by Peter Giglio
“How does it work, Dad?”
“Day by day, Kevin. Day by day. And if you linger on any one thing for too long, if you let it become an obsession, like the way your partner grinds their teeth or the way they leave the toilet seat up or the way they snore at night, you might as well just kiss your relationship good-bye, because love has to be unconditional, and that goes for more serious things, like this.”
“What Mom did last night was wrong.”
“She knows that, son. You just have to give her time to come to terms with why it’s wrong. You don’t get your mother to admit her faults by waving them in her face. For that matter, you really shouldn’t do that with anyone. You can lead folks to the mirror, but they have to do all the reflecting.”
“Dammit, Dad, cut the cheap philosophy. Do you understand that I almost lost Tina over what Mom did?”
“But you didn’t lose her, and you won’t. Do you know how many times your mother and I fought? I mean, really fought. Can you guess how many times I thought I’d be packing my bags and moving out of the house? But it didn’t happen, because your mother and I love each other.”
Kevin shakes his head. In the entire time he’d grown up under his parents’ roof, he could only remember a handful of arguments.
“We hid the fights from you, son. That’s what parents do. That’s what you need to do with Hannah. You and Tina are going to fight, you’re going to scream and yell and curse, but you have an obligation to the little girl in the house. She’s impressionable, and she doesn’t need the tension of your disputes.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’m sure that’s sage advice, but if you don’t mind, I’m still going to talk to Mom.”
“So talk to me,” she booms.
The two men turn and watch her approach from the back of the house. Her plastic gloves are caked with dirt. In addition to listening in on their conversation, it’s clear she has been working in her flower garden.
Forcing himself to remain calm, Kevin approaches her. “Mom, you need to apologize to Tina, and you need to do it sooner rather than later.”
Scowling, she snaps off her gloves and looks down at the lawn. “Michael,” she says, “when are you going to learn how to properly mow the grass?” She glares at her husband. “I swear to God, you miss more than you cut.”
“Come on, Mom,” Kevin shouts. “Stay with me here. You need to tell Tina you’re sorry.”
She spins on her son. “And who are you to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do? I’m your mother, which means I brought you into this world. Have you forgotten that?”
“Christ, here we go,” Kevin says. “Drop the guilt trip and tell me what you were thinking last night. Are you trying to ruin my life and make me miserable? What the hell were you trying to do? I deserve to know.”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything,” she says. “I was just telling it like it is, and if your fragile little lady friend can’t handle the truth, then that’s her problem.”
Kevin’s father trundles the mower back toward the garage, his head hung low, and Kevin looks at his watch, anxious to get to the store so he can return home before Tina wonders where he has gone. He says, “I was hoping you’d be more understanding tonight, Mom, but it’s clear we’re at an impasse.”
“Doesn’t have to be that way,” she replies. “Tina can come over here anytime she likes and talk to me. I’ll listen, and if she wants to apologize for turning my dinner table into a circus, then good on her, I say.”
“That’s not going to happen, Mom. Just know this, if you don’t make things right between you and Tina, I’m out of your life forever.”
“How can you say such a thing to your mother? Your own flesh and blood? Who is this woman who has such a hold on you? Who does she think she is?”
He smiles, despite the awful pain rising in the pit of his stomach, because this is the right thing to do, and this is what he should have done the night before. “She’s my soul mate, Mom, and if you don’t like that, then that’s your problem.”
With that, he strides away from her. He climbs into his SUV, starts the engine, and pulls out of the driveway. His father waves at him from the garage, and Kevin waves back. Then he glances over at his mother, who holds her head in her hands. He can’t tell if she’s crying, and he feels a strong impulse to jump out and comfort her, but he doesn’t do that. He can’t do that. He puts the SUV in gear, looks away from his former home, and drives in the direction of the grocery store, where he will buy many flavors of ice cream for his waiting family.
CHAPTER 19
Young Chet sits on a couch and pays careful attention to the homeschool lesson. His mother pulls a canvas from the floor and places it on her art easel. It’s an image of a chess board with no pieces. A tall cylinder stands in the upper right-hand corner, casting a diagonal shadow across the board. His mother is normally a great artist, and the boring quality of this composition confuses Chet.
One of the dark gray squares outside the shadow is labeled “A,” and one of the light squares inside the shadow is labeled “B.”
“This lesson is simple,” she says. After pointing to the labeled spaces, she asks, “Which one is darker?”
“That’s easy,” he says, “A is darker.”
She smiles. “Are you sure?”
He nods eagerly, hoping the rest of that day’s lessons will be as easy. His mother grabs a gray square from the base of the easel and holds it in front of square A. “Would you agree that the color of the piece I’m holding is the same as the square behind it?”
“Yep,” Chet says.
When she slides the same piece down to square B, he can’t believe his eyes. His mouth hangs open and he shakes his head. “Wait,” he says, sliding off the couch and stepping toward the board. He takes the piece from his mother and studies it, then he places it on the canvas and shifts it between A and B.
The two squares are the same shade of gray, but even when he pulls the test square back, the illusion doesn’t resolve. Each still looks remarkably different.
“Many people are fond of saying, ‘Perception is reality,’ Chet. Today’s lesson is that conventional wisdom can be dangerous. We’re often fooled by our senses, and things always look different in shadows and in light.”
Chet wakes from this memory with a gasp, lying on a cold, slick surface. When he sits up, he finds himself on a chessboard, just like the one from the lesson, and his mother sits beside him. A long green cylinder stands in the distance, casting a shadow across the checkered floor. Chet and his mother are in the light.
“Did you have a nice dream?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says. “Thank you.” He always feels refreshed after one of his dreams, and he feels safe when he’s sleeping in this place, knowing his mother, his protector, remains by his side.
In the distance, at the base of the shadow, a door slides open, and an indistinct form steps through. Slowly, the figure advances across the slash of darkness, and Chet clutches his mother’s hand. “Who is it?” he asks.
“Whoever it is,” she says, “you brought them here.”
Heart thundering, he turns to her and pleads, “Can we go somewhere else?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “you brought us here, too.”
The features of the approaching person coalesce in the relative light, and Chet clumsily rises to his feet, slipping on the ice-like surface. Off balance, he points at Phillip Wise, the approaching interloper, and shouts, “You don’t belong here! Go away!”
But the man looks confused. He shrugs innocently and, in the voice of a young girl, says, “How can you say that, Daddy?” The form then steps into the light, becoming Hannah, arms hidden behind her back.
“Sweetheart,” Chet says, catching his breath and taking a cautious step toward his daughter. He shoots a grin back to his mother, then returns his attention to Hannah. “Oh my God, baby, I have someone important I want you to meet. This is your grandmother.”
Hannah nods at Chet’s mother.
“I am you,” she says.
“And I am you,” his mother replies.
“I brought something for you,” Hannah says to Chet, then pulls a pistol from behind her back, which she aims at him, her twitching finger gripping the trigger. Although he knows nothing about firearms, he’s sure the gun is the same he used to kill Phillip Wise. Holding his hands in front of his face and wincing, he shouts, “No!”
She closes the space between them fast, and Chet tries to back away, but his sneakers slip, and he stumbles backward, falling, slamming the hard floor with his back. Everything goes dark, pain radiating up and down his spine. When he opens his eyes, two hazy forms hover above him. His sight focusing, it becomes clear just how much Hannah looks like his mother. He wants to reach out to her, to embrace her. Then, remembering the gun, he starts crab-crawling away.
But he’s no longer the target. A few feet away from him, Hannah presses the barrel of the gun against his mother’s head.
“No,” Chet cries. “Don’t, don’t! Please, don’t!” Feeling a sharp tickle in his sinuses, he covers his eyes and sneezes.
“Why do you do that?” Hannah asks. “It’s so weird.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I have no idea!”
“There’s a reason for everything,” his mother says. “Dig deep.”
When he looks down, the white square beside him becomes a video screen. The terrified boy in the unfolding scene is him. Tied around his head, a red blindfold shields his eyes. He’s sitting in a metal box covered by a glass dome. An angry voice commands, “Shift, you bastard. Shift!” He remembers the voice, although he can’t match a face to it. He never was allowed to look at any of the bad men for very long.
Through a tube connected to the dome, a fluid sprays into the box, and the young boy—Chet—sneezes again and again.
“Are you sure ragweed forces them all to change?” a soft voice inquires.
“High concentrations worked on the rest of ’em,” the angry voice grumbles. “Can’t see why this little bastard should be any different.”
Chet remembers the agony—noxious fumes filling the oppressively hot enclosure, and all the while he’d been blind, unable to look upon his tormentors. Perhaps the bad men thought his sightless eyes made the whole thing more humane. If so, their stupidity matched their cruelty.
“Your allergies saved you,” his mother says. “The rest of us didn’t pass the test, but you did. Your identity was hidden, all because you were allergic to ragweed, and because you had the sense to keep your mouth shut, they thought you were slow. No danger to them.”
“A stroke of luck,” Hannah says.
“Yes,” his mother says. “A chance for our species to flourish once more. A crack to let the light shine in.”
“Too bad Daddy’s a sociopath,” Hannah says, digging the gun harder against his mother’s head.
“I’ve changed,” Chet says. “Dammit, I’ve changed.” He meets his mother’s sad gaze. “Tell her, Mom, please tell her, I’ve changed!”
“I am you,” his mother tells him.
“And I am you,” Hannah says. Then, with a sneer, she adds, “Turn away,” and squeezes the trigger.
A bright flash explodes from the barrel of the gun, but it isn’t Chet’s mother who suffers injury; instead, the side of Hannah’s head blooms open, blood and bone spraying across the black-and-white domain. Her eyes turn inward, and she crumples to the floor, a red, glistening pool spreading from the massive cavity in her skull.
Mortified, Chet looks to his mother for answers, but her blue eyes have turned black, and no answers linger in those dark orbs that were once so unimaginably beautiful.
He clings to thoughts of her, to her promise of protection from the shadows, then the lights cut out with the metallic clang of an unseen switch, and he feels himself falling…falling… And still, he clings to his mother. Her kind eyes. Her loving lessons. Her limitless patience.
Falling…falling…
He screams and screams again. But no one answers. No one soothes his pain away. He is alone now. Her purity couldn’t protect him. Nothing can save him.
Falling…falling…
Before long, he forgets his mother’s face. Soon after, he can’t remember her name. He turns cold. And then he turns vengeful.
Falling…falling…
CHAPTER 20
The morning after Hannah’s big reveal, all seems well with the world. Kevin returns to his job as a pharmaceutical sales manager, her mom works on her new novel, and Hannah once more pedals her Cannondale through her new town, a cool breeze tickling her face. On a vintage Schwinn, Chelsea rides ahead of her.
Over the roar of a passing bus, Hannah shouts, “So where are we going again?”
Chelsea slows her bike, falling in position beside Hannah. “Downtown,” she says. “All kinds of cool shit there. You’ll love Spin Again, it’s my favorite record store.”
“What the hell, Chelsea? I don’t even have a turntable. Why don’t you just get an iTunes account like everyone else?”
With a sneer, Chelsea replies, “What fun is being like everyone else?”
“Good point,” Hannah concedes.
“Besides, I don’t like to shop online. It’s boring. I like digging through things, getting my hands dirty.”
In silence, they ride into the downtown square, which Hannah is thrilled to find isn’t far from her new home. After they lock their bikes in a rack, Chelsea snatches a backpack from the basket on her handlebars and slings it over her shoulder, then the two start walking.
Gone are the antebellum charms Hannah previously associated with downtown, replaced with bland storefronts and restaurants. But the air smells fresh, unlike the briny funk of her birthplace, and the streets aren’t cluttered with tourists and panhandlers. It’s simple here. Hannah’s ready for simple.
Chelsea, all the while, chatters, pointing out landmarks like a tour guide, and Hannah feigns interest in what passes for noteworthy in the Midwest, nodding and smiling. She envies Chelsea’s enthusiasm, although she suspects her friend of putting on a show because she’s never had a proper audience before. In this sense, the two really are kindred souls.
She wonders why Chelsea hasn’t broached the subject of her special power this morning. It had been all the girl could talk about the previous afternoon. Perhaps the knowledge is filed and forgotten somewhere in the muddled recesses of Chelsea’s mind, but that doesn’t seem likely to Hannah. While grateful for the unexpected lapse, she’s also dubious about the girl’s motivations.
Like Chelsea’s room, the air in the record store is stale. A disinterested teenage girl sits behind the register, blowing a pink bubble. Hannah can’t place the song blasting from overhead speakers, but she recognizes it from her mom’s collection. Something from the ’80s. Not bad, but clearly not good enough to draw customers into the store. Other than Hannah and Chelsea, the only denizen in this dank place is the girl behind the counter. A vintage chandelier sparkles from the high ceiling. Once upon a time, this space had clearly been more important to the community. Now it looks a few years away from being condemned.
“What should I get into today?” Chelsea asks.
Confused, Hannah raises her eyebrows. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sorry, I know I’m weird, but here’s the thing. Each time I come here, I like to discover something new. Since my stereo shit the bed a few months ago, I haven’t been back here for a while, but now, thanks to you, I’m ready to open up my earballs and freak out to some old sounds.” Chelsea performs an awkward twirl and stumbles, nearly falling. With a crooked smile, she says, “So, what should I get into today? Last time it was Zeppelin, but I decided last night, after listening to that record a few times, I really don’t like them all that much.”
“I don’t know, Chelsea. All the bands I’m into don’t release their stuff on old records.”
“Sure they do. It’s just that they’re all limited releases and cost way too much.
But we don’t exactly need to worry about money.” Chelsea winks at Hannah, who doesn’t know what to make of the gesture. Maybe Chelsea gets a big allowance from her father because he feels guilty for leaving her alone so often.
“Hey, Noel,” Chelsea yells across the store.
The listless girl behind the counter looks up and nods.
Chelsea points to the high ceiling and asks, “Who is this?”
“What do you mean?” the girl asks.
“This music you’re playing, who the fuck is it?”
“Why, do you like it?” Noel starts flipping through a magazine and shakes her head.
“No, I fucking hate it. So, are you gonna tell me who it is, or I do I need to jump over the counter and see for myself?”
“Calm down.” The girl holds up an album cover that shows four young men standing on train tracks. “It’s The Clash, you poseur.”
“Thanks, bitch!” Chelsea flips the bird to the girl as she turns back to Hannah. “That settles it, then, I’m going to get into The Clash today.”
While alarmed by Chelsea’s behavior, Hannah’s also impressed. This clumsy misfit doesn’t seem afraid of anyone or anything. She says whatever’s on her mind and doesn’t care what people think.
Under the heading of “C,” Chelsea flips through Rock/Pop titles. “Here we go,” she whispers, then yanks three albums from the wooden rack. Without studying track listings or the condition of the records, she glances back at Noel, who’s turned away from the floor, playing with the controls on the stereo. Chelsea swings her backpack off, unzips it, slides the albums inside, and slings the pack back on. All of this happens incredibly fast, and Hannah is stunned.
“Step one complete,” Chelsea says.
“What the hell are you doing?” Hannah asks, nodding her chin at the security sensors by the front door. “How in God’s name do you plan to get out of here?”