that thick sludge of cloud, invisible.

  Three Little Birds:

  The song that their mother sang to them as babies.

  Lick the tears from the cheeks of

  Lights a cigarette in the car, opens the window a crack. A constant smudge of condensation, icy mist, the drip that runs along the frame and trickles into the car, a restaurant called Bahama Breeze surrounded by bare sleepless trees

  The flattened strip of commercial real estate as you enter Streetsboro: Fun Buffet Staples Little Caesars Space Available LoanMax

  The rows of trailers in All Seasons RV peering out from behind their high hurricane fence.

  Pain Recovery Center

  Dear Ann, thanks so much for your card and the flowers, it was a very thoughtful gesture that we all appreciated

  Dear Jason, thank you for the

  Dear

  Wait! Wait!

  Wait!

  At the stoplight, text Aaron:

  Can you check in the fridge and see if we need OJ? Because I can’t remember if we’re out.

  DECEMBER 2012

  AQIL EMAILED AND said he was going to send a couple of links. “I know th
is is a real bad time and I hope it’s not an intrusion but this is very urgently important….”

  —

  Hypnagogia: the transition from wakefulness to sleep, and you keep having the dreams that you are dreaming that you are dreaming, or that you are waking up when you are not waking up, and it seems to go on and on. Anthypnic sensations. Phantasmata. Praedormitium.

  Waking up over and over, but not waking up.

  And then I during the lucid moments I download the and there is a part of me that wants to be a good skeptic lucid and but absolutely he’s right the absolutely the pattern it’s so clear.

  —

  Apophenia, says another voice. Resemblances and recurrences: the the belief that belief that random and meaningless things are connected.

  DECEMBER 5, 2012

  IT WAS MORNING and when I stirred, Jill did, too.  I felt the weight of her shift, the emanation of warmth and flesh that you can feel through your skin.

  “Ugh!” I squinted my eyes open. Must have been seven o’clock by the color of the blinds. “I had a terrible dream,” I said.

  “Mm,” she said noncommittally, and rolled over and pressed the front of her body against my back. Her nipples touched my shoulder blades.

  “I dreamed you died,” I said. “It was so morbid,” I said. “You got cancer and died really quickly, like over a period of months!”

  She reached around and put her palm against the curve of my bare belly.  She put her lips close to my ear, so I could feel the soft moist breath.

  —

  And then I opened my eyes but I couldn’t move.

  SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING LAKE ERIE COLLEGE STUDENT