by Ray Backley
“We could shout and scream. Someone might hear and come rescue us.”
“We tried that, remember? And we also tried pushing that wooden board out.”
She thumped her head against his chest. It caught him squarely on a rib. That would usually have hurt. Not today.
“Daddy?”
“What, Phoebe?”
“Couldn’t we . . . move the thing out?”
“What do you mean?”
“The thing you were pushing. Can’t we move it to the side?”
All traces of humor and sadness dropped from Dan’s mind as he cursed himself for not thinking of that.
He manhandled the children to one side. “You two, just stay away from the hole.”
He approached the hole, went into it headfirst, and punched the wooden panel. It still wouldn’t budge. He pushed it to one side. It moved a tiny amount, nothing more. He took his socks off, repositioned himself so that the soles of his bare feet were against the wooden panel, and shoved it to the side. Now, with a little grip from his feet, it moved more. And then more still. He took a break and glanced down at his feet. There was now a crack of light. It was dim – perhaps only moonlight – but it was progress. He swapped ends again, headfirst into the hole, forcing his fingers through the gap and pushing the wooden board to the side. Progress. A lot of it. The gap was almost a foot.
And then the progress stopped.
He wiped his sweaty head, took a few moments to rest, then tried again. But no. Now it was locked solid once more. But he could see through the gap. And what he saw turned his sweat cold.
It was the basement.
It was the basement of their own house.
And he could just about see what had happened. The large chest of drawers they kept old tools and mementos in had been holding the wooden panel in place. Somehow, he’d managed to knock it over in such a way that it had jammed itself, pinning the panel against the hole.
In desperation he tried shoving the board to the side again, but it wouldn’t move. The gap was perhaps ten inches wide. There was no way he could force his way through. But a young child would fit.
He squirmed back out of the hole and beckoned his daughter. “Phoebe, come over here.”
“You’re all sweaty again, Daddy.”
“I know, sweetie. Listen to me. I want you to be very careful, but I need you to go through that gap and raise the alarm.”
“What alarm?”
He pointed at the hole in the wall, to the side where the gap was. “Look.”
“You want me to go through that?”
“Yes, sweetie.”
“I’m not sure, Daddy. I’m scared.”
“It’ll be fine. I promise. I know where we are. It sounds crazy, and I don’t understand it, but we’re in our own house.”
“You mean, with our bathroom and our kitchen too?”
“Yes. But never mind that. Just go. Go through that gap and see if you can move the chest of drawers.” He thought for a moment – about how heavy the thing was and what it contained. “No, forget that. You won’t be able to move it.” He held onto her arms, put his face close to hers, chose his words carefully. “I want you to go through that gap, go upstairs, find my cell phone if you can, and bring it to me. Is that clear?”
“Don’t you want an ice-cream?”
“No, Phoebe. Just look for my cell phone. Come straight back here if you can’t find it. Do you understand that?”
She nodded. He hugged her then let her go, gently pushing her to the hole.
She crawled through easily.
“Be careful!” he shouted after her.
Chapter 13
Cath had hardly slept the previous night, and so had spent most of the morning in a daze, trying to relax and nap, but still unable to let her mind settle enough to get any meaningful sleep. Early afternoon, she’d spent some time pacing the room, then had tried to sleep again, with no success. She’d even tried watching TV, thinking it might put her to sleep, but she couldn’t bear to watch anything, so had done more of that aimless pacing and sipped water, her mind numb with the mother of all headaches.
By late afternoon, having spent most of the day being dog-tired, feeling too ill to go out anywhere, she drew the curtains and went back to bed. But every time she closed her eyes and started to drift off to sleep, she approached the edge of consciousness only to be jolted awake by visions of Dan, Phoebe, and Benjie. And with those thoughts, she couldn’t help but think back to the early years with Dan.
Cath would make sure to meet up with Dan at work at least once a day for a talk, and they went to the gym together three days a week. Right from the start it wasn’t all about the gym, but she did feel better from the exercise, or perhaps just for hanging out with Dan and having a cold drink together afterward. He was no muscle freak, just cycled or rowed thirty minutes, merely insisting he didn’t want his whole body to turn to blubber. She liked that. He appeared to be reserved, average, straightforward and middle of the road in all respects. She found herself drawn to a man who showed little emotion, wanted friendship as much as anything else, and didn’t ask awkward questions about her past.
He didn’t push the friendship any further, and she struggled to interpret his feelings for her. Then there came the occasion around six months down the line when he told her he wouldn’t be able to go to the gym with her that day.
It was a rainy Monday morning. She’d spent the weekend – like most weekends – alone and busying herself shopping and cleaning the apartment, so was looking forward to the conversation either side of the gym session more than the gym session itself.
“Won’t be able to make the gym today,” Dan said as he passed by her desk, mid-morning.
“No?”
“Having a really busy day. Need to work through lunch.” His words were disappointing enough, but they were delivered without even a hint of warmth or humor.
She tried her best to smile her disappointment away, and came back with, “How about tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well . . .”
He turned and looked in the direction of a suited guy glaring at him from the other end of the office. “Look, I have to go.”
And he left without another word between them.
She saw him in the office the next day, but he didn’t come over to see her. It was Donna who could see what was happening, and gave her encouragement to go talk to him when he approached the drinks vending machine that afternoon.
“Hi, Dan,” she said.
He returned the greeting, but it was flat.
“You okay?”
“I’ve been better.” He thumped some buttons on the drinks machine with his knuckles.
“Look, I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to, uh . . .”
Only now did he turn to her. She saw a fire of some sort in his eyes.
“I’ve been laid off.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Shit, bastard, fuck and other fruity words come to mind.”
She could feel one side of her lip curling up, but lost the fight. “I’m sorry,” she said, straightening her face.
“For my misfortune or for laughing at me?”
For a second, she felt hurt, sensed her face cracking just a little. “I wasn’t laughing at you, Dan. It was just . . . when you used the word ‘fruity’ like that, it was kinda funny.”
His brief smile flashed those white teeth. “Oh, I’m sorry, Cath. Don’t listen to me. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m good.”
He glanced around, lowered his voice, and said, “Look, if you don’t mind, could we go somewhere?”
There was a long pause while her mind turned his question over and over, searching for meaning.
“You mean, like . . . to the movies or for a drink?”
“No, I mean, could we go somewhere right now, somewhere quieter, like a meeting room?” He glanced around. “Ah, shit. I can say it here. Doesn’t matter
now.”
“Say what? What are you talking about?”
“Look, if I’m honest, losing the job doesn’t freak me out, but . . . well . . .”
“Well, what?”
“I, uh . . .” He took a long deep breath, and pulled the edge of his polo neck as if it was suffocating him. “I’m finding it hard to say this, but the truth is, I won’t miss the job here, but I’ll miss you.”
She gulped but could say nothing.
“I wasn’t sure how you felt about staying in touch. Well, not until you made that loose remark about going to the movies or for a drink. You kinda gave yourself away there.”
Now Cath let her smile do the talking. It felt as if a slow-motion drug was coursing through her veins as he continued talking.
“Are you cool for us to carry on hanging out together even when I don’t work here?”
“You mean, the gym?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, whatever. We could do that, or I guess we could go to the movies one night if you want to.”
“I’d like that,” she said, having to repeat it when it came out as a squeak. “And for the record, I was definitely uncertain about how you felt about wanting to see me again.”
“I’m not sure definitely uncertain works, but I’ll take it.”
After that, they met most lunchtimes at the gym but neither of them mentioned going to the movies together. There came a time when Cath felt she’d dropped enough hints and he hadn’t taken them, so one time after a cold drink at the gym, she did the kind of spontaneous thing Karen would have done, and kissed him full on the lips as a parting gift.
This time he got the memo.
After that, they met up not only at the gym but also two evenings a week at the movies or a restaurant, with her staying over at his apartment, and she became ever more certain that Dan was the one. It wasn’t long before he got a better paid job, and she started to dream. Even the awkward question of her background, which she’d dreaded telling him about, went like clockwork. When she told him she was an only child whose parents had died in a car accident, there was no fuss or further questioning, just a sympathetic frown, almost a tear or two. He told her it was up to her how much she wanted to tell him, but that he didn’t believe in letting a person’s history control their future. And he didn’t even ask why she had no photos of her parents.
Perfect.
And twenty months after their drinks machine introduction, Cath and Dan got married. By then, she’d sat Dan down and told him everything else from her history – that she had no close relatives and none at all living nearby – and he’d accepted it without question, so the wedding was a cozy one involving just Dan’s immediate relatives, a few of his close friends, and some co-workers. She moved into Dan’s much larger apartment, and later on, when they’d decided to try for a family, they bought the house in Lancaster Drive, Pasadena.
She even found a way to fix her anxiety about lying to the man she loved – at the same time quelling her fear of being found out. In preparation for their new family, they’d extended the kitchen, and a few left-over concrete blocks had been stored in the basement. It was down there, while sorting stuff out, that she stumbled upon a hidden section behind a large chest of drawers that had been left there by the previous owners. The chest of drawers had wide feet so it wasn’t too hard to move to the side but wouldn’t budge backward or forward.
Before she had a chance to tell Dan about her find, he told her he had to attend an IT course in Texas, and the moment passed as concern at being alone in the house took over. She so wanted to ask him not to go, but figured that would sound clingy or even borderline possessive, so kept her emotions to herself and wished him well.
During that week, Pregnant with Phoebe, and under the influence of argumentative hormones, she furnished a secret room for herself out of the section of the basement only she knew of. She told herself it was nothing more than a panic room of sorts, where nobody would find her if she needed to hide. If that man she didn’t dare even utter the name of came looking for the woman she once was, she would be safe for months down there in her own personal refuge.
She didn’t need that place, but that was the whole point: she didn’t need it precisely because it was there. Phoebe came along, life was awesome, and she put the refuge room to the back of her mind. And when Benjie happened and made the family complete, she completely forgot about it.
Only when many more years had rolled by and it was just possible that that man would be released did she begin to falter, her anxiety manifesting itself as insomnia. That was when she’d seen the physician and been prescribed the pills – just in case the lack of sleep became too much for her and she needed to knock herself out. The guilt of doing that behind Dan’s back only added to her problems, and in the event she only tried them once, and found the power of just one pill frightening. Just like the refuge, she kept the pills secret, safe and on hand. Just in case.
But now the just in case had happened, and the refuge wasn’t so secret. Her husband and two children were imprisoned there. And she had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
When the police had dropped her off at the Toledo Motel the previous night – to the room that she was told was her temporary safe house – she’d pleaded with them to take her back to Lancaster Drive. She’d almost told them why she was so desperate to return – but drew back because explaining what she’d done wouldn’t have gone down so well. She could almost hear the cries of incredulity at her actions, and could imagine the police locker room talk of the mad woman of Lancaster Drive.
So now she was stuck in the motel room, unable to sleep, pondering her next move. She prayed that by now Dan had found his way out – it was hardly a high security prison – and that there would be no need for the police to know about what she’d done.
She got out of bed and told herself that perhaps more helpful events would unfold tomorrow, then told herself not to be so dumb. Still drowsy, she came to realize that she wouldn’t be able to sleep properly until she did something. She decided to go for a walk outside – nowhere specific, just along the street and into a store or two, perhaps to buy something to eat.
But the walk didn’t help; half the guys she saw reminded her of Dan, and the sight of any toddler made her tearful and knotted up her stomach with guilt.
So she bought a sandwich and a can of soda, returned to the motel room, and made herself eat and drink, even though she felt sick. Then she lay on the bed again and thought.
She boiled everything down to one fact: she wouldn’t be able to rest until she knew that Dan and the kids were safe, that they hadn’t suffocated or been discovered by Vinnie. And that dictated her next thought: she could call Dan’s cell phone, which she knew she’d left on the small table in the living room when she’d dragged him down to the basement. She got up and paced the room yet again, weighing up the possibilities, biting her nails at the thought of what might happen. But it worked; she now knew she had to call, and there were two possible outcomes:
Plan A was the dream scenario: Dan had escaped and picked up his cell phone, so he would answer and she would apologize for what she’d done and plead with him to listen, then explain her reasons, and he would understand, and eventually forgive her.
But that dream was desperate and unrealistic. And also, what if he didn’t answer? What if she called and he decided not to pick up? He could easily be so angry that he wouldn’t want to talk to her.
Or what if he didn’t pick up because he hadn’t yet found his way out of the basement?
Well, that was where plan B came into action. If there was no answer, she would simply have to come clean to the police, as hard as that would be for her to do. She would tell them where Dan, Phoebe, and Benjie were holed up, and would just have to put up with the curious stares and the twisted tale of how the evil wife had imprisoned her husband and children in a home-made dungeon.
She didn’t like plan B.
She picked up her cracked cell phone, tapped
on Dan’s name in her contact list, and let her index finger hover over the green phone icon. Then she thought about what she would do if he answered.
What the hell would she say to him?
Yes, in time she would explain and plead and beg forgiveness, but if he answered her call right now, what would be her immediate words to him? What the hell could she say to him that would make any kind of sense?
She didn’t hit the call icon.
The matter needed more thought. Dan would be confused and angry at her. The children would be upset and angry too. Would her children ever trust her again?
For a moment she wondered whether it would be the end of everything, thinking perhaps that Dan would never ever forgive her. The fleeting thought of separation and divorce and losing custody of Phoebe and Benjie brought tears to her eyes. God, she didn’t want that. She would never want that.
No. She’d been through too much to lose her family. She was stronger than that. She was stronger than that.
She sniffed the tears away, took a few deep breaths, and splashed water on her face. She was good. But she had to get a grip, focus on what was realistic. Opposite the beds was a small desk with a pen and some sheets of paper. She sat there and started writing down a few notes on what she might tell Dan.
“Don’t be angry with me.” No, too harsh. “Please try not to be angry.” Better.
“I can explain everything.” No, too clichéd. “I can explain it all if you give me time.” Much better. But then he would say, “How the hell can you explain this?” or, “It had better be a good one.”
“Please don’t judge me until you’ve heard my side of the story.” That sounded like a plea for clemency in a TV trial.
“I was only thinking of you.” Really? That was true, but it didn’t sound true.
She ripped up the piece of paper and tossed the sorry scraps onto the floor. She let out a long sigh, lay her head and arms on the desk, and started doing what she promised herself she wouldn’t do because it was utterly pointless: she sobbed.