The Chrysalis

by Deneen, Brendan

  “Thanks, Lakshmi,” Jenny said quietly. “That means a lot to me. To us.” Tom nodded but said nothing.

  Kevin opened his mouth, seemingly about to unleash another joke at the couple’s expense, but apparently thought better of it, and nodded instead. The four of them finished the rest of the meager meal in silence.

  After locking up the apartment one last time and slipping the key under the door, they walked down the four flights of stairs—the only aspect of city living that Jenny wouldn’t miss. On the sidewalk, the five of them hugged and made their farewells as if the Deckers were leaving for an Arctic expedition.

  Driving away from the city felt like slowly ripping off a bandage, exposing raw skin beneath. They got lost a couple of times, even while using the GPS app on Jenny’s phone, but eventually they turned onto the dead end that was Waldrop Street and pulled to a stop in front of their house.

  Jenny had forgotten how big it was. Standing there, looking up at it, she wondered if they had made a huge mistake. Pushing the thought out of her mind, she wrapped her fingers into Tom’s.

  Her husband flinched, then looked down at her and smiled. “Welcome home,” he said.

  * * *

  “Here’s to this ginormous monster,” Jenny said, holding up her paper cup of wine. After unloading the truck all by themselves, returning the vehicle to the rental chain, and getting a ride back to the house from a teenaged employee, they hadn’t had the energy to unpack anything, even two wineglasses. And they weren’t interested in inspecting and cleaning a couple of glasses from the already-stocked cabinets. At least not yet.

  Tom stared at Jenny, gaze tracing her beautiful face, and then tapped his paper cup against hers.

  “Can you believe this?” he asked. “The place is ours. It’s actually ours.”

  “Completely surreal,” she agreed. “But I’m happy. I’m completely exhausted but happy. You?”

  “Yeah. It was weird to leave the city. Kind of felt like we were leaving forever. Which is obviously ridiculous.”

  “No!” Jenny said, leaning forward. “I felt exactly the same way.”

  Tom laughed. “We’re so dramatic.”

  “Totally,” she said, laughing, too.

  “It was nice of them to help us,” Tom said. “Especially Victoria. After everything else she’s done for us.”

  “Wow. Was that difficult for you to admit, Tom Decker?”

  “Maybe. And I’m sure she’ll drive me insane in the very near future when she says something horrible to you or gives me advice I didn’t ask for. But as of right now, I am feeling very appreciative of your pushy, generous sister.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said, proffering her cup again.

  Tom tapped it a second time, smiling at his wife. “And yes, absolutely. Here’s to our ginormous monster.”

  * * *

  Jenny sat on the toilet, staring at the stick in her hand. In the corner of the room, the clothes dryer hummed quietly.

  They’d only been in the house for a few days, but it was already starting to feel like home. Sort of. She had expected that to happen eventually, just not this quickly.

  But what she was holding in her hand? She had not expected this. Ever. Even when she was a little kid and all the other girls were playing with dolls, she was busy having wipeout contests on her bike with the boys and the other tomboys. Though she’d heard that ticking clock lately, motherhood still wasn’t something she had seriously considered.

  Her stomach ached with anxiety but she was excited, too. And was that a hint of nausea already, or was she imagining things?

  She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there. Five minutes? An hour? Her mind was racing. She was apprehensive about telling Tom. Yes, he was nervous about the idea of having kids but he would be thrilled by this news, right? Once the initial shock wore off.

  Then she started to think about how this would affect her job and she felt sick again. Sean wouldn’t be able to fire her, legally, but she knew he could be spiteful when his back was against the wall. She’d seen it before, when some of her coworkers’ problems had made life inconvenient for him. He sure as hell wouldn’t go to bat for her.

  Jenny breathed deeply, pushing the dark thoughts away. There was no use worrying about it right now. As she stood up, placing the stick gently on the bathroom sink and pulling up her underwear and pants, she allowed herself a smile, felt the butterflies beginning to emerge in her gut.

  This is one of the greatest days of your life, she told herself. Enjoy it.

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Tom was busy washing the dishes that had come with the house. They looked clean, but who knew how long they’d been sitting in those dusty cabinets or what the previous owners had done with them. For all he knew, they had tortured and murdered small children and bled their little corpses into the very cups he was rinsing at this exact moment, the fresh warm blood trickling down their trembling chins as they greedily drank—

  Whoa, what the fuck?

  Where the hell had those thoughts come from? Tom shook his head, clearing his mind of the disturbing imagery, feeling the presence of the basement door behind him. He had somehow forgotten about it in the last couple of weeks, with the frenzy of the house closing and packing and the move, but now the memories of touching the chrysalis came rushing back to him. Had that all been real? he wondered dizzily, even as he felt a longing to touch it again, a desire so sudden and deep that it literally hurt.

  He fought the powerful urge, lost, and turned to stare at the closed door. Water dripped from his slowly clenching fingers.

  Just as he started to head for the basement, Jenny called from the dining room, a mirror of the last time he’d headed toward the basement, in the presence of that slab of meat that called itself Ray.

  “Tom! Come here!”

  Disappointment flooded every pore of his body, but Jenny sounded weird. He had never heard that exact tone in her voice before, and it released him from the power of the closed wooden door. As he turned away from it, his mind cleared and he wondered why he’d been so intent on going down there in the first place. Even if everything he’d experienced in the basement had truly happened, which he kind of doubted at this point, that thing was disgusting and ungodly and he should destroy it as soon as possible, as he had intended to do in the first place.

  “Tom!” Jenny called again.

  “Coming!” he shouted back, wiping his hands on his pants and pushing the hair out of his eyes as he hurried into the dining room.

  Jenny faced him across the giant wooden table, a coy smile spreading across her face as he appeared.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “You scared me, yelling like that.”

  She didn’t say anything, just stood there with that enigmatic grin on her face. Tom felt himself growing frustrated. He was beyond tired, slowly starting to realize how much work this house was really going to be.

  “Come on, Jenny, what?”

  “I’m late,” she finally said.

  “You’re … late? Are you supposed to be somewhere? I thought you had today off. I … What do you mean?” He shook his head.

  “I’m late,” she repeated. “I think I lost track of time, with everything going on, but I realized it yesterday. I stopped by the pharmacy on my way to the train station after work yesterday.”

  Understanding flirted on the edges of Tom’s brain but didn’t fully take hold. His mind went to the chrysalis, but he fought to focus on the moment. He got the feeling that something important was happening.

  “Jenny … honey … tell me what’s going on. Please.”

  Slowly, excruciatingly, she pulled her hand up from where it was hidden beneath the table and revealed the small stick. It took Tom a second to understand what he was looking at. His face screwed up in confusion, until a huge grin blossomed, his face turning red. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, just a series of ragged breaths.

  “Congrats … Daddy,” Jenny said. She r
ushed forward, the pregnancy test clattering to the floor, and wrapped her husband in her arms. They both burst into tears.

  * * *

  Blood ran down Jenny’s arm, a thin rivulet making its way to her elbow before dropping to the grass.

  “Shit,” she muttered, staring at the thorn lodged deep in her finger.

  She pulled it from her flesh and dropped it to the ground, then glanced at Tom, who was half hidden inside an unruly bush he was trying to trim into submission. The July sun was beating down, and his skin was slowly turning golden brown, a genetic gift Jenny had always envied. She’d put on layers of sunscreen, but her forearms were already pink. The only good thing about all this sun was that the bridge of freckles across her nose and cheeks had emerged, something Tom loved. She had nice memories of him rubbing his finger across them on sweltering summer nights in their tiny apartment. Which she still found herself missing now and then.

  The lawn clearly hadn’t been mowed since last summer, if then. In fact, the entire yard, front and back, rosebushes and all, was out of control. The previous owners obviously hadn’t cared what their house looked like, inside or out.

  Jenny was about to ask Tom if he’d seen a lawn mower in the basement when she noticed movement in the corner of her eye and turned to see a woman in a sundress approaching, accompanied by a little girl in a colorful T-shirt and shorts, maybe four years old. The girl held an aluminum foil–covered paper plate in her hands and could barely suppress a smile. The woman looked vaguely apologetic. Jenny grinned back at the girl and half waved at them with her uninjured hand.

  “Hi,” she said, feeling the sweat running down the sides of her face and hoping she didn’t look too disheveled.

  “Hi,” the woman replied, stopping in front of the house. “Welcome to the neighborhood. I’m Andrea, and this is—”

  “We made you cookies!” the little girl practically screamed, thrusting the plate forward.

  “Paige, don’t be rude! You haven’t even been introduced yet.”

  The girl’s face reddened; clearly embarrassed at being chastised in front of a stranger, she looked at the ground, arms sagging. “I’m Paige,” she mumbled angrily.

  “Nice to meet you, Paige,” Jenny said, noticing that Andrea’s face was wrinkling in annoyance and wanting to defuse the situation. “How old are you?”

  The girl looked up, her expression brightening. “Six!” she shouted, thrusting the plate at Jenny again.

  Six? Jenny thought. I was way off. Ugh, I don’t know anything about kids. I need to figure this shit out, and fast.

  “We made you cookies!” Paige said again, somehow getting louder each time she spoke.

  “Awesome!” Jenny answered, attempting to match the girl’s enthusiasm. “Thanks!” She took the plate from Paige and peeled back the tinfoil, even though she had puked her guts out about an hour ago and had absolutely no appetite. Her morning sickness was already bad and wasn’t showing any signs of letting up.

  The cookies were mostly charred to blackness, with small brown spots here and there, like a plate of tiny burn victims. “Oh,” Jenny said without even meaning to.

  “You obviously don’t have to eat them,” Andrea said, quietly. Her daughter’s expectant expression said something very different.

  “No, no … I want to,” Jenny lied. Picking one up with her injured hand, she took a small bite, her teeth struggling to get through the dense cookie. “Mmm…,” she reluctantly hummed through a mouth full of ash. But the glee on the girl’s face was worth the struggle.

  “You’re Jenny, right?” Andrea asked. Before she could reply, burnt cookie bits got caught in Jenny’s throat and she coughed. She nodded, but she must have looked confused because Andrea quickly followed up with, “News travels fast on a dead-end street,” and a guilty smile.

  “Yes,” she said when her throat finally cleared, “I’m Jenny Decker, sorry, you caught me off guard. Honestly, this entire move has totally thrown me for a loop. I feel like I was living in Manhattan yesterday.”

  “No need to apologize!” Andrea said, putting her arm around Paige. “We can be a bit … overwhelming. And I totally get it. Frank—my husband—and I moved four times in five years. It was hell. I swear to God that I’m never moving again!”

  “Oooh, you said the H-word, Mommy!” Paige shouted, looking happily scandalized.

  “Do as I say, not as I do,” Andrea said without missing a beat. “Anyway, Jenny, everyone in the neighborhood is so happy that you’re here! It’s all we’ve been talking about. It’s never fun to have an empty house in a neighborhood, especially after what happened here.”

  Before Jenny could ask Andrea what she was talking about, Tom came up to them. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail, but wisps had come loose and he was sporting a pretty serious five-o’clock shadow. His T-shirt was wet with sweat, which also made the multiple dark tattoos glisten on his forearms. A pair of gardening shears dangled from a veiny fist.

  “Hi!” Paige shouted.

  “Paige, volume,” Andrea reprimanded.

  “Hi, I’m Tom Decker,” he said, extending a slightly dirty hand.

  Their new neighbor seemed to consider it for a second but then shook with the slightest of grimaces. “I’m Andrea Katz. And this is my daughter, Paige.”

  “Are you a rock star?” the six-year-old said loudly. Tom and Jenny laughed. Andrea looked chagrined.

  “Not quite,” Tom answered, grabbing a cookie. “Oooh, chocolate chip, my favorite,” he said, and gobbled it down, seeming not to notice how it looked or tasted. Paige giggled.

  “My dad is a businessman! He makes a lot of money!” the girl said; her mother blanched.

  “Annnnnd that’s our cue to leave you alone now,” Andrea said, grabbing her daughter’s arm and pulling her away. “But, welcome! We can’t wait to get to know you!”

  “Likewise!” Jenny said. Tom grabbed another cookie from the plate and popped it into his mouth as the mother and child crossed the street and vanished into their house on the other side of the cul-de-sac.

  “How can you eat those?” Jenny asked quietly after their neighbors’ door shut behind them.

  “They’re not so bad,” he answered, pushing a strand of errant hair behind her ear. She did the same to him.

  “I don’t even know who you are, Mr. Rock Star.…,” she said, and snorted with laughter.

  He laughed, too, and then looked at her stomach. “How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty much like shit. Luckily, the taste of burnt cookie is distracting me from the overwhelming urge to vomit. Yay for me.”

  He rubbed his finger along the bridge of her nose, across the multitude of freckles there. “Well, you look great.”

  “Liar,” she said, smiling anyway, then took a deep breath and looked around. “The yard is starting to look a little better. Small victories. But the lawn is ca-razy. Did you happen to notice a mower when you were down in the basement?”

  Tom’s expression went distant. “The … basement?” he asked dreamily, his voice breaking slightly. He moved the gardening shears from one hand to the other.

  “Yeah, the basement,” she repeated, looking at him quizzically. Maybe the awful taste of the cookie was starting to register in his brain. “Was there a lawn mower down there?”

  He took another long moment to answer, then said, “I … don’t know. I’ll have to go look.”

  * * *

  Inside, Tom drank glass after glass of water but couldn’t seem to satiate his thirst. He watched through the window as Jenny continued to work in the yard, and then he walked through the house, room by room. He still couldn’t believe it was all his … all theirs, he corrected himself.

  Without intending to, he ended up on the third floor, in the small room, staring at the pictures and the strange, red scrawl that covered them. He studied them closely, his nose millimeters from the glass. Slowly, he started to understand what he was looking at.

  After what felt like hours, he desc
ended the secret stairs into the kitchen. Still inhumanly thirsty, he went to the sink, doing his best to avoid looking at the basement door, even though he was dying to visit the chrysalis again.

  Instead, he drank more water, his stomach distending and beginning to ache, but was still thirsty. He knew there was only one way to fix the actual problem but fought the solution with every ounce of strength he had.

  His eyes glazed over as he stared unseeing out the window, the hairs on the back of his neck feeling as if they were on fire.

  * * *

  They ate an early dinner on the porch swing, burgers, fries, and ice-cold cans of root beer, and watched as the sun set behind the houses up the street. Tom often worked Saturdays but had the night off for once. With their mismatched schedules, it wasn’t often they could enjoy a leisurely dinner like this.

  A few kids rode their bikes down the dead end and stopped to stare at the newcomers in silence before whispering to each other, laughing, and pedaling off, disappearing into the growing evening shadows. Tom and Jenny saw a shiny BMW pull into the cavernous garage of the house across the street, the door opening and closing with impeccable timing. Jenny assumed Andrea’s husband, Frank, was behind the wheel, but wasn’t able to make out the driver’s face through the tinted windows.

  Later, on the couch, Jenny fell asleep on Tom’s shoulder while they watched reruns of an old sitcom on his laptop.

  After the third episode ended, Tom looked at the time and was surprised to see that it was only nine o’clock. Jenny was snoring quietly. He carefully wriggled out from underneath his sleeping wife and propped a couch pillow under her head, then closed the laptop and placed it on the floor. Jenny mumbled something in her sleep and turned over to face the back of the couch. He pulled a blanket, the first one they’d ever bought as a couple, over her.

  Tom knew his wife. She was knocked out, wouldn’t wake up until morning. He, on the other hand, felt wide awake.

  It was Saturday night, the weather was gorgeous, and he’d been meaning to check out what their new town had to offer after dark. Besides, he was dying for a smoke and figured the walk would be the perfect opportunity to indulge without polluting Jenny’s lungs.