Seed

by Ania Ahlborn

  “What?” she asked.

  “Your mother just told me to get off her porch,” he said. “She doesn’t want to see me there again.”

  “What?” she repeated. “Jack, what did you do?”

  “That’s the part you’re going to love,” he said with a smirk. “I rang the doorbell.”

  Aimee stared at him.

  “She’s your mother,” he said.

  Admittedly, he was glad Patricia disliked him as much as she did. He hoped her contempt would distract Aimee from the real issue at hand… and distraction was a precious commodity Jack couldn’t afford to waste.

  Unfortunately, Charlie wasn’t going to make it easy. Sitting around the kitchen table, Jack, Aimee, and Abigail quietly ate their dinner while Charlotte sat in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked like a tiny Buddha with her legs crossed, silent in her unexplained fury. Both Jack and Aimee shot each other a glance when Charlie took her position of defiance, but neither asked her what was wrong, deciding instead to eat as much as they could before the inevitable meltdown took place.

  Charlie had always been a picky eater. Ever since she was old enough to sit in a high chair, she’d take as much pleasure in hurling food across the kitchen as she did in eating it. The initial search for foods she liked pushed Aimee to the brink of tears nearly every night. Thankfully, her pickiness subsided around age four. That’s when she fell into her everything-like-daddy phase and, during one memorable evening, choked down wads of steamed spinach because Jack was happily enjoying his own serving. This newfound mimicry resulted in Jack becoming a guinea pig. Aimee subjected him to weird foods so that their youngest daughter would grow up big and strong. The experiment had resulted in Charlie liking most of the foods that ended up on her plate, and by the middle of her fifth year she was eating along with everyone else without much complaint.

  At least until now.

  Charlie finally broke her silence, which she’d impressively kept for nearly ten whole minutes. “I don’t want it.”

  After what had happened that morning, Aimee was in no mood to argue. She gave in.

  “Okay,” Aimee said. “What do you want?”

  “Not this,” Charlie complained, making a face at her plate of pot roast. “This is gross. It looks like poo.”

  Jack kept his head down, his eyes flitting between Aimee and Charlotte as the battle commenced.

  “That’s enough,” Aimee said, but her tone gave her away. She wasn’t primed to fight; she was tired. Pushing her chair away from the table, Aimee wandered to the fridge and pulled open the freezer door. “Onion rings?” she asked. Onion rings were one of Charlie’s favorites. She’d stack them on her plate like the leaning tower of Pisa.

  “No,” Charlie said flatly. “I hate those.”

  Aimee rolled her eyes. She’d gone through this I-hate-the-food-I’ve-always-loved thing with Abigail. The last thing she needed was for it to hit Charlie amidst all the other drama.

  “What about little pizza pockets?”

  Charlie sat mute in her chair.

  “Or chicken nuggets. I’ll make you some of those.”

  “I don’t like chicken nuggets,” she said under her breath, but Aimee was done listening. She tossed the bag of nuggets onto the counter, then pulled one of Charlie’s plastic Sponge Bob plates out of the overhead cabinet. Charlie’s expression went dark.

  “I said I don’t like those,” she said with more force, her eyes fixed on her father.

  “Whatever, kid,” Aimee muttered as she tossed frozen chicken pieces onto the plate, crumbs of breading littering the counter.

  Charlie narrowed her eyes at Jack. A strange smile played at the corners of her mouth. That’s when she opened her mouth, held it open as wide as she could—waiting for Jack to stop her—before letting out an ear-piercing scream.

  Aimee veered around, her hand pressed to her heart. Abigail jumped in her seat and slapped her hands over her ears. Jack just stared at her, transfixed.

  “Jack!” Aimee yelled.

  The sound of his name was like a mental kick. He suddenly remembered where he was, who he was. As though he hadn’t seen her at all until now, Jack stared at his daughter before pushing away from the table, grabbing her by the biceps, and giving her a quick shake.

  Charlie’s mouth snapped shut.

  Abigail stared at them both from across the table. Her hands slowly slid away from her ears. She was just about to say something when her mother appeared on her right, retaking her seat and shoving a fitful bite of pot roast into her mouth.

  The chicken nuggets were left on the counter, their freezer-burned bodies glistening in the dull kitchen light.

  Abigail slid onto the couch next to her dad while Aimee gave Charlotte her nightly bath. Abby had always been a quiet girl. When she was a baby, Aimee was convinced she had a hearing problem, sure that Abby didn’t cry enough, but numerous tests proved otherwise. She was simply a calm and thoughtful child, and she had yet to lose those traits. Sitting next to her father, Abby folded her hands in her lap and focused on the television—a Seinfeld rerun.

  “Dad?” She pulled her socked feet onto the couch, catching her heels on the edge of the cushion, her toes hanging over the edge. “Can I ask you something?”

  Jack shifted his weight, sitting sideways to get a good look at the little girl sitting beside him. Abby looked worried. Her youthful features had taken on a maturity Jack hadn’t seen before.

  “Shoot.” Jack offered her a reassuring smile, but rather than smiling back, she wrapped her arms around her legs and looked down at her knees. Jack furrowed his eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

  Abby sat motionless for a moment, then slowly shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked. Abby pressed her mouth to her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. When the television jumped to a brightly lit commercial, Jack caught the glimmer of tears in Abby’s eyes.

  “Hey...” He closed the distance between them, placing an arm around her shoulders. As soon as he touched her, her bottom lip began to quiver. “Abby, what’s going on?” he asked quietly. Again, Abby shook her head.

  “Charlie,” she whispered, and that was all she said.

  Jack sighed, holding her close against his side. He knew it would eventually come to this—Abigail buckling under her younger sister’s dramatics. After the ice cream incident, it was just a matter of time.

  “Charlie’s just confused right now,” Jack murmured.

  “Confused about what?” She wiped at her eyes.

  It was a good question—one that didn’t have an answer, because Charlie wasn’t confused at all. It had nothing to do with what Charlotte did and didn’t understand.“Oh, you know; just growing up in general,” he said.

  “Was I confused?” Abby asked after a moment.

  Jack inhaled a deep breath. It was one thing to mislead Aimee, but lying to a ten-year-old… Aimee had a lifetime of beliefs behind her; she had enough time to form opinions and decide what she did and didn’t believe in. Despite growing up with a strict religious background, she held her religious independence in front of her like a shield. The girls never had that opportunity. Abigail had set foot in a church a handful of times in her life, and Charlie had sat in a pew all of once. It seemed that those who spent lifetimes sitting in front of pulpits would be the first to believe in things like demons, but in Jack’s experience it was the opposite. The devout refused to acknowledge the possibility that their God would allow such wickedness to exist, let alone to get so close to those they loved. The non-believers were the ones who were more easily swayed. Because if you don’t hold your faith in God, what is there to keep the Devil at bay?

  “No,” Jack finally said. “You weren’t confused. But Charlie is.”

  Abby chewed on her bottom lip. She stiffened at the sound of bathwater draining out of the tub. Charlie and Aimee would be out of the bathroom soon. Turning to her father, she looked him in the eyes with a desperate expression.
r />   “You saw it, didn’t you?” she asked. “I saw you during dinner, right before she screamed.”

  Jack frowned, ready to deny whatever Abby was getting at, but the idea of someone else knowing, someone else suspecting what Jack knew for certain, was as alluring as a penny sparkling in the dirt.

  “Saw what?” he asked almost inaudibly, not wanting Aimee to overhear.

  “The darkness,” Abby whispered. “The way she smiles.”

  He hesitated, afraid to admit it, afraid that as soon as he said yes their lives would collapse.

  “Dad?” Abby’s eyes shimmered. “I’m not crazy, right?”

  Jack finally shook his head and pressed his lips to Abby’s forehead. “No,” he whispered. “You’re not crazy.”

  “Can you maybe ask Mom if I can move into the basement?”

  “The basement.” Jack leaned away to get a look at her. “You don’t want to have your room down there, kiddo.” The basement was damp and smelled like a freshly dug grave. Both girls had been afraid of it for as long as he could remember. But Abby was nodding her head vigorously.

  “I do,” she insisted. “Please? I won’t be scared, I swear.” Her expression gave her away. She was terrified. Anything was better than sleeping in a room with someone who held darkness in their eyes.

  Jack winced at the idea. Aimee would never go for it. But the anxiety in Abigail’s eyes was enough to break his heart. She was on the verge of panicked tears. Her fingers clutched the hem of his shirt, hanging on for dear life, hanging on to her teetering sanity.

  “I’ll talk to your mom,” he finally told her. “You need to give me a little time, though.”

  Abby nodded again and threw her arms around him.

  “I knew you’d understand,” she whispered, then slid off the couch and disappeared down the hall.

  Jack couldn’t help but to wonder, why had Abby been so sure that he would understand? Why not her mother instead? Had she seen the darkness in his eyes as well?

  Chapter Eight

  The bar was a seedy joint—the kind of place with a front door that looked like it’d been kicked in one too many times. In a town as small as Live Oak, a place like this was the electric heartbeat of insomnia, the midnight pulse of those too tired to deal with their problems without Jack Daniels there to listen. Jack felt his skin crawl as he sat in the gravel parking lot, considering whether he really wanted to go inside. Going inside meant he’d need an excuse for calling Reagan out, and having a reason either meant telling the truth or lying to his best friend. Sitting in the dark interior of the Oldsmobile, the cabin lit by garish red neon from a flickering Schlitz sign, he wondered if caring about lying to Reagan while having lied to Aimee for so long made him a bad husband. Aimee would have said so, and whose opinion mattered more than hers?

  Sucking in a steadying breath, he shoved the driver door open and crunched his way past a rusty red pickup. Reagan was already inside, occupying a booth and nursing a Blue Moon, peering at a crappy old TV mounted in the top corner of the room. He lifted his bottle in a salute to the bar’s choice of programming as soon as he saw Jack step inside.

  “Cheers,” Reagan said, then cracked a stupid grin. “No really, look.”

  Ted Danson sat at the bar on TV, chatting up Shelley Long.

  “Ironic, isn’t it? Playing Cheers in here? It just doesn’t seem right. I don’t know why,” he said. “I just have this feeling like blasphemy is being… what would you say, performed? Is that right?”

  A tired looking waitress appeared at their table before Jack had a chance to settle in. She was gaunt. The weird lighting from the neon signs cast gruesome shadows across her face. If there was news of a zombie outbreak, this was one woman he’d steer clear of.

  “What’ll it be?” she asked. Her eye sockets looked like gaping holes, just like Charlie’s Dias De Los Muertos figurines—skin and bones, surviving off of nothing but bumps of meth. Not that it would have been all that surprising. In places like these, addiction was as comforting as the bayou itself.

  “Whatever he’s having,” Jack said, motioning to Reagan’s beer.

  She didn’t say anything, just turned and walked back to the bar, not giving half a shit about her patrons or their lousy two dollar tips.

  “So,” Reagan started, “what’s going on? Monday night? Must be serious.”

  He was right. They hadn’t hit a bar on a weeknight since before Abigail was born. Ever since then, Jack had tried to be a responsible father and husband—and for the most part he had succeeded.

  Jack shook his head.

  “What?” Reagan asked. “Dude.” He stopped peeling the label off of his beer bottle and shifted his weight. Pressing his elbows against the table, he leaned forward to get a good look at his comrade. “Please tell me you aren’t here to break up with me. My world will crumble.”

  Any other night, Jack would have cracked a grin. Tonight he couldn’t lift the weight off of his shoulders for long enough to manage.

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Jack admitted after a moment.

  Reagan suddenly looked uncomfortable. “What’re you talking about?” he asked. “What does that even mean?”

  Jack sighed. He nodded at the waitress when she set his beer in front of him. His fingers wrapped around the bottom of the bottle if only to give his hands something to do.

  “Things aren’t going all that well at home,” Jack said. “I don’t really know when going up to the Quarter would be appropriate.”

  Reagan’s face twisted; a cross between horror and confusion.

  “There’s something wrong with Charlie,” Jack heard himself say. It hadn’t taken long to get to the point.

  “What do you mean ‘wrong’?” Reagan asked. “You mean how she’s been sick?”

  “Sort of.”

  It was Jack’s turn to pull at the corner of his label. His fingers fiddled at the corner, carefully peeling it away and trying at the some time to keep it intact.

  “Jack, come on, man. If you’re going to ruin my fucking night at least be kind enough to be specific.”

  Jack actually laughed. It was a short burst, a knee-jerk reaction. Reagan stared at him from across the table. He was freaked out.

  “Okay?” he said, unsure of himself. “That was funny?”

  Jack leaned back against the vinyl seat and shrugged. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “What’s your opinion on God?”

  “God.” Reagan continued to stare. “My opinion? Like whether or not I think God is a good guy? Well I don’t know, Jack, we don’t exactly run with the same crowd. But if I had to take a guess, I’d say he’s probably a righteous dude.”

  “About that,” Jack said. “Running with the same crowd.” He paused, squinting at the bottle in front of him. “If you don’t run with God’s crowd, whose crowd do you run with?”

  “Well, there’s L. Ron Hubbard,” Reagan quipped. “But seriously, imagine going to a party where there’s one guy who can’t stop talking about aliens and volcanoes.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “That’s what’s freaking me out. Serious about what? What are you asking me?”

  “If you don’t believe in God, what do you believe in?”

  Stunned that he was having this sort of a conversation at a bar on a Monday night, Reagan gave Jack a what-the-fuck look. “I guess I don’t know.”

  “Do you believe there’s good in the world?”

  “Well sure, there’s good all over the place.”

  “So then, do you also believe in an opposite?”

  “Like what, evil?”

  Jack nodded.

  “I guess.” Reagan shrugged. “If there wasn’t evil, we would be seriously lacking in the serial killer department. And child molesters. And those angel of death nurses that run around hospitals unplugging people’s IVs.”

  Jack chewed on his bottom lip, his gaze focused on the torn beer label curled atop the table. “So are those people born evil? The serial killers a
nd the child molesters and the crazy nurses; are they just fucked in the head from square go or do they start out like everyone else and become that way over time?”

  “It could be the Kool-Aid. Who knows? Where is this coming from anyway? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind existentialism, but you’re asking me about whether or not people are born bad… in a bar. And you haven’t even bought me a drink. This on the tail of telling me things aren’t going well at home, that you might have to take a break from the band…”

  “I’m trying to be open here.”

  “Well your openness is giving me a heart attack, man.”

  “Do you believe there can be a Devil if there is no God?” Jack pressed.

  Reagan slowly leaned back in his seat, his expression wavering from confusion to full-blown concern. He pressed his lips together in a tight line as he stared across the table at his friend—a friend who looked dead serious about the question he’d just asked.

  “I’m not really what one would consider ‘worldly’,” Reagan finally said, “so my opinion on this might be completely full of shit, but…”

  Jack looked up from the label on the table. He met Reagan’s eyes and waited, hoping the answer would be no, knowing it would be yes.

  “I’ve never seen any miracles,” Reagan said, “but I sure as hell have seen my share of darkness. Does God exist? I don’t know. But I kind of hope he does. Because if he doesn’t? We’re probably fucked.”

  Jack came home well after the girls had been put to bed. Aimee was in the master bedroom with the comforter pulled up to her waist, the washed out emblem on her mock football shirt peeking out from behind the spine of an old paperback. She’d given up on Les Misérables and picked up The Stand—another book she’d been trudging through for what seemed like the entirety of their marriage.

  “You’re still reading that?” Jack asked.

  Aimee flipped the book over, a finger hooked between the pages to keep her place, and studied the cover. It had been so long that the corners had rounded and softened.

  “It probably makes me some sort of tasteless idiot,” she said, “but I can’t get into it.”