by Tina Amiri
Night wished his father would just shout through his list of his charges or do whatever it took for him to close the matter, rather than perpetuate this eerie, electric calm. “What do you mean, she’s gone?” he finally asked.
“She’s gone! She’s not the same. She’s gone—just like my last shred of trust in you!”
“No…” Night rattled his head. “Everything is a lot better than you think.” He rushed forward and kneeled in front of Andrew, who seemed blind to him at only inches away. “Whatever you thought would happen if I talked to people…it’s not true. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing ever happens and…” He stopped when Andrew’s face shot up.
“You sound like you’ve been busy, Night. And why don’t you keep your liquored breath to yourself. Just go.” He waved his hand loosely at the staircase.
Night rose cautiously. “I know you’re angry…”
“Angry?” Andrew’s words came out like corrosive steam. “Anger is a pitiful waste when it comes to you—but maybe you’ll care about consequences.”
Water leeched into Night’s mouth from the passages of his eyes and nose. He was determined to have his father resolve his anger promptly, even if it wasn’t particularly fair. He straightened his shoulders and declared in his new nasal voice, “I’m going to leave.”
This finally animated Andrew.
“Oh, now you’re going to leave?” he roared in demonic amusement, rising from his chair. “Tell me, Night…where are you going to go? Do you, in fact, have somewhere to go?”
“Yes.”
“Oh really? Where? Are you going to live with your little slut friend? And as low as she is, you have nothing to offer her! Don’t you understand that you do not and cannot exist anywhere else but here? The world would suffocate you…crush you!”
“I can call Lila. She’ll help me.”
“Call Lila? Call Lila! How are you going to do that, Night?” Andrew took two giant steps toward the telephone and ripped the mounting cable straight out from the wall. “How the fuck can you taunt me like this after everything you’ve done! I’m sorry if someone confused you, but the fact is that you belong to me—not to any street prostitute female or even to yourself! Do you understand? You belong to me, my dear child, and from now on…” his voice started to break, “you are going to know it!”
Night straightened his back and tried to keep his eyelids from twitching.
“Don’t bother with pride. You have no loyalty, no standards, no shame. Call Lila… Isn’t that bloody precious?”
Night clenched his hands. He realized he was trapped in the only real nightmare he had ever truly faced: living in his own house.
His father snatched the scant piece of pink fabric off the floor where it had fallen and slammed it into the fireplace. “Does she ever keep anything on?”
Night gave into a subtle grin at this reference to Daphne’s shawl that had met the same fate at the restaurant. He turned away from the gushing flame dispassionately. As long as Daphne was still intact, nothing could destroy what they’d already shared and what they would have together in the future.
He took his time in the bathroom, after going upstairs. As he slowly combed through his hair, he took stock of the many features that Daphne referred to as “hot”, but a sudden surge of pain through his hand—the kind he knew well from his nightmares—interrupted his musing and made him drop the comb. At the same moment, Andrew’s reflection appeared in the mirror.
“Feeling guilty?” his father inferred as he presented his palm. “Here, just take your pills.”
Night had continued to take a variety of medication, daily, since his recent illness and his father was right to assume he hadn’t taken any of them today.
He felt beyond tired as he sank into his pillows and sheets. They were satiny and abundant, like Daphne’s hair against his face and bare chest. He felt content as he drifted off on this reflection…a trip that lasted only seconds.
****
As the light of morning accosted him—or was it the brief appearance of the midday sun—he no longer had that content feeling. Although he had no recollection of what had happened, his flesh remembered every detail and his mouth sprang open against his pillow in a silent, belated cry. He began to cough, which spawned a colossal headache that crippled him more than the scorching pain that now replaced his skin.
He twisted through the searing pain to look over his shoulder. At the slightest effort, he saw blood on his sheets, then on his leg, then everywhere, and this triggered him to flip off the edge of the bed. Too dizzy to walk, he crawled his way to the full-length mirror on the far side of his open doorway where he relapsed into unconsciousness.
When he came around again, he dragged himself within an inch of the mirror and placed his hands flush on the cool glass. He could have stayed that way, but desperate to see the problem, he willed himself to keep climbing, smudging the mirror with a collage of handprints all the way up to the top. His sensitivity to the light caused him to strain as he turned to have a look at his dorsal side. The shallow breaths that he emitted became labored as he blinked around the room, seeking comfort or explanation from anything for the crimson lines that trailed every which way over his back and almost all the way down to behind his knees. They were no longer distinct beneath the global mess caused by excessive swelling and bleeding, but whatever was used to draw these marks had slashed open his skin as though a possessed violin bow had played a concerto all over his body. Night’s eyes lifted slowly in his already turned head as he realized the other presence.
Andrew idled in the doorway, as even he appeared troubled by what he beheld in the blatantly sincere light of day. He swallowed and cleared his throat, despite his bold admission.
“I had to, Night…for your sake. Maybe this will help you keep your clothes on…at least for a while.”
Night turned his face away as though nobody was there, but he couldn’t ignore that he might throw up or faint at any second. His father must have sensed this because, when he did go down, he met with his bed, rather than the floor.
Andrew sat himself at the edge and pulled a thin blue sheet over the mess on Night’s body that still quivered from the physical as well as chemical assault.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Night. That’s why I made you sleep.”
“Well, it does hurt.”
“But that will go away.” Andrew’s words rained down heavy, along with his stare. “The train finally veered too far off its track…and it needed the hand of a giant to set it back on. I hope it will stay there from now on. You know, Night, I’ve never taken away your freedom, and that’s revealing its price… Remember that.”
The burning and nausea made every vulgar reality, especially Andrew’s foul logic, unbearable at that moment. Night let go of the sheet he’d crumpled inside his clammy grip and buried his face; then his hand and the whole length of his body began to shudder in a different way.
Andrew stood up and left without another word, but first he dropped two pills onto the nightstand.
Night swept them off as though they were spiders. Even without the help of the painkillers, he did fall asleep again, and this time, when he met up with his ubiquitous doppelganger, it greeted him with something other than its usual impatience. For once, it was teeming with excitement.
Chapter Eight
Serious change was coming. Even as he allowed days to pass in self-imposed seclusion, Night knew it would find him, but he didn’t anticipate that it would arrive by the twisted network of vines below his bedroom window. First, two hands appeared on the sunny window ledge, followed by the face he daydreamed about through every waking minute.
“I know he’s here,” Daphne confessed through winded breaths. “I left my car up the road. Night…I can’t stand it anymore.”
He strung on the shirt that he kept on standby, at the edge of his bed, before helping Daphne down from the ledge, but then he scooped her head inside both hands. “I know… I have to tell you somethi
ng, Daphne. I wanted to tell you this all along. I can hear. I can hear you. I’ve always been able to hear you.”
She reflected his desperate nods. “I know. It has something to do with your crazy father, but I don’t get it…”
Instead of an answer, he gave her a kiss. Their lips stayed locked as her hands brushed up his covered arms, down his bare chest and then beneath his shirt to his back, at which point he shunted her away.
“What’s wrong?” She came to his side, her hand hovering above his shoulder, hesitant to touch.
Night helped her out. He lowered his shirt, just enough to reveal one shoulder, then pulled it back up. Daphne stumbled back, her fingers pressed to her mouth before she dropped her hands to implore him.
“How could you let him do all these things to you, and for so long—and now this? You could have left with me before it got this far.” Her voice was quickly spiraling above a hush. “Do you even know how freakish this is?”
Similar to his, her eyes were now loading with tears, but Night shocked her with a grin.
“How could you be smiling?”
“He thought this would stop us.”
After one big exasperated breath, she collapsed against him and stroked his arms and chest feverishly. “Well, if you think you’ve finally had enough, leave with me now?”
Night sent his reply through another greedy kiss, oblivious to his door falling wide open, but Daphne jumped back.
From the doorway, Andrew fixated on her alone. “Get the hell away from my son, Aileen.”
Night stepped in front of Daphne, but she shuffled sideways, refusing to lose eye contact with her monster as she stated: “My name isn’t Aileen. I’m Daphne.”
Andrew’s glare ignited into a vehement blaze that made Daphne recoil. Night shoved her out of his father’s trajectory, but Andrew kept advancing.
Daphne jumped onto the bed. “You’re really some kind of psycho!” She now towered over Andrew—a sleek, panther-like silhouette in her ribbed sweater and tight blue jeans, baring her incisors. “He’s leaving with me, and if you try to stop him I’ll go straight to the police!”
But she screamed when Andrew swiped at her. She leapt off the bed, inciting a chase down the hallway that ended on the landing when Andrew caught her hair.
“You want to go to the police, you little bitch! About what exactly?”
Daphne bashed at the hands that swarmed her when the grip came off her hair, but her whole body melted once she realized the hands belonged to Night. He gathered her against himself, aware of her racing heartbeat and breathing being out of sync with his, and he peered at the staircase. Andrew stepped out of the way.
“Go, Night… I’m not going to stop you. …You can go. I promise.”
Slowly, Night unglued himself from Daphne so they could hurry down the stairs. She still gripped his hand, which is why he felt it when Andrew’s shoe sole slammed blunt against her spine. Her shriek ripped through the shadows on the staircase, ending abruptly with a sickening crack between two rail posts that had snagged her head about halfway down.
Night couldn’t recall getting there, but he found himself at the bottom, groping her arms, then her head, until his fingers could no longer crawl inside the web of red hair.
Andrew ripped her away and just stared at the detested ragdoll in his grip for a few seconds before he heaved her slight body over his shoulder; then he ran out the front door, leaving it wide open.
Night felt almost too numb to walk. He staggered to the gaping doorframe to see his father throw a shovel into the trunk of his car. He didn’t see much after that, but he heard the consecutive thuds as his father closed the trunk and the car door. He didn’t hear the engine engage.
On the veranda, Night gripped his arms as he began to shake like no amount of heat could ever end the chill. He could already feel himself reeling back into the insufferable void…his true eternal nightmare.
He returned to the living room, in a virulent haze, and crafted a wall of fire inside the fireplace. In front of it, he sat quivering, even as the front door creaked open, hours later. His trance was shattered only by the strange presence of mud on the typically gleaming hardwood floor, in the trail of his father’s footsteps. Night had never seen Andrew covered in dirt. The sweat on his face had made the silt that dusted it run into dark streams and form into blotches. Only the pristine blue of his eyes remained recognizable.
“Now do you see it?” Andrew barked, his voice as gritty as his exterior. “Do you finally understand what I’ve always told you? Do you want to destroy any more lives? …Your own? Mine? …And I still have to deal with her car.” He marched on but stopped in his tracks when Night suddenly barked back.
“What did you do with her? Tell me where she is!”
“She’s in the ground! I did what one must do with someone who is dead!”
Night continued, just as Andrew turned to leave. “If I would have told her the truth sooner, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“The stupid girl did it to herself. It’s not your fault.”
“No, it’s yours!”
Andrew’s hands smashed down at his sides. “Fine, it’s my fault! But is it not your fault that Lila’s gone?”
“Lila…” Night said, trembling like a bomb getting ready to detonate, “Lila…is not dead!”
“I am sorry for you, Night…” Andrew replied, replacing his red-hot anger with a cool condescending air. “Sorry that you are so uncomplicated that it gets you into trouble…” He planted himself on the floor beside Night and even dared to stroke his hair with his filthy hand.
Night didn’t move, but his eyes shot stakes of ice into the flames. “Who am I hiding my body from now?” he blurted when the tension hit its pinnacle.
Andrew’s fingers tightened for just a second before completing their path. “Soon you’ll go back to the restaurant and then everything will be like it was before.”
Glaring through the water in his eyes, Night foresaw one thing clearly. Nothing would ever be like it was before.
****
A few days later, Night confirmed that his family of mice had perished through his neglectful absence, so he sank the crate in the bay in salute to former ignorant bliss as it too would never be seen again.
Inside the more elaborate crate that he once called home, Night finally mastered the lifelong command, never to speak, yet Andrew did not seem pleased.
“Think about your fans,” his father chided as he parked his car at the restaurant. “They’ve all missed you, and you’ll only be embarrassing yourself if you insist on punishing them like you are me. By the way, I suppose I should thank you for the gift I found in your room the other day. The wind-chimes are quite nice. I hung them up here, as I’m sure was intended. It’s only a shame that I can’t thank Lila for them too.”
Steaming in his seat, Night made no move for the door handle.
“Everything that you should care about is right here, Night. Soon, you’ll forget about what happened and then maybe I can start to forget about this whole hellish mess also.”
But it could never be that way. Night no longer felt at home at the restaurant. A strange aura lifted off the floor and walls that made him feel disconnected and unwelcome.
His resentment spiked when he learned that Daniel had long been replaced, but the new waiter kept him from dwelling on it when he announced that somebody wanted to see him at the back door. He foolishly hoped that it would be Daphne, but it was Lila who greeted him with no time for pleasantries.
“I didn’t want to come here, but I couldn’t just forget about you. We have to talk, Night…but not right here.”
Her confident strides led Night all the way down the dirt path to the water’s edge where he knew Lila was about to confirm that she didn’t plan to ever offer him another reading lesson. Holding his elbow and gazing at oblivion beyond the whitecaps, she spoke.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Night…before I talk to your father?” She start
ed pacing in a circle, coming to an abrupt halt behind him. “You can hear me, can’t you, Night?”
He clenched his teeth and his breath quavered when he exhaled. He wanted to confess, but he had to take into account her primary, or at least former, allegiance to his father.
She sighed heavily and returned to his side, but she didn’t look at him. “I want to know about your hearing loss, and I want to know about your mother—and I don’t mean Brigitte Morgen—but your real mother who is more than likely still alive.”
Night threw his head to look at her, but now he truly couldn’t speak.
“I apologize, Night. I may have been bluffing somewhat. But which one of us pulled the bigger bluff?”
Somehow, Lila knew. Night waited for the sky to fall or the sea to lurch up and swallow the earth, or for everything around him to burst into flames—for whatever this thing was that would in some way eradicate the world as he knew it.
“Night, why the hell are you pretending to be deaf?”
“I don’t know! Ask my father and then tell me!” He bounded up the path. He wanted to get away from Lila and all her questions—away from the possibility of making everything even worse. Halfway to the parking lot, he veered toward the woods. He only looked over his shoulder after crossing the tree line and he spotted Lila, no more than ten yards away. She abandoned her pursuit of him when she too heard the footsteps descending on the path.
“Lila? I noticed your car. What are you doing out here?”
“Hello, Andrew,” she acknowledged flatly. “Night and I were just having our first really uninhibited conversation together.”
Andrew glanced both ways. “Where is he?”
She flipped her hands theatrically. “I’m not sure. When I asked him why he’s pretending to be deaf, he just ran off.”
“Lila, why would you do that?”
“Just stop it, Andrew. It’s not a secret anymore that he’s been pretending—although I can’t for the life of me understand how his father could be involved in this charade.”