Darkness My Old Friend

by Lisa Unger

  “She’s not in Iraq?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know where she is. My dad said she’s living with some guy and doesn’t want me around for a while. She wants me to finish school here, stay with my dad’s family.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was sorry. She knew what it had felt like when Richard went off to live with that stripper, even though he and her mom were divorced. She knew what it had felt like when her mom was having a good time with Mr. Ivy. It felt like a betrayal. It hurt, made you unsure of your place in your family, in the world. She reached a hand over the seat, and Cole took it. She felt the heat move into her body.

  “But now my stepmom and my half brother and half sister? They left, too. I guess Paula ran off on my dad. He said she hurt him, took the kids.” He leaned away from her, against the driver’s-side door.

  “But?”

  “But she’s so nice, such a good mom,” he said. “I just can’t see her hurting anyone.”

  She couldn’t quite see his face, obscured as he was now by the seat. She climbed over the center console and came to sit beside him in the place Jolie had occupied.

  “You think he lied?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. And if he lied about that, did he lie about my mom, too?”

  “Can’t you call her?”

  “Her phone got disconnected. She got fired from her job. She hasn’t answered any of my e-mails.”

  Willow found herself thinking of her own mother, how she really had to get home. But then she saw that he was crying. A single tear trailed down his face. He wiped it quickly away. She reached out for him, and he moved easily into her embrace.

  “It’s okay,” she said, even though she had no reason to believe that was true. Everything about him felt good-his arms around her, his face on her neck, his hair against her fingers. “Where’s your dad now?”

  He pulled away from her suddenly, turned around to peer out into the darkness. “Did you hear that?”

  Willow’s heart started pounding as she listened past the beating rain. Then she heard it, too, faint and far away, the sound of someone screaming. Maybe. They both exited the car at the same time, into the buckets of falling rain. Willow came to stand beside Cole. They looked in the direction of the woods but didn’t hear anything more. There was only darkness and rain, as far as Willow could see. Maybe it was their imagination. Maybe they hadn’t heard anything at all. But Willow knew she wouldn’t leave her friend out there alone.

  “Let’s go get her,” said Willow.

  “Okay.”

  The thin beam of Cole’s flashlight was the only light they had.

  Michael heard yelling. A woman’s angry voice ringing out over the rain, and he moved toward it. He’d been wandering in a kind of fog for so long, he didn’t know how long-dwelling in the mines, dozing there. There were some PowerBars and a few bottles of water in the knapsack he had with him, and he’d lived on those. He was happy where it was dark and quiet, where there were no eyes looking and no mouths talking. The darkness didn’t judge him or want anything from him. It didn’t care what he did or didn’t do; it didn’t care what he had done.

  He heard more shouting; it sounded like the calling of birds. From the same direction, the rushing of the river seemed impossibly loud. He kept moving toward the voices. How long ago had it been since he had broken through the mine entrance and gone down, down, down into the world beneath? A day, two days-a week? Time had no meaning in there, just as he remembered when he used to go with his father. They’d descend in the day, and return in the night. It seemed as if they’d gotten into a spaceship and landed on a distant moon.

  On his website, Michael called himself a caver and spelunker. He claimed that he gave tours and was a consultant. But, honestly, he wasn’t any of those things, didn’t do any of that. He was willing, of course. But no one had ever contacted him via the site he’d built. He didn’t have any formal training, other than following Mack on his research journeys. Michael was just a drifter, a loser. He could never get a hold on anything, could never build a life in the world up above-or down below.

  Since college, Michael had been drifting from one meaningless job to the next. First he worked as an admin at a website development company, which is where he learned how to develop and maintain sites. He was competent enough, but he just couldn’t get the social stuff. He couldn’t talk to people. He sometimes just blanked out in meetings, went catatonic in his boss’s office. And, then, one day he found he just couldn’t go back.

  He attempted other kinds of work. He was a custodian in an office building for a while, then a grocery store stocker. The longest job he’d held was as a night watchman. He didn’t have to see or talk to anyone, other than fielding the occasional call or visit from his supervisor, who’d seemed just as reluctant to have a conversation as Michael was. He could simply wander long, dim, empty hallways and feel something akin to peace. He had time to work on his website, the place where he was all the things he couldn’t be in real life. And the night was suitable cover, wasn’t it?

  As he had entered the mines, with Ray chasing after him, he didn’t have any plans to return. But after so many days wrestling demons, he had to come up for air. Now, in the woods, he was lost-in every sense of the word. He could still hear something, more faintly, and he followed. He had to tell someone what he had done. It was time for confession now, and punishment.

  The dark had spoken to him. It whispered that it was safe to remember, that it was time. And then he was back, on his bike riding through the old neighborhood. He was a wraith, quiet and fast. And the night was silvery and slick. On reaching home, he dropped his bicycle on the driveway, and left it where it twisted.

  Inside, he could feel that the energy was different and strange. He heard music. He heard his mother’s voice. He felt powerfully that he didn’t belong there in that moment and that he shouldn’t have come home. But he was drawn toward the unfamiliar sounds… a man’s tender voice, a strange cadence to his mother’s words, a song he’d never heard before. And when he moved toward the light of his mother’s drawing room, he saw her in the embrace of a man, not his father.

  Inside him something shifted, went black and ugly. Why? He didn’t know. But he went to that blank space he had within him-where there was just the rushing of blood in his ears and the sound of his own breathing. The man, a faceless stranger, left in a hurry. And Michael was left alone with his mother.

  “Michael,” she said. “Why are you looking at me like that? He was just a friend.”

  “You sent me away,” he said. He knew his tone was bitter, vicious. “So that you could be with him.”

  He saw the shame on her face. But there was also anger.

  “Michael,” she said. “I am your mother. You don’t speak to me that way.”

  Then there were the lights of his father’s car in the driveway. And inside Michael, a familiar slow, simmering rage was starting to brew. He knew it well-he’d felt it before tantrums as a child, before fights at school, during screaming battles with his father. But he’d never felt it for his mother, never directed it at her. She’d always been the one to talk him through those rages. Breathe, sweetie. Breathe.

  She was backing away from him when his father walked in.

  “What’s going on?” Mack said. He laid his briefcase and coat on the couch. He looked weary.

  “She had a man here,” said Michael. “She was in his arms. She’s a whore just like you always said.”

  And Mack had said that so many times. Michael heard his father yell it during arguments and whisper it at the dinner table. And Michael had railed against him, always defended her and protected her. But Mack was right.

  The stinging slap his mother landed on his face sent a shock through Michael. It was white lightning, electrifying him. Then she was running up the stairs, with Mack bounding after her. Michael heard her shrieking.

  “I hate you! I hate this place! I hate this life!”

  Michael s
tood there stunned, feeling the heat on his face, listening to them screaming at each other. What were they saying? He didn’t even know. He was in that place where all the anger seemed to build from inside his belly, boiling and rising up into his brain. She’d hit him. She’d taken all her love away from him. She was going to leave them, leave Michael.

  Marla came down the stairs with her packed suitcase. He knocked the bag from her grasp and the clothes spilled out on the floor… her lacy underthings, a pair of shoes, a few skirts and blouses. He knew he had to stop her, and he grabbed her hard by the shoulders.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said. He was sobbing, sounding just like a child.

  “Michael,” she said. Her eyes were wild and desperate. “Let go of me. I’ll come back for you and your sister.”

  But she was lying. He knew that. She’d come back for Cara, but not for him-now that she knew what he was inside, now that she knew that his rage could be directed at her. He outweighed her by fifty pounds at least, was already much taller at fourteen. She could never control him.

  “Michael,” she said. Her voice was just a jagged inhale. “You’re hurting me.”

  Mack stepped in. “That’s enough, Michael.”

  But Michael couldn’t. He wouldn’t let go of her. His grip on her grew so tight that she cried out. Somehow, in a struggle among the three of them, she broke away. She ran out the back door and into the Hollows Woods, the place where he now wandered.

  She had been fast. All those years of trailing her on his bicycle, he knew how fast she was, even though she thought of herself as slow and clumsy. He was after her. There was no thought in his head at all, no malice really. He just wanted her, needed her to stay with him.

  She turned into the clearing, and he was right behind her. But Mack caught up quickly. His father caught ahold of Michael with strong arms, tried to keep him back.

  “Stop it, son,” he’d said. His voice was a cough. Mack was panting, sweat pouring down his face and neck. “What do you think you’re doing? You need to calm yourself.”

  Mack had a hard lock on Michael’s wrist. But then Michael punched him mercilessly in the stomach, and Mack doubled over, falling. He moaned and writhed on the ground as Michael ran into the chapel. In the total darkness, he could see nothing. He could only hear her weeping.

  “Mom,” he said. “Mommy. Don’t cry.”

  He thought of all those nights he’d slept beside her while Mack was working, or sleeping on the couch after they had been fighting. And Michael would lie there and listen to her crying, pretending that he was asleep. She would hold onto him, seeking warmth and comfort from him. And he cherished those moments with her, because she belonged only to him. He could see that she didn’t need Cara in the same way, that Marla didn’t draw the same kind of comfort from her that she did from him. She needed him. She couldn’t leave him. What was he? Who was he without his mother?

  He might have come back to himself if she hadn’t tried to run from him again. But she burst from a hidden corner and tried to make it to the door. He caught her easily and his hands wrapped themselves around her neck. It was so small, so delicate under his powerful fingers.

  From another place, another world, he watched himself. He watched her flail and struggle. He listened to her horrifying rasp for air, felt her weak pounding at his arms and kicking at his legs. He watched her eyes go wide, bulge, redden. And then he watched them go blank. Her body slackened, and all the fight, all the life, drained out into his hands. But it hadn’t happened to him. It didn’t happen at all. It was a dream, a terrible dream. It happened to someone else, another Michael-one who didn’t even exist on a normal day.

  He didn’t remember anything at all after that. Even now, wandering in the rain, carrying the memory of what he had done to his mother, he remembered nothing else of that night. What had his father done? Why had Mack hidden it all from the police, from Michael himself? Why? He could never answer those questions for his father. He could never make amends to his mother. There was no more chance of his ever living in the light again.

  It was then that he saw her running.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to go.”

  He walked out into her path, and she stopped short, stared up at him with blank, nearly uncomprehending terror. On some level, he could see that it wasn’t his mother. It was just some girl, a stranger who couldn’t hold a candle to Marla because no one could. She issued a panicked scream that sent a jolt of fear through him. And she started to flee, nearly tripping once in her panic to get away from him. But this time, he didn’t give chase. He wouldn’t. He’d let her run, just like she had wanted so long ago.

  “Heavy rainfall in the region tonight,” the radio announcer said. “We have reports of flooded streets. Some local roads are washed out completely.”

  Jones hated the way newscasters always seemed to enjoy giving bad news. They had this faux-somber delivery that wasn’t in the least bit sincere. “It’s been thirty-five years since the Black River overflowed its banks. But authorities say the levels are rising. Folks, I’m sure I don’t have to say it, but I will: If you don’t have to go out tonight, stay home.”

  Jones brought the SUV to a stop in front of the Carr house and sat. He remembered the hours spent waiting and watching, sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner, the endlessness of it. Though often, when Ricky was young, he’d cherished the silence and solitude of it. But sometimes being alone with his own thoughts was the last thing he wanted. It was in those quiet, empty spaces that all the things you didn’t want to think about paraded before you, demanding to be noticed.

  Maggie had already called twice, first to ask him when he’d be home. She was worried about him out in the weather. Next she called to ask him to look in on her mother. Cell phones were working, but some of the landlines in the older parts of town were out. Elizabeth’s phone was always one of the first to go in a storm. And of course, like the stubborn old mule that she was, she refused to get a cell phone-because that would make things easier on Maggie and Jones.

  “No problem,” he told Maggie. “I got it covered.”

  “And don’t fight with her.”

  “I won’t.” And he wouldn’t-unless Elizabeth started with him. Jones had always had a somewhat contentious relationship with his mother-in-law. But since the events of last year, it had gotten much worse. They could barely make it through a meal without arguing. It was another thing Maggie was angry with him about, even though he didn’t think it was entirely his fault.

  “Even if she starts with you, Jones,” she said. “And see if she’ll come back to the house with you.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Just ask,” she said. “And where are you now?”

  During their last conversation, he’d told her about Robin O’Conner and the money he’d given her. You old softie. Was she cute? He’d told her about his trip to the doctor, what the other man had said about Jones finding his father. It’s true we don’t talk about your father much. Maybe he’s right-it bears looking into. Now he told her that he was sitting in front of the Carr house. It was a dark, empty space in a street of warmly lit homes. In other houses he saw open garage doors, television screens flickering. Somewhere he heard the faintest sound of a ringing phone.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I haven’t gotten that far. It doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”

  “What would Columbo do?”

  “Columbo? Really? All the sexy, tough-as-nails television detectives out there, and that’s who I remind you of?”

  “I don’t watch much television. Besides, I always found him kind of appealing,” she said. “Do you have your gun?” His wife, the pragmatist.

  “No. Just the Maglite.” On the job you had your gun, your blackjack, and your Maglite, the favored flashlight of police officers everywhere. About three pounds of metal, including D batteries, it could do some damage in a pinch.

  “Hmm,” she said
, sounding uncertain. He watched the house for movement in the windows. There was nothing.

  “Just be careful. Okay?”

  She used to say that to him every time he left for work. Even though he was only a small-town cop in a place where things were quiet most of the time, she’d always worried about him. She’d get mad at him back then if he didn’t call when he was supposed to or if he got hung up with overtime and came home late. Don’t worry, he’d tell her. They’ll come to the door if there’s really something wrong… Is that supposed to make me feel better? He’d liked it that she worried. He liked it now that she wanted him to come home.

  “You mean you still love me?” he said.

  “Don’t be silly.” She had that warm, flirty tone in her voice.

  “You were pretty mad at me the other night.”

  “Not mad,” she said. “Concerned.”

  “No. Mad.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Angry. Upset.” He remembered that she didn’t like the word mad. That it implied insensibility, something out of control. “But I do love you. You know that, don’t you?”

  He did. He did know that. He told her so.

  “This is the part where you tell me you love me, too.”

  He had a hard time with those words. They felt so awkward, so inadequate on his tongue. Abigail had demanded that he say it over and over to her, day after day. I love you, Mommy. It was like she’d used the words up. He’d said them so many times, not meaning them, saying them only to appease and escape, that the words seemed fake. And they were never enough for her. Nothing was ever enough for Abigail.

  “I do,” he said. “You know I do.”

  Maggie understood. She never hassled him about it. She didn’t need him to say it. What Maggie needed was a lot of touching, a lot of holding. He hadn’t always been good at that over the years, either.

  “Seriously,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  “I guess I’m going to ring the bell and see if anyone’s home. Go from there.” He’d been sitting and watching for the better part of fifteen minutes now. He’d come to believe over the years that an empty house had an aura; you could tell somehow when no one was home. It was more than just a lack of the lights and movement. It was like a lack of breath.