by Platt, Sean
She wasn’t sure if it was dead and out of power or rebooting. Sometimes the phone took forever to reboot. She looked from the blank screen to Junior.
“So you just woke up in the boat, and he was gone? Then what happened?”
“I told you. The sky told me where to go. So I went.”
“Before that.”
“Dad made me go fishing. I fell asleep on the boat. When I woke up, he was gone.”
She sighed again. “Did you see … anything?”
“Like what, Mommy?”
A bear … with a crooked human face … anything like that?
“Never mind.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Let’s get you to bed.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You will be.”
“No, I won’t be.” He shook his head. “Not with the lightning. Plus, the trees are yelling.”
“The trees aren’t yelling, sweetie. That’s just the wind blowing through the branches.” Though it sure as hell sounded like screaming when she’d opened the door.
“The trees are yelling.”
Liz tasted blood from the split in her lip from where she’d been chewing it. She usually had to deal with Junior either saying weird things or being somewhat vacant. This was a double-barreled assault.
“Would you like some hot chocolate?” she finally asked.
Junior nodded. She told him to meet her in the living room, then turned around and reached into the fridge for milk. She poured it into a saucepan, wondering what to do. She turned on the gas burner while picturing herself going to look for Anderson, then stirred the milk, thinking about how that would be suicide.
There was a monster outside the cabin.
Even if there wasn’t a monster, at the very least, she’d seen a bear.
And Anderson had said there were wolves on the way in, though he might’ve said that to scare them.
Leaving the safety of their cabin would be a stupid thing to do, especially at this hour, when she couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her. Plus, she was pretty sure that Anderson had taken the flashlight with him. Even if she did manage to find him, Anderson would probably yell at her for being foolish and putting herself, and Junior, in unnecessary danger.
The best thing she could do for all of them was to stay inside.
Anderson was a big boy. A sheriff’s deputy. He had a gun and could take care of himself.
Liz emptied the saucepan into a mug, added a handful of mini-marshmallows to the top. She found some Chapstick in her purse and pressed it into her lips to help heal the cut.
She presented the hot chocolate to Junior. He took it, then sat near the living room window, staring out at the widest view in the place at a stirring purple sky, now bright enough to lightly illuminate his face.
She remembered seeing a lamp in the kitchen, above the stove, got it, and lit it. Brought light into the living room, then blew out the candle.
She sat on the couch and watched his beautiful face in the flickering light, trying to find the words to articulate how he seemed so … off. Even if Liz was only explaining things to herself, there was a discordance with her son that she desperately needed to understand. Her mother’s intuition had always felt strong with him, and right now, it insisted that Junior knew something he wasn’t saying.
He didn’t seem to be blinking or breathing enough.
She couldn’t stop wondering what might be wrong.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Liz finally asked.
“I’ve told you everything.”
“Okay.” But it wasn’t. Her son was clearly hiding something.
A full five minutes passed. It felt like fifteen. After a while, she asked, “How was Dad acting the last time you saw him?”
“He was … like Dad.”
“Was there anything different at all?”
“He was just Dad.”
“Maybe there was something he said, something that sounded different than the things he would usually say …” she pressed, or perhaps prompted.
But still: “He was just Dad.”
Then Junior’s expression went even emptier than his eyes.
And twelve years together told Liz that little as that was, it would be the last expression she’d be getting for a while. Junior could become so … infantile.
Except, that wasn’t it. Even now, after all these years spent worrying, Liz couldn’t quite explain it exactly, or at all. He seemed to wisp off to another place. More than quiet and withdrawn, sometimes it seemed as though her son was someone else.
It happened whenever he came face-to-face with any past, present, or possible trauma. He’d had a touch of whatever it was before kindergarten, but school brought the bullies, and the bullying made everything worse. No matter how many times she had asked or begged, Anderson refused to let them get professional help, always cutting her off with something like, “I might need therapy, so I can learn to cope with all the fucking people needing therapy, you included.”
He was right and didn’t even realize it.
For years, Colette had constantly been giving Liz advice on everything, from how to raise her child to how to leave her husband. It was always well-intended, but Colette wasn’t in her position. She wasn’t married to a man who was verbally abusive — and sometimes physical, though Liz always preferred to think of those occasions as accidents — nor was she raising a son who was almost for sure on the autism spectrum. She didn’t know how difficult it was to just leave. Liz had to take even her most well-intentioned counsel with a hunk of Himalayan salt.
Liz had read a couple dozen books about raising a child on the spectrum and regularly checked an embarrassing number of blogs. But even the best explanations came short of describing her son.
Andy took things much harder than the average kid, and there were times when Liz wondered if he had somehow inherited some of her emotional messes. There was such a thing as inherited or transgenerational trauma; genetic pain passed from one generation to the next. Junior demonstrated traits of abuse, like being skittish and withdrawn, long before the bullying in kindergarten.
She hated to think that her father hadn’t just hurt her as a child but had hurt her child too. She hadn’t thought she could hate him any more than she had when trapped in that house, but Liz had been wrong.
Maybe this was the exact opportunity she’d been waiting for … except that no, Anderson’s coworkers would just come looking for him if he didn’t show up to work on Monday. Then they would wrongly conclude that she was responsible for whatever had happened to her husband.
Liz kept watching Andy as he stared out the window, slowly sipping his cocoa in front of the flickering lamp. He drained the mug and set it on the floor by his chair. Then with no other preamble and only a hint of emotion — hell, at least it was something — Junior asked, “Does it hurt?”
“What?” Though her hand unconsciously rose to brush the skin beneath her eye.
Junior nodded at her. “Your black eye.”
“It’s not a black eye.” She gave him her best attempt at a laugh, but the result was embarrassing. “It’s just a bruise, and no, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Black eyes are bruises.”
“Well, it’s almost healed.” Another smile, but they were getting harder to fake.
Where the hell is Anderson?
“How did you get it?”
“I already told you,” she said.
“Well then, why don’t you tell me again?” Junior replied, sounding like a higher-pitched version of his father.
She swallowed and cleared her throat. “I bumped into something the other night. When I was getting out of bed for a glass of water.”
And again, uncomfortably like Anderson, “Yeah, right.”
Then Junior stared at her. But unlike his usual gaze, when Liz knew on a subconscious yet incessantly nagging level that he was only pretending to believe her. This time Junior seemed to be staring righ
t through her lie, practically challenging her.
“Hot chocolate, all finished?”
“Hot chocolate all finished,” he repeated.
“Why don’t you go lie in bed and see if you can get some sleep. I’ll stay and wait for your father to come home.”
Liz expected him to push back, but instead, he stood from his chair and picked up his empty mug. She stayed on the sofa, listening as Junior made his way through the dark and into the kitchen. She heard the clink as he placed his mug in the sink, then steady clomping followed by a closing door.
She stood, feeling like she could finally exhale.
Liz paced the living room. Looking outside through the window and seeing nothing of note, then checking her phone and getting the same result. Shades of purple still colored the sky, but it was mostly black, with all the stars gone missing. The rain was heavy, though lighter than before. The atmosphere hanging like an ominous threat. Her phone was still a brick, every time she checked.
Liz closed the curtains, this time with finality, then went to check on Junior. She wasn’t sure what was more worrying, Anderson not being home, or Junior’s weird reaction to everything.
Her steps were already light, but she practically crept those final few, just in case he had fallen asleep. Maybe Junior was in some kind of shock and needed a little shuteye to reset. They’d been through this before, but a much lighter version. This time she was worried that he might not reset. That whatever happened out there might’ve broken him.
She pressed her ear to the door, held it there for several long seconds, and heard nothing.
She slowly opened the door, but her attempt at silence was foiled by a squeaky hinge.
She peered into the room and saw only the darkness.
“Mom?”
“Yes, Junior?”
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing if he didn’t come back, right?”
“What?” She must have misheard him.
Silence.
“Junior … what did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything, Mommy.”
Now the silence was hers.
“I love you, Mommy.” And with a note of warmth in his voice, that one sounded like he meant it.
“I love you, too. I’ll check on you soon.”
Liz closed the door and went back to pacing the living room. Back to looking outside every few minutes. Back to checking to see if her phone had turned on yet. And finally, back to her bottle of pills. This time she took two, on top of the one that was obviously failing to do its job.
While waiting for the three of them to start working together, Liz began to wonder through a series of worsening thoughts.
What if Junior did something?
Maybe he thought he was protecting her?
Maybe he did something terrible and didn’t even realize it?
Maybe it was some other part of his personality that he had disassociated from himself?
Maybe this is what Dr. Philipe had warned her about.
The world wasn’t always so kind to kids like Junior under the best of circumstances. Liz didn’t want to consider what might happen if he had done the unthinkable. She imagined her child cuffed like some violent criminal. Imagined him freaking out as the deputies bound him. Maybe he’d even get shot in the process.
She felt a helpless sinking in her gut, her mind spiraling down a vortex of ever-worsening possibilities.
She couldn’t protect him without knowing what he had done. But she couldn’t just ask him if he’d done something to Anderson, could she? She thought about how suggestible her son could sometimes be. If deputies questioned him, he might say yes to anything they asked, and worse, he might believe it enough to earn him a false confession and conviction.
What has he done?
How can I find out what happened?
She was circling the edges of a strategy when the pills finally claimed her.
She lay down in her bed.
Just a little nap, she told herself as she drifted.
* * *
Liz knew it was late morning before she even opened her eyes.
She was usually an early riser, and the bright light suggested that it was hours beyond her usual wake-up time. But she was still miles from alert, her wooly brain trying to assemble several events that didn’t make sense into a whole that did.
Anderson’s side of the bed was still empty, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in the cabin somewhere; maybe he’d come home and was sitting with Junior, and the two of them—
It was too sharp a realization.
Just like that, she bolted upright in bed, remembering everything at once.
It wouldn’t be the worst thing if he didn’t come back, right?
Chilling words that had sent her back to the bottle. A total of three pills before going to bed — no wonder her head was still so fuzzy.
Liz remembered one of her final thoughts from last night before the narcotics claimed her, and in the bright light of a brand new morning, she thought it again:
What has he done?
She shook off her covers along with the thought, then went into the kitchen, telling herself that, of course, her husband would be there.
But he wasn’t.
Anderson was still apparently gone, and Junior was alone, spreading mountains of Skippy on two slices of bread.
“The power is back on,” Liz said, instead of Good morning.
Junior looked over at her. “Some of it is. The TV isn’t working. No signal.”
Her nerves were back, and the chatter in her head, especially busy.
Her son was still giving off his weirder-than-usual vibes, and the air outside still appeared somehow off. The purple was all gone, but in its place was a variant of blue, not quite like anything Liz had ever seen in the sky, or maybe anywhere.
She went to the window, starving for a better look.
Liz didn’t know how to describe the color, but Electric Sapphire might do. The blue was too bright, without a single white cloud to busy it, and — impossible as this was to understand — the air somehow seemed too clean.
She went back to the kitchen.
“Your father still isn’t home?” Of course, he wasn’t.
Junior shook his head, still no emotion. No freaking out, wondering if his dad was okay.
He knows. He fucking knows what happened.
But maybe he didn’t know. Or at least he didn’t remember. Whatever part of him might remember had maybe retreated deep inside him. She’d need to get to that part soon. And they couldn’t just leave — not until she was sure that whatever happened to Anderson wouldn’t be pinned on her or Junior.
Her nerves were still on fire, now threatening to burn out of control. A hopeful thought came to her. Maybe this was Anderson wanting to teach her another one of his little lessons.
But none of his ‘jokes’ or lessons had ever lasted this long.
She grabbed her phone to try calling again. While the phone’s home screen was now working, there still wasn’t a signal to make a call. She tried texting Anderson. And just like with Colette, she could type the text, but it wouldn’t send.
Maybe she should go ahead with her plan? Or not.
“Where is the lake?” she asked.
Junior pointed out the window.
Not helpful at all.
She tried again. “Can you maybe show me?”
“He’s not there.”
“How do you know?”
“I already looked this morning. The boat is in the same place. No sign of Dad.”
“You went out there alone?”
“I went out there alone.”
“But there are bears and wolves in the woods!”
“Yes,” Junior agreed with a nod, seemingly fearless, displaying none of his usual suite of anxieties.
“Would you mind taking me out to the lake a little later so I can see?”
“I already looked this morning. The boat is in the same place. No sign of Dad.”<
br />
“Right.” Liz smiled, but that wasn’t remotely close to what she was feeling. “Just in case.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Junior looked up at her sweetly, but there was something seriously wrong with her son. Or at least different than any of the weird that she was used to. He was often a knot of anxiety, but right now, he was … detached, disconnected, somehow disassociating himself in a way that Liz had never seen, but had maybe been warned about.
Was this what Dr. Philipe had been talking about?
He was acting more okay than usual, and contradictory as that was, it made Liz feel like Junior had never been worse.
Was he in denial? Had he seen something traumatizing enough to make him yank the plug from reality? Had Anderson done something to him?
Something unspeakable had happened; she felt that truth like lesions on her skin. And yet Junior just kept chewing on his PB&J like everything was just skippy.
He swallowed the final bite, then turned his empty eyes to Liz. “Are you scared, Mommy?”
“No.” She shook her head with the lie. “I’m not scared at all.”
She didn’t ask, What would I be scared of? Because she couldn’t stand the thought of what his answer might be.
Maybe she could get a better signal outside, away from the cabin.
“I’ll be right back, okay, sweetheart? I’m going for a little walk.”
“Hurry back inside before the trees get mad at you.”
Liz was about to ask what that meant but immediately realized that she didn’t really want to hear his answer. It wouldn’t make any sense and would only worry her more.
She clutched her phone, went outside, and felt it immediately.
The world was inarguably yet undefinably different.
Sunlight danced like it usually did, much of it spilling through the gaps in the trees around her, but the movement had … changed. Liz knew it wasn’t true that toilets flushed counterclockwise in Australia because they were below the equator, but because their jets pointed the other way. Ridiculous as it might sound to describe or even try and articulate, walking outside the cabin and looking up at the sky while listening to a belligerent wind blowing fiercely through the branches, it was as if the universe itself had her jets pointed in the opposite direction.
Hurry back inside before the trees get mad at you.
