The Book of Baby Names

by Prentiss, Norman

  He told Susan how he stressed that Linda wouldn’t harm their boy, insisted the police would find her and Tommy soon enough. He’d convinced Mark to take an aspirin with a sleep aid, and said he’d wake him as soon as he heard any news.

  As he talked, he saw Susan’s eyes flutter over to the refrigerator. He tried not to influence her reaction, but his voice got higher and he spoke faster.

  Susan gave a quick start and reached out for the photograph. Thank God, he thought. She’s noticed that’s not Tommy.

  “This picture,” she said. She pushed one finger underneath the photo, lifted the image to deflect glare from the overhead fluorescent light. “I took this one. Last summer when we all went to Atlanta.”

  * * *

  Evenings were especially difficult.

  Before, the evenings were never long enough. Hours passed quickly after work, with barely time to read or play a game with Tommy—rare moments when their family wasn’t defined and limited by others’ mistaken sense of propriety. After Tommy went to bed, Chris and Mark shared two hours to themselves, comfortable in the quiet cocoon of their relationship: they would channel surf, watch a Netflix movie, read different books in the study, or simply sit on the living room couch and relax.

  They had more hours to themselves now, but there was no comfort or togetherness in their prolonged evenings. Mark stayed in the study, worked alone on projects he’d been unable to complete during the day. Sometimes Christopher heard the click of keystrokes, the whir of Mark’s inkjet as it printed sample webpages or lines of html code.

  More often, he heard Mark’s quiet sobs.

  Last week, optimism was easier. Now, eleven days since Tommy had been taken from school, it was harder and harder to convince themselves he’d be found soon. Or at all.

  Susan visited frequently last week, as if her presence could cause their luck to turn. She wanted to be with them when the good news came through. When it didn’t, it became harder for Mark to keep up a brave front. He asked for privacy, told her he’d call the minute they learned anything definite.

  And he retreated, not into the comfort of his partner’s arms, but into the seclusion of uncertain grief.

  The possibility that they might never find Tommy was too awful to express. So they seldom spoke. Even a supportive hug was awkward, the gesture tainted by unvoiced sorrow.

  Christopher had too much time alone to reflect. He worried about Tommy, of course, about what may or may not have happened to him. But he also feared for his future with Mark.

  He was disturbed and angry at how familiar these fears were. He’d gotten used to pressures from outside: his parents, the work world. Religious fundamentalism, hate crimes, the threat of AIDS. Something was always poised to break gay couples apart. Their happiness was borrowed.

  Certainly everyone worries whenever a loved one boards a plane or feels suddenly ill. But they suffered an extra layer of anxiety. The world didn’t appreciate their union—as if, outside their home, their relationship had no basis in reality. No wonder his fears became a part of him, as natural as breathing.

  And now the thing that separated them was Tommy.

  Chris opened the shoebox once again. He spread the pictures onto the empty sofa cushion next to him, repositioned them in a cruel game of solitaire. He examined each photograph in turn, held the picture up to the light as if hoping to see a shifted pixel, a computer-shaded change to the image.

  Perhaps it wasn’t a completely different child. He could almost admit that now. A more accurate statement would be to say it was Tommy, but altered. Adjusted.

  As in well-adjusted, the phrase that had been so popular during the custody hearings.

  A child is impressionable, they also heard. Chris imagined a series of changes stamped onto Tommy’s frame, pressed into the clay of his countenance.

  Gradual changes, invisible over time. Could he have missed them? Maybe Tommy, some moment in the past, had turned an awful corner.

  He refused to watch the video again. Perhaps the computer misread the file when the child spoke to the camera, and a blip in the image and soundtrack had distorted the word “daddy” into that awful slur. Chris wouldn’t check. He was too afraid of the sound and the moving images linked together in conspiracy, synchronized to give the adjusted Tommy more emphasis, more definition.

  But he would look at the photos. Through force of will, Chris tried to blur the images back to the Tommy he remembered, the sweet boy he and Mark raised together. It didn’t happen. If anything, the images of the strange boy grew brighter; traces of the true Tommy began to fade from his mind.

  He’d hoped, with Mark and Susan separately, to get them to acknowledge what he saw. “It’s almost like I don’t recognize him anymore,” he hinted to them at different times. Then, less subtle: “The pictures seem like a stranger.” Mark got angry and stormed from the room.

  Susan, although more sympathetic, treated Chris as if grief made him foolish, drove him to lose perspective. “Don’t even say that,” she said. “The police will find him, and Tommy will be back soon enough.”

  Yes, Susan could be the calm voice of reason. Joined to other voices from the past: Mark’s lawyer; the expert from social services; their “well-meaning” family and friends. It was better to follow what would be successful in court—suppress any idea of Chris as a father, at least in public. Erase part of himself to make the rest of society comfortable. It didn’t matter that society needed to change. Instead (as Mark had argued) it was best to do whatever anyone asked, as long as they got to keep Tommy.

  There was a price for silence, for surrender of principles. To acquiesce was to internalize some of the judge’s suggestions, little by little. They won the custody battle—but not without bringing home some of society’s worst prejudices.

  And then, the doorbell rang.

  * * *

  This must be bad news, Chris thought. Only bad news is delivered in person. If they found Tommy safe, they would have called first.

  There will be two officers, probably the same ones who followed him to the house on the day of Tommy’s abduction. Along with a police psychologist to counsel them at the news of their loss.

  Chris had a horrible, guilty thought: This is probably for the best.

  He braced himself to comfort Mark, to use the role of a sympathetic spouse to help recover their connection to each other.

  Mark, drained of energy from worry, suddenly found the strength to rush to the door.

  Chris followed behind, stayed a step back.

  Mark pulled the door inward. The door blocked Chris’s view of the visitors; he could only see Mark’s face, his slumped and nervous body clearly resigned to the same fears.

  He’s dead.

  But Mark straightened up, his face bright with laughter. He jumped forward: “Tommy!”

  He’s back?

  The officers followed the boy in. As Christ expected, it’s the same two officers—though he hardly recognized them with smiles on their faces. Apparently they could lose their homophobia for a brief moment, glad to bring good news to a household (even if they don’t fully recognize it as a family).

  But the boy…

  It’s not Tommy.

  The boy hugged Mark, then stared at Chris. It was the same look Chris got previously from the police officers, from the receptionist at Tommy’s school. Further back, from the judge during the custody trial. The kind of spiteful, scornful look that turned his and Mark’s relationship into nothing.

  * * *

  Mark held the boy tightly, didn’t want to let him go. He thanked the officers, raised the boy’s arm to wave goodbye as they left.

  Mark talked non-stop. The same man, of late, who barely spoke most evenings, now a rushing flow of happy exclamations interspersed with questions: “You’re here! Where did you go? No, no, tell me later. But where did she take you? I’m so happy you’re back!” His arms embraced the child, his chin resting contentedly over t
he boy’s shoulder as he mumbled to himself. “Should I press charges? I don’t want to drag Tommy through the courts again.” Then, as he looked at Chris: “We’ll do just enough to scare her, stop Linda from trying…” He pulled back to look at the child, as if to convince himself the boy hadn’t vanished. “Oh, let’s not worry about that now. Let’s be a family again.” He waved Chris closer so they could hug the boy together. Then: “I have to tell Susan! Tommy, let’s call Susan!”

  He pulled the boy after him into the kitchen. Chris followed.

  As Mark dialed Susan’s number and gave her the news, Chris tried to catch the boy’s attention.

  He whispered a question, his voice just low enough that Mark couldn’t hear. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Tommy.” The boy smiled. Then, to mock the seriousness of Chris’s question: “Who are you?”

  * * *

  He’s here, in our home.

  We’ve let him in. Little by little, we’ve let him in.

  Hadn’t they? The compromises that drained the energy and sincerity from their relationship: all the silences that denied his and Mark’s love for each other. The extra bedroom, the lack of affection in public, the suppression of Chris’s role in the family. They did all of these things for the child. And it changed him.

  Susan arrived less than five minutes after Mark’s call. She seemed even more excited than Mark, found the strength to lift the boy over her head and spin him in a circle.

  Chris tried to suggest that something was wrong. Maybe, he hinted, maybe something had happened to Tommy while he was away.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mark said. “He’s perfectly normal.”

  Yes, Chris wanted to say. That’s the problem.

  Susan, also, didn’t notice anything peculiar about the child. She gave Chris a puzzled glance, as if he were the one who seemed different. Of course: like Mark, she couldn’t see outside it anymore. She had participated in the farce; she was part of what had changed the boy.

  This new Tommy, this well-adjusted child—he represented what was wrong with the world. The persecution, the lack of acceptance. Society’s denial of rights to gay couples.

  They’d let him into their home.

  This Tommy wasn’t right. They couldn’t trust him. He was a threat to his and Mark’s relationship, maybe to their lives.

  One way or another, and soon, Chris would find a way to stop him.

  * * *

  The Book of Baby Names — Afterword

  Denise wasn’t happy about the doctor’s orders, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. First pregnancies were always the most risky, and she and Bill had been trying for so long.

  If Dr. Bryson insisted on complete bed rest, then that’s what she was going to do. No exertion at all, so her uneven heart rhythm wouldn’t have the chance to endanger their child: little Alan, maybe, or Bill, Jr. She hadn’t decided yet.

  Even a week of this was already getting boring, though. She couldn’t get caught up in the daytime soaps, hated local newscasts, and game shows never quite drew her in. Evenings were the best part. She wasn’t allowed to go out to restaurants, but Bill often ordered carry-out, and was doing more cooking on his own than he’d attempted before.

  Sometimes she’d get stir-crazy, want to lash out. What was most exasperating was that Bill wouldn’t fight back. Of course not—not after the doctor warned he should be very careful not to let anything upset her. They needed to keep her stress levels at a minimum.

  A calm two months at home, no worries, her husband waiting on her, hand and foot—the kind of vacation she would have killed for. Yet after a tedious week, she almost wished she could go back to work.

  Almost.

  If only bed rest weren’t so damn boring.

  Well, she still had the television, plus some DVDs her husband bought for her. Magazines and books she’d gotten as gifts, including this little pamphlet Sandra gave her at the baby shower. Sandra was an odd one, but maybe she’d done something right this time. The pamphlet was actually a pretty appropriate gift, considering Denise still hadn’t decided on a name for their son.

  She opened the book, and started to read…

  * * *

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

  NORMAN PRENTISS is the author of LIFE IN A HAUNTED HOUSE and ODD ADVENTURES WITH YOUR OTHER FATHER (A Kindle Scout Selection), and he won a 2010 Bram Stoker Award for his first book, INVISIBLE FENCES. He also won a 2009 Stoker for his short story, "In the Porches of My Ears," published in POSTSCRIPTS 18. Other publications include THE BOOK OF BABY NAMES, THE FLESHLESS MAN, FOUR LEGS IN THE MORNING, THE HALLOWEEN CHILDREN (written with Brian James Freeman), and THE NARRATOR (written with Michael McBride), with story appearances in BLACK STATIC, DARK SCREAMS, BLOOD LITE 3, BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR, THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR, and in four editions of the SHIVERS anthology series. His poetry has appeared in WRITER ONLINE, SOUTHERN POETRY REVIEW, Baltimore's CITY PAPER, and A SEA OF ALONE: POEMS FOR ALFRED HITCHCOCK.

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  Visit him online at www.normanprentiss.com.

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  ALSO AVAILABLE

  LIFE IN A HAUNTED HOUSE

  Brendan has always been fascinated by the low-budget horror films of Bud Preston. Imagine his surprise when he moves to a new town and discovers a high school classmate is the daughter of his favorite director. Melissa Preston’s home contains exciting secrets about such strange films as THE STONE STAIRWAY and THE DUNGEON OF COUNT VERLOCK. But Brendan’s film-fan obsessions threaten to undermine his new friendship...before he can truly understand what it means to spend LIFE IN A HAUNTED HOUSE.

  “Prentiss continues to chart his own path through the horror genre, a path which more often than not is haunted by the monsters hiding inside us rather than slavering demons or serial killers…A poignantly moving, sometimes funny and oftentimes bittersweet human portrayal of a young man trying to make sense of his parents’ divorce, his place in the world, and the true meaning of friendship…I can do no less than give Life in a Haunted House my highest recommendation.”

  —Cemetery Dance Online

  Plus, be sure to collect all the tie-in stories to Life in a Haunted House, including “The Dungeon of Count Verlock” “The Lake Monster” and “The Space Visitor”

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  Horror / LGBT Bestseller

  ODD ADVENTURES

  with your

  OTHER FATHER

  Because one of her fathers died when she was very young, much of Celia's family knowledge comes from stories her surviving father narrates—road-trip adventures from the mid-80s that explore homophobia in a supernatural context. As she considers these adventures (a rescue mission aided by ghostly hallucinations; a secluded town of strangely shaped inhabitants; a movie star with a monstrous secret), Celia uncovers startling new truths about her family's past.

  “Beautifully un-categorizable but wholly delightful, Odd Adventures With Your Other Father is a heady mix of the surreal, the poignant, the scary, and the heartwarming. A gleeful mash-up of genres, highly recommended!” —Peter Atkins, author of Morningstar and Big Thunder, screenwriter of Hellraiser II and III, creator of Wishmaster

  “Strange, darkly comic, wonderful book of two fathers and one daughter and just how weird and bright the world can be in the shadows of life.” —Douglas Clegg, New York Times bestselling author

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  This Digital Edition Copyright © 2017 by Norman Prentiss

  “The Book of Baby Names—Foreword and Afterword” ©2016 by Norman Prentiss, original to this collection.

  “The Baby Truck” ©2016 by Norman Prentiss, original to this collection.

  “The Albright Sextuplets” ©2008 by Norman Prentiss. First appeared in Shivers V.

  “The Covered Doll” ©2010 by Norman Prentiss. First appeared in Black Static magazine.

  “Homeschooled” ©2009 by Norman Prentiss. First appeared in 4 Stories.

  “In the Best Stories…” ©20
06 by Norman Prentiss. First appeared in Shivers IV.

  “The Well-Adjusted Child” ©2016 by Norman Prentiss, original to this collection.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Norman Prentiss

  P.O. Box 1355

  Baltimore, MD 21203

  www.normanprentiss.com

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead,

  is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover Design © 2016 by Elder Lemon Design