by Keri Lake
Asshole.
Sober, Denny could be a decent dad. After all, he’s the one who taught Oli to ride a bike and balance on skates before he was old enough to spell his own name. Back when Oliver was a baby, only Denny could calm him when he cried, by plucking his guitar while Oliver dozed off beside him on the couch. Those are the memories that hurt the worst.
The ones involving my son.
Because the thing is, no matter how shitty their parents become, kids still love them.
The changes I plan to make are going to be hard on Oliver, and I don’t want to put him through that kind of stress, but I know firsthand how much harder it is to watch at least one parent fall out of love.
It takes closer to two hours to hock my ring for a measly two hundred bucks and drive to the different stores, from where I nab cake supplies and giftwrap and balloons on the way home. When I arrive back, the lights are off inside the two-story house, and Denny’s beat-up Honda isn’t sitting in the driveway. He’s left the curtains open, and I peek into the window to see he’s not passed out on the couch as usual, either.
What the hell? Son of a bitch better not have left Oliver alone.
Silence lingers on the air as I enter the dark house, and I dump my bags down on the kitchen counter and race up the stairs.
Oliver’s bed is empty.
“If that piece of shit took him to buy more alcohol,” I mutter, as I tap the Finder app on my phone. Takes a minute before it zeroes in on his location, and I scowl at the map, giving it a second, because no way in hell would Denny piss me off by taking my son to the shitty side of Chicago. No way in hell.
Not after the hundreds of times I’ve told him never to take Oliver to hang out with his piece of shit pothead friends on that side of town.
His location doesn’t move, though.
In the meantime, and with a small bit of denial, I perform a cursory sweep of the house, then another outside the back door, where the in-law suite behind the house stands equally dark and quiet.
With fury blazing through me, I dial his number on my way back into the kitchen, licking my lips in preparation to cuss him out the moment that bastard answers.
The second the ringing ends and his line connects, I feel a rush of adrenaline pump through me. “You piece of shit! What the hell are you doing? Where the hell are you—”
I trail off when I notice he hasn’t said anything. Not even hello. I pause to listen for a moment, concentrating on the strange static sound bleeding through the line. Like air being deflated out of a balloon, it squeals, and a wet, barking cough follows.
“Denny?”
A whoosh of air rattles against the earpiece, but in the thick of it, I make out two whispered words: “I’m sorry.”
A cold stab of panic pierces my chest. “Denny? What’s going on?”
The phone clicks, the abrupt disconnection mirroring the last shred of my calm. With trembling hands, I call again. It rings and rings. In disbelief, I call again.
Still no answer.
I haul ass through the house and out the front door, my hands shaking so bad I can’t get the goddamn key lined up in the ignition of my car.
“Fucking come on!”
All I can think about is Oliver. Is he gone? Is he lying somewhere next to his father, dying? Is Denny dying, or is this some sick fucking joke to teach me a lesson for kicking him out?
I speed through streets, desperate to stay focused on that small, vague dot on the map.
As much as I don’t want to lose his location, or risk missing another call from Denny, I dial my brother—a detective for the Chicago police department.
In a groggy voice, he answers on the third ring. “Yeah.”
“Jonah. It’s Nola.”
“What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” Panic wraps itself around my chest, squeezing the breath out of me. “I called … Denny, he … it sounded like he …”
“Slow down.”
“I can’t.” The steering wheel acts as a battering target, against which I slam my hands in frustration. “I can’t! I think something happened!”
“Where’s Oliver?”
“I think he’s with Denny, unless something happened to him. Oh, God, Jonah!”
“Where are you?”
“I’m headed toward West Chicago. Damen Avenue.”
“The silos?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s an abandoned grain elevator there. Just …. Just hang tight. I’ll check it out.”
“No! No. He sounded like … he was … dying. And if Oliver is with him. I need to go.”
“Nola, you don’t know what you could be walking into. He could’ve been jumped on that side of town.”
“I don’t care! My son is with him, Jonah!”
“We’re gonna get someone out there now. I’m calling it in now. Just turn around and go back home, and I’ll—”
I hang up the phone. I love my brother, but he’s a goddamn tool if he thinks I’m going to turn around when my son could be hurt, or worse.
Fuck turning around.
I’m already on the road where the dot on the map tells me Denny’s phone is still sitting, on the outskirts of Chicago. Heading south on Damen, I hang a left onto 29th Street, where the dot sits in the center of an abandoned yard. Through the open gates, I pull up alongside Denny’s Honda, parked about a hundred yards off from a building covered in graffiti.
What the hell?
The steady drumming against my chest is my heart pounding so fast I can hardly keep up my breathing, as I take in the dark ominous surroundings. A place no mother would ever want her child to venture, for fear of the things that could be lurking within. I want to cry, but I can’t. My mind tells my heart to keep its shit together until I find Oliver.
Clambering out the vehicle, I rush toward the Honda and peer in through the windows. Oliver isn’t there. From beside the car, its glowing lights the only means of visibility in the encroaching darkness, I scan the abandoned building for an entrance.
That’s when I sense something watching me.
Hairs prickle as I turn to see the cup holder of the backseat propped forward and bright blue eyes peering up at me. I scramble toward them, throwing back the center console of the backseat, and find Oliver curled up in the trunk.
“Baby? Are you okay? Open the latch, Oli.”
Even in the dim light of the cabin, I can see him trembling, and my instincts beg me to tear away the damn fabric of the seat to get to him.
“Oli! Unlatch the seat!”
A click signals his compliance, and I fold down the seat to see him curled so tight within himself he looks smaller than a ten-year-old. Or perhaps more fragile.
“C’mon, baby. Come out of there.” I reach for him, but he shakes his head. “Oli, what happened? Where’s your dad?”
His brows dip, eyes brimming with tears, and he shakes his head, but doesn’t say a word. Instead, he claps his hands over his ears, and screws his eyes shut.
“Is he inside? In the building?” It occurs to me that Denny could be actively dying somewhere right now. I push to my feet, but my arm is yanked by ice cold hands.
Eyes wide and panicked, Oliver tries to pull me into the car, his effort so ardent, he leaves scratch marks down my skin.
“Hey, hey.” Without much choice, I settle next to him and stroke his hair to calm him, while he clings to my arm. “Your dad sounded like he needed help. I just want to check on him.” My heart is breaking as I watch the tears slip down his cheeks. A ghost white pallor blanches his usual olive skin tone and he tugs harder and shakes his head.
“Oliver, tell me what happened? Is someone here?”
More tears fill his eyes, and when he nods, my stomach twists at the thought that we’re not alone.
“Talk to me. Why won’t you talk?”
He ignores me, and though I know it’s not out of defiance, the stress is beginning to wear me down, taunting my patience.
“Did you see something?”
His eyes screw tight, his nails digging into my skin, as though my question has planted something horrific inside his mind.
Headlights flash, and on instinct, I duck down, watching as they flick off, and I can make out my brother’s pickup truck idling into the yard.
“Uncle Jonah’s here.”
A police cruiser trails behind him, and relief washes over me. I tug Oliver over the folded seat and wrap my arms around him, noticing the incessant tremble.
Removing his coat, Jonah approaches the two of us, wrapping Oliver up in a thick wool trench. “Grim and Jeff are going to scope it out. Is he okay?”
I shake my head, letting the first round of tears escape. “He won’t say a word.”
“Is Denny inside?”
“I think so.”
“Anyone else?”
“Yes. I think there is.”
The fuzzy interruption of Jonah’s walkie-talkie steels my muscles, as I wait to hear an update on Denny.
Jonah steps away from us, and as I lurch forward to follow, fingernails dig into my skin, and Oliver buries his face in my neck.
Brows furrowed, I focus on the murmurings of what little I can hear through that two-way, but one code is unmistakable. It sits heavy on my heart, pulling me under the surface.
The code for murder death kill.
“You’re gonna want to come see this.” Grim’s voice bears the tone of his name. “Oh, God.” The gag that follows has my chest feeling numb and cold, and I can barely hang on to Oliver with the weakness settling over me.
“Jonah?” Everything is spinning around me too fast to grasp, and I rest my head against Oliver’s, breathing hard through my nose, until it passes and I can set my attention back on my brother. “Jonah?”
Another siren comes with the approach of an ambulance, blocking out the important pieces of the conversation that have Jonah rubbing his brow and shaking his head.
An irritation that makes me want to run into the building and see for myself.
The contemplation on Jonah’s face, when he strides back toward me, says whatever message was relayed is about to change my world. It’s like when we were kids and he tried to shield me from the death of our father, taking it upon himself to act as a human tampon for all the scary shit he didn’t think I could handle. In turn, he and my mother took the brunt of Gordon Stiever’s death, leaving me with little grief to contribute and a lifetime of daddy issues that bled into every relationship after.
“Nola, sit tight for a few minutes. I’m gonna … check this out.”
Still holding Oli, I lurch forward. “Check what out, Jonah? What happened?”
“They found Denny.”
“And?”
“Not here, Nola.” His eyes fall on Oliver, and it’s right then I realize it isn’t just my pain he’s shielding, but my son’s. “I want to check it out, okay?”
“I want to see for myself.” The words tumble aimlessly from my lips, because I’m not so sure I want to see what’s twisted Jonah’s face into tight lines of worry.
“No. Stay with Oliver. He needs you right now.”
His words strike me across the face like a slap of reality. Yes, of course. My son needs me. Oliver needs me far more than Denny right now.
My attention shifts to my son, whose once irritating little cowlick reminds me of the one I constantly had to pat down on the top of Denny’s head during the better parts of our marriage. One that led to our very first kiss, while sitting on the deck of the half-pipe ramp he built at his mom’s.
It somehow fails to register that the caustic conversation we had earlier in the night was our last, aside from his apology. Some small part of me still believes he’s alive, and he’ll be annoying the shit out of me once everything is settled.
The bigger part of me knows that’s a lie.
The heart is an anchor. And mine feels like a stone that’s been cast out to the ocean, left to sink into the bottomless darkness.
2
Nola
Six months later …
“Tell her I’m a bad mom. Just say it,” I whisper, staring through the window of a small conference room.
Inside there, Oliver sits beside a heavyset woman, who’s spent months trying to help him find his voice again. A speech therapist, but DeeDee is more than that.
His eyes are on me, angry and resentful for scheduling an appointment two days early. Speech therapy is Friday, but so is the psychotic day of shopping, otherwise known as Black Friday, which means I have to cover a double shift, so here we are. Him hating me and me hating myself.
“I know I’m a shitty mom,” I mutter. You don’t have to say it.”
“You’re not a shitty mom.” The voice startles me, and I turn just enough to catch Oli’s psychologist, Sarah Buckley, standing beside me. “You can’t change what happened to him, Nola. And no matter how much you try to blame yourself, it isn’t your fault.”
“This again, huh?” I snort, returning my attention back to Oli, who won’t even try to work with DeeDee. Instead, he looks every bit the rebellious teenager that he isn’t yet, with his arms crossed, brow permanently furrowed. Even through the glass that separates us, I can feel the hostility. He’s only eleven, but the anger he carries makes him seem so much older. “You know, I think about that night, and the one thing that bothers me most is that I woke Denny up before I left. He’d have probably stayed passed out on the couch while Oli slept, otherwise.”
“If you’re trying to convince me of something, you’re doing a crap job of it.” The gentle stroke of her hand down my arm adds just enough contact to spring tears to my eyes. “You were looking for opportunities to make him a better husband and father.”
“That’s the problem,” I say through a blur of tears. “I’m not a quitter. But if I had been …”
“Oliver is still here, Nola. Focus on that and quit beating yourself up for things you can’t go back and change.”
“I’m sorry. You’re not my therapist. That’s not fair.”
“Doesn’t stop me from caring.” Her arm nudges mine, and I offer a smile. “How’s the pottery going?”
“Haven’t really done a whole lot of it in the last few months. Picking up shifts leaves me exhausted most nights.”
“You’re a hard-working mom. Remember to take time for yourself.” She crosses her arms. “Take a bath, read a book. Whatever you have to do to unplug and enjoy that time without the guilt. It’s good for Oliver to understand that, as well.”
“He hates me. He knows Denny and I were … that our marriage was …. I still resent him, even after death. Every time I have a moment where I think I could forgive him, I remember that he took my son to meet with a drug dealer in an abandoned building. He endangered his life, and for what? A fix?”
“And how do you think a mother should react to that?”
Doctor Buckly has a knack for trying to lessen my guilt, but she’s not been successful at eliminating it altogether.
“I just want to do right by my son. I want him to feel safe again. To trust the world again.”
“Then, keep doing what you’re doing. Give him time to mourn and heal. And give yourself time to do the same. Your guilt is getting in the way of what your soul needs right now.”
“My soul?” I want to laugh at that. I don’t even know if I still have one, it’s been so long since I felt anything. “No. I don’t cry for him anymore. Surely, someone who loved the other person would need more than six months to get over it.”
“We all mourn in our own ways. And you’re clearly not over it. How are you sleeping at night?”
Rolling my head against my shoulders fails to loosen the incessant knot of remorse for having brought all this up. “Like I said, Sarah. You’re not my therapist. You don’t have to do this.”
“Nola. How are you sleeping?”
“Couple hours. It’s the same every night. Sometimes, Oli wakes up screaming. Sometimes, I swear he wakes
up screaming.” Two months ago, I started sleeping with a knife under my pillow, but I don’t tell her that, because only crazy, paranoid women sleep with weapons.
“If you’d like, I can refer you to a friend of mine. She’s a psychiatrist. She can prescribe something for—”
“No. No pills. I don’t need to be hopped up on prescription drugs all night. I lived with that as a teenager. I know how it feels when your mom is practically comatose.”
I wish I could say Denny’s was the only tragedy I’ve been through, but my life is a circle, and outside of the lines is a darkness that wants in so badly, it pokes at me every day. It poked at my mother, until she finally gave in and let it consume her entirely.
The fringes weren’t always so bleak, though. In fact, there was a time they were so bright, we couldn’t see past the blinding light. That was before my older sister disappeared. I was only ten, on the brink of eleven at the time—about the same age as Oliver. She left for a date with a boy I’d never met and didn’t come home. Ever. The questions she left behind morphed into a vacuous hole that’s never gone away. So I’m no stranger to tragedy, or the effect of mind-numbing drugs meant to soften the lines, to coexist with that darkness. I don’t want a single drop of it inside me.
“It doesn’t do Oli any good, if you’re running on fumes, either.”
“Lesser of two evils, as far as I’m concerned.” I am tired. Tired and frustrated with how difficult it is just getting out of bed every morning. Maybe Denny was right when he said I’d never make it without him. Maybe part of me died alongside him that night, and this is my hell.
I stare back at my son, who sits with his head in his palms, his frustration clear as he kicks at the legs of the table in a poor attempt to calm an oncoming tantrum. “Just tell me this much, Sarah. Will he ever forgive me?”
“For what?”
“For lying to him. For telling him monsters didn’t exist.”
I turn the car into the McDonald’s drive thru and order a chocolate milkshake and fries, just like every Friday after one of Oli’s sessions. Today, he doesn’t eat much, but picks at the small pack of fries like a bird, while we drive toward Jonah’s house. My brother’s wife, Diane, usually picks Oli up from the house after school for me, and takes him until I get home from my night shift at the diner, but as I have to work on Thanksgiving and the day after, they’ll be taking him until Sunday. Doesn’t help that Denny didn’t have a life insurance policy, so I try to grab as many hours as I can.