by Steve Frech
“Not yet, but hopefully soon.”
He looked around at the almost empty store. “How is the grand opening going?” he asked with a smirk I didn’t like.
I also noticed that Patricia Fleming had drifted closer to the counter. I couldn’t believe it, but she was unmistakably eavesdropping on our conversation.
“Father says once we’re established, it’ll get better,” I answered.
“Do you believe that?”
“I … I hope it will.”
I was shocked that he would speak so bluntly but admired his honesty.
“Well, he needs to hire someone,” he said. “A shop girl is no position for a lovely creature like yourself.”
Yes, he did! He called me a ‘lovely creature’!
I could feel my cheeks flush and I faltered for something to say. Then, I remembered the present they gave me for my birthday. “Thank you for the journal,” I said.
“It was my wife’s idea, but I’m glad you enjoy it.”
“I do. I’ve been writing in it almost every day.”
“Is every day worth writing about?” he asked.
I told him it was a good outlet for my thoughts, to which he replied, “And your deepest, most secret desires, I hope.”
I know it may have been a little inappropriate but it was also fun. I have never met someone who is so intimidating, so clever, and so handsome. I was also enjoying the look of shock on Patricia Fleming’s face that she was trying to hide.
“And how is your wife?” I asked.
“She’s fine. She’s at her mother’s in Boston, along with our valet. They’ll be back for the Fourth of July Celebration. Which reminds me, we have a picnic at the Nightingale House on the Fourth of July as part of the celebration. The whole town is invited, but it would make me particularly happy if you would attend.”
I could think of nothing I wanted more but told him that I may have to work.
He said that was nonsense and that all the shops are closed on the Fourth of July. “And who knows?” he said. “Maybe business will be such that your father can hire someone else to waste their life behind that counter.” He picked up a tin of lip balm from the display next to the register and laid it on the counter. “How much is this?”
I told him it was twenty cents.
He pulled out his billfold, removed a five-dollar bill, put it on the counter, and said, “Keep the change.”
“You want my father to open an account?” I asked.
“I didn’t say give it to your father. It’s for you, on one condition.”
“Yes?”
“You have to buy something for yourself. Something pretty.”
I was speechless.
“Thank you,” I finally managed to say.
He gave me that sly wink, again. “See? Business is already looking up.”
He took the tin and walked out the door.
I never took my eyes off him until he disappeared out of view of the window. Then, I turned to Patricia Fleming. She was pretending to look at a shelf of tonics.
“Can I help you find something?” I asked.
She gave me another insincere smile. “No, thank you,” she said. “It’s all a little expensive for my tastes.”
I tried to match her insincerity with a false smile of my own.
“Best of luck with the pharmacy,” she said, then turned and walked out the door.
I was upset at her rudeness but then I remembered; he called me ‘a lovely creature’ and that I should buy something pretty for myself.
As I watched Patricia walk away, my gaze drifted towards the jewelers across the square.
I think I shall have to pay them a visit.
Good night.
4
I’m awoken by the sickening crunch of metal slamming into metal and glass shattering, just outside my bedroom door.
Then, silence.
I open my eyes and sit up.
The room is filled with a faint black fog.
I climb off the bed and listen at the door. There’s a faint noise on the other side.
… tick … tick … tick … tick …
I open the door and walk through.
The black fog blankets the intersection. The pavement is littered in broken glass and bits of metal. Small wisps of steam and smoke escape from the crumpled hood of the pickup truck that slammed into our car. The force of the impact has melded the two vehicles together into one disfigured, twisted heap.
The traffic light above the intersection blinks red.
… tick … tick … tick … tick …
The black fog seems to guide me over to the wreckage. The bits of glass puncture my bare feet as I walk across the pavement, but I don’t feel it.
I can’t see inside the truck, but I know what’s in there: the body of the driver, pressed against the steering wheel.
I don’t want this. I don’t want to see this, but the black fog urges me forward.
I get closer to the car.
Through the remains of the shattered window, I see Nicole’s mangled, decimated body. Her head is twisted at an unnatural angle. Her face is covered in blood. Her eyes are open. They stare straight ahead but see nothing.
Why? Why did this have to be the last image I have of her? It’s the image that has been burned into my mind: Nicole, my wife, the woman I loved, the mother of our child, broken, lifeless, grotesque. After I regained consciousness moments after the accident, I saw her and screamed, pleaded with her to wake up, knowing it was useless. Why did this have to be how I remember her? It’s the cruelest trick, added to the cruelest joke of being hit by a drunk driver.
I look past Nicole’s mauled body to the back seat.
Caitlyn.
She’s strapped in by her seatbelt, her body laying back. Like Nicole, her head is at a nauseating angle. Her eyes are open. Lifeless.
No. No. It wasn’t like this.
She was alive. I tried to help her. She was breathing but I couldn’t touch her because I was afraid that if she had a spinal injury, I would paralyze her. So, I had to sit there, pleading, begging her to wake up. Those minutes between when I called 9-1-1 until the ambulance arrived were an eternity. I couldn’t touch my daughter. I couldn’t do anything. The EMTs had to drag me away screaming towards the ambulance as they began cutting into the door. Caitlyn was alive.
But now, she’s dead in the back seat.
It wasn’t like this!
“Caitlyn?!” I scream and frantically try to open the crushed door. The handle won’t budge. Through the remains of the window, I grab the edge of the door and pull. The shards of glass slice into my hand and work their way under my fingernails.
I grunt, curse, and scream.
“Caitlyn! Somebody help me, please!”
In between my efforts, there’s a faint whisper.
“It’s your fault …”
I stop and peer into the black fog. A thin layer of snow lies on the ground among the black trees, but I don’t see anyone.
“It’s your fault …” the whisper says again, somewhere near me.
“Why didn’t you see the truck? It’s your fault …”
I slowly turn back to the wreckage.
Nicole’s eyes stare lifelessly in front of her but her lips move. “It’s your fault …”
“No … No … Nicole … Please … I’m sorry.”
The rest of her body remains motionless except her lips. “It’s your fault … Why did you let this happen?”
“Nicole. I didn’t see—”
“It’s your fault …”
Her whispers grow louder. Her voice is accusatory, sad, and terrified, all at once.
“It’s your fault … It’s your fault … You did this … You killed me … You killed us …”
“Stop! Please!”
Hot tears begin stinging my eyes.
“It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault—”
“Nicole, I love you. Please, please, stop it …”
>
Her voice and lips tremble, but her eyes and body remain lifeless.
“It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.”
I can’t take this. I turn away from the accident but I still hear her.
“Why, Daniel? Why did you let this happen to us?”
The door to my bedroom is sitting there, just off the road. The fog parts, clearing a path for me.
“It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.”
Her voice follows like she’s walking right behind me.
The doorknob feels like ice in my hand as I twist it open. I step into my bedroom and close the door behind me.
The black fog blankets the floor.
I can still hear Nicole’s voice, as if she’s standing just on the other side of the door.
“It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.”
I crawl back into bed.
Her voice trails away to nothing.
I lie there in the silence of the room.
Suddenly, the fog comes crashing into me. It races from every part of the room and every corner of the house. It enters my body through the pores of my skin, turning my blood into an icy, black sludge. I feel nauseous, like I’m rotting from the inside and I’ll never be clean again.
Nicole’s face appears right in front of me; not the mangled image I’ve just seen in the car, but the concerned, fearful Nicole I saw through the window of the kitchen earlier today.
“Daniel, wake up!”
*
My eyes fly open.
I sit up in my bed.
There’s no fog or the voice of Nicole, accusing me through the door. It’s just a room but the tears on my cheeks and the thudding of my heart are very real.
I swing my feet off the side of the bed.
I’ve never experienced anything like that. Yes, somewhere deep inside, I’ve always felt like it was my fault. I should have seen the truck. I should have made sure. I’ve gone over all the things I could have done differently, but to see that, to hear Nicole …
I’m not going back to sleep. No way. Not after that. I need out of this room. I need some television; something to erase what I’ve just seen.
I get up and go to the door.
I grab the knob but stop, fearful of what might be on the other side.
I twist the knob and pull the door open.
There’s no intersection. No wreckage. No fog. No Nicole. Just an empty hallway.
I quickly go back to the bed and grab my pillow.
For the second time tonight, I go back down the stairs to the living room.
I turn on the lamp and go to the open box of Blu-ray discs sitting on the floor next to the television. I select a title, one that is sure to help clear my head, and pop it into the player. I stretch out on the couch, pop the pillow under my head, and pull the throw blanket on top of me.
The movie starts and I’m asleep in five minutes.
5
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The intermittent pressure on my forehead causes me to snort awake.
Caitlyn is standing next to the couch, hunched over me, her finger poised from tapping me on the forehead.
Sunlight is pouring through the windows.
“Why are you sleeping down here?” she asks.
I stretch my aching, cramped muscles. “I fell asleep watching TV,” I reply.
Caitlyn turns to look at the television.
The menu screen for Sleeping Beauty has to have been repeating the same fifteen-second clip for hours, waiting for a response.
She turns back to me, very confused.
“I … I couldn’t remember how it ended,” I say.
She shrugs. “Whatever.” She walks to the kitchen. “Can I have breakfast?”
*
I still haven’t been to the store to do a proper grocery shop, so the options for breakfast are limited to cereal and Pop Tarts, which we’re fine with. It’s only the responsible parenting part of my brain that is uncomfortable, and it can wait.
“Okay,” I say, sitting across from Caitlyn in the alcove. “The objective for today is to finish unpacking. We’re going to try to get everything done.”
“Everything?”
“Well, at least all the big stuff. Between the two of us, it shouldn’t take too long.”
“I wanted to play outside.”
“You can, after you help me.”
She pouts, apparently less eager to help than yesterday.
“Hey. That’s what you get for waking me up by poking my forehead,” I say with a wink.
She tries not to laugh.
*
And she does help.
We take care of the last two boxes in her room that need to be unpacked and put them away. Then, we head to the guestroom.
It’s almost laughable that we’re trying to fill this house with the stuff from a two-bedroom apartment. We don’t even have a bed for the spare bedroom.
I can’t help but think of the plans Nicole had for this place.
In the weeks before the accident, she had been looking at furniture and asking my opinion on whole sets. I told her all I wanted was a big, comfy monstrosity of a recliner. She had webpages of furniture sets bookmarked but we didn’t pull the trigger, deciding that we would pull the trigger once we were in the house. After all, we would have so much time, right? The pages are still bookmarked on the computer, but I can’t bring myself to look at them. Maybe one day.
Once we finish, I break down the cardboard boxes, and we carry them down to the basement.
“Watch your step,” I warn Caitlyn as we navigate the stairs down into almost total darkness.
I make my way to the center of the room and pull the chain, snapping on the old lightbulb. It illuminates the immediate area but can’t reach into the corners of the basement. We walk over to the heavy wooden shelves. I take my armful of collapsed boxes and set them down on one of the shelves. I reach out and Caitlyn hands me the two collapsed boxes that she was struggling to carry.
“Thank you.”
I put her boxes on top of mine and start to walk back towards the stairs.
“Since we’re coming back down, I’ll leave the light on,” I say, mounting the stairs.
“Hi …”
I stop and look back.
Caitlyn isn’t following me.
She’s standing in the middle of the room, under the hanging lightbulb, staring into the shadows in the far corner.
“Caitlyn?”
She turns to me, smiling.
“Pumpkin, what are you d—?”
Pop.
The bulb flashes, illuminating Caitlyn and the thing that’s standing in the corner, before plunging the basement into darkness.
“Caitlyn?” I frantically try to get my phone out and turn on the flashlight app.
“I’m okay,” she calmly replies.
I’m finally able to get the app up and find Caitlyn with the beam of light. She’s still there, looking into the corner. I shine the light in the direction she’s looking, but it’s empty.
“You sure you’re okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, not turning around.
I point the beam at the lightbulb, half of which is now gone.
“You didn’t get any glass on you?”
“No.”
I swing the light around the room. It’s just us.
“Come on, pumpkin. Let’s go upstairs. I’ll get another bulb.”
She doesn’t move. She’s still fixated on that corner.
“Caitlyn, come on.”
Reluctantly, she turns and I light her way back to the stairs.
She climbs the stairs up to the kitchen.
I swing the light back to the corner.
It has to be lack of sleep, but when that bulb flashed, I thought I saw someone in that corner where Caitlyn was looking—someone Caitlyn said ‘hi’ to.
*
Caitlyn’s waiting for me at the top of the stairs in
the kitchen.
The spare bulbs are in the kitchen. I grab one and return to the stairs where Caitlyn is staring down into the darkness.
I hand her the phone with the flashlight app still on. “Here. Light the stairs for me, okay?”
We head back down. I’m holding the bulb. She’s holding the phone.
We reach the bottom and I walk across the floorboards to the hanging, spent, ancient lightbulb. Caitlyn stays by the bottom of the stairs.
As I reach up to change the bulb, the light drifts over to the corner.
“Caitlyn, keep the light here, please.”
She moves it to illuminate the bulb.
I carefully remove the old lightbulb, careful not to break any more of the brittle glass. I screw in the new bulb. As soon as it’s in, the bulb blinks on. It fills the room with a much more powerful glow than the old one. I can’t help but sneak a glance at the far corner, but it’s empty.
I pull the chain, turning off the light, and walk towards Caitlyn.
“Let’s go,” I say, shepherding her up the stairs.
“Why did you turn it off?” she asks. “Aren’t we coming back down?”
“Nah. Not today.”
By the time we reach the top of the stairs and emerge back into the sun-flooded kitchen, I already feel slightly stupid. It was a shadow, nothing more. I had an atrocious night of sleep and an exhausting day of unpacking. Yes, Caitlyn is helping, but I am literally doing the heavy lifting.
And this house.
I love it. I do, but it’s going to take a while to get used to it. It would be different if Nicole were here and my subconscious knows that too. Why else would I be seeing visions of her? I’ll get used to this but I’m starting to worry about how long this adjustment will take, and not only for my own sanity, but for Caitlyn’s sake, too. I have to stay strong for her, because I’m worried that soon, she’ll start going through that same adjustment, if she hasn’t started already. I have to accept that I’m a grieving widower, who is all of a sudden raising a daughter on his own, and we’ve just moved into a big, old house. This is going to mess with my head a little bit, and if we’re being completely honest, the basement’s creepy. All basements inherently are. There’s something about them that suggests isolation, or even a grave.
“What’s next?” Caitlyn says, clapping her hands like she’s all business.