Darkness My Old Friend

by Lisa Unger

  He pulled himself to his feet and stood at the entrance to the mine. When he first returned here after his father had died, the mine head had been boarded up. There was a city sign on it that declared it condemned. DO NOT ENTER, the sign warned. DANGER. He’d brought a crowbar down and pried it open. The boards lay off to the side, a jagged pile of broken wood and jutting rusted nails.

  “What did you do to her?” he yelled into the darkness. It was a wet, solid thing, that darkness. It could come out and grab you, drag you down into the earth.

  “What did you do to her?” The question bounced back at him, echoing off the mine shaft’s walls. His words sounded desperate and grief-stricken, his voice distorted and foreign, even to himself.

  His own memories of that night were boarded up like the mine. Do not enter. Danger. And there was no crowbar strong enough to break through. All he could remember was the bike ride home through silent suburban streets, the moon high, the houses dark. He left his bike on the lawn, carelessly let it twist and fall to the ground. He climbed the porch step and put his hand on the knob. But that door wouldn’t open, not in his memory. He couldn’t get it to budge. And he was tired of trying.

  “All the answers are down here,” his father had told him about the mines and caves. “Down here you can hear yourself think, finally.”

  Maybe that’s what he needed to do. Go down. Maybe his father was right. Maybe the answers were there.

  “Michael!”

  He looked up through the trees. The voice was familiar. Ray Muldune. He was making his way slowly, unsteadily closer.

  “Michael!”

  Ray was a good guy, but Michael didn’t want to talk anymore. Not to Ray, not to anyone. He lifted his pack from the ground and hefted it onto his back. He stooped his head and stepped inside, into the blessed quiet.

  chapter twenty-seven

  When Cole pulled up to the house, he knew that something was wrong. He just knew. His dad’s car was in the driveway, and his father was almost never home before Claire and Cameron went to bed. Paula’s SUV was gone. And there was something else. He realized as he sat and watched the house that he’d never seen it without the outside lights burning. Paula always had all the lights on, inside and out. I hate the dark, she’d told him. It makes me sad. His dad was always complaining about lamps burning in empty rooms. But Cole liked it. He didn’t like the dark, either.

  He forced himself to exit the car, even though he just wanted to keep driving. He should have gone straight to Willow’s. He’d wanted to. But he’d promised Cam that they’d play a game when he came home from school. And Cole didn’t like to break promises to his brother. He closed the car door behind him, and the sound of it echoed on the quiet street. He didn’t pull into the drive in case his father needed to get out or Paula needed to get in.

  Cole walked in through the open garage and up the three wooden steps into the laundry room. There was none of the usual chaos to greet him. Usually Cam’s shoes, coat, and book bag were lying on the floor until Paula ran around cleaning everything up. He’d hear the television blaring, Claire crying, or Paula talking on the phone. He’d smell something cooking on the stove.

  Tonight he stood in the doorway that led to the empty living room, feeling an uneasiness. It was like the feeling he had when he’d called his mother and found that the line had been disconnected. Or when his birthday came and went and she didn’t call or send a card. It wasn’t like her. He couldn’t imagine that she had some new boyfriend and didn’t want him around, as his father said. But his father wouldn’t lie, would he? Why would he lie?

  Cole closed the laundry room door behind him. Again he thought about just leaving. No one tracked him. As long as he left a note for Paula, and as long as he was home by eight to do his homework, she wouldn’t be mad. Instead he walked to the foyer.

  “Paula?”

  Nothing.

  “Dad?”

  He had that nervous stomach that he’d had on and off since he went to the apartment he’d lived in with his mother and found it empty. All their stuff-all his stuff-was gone. He hadn’t wanted to cry in front of his dad. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried about anything, really. But it had rushed out of him in a wave, like vomit. He’d just started sobbing.

  “Where is she?” he’d asked. He knew he sounded like a little kid; he couldn’t help it. “Where did she go?”

  “Cole, I’m sorry, son,” his dad had said. “I don’t know. It’s okay, though. You’ll stay with us until we find her.”

  Except that horrible, sad sinking feeling had stayed. Sometimes he was able to ignore it, like when he was getting high with Jolie and Jeb, or when he was thinking about Willow Graves, or playing with Claire and Cam. But whenever it was dark or quiet, that ache just spread from his belly and swallowed him whole. Maybe that’s why Paula didn’t like the dark. Sometimes he looked at her when she thought no one was watching and he wondered if she had that spreading sadness inside, too.

  On the staircase he picked his way over Cam’s robot dog, a fire truck, a caboose from his train set, and headed up. He heard Kevin’s voice. There was a sliver of low light coming from the door left ajar to his office. Cole stood and listened.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry. I’m stuck at work. I’ll make it up to you.”

  Cole knew that Kevin wasn’t talking to Paula. That was not the tone he used when he was talking to her. Cole pushed the door open. His father was sitting on the big walnut desk with his head in one hand, cell phone in the other.

  “Dad?” Somehow the word never quite rang true for Cole. He’d wanted to call his father “Kevin.” But Kevin insisted on “Dad.” Cole complied, just to be polite.

  His father looked up at him startled but then tried for a smile. He raised a finger.

  “Look, honey,” he said. “I have to go. Let’s talk about this later.”

  Cole heard whoever it was get shrill and loud on the other end. But Kevin just hung up. Cole remembered how his mother used to yell at his dad, when Cole was small. He could see her standing at the kitchen counter crying. He didn’t remember what they were fighting about. Just that for the longest time he thought that was why his father never came to see him, because his mother was always screaming her head off at the guy. He had recently started to wonder if that was true. And why it was that she’d been screaming at him.

  “How was school, pal?”

  Kevin looked terrible, pasty in the light of his computer screen. There was some kind of mark on his face, a dark line under his eye that trailed to his mouth. Was it blood?

  “Dad, what’s wrong?” asked Cole. “Where are Paula and the kids?”

  His father didn’t answer right away, looked at him with an odd, frozen smile.

  “Uh, Cole,” he said. He pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Take a seat, okay?”

  Cole sank into the chair. The clock on the bookshelf behind Kevin said that it was almost four. He was going to be late to see Willow.

  “Paula and I are taking a little break.”

  “A break?” Cole felt that ache in his stomach. He wished his father would turn on a light.

  “She has taken the kids and, um…” His dad didn’t seem like he could finish the sentence. Kevin looked down at fingers that he had spread wide across the blotter on his desk. “The truth is, I don’t know where she is.”

  “What happened to your eye?”

  Kevin lifted a finger to his face. “Oh,” he said. The smear from his face had transferred to his finger. “I hit my head on a cabinet door.”

  Cole didn’t know what to say. It was obvious his father was lying. He remembered what his mother had said to him the day he left to go spend a few weeks with Kevin. I know you love your dad and I’m happy that you’re going to have some time with him. But remember, all that glitters isn’t gold… Whatever, Mom. See you in a couple of weeks.

  He hadn’t even been sad to leave her. He hadn’t, in fact, given her a backward glance; she was too s
trict, too paranoid, always on his case about homework and who he was hanging out with. And when she found that joint, he thought she was going to have an aneurysm. Then, on the computer, he’d discovered that she’d been looking at those discipline summer camps. He’d wanted to get away from her and stay with Kevin. His father, Cole had thought, was smart and cool and had money. Not like his mother, who could barely make ends meet.

  “Are you okay?” Cole asked

  Kevin blew out a breath, tried for a smile. “I’m sorry, son,” he said. “This is not what I had planned for your visit.”

  His father had been full of promises about the kind of summer they’d have together. But Kevin was often gone before Cole got up, sometimes didn’t get home until very late. They’d played golf once. He had also, once, taken Cole and the kids to the beach. But Kevin was just on his phone the whole time, while Cole took care of the kids. Since school started, he’d hardly seen his father at all.

  “It’s okay, Dad. Don’t worry about it.”

  Cole wanted to ask more about Paula, but something told him not to. Kevin’s cell phone started ringing then. He glanced at it, his nose wrinkling as if he’d smelled something foul.

  “I have to take this, okay?” Kevin said. He picked up the phone and looked down at the desk. “Hey, Greg. What’s up?… I know. I know… You’ll have it tomorrow.”

  Cole rose and moved to the door. He stood there a minute, not knowing whether he should leave or not. He wanted to turn on the light, so Kevin wouldn’t be sitting there with just the computer screen on. There was something really depressing about that. But instead, after a moment, he simply closed the door and left.

  Cole walked into Cameron’s room and sat on his little brother’s bed. He looked around at Cam’s mounds of toys and shelves of books. Then Cole put his head down on the sheets that were covered with planets and stars and smelled of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo.

  Cole remembered how he’d lied to Willow about his mother being in Iraq. He didn’t even know why he’d done that; it was such a stupid lie. He’d have to keep it up if he went to her house. She’d ask about it, and he’d have to keep lying. And he’d have to pretend that everything was okay, that he was cool and in control. He couldn’t tell her that he was nearly sick from wondering where his mother had gone. And now Paula, Cameron, and Claire had gone as well. Something wasn’t right. Lots of things weren’t right. But he had no idea what he was supposed to do about any of it. He hadn’t realized how exhausting it was to be sad all the time. He was thinking that as he fell asleep.

  He didn’t come. Not at four. Not at five. At five fifteen Willow moved away from the window and threw herself in front of the television. Her mother was making dinner in the kitchen.

  In a way Willow wasn’t even surprised. She started to wonder if she’d imagined the whole thing-him appearing at her locker, the excited and surprised lift in her heart. She wasn’t the girl that boys liked; she was the weird one with the orange hair and the poky elbows. She wasn’t the pretty one with long-lashed eyes and big boobs. She was just Willow. He was probably only making fun of her. He went back to Jolie, and they had a good laugh.

  “Where’s your friend?” her mom asked. She stood in the doorway wearing an apron dusted with flour. She held a dishcloth in her hand. Willow’s mother was beautiful; everyone said so. Willow knew that she herself looked like her father, who, honestly, was not her mother’s equal in the looks department. In the pictures they had, he looked skinny and goofy. She wondered what Bethany had ever seen in him. He was a wonderful man. He wasn’t like any of the other men I’ve known. So he was a freak. Maybe that’s why Willow was such a misfit; it was hereditary.

  She thought about lying-telling her that Cole had called and said he had too much homework, or that he got called into work, something responsible that didn’t make him a screwup who broke his promises like Richard. But she didn’t.

  “I don’t know,” she said. She stared at the screen, some stupid cartoon. She didn’t even know what she was watching. “He stood me up, I guess.”

  She tried not to cry, but a big tear escaped from her eye. She batted it away.

  “Oh, Willow,” said her mom. Bethany sat next to her, and Willow fitted herself into her mother’s arms. “I’m sure he had an important reason.”

  “He could have called,” said Willow.

  “Maybe his car broke down or something like that. Just give him the benefit of the doubt until you know better.”

  “I guess,” she said. But already she was feeling that dark place growing, that angry, disappointed hole in her middle.

  “I know how hard it is to be your age, Willow. I remember.”

  “When does it get easier?”

  Her mother issued a little laugh. “It gets different. Let’s put it that way.”

  “Great.”

  Her mother switched off the television with the remote. And they sat like that, listening to the rain hit the windows. Her mother rubbed her back, and Willow closed her eyes. The room was warm, and the couch was soft.

  She must have dozed off, because when she woke up, she was alone on the couch and she could hear her mother on the phone. Her voice had a funny tone, soft and sweet.

  “No, I don’t think it’s inappropriate,” she said. “I think it’s fine.”

  Bethany laughed then, and she sounded so light and happy that it made Willow angry in a weird way. How can she be happy when I’m so miserable?

  “That sounds nice,” Bethany said. “Okay.”

  When Willow walked into the kitchen, the table was set for three. Bethany had made pizza from scratch. As her mother hung up the phone, Willow cleared the third place. She didn’t need to eat dinner reminded that she’d been stood up.

  “Who was that?” she asked when her mother hung up the phone.

  Her mother was using the pizza cutter to make slices in the pie. The kitchen was a disaster-sauce and flour everywhere. Bethany was not a tidy cook.

  “I thought you were sleeping,” said Bethany, not looking at Willow. But she had this big smile on her face.

  “Who was it?” asked Willow. “Not Richard? He’s not still coming this weekend, is he?”

  “No, it wasn’t Richard,” said Bethany. “And I don’t know if Richard is still planning on coming this weekend. Do you want him to? You guys haven’t talked in months.”

  “I really couldn’t care less,” said Willow. She brought the salad to the table and flopped down in her seat.

  “Well, I told him he could come if he wanted to,” she said. “Either way, we’ll do something fun. We should check out that old cider mill. It’s supposed to be really cool.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Willow. “It sounds like a blast.”

  They spent the rest of the meal talking about school-her classes, Mr. Vance, how maybe she should try out for drama next year. Then, after dinner, Bethany helped Willow answer her essay question about A Separate Peace: “Did Gene purposely knock Fin from the branch? Why or why not? If he did, what does it say about Gene and the friendship he shared with Fin?” Mom thought that was such a great question. But Willow just thought it was a cheat, since they’d been discussing it all week in class. Plus, she’d already read the book in seventh grade. But Mr. Vance said he liked to teach it again because the themes were so “complicated.”

  It wasn’t until hours later, when Willow was lying in bed thinking about Cole and trying to go to sleep, that she realized her mother had never answered the question about who was on the phone.

  That night she dreamed that Cole called her and told her how sorry he was for letting her down, for not being there when he said he would. He told her he loved her and that he couldn’t wait to see her again. But then she woke up and realized that she’d only been dreaming, and the crushing disappointment she felt was almost too much to bear.

  chapter twenty-eight

  “I have to be honest. After our last session, I didn’t think you’d be coming back.”

  Dr. Dahl was w
ell pressed as always, looking particularly dewy and flushed, as though he’d just come from his daily workout. An open bottle of water, half empty, sat on the table beside his chair.

  Jones shifted in his seat. “Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure I would.”

  The doctor looked at him with an open, expectant gaze. He seemed hopeful. Maybe even a little smug? No, not that. But there was something about his expression that annoyed Jones.

  “So what are we doing here?” Dr. Dahl said.

  Jones started to say how it was about Maggie, how he was afraid of what might happen to their marriage if he didn’t keep coming to therapy. And even though this was part of the reason, it wasn’t the whole reason.

  “I realized that you were right,” he said, even though it practically killed him. He cleared his throat. “That I’ve been holding back, afraid to move forward into the next phase of my life.”

  The doctor gave him an approving nod, which made Jones want to get up and leave again.

  “What have you been afraid of, do you think?”

  You had to love the guy. He went right into it. No foreplay at all. The headache was already starting.

  “Well, I guess I’ve been afraid that there is no next phase,” said Jones. “That there would just be this puttering around for the next however-many years, taking pointless classes and mowing lawns. We’d take a few trips, go on some cruises. You know, I’ve been afraid that this was it. The only thing left was a kind of slow, inevitable trek toward the end. I mean, I don’t even play golf.”

  “But you’re a young man. Plenty of law-enforcement folks retire young, take their pensions, and find other work.”

  “I guess I don’t feel that young sometimes,” said Jones. “But anyway, some things have happened over the last couple of days.”

  He told the doctor about the cases he was working on, about Maggie’s suggestion that he might hang out a shingle.