One by One

  “I said, answer me!”

  His hands felt like metal, and she realized, maybe for the first time, how strong he really was. In all the years of her and her mother treating him like the biggest kid in the family, she had never known he was so powerful, so dangerous. They would make faces behind his back when he said something silly, when he laughed at his own jokes, when he tripped and nearly fell over his own feet. That was her dad. That was what she knew. The iron grips on her shoulders belonged to someone else, and she was struck by a terrifying thought.

  This man had always been there. This power, this awful anger, was always hiding just out of sight; there had been a wild animal living in their house for years, a bear or a tiger, and just because it had never bitten anyone, everyone thought it was a puppy.

  Alice couldn’t talk. There was too much to take in, too much to process, and her mind skipped between the details, not quite able to make sense of any of it. Just then, her mother swept in and took control.

  “What the hell are you doing?” She glared at Frank. He let go of Alice’s shoulders and stared at his hands for a split second, seemingly surprised that he had gone so quickly over the deep end. It wasn’t like him at all, and Alice could see the mixture of disgust and bewilderment on her mother’s face.

  “If you want to help, go look around outside.”

  Frank walked away, a dazed look in his eyes, as Debra rubbed her daughter’s shoulders.

  “Honey,” she said when he was gone, “please, tell me the truth. Did you see anything?” Her voice was soft, kind, healing. It was enough for Alice to find herself once again.

  “No. I promise. I was just walking past and…and…”

  “It’s okay,” Debra said, taking Alice’s face in her hand. “Just calm down, okay?”

  Alice leaned in for a hug, and Debra gave her a solid squeeze. If her mother was panicking yet, she did a very good job of hiding it. She gently pushed her back and stared into Alice’s eyes.

  “Honey, I have to ask this. Please don’t be upset.”

  “What?”

  “Did you paint the X?”

  New tears welled up in her eyes. It was all the answer Debra needed. “I’m sorry,” she said, hugging Alice once again. “I just had to ask, honey. You stay here. I need to look around—”

  “No.” Alice grabbed her mother by the arm. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Debra had that familiar look, that give me a second of peace look. It faded in an instant.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s go find your brother.”

  They spent the next hour combing through the house as Frank circled the perimeter in his snow boots. The entire scene, the way it all unfolded, was unlike anything Alice had ever witnessed. The closest thing she could compare it to was when Dean was spending the night with his buddy James. They had only been thirteen at the time, and James’s mother, Crystal, was taking them to a Minor League Baseball game. It was late afternoon when they got the call.

  A pickup truck had rear-ended them as they came off the interstate. Alice could remember the drive up there, the nearly thirty minutes of strangeness in the air, of dread slowly filling up the car. She hadn’t exactly been afraid, mainly because she wasn’t old enough to be afraid. It was a wreck. Okay. Those things happen. She’d seen the ambulances stream by. She even considered how it might be fun to take a ride in one. The possibility that anything bad or fatal could happen was beyond her capacity to imagine.

  That moment returned to her now, the feeling of escalation, of something out of control, out of her parents’ control. Dysfunctional or not, they always knew what to do, how to handle whatever situation popped up, so to see them panicking, to see that rising dread swallow them, was more than she could handle. It was all in Debra’s voice, something that started steady, calm, in control, as if with her tone, she could change what was happening.

  “Dean,” she said loudly, clearly, with Alice trailing behind her. “Come on out.”

  They checked every room downstairs, and halfway through, that voice began to change, to crack and break.

  “All right, Dean. This isn’t funny.”

  She was still in control, but the edges were beginning to fray. Alice kept at her heels, silent, out of the way. She didn’t help – how could she? Her very presence was an added bother that her mother didn’t need in that moment. This wasn’t her “helping” cook dinner or change a tire. The best thing she could do was stay clear.

  “Dean!” Debra said, the façade almost completely gone as they took the stairs two at a time. “This isn’t funny.”

  Her tone had changed from demanding to asking. She wasn’t telling anyone anything. She was begging.

  “Please,” she said, her voice watery as they went through the rooms upstairs, one after the other. All of them were empty, all of them silent. Alice was crying as well; their last hopes seemed to be fading.

  “I won’t be mad,” Debra cried, too soft for anyone to hear, even in the next room. “Just please, come out.”

  They stopped in front of the crawl space, the little half door that led up to the attic. Debra wiped her nose and opened it, peering inside. The wall of junk loomed just inside. Old, weathered outdoor toys. A red wagon, rusting. A cast-iron bed frame, like a gate. All of it pressed to nearly a foot in front of the door. There was room up there, but not much, and certainly not enough to hide Dean. She closed the door and turned to Alice. It was in that moment that she saw a strange thing happen to her mother’s face. The terror and grief seemed to melt away, replaced by a sudden hard mask. It was clear that she had closed some part of herself down, locking the door on it until it was needed. Was Debra doing it for Alice’s benefit or her own? Alice wondered.

  “Let’s just calm down,” Debra said, placing a placid hand on Alice’s shoulder.

  “Mom, where is he…?”

  “Hush,” she instructed. “He’s fine. He’s just…gone out.”

  Debra had to struggle to find the answer. It was, of course, absurd, but there was nothing to be gained from pointing that out, not now. Sometimes, absurdity was all you had to lean on, so Alice just nodded. If there was any moment that she might be helpful, perhaps this was it.

  “I bet he went over to Max’s house.”

  A small twinkle of light appeared in Debra’s eyes. Was it appreciation for Alice’s willingness to be part of her lie? Or was it simple hope?

  “You’re probably right,” Debra said. “I’ll bet he just didn’t realize how bad the snow was going to be. Max just swung by and picked him up. Come on downstairs; let me make some calls.”

  Alice followed her mother downstairs and sat at the table, listening to her mother’s phone calls. Debra was going through the list of Dean’s friends one by one. Every conversation went the same.

  “No, we haven’t seen him this morning.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t heard anything…anything at all?”

  “Yes, the snow is bad.”

  “I’m sure he’ll show up soon. Thanks for checking.”

  It wasn’t like Dean to disappear without a word, but it wasn’t completely unheard of. He’d occasionally stay out later than his eleven o’clock curfew, even though he had to know he would catch hell for it. Alice always tried to stay up on those nights, just to see the fallout from his poor decision-making. Frank, always the easier going of the two, would usually just send a text and head to bed. But not Debra. She would make sure that the first face Dean saw when he walked in was hers.

  Alice kept thinking about what her mom must have been thinking, about what it felt like. She knew exactly where her own mind had gone, to a dark place, to a painful place. She wondered if all people did that.

  Debra was finishing another phone call when Frank came into the kitchen, covered in snow, his cheeks and nose flushed. He glanced over at Alice, a strange, untrusting look in his e
yes. Quickly, he looked away. She couldn’t shake his strange behavior, the new, crazed look on his face that seemed to keep popping up.

  This place is changing him.

  “Yes, thank you.… No, really, it’s fine. I’ll let you know.”

  Debra lowered her phone and looked straight at Frank as he kicked snow off his boots. “Well?”

  He looked up at her, calm, almost bored. One look, and Alice could see that Debra was fuming.

  “What is there to say?” he asked. “No tracks in the snow, which – who knows? – as fast as it’s coming down they probably wouldn’t last long. I don’t know. What is there to say?”

  Debra’s mouth hung open. “What is there to say?” she asked, her words sharp on both ends. “Our son is missing.”

  “Now hang on—”

  “Don’t fucking tell me to hang on. I’ve dealt with your laid-back shit for the past eighteen years, but if you can’t get emotional about our son missing—”

  “Really?” he said. “Look at this situation with just a pinch of logic. Just look at it.”

  “After what happened to—” She glanced over at Alice, who kept her face trained straight down on the kitchen table. “After the cat, I don’t think this is something to just brush off.”

  She was staring at him as if he were from a different planet, some cold, unfeeling place where parents treated their children the way that spiders did. Off you go before I eat you. This was, without a doubt, the most intense moment that Alice had ever witnessed between her parents, and she was actually holding her breath, waiting to see what might happen next.

  He smiled.

  “Logic,” he said, tapping his forehead. “You always accuse me of not having any common sense, of jumping into things without looking first, of going off on some big scheme. And you know what? Maybe you’re right. But I swear to god, I’m the only person in this house who has any damn logic.”

  Debra’s lips were so thin Alice couldn’t see them. Alice finally took a breath as Frank continued his speech.

  “Look at the facts,” he said, counting them off on his fingers as he went. “One, we move into a new house. Two, a cat falls into a pool and dies. Tragic, but completely natural. No fucking foul play involved. Three, we find a weird picture in our house. In a bout of pure coincidence, it happens to sorta look like us…if you stand twenty feet away and squint. These are the facts, and all of these facts lead up to one, simple, logical conclusion.”

  “And what,” Debra asked through her teeth, “is that?”

  “I don’t even want to answer that. I want you to answer that. But first, who do you think drew the X over the cat?”

  Debra didn’t move her head, but for a single second, her eyes cut over to Alice.

  “Go ahead,” Frank said, pushing harder.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let’s look at the suspects. Did you do it?”

  “No.”

  “Did I do it?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think the house is haunted?”

  Tears were welling in Alice’s eyes. She knew where this was headed.

  “No.”

  “Do you think a stranger just strolled into our house, on not one, but two separate occasions? Or, maybe, just maybe, someone else in the house did it.”

  He glanced over at Alice, and she felt the first tear break loose and slide down her cheek. She wasn’t sobbing. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Alice turned toward her mother, expecting support, expecting to be saved. What she saw crushed her.

  It was subtle; something in the eyes, in the softening of her mouth and in the lines of her neck. She was receding somehow, the anger being blown back like the surf in a windstorm.

  She believes him.

  “Honey,” she said, her voice a soft knife. “Do you know anything about this?”

  Alice was shaking her head before any words came out of her mouth, shaking her head in denial and disgust. She wanted to be out of the room, out of the house, out of the world, to be somewhere safe, somewhere that made sense.

  Mary would know what to do.

  That voice again, that whisper, as soft as snow. Alice stared up at her mother, refusing to wipe the tear on her cheek.

  “I. Didn’t. Do it.”

  Frank rolled his eyes, but Debra’s face tightened in frustration.

  “Alice, please. If this is some big joke that you and Dean cooked up, it’s not funny.”

  “I said, I didn’t do it,” Alice answered, her voice rising.

  “That’s enough,” Frank said, turning toward her, walking closer, putting his tiny daughter in the direct headlights of his gaze. “Tell the damn truth.”

  Debra’s brows shot up in…what exactly? Surprise? Anger? Alice didn’t know. Either way, her mother said nothing. Daddy was talking, and she would let it happen, let it play out, let her husband accuse their daughter of being a liar.

  There was a shift inside her, a small twinge in her heart as she remembered everything, all of it in the flash of a second. Her daddy, cuddling, watching movies, teaching her to swim, to dive, to ride a bike, tickling her until she couldn’t breathe; those perfect, endless days with her and Daddy all rose to the top, like flower petals on the surface of a dark pond.

  Push it down.

  She couldn’t. It was too much to deal with.

  Push it down now.

  Alice did as the voice asked. She swallowed hard and looked up into her father’s eyes.

  If he wants the truth…give it to him.

  “I already did tell the truth,” she said, her voice dull. “You’d know that if you ever listened…if you ever shut your fucking mouth.”

  It took Frank a minute to realize what had just happened, but the look on Debra’s face told Alice that she’d heard it just fine. If the moment hadn’t been so serious, Alice would have laughed at the series of expressions that washed over her father’s face. Angry to confused to a bit lost, and finally, back to angry again.

  “What did you say?” he asked, leaning over her, his voice a few octaves deeper than normal, deep enough to send a shudder through her.

  Don’t bend.

  “You heard what I said.”

  Frank snatched her up by the crook of her arm and started dragging her along, giving her a speech as he went. For a split second, the strange allure of talking back to her parents was washed away, and a genuine fear took its place. She might not be able to make out much of what her father was saying, but she could feel the anger in his grip. He’d never grabbed her like that before, and in the short walk to her room, she was certain she’d have a bruise. He pushed her inside, onto the bed, and stalked back out, slamming the door.

  “Stay in there until we get this all sorted out.”

  Debra was yelling at him now. Alice could pick the pieces out of it.

  “…are out of control…that is your daughter…this house is a fucking disaster…”

  The fight followed them upstairs, but Alice didn’t try to listen along. She was still processing everything that had happened. This was a giant moment for her, the type of thing that she only read about in books or watched in movies. Had she actually talked to her father like that? The idea itself was so foreign, so distant, that she was still struggling to wrap her mind around it.

  You did good.

  The voice again. This time, it sounded less like a voice inside her head and more like a whispered secret in her ear, a phantom’s voice, something dark and familiar. She thought of Mary, of Dean, of what was happening to all of them, and as the sounds of stomping feet rumbled overhead somewhere, she reached out her shaking hand and grasped the diary.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was a story there. Somewhere in the diary’s jumbled entries, the truth was hiding. Alice was now certain, and though
the story wasn’t laid out in chapters or scenes, it was there all the same.

  Mary’s story.

  It was like a box of puzzle pieces, dumped onto the floor, scrambled and messy, but hiding something. A message. A tale of a girl and, as Alice was learning, a tragedy. She skimmed through the pages frantically, trying to make sense of it all.

  Something is wrong with my parents, one page began. Or maybe, something is wrong with me. I should have known it when I drew on the wall that time. I was just a kid, only seven. I thought they would like it, I really did, and I know that somewhere out there, a different mother and father would have handled that situation differently.

  No yelling. No screaming. No…belt.

  Alice gasped, and one hand slipped instinctively to her arm, which was still tender to the touch. She read on.

  I can see parts of them in me, but the whole is so different. If I found out that I was born on another planet, that aliens had left me in a basket, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  I won’t be here forever.

  Something in the writing was changing, blooming, and she could imagine this child, this little girl who drew on walls, becoming an adult, right there on the page in front of her. She flipped forward, reading more, growing closer to this girl whom she had never met and would never meet.

  Do all kids hate their parents?

  I heard someone say that the other day. A girl in class talking about how much she hated her mom and dad, about how they didn’t buy her this or that, or that the vacation they took was lame, or that she had an eye on a certain car when she turned sixteen, but her dad said she would just get a hand-me-down.

  I started laughing at her. When she asked me why I was laughing, I told her it was because she was so funny. Because she was so stupid. That she had nothing to hate her parents about, so she made something up. Invented her anger.

  One time, I was with Mommy at the store, and I asked her for…something. I honestly don’t remember. Was it ice cream? A toy? I was probably eight then, maybe younger.