Child's Play

by Andrew Neiderman

  “You can’t count what Jackson made with his family. That doesn’t count.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that would be like a person against a team. It’s not fair.”

  “Teams are always stronger,” Carl said, interrupting his play with Donald.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Sharon said. She moved to the refrigerator to get out the milk.

  “You should have slept,” Alex said. “You need your rest today.”

  “No, that’s all right.” It wasn’t really. The loud chatter and noises the children made while eating breakfast were annoying. She sipped her coffee at the counter and remained away from them. “Everyone want ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch today?” she asked.

  “I’m just having a yogurt,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll get it in school.”

  “Ham and cheese for me,” Carl said.

  “Me, too,” Donald said.

  “Ham and cheese is fine,” Richard said. She saw that he looked to Alex first for his approval.

  My God, she thought, does he govern their every action? She noticed that the radio wasn’t on. That was something Alex did almost the moment he entered the kitchen. He wanted the children to be aware of international and national events.

  “No news this morning?”

  “We didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “It’s all right. We’ve already missed the headlines. We’ll all watch the early evening news tonight after dinner.”

  She saw that all the children had paused in their eating to see her reaction. It put a pall over the morning’s joviality, and they all went back to their cereal with a quieter and more serious attitude. Alex sat with his elbows on the table, his hands folded and his chin resting on them. He eyed the children like a mother hen, watching to see that they ate every bite. They almost finished simultaneously. She made the three sandwiches quickly and wrapped them in cellophane. Then she bagged them and wrote the boys’ names on the bags.

  “Everyone have enough money?” Alex asked. They nodded. “All right, don’t forget, I’ll pick you up in front of the school at the end of the day.”

  “What for, Alex?” Sharon asked.

  “We’re going over to the Big V to buy some backpacks for the carrying of books.”

  “Oh.”

  “You guys better get going,” he said. “You don’t want to be late.”

  Sharon was surprised. It was usually important to Alex that the children help clean up. Not that she needed the help. Elizabeth looked up at her and then looked at the clock. They had plenty of time. Why was Alex rushing them so? Elizabeth seemed to be wondering the same thing.

  “It’s not that late, Alex,” Sharon said. “They’re right on time, aren’t they?”

  “I know how they can procrastinate, right Richard?”

  “Alex is right. Let’s move it,” he said, and they all got up quickly. They said their good-byes and marched out of the kitchen. It wasn’t until they were out of the house that Alex turned to her.

  “I know,” she said, before he got started, “but sometimes you’re too hard on them. You could let them digest their food, at least. What would be so terrible if they were a little late once? They’re just children, Alex. They can’t be perfect.”

  She thought he would start to yell again. She tightened herself in preparation for it, but he smiled at her instead.

  “Maybe you’re right, Sharon. It’s just that I want so much for them to be perfect. How are you feeling?”

  “Tired, Alex. And still quite confused.”

  “Well, don’t be. I’ll tell you what—when I go to pick up the children, you come along and look for those new living room tables you’ve been wanting to get.”

  “You mean you’re willing to replace something in this house?”

  “Those tables are looking shabby.”

  “All right,” she said. He got up and started out. “What are you going to do today?”

  “I have an appointment with the accountant and then I’m going over to the lumber company. I was thinking about rebuilding the gazebo.”

  “The gazebo? What for?” she asked. He just smiled. “You are thinking about starting the Manor up again, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I was thinking that it might be wonderful for the children.”

  “It will be. Oh Alex, it will be exciting for all of us. For me,” she added, under her breath. She was so excited she wanted to hug him. That thought reminded her of Dinky.

  “Where’s Dinky this morning? I haven’t seen him yet.”

  “Oh, he went off after some bitch last night after I let him out.”

  “Really?” She thought about the dog for a moment, remembering how he had led her right to the skeletons. She forced those horrifying memories out of her mind by thinking instead about the rehabilitation of the Manor.

  “See you later,” Alex called.

  “OK.” Her voice was lighter. Just that little talk had revived her. It was as if the house was suddenly filled with sunshine and light. She thought about some of the things she would do to bring things back to the point where they could take in tourists again. It would certainly give her life new purpose. And after they reopened the Manor, all of Alex’s peculiar ways would have to go. He would certainly have to lock up that secret room.

  Perhaps it was good that she had wandered out last night and discovered all that. Maybe it had brought Alex to his senses and got him to rethink all that he was doing with the children. That was why he was considering opening the Manor. It had to be.

  Suddenly she had an appetite and decided to make herself two soft boiled eggs and toast. A few moments later she heard Alex leave the house. Now with the children and him gone, she was able to lighten up. She turned on the radio to listen to music while she ate. She had just sat down to start on her eggs when the music stopped and the news came on. The local headlines prevented her from taking the first spoonful.

  “Philip Knots, an English teacher in the Sandburg Central Schools, was found dead in his car this morning…”

  Where’s Dinky? she wondered. The heart had gone out of her after she had heard the news story. The police had determined that the English teacher had been murdered. The medical examiner had already decided that the cause of death was asphyxiation. The reporter noted that there were some very curious details about the case, details the police had not yet released.

  Sharon didn’t finish her breakfast. She didn’t have an appetite for lunch, either. The lethargy she had thought she would overcome before she had turned on the radio settled in for the day. There was work to be done around the house, and she did try to do most of it, hoping it would at least keep her mind off things. But the smallest things seemed to take the greatest effort. Just taking the vacuum cleaner out of the closet exhausted her. She barely ran it around half of the living room before giving up. Eventually she gave up on everything and put on a jacket to sit out on the porch. By early afternoon, the sun was bearing down on it.

  It was a warm day, anyway. Last night’s overcast rain had moved northeast. The radio weatherman said a high had settled over the region and they would get a great amount of sunshine with temperatures at least ten degrees above normal. She really didn’t need her jacket, but her fatigue had given her a chill. She was sitting out on the porch for a good twenty minutes before she remembered what Alex had said about Dinky.

  Dinky had wandered off before to chase a bitch in heat. But she wanted her dog beside her. She needed the company. She decided to take a walk into town to see if she could find him, but she walked all the way to the outskirts of the village proper without any sign of him. When she reached Tillie Zorankin’s house, she stopped. Her old friend was washing her windows and saw her.

  “Spring cleaning,” she said. “Where are you goin’?”

  “I was lookin’ for my dog.”

  “Oh. The little Scotch terrier?”

  “Yes, have you seen him?”

  “Nope, but I wouldn’t worry about it. Animals have a way
of wandering off and coming home. Come on in and sit a spell. I need an excuse to take a rest.”

  “I don’t know,” Sharon said. She looked about guiltily. She hadn’t spoken to Tillie Zorankin since Alex and the children had found out about the last time.

  “Oh, come on in,” Tillie said, “we haven’t kibitzed for quite a while.”

  Sharon relented. Tillie had coffee on the stove, so she sat with her in the kitchen. Just being there for a few moments revived good old memories, memories of a time when life seemed so much simpler. She and Leona would sit around and talk about things that now were so frivolous it was difficult to imagine the intensity of their concern over them. What difference did the color of her nail polish make? Sometimes she thought she could shave her head and Alex would barely acknowledge the act, and as for clothes and new styles…she could count on her fingers the things she had bought during the past few years. Memories of the conversations in this room were like thoughts from another life. Had she actually lived it, or was that a dream, too?

  “You look tired,” Tillie said. “I knew it would be too much for you.”

  Sharon brought her cup to her lips. She didn’t want to talk about the children. It was as though Alex were at the door.

  “The morning’s news was very disturbing,” she replied.

  “You mean about that schoolteacher? I heard. Such things never happened twenty years ago. Everything’s changing. The women in my bridge group are afraid to travel alone at night now. Everyone wants the game to be in her house. It wasn’t so long ago…when you were a teenager…I didn’t even bother to lock the front door. Remember?”

  “Yes.” Sharon smiled.

  “You know this man, this teacher?”

  “No, but Elizabeth…my foster daughter…she was very fond of him. We had just had a conversation about him recently.”

  “So she’s upset?”

  “I don’t know. The children left for school before I heard the news. They probably just found out.”

  “Terrible thing,” Tillie said. “You want something? I have some homemade cookies.”

  “No thank you.” Sharon looked over at some of the high school pictures of Leona that Tillie had in a large frame near the telephone. “Have you spoken to Leona lately?”

  “Yes, and I told her all about you. She can’t believe it, but she says she’s happy for you. I don’t know if she should be so happy. You look tired.”

  “It’s not from the work. I don’t mind the work.”

  “Do they all get along?”

  “Fabulously. But that’s Alex’s influence. They adore him. You don’t know how much,” she added, but it was more of a mutter.

  “He takes them back and forth to school every day?”

  “No. They go on the bus. Once in a while he picks them up. We’re going to do that today and do some shopping.”

  “Oh. I saw he brought them home yesterday afternoon. I just happened to be sitting by the front window.”

  “Yesterday? I didn’t realize it,” she said.

  “Maybe they missed the bus. It started raining in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “Yes,” Sharon said, but she remembered that Alex had been gone from the house, and none of the children had called to be picked up. It had to have been pre-planned.

  “You’re not going to go walking all over town looking for your dog now, are you?”

  “No, not really. I felt like a walk and thought about the dog. I’d better be getting back. Alex should be home soon. We’re thinking about reopening the Manor, you know.”

  “Really? Wouldn’t that be something. I remember it in its heyday. Such a clean place. Your mother-in-law was some worker, but your father-in-law was another story.”

  “I know.”

  “Alex was quiet, like him, but he was a hardworking boy. If he sets his mind to it, I bet he can bring the place back.”

  “He’s already started…with the children. They’ve done a great deal of rehabilitation work. You should see.”

  “I should. Maybe I’ll take a walk up there tomorrow. I haven’t been up there in God knows when.”

  “Come anytime,” Sharon said. She regretted it immediately, because she knew how unfriendly Alex could be, and she knew what Alex thought of Tillie.

  “You’ll have a problem with the girl tonight. She’ll probably be very depressed,” Tillie said. She walked her to the front door. “Girls can get very attached to their teachers, especially girls her age.”

  “I know.”

  “Terrible thing, terrible thing,” Tillie said. Sharon thanked her for the coffee and left. When she got back to the Manor, she found Alex had returned and was working on the front porch. He was replacing some of the old slats with new timber. He had his shirt off and his back was already gleaming from the sunlight on his moist skin. She had to admire his muscularity, the tightness of his frame. He never looked weak to her; he always looked primed for combat readiness. She knew it was part of his philosophy, his belief that they were always in danger.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  “I was looking for Dinky. Did he return?”

  “Not that I know of. The cats are under the porch.”

  “It’s a long time for the dog to be away. Maybe someone stole him, or maybe the dogcatcher picked him up.”

  “Maybe. Give him a call.”

  “Alex,” she said, leaning against a post, “did you hear the news about that schoolteacher, the one Elizabeth…the one Elizabeth liked?”

  “They were talking about it at the lumber company.”

  “It was a murder.”

  “Well,” Alex said pausing in the work to look up at her, “who knows what he was into. We’ll have to wait to see what else the police find out. Could be drug related or something. Just because he was a schoolteacher doesn’t mean he was above reproach. There’ve been some bad stories about schoolteachers lately.”

  “It’s going to be hard on Elizabeth.”

  “She’ll handle it.”

  Sharon watched him work a while longer. Then she thought about the things Tillie Zorankin had told her.

  “Are you still planning to pick the children up after school?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why did you pick them up yesterday?” she asked. He stopped nailing a board and looked up at her. “Tillie said she saw you drive them home.”

  “Jesus, what does she do, sit around and watch our every move?”

  “No, Alex. She just happened to see you. Why is that so terrible?”

  “You were over there again?”

  “Just for a few minutes. I didn’t talk about anything personal,” she added quickly.

  He started to nail the board again.

  “They missed the bus,” he said. “I just happened to be coming along that way and saw them all walking. You can give Mrs. Zorankin the whole explanation.”

  “She wasn’t curious. I was.”

  “Well, is your curiosity satisfied? Look, I’ve got some work to do here.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Alex?”

  “Now what?”

  “I was thinking. Maybe after we take the children shopping, we should take them out to eat. It might cheer them up, especially Elizabeth.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. He started to bang harder so she went inside.

  Later that afternoon, she heard an update on the murder of the English teacher. The medical examiner was interviewed.

  “He wasn’t strangled,” he said, “and there were no bruises on or about his face and head, but there was an indication that something was tightened under his chin and around his neck.”

  “Like what?” the reporter asked.

  “Like a bag or a sack of some sort. There is the possibility that he was murdered by more than one person.”

  Sharon went out to tell Alex about the additional information on the murder, but he was finished with his work on the porch. She saw that the car was still there so she walked to the side of the h
ouse to look for him. He was nowhere in sight. She was about to give up when she saw him down by the boat dock. He was kneeling and looking down into the water. Curious, she started down to the lake. As she walked, she saw that he was reaching into the water and pulling something up. She was about two dozen yards from him when she saw what it was. All she could do was push her hands against her face and scream.

  The shades were down and the curtains were drawn so tightly it might as well have been the middle of the night. She wanted the room to be as dark as possible. Darkness seemed proper and right. She wanted to shut off her vision; she wanted to be blind to everything but the memories.

  They had gotten the dog when it was only six weeks old. They had papers for him; he was a pedigree. He was so cute then, so cuddly and warm. Often he would fall asleep in her arms. She would have taken him into the bed with her if Alex hadn’t forbidden it. He’d let her name him; he hadn’t really cared. She was the one who needed the dog, who wanted him. Dinky had seemed a perfect name for him; the sound just fit.

  Alex often told her he regretted that they had gotten Dinky. He barked too much, was under foot too often, and served little practical purpose, as far as Alex was concerned. The dog was too small to be any kind of protection, and he barked too indiscriminately to be a good watchdog.

  “At least the cats keep mice out of the house,” he said. “And they take care of themselves.”

  What he had really hated was the affection she was directing to the dog. She couldn’t help treating Dinky like a child; she couldn’t help talking to him, even though Alex thought the conversations were silly. After a while though, he tolerated all of it. He had even been happy about Dinky when the children came, because the dog took to them so well and they were so fond of him.

  In the beginning she had been jealous of the attention the dog was giving to the children. But then she thought the children were good for Dinky. He was getting more exercise and he seemed happier. Whenever she felt alone, she regretted the dog wasn’t with her, but she thought that was only natural. Now the children didn’t have him, and she didn’t have him.

  How shriveled and ugly he was with his eyes sewn up in death. How helpless he must have been with that rope tied around his neck and the rock tied to the rope. The weight had dragged him to the bottom and all of his struggling had been in vain. She gagged on her own tears every time she envisioned it. Who would want to destroy something so gentle and sweet?