Slide

by Jill Hathaway

  He reaches out his naked hand and traces Sophie’s name with his fingers. “I wish it could have been different, Soph. I really do.” He retrieves his hand and pushes it into his pocket. “I guess God just really wanted me to go on and use that football scholarship.”

  A terrible rage rises within me. The fury is energy, begging to be used. Gathering all my strength, I form Scotch’s hand into a fist and slam it into his balls. The pain is beyond belief, but I know it’s so much worse for him.

  He screams, and it’s the last thing I hear as I’m pulled away from his body.

  I toss and turn, trying to turn my mind off, trying to will myself to fall asleep, but I’m not tired at all. Actually, I’ve never felt so alive, so energized. When I guided Scotch’s muscles, it was like I was inside him, only not. It was like a video game, like I was pushing buttons with my mind, and he did what I told him. It was invigorating.

  For so long, I’ve been out of control, popping in and out of people’s heads, prisoner to their choices and actions. Now there is a sliver of light, of hope, that I can choose.

  If I slide into a teacher making out with a bus driver during school hours, I can choose to push him and his disgusting mustache away.

  If I slide into Scotch when he’s putting his hands all over some clueless cheerleader, I can choose to neuter him. Oh, and don’t think I won’t.

  If I slide into someone standing in a dark room and there’s the smell of blood and I see a body on the bed, I can . . .

  I can . . .

  I can’t do anything about that.

  I can’t do anything about Sophie.

  And I can’t do anything about Amber, either.

  But now. Now that I have some control, maybe I can keep any more girls from dying. Maybe I can protect my sister.

  I jump onto my bed and start doing ninja kicks and punching the air. I am Buffy, ready to kick some bad-guy ass. Laughter erupts from my throat, and I flop down onto my bed and stare at the planet and star stickers on my ceiling.

  This feeling of being in charge of my own life is intoxicating. I feel drunk or high or something. I want to use my new power, want to experiment.

  I slip out of my bedroom and tiptoe down the hall. I peer down the stairs and see light coming from my father’s office. He’s probably busy with his online forum, comforting cancer survivors, saying just the right things to them because he doesn’t have to sit across from them at dinner.

  I continue down the hall, to his bedroom. The door is slightly ajar. I push it the rest of the way open and look around. His room is perfectly neat. The bed is made, and— unlike my room—there are no clothes on the floor. There’s nothing on top of the chest of drawers except an old picture of my mother.

  My father keeps his and my mother’s wedding rings in a velvet box in the top right drawer of the bureau. For years after her death, he kept wearing his ring, until an old lady on the cancer survivors’ forum told him he should take it off. For once, he took someone else’s advice instead of dishing it out. When I noticed he wasn’t wearing it anymore, I asked him about it. He assured me he was keeping it safe, but it was painful to keep looking down at his hand and missing Mom all day long. Sometimes I go and open the drawer and open the box—not to touch the rings, but just to look at them. This time, I carefully pull my father’s ring out of the box.

  I’ve slid into my father before—accidentally, when I tried on his watch or flipped through an old photo album. Once I slid into him in the middle of an operation, and that pretty much scarred me for life. But since I know he’s downstairs right now, messing around on the computer, I figure he’s the perfect target for my little test.

  Back in my room, I hop onto my bed and cup the ring in my palm.

  I sit there for a long time, waiting for something— anything—to happen. The minutes pass by slowly. After a while, I start to get paranoid that my father will come upstairs and look in his drawer. There’s no reason for him to, but I guess that’s the nature of paranoia.

  I slip the ring onto my finger and lie back on my pillow. My headache from earlier returns, and it seems like the caffeine pills in my backpack are actually calling out to me, begging me to swallow a few of them. Ignoring the pain, I close my eyes.

  And feel myself go.

  I find myself in my father’s office, sitting before his computer. He’s reading an email from some lady who lost her son to cancer last year. For a moment he stares at the screen, probably thinking of how to phrase his response. Then he hits Reply and types a few sentences expressing his condolences and recommending a book that will help her manage her grief.

  After sending that email, he minimizes the page with the cancer survivor forum and pulls up an online medical journal. He clicks through a couple of articles, reading about recent surgeries. It’s pretty boring. I wonder if I should make him pick his nose or something, just to see if I can do it.

  I concentrate all my energy into his right pointer finger. Come on, finger, I think. Pick Dad’s nose. But the finger just keeps floating around the trackpad on my dad’s computer, navigating him through article after boring article.

  Frustrated, I try to figure out why I can’t control my father like I controlled Scotch in the cemetery. The only thing I can come up with is the rage I felt when Scotch said he thought Sophie’s death was for the best. Maybe adrenaline has something to do with it.

  The phone rings, and my dad jumps a little. He brings the phone to his ear and says hello, but all I hear is heavy breathing.

  “Hello? Hello?” my father repeats, annoyance edging his voice. No one replies. “Goddamn it, this is the last straw. If you call here again, I’m going to call the police.” Whoever is on the other end hangs up the phone.

  I wonder who was on the other end. I’m filled with apprehension as I remember the phone call I overheard the other day when he was telling someone it was over. Could my father have a stalker?

  He sits quietly for a second before hanging up, staring at the wedding picture of my mother. He takes it in his hands.

  I expect him to caress my mother’s image or kiss it or something, but instead he flips it over and unhooks the back. To my surprise, he reveals a tiny silver key taped to the underside of the photograph. Carefully, he unpeels the tape and takes the key into his hand. Then he reassembles the frame and returns the picture to his desk.

  I watch in astonishment as he takes the little key and guides it into the lock on the bottom drawer of the desk.

  My parents bought the desk from a flea market ages ago. When we were little, my sister and I used it to play teacher. We tried to pull the drawer open, but it never budged. Dad said the previous owner of the desk had lost the key, but it was so beautiful he just had to have it anyway.

  He lied.

  He pulls the drawer open and shoves his hand inside, searching roughly for something. Finally he pulls out a manila folder. Across the front, written in my father’s messy handwriting, is the name Allison. He flips it open, revealing a thick sheaf of papers. On the very top is a photograph of a gorgeous woman with white-blond hair.

  The realization is sudden—I have seen that woman before. In the cemetery, when I slid into Scotch. She was standing before a tombstone. A tombstone marked “Allison Morrow”. Trying to piece it all together, I wonder who exactly that woman was. And who the hell is Allison?

  My father’s hands shake as he puts the folder back in the drawer, minus the picture of the white-haired woman. He stares at the picture for a moment longer, before crinkling it up in his fist. He tosses the picture into the wastebasket beneath his desk.

  “Leave. Me. Alone,” he whispers.

  He then locks the drawer back up and puts the key back in its hiding place, behind my mother’s picture.

  Slowly, I feel myself being pulled away, back into my own body.

  I wait half an hour after I hear my father go into his room and then open my door silently. Down the hall, my father’s room is quiet, no light peeking beneath the door. I p
ray that he’s asleep. I tiptoe down the stairs, the cold wood freezing my bare feet.

  My father’s office is dark, lit only by the moonlight coming through the window. It really is a dreary place, now that I think about it. When my mother was alive, she decorated every room to her taste, bringing in paintings and floral prints and pretty mirrors. But my dad never let her touch this room. He doesn’t even let Vanessa clean in here. There’s a layer of sludge on the windows. This room is full of his things, his dusty secrets.

  I dash across the room and snatch up the picture of my mother. Removing the back of the frame, I find the key just where my father left it, shining so brightly it seems as though it’s daring me to use it.

  I stare at it for a moment. What will it lead me to? I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m ready to know, but I don’t know if I’ll ever really be ready, so I carefully peel away the tape and weigh the key in the palm of my hand. So light, yet so heavy at the same time.

  Kneeling down, I position the key by the lock. For a split second, I chicken out. This is my dad, the guy who cooks us chocolate-chip pancakes every Sunday morning. He has to have a good reason for keeping whatever it is locked up in there.

  Doesn’t he?

  My eyes flicker involuntarily to the trash can, willing the picture of the white-haired woman to be gone. Maybe it was all in my head. All my imagination. But there it still is.

  I’m tired of secrets.

  I’m ready for truth.

  I force the key into the lock and twist until I hear a little click release somewhere inside the wooden desk. I set the key on top of the desk and pull open the drawer. The manila folder sits on top of a bunch of old medical journals. I snatch the folder up and rifle through the papers within. They’re some kind of records.

  I pull out a paper and examine it.

  Name: Allison Annette Morrow

  Allison. The name from the tombstone. The girl who died after only a couple of days. Why would my father be keeping her medical records?

  I continue reading. There’s a bunch of gibberish I don’t understand. She was born prematurely with an anorectal malformation and required immediate surgery. I flip a page. Numbers. Jargon.

  I turn to the last page in the folder.

  Date of death: October 19, 1998

  October 19. Allison Annette Morrow died in surgery just over fourteen years ago under my father’s knife. And he keeps her medical records in a drawer, never to forget. I feel sick.

  Why her?

  I know he’s lost babies before.

  Why hold on to this one failure?

  My hands shaking, I replace the folder on top of the magazines. I lock the drawer and return the key to its hiding place.

  It takes me a long, long time to fall asleep.

  Today is Mattie’s birthday, and I haven’t gotten her a thing. I only remember when I see the special breakfast casserole on the kitchen table—the one my father reserves for birthdays or other special occasions. Eggs and bacon and cheese and potatoes. And butter. Lots and lots of butter. Normally, I live for this sort of thing, but these words keep sliding around my head: anorectal malformation. I Googled the term last night, but knowing the medical details didn’t help much. I want to know exactly what happened on October 19, 1998 and why my father has held on to it for so long. What’s so special about this Allison? And what’s his connection with the white-haired woman I saw in the cemetery? Is there any connection? Or am I just going crazy?

  I don’t know how to broach this topic. Plus, Mattie has actually brushed her hair and is sitting at the table, looking hungry, so I don’t want to do anything to mess that up.

  “So, what do you want to do for your big day, birthday girl?” My dad heaps a pile of casserole onto a plate and passes it to Mattie. The forced cheeriness in his voice seems to highlight how crappy this day actually is.

  Mattie shrugs and then pushes a fork into the big melty cheesy mess in front of her. “I don’t know. Just hang out around here? I don’t really feel like going out.”

  “That sounds great. Maybe we could rent Mulan tonight? Order pizza for dinner? Would you like that?”

  “Dad, I haven’t liked Mulan since the second grade,” Mattie replies. There’s no resentment in her voice, like there would have been had I said it. It’s just a simple fact.

  “Well, how about the first season of Rumor Girl? I’ve heard great things.” My father’s face is so earnest; it’s almost painful to look at.

  “Um, you mean Gossip Girl? Sure. Yeah, okay.” My sister takes another glob of casserole into her mouth.

  Could my father really be hiding some deep, dark secret? This man who wants to watch Gossip Girl with his teenage daughters? Is this just a facade so we won’t suspect what he’s really up to?

  “I’m not feeling well,” I say. “I’m going to go lie down.” Passing by my sister, I squeeze her shoulder. “Happy birthday, Matt.”

  She turns her head my way and gives me the most heartbreaking smile. “Thanks.”

  Guilt follows me up the stairs and into my room. I really should give her something to acknowledge her birthday— but what?

  I scan my belongings, wondering if there’s anything I have that she could possibly want. My closet door is ajar, and the box of my mother’s CDs is sticking out slightly.

  With a tug, I heave the box into the middle of the room.

  One by one, I pull the CDs out and spread them all over the floor. Pearl Jam. The Smashing Pumpkins. Veruca Salt. Nirvana. Liz Phair. Ani DiFranco. This is what I have left of my mother, the music she lived her life by.

  This is what I have to give to my sister, who was so little when my mother died, who can no longer remember that my mother’s hair always smelled like violets or how the corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled or how she cackled like a witch when she found something really hilarious.

  I pick up the Smashing Pumpkins CD and hold it to my cheek. The plastic is cold from sitting in my drafty closet for so long. Then I put it back in the box. I go through this process with each CD, holding it close for just one more moment and then putting it away.

  When I’ve loaded the CDs all back into the box, I push the flaps closed and carry it to my sister’s room. She hasn’t returned from breakfast yet, so I place the box on her unmade bed and leave the room.

  I’ve attached a pink Post-it note. It says:

  THIS IS WHO SHE WAS.

  LOVE, V

  I lean back against my pillow, holding the tiny Sigmund Freud and wondering if it is personal enough to provide me with a link to Mr. Golden. It seems like the sort of thing someone would give you for a present. Maybe a family member? A former student? A girlfriend? I rub my thumb over the figure, thinking about what he might have witnessed in Mr. Golden’s room.

  Yawning, I turn the little man over. That’s when I notice the markings on the bottom. It’s been engraved. The letters are so tiny; I have to squint to make out the message.

  YOU HYPNOTIZE ME. N.P.

  Hmmmm. N.P. Who could that be? Well, one thing’s clear—it’s a personal item, all right. I just hope he was stirred with enough emotion when he received it to leave an imprint.

  When my head starts to pound and black floaty things swim before my eyes, I know he was. My room disappears, and I am swallowed by the blackness.

  Mr. Golden stands before a white door decorated with an orange-and-brown wreath. He balls his right hand into a fist and raps on the door, then takes a step back to wait for an answer. The door opens, revealing a familiar, grief-stricken face. It is Amber Prescott’s father. His hair is mussed, and his eyes are rimmed red.

  “Mr. Prescott?” Mr. Golden asks, his voice unsure. “I’m Mr. Golden, Amber’s teacher. I called earlier. I have the journal she kept in class. Thought you might want it?” He waves a notebook in the air halfheartedly. “Is this a bad time?”

  “Uh, no,” Amber’s father replies, but his voice seems far away, like he’s speaking through a fog. “Come in. You can call me Trent.�
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  Mr. Golden steps into the entryway. I survey the scene in agony. I was here once before, briefly, to pick up Mattie from a sleepover. I remember, at the time, being impressed by the simple, elegant decor of the room, from the perfect eggshell paint color to the black suede couch and love seat. The focal point of the room was a painting of purple irises blowing in the wind.

  Now, the beautiful painting is askew. Overturned on the coffee table is a single crystal glass in a puddle of brown liquid. The smell assures me that it’s something alcoholic. On the muted television, Seinfeld looks like he’s laughing.

  “Would you care for a drink?”

  “Ah, no. Can’t stay long. Is your wife around?”

  Amber’s father eases into a black leather recliner, his eyes glued to the television set. “Back room. She won’t come out. Why don’t you take the journal to her? It might give her some comfort, to read Amber’s words.”

  Mr. Golden stands there awkwardly for a second, and I’m sure he’s considering just tossing the notebook onto the coffee table and getting the hell out of here. That’s what I’d be thinking about, anyway. But he surprises me.

  He turns and heads down the long hallway, where he must figure the “back room” is. Both walls are lined with pictures. In one, a little Amber stands next to a horse, proudly holding up her blue ribbon. In another, Amber looks to be about ten and sits with her arm hanging casually over her younger brother’s shoulder. In yet another, she is older, grinning in a crisp City High cheerleading outfit. She smiles the kind of smile only popular girls own the right to—kind of like, “The world is mine, and that’s how it should be.” This is the Amber I knew.

  The door to the room at the end of the hall is slightly ajar. Mr. Golden holds out his hand and gently pushes it open. For a moment, all I can see is light flickering from votive candles scattered around the floor. Then I realize Amber’s mother is sitting in the middle of them, her arms wrapped around her knees. She rocks back and forth, back and forth.