“Tired, but fine. Once or twice a year I get vertigo. In the past my doctor said it’s a virus in the inner ear. That’s probably what I’m having.”
They all nod knowingly. They understand tired and they understand vertigo. Most women I’ve talked to have experienced varying levels of vertigo after they’ve had children. Melanie used to love roller coasters. Since she had her first kid, she can’t even ride the merry-go-round. Liz can’t ride elevators.
How could the processes of pregnancy and delivery and lactation permanently affect the condition of the inner ear? The two conditions are so distant, so different. As seemingly unrelated as a person stubbing their toe causing their teeth to fall out.
My thoughts go to Ava’s missing tooth, her smile, “Harvest Moon” strumming in the background, a male voice murmuring off camera.
The last rumor I heard about Ethan Boone was that he’d touched a student inappropriately. I’d heard it here, in the break room. That was three weeks ago.
“That fight or flight response uses up so much energy,” Liz says and rubs my back. “I bet you’ll sleep like the dead tonight. Call me if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Liz.”
Sleep sounds good. The dead part doesn’t sit right.
“Has anyone heard anything recently about Ava Boone?” I say.
Everyone’s eyes shift through emotions like a child’s View-Master before all eyes settle on sadness. Nothing like child abduction to kill a conversation.
Jazmine unwraps a piece of gum and puts it in her mouth. “It’s crazy how there’s no news anymore, but my son Jack goes to school with Mason.” Her eyes wide, she whispers, “Jack said Mason got pulled out of class by police twice since school started.”
Melanie says, “But I heard Mason was taking her abduction as hard as his mom.”
“Hm,” Jazmine says. She doesn’t want to say what she’s thinking. Police suspect Mason.
Now that I’ve brought up an uncomfortable topic, I want to flee. I say, “I’d better go fill out my report.” I pluck the correct document from a tray nailed to the wall and take it back to my classroom.
I’ve never done the Heimlich. I have never been a good “emergency response” person.
If Chloe screams, I typically run, frantic, heightening the frenzy, and yell too loudly on my way toward her, “What happened? What happened?”
Or, I freeze.
I am the person who is stunned when witnessing a car accident, my mind blanking out like the blue screen of death. Minutes after, I can’t explain what happened. I truly have no idea who hit whom and which direction they were headed. Ask me the make and model of the car that sped away or, God forbid, the license plate, I am useless.
My steel reaction today in the classroom was unlike me. Calm and confident is not my forte, and these traits don’t typically correlate with six consecutive sleepless nights. Or is it seven?
I take stock of the changes I’ve experienced since the bat attack. It happened barely two days ago—of what is there to take stock?
Sleepwalking.
My hearing going underwater for a few minutes today.
I add weight loss to the list, then take it off. I started dropping pounds when I found out about my neighbor.
The occasional mirage and the tilting of my surroundings go on the list and then off the list as well. Those started before my run-in with the bats. But they have gotten worse these past couple days.
Mirage? Tilt?
Hallucinations, Grace. When you see something that’s not present, something that’s not happening, it’s called a fucking hallucination.
15
THE PSYCHIC PARTY
My mom’s house is thirteen miles away. Smack dab in the middle of my route to my mom’s is the Boone house. Well, it’s not smack dab in the middle, but it’s only a few minutes out of the way.
I park on the street across from their house.
Five minutes. That’s all you get. Say what you have to say, then pick up Chloe.
I take the keys out of the ignition, but I don’t have the nerve to open my car door. These people have gone through so much, how dare I invade their privacy? How dare I use teachers’ lounge gossip to learn their address, stake them out, and catch them by surprise?
It’s like rubbing a stranger’s belly just because they look pregnant. No, the opposite. Pregnancy is typically a joyous occasion. Something hellish happened to these people. A monster stole their daughter in the night, and now I’m in their space, poking my fingers into their barren bellies. Rubbing cocoa butter in their puffy, bloodshot eyes.
I can’t do it. I can’t ring their doorbell.
But what if you can help them?
No. The advice I have is small. Something they’ve surely already been told.
There’s a knock on my window, and I jump. My keys go airborne, landing with a thud down in the passenger’s side footwell.
Ethan Boone is standing beside my window. His mouth is a hard line. His sclerae are pink, veiny, and watery, with a touch of jaundice. Serious wrinkles around his eyes, dark hollows underneath. He has gained weight in his belly. He didn’t look this bad, this old, in the news story five months ago. I should have expected he’d look like shit, but it’s startling.
He’s just home from work. He’s wearing tan pants and a short-sleeve cotton button-down: blue, green, and white plaid. His Honda Pilot is parked in the driveway.
He must have pulled in while you were spacing out.
I don’t want to open my door because he’s so close I’ll hit him, but I can’t roll down my window because nothing is manual anymore. I hold my finger up, wait one sec, and lean down to grab my keys from the floor. Time stretches. Keys in hand, I start my car, then power down my window.
His anger is simmering, ready to burst into a boil, but he restrains his voice. “I am so tired of you freaks watching my house. I never knew there were so many of you.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted—”
“You just want to hear every terrifying detail. You are all a bunch of fucking vultures, dying to eat up tragedy.”
I’m chilled and my skin is tight. You shouldn’t have come here. Idiot. How could you be so selfish?
No. It may be useless, but if it’s the slightest bit helpful, it’s worth it. Say what you have to say.
“No, no. I wanted, well, I wanted to help. I wanted to tell you something.”
His eyes change, becoming darker and smaller, and he laughs. It’s brittle. “We’ve seen enough psychics too. You’re a little late to the psychic party, you know. Listen, bitch.” This is the man described as humble and goofy? “My wife is home right now. Here’s a little morsel for your vulture appetite. She’s taking a bath and she’s actually calm right now. Which is a fucking rarity, as you can imagine. She can’t handle pouring tea for another psycho psychic.”
“I’m not a psychic. I’m a preschool teacher.”
“What?” He’s confused.
“I live next door to a man suspected in your daughter’s case. Leland Ernest. I’ve been calling the police, the State’s Attorney’s Office, trying to find out if this man is dangerous and I can’t find anything on him. I can’t find out anything about your case. I keep calling police, searching online—”
He cuts in, “How sad for you. Fuck you.”
“I don’t mean that. What I mean is, if you put information out there, you might get tips. If people knew more about, well, about that night, they might realize they saw something suspicious. If we knew more about why people were suspected, we might be able to offer information. There’s been no disclosed interviews. No details.”
His eyes soften and he stares down the street as if an important piece of paper has blown away, something difficult to replace, but it’s no use, it’s too far. He’s thinking. Then he gets close. If I were to power up my window, it might nick his nose. He says, “Our daughter has been gone for five months. Five months. Do you know what that means?” His spit hits my cheek.
He is seething. He can’t say it, won’t say it. “We are trying to heal. We are trying to get over this. Leave. Us. Alone.”
He turns and walks to his house, eyes down, shoulders dropped, back trembling. Because of me. His back is trembling because of me.
I don’t mean to be a vulture, but I am. I gobble up tragedy, shove it into my mouth hastily, sloppily, with my hands. I feel it dripping, warm and sticky, down my chin.
Not because I’m bored. Not because it’s shiny and startling and tragic like a car crash, but because it feeds my fear and it dictates the way I parent. It is my textbook.
I’m done crying by the time I pull into my mother’s driveway. Chloe is packed and waiting on the front porch with my mom. Good. I can leave my sunglasses on.
16
EMPTYING A BOTTLE OF BLEACH ON THEM
Chloe and Wyatt appear to have forgotten what A-holes they were this morning.
We are eating microwaved lasagna. They are not complaining about their food, but actually eating it.
I keep expecting someone to ask me to get up and get something (more milk, another fork, a napkin, socks, a leotard), but they eat and chat quietly. Chloe informs us what her imaginary friends, Star Wars and Jessup, have been up to today: eating too many cookies with their grandmas, swinging on swings, cleaning pee-pee. Chloe’s face is bright, excited, and marker-free. At pickup my mom said, “Acetone took that marker right off.” I kept my mouth shut, but have been wondering about the possible side effects of scouring a toddler’s face with acetone.
Wyatt says, “Kids at school were talking about this video on YouTube where this rabbit was growling at a big dog. They said it’s not inappropriate. Can we watch it?”
“Let me check it out first. If it’s OK, I’ll show you tomorrow.”
Wyatt considers bitching. Instead, he says, “Sorry I was complaining this morning.” So he hasn’t forgotten.
“It’s OK. Everyone complains sometimes. It’s what humans do.”
“You don’t complain much.”
“Sweet of you to say, Wyatt.” Tell your dad that, wouldja? He thought I was a real whiner.
Chloe climbs into my lap, wraps her arms around my neck, and stares into my eyes. Her nose grazes mine. “Momma, will you take off your shoes and socks and we can cuddle and put our feet under the blanket together and watch a show?”
I don’t want to take off my shoes and socks. It’s getting late, and I want to mow the lawn and start a load of laundry and wash the dishes.
“Sure, baby.”
I turn on an episode of Sesame Street. I slip my shoes and socks off and lie beside her on the couch. I rub my bare foot against the underside of her pebbled toes and we snuggle. Wyatt joins us under the blanket. He rests his head at the opposite side of the couch, his knees pulled up and his toes brushing against ours. I hold my breath, waiting for him to bitch about baby shows. He doesn’t complain, I relax, and the three of us laugh our way through Grover’s ineptitude, Big Bird’s dim-wittedness, Oscar’s hoarding, Bert’s OCD, and Cookie Monster’s lack of self-control.
After this cloying indulgence, I put on another show and slither covertly out of this warm, cozy nest. As I tie my shoes, I say, “I’m going to mow the front lawn, Wyatt. Come outside if you guys need me.”
Eyes on the TV, he gives me a thumbs up.
I get the lawn mower humming on my first try, a small victory. I occasionally have to knock on my other neighbor’s door, the one who is not a suspected kidnapper, to ask him to yank the starter, which makes me feel like an inferior human.
His name is Blake Walner. He lives with his wife, Brooke, and two girls, Marian and Nora, in the biggest house on the block. Their lawn is mowed on a perfect diagonal and their yard is seamless with red mulch and flagstone and an inground pool in their privacy-fenced backyard. Their mailbox has a fresh coat of white. They are slender, well-dressed, and never put their garbage out a minute early or pull their bins back into their swept garage a moment too late. I have never heard them slander their children. They have their shit so together, it’s baffling. I have stood at Wyatt’s window, watching all four of them play together in their pool, wondering what is their secret? What do they know that I don’t?
On the occasions I knock on their door for lawn-mower assistance, I’m sure Brooke curbs her giggle. I’m sure Blake rolls his eyes while he double-knots his clean shoes, gearing up to help me start my shoddy mower. I am their inside joke.
Now, as I mow my front yard, Brooke is walking back from her mailbox. She gives me a finger-waggling wave, but I pretend I don’t see her. I’m wearing sunglasses so I can get away with it.
I met her the day I toured the house. I was walking toward my minivan with my realtor. Chloe was still asleep on my shoulder, and my realtor was telling me in her secretive yet bubbly have-I-got-news-for-you voice that Tony Durtato was very flexible on price.
Brooke had been standing on her front porch, her cell to her ear when she walked quickly toward me in rhinestone sandals and linen pants. She slipped her phone into her pocket, introduced herself, and said with too much enthusiasm, “I have to tell you. This is one of the few neighborhoods in Kilkenny that has such a wide range of house layouts.” She touched my arm, flashing her frosty-pink manicure. “Big and small and in between, there are actually fifteen different models. My husband’s an architect, and he says fifteen models is pretty much unheard of.”
She placed her hand on Chloe’s back and peeked around to Chloe’s face. I would have considered this rude if I hadn’t been blinded by her shiny blond hair and images of her giving me Whole Foods bags filled with fashionable clothes and accessories of which she’d grown bored. She lowered her voice to a hush. “The elementary school is a short two-block walk, and there’s a bike path that loops a pond a street over that way. What did your husband think of the house?”
Bitch. You could have told me.
As I push my mower, I sneer at her fully bloomed, manicured rose bushes. I picture myself emptying a bottle of bleach on them.
17
EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME
Late at night, every night since I found out my neighbor is a suspect in the kidnapping of Ava Boone, I experience a disgusting metamorphosis.
After Chloe and Wyatt fall asleep and I sprint the block and shower and tuck myself into bed with my laptop, my clean, crisp outer shell crumbles and what emerges is filmy and compulsive.
Imagine a sweaty guy with sex-thirsty, glazed eyes, furiously jerking off to porn in bed in front of his laptop. That is me, minus porn and jerking off. Well, most nights.
Since I found out about my neighbor I have spent the majority of my designated sleeping time googling things like: missing children and kidnappings and child predators and more recently rabies symptoms and bat bites and psychogenic hearing loss and panic attacks or occasionally images of great eyebrows or best sources of potassium or why are kids today so lonely or what is the difference between bipolar 1 and 2?
You’d think I’ve read everything on missing children. You’re wrong. There is always more.
Within an hour, my lingering fatigue has been replaced with energetic anxiety.
My browsing behavior is not helpful; I am not oblivious to my own recklessness. But when I skip my laptop routine, I still lie in bed with my heart racing, my mind concocting worse stories than what I’d find online. Reading tragic stories seems more productive than tossing and turning and imagining tragic stories.
My compulsion is not bound to missing children. My child-related worries spread far and wide like garbage dump hills.
The media tells me I am part of a generation of helicopter parents. I am too anxious. I manage my children’s social interactions and schoolwork, bail them out of every small failure, and fill their time with safe, educational, monitored activities.
But how can I not hover after the media has fed me heaping spoonfuls of horror stories?
Their headlines, not mine.
Ten-year-old boy drowns seven hou
rs after he leaves the pool.
What you eat during your pregnancy can cause cancer in your grandchildren.
If you praise your child, you may be raising her to be a sociopath.
Study shows breastfed infants have higher IQs.
Study shows breastfed infants are exposed to toxic chemicals.
1 in 5 children may experience exploding head syndrome.
If you love your kids, you are doing fine. Your kids will turn out fine.
OK, I made that last one up.
The media’s stories are like parasites infecting my brain, feeding on my love for my children, eating away at my common sense, bloating like worms inside me, and leaving me sick with paralyzing fear.
Then, the media shames me and calls me names. Helicopter Parent. Toxic Parent. Indulgent Parent. Narcissistic Parent.
They have force-fed me cotton candy twenty-four-seven for years and are now pissing and moaning about my rotting teeth.
They mean well. I know they mean well. Information overload is not their fault. I shouldn’t seek their horror stories, their pop-science reports, their despairing warnings, their half-cocked, irresistible headlines, but I’m weak and I’m scared. Well-meaning media terrorizes my mind.
Even before I found out Leland was a suspect in Ava Boone’s kidnapping—murder—I had trouble sleeping. Emails and scheduling and bills had buzzed in my mind like gnats until I got out of bed and addressed them. Horrifying news stories have always stuck to my brain, little fragments of iron from my cereal bowl to a magnet.
Since I found out about my neighbor, it’s much worse.
The last time I was this sleep-deprived, I saw nurses climbing the walls.
Wyatt had been in the hospital as a newborn. Pneumonia. I was going on four days of no sleep. I would listen to his wispy, whistle-breathing while I sat beside his capsule or held him. My glazed, bloodshot eyes occasionally slipped closed, but something in the hallway would beep or whoosh, and my eyelids would fly open, my heart racing, and I’d wipe the drool from my mouth.
She Lies Close Page 8