From Twisted Roots

by Tobias Wade

  I paused, panting, sweating despite the cold. My heart hammering against my chest, I fought back the bile rising in my throat.

  I could only bring myself to lift the lid ever so slightly, just enough to peek inside. Just enough to see the thin brown hair and pale face with its slack jaw and sightless eyes staring back at me from within a bed of red and green tissue paper. Just enough to see the edge of a bright purple coat wrapped around her emaciated body.

  Just enough to see that Libby had finally come home.

  Smidge

  The steak was the first thing to go missing. I’d left it to defrost in the fridge overnight, but by morning, only the empty plate remained. I asked my husband Connor about it, but he said he hadn’t touched it. Our seven year old son Jamie was so thoroughly grossed out by raw meat that I didn’t bother questioning him. It was a mystery I wasn’t sure would ever be solved; the kind that would no doubt be a funny story to tell at family get-togethers in the future.

  Then the sausages vanished a few days later, followed by a couple of chicken quarters some time after that. A whole spiral cut ham I’d been planning to cook for Connor’s birthday dinner followed.

  “I swear, babe, I don’t know what’s going on,” Connor said, gazing down at the empty space where the the ham had been.

  We decided it could only be one of two things: either we had a very single-minded thief breaking in every couple of nights, or Jamie had suddenly gotten over his aversion to raw meat.

  “But what would he even be doing with it?” I asked.

  I couldn’t imagine why a seven year old would start hoarding food out of the blue. He was well fed at every meal, had access to snacks when he asked for them, and never went to bed hungry. It baffled both of us.

  Connor shook his head. “Only one way to find out.”

  When Jamie came home from school that afternoon, we all sat at the kitchen table, our usual spot for serious Family Discussions. Jamie kept his gaze on his lap where his little hands twisted nervously around one another.

  “I think you know what we’re going to ask you,” Connor said.

  Jamie half-shrugged.

  “James.” Connor tapped the tabletop with his index finger. “Look at us.”

  Our son glanced out of the corner of his eyes at us, guilt stamped across his features.

  “You wanna tell us what’s been going on with the meat?” I asked, matching Connor’s stern but still gentle tone. When Jamie didn’t answer, I added, “We know you took it.”

  “Sorry,” Jamie mumbled.

  “We just want to know why, little man,” Connor said. “This isn’t like you. You hate even looking at raw meat!”

  “It’s not for me,” Jamie replied.

  “It was for all of us,” I said.

  “But we had a lot, and he didn’t have any. He didn’t like when I tried to give him leftovers!”

  “Who?” Connor and I frowned toward one another.

  “Smidge.”

  “What?”

  “Smidge lives under the house and likes meat. He’s good and doesn’t bother anybody!”

  Connor and I exchanged another glance, this one tinged with relief. A stray animal hiding under the house was far preferable to some of the other possibilities that had popped into my head.

  We asked Jamie if Smidge was a dog or a cat, maybe even a raccoon. He was either unable or unwilling to give us an answer.

  “He stays in the back, in the shadows. It’s hard to see him, but he makes happy noises when I visit and he likes when I talk to him.”

  After assuring him we weren’t mad at him or Smidge, Jamie opened up a bit. He’d seen something crawling under a gap in the lattice work on the porch when he was playing outside a couple weeks before. Just a brief glimpse, and with all the infinite wisdom of a child, he’d decided to follow it. He claimed it dug a deep hole in the far corner where it was darkest and mostly stayed there when he visited.

  “He growled at first, but I kept talking to him and then I fed him. Now he likes me!”

  “When do you go visit him, kiddo?” I asked.

  “After you and Daddy are in bed. It was so I could feed him! He was very hungry.”

  Connor and I made Jamie agree to stop bringing food to Smidge and put an end to their nighttime visits until we determined exactly what the critter was. Jamie pouted and kicked his feet, but promised he’d keep his distance from his newfound friend. To keep him honest, we even went through the fridge and made note of what was there, just in case anything went missing.

  “What do we do, call animal control?” I asked while Connor and I got ready for bed.

  “Not yet. I’ll get under there in the morning, see what it is. If it’s a dog or something, maybe we can consider keeping it.”

  “I dunno,” I replied doubtfully. I didn’t want to get stuck taking on all the responsibilities of a pet that should have been Jamie’s.

  “He’s already done a pretty good job keeping it fed,” Connor pointed out with a cheeky grin.

  I rolled my eyes and told him to turn off the light.

  The next morning, I took Jamie to school while Connor crawled under the house to see if he could locate the mysterious Smidge. A tiny kitten, black and fluffy and purring wildly, was waiting for me in the bathroom when I got home.

  “This is Smidge?” I laughed as it rubbed against my ankles. “Jamie thought this little guy needed a whole ham?”

  “I guess,” Connor said. “Cute, isn’t he?”

  “Adorable.”

  “Jamie must have been cleaning up after him because there’s no bones or anything left under the house. Thank God; I can only imagine what that would have smelled like.”

  “And the hole?”

  “It’s just where he said it was. Looked pretty deep, probably been used by other critters before Smidge. I’ll fill it when I’ve got more time, but I really have to get to work.”

  We traded quick kisses before he hurried off to change and leave.

  Smidge turned out to be a clingy, affectionate kitten who yowled every time I left the bathroom. I made some calls and found a vet who could see us in short order. Smidge was less than thrilled when I zipped him up in an old handbag and drove him over.

  He was given a few shots, a thorough exam, and finally declared completely healthy. I was surprised to find how happy that made me; I’d only had him for a short time, but I was already falling in love. It was hard not to when he looked up at me with those big amber eyes, his whole body rumbling with never-ending purrs. I had a feeling it was going to be an easy choice when it came to deciding whether to keep him.

  Back at home, I put Smidge in the bathroom. I set out to kitten-proof our house as best I could before running to the store for some supplies. I snapped a picture of Smidge in his new bed once I got back and texted it to Connor. He replied almost immediately.

  Soooo I guess we have a cat now lol

  I sent him another picture of Smidge flopped over in my lap as confirmation.

  Jamie was going to be thrilled!

  I could barely contain my excitement when I went to pick Jamie up from school. I almost blurted out that we’d found Smidge and that he could stay, but decided it would be more fun to let it be a surprise.

  Smidge’s cries for attention from the bathroom greeted us as soon as we walked in the front door.

  “What’s that?” Jamie asked, looking to me.

  “Go look!”

  With less enthusiasm than I had expected, Jamie went to the bathroom and opened it up. Smidge came darting out immediately.

  “We found him!” I said, scooping the kitten up to offer him to Jamie. “We’re going to keep him.”

  “Who?” Jamie looked from me to the kitten and back.

  “Smidge?” I replied with some uncertainty.

  “That’s not Smidge. He’s bigger than that.”

  “But he was under the house, near where you said…”

&n
bsp; Jamie dropped his gaze. His hands started to wring in front of him, his tell that he was trying to hide something.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” he said, but it was hardly believable.

  “Jamie,” I pressed in my Mom Voice.

  “I found the kitten last night,” he admitted slowly. “It was in the front yard.”

  “You were outside again?”

  “Yeah.”

  “James!”

  “Sorry! But I knew Smidge would be hungry and—”

  “We talked about this!”

  “But I didn’t give him any of our food!”

  “Then what were you doing out there?”

  Jamie hung his head and shuffled his feet. I had to keep probing and prodding until he finally broke down and answered me.

  “I was checking on Smidge and telling him I was sorry that I didn’t have food. Then I found the kitten and I... put it under the house. For Smidge.”

  I couldn’t stop my mouth from hanging open.

  My son, my little man, had tried to feed a live kitten to whatever was under the house?

  “He must’ve still been full from the ham though,” Jamie mumbled.

  Not knowing what else to do, I told him to go do his homework while I started dinner. I couldn’t wait for Connor to get home so we could talk this over together. Kitten Smidge wound around my feet, meowing and purring and kneading at my pant legs. I stared blankly down at him, wondering what had been going through Jamie’s head.

  Connor barely managed to get through the door before I grabbed his arm and dragged him to our room, telling him what our son told me.

  “He wanted Smidge to eat the kitten?” Connor paused in the middle of removing his tie.

  “Yeah, that’s what he said.”

  “I... don’t know how to feel about that. I mean, it’s not like he was torturing it or anything.”

  “I know, but it’s weird, isn’t it? For a little boy to try and make one animal eat another?”

  “It’s nature, I guess? I don’t know, Audrey. It definitely feels weird. Look, let’s have dinner, think a bit, and regroup after. We can talk to him once we’ve figured things out better on our end.”

  It was a quiet meal. Jamie seemed to sense the tension and kept his head down while Connor and I were lost in our own thoughts.

  I wondered if I was overreacting. Was it the big deal I was making it out to be? Then I’d look down at Kitten Smidge, threading himself through chair legs and swatting playfully at our toes, and I’d wonder how Jamie could have looked at that same creature as food? I knew that animals eating animals was, as Connor said, nature, but that didn’t make me feel any better about it.

  When we were done, Jamie asked if he could go play with some of the other neighborhood kids.

  “Yeah, just don’t go under the house, ok? Not until your dad and I can check out the real Smidge.”

  He nodded and darted outside.

  Connor and I remained quiet while we washed dishes. I absently watched Jamie running around the house with Maya and A.J. from next door. He looked so carefree and innocent in the orange glow of dusk.

  He didn’t understand what he was doing. He was just trying to take care of Smidge, whatever Smidge was, and that wasn’t a bad thing, really.

  A dog, probably. Hopefully.

  Connor came to a similar conclusion by the time we’d taken a seat in the living room to discuss it.

  “Kids are impulsive. They don’t think things through. It wasn’t about hurting the kitten, it was about helping Smidge,” Connor said.

  “I think so, too. We just need to talk about what he should have done differently.”

  It was going to be an odd, possibly uncomfortable, conversation, but we both knew we had to have it. We sat back with matching sighs, glad that we could navigate through this often strange land of Parenthood together.

  We were feeling better, more relaxed, like we had a handle on things. Then the screaming started.

  We almost tripped over each other running out the door.

  By the time we rounded the corner it was coming from, it had stopped.

  Jamie pulled himself out from under the house. I grabbed him by his shoulders, looking him over for any sign of injury.

  “What is it? What happened?” Connor and I asked.

  “I wanted to show them Smidge,” he said with an eerie calm.

  “Who? Maya and AJ?” Connor started to look around. “Where are they? James?”

  Jamie looked toward the gap in the lattice work.

  “Oh God,” Connor breathed, “are they under ther—”

  His question was cut off by the sound of wet tearing. Then long, slow crunching.

  Connor staggered back a step and I had to put a hand over my mouth to keep from being sick.

  Jamie looked solemnly up at us: so carefree, so innocent.

  “Guess Smidge wasn’t full anymore.”

  The Ringing In My Ear

  I remember the day I started to lose my hearing. I remember it because two things happened the day before: I’d received a particularly painful numbing injection at the dentist’s office, and my daughter was raped and left for dead in a dumpster just outside her college campus.

  We got the call at 4 AM. Being woken like that by a shrill ringing in the otherwise quiet dark is something no one should have to experience. You know before you pick up that something life changing is about to be dropped in your lap, and all you can do is let it happen.

  “Mr. Barrister?” the voice on the other end said. “I’m sorry to call at this hour. It’s about your daughter.”

  I’ll never forget those words, or the icy way they wrapped around my heart. My daughter, my baby girl. I looked at my wife, she looked back at me, and she knew. If I never again hear the sound she made then, I will consider myself blessed.

  In the flurry of packing and finding a flight to Emily, amid all of the gut wrenching worry, I didn’t even notice it at first. It wasn’t until we were in the air and Helena was whispering prayers under her breath that I heard it: a high pitched keen in my left ear that came in short beeps. It reminded me of hearing test tones.

  I stuck my finger in my ear and wiggled it around, trying to lessen the sound. It remained: incessant, irritating, and beeping.

  It was pushed to the back of my mind the moment we landed. We raced from the airport to the hospital where Emily was lying unconscious with a row of machines standing vigil at her bedside. I’d seen them countless times before, I knew what they each did and why they were attached to her. They were strange mechanical monstrosities in that moment however, making her look so small and frail.

  As we sat there, stroking her hair and telling her how we loved her, I had a flashback to the only other time Emily had been in a hospital. She’d been six, maybe seven, and it was bedtime. She wanted to stay up longer like her older brother, but I told her to stop jumping on her bed and to settle down for sleep. I turned my back for just a minute, I don’t even remember why, and she slipped. Blood poured out of a nasty gash over her eye where she’d struck the headboard, then suddenly she was screaming.

  After we’d calmed her down and got a look at the wound, we’d agreed she’d need stitches. While Helena got her dressed, I called the hospital where I worked as an anesthetist to let one of my doctor buddies know I was coming. Helena stayed home with our son while I took Emily in.

  “Is it gonna hurt?” Emily had asked from the backseat. She was staring at me in the rearview mirror, one eye covered by the cloth she pressed against her forehead.

  “No, I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

  “How?” My little girl, ever the skeptic.

  “Remember how we talked about how Daddy makes people go to sleep for his job?” It had become something of a joke in our house; better behave or Daddy’ll put you to sleep...forever!

  “Yeah?”

  “Sometimes I only make part of a person fal
l asleep. That way the nice doctors can make them better and they don’t even feel it!”

  “You’re gonna do that to me?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re gonna stay with me the whole time?”

  “Of course.”

  She barely winced when I injected the local anesthetic, and she’d fallen asleep during the actual stitches.

  Emily was a tough little girl.

  She was a tougher young woman.

  It took her three days to wake up this time. The hearing in my left ear faded until the only thing I could hear with absolute clarity was that high pitched ringing I’d first noticed on the plane.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  I couldn’t worry about it just then. Not when my family needed me so badly. I didn’t mention it to anyone.

  Emily’s recovery was a slow process. She claimed not to remember who attacked her, and she couldn’t offer any description or statement to the police. She was tightlipped about what happened, even with her mother, with whom she’d shared everything. My carefree, forever smiling daughter was now haunted, and every time she looked at me, there was such pain etched deeply into her eyes.

  I’d never felt so helpless or hollow.

  After she was released from the hospital, she quietly withdrew from school and moved back in with me and her mother. She spent most of her days shut in her room.

  All the while, the deafness and ringing in my ear continued.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  I put off going to get it checked out. I figured it was some kind of screw up from the dentist’s injection and that there wasn’t much that could be done anyway. It would be almost impossible to prove.

  My focus was entirely on Emily and helping her in any way I could, my own issues be damned. We got her into therapy, we researched healing techniques, we devoted ourselves entirely to her physical and mental health in every way she would allow. It took months before she started to smile again. Then the night terrors started to recede, and, piece by piece, our Emily started coming back to us.