by M. Leighton
Stunned and consequently mute, I simply stared at the handsome exterior that covered such a shallow interior, as I mourned the death of my dream date.
Stephen mistakenly assumed my silence was consent of some sort, which was apparently all the encouragement he needed. He leaned across the table and took a lock of my hair between his fingers. His knuckles brazenly grazed the swell of my breast and a satisfied smile slid across his lips. “Is that a yes?”
My upset tripled with his bold and embarrassing action. I was debating the merit of slinking right down under the table and never coming out when I saw Stephen glance over my left shoulder. I turned and saw a group of his jock friends watching us from against the wall on the other side of the cafeteria. They were laughing and pointing, some giving him two thumbs up. Then I got it. I realized what was going on. And I was mortified.
Humiliation washed over me in a cold, clammy wave. My mind scrambled for a way to escape, to evaporate and drift away in the air, never to return to school again. But today I wasn’t a wallflower. Today, there was no quiet, easy way out.
The sting of bitter tears burned at the backs of my eyes and I willed myself not to shed them.
For several seconds, we sat that way, Stephen’s knuckles continuing to brush my chest, my mouth agape in disbelief. His lips moved, but I heard no words; my ears rang with the sound of his friends’ laughter. The hundreds of eyes trained on me stabbed at my nerves like tiny needles.
Then the hair trigger on my temper tripped, completely eclipsing all other feelings, including embarrassment. Anger surged and swelled and built within me until it was a blinding rage. It burned away the unshed tears, bubbling along my veins and blazing across my cheeks. My fingers squeezed around the milk carton I held. I felt the liquid warm against my palm, my hand shaking with fury.
“I know you want me,” he whispered, his pupils dilating as his bravado increased. He was oblivious to the storm that was brewing inside me. “And I can make you feel so much better.”
The smell of scalding milk drifted to my nose as it began to boil inside the carton. I watched it happen as if it was in slow motion. Hot milk erupted from the carton, hitting Stephen square on the chin and splattering all over his face.
CHAPTER FOUR
Stephen sputtered and squealed, finding his way back to his side of the table as he wiped hot milk droplets from his ever-reddening face. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was hoping that the milk hadn’t been hot enough to blister his face, just his pride. But the majority of my attention was focused on the satisfaction I felt at seeing him squirm.
A hush had fallen across the cafeteria. The only sounds were Stephen’s indignant gasps and the shuffle of a few chairs sliding back as people stood to watch the scene unfold.
Too angry to process the ramifications of my actions, I stood, looking down on a furious Stephen. I grabbed my cookie from my tray and stepped out and away from the lunch table. “I thought you were different,” I spat then spun on my heel and stalked away.
I marched right out of the cafeteria and straight out the door, refusing to look left or right. I didn’t stop, just kept walking until I was in front of my mailbox. It didn’t take that long for my temper to cool, however, and for regret to sink in. Already I dreaded the fallout my actions would incite and, lucky me, I’d have all evening and all night to dwell on it and dread the next few days.
I lowered the mailbox lid, rusty metal hinges creaking in protest, and took the mail from inside. My arms felt like they weighed fifty pounds each. I was suddenly exhausted. I felt the stress and strain of the previous three days in every fiber of my being it seemed.
Unlocking the front door, I walked straight through to the kitchen and poured myself a huge glass of water. My throat was on fire.
I carried my drink to the living room, along with the mail, and set it down on the coffee table. I collapsed onto the soft couch cushions, letting the mail fall from my fingers and scatter across the floor. I didn’t bother to pick it up. At that moment, I was more interested in letting the familiar smells of home soothe my jangling nerves.
After several minutes, I sat up to go through the mail. I picked up each piece, examining it as I went.
Bills, bills and more bills, I thought as I picked up the last two pieces. But it wasn’t all just bills. Hidden beneath the next to last piece was a plain white envelope. It had my name as well as my father’s written across the front in a neat, feminine hand. Our address wasn’t listed, only our names. There was no return address. And no stamp.
A heavy blanket of foreboding settled over me as I slid my finger under the adhesive flap and pulled. Inside was a single sheet of lined white paper. It was the kind of paper we used in school. I found that odd. It was neatly creased into thirds and on the middle portion was a short note, written in the same feminine script.
Grey’s gone, Carson. Be careful. I’m sorry! I never meant to hurt you.
I felt the blood drain from my face. It plummeted, along with my heart, to somewhere in the vicinity of my toes. Though the short sentences made no sense, I recognized the name. Grey had been my sister’s name, my dead sister’s name.
I was so immersed in my thoughts, in confusion, that I didn’t hear Dad’s truck. When he appeared in the kitchen doorway and spoke, I nearly fell of my perch on the couch.
“Dad!” I said breathlessly, holding a hand to my chest where my heart was thundering away like a herd of wild mustangs. “What are you doing home?”
“I think a better question is what are you doing home?”
“I just- I don’t know, Dad. I’ve had a really bad day.”
“Do you want to—“
I knew what he was going to say before he finished his sentence and I answered accordingly. “Can we just talk about it tomorrow?” When his stony expression didn’t soften, I added please for good measure, hoping that would seal the deal and he’d drop it.
His lips tightened disapprovingly, but then his expression finally softened into one of exasperation and he sighed. That was always a good sign.
“Alright, Carson, but you know you can’t make a habit out of this. School is still top priority,” he preached, as if I could’ve forgotten.
“I know, I know,” I said then moved to change the subject. Turns out it was a very effective subject change. “Do you know any other Greys?”
Myriad expressions crossed my father’s ruggedly handsome features. I could tell he was thinking of families with the last name Grey. When it went carefully blank, I knew he’d landed on the Grey that I was talking about. “Not that I can think of. Why?”
Without a word, I handed him the letter and the envelope. He took them from my fingers and sat next to me on the couch. I settled back to watch his face as he read.
He was white as a sheet under his tan by the time he finished the short note. It only confirmed what I suspected. There was something he wasn’t telling me.
I crossed my arms over my chest and turned on the couch to better face him. “So, is there anything you’d like to tell me? Something you’d like to talk about?” I loved to turn the tables and aim his parental questions and comments back at him; it was incredibly satisfying.
His eyes bored into mine for several seconds before he got up and walked to the window. He stared out in silence for what seemed like an eternity before he spoke. When he did, his voice was quiet. “They’re alive.”
His words hit me like a freight train. I didn’t even have to ask to whom he was referring. I knew. My mother and my sister were alive. I don’t know what I thought he might’ve been hiding, but that wasn’t it.
I felt lightheaded. The quiet buzzed in my ears like a thousand bees. A car passed on the road outside and it sounded miles away, like I was hearing it through a tunnel. My chest was heavy with an unfamiliar emotion that lay somewhere between fury and hope.
The air between us was thick with tension and my mouth was desert-dry when I spoke. “Why? Why would you keep this from me?”
I saw his big shoulders slump and his head tip forward. “I felt like it was the best way to keep you safe. You don’t know her. You just don’t know…”
“Know who?”
“Your mother.”
“Duh! You never gave me a chance to know her,” I spat, not even trying to contain my sarcasm. “Why? Why would you keep us apart?” My tumultuous feelings finally settled down, picking hurt as the emotional port of choice to dock in.
I felt the hot sting of bitter tears for the second time that day. The pain of betrayal ripped through me like a slug, piercing my heart and shattering it into a million tiny pieces.
Though I’d never known them, I’d mourned the loss of my family, especially as I’d gotten older. Not having a mother, not having any siblings, had taken its toll. And now, knowing that my whole life could’ve been different, I was devastated.
“Carson, you don’t know what happened, what I was trying to save you from. I did what I thought was right by getting as much distance as I could between you and your mother. You don’t know her,” he repeated, this time his tone conveying some of the bitterness he felt. He turned back to me, his expression pained yet steely. “You don’t know what she was capable of.”
“And what about my sister, Dad?” Grey’s gone, the note had said. What had become of her?
He bowed his head, but not before I could see the raw pain that flickered across his face. “She was already gone, Carson. She came back- she wasn’t- she-” he stammered. “She didn’t come back the same.”
“Come back? From where?”
Dad lifted his head, his glistening hazel eyes meeting mine across the room. In that one look, I could see what his secret had cost him all those years ago. And what it was still costing him. “Death.”
He sounded like a crazy person. I had joked about it for years, but I’d never really thought Dad might be…unbalanced. Until today. “I don’t understand,” I said, suddenly feeling wary.
Dad retold the story of “the accident”. For the most part it was the same as he’d always told it: hard rain, unstable bridge, car goes over, everyone trapped inside, Dad gets out, drags us all to shore. Only this time he filled in some crucial details, details that would forever change my life.
“By the time I could get you two out of the car and out of the water, you were already gone. Your mother and I did CPR on you for I don’t know how long. But it didn’t matter. You were both so cold and blue. And still,” he said, his voice soft and quiet and a million miles away. “So still.”
My heart pounded in my ears. “Then what?”
“Your mother and I sat with you for a long time, crying and holding you. I knew I’d have to go and get some help eventually, but I wanted to wait until she settled down a little bit more. She was…hysterical.
“When she did, I left to go find a phone or get us some help. She wanted to stay with you two, which was fine. I wasn’t gone more than an hour or so, but when I got back…” He trailed off again, leaving me on pins and needles.
“What? When you got back what?” I prompted sharply.
He paused for several seconds, obviously reliving a horror that I couldn’t imagine. “When I got back with the police, you were alive. Both of you.” His eyes met mine. I could see that he was once more in the present. “And she was bleeding.”
My stomach clenched painfully. I had no idea what that meant, but somewhere deep inside me, instinctively, I knew that it wasn’t good. “What happened, Dad?”
A frown crept across his face, followed by an expression of repulsion. “I don’t know what she’d done to herself, I just know she was bleeding and smiling and you two were alive.
“After the police dropped us off at home, I waited for her to say something, to explain what was going on, but she never offered to tell me. And, in a way, I think I was afraid to ask. I knew something was wrong, though. I could feel it. She was different,” he said mysteriously. “And so was your sister.”
A sick feeling overwhelmed me. The implications of what he was saying registered on a visceral level, even though I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Something inside my mind, and my heart, wouldn’t allow it, shunned the very thought of what he was insinuating.
I sat quietly on the couch, overflowing with emotions, but unable to put any of them into words. I listened as he finished.
“That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay on my side and stared at the wall, wondering what I should do. I kept thinking that you weren’t safe with them in the house. Something was telling me to get you out of there.
“Right before dawn, I felt your mother get out of bed. I waited for a few seconds then I followed her.
“She went into the nursery and got your sister out of her crib. She held her in her arms for a minute, talking to her, cooing to her. She took her blanket off her, then her pajamas and her diaper. She was mumbling things to your sister, things I couldn’t understand. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up just thinking about it.” I saw a fine shiver pass through him as he remembered. He raised one hand to massage his nape as he continued. “Your sister started making these terrible sounds. I thought at first she was choking and I was about to go in and get her. I had just stepped through the door when I saw her skin change.”
My breath caught in my throat. I was terrified to ask him to finish, afraid that in the next moments he might divulge what I was to become. But on the other hand…I had to know. “Her skin? What do you mean?” My heart hammered against my ribs as I waited for him to finish.
“I swear I think it turned black. And shiny. The moonlight coming through the window made it glisten, almost like it was wet. I’ve never seen anything like it. Then she started shaking like she was having a seizure, but she was still making those noises. Unnatural noises.
“Wind started pouring through the windows and doors, howling through the house. I don’t know where it came from. Don’t think I wanted to, really. The gusts were so strong they knocked me against the doorjamb a couple of times. But I hung on, stayed right there. To watch, I guess. I don’t know. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from what was going on.”
I waited for him to continue, but, once more, he was lost in time. “Then what happened?”
“Then your mother let her go, just dropped her,” he said simply.
I sucked in a gulp of air, literally waiting on baited breath for the finale. “What happened to her?”
“That’s the thing. She didn’t fall. She just…hovered there. It’s like the wind was holding her up in the air.” He paused then said softly, “And she didn’t even cry.”
CHAPTER FIVE
We sat quietly for several long minutes, him reliving the nightmare, me digesting my family’s horrible history. I knew I’d have questions. It only made sense after such an astonishing revelation. But, at that moment, I couldn’t think of one. I was too shocked to think much past the sinister portrait Dad had painted.
“The next morning, I waited until your mother was in the shower. I took you and left.” He paused then added under his breath, “And never went back.”
The jingling of the telephone forced me from my shocked shell. On wooden legs, I rose from the couch and made my way to the kitchen where the phone rested on the counter.
Leah’s voice brought me back to reality like a bucket of cold water to the face. “Mom wants you to come for dinner tonight. She fixed pineapple upside down cake.”
Dina Kirby had adopted me, figuratively speaking. From the first time we’d met, she’d been the mother I’d always wanted, but never had. She took me shopping with them, she took me to the movies with them, she took me swimming with them in the summer and skiing with them in the winter. And she always invited me over when she fixed my favorite dessert, pineapple upside down cake.
I could’ve cried. Never had the longing for a mother, a normal mother, been as poignant as it was right then. Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away. Plus it would give me a chance to apologize to Leah.
&nbs
p; “What time?” I wasn’t even going to ask if I could go. I was going. Period.
“Six or so.”
“Okay. See you in a while.”
After I laid the phone back in its cradle, I walked back to the living room. Without so much as a pause or a glance in Dad’s direction, I continued on to my room. When I turned to close the door behind me, I saw Dad sitting on the couch. His head was cradled in his hands. From across the room I felt his grief and misery, an echo of the pain in my own chest. His shoulders shook with sobs too quiet for me to hear. For an instant, I thought to go to him, offer him some small comfort, but tonight, for the first time that I could remember, I had none to give.
********
At nearly seven that night, I sat with Leah and her parents around their oval dinner table, listening to their family chatter. Their normal family chatter. It was the soothing balm my bruised and tender soul needed.