Light as a Feather

by Dan Dillard

  Chapter 11

  Matt left early the next afternoon, but before, we had a quiet breakfast. After the dishes were clean, he and I giggled with the baby while Vicky ran a couple errands. She hugged him before he left and told him to behave. Then she glared at me which I knew meant the same thing. She left Sean with us which I also knew was meant to keep me in line. What were we going to do to get in trouble on a Saturday morning? I knew the answer before I’d finished asking the question. What we always did when we were together—go looking for it.

  We sat in the living room and let Sean toddle around from table to chair to table and back. He was walking well by then, just a little over a year old and already on his way to being a big brother. I smiled at my son as he flopped onto his diapered behind, got back up and tried again only to fail. It was a privilege to watch him learn. Matt watched him, too.

  “Something’s been on my mind lately,” Matt said. “I don’t know if it’s this little guy causing it or not. It is bittersweet, you know, you and Vicky naming him Sean.” Sean must’ve heard the sound of his name because he looked at Matt and Matt half-smiled back, waving his fingers.

  “I know, but I had to. It was one of the strongest feelings I’ve ever had. When I first saw my son, I just knew his name was Sean.”

  Matt nodded.

  “I get it…and I appreciate it. Mom and Dad both teared up when they heard the news.”

  His parents had called to congratulate Vicky and me when the boy was born. They both thanked us for using their son as his namesake. Good times and sad times.

  “It just makes me remember what happened. All that blood. All that worry…and that house. Do you remember that house?” he said.

  “I do,” I said.

  I see it every time I close my eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  Sean bobbled over and plopped down in front of Matt, then handed him a stuffed puppy. Matt shook it and made it bark to Sean’s delight. Once the baby was again otherwise occupied, Matt looked back at me with concern all over his face.

  “What happened that night, man? What did we see?”

  I stared at him for a long time trying to find comforting words, any words. The only ones I could find were his brother’s. You gotta fuckin’ swear. All of you. You gotta swear, not a word. Not even to each other.

  “I have no idea, man. I really don’t know. A ghost, I guess.”

  “Ghost of a dead Russian scary-as-hell girl, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she possessed your little sister?”

  Possessed. A horrible word in that context…in that definition. Nataliya Koslov possessed, she haunted my sister’s six—almost seven—year old body. How much more could a person be violated? I was angry all over again. Looking at my own child, I was glad mom and John never found out about that. If nothing else, the car accident was instantly fatal. It might have ended her suffering rather than adding to it.

  “I guess so, yeah.” I glanced up at Matt hoping he was looking elsewhere, but his eyes were locked on mine.

  “That’s some late-night movie shit. Exorcist and Amityville shit,” Matt said. He laughed nervously. I didn’t.

  “Yeah, it was really something, wasn’t it?” I looked at my son.

  “You think we’re cursed?” he asked.

  Cursed? I hadn’t considered it in years, maybe since the last time Matt mentioned it. He did mention it the week Sean died. Go home, McNeill! I see you in this yard again and…maybe I'll kill you too!

  “Come on, man. That was so long ago. Coincidences. Just a series of terrible coincidences. Don’t make it more than it was,” I said.

  “Right.”

  He examined the front and back of his hand and I could see he was thinking. I thought we were about to change the subject when he looked back up at me. “I translated those words, you know?” he said.

  I remembered old Mr. Sewell in the library, looking down at me through those spectacles that didn’t quite fit him. I remembered the one word that I’d found that day, the Russian word for knife. Truthfully, I’d forgotten the rest, but I could see Matt hadn’t.

  “They were on those crayon drawings your sister made right after we played that game. The same words that bitch Nataliya spoke. Do you know what they meant?”

  I didn’t. Except for the one. Matt’s face was strained and pale. It made me nervous.

  “Robin kept repeating the word now. My brother’s drawing…the word she wrote on it translated to blade. Mine, orange, it licks. What the hell does that mean?”

  I didn’t know. It didn’t make sense, but I saw where he was headed. I didn’t want it to go there.

  “Maybe the translation is off,” I said.

  “No, it’s good. I dated a Russian girl, Galina, for a very short while. She was a beautiful girl and so sweet, but I couldn’t get past the fact she was Russian. I don’t know. Maybe I sought her out on purpose because she was Russian…just to find out what those words really meant. Anyway, she was just a constant reminder of all that, so it didn’t last. But she looked at the words and translated them for me.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “What, Galina? A little more than two years ago.”

  “You remembered the words after all that time?”

  “I wrote them down from Robin’s drawings. You remember those? I wrote those words down over and over until I memorized them, and I can still see the drawings in my head.”

  “I didn’t know you’d seen them,” I said. I’d kept those pages hidden from him. At least I thought I had. Danny must’ve shown him. I still had the drawings. They were in a folder, tucked into a box in the back of my closet with my high school yearbooks and other keepsakes.

  “Todd, I remember everything about that summer, every stinking detail. It seems all-the-more vivid lately.”

  I couldn’t say anything, but just let him continue. He was digging his thumbnail into his palm, grinding it there in some obsessive-compulsive way. His voice became distant.

  “Danny’s meant white and light it burns the night…and yours…it eats.”

  I shook my head.

  “You get what that means? Robin said now. She died first. Sean’s was blade. He killed himself with a Ka-Bar.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know all that,” I said.

  I picked up Sean and sat him in my lap. He rubbed his eyes, ready for his nap.

  “What if she cursed us, man? What if we’re just waiting around for that curse to come true?”

  “Matt…we’re not twelve any more. That shit was ages ago. Coincidences, man, like I said. The things that happened were terrible, but they were only coincidences.”

  He nodded, but wasn’t convinced. I could see it on his face. Agree to disagree, his expression said, with just a hint of fear. After a few moments, he smiled. It eased the knot in my throat.

  “Look, I didn’t come here to do this, to bring all this up. I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but we’re adults right? All that silly shit…that’s all back there, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “All back there.”

  He stared at me for a moment and when I looked back, we were young teens again, sneaking cigarettes in the cornfield across the street. Brothers by circumstance.

  “Hey,” he said, breaking my concentration. “It was so great to see you guys. Congratulations on the new baby, bro.”

  He stood up and smoothed his pants legs, then extended a hand for me to shake.

  “I’ve gotta get going,” he said. “Stuff to do. Hell, I’m still unpacking.”

  I was glad to see him and oddly, I was glad he was leaving, ready to get that conversation out of my head.

  “We need to do this more often, now that you’re so close,” I said.

  “As often as possible, Todd.”

  “Yep.”

  “Hey, I’ll get out of your hair so you can put that little guy to bed. Chunky just like you were, huh?”

  Sean yawned and started to fuss
. I hoped he wouldn’t be chunky like I was, but as a baby, a little chunk is cute.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Do me a favor and hug your wife, sincerely, for me. Then sneak a look at her while she’s naked in a most insincere way. Do that for me too, will ya?”

  I chuckled, and that mischievous grin was back on his jaw.

  “I will definitely do both,” I said.

  We hugged again, Sean in between us, and I shook his hand as he left out the door.

  “Ball,” Sean said.

  “Exactly,” Matt told him with a wink, and shook his little hand as well.

  Matt drove off a minute later. I watched him go through the stained glass window in our front door. It was faint, and only lasted a moment, but I’d swear I saw Robin and Sean looking back at me. They were standing by the mailbox as Matt’s car passed it. I blinked to clear my vision and the world was normal again, no ghosts, only trees and road and my neighbors’ houses. Matt’s car was gone into the distance. It was the last time I saw him.

  The news came two evenings later. Danny was down for a late nap. Vicky answered the phone and she was cheery at first.

  “Well hi, Bob. How are you? Haven’t talked to you in ages,” she said.

  Then the conversation was one-sided for a long time, with her nodding and making the requisite uh-huh sounds to let him know that said she was listening.

  “My God,” was what she said that got my attention.

  When I looked up at her, she was facing me, and the phone was in her hand, but her hand was dangling from her side. Her face was drawn down and her lower lip shook as she spoke.

  “It’s Bob Chambers, babe. He wants to talk to you.”

  Her words were a near whisper. Was it Matt’s mother? Had something happened? Was Matt okay? All these things went through my head as I took the phone from Vicky’s hand. She hugged me as I put it to my ear and kept hold of me throughout the very short call.

  “Hi Bob,” I said. “Good to hear from you, sir.”

  “Todd? It’s good to hear your voice, son. It has been too long.”

  I nodded, knowing he couldn’t hear the gesture, but unable to form any more words in anticipation of what he was going to say. His voice shook. I’d never heard such sadness, so solemn. It was something bad. I knew by Vicky’s face and the way she was clinging to me.

  Bob continued. “I just wanted to call and thank you for being such a good friend to Matthew.” I swallowed hard. My mouth was dry, making the action a chore. There was too much finality in his words. “You were a brother to him after we lost Sean...after you lost your sister, Robin. I can’t tell you what that meant to all of us, but mostly to him. He loved you. His mother and I love you, too.”

  Then he broke up. I heard tears coming from that man, the military man, the hero, the father that I’d always wished had been mine. I heard him sob for the very first time in my life just before the line disconnected. I imagined he cried at Sean’s funeral, but Danny and I weren’t allowed to go back then. Still, he hadn’t yet said the words.

  Were a brother to him? Matt loved me? All past tense? My heart crawled up into my throat where it didn’t belong and where it drummed a beat I didn’t like. Vicky hugged me as I let the phone slip from my hand to the kitchen counter. I was dazed. I don’t recall Bob Chambers saying the words, Matt is dead. I just remember knowing.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Matt was in a car accident after he left here, honey. A bad accident,” she said.

  She took the phone off the table and hung it back in its cradle and then hugged me.

  “But…I…” I started, unsure of where I was going with the statement.

  I just saw him, or we just talked. One of those things people say when confronted with the unpleasant news of a friend or relative’s death.

  “He didn’t survive his injuries, Todd. I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry for all of us. His poor parents,” she said.

  I sat at the table and she sat on my lap, arms around my neck, crying into my shoulder. I cried with her.

  It was Robin and Sean in the stained glass. They’d come to warn me.

  It was a few days later when I found out his car had caught fire after the wreck, and that Matt was trapped inside and had burned to death. Such a horrible way to die. Maybe the most horrible way.

  Then I thought something else. I thought something in Russian. Something that meant, orange, it licks.