I heard a door close down the hall and then Judy appeared, emerging from the dark with a towel in one hand and an empty bowl in the other. I’d forgotten about their daughter. Jessica was ten and we’d never met. But I knew about her.
She was a second-generation Thalidomide baby. According to the FDA, only 17 American children were born with Thalidomide-related deformities. Jeff’s mother had been one of them. While another article, published in DRUG SAFETY, assured the drug did not cause further defects, and yes Jeff had been born normal, Jessica suffered from Amelia, which meant she’d been born with no limbs.
I followed Judy into the kitchen, thanking her, as she put the empty bowl in the sink and laid the towel on the counter.
“No,” she said, “it’s okay. You get settled. It’s good to have you home.”
I wondered how sincerely she meant that. I’d been in Florida for ten years, involved in a number of businesses, all of which had failed. I had a moving company, owned a miniature golf course, a bar, a skateboard shop, just to name a few. I had good ideas, just bad luck. And maybe bad business sense. So after a decade of failure, I decided it was time to come home and just live a life again where I wasn’t dodging creditors all the time or watching my possessions being sold at auction to pay my debts. Not to mention the cost of living is a lot cheaper in the Midwest.
I returned every few years to attend reunions or show off my success for a weekend, but I always left before my cash ran out or the bill collectors tracked me down. I never stayed in town long enough for the cracks to show. And I rarely kept in contact with any of the family. So it came as no surprise when I detected reluctance in Judy’s tone. Not to mention I’m sure she and Jeff had enough problems with Jessica without worrying about me in there, too.
Just a couple weeks, I reminded myself.
Judy said to make myself at home, asked if I was hungry. I was, but I said no. I commented on how they had a nice house. She said thank you. Then I returned to the basement to start unpacking.
Jeff came home a few hours later and we moved the rest of my things into the basement, then dropped off the truck at the U-haul, while Judy got dinner ready. We all finished at the same time, then met in the kitchen.
It was just the three of us at the table and I asked, “Does Jessica not eat out here?”
They exchanged glances, then Judy said, “Usually. But not tonight. She’s coming down with something, so it’s just soup and juice in bed.”
I nodded, twirling spaghetti onto my fork. “I’ve been here all day and haven’t even said hello. I can’t believe she’s ten and I’ve never met her.”
“You will,” Judy said.
I tried to think back, but couldn’t remember one family reunion where Judy had brought her daughter. Understandable, I guess. It’s one thing to live with it and get used to it every day, but to then be surrounded by two dozen people who didn’t know anything about it or didn’t deal with it daily, that was something else.
“How’s your mother?” I asked Judy.
“Fine, fine,” she said.
We ate mostly in silence. I doubted that was normal for them, but I was a stranger in their house, despite the fact I’d spent my younger summers at Judy’s house in the country. That was decades ago and now I was an intruder.
Dinner was delicious and filling and I said so, then went back down to my lair to continue unpacking. Their basement was spacious, one long open room with the laundry and a full bath off to the side. The carpet looked new. They already had a couch and chair down there. There were spiders fucking everywhere, though. Afterward, I took a shower and stretched out on the couch.
I dozed off, and woke only once or twice during the night to more thumping overhead, one of them on the way to the bathroom or the kitchen, I couldn’t tell.
The next morning began my job search. I’d thought about taking a couple days to acclimate, but the vibe at dinner had put that out of my head real quick; it was obvious I didn’t belong there. So for everyone’s sake, I’d determined to be out as soon as I could.
Home had changed in those ten years, but the bones remained the same. Before I started the job hunt, I stopped at the houses of a few friends, discovered two of them had moved, but the last, Jerry, was home. Jerry worked construction but was between jobs, so we sat around and caught up for a while, drank a few beers. He said things were good, but the state of his living room said differently, thrift store furniture he’d had since before I left for Florida, and the years showed in them. A few hours and several more beers into the afternoon, he said he’d been thinking of starting his own construction company. He had the business plan all mapped out and just needed backing.
“That sounds like a plan,” I told him. My mouth felt numb and too thick for my face. “How much you need to get started?”
He told me and old habits returned; I calculated how much I’d have to borrow from how many people in order to get in on Jerry’s deal. He was a good worker and knew his stuff, so if I contributed a hefty sum of the start-up money, he’d be working for me and I could sit pretty and not worry about a job just yet.
I had a lot of old friends in town, buddies I used to run with. Plus there was family. I could sell half the stuff in Judy’s basement. I could get the money. I left Jerry’s house late that afternoon full of a warm buzz, partly from the beer, but mostly, I thought, from how good the future looked and suddenly I was glad I’d moved back.
I didn’t bother looking for a job that day. Jerry’s plan was solid and I still had some savings, surely enough to live on until he got things moving. I wasn’t paying rent at Judy’s, so it was money to eat and put gas in my car and having dinner at the house, I knew I could stretch that money quite a bit.
Even so, to keep them from worrying, I’d tell them I had a job anyway, then tomorrow morning I’d just come back to Jerry’s.
So I went to the park and left my car doors open with the stereo cranked and sat in the grass. Summer was a month from over and the sun felt good. Midwest sun is a much subtler thing than Florida sun. I sat and watched the cars drive by and worked through my buzz. Birds sang and bugs flew. A butterfly landed on the grass by my foot, but took off again when I shifted my legs.
I stayed there, soaking up the sun and watching women stop by with their kids. I think it was close to six before I got up and climbed back into my car. The buzz was long gone and I figured dinner would be ready soon, so I headed back. Parked in the driveway and used the garage door opener Judy’d given me to enter through the basement. Took a piss and splashed water in my face, then went upstairs to tell them the good news.
“That was fast,” Jeff said. “You start tomorrow? Already?”
“Yeah,” I said, piling meat onto a tortilla shell at the stove. “My buddy, Jerry, says I showed up just in time, this parking lot job could take a while and he was short one guy, so I guess everything works out.”
“I guess it does,” Jeff said. Judy sat at the table picking at the lettuce and cheese from the pile on her shell, which wouldn’t stay folded.
After dinner, I returned to the basement and sat on the couch, drinking another beer from a cooler I’d stored in the garage yesterday. I listened to them move about upstairs, talking. I heard muffled voices, but couldn’t make out the details. They sounded a little worked up, too fast, urgent, and forced.
I knew they were arguing about me, but what was I supposed to do? It was two more beers and another hour of their voices before I fell asleep on the couch. In the morning, I got out almost as soon as I woke up.
Jerry was home again and as I’d hoped he had restocked his beer from the day before. We got buzzed up again and spent the day laughing over old times. I hinted I might have some money coming pretty soon if he was serious about starting his own company. He said hell yeah he was serious and we drank to that. The time got away and pretty soon I’d missed dinner at the house, so Jerry and I had cold pizza from his fridge, then I went home, in through the garage again, and passed out on the c
ouch. It was late morning the next day when I woke up, sloppy and disoriented. My head was paying the price for last night. It had been a while since I’d drank like that.
I’d woken up to some noise coming from upstairs. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it droned on and on. I stumbled into the bathroom and showered. I tried to lean against the shower wall and close my eyes, but every time I did, it felt like I was falling through the world, so I fought to keep my eyes open and work through the hangover.
I got out, toweled off, and that alarm or whatever it was hadn’t stopped. Maybe Judy was running the vacuum.
I went upstairs to say good morning. The living room was empty and I called for Judy or Jeff but no one answered. That noise was louder and less muffled. It wasn’t the vacuum, it was crying, but this wasn’t any crying I’d heard before. It was weak and raspy.
I called out again and the crying stopped.
“Judy?” No answer as I wandered the house looking for someone. The crying came from Jessica’s bedroom. I knocked on the door and asked, “Hello?”
I cracked the door and peeked in. Judy wasn’t here, but Jessica was lying in her bed, staring at the crack in the door like all the angels in Heaven might issue forth bearing gifts and ice cream. I’d never seen her before.
For a horrible, shameful moment, I thought “Caterpillar”.
She was a normal-looking girl, there was just less of her. She was beautiful, actually, took after her mother but had Jeff’s eyes. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but I realized then that no limbs didn’t mean horribly disfigured.
“Um, you okay?” I asked. “Hang on, I’m gonna try to find your mother.”
I started to back out, but she called to me before I could retreat.
“They’re not here,” she said, getting herself under control. The sobbing had stopped, but there were still hitches and gasps. “I think they’re gone.”
“They should be back soon, though. You need something?”
“They’re not coming back,” she said. “They left me here because there’s finally someone else to take care of me. They don’t love me anymore.”
“No,” I said, easing back into the room, “they wouldn’t do that. I think maybe you just woke up from a bad dream. They’ll be back.”
I was talking down to her and she knew it and called me on it.
“I’m not dumb,” she said. “I’m ten. They packed last night and left really late. They think I don’t hear anything in here, but I knew what they were doing.”
And then I knew what was wrong. I’d detected, but had been too wrapped up in the crying and the shock of seeing Jessica for the first time, I hadn’t given it much thought. But now the smell hit me like a shovel.
“I couldn’t help it,” she said, “there was no one here to help me.”
“Um … Okay, hang on,” I told her. “I’ll go get something.”
All I could think of were baby wipes and diapers, but this wasn’t a baby, surely her parents didn’t keep her in diapers. I went into the bathroom and came back with a wet wash cloth. A voice in the back of my head asked me what the hell I was doing, but come on, she couldn’t do it herself, could she?
I leaned down to lift her up and clear away the sheets. I wrapped one hand under her to pick her up—she couldn’t weigh anything, surely—and my hand slid under her back, my fingers scraped against some bony nubs, I didn’t know what but it freaked me out and I yanked my hand out and backed away, looking down at her.
“It’s okay,” she said. She’d stopped crying finally, but her face was still smeared with tears and snot. Her eyes were swollen.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. I knew this was a delicate situation, but looking at her now, I realized it was delicate for Jessica, too. Obviously she had enough problems without some drunken washout cringing over her.
“That’s Joon,” she said.
“What’s June?”
“Joon,” she repeated. “I’ll tell you about her, just please help me?”
Shit. Let’s see if I can get this all straight the way she told it. The Thalidomide syndrome wasn’t enough. Jessica had been one of two conjoined twins. As she told it, sometimes one twin is too strong and it absorbs the other one. This is what happens when you hear of someone who goes to the doctor with stomach pains only to find out the growth in their stomach is their unborn conjoined twin, a fully formed fetus in their gut. Or, as in Jessica’s case, extra limbs where the twin used to be but hadn’t been fully absorbed back into the dominant one. Jessica told me about a case of a woman with the small, fully-formed body of her twin growing from her own torso. The head had been absorbed back into her in the womb, but only the head.
In Jessica’s case, she’d reabsorbed all of Joon except her limbs, tiny, barely formed, maybe three inches long, growing from her back. She also had an eye and a tiny, crooked mouth with three nubby teeth at the base of her neck.
Denied limbs of her own, she had to live knowing her unborn twin had them, if nothing else.
It was the most grotesque thing I’d ever seen. Part of me suddenly understood the stress they had to have been under and why they’d never brought Jessica to meet anyone.
I tried to hide the shaking of my hands as I cleaned her and put her into clean clothes, then set her in her wheelchair and changed her sheets. Her chair sported a breath-controlled remote and Jessica was independent, at least in regards to moving about. Having put her dirty sheets in the wash and come back upstairs, I found her in the living room, watching Nickelodeon and asking, “Can I have a Pop Tart?”
I gave her two, chocolate, and laid them on a tray across her chair where she could eat them on her own. Having lived like this her entire life, Jessica didn’t give her actions a second thought, but it was all a huge shock to me.
“You gonna be okay for a bit?” I asked. She nodded, chocolate smeared in the corner of her mouth and I’d wipe that off later. I returned her nod and grabbed the phone, then went into Judy and Jeff’s bedroom.
Most of their possessions were still here, but you could tell stuff was missing. There were gaps in the closet where they’d taken what clothes they wanted to keep. I dialed Judy’s cell number, but learned the number I’d dialed was no longer in service.
I called Judy’s mother, but she hadn’t heard from her daughter in weeks, she said. She was surprised to hear I was back in town and staying with Judy.
“I think she and Jeff might have vanished,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Jessica’s here and they aren’t. She says they left late last night and she’s afraid they just up and left her.”
“I don’t believe they’d do that,” she said. “I mean, I can’t say I’d blame them if they wanted to, but I don’t think they would.”
Can’t blame them? What the fuck?
“Just tell her to call if you hear from her, okay?” And I hung up before I had to hear any more.
I went back out to the living room and asked, “Do you know any of your parents’ friends? Where they live?”
She shook her head. “They never took me anywhere like that. Can we go swing in a little bit?”
The world swirled around me and I knew I’d had to have lost my mind. I was dreaming all this, brought on by the booze at Jerry’s house, that had to be it. I glanced out the kitchen window and saw Jessica’s swing set, the swing one of those rubber harness designs they make for babies.
She seemed incredibly calm given the situation. I wondered if maybe that was because she’d always had her parents to handle any crisis. She understood what had happened, but I was left to deal with the consequences. Then she said, “I’m sorry they left me for you to take care of.”
No, this wasn’t happening. They’d taken off for a couple days just to get away and be with each other, that was it. They’d be back. There was a note somewhere around here, I just hadn’t found it yet. Or they’d forgotten to write it. But that was the answer. It was a few days’ getaway, but they
’d be back.
I woke up later that night and heard something thump overhead. I jumped off the couch and stumbled up the steps, knowing they’d come back, ready to yell at them for not warning me. I burst through the basement door, into the kitchen, the house quiet and dark. They weren’t back. I’d dreamed the sound. Or Judy had raccoons. Whatever, it wasn’t them. I listened for Jessica, but her room was silent. I went back down and tried to sleep, tossed and turned for a while.
In the morning, I helped Jessica in the bathroom, then gave her toast. She could eat anything, although sometimes it would need cut or broken up, but she never seemed to mind. I think it was that day I began to admire her. I had a good thirty years’ experience over her, all my limbs, and I was barely holding together at the thought her parents might be gone for good.
I spent that morning going through everything, looking for an address book or anything that would lead me to someone who might know where they’d gone. Not a trace, not a scrap of paper. Wherever they’d gone, it was a well-kept secret. I didn’t even find any old credit card statements, nothing I could trace at all. By late afternoon that day, I collapsed on the couch and Jessica asked, “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
I looked up. She had toast crumbs in the corners of her mouth. I grabbed a hand towel from the kitchen and wiped her face, then answered, “Not today.”
By this point, I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t track them. The few people I got hold of, no one had heard from them. I wondered if they’d been planning this and had shut themselves off from everyone they knew. Then I looked at Jessica and thought of all the care she had to require, not to mention Joon—and that still made me shudder—it would be understandable if the reason I couldn’t find their friends was they didn’t have any.
Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of Horror Page 24