by Nic Sheff
“Okay,” I say—too weak to fight with him anymore.
He walks out of the room and I push myself up and squint my eyes against the sun coming in too bright.
“Hey,” I yell, remembering suddenly. “Is the power back on?”
My dad shouts back from the top of the stairs.
“It was a circuit breaker. Just like I said.”
So he was right about one thing, I guess.
I walk staggering over to the closet. After last night I feel like I need to take ten thousand of those pills from Stephanie’s dad. But I only take one. I dry-swallow it down and then go to the bathroom and drink water from the tap and wash my face and brush my teeth—twice—to try to get the awful taste of bile out of my mouth.
The sickness and nausea in me is replaced by an intense hunger. I hold my stomach—hands shaking—dizzy and aching. There’s a vacuous pit opening up inside me that feels like it can never possibly be filled. The pain of the hunger shoots up and down my body and across from shoulder to shoulder.
Moving as quietly as I can, so my dad doesn’t hear me, I make my way down the stairs. But it does no good. My dad comes out in the hall and calls out to me.
“Jen, where are you going? We have to pray together.”
“Dad, I’m so hungry,” I tell him, almost whimpering. “Please, I’ve been sick. I have to eat.”
“We’re going to fast today,” he answers back. “You can’t give in to earthly temptation. The Lord will give you the food of life; you don’t need anything else.”
“Yes, I do,” I tell him. “I need to eat. I have to.”
The sickness tears at my stomach. It climbs up my throat. I feel my tongue swollen. Sweat beads on my forehead. My legs are weak beneath me and I grab the banister and my dad yells, “You mind me now!”
“I can’t,” I say. “I’m sick. Really.”
“God wants you to repent,” he says.
He starts toward me.
“No,” I say. “No.”
And then from above us a shrill, grating, high-pitched bleating makes me cover my ears. I look up to see the red LED light of the smoke detector flashing over and over—the sound bone-penetrating, like metal trying to cut metal. I set my teeth and call out loud, “I can’t deal with this!”
The curtain starts to come down again and my head swims and I hurry down the rest of the stairs—away from the noise—not waiting for him to say anything else.
In the kitchen, the sun coming in through the narrow windows offers no warmth at all. My bare feet are cold on the tile and I shiver and feel the aching in my stomach. The sound of the smoke detector going off is distant now and faint and when I close the kitchen door I can hear it only as a steady, pulsing rhythm like a too-rapid heartbeat.
I breathe out and try to figure out what to eat—still not sure what my body can handle. I decide to just put some toast in the toaster and boil water for tea. The hunger in me is combined with a terrible, unquenchable thirst now. The more water I drink, the more the thirst clings to my throat like I’m swallowing the desert.
I glance up at the clock then, waiting for the toast to toast and the water to boil. I wonder how long it’s been since I took that pill. I need the relief it promises me so badly now.
“Jen,” I hear my dad calling—the sound of the smoke detector now gone completely. “Come on. It’s fixed.”
I’m too weak and exhausted to call back. The hunger cramps my stomach and the thirst parches my tongue.
But when the toast finally does pop and I spread butter on it and try to eat, I find the sweeping nausea is too much for me again. What little I get down comes right back up again. I’m so frustrated and sick I bang my fist against the counter.
I sit down in one of the straight-backed chairs at the breakfast table and close my eyes. I wait, counting the seconds.
Finally, the cold in me begins to thaw. The pain and aching subsides. I feel a flood of beautiful warmth and weightlessness as whatever that pill was works its way into my bloodstream. I breathe out. And then I can eat. I take small bites, chewing the bits of toast well and swallowing them easily. I drink black tea with milk and no sugar.
“Thank God,” I say aloud.
But I’m not delivered yet.
My dad comes marching into the kitchen, his jaw held tight in anger—his ashen skin gone red in the face.
“I told you to hurry up,” he says. “You think this is a joke? I’m talking about your soul here. Your soul—your chance at salvation.”
I don’t let him see me roll my eyes.
But I’m too blissed out to argue with him. The path of least resistance is to follow him up the stairs. And the greatest thing about whatever that pill was is that it’s given me the freedom just not to care—and that is the greatest freedom of all.
When I do get to his room, though, the smell of mold and something rotting makes me recoil, the dank, fetid air thick in my lungs.
Immediately, I go over to the window and start to open it, but my dad tells me to leave it as it is.
“Come kneel with me,” he says.
I turn away from the window, looking up at the bleeding Jesus on the cross—the crown of thorns cutting in—the nails piercing his flesh. There’s a dresser painted a pale blue beneath the cross and on it my dad has lit a number of different-colored dripping candles. In the center of the candles is a beaded rosary and a small framed painting of the Virgin Mary.
I kneel down next to my dad.
He speaks the prayer out loud and grips his hands tightly together so I can see his protruding knuckles turning white. His hands tremble slightly. He asks God to show me the light of his love and grant my soul’s salvation. He prays for my place in the kingdom of Heaven alongside his. He asks for mercy. He asks for forgiveness. He asks for guidance. He affirms the power and glory of the Lord.
I close my eyes and open them and feel deeply tired suddenly—but in a pleasant way so I almost drift off, my dad’s voice droning on and on.
But through my nodding out I catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye that suddenly shocks me wide-awake, and almost instantly sober—at least, seemingly so.
On the dresser with the candles and the rosary and the Virgin Mary, beneath Christ and the cross, is that ring—the one I found—the one my dad took from me. It’s been placed in the shadow behind the framed painting, but as the candle flickers I can see the light reflecting off the image of the coiled serpent embossed in gold.
The sight of the ring makes me feel chilled. I shiver from somewhere very deep inside me. But my dad doesn’t take any notice. He keeps on praying with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together.
I look at him, then, studying the newly formed lines and creases in his hollowed-out face. I notice that his hair seems to be thinning on top—even more so than yesterday, if that’s possible. And the veins along his temples and cutting down the middle of his forehead are protruding like a tangle of branches beneath his scaly, sallow skin.
Could it be that my mom’s death is finally catching up with him, I wonder—that he’s finally letting himself feel it? Or is it what happened last night to me?
I close my eyes and keep them closed. I can’t stand to look at him anymore.
Finally, though, he finishes the prayer.
He gets up and I see now that there are tears running down his face. He turns away from me.
The sun has risen higher up over the trees and is projecting the littlest bit of warmth in through the glass.
“You may go now,” he tells me.
The sun has risen higher up over the trees and is projecting the littlest bit of warmth in through the glass.
“You may go now,” he tells me.
I stand, feeling lightheaded. I step out into the hall—the walls collapsing in around me—a slide projector click, clicking in my brain—showing me images as though in sleep, but I am awake now.
I see the pretty nun. She sits on the grass beneath one of the live oaks in th
e back of Harmony House with the same little boy that was in her room. He wears blue wool shorts and a white, short-sleeved button-down shirt. He eats bread and cheese and the sister eats an apple. They work together on his catechism lessons. Wasps gather in the branches overhead—the steady droning buzz like an engine revving over and over.
“Okay, is the likeness in the body or the soul?” the young sister asks, putting a hand gently on the boy’s shoulder.
The boy shakes his head.
“I don’t know,” he says.
She smiles.
“Come on, yes, you do.”
The boy shakes his head again, eyes wide and glinting in the hot, bright sun, watching her lovingly—staring. The light casts shadows through the myriad colored leaves. A red-shouldered hawk cries hoarsely and dives down over the tall grass. A gray cat runs out from under the back porch steps and goes chasing after the low-flying bird.
But the boy remains fixed on the pretty young sister.
“I want to run away from here,” the boy says. “I want you to come with me. I want to run away together.”
The sister laughs.
“Because you don’t like your catechism work?”
“Because I don’t like Sister Angelica. Or monsignor.”
The sister glances quickly around and tells the boy to hush.
“You can’t say that,” she says.
The boy bites on his thumbnail.
“I don’t care,” he says. “I want to go away with you. We could go to the moon together and be happy there.”
Now the sister laughs again.
“The moon? How would we live on the moon?”
“We could grow vegetables,” the boy says, very earnestly. “We could bring a cow . . . and chickens . . . and you could read me stories . . . and I could make a fire at night.”
“That sounds nice,” the sister says. “Just you and me . . . on the moon.”
“You won’t ever leave me?” the boy asks.
The sister hugs him to her.
“Never.”
She takes a striped rubber ball up from next to the catechism book.
“Should we take a little break?” she asks. “You want to play catch?”
The boy jumps to his feet happily. She tosses him the ball and he runs down the sloping hill to the edge of the forest. The sister throws him the ball back, but it hits the ground and goes bouncing off at a right angle, disappearing into the dense covering of trees. The boy laughs and calls out, “I’ll get it.” Then he trudges through the wet leaves and ferns, searching for the missing ball.
He walks deeper into the forest, following a shallow creek bed until he sees another sister in a habit. She stands next to a thickset man with a shapeless fedora and a wool flannel shirt and mud-caked work boots. The man leans his weight on a wood-handled shovel. His hands are giant, with wide tobacco-stained fingernails. The sister holds a bundle covered in coarse-looking cloth, her head bowed. The man and sister talk quietly back and forth. And the boy walks slowly forward—the ball now forgotten.
As the darkness of the forest envelops the boy more and more he hesitates, then stops, then looks behind him. The young, pretty sister is there now, holding her arm out to him.
“Come on,” she says, her eyes wide—her hands trembling. “Come away from here.”
The boy turns back to the man and the sister with the bundle. He takes another step forward.
“Come on, now,” the young sister says. “Let’s go. We can go to the moon.”
The boy steps forward again.
The sister with the bundle turns toward the boy now. The coarse-looking cloth is pulled back to show the body of an infant, its face swollen and icy blue. The sister holds it in her arms. She sees the boy watching. She sees the young, pretty sister.
“Sister Margaret,” the older nun snaps. “Get that child out of here.”
The nun turns again toward the grave.
“Sister Margaret,” the little boy cries.
He bursts into tears.
The name echoes through the cavernous woods.
“Sister Margaret, Sister Margaret.”
She crouches in the ferns and wet leaves. The boy runs to her. She takes him up in her arms. And they emerge together—back out into the bright midday sun.
And then like all the visions before it, this one fades to nothing.
I shake my head.
I press the palms of my hands in to my temples.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I say out loud.
It’s like I’m having seizures.
Or like I’m falling asleep where I stand.
Am I some kind of narcoleptic?
Or is it the pills I’m taking?
I go on to do my chores.
Because thinking about it doesn’t do a fuckin’ thing.
So I walk through the house, and in the shafts of pale white pearly sunlight, I can see a thick layer of dust along the banister. It covers every doorframe and painting and ornamental table and lamp and bookshelf and chest of drawers. The dust seems to have rained down in the night—as though someone came and deliberately coated each and every surface.
It wasn’t like this yesterday, I think. But, again, that doesn’t make any goddamn sense.
Looking up as I make my way down the stairs, I see the beams of the house and crisscrossed rafters and detailed edges and ornamental fixtures all seeming to point in slightly different directions. I think back on what Colin told me—that every line of the house, every angle, was built just the littlest bit off, so nothing connects the way it should—or the way you’d expect it to—giving the impression that it’s moving constantly, shifting, expanding and contracting like lungs breathing in and out.
It does almost feel like the house is alive. Not a conscious being, exactly. Like an amoeba—a single-celled organism.
Still dusting and straightening as I go, I walk through the cluttered living room—past the armoire I crashed into last night—and as I do, I feel the life in the house traveling from corner to corner, following me from room to room, watching me wherever I go. I turn a corner, clicking off the last room’s light.
At the end of the hall the locked room is standing open. There’s no key in the lock, but the door is thrown wide.
“Dad, are you in there?”
I shiver, stepping inside, my hand still covering my nose, breathing only through my mouth.
The dust is deeper here and cloying and the smell of mold and rot makes me recoil back.
“Dad?” I call again.
I flick the light switch on, but nothing happens.
I try again.
The room stays dark. I notice for the first time that the windows are all boarded up and I wonder if maybe my dad came in and secured the room like this—or if maybe this is a different room altogether and I’m just mixed up.
There’s a large box of matches on one of the large, flat, sheet-covered objects—most likely a table of some sort.
I light the first match. The flame ignites blue then yellow, then finally settles in, burning vibrant red and orange.
I pull the sheet away.
Beneath it is a piano—a baby grand. The keys are brown and yellowed like rotting teeth. A folder of sheet music is open on the piano bench. Some old religious music: “Jesus Make up My Dying Bed.”
The match burns down to my fingers then and I curse and blow it out.
Beneath the weathered sheet music is a heavy vinyl record the size of a Frisbee, wrapped in dark-stained wax paper and tied with burlap.
I light another match, holding the record up in one hand and trying to see through the glossy paper. The record seems to carry no markings.
“Jen!” my dad yells sharply.
His voice startles me so I drop the match and have to bat it out with my hand.
“It was open,” I say, as if that explains anything.
I turn to face him, but he doesn’t seem mad exactly.
“What you got there?” he asks,
his smile strained-looking—but still a smile.
“I . . . I don’t know,” I say. “Some record, I guess.”
“Here, let me see.”
He takes the record from me and carries it back out into the hallway. As I step out of the room, the cold seems to stay behind me—as though the temperature is somehow relegated to those four walls. The smell, too, seems to remain behind. My dad closes the door and relocks it.
“Don’t know how that got open,” he says. “Might as well try giving this old record a spin, though, huh? I think I noticed a turntable set up next to the stereo in the living room.”
“It doesn’t have any label or anything,” I say.
He nods.
“Probably homemade. When I was a kid you could record an LP like this at a studio in town for five dollars. Although,” he continues, turning the record over a couple times, “this looks much older.”
“Older than you?” I say, forcing a smile. “Didn’t think that was possible.”
He laughs and this strange jocularity makes me fidget uncomfortably.
I keep shifting my weight from one leg to the other.
“Are you feeling better?” he asks me.
I nod.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I say.
He smiles, not showing any teeth.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he says. “So . . . uh . . . let’s get back to it.”
In the kitchen I drink more water from the tap and, feeling hungry again, and like my stomach can handle a little more food, I decide to take a break from working so I can make myself some eggs.
I get a pan down from one of the cupboards and I’m about to light the burner when I’m startled by the sound of a car coming up the driveway.
My dad must hear it, too, because he calls out to me, “Who is that? Who’s coming?”
His footsteps echo down the stairs.
I make my way over to the window and look out to see a rusted pickup truck pulling in next to my dad’s Volvo. Beyond the car and the line of trees, I notice a gathering of dark clouds on the horizon—despite the bright sun and perfect blue of the sky overhead. The driver’s-side door opens and I’m pretty surprised to see Christy’s aunt Rose stepping out.
I turn the faucet on and splash cool water on my face, trying to bring the world back into sharper focus. Rose makes her way up the stairs and I hurry to get to the door before my dad does.