by Jack Ketchum
Caity gets up off the chair, crosses the living room floor and clumps up the stairs and down the hall to Delia’s room.
The room smells terrible and not like Delia’s room at all but the window is open as she’d knew it would be and fresh air flows inside. She’d felt its steady flow across her belly all the way down the hall. It’s an effort to pull herself up over the windowsill and onto the roof but it’s worth it once she’s out there.
There’s her old weathered blanket. There’s her toy.
She roots around in the blanket with her nose and scratches at it with her front paws until she’s created a comfortable bed.
She looks up.
And we see the stars.
Bart sits at his desk. She paces back and forth in front of it.
“It’ll go back up,” he’s saying. “It just takes time. We need more time.”
“Excuse me? It went from forty dollars a share to five dollars a share in less than six months, Bart. How many did you buy?”
He won’t look at her.
“Twenty thousand.”
“What?”
“It was up to a hundred a share after two months, Pat. We were up a million fucking two!”
“And now you’re down . . .”
“Seven hundred.”
“Thousand. Seven hundred thousand. Jesus, Bart!”
“Hey, Chomp Chips checks are starting to come in. They’ll keep us afloat on our monthly expenses if they keep running it, which you know they will. We’ll be fine on property and federal next month. It’s these goddamn hospital bills, Pat . . .”
“What do you mean? The hospital bills are co-pays. Not full amounts.”
He shakes his head. “They’re full amounts.”
“What the hell are you talking about? We have insurance.”
“No. We don’t. I let it lapse. Delia was going to be upgraded once the show started. Who the hell knew.”
She can’t believe it. He calls himself a business manager? A father? A husband?
“Why you goddamn . . . you fucking fry cook!”
She can’t find the words. Those will have to do.
“What did you call me?”
Oh, you’re angry now, are you?
Poser. Amateur. Idiot.
She can’t stand the look of him. She turns and stalks out of the room, slams the goddamn door behind her as hard as she goddamn can.
Fucking fry cook!
We dream.
We move back to the window, through the window. We’re curious. We hear someone shouting, a door slam.
We move to the top of the stairs and down the stairs and here are all the people we know, all the important ones anyhow, and we taste anger and bewilderment. Anger from Bart and Patricia as they rush through the living room to the kitchen. Bewilderment from Robbie as he follows them paces behind. The first has the tang of sharp cold metal. The second a sweet thick foam.
“What did you say? What did you call me?” Bart shouts.
“You heard me!”
“You watch your mouth, woman! Dammit!”
Bart tears a bottle of gin from the cupboard. He unscrews and pours. We know the scent, we can read the bottle. Tanqueray.
Patricia pulls a pan off the row of them in various sizes which depend from hooks along the shelves. Shakes it at him.
“I called you a fry cook. That’s what you were when I met you, that’s all you are and all you’ll ever be!”
She advances. He backs a step away.
Our fingers clutch the bedsheet. We’re scared.
Robbie sits as though struck down.
“What the hell was I thinking? I knew I should have hired a manager. Hell, I should have just taken care of everything myself and left you to your toy cars and gizmos instead of letting a goddamn fry cook do a man’s job.”
“Hey. You just hold the fuck on there, Pat!”
“Why does she keep calling you a fry cook, dad?” says Robbie. We can barely hear him. We can smell the tightness in his bladder.
“Because that’s what he was. What he is,” says Pat. “Your mom’s right out of college waitressing for the summer right? And Daddy Bart here’s this big, strong, head-cook-slash-manager. And I was sooooo impressed!”
“Screw you, Pat.” Bart drinks.
“It went belly-up before the summer was over.”
She drops the pan into the empty sink. We flinch at the sound, it rings harsh in the air. She goes to the cupboard. Pours. The liquor is a light amber.
We can read the label. Glenfiddich.
A silence while she drinks, leaning against the counter. Bart stands motionless across from her. They are checkers on a checkerboard, each awaiting the next move.
“The doctors say that the major surgeries are over,” he says. “The rest are just cosmetic. The bills won’t be as bad as . . . we’re going to be okay. We’ll be okay.”
She shakes her head. “No we won’t, Bart. We’re goddamn ruined. This has ruined us. Don’t you see? Don’t you get it?”
She places the glass down gently on the counter. Somehow the glass has gone empty. We must have been distracted. Perhaps by Robbie’s left foot drumming against the floor. Perhaps by beeping from the corridor. Nurses rushing by.
“You’re done,” she says. “I’m taking over your office. The files, the checkbook, everything. Roman and I will figure out how to get us out of this mess.”
She pushes away from the counter.
“First thing I’m doing is selling your fucking car.”
She walks out of the room. We can hear her on the stairs. Robbie and Bart just look at one another for a moment.
We turn away. We curl up onto the easy chair. We nestle in as deeply as we can. We pull up a sheet. We wipe away a tear we were not aware was there.
Our bad dream is over.
Bart is seriously unprepared for what he’s looking at. But then how could he not be? How could any of them possibly be prepared?
They’re all here, seated around Delia’s bed in a semicircle while Dr. Ludlow speaks to her in his quiet, steady voice. Robbie has taken the day off from school for this.
And in theory they’re ready. Nicole, the doctor’s nurse practitioner, has met with Pat the day before, given her prescriptions to fill at the hospital pharmacy, handed her the ointments, tubes, and jars they’ll need. After that she’d seen the physical therapist. Been given a rundown of the necessary exercises—how to handle her daughter’s body, how much is good for her and how often and what’s not good for her at all. Together they’ve seen the dietician and have a list of purchases to make, a list of dos and don’ts foodwise.
They’re all set.
Still they’re nervous about this. All of them. That much is obvious. He can easily read his wife and son. Pat’s arms are crossed tight across her chest. Her I’m holding it all inside position. Robbie’s leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, white-knuckled hands clasped together. Bart rolls his neck and shoulders against his own tension and feels them crack.
Only Delia seems unfazed. She sits up against the pillows and simply listens.
“As you know this has been quite a lengthy process,” Ludlow’s saying, “and there’s still a long road ahead, cosmetically speaking. But the important part’s over. With proper homecare, Delia will be fine, strong, and healthy.”
The doctor turns to her. “You’re going home, Delia. Finally, right? You get out of here! You get to sleep in your own room again, your own bed. Excited about that?”
“Not really,” she says.
He laughs. “Why not?”
“There’s ghosts in there. In my room. They did this to me. Ghosts did.”
Beside him Robbie groans.
Ludlow looks at Pat and then at him. He feels his face flush. No, they haven’t told her. That it was her brother’s doing.
“Are there now,” the doctor says.
“No,” Pat’s voice is very small. “It wasn’t ghosts, Delia. It was never ghosts. It was . . .”
“It was what, mom?”
Pat gets it. Don’t go there.
“Doctor?” she says.
And Ludlow gets it too. Change the subject.
“Yes. Okay,” he says and pulls his surgical mask up over his face. “Let’s have a look, shall we? Lie back. Close your eyes. Now keep in mind that there’s still swelling taking place and will be for a while, but that will fade . . .”
And that’s when Bart begins to tune him out, as Delia closes her eyes and he cuts away the bandages from her face and she lies there revealed, his beautiful young daughter turned into a patchwork of flesh, grafts the color of meat extending down from the top of her hairless head to the sides of her cheeks in front of her ears, over the melted ears themselves into the flesh of her neck, then down her forehead to just above her eyes, those precious eyes that were protected by her hands as she pressed them to her face, her skin whole and untouched across sickly pale cheeks which had been protected too by those hands, and then more raw grafting across the tip of her nose and chin because those same small hands did not suffice and had left them bare to the singe of flames.
My god.
He is looking at the clear imprint of two hands splayed across her face.
Ghostly thin fingers reaching up from her eyes into what had been her hairline, outlined in angry red.
Those hands which had saved her, now disfigure her.
He remembers to breathe.
He is glad her eyes are closed. Glad she can’t see him.
He’ll have to work on that. Put his game face on from here on in. He can do that. He’ll have to.
She’s coming home.
TEN
Delia’s still a little woozy from whatever they have her on so that when she stands while Robbie ditches the wheelchair she takes mom’s arm waiting for dad to bring the car around, and then Robbie’s on the other side of her so she takes hold of his arm too, and it’s a little while before she realizes that they’re pretty much surrounded out there.
The news has gotten around.
Reporters and cameramen, circling her like bees. Buzzing, buzzing.
She pulls the red hoodie further up over her head.
“Mrs. Cross? Congratulations on Delia’s release . . .”
“Where’s the dog? Where’s Caity?”
“Yeah, we were expecting a reunion!”
“How you feeling, Delia? And you must be Robbie . . .”
Dad gets out of the car and it’s like in the movies, like she’s a celebrity, him striding up to her and guiding her to the curb, arms held out to them waving them away like some Secret Service guy while Rob and her mom block them on either side and how do they know Caity’s name? she wonders.
She’s aware of her mom and dad asking them to back off, to leave them alone please. To please respect their privacy.
“Can we get a shot of the whole family together?”
“Are you going back to work again?”
They aren’t listening. They’re pushing and shoving. A dozen of them maybe. She doesn’t know. She just drifts toward the car.
“I asked you nicely,” says her mom and she almost doesn’t recognize her voice, the voice is so mad. Her grip so tight on her arm it almost hurt. “But if that’s not good enough then how about this? Get the fuck out of our way before I shove those cameras through your goddamn teeth!”
“But this is a wonderful story, Mrs. Cross . . . please . . .”
Dad pulls open the passenger side doors in front and back and Robbie gets in back and holds out his arms to her while mom moves her inside and slams the door and then gets in the front and slams that door too, and as her dad is making his way to the driver’s side she sees one of the reporters step right in front of him and for a moment she thinks her dad’s going to hit him, he’s so angry but then he stops and listens instead. She’s started to roll up the window but then she stops and listens too.
“These other guys are animals, freeloaders,” the man is saying, “but my station will pay for your story, Mr. Cross.” He hands dad a card. The reporter smiles. “Way to knock down all those hospital bills, right?”
Her dad grunts something and pockets the card and slides in behind the wheel. The car’s already running so he throws it into gear and they pull away.
“Fucking ambulance chasers! What the hell kind of people would . . . ?”
“Dad,” she says. “It’s okay, dad. They just want to hear about me and Caity.”
She leans forward and puts a hand on his shoulder. Feels the trembling slowly stop.
Then after that they drive in silence.
She’s aware of them long before she hears them, smells them, sees them. They’re coming home.
All of them.
She climbs up on the chair by the window and gazes out but it’s still too early, it’ll be a while yet and the chair can’t contain her so she jumps back down to the floor and her tail is going, her butt’s going—wiggle-butt, wiggle-butt her memory says to her—and her whimpered voice sounds joyous and scared to her ears as she circles round and round.
When the car pulls up she goes back up to the chair again and there they are out the window, getting out and walking toward the house, toward her, Delia is walking toward her and her whole body is shaking with excitement now and she can smell them, each of them, over and beyond the car-smells, the smell of fresh-mown grass, she can identify each footfall. She hears Delia’s steps more hesitant than she’s used to. Pat’s crisp. Bart’s plodding.
The lock disengages and the door opens and she navigates perfectly between Bart’s legs and Robbie’s to Delia’s, ignoring Pat beside her. And then she’s up on her hind legs pawing at Delia’s legs and Robbie reaches down, ruffles her back, shifts her gently away.
“Down, Caits,” he says, “calm down. She’s still hurt . . . just like you . . .”
Delia laughs. “That’s my girl,” she says, reaching out to pet her. “I missed you, Caiters. Oh, I missed you, girl!”
Pat moves her toward the sofa and eases her down and then the open lap is there so she hops up and lays her front paws and head across it as Delia embraces her and pulls her toward her for a long hug and a kiss. Many kisses. A squeal of contentment rises and escapes from her throat. She licks her drooling lips. The hoodie falls away down across Delia’s shoulders and she looks up and sees her face, sniffs at it.
Strange.
Delia’s face but not.
No, Delia’s face all right. Hers. Delia’s.
Who smiles and giggles as she licks it and licks it with her warm wet tongue.
And here we are.
Robbie wonders how she feels, sitting there at the dinner table after all this time. Like normal. Like nothing’s happened at all. He can’t tell. He’s never been able to figure his sister. Just doing what she did, performing, getting up in front of a bunch of people and actually liking it. When Robbie has to read out loud in class it takes all he can do not to run out of the room screaming.
And here she is, Caity’s head resting on her lap while she forks up some fried zucchini, everybody silent at the table which is weird enough right there, never mind that Caity is the only one who seems to be able to look at her, at her ruined face. Mom and dad aren’t even making an effort, not even just for show. Dad’s pushing around his mashed potatoes while he reads the paper. Mom’s nursing her Bloody Mary. She hasn’t even touched her steak.
It isn’t right. She’s not some freak. They should be looking.
He remembers his sister’s tastes. There’s a piece of steak on the platter that looks just right for her. He forks it up.
“Hey, sis,” he says, “you want the crispy one?”
She looks at him real serious-like and he right away realizes his blunder. Crispy? Burned? Awww, shit!
He wants to say something, to take it back somehow—thinking how could I be so stupid?—but she just keeps look
ing at him wide-eyed like she can’t believe what he’s said either and then her mouth turns up and she’s grinning and the next thing he knows they’re both busted up laughing while mom and dad just sit there looked at the two nut-cases across the table.
But it’s good. It breaks the tension at least for a while and afterward they watch Birdman for the third time—dad’s Netflixed it, a good choice because it’s a favorite of everybody’s—and when Delia asks what happened to the new TV because they’re watching the old one, dad doesn’t even blink an eye, just says we didn’t need it and that’s that.
Then mom wants them to get ready for bed.
“Can I sleep out here tonight?” Delia asks. Like she’s still afraid of something up there.
“Not a good idea, hon,” says his mom. “You need some solid rest. And your room’s all fixed up now.”
“Good as new,” says dad. “Better.”
But Delia shifts, uneasy on the couch, and that’s when the phone rings. Mom gets up to answer it.
“Robbie you’ll deal with Caity, right?” his dad says.
“Sure, dad.”
“Caity?” Delia asks.
“There’s this cream stuff. For where she’s hurt,” Robbie says.
“I can do it.”
“You don’t know how yet. I’ll do it tonight and show you how in the morning, okay?”
“All right.”
“None of your goddamn business!” his mom says into the phone. They all look up at her, startled.
“Kids? Upstairs,” his dad says. It isn’t a request.
They head for the stairs.
Is this Mrs. Cross? the man said. And she said yes. And he said, how’s Delia? How’s she adjusting to home life? Which was when she blew it.
“None of your goddamn business! Who is this?”
“Pardon me, ma’am. I’m Brian Bishop with FFMN InfoCorp . . .”
“FFMN? Listen . . .”
“I talked with your husband. Mrs. Cross, please hear me out. Delia and her dog . . . her hero dog . . . we’d all of us just love to . . .”