“And I want Pastor Labberton to perform Gabriel’s baptism. He has a good heart, that man. Michelle seemed so happy when he held her. Do you remember?”
He nodded. Of course, he did. He remembered the jealousy he felt seeing her eyes alight and the small upward creases at the corners of her mouth when she passed into the pastor’s care. Only hindsight had revealed the truth: that Michelle had already been taken over and her so-called smile was nothing more than the smug elation of an ancient thing, gloating over the corruption of his daughter.
Orson thought about how Gabriel would react to his own baptism and whether it would be much the same as Michelle’s. He found himself staring at his son lying in the baby chair, a plastic set of keys and a truck dangling from a bar above his face. The irony of that empty truck cab wasn’t lost on Orson—and neither was Gabriel’s behavior.
Every so often, Orson caught a glimpse of Gabriel’s eyelids dragging open, watching them with a face full of knowing. But the moment Gabriel noticed he was being watched, his eyes snapped shut and he gave a gurgled-sigh, as if he’d just eased into a peaceful rest. A small part of Orson still wanted to believe it was true, no matter how sad and wearying the act of hoping had become.
We’ve finally made a family and nothing can go wrong.
But the voice of his grandmother broke through the shell of his optimism, reminding him of lessons he had learned, decisions he had made and the repercussions that—even after all these years—still festered like open wounds inside him.
“You’ve seen the signs. There’s no mistake,” his grandmother had said.
“I can’t,” Orson had said, pacing the living room of his house, smearing tears against his eyes and cheeks with hard pressing fists. “Not my—”
“Vessel?”
“Daughter!” he shouted, near snarling.
“Don’t be fooled, Orson. That’s what they want you to think, but you know better.”
He charged at his grandmother and leaned in close, spitting rage into her face. “Are you even listening to what you’re saying? You’re crazy! She’s just a baby!”
“Because it’s from your loins? Because it bears a likeness to you and Martha, it can’t be something evil? If it had slithered from the shadows of your closet, you would have called it monster. If it had dug its way out from the cold dead earth, you would have called it demon. But no, its darkness was the womb, its portal the birth canal and so you call it, simply, baby.”
Michelle screamed in the nursery and he heard it as a cry of torment. Michelle had never once felt anything like safe in his arms, but he had to try to comfort her. Despite what his grandmother believed had grown inside her, she was still his daughter, his baby girl.
His grandmother placed a hand against his chest.
“Get out of my way,” he said.
She tensed, a frown wrinkling her face like the crevices of a sandstone hillside. “Think, Orson! There’s more at stake than that vessel’s life.”
“I’ve had enough of this, enough of your stories, enough of your bullshit! Get out of my—”
“Daddy?”
Orson and his grandmother turned to face the throbbing darkness of the hallway.
“Daddy, where are you? I’m scared. I need you.”
The voice was a candy-coated thing, the high-pitched sound of helium seeping out of virgin lungs. Orson had imagined Michelle would sound that way someday, when she’d matured and grown and added at least a half a decade more to the fragment of her life. But not now, not at a month. He stared at his grandmother, his face empty of emotions save the tears of anguish clouding his eyes.
“I’ll go,” she said, patting his shoulder. “I can see this is too much for you. Let the burden fall on me.”
He nodded and closed his eyes, thinking about Martha. They’d sent her off, unaware, on a weekend getaway with her friends at a local spa resort. She left as a mother and a loving wife, but what would she be upon her return? He couldn’t even fathom, didn’t want to. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Grandma. Try to save her. Please.”
His grandmother had scowled, made as if to speak, but shook her head.
“If I can, I will,” she’d said.
Martha’s voice lifted Orson out from all those tainted memories and he took in a great big burst of air when he realized he’d been holding his breath.
“That’s it? Finished already little guy?” she said.
Gabriel grunted as he loosened from her nipple. He’d had his fill for now, but how much longer until that milk no longer satisfied, and the empty space inside him filled with the same evil that took Michelle? Orson wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t let that happen. For Martha’s sake, he had to act before it was too late.
***
Martha succumbed to sleep the moment she laid her head down on her pillow. Orson lay in bed beside her, bursting with nervous energy that made his stomach churn and his body shake. He whispered prayers inside his head—Let me be right. Dear God in Heaven, don’t let me do this unless I’m right—while he waited. Two grueling hours passed, slow as lifetimes, before he could convince himself it was safe enough to rise.
He went first into the kitchen to retrieve the weapon he’d prepared. Experience had taught him a simple blade of steel could kill them; one solid blow through the heart or brain to sever all connections. He chose the chef’s knife from before. It had a good heft and the edge was razor sharp, something he’d maintained ever since Michelle’s death.
He entered the nursery next. This time no pipes knocked, the multicolored nightlight cover cast a bland and basic light, and even the darkness remained inert, not living things but shadows. Gabriel lay inside the crib, docile on his blankets, his lips forming a kiss. Orson crushed the handle of the knife in both hands.
“I have to,” he said, short of a whisper, too low to the let the world, or even his own ears, judge the worth of it.
He raised the knife high, tasting blood from the part of his cheek caught between his clenched teeth, and then . . . He let his arms slacken at his sides. In that meager light, Gabriel could have been a statue or a doll for all the innocence he exuded. He could have even been a newborn baby, a son. There was nothing ruthless in Orson now, so he went back to those memories of Michelle’s last night.
His grandmother had left him in the living room alone. A quiet enfolded him, magnifying the gentle bumps and scuffles from the nursery. There came a bestial shriek, a squeal of pure madness, and a sound like boards being torn up from the flooring echoed through the house. The noise prickled against his skin and ears and his heart throbbed in sympathetic agony.
“No, wait!” he yelled, scrambling for the nursery as if fire were licking at his heels.
He meant to stop his grandmother from doing Michelle any more harm, hoping there was still a chance to save his daughter. But when he entered the nursery, he dropped to his knees, staring in disbelief. The world shattered into tiny fragments, save for one diminutive form, one revolting silhouette stitched together from every repellent thing of a parent’s greatest nightmares: his Michelle, his baby daughter, twisted, corrupted—by that thing inhabiting her body—into a mockery of infanthood.
Beneath Michelle lay his grandmother with her neck snapped, her clothes torn, arms and legs bent in all the wrong directions. In a flurry of confusion and fear, he snatched up his grandmother’s knife and threw himself at Michelle. She toppled over, landed on the carpet. As the knife rose and fell over and over again, she didn’t even pretend to feel the pain. She opened her bleeding mouth into a gaping hole and laughed—high pitched, throaty cackles that made her head buck upon the limp wire of her neck. She’d given Orson one last gummy smile before the life snuffed from her eyes.
We’ve finally made a family and nothing can go wrong.
The words stung his mind, made a riot of his thoughts, and his body shook as if he’d taken hold of a live electric wire. Maybe Gabriel wasn’t touched by them. Maybe Gabriel was just a baby, an innocent, but for
the sake of his promise to Martha he couldn’t take that risk. For her, he’d become a monster again. For her, he’d take the burden on himself and make the same impossible decision he’d made back then.
“Goodbye, Gabriel. I love you, and I’m sorry,” he said, and he knew he meant every word.
He turned his head, closed his eyes as the knife performed its obscene task. When the deed was done, Gabriel’s screams fell silent and his body drifted into stillness. Orson dropped the knife, crossed the hall to the bathroom and cleaned his hands off in the sink. Then, in his bedroom, he crawled into bed beside Martha and draped an arm around her.
When morning came, he would tell her about Gabriel. He’d also tell her about what had really happened with Michelle: how she had murdered his grandmother; how no one had kidnapped her like he’d sworn; and how he’d buried her in a trash bag stuffed with blankets and dropped her off at the local landfill before Martha returned from her spa vacation. This time there would be no deception. It would break Martha, but she deserved to know the truth. He’d let her decide what to think and then move on from there.
But for now, this one last night, he’d let her smile and sleep in the comfort of what ifs. Where she could dream of a happy, brighter future. Where their family was still safe, alive and whole. Where babies were just babies and parents their protectors, and nothing—nothing—would ever go wrong again.
IN THE FAMILY
LUCY A. SNYDER
Hi, come in, come in . . . it’s so good to finally meet you! Christy has told me so much about you. She just texted me—she got stuck in traffic on the 101, but she’ll be here as soon as she can. And then we can all head out to dinner. Would you like something to drink? Looks like my sister made some lemonade . . . and there’s a pitcher of sangria if that’s more your speed. Sorry, looks like she’s out of bottled water, but there’s tap? It’s an older house, and sometimes the pipes are a little funky.
All right, lemonade it is!
I can tell you some of the family stories about Christy, if you like. She thought she’d never find you, but thank god we have all these great genetics databases now, right? It’s so much easier to reconnect with lost family. We can make up for all that lost time!
No, I had no idea you existed, not until Christy told me a few months ago. You’d think she’d have let her own twin sister know about her pregnancy, wouldn’t you? But that was a rough time for her, and we hadn’t been close for a few years. We were close when we were little kids, but Ferndale Family Files drove a bit of a wedge, I’m afraid.
Oh, you hadn’t heard that story? My sister started acting before I did. She loved television, and when she saw a casting call for eight-year-old girls for a new sitcom, she begged my mom to let her go. And so she prepared a monologue—I helped her practice it—and even practiced her singing and dancing, just in case. Her excitement about the whole thing was pretty contagious. But she came down with a stomach bug the day before the auditions, and there was no way she could go. And just on impulse, I asked our mom if I could go to the tryout instead. I knew her monologue just about as well as she did, and why not?
I killed it; they cast me as Sally Ferndale, and the rest is history! But unfortunately, Christy . . . didn’t deal with the situation very well. To say that she was upset that I got to star in a sitcom and she didn’t . . . that’s a huge understatement. She was inconsolably angry for a long time. Outraged, really. It was just the worst injustice in her mind.
We all figured she’d get over it, and she did seem to calm down after a bit, but our relationship was never the same. She harbored a grudge for a very long time, even if she wouldn’t admit to it. Couldn’t admit to it. Our mother didn’t approve of grudges, especially not for girls. Sugar and spice and all that, right?
Sometimes I think everything would have been better if they’d just put the two of us in a boxing ring and let Christy really give it to me. Just get all that resentment and bitterness out of her system, you know? Men seem to be able to do that kind of thing—be violent and move on.
No, I didn’t know about what Larry Flaxman was doing when I was on the show. I did know my costar, Jennifer Cairns—she played the middle sister—started acting strangely midway through the first season. And, in hindsight, he was clearly paying inappropriate attention to her. I guess the adults who saw it happening were quick to pretend it was all innocent because he seemed like such a great guy. It seemed like we were all one big happy family, onscreen and off.
And, after all, he was the star. He was the one punching everybody’s meal ticket. But I believe her story, and the other girls’ stories. One hundred percent, no question.
Me? No, I was too young for him. People call him a pedophile, but that’s not exactly the right term. Hebephile? Yes, that sounds right. He went after girls who were thirteen or fourteen . . . the show didn’t run long enough for me to enter his window of attraction.
Looking back, I have no doubt he was a predator, precisely because he seemed like such a great guy. That’s how they operate: they accumulate social capital and plausible deniability. They build sympathy. If you’re Prince Charming to 95% of the people 95% of the time, nobody believes that 5% when you drop the mask and show who you really are. It takes a great actor to pull that off. Think about it—he had to pretend to be two completely different people for years, 24/7. As awful as he is, I can admire his artistry. He taught me so much about the craft of performing and how to survive in this wolf-eat-dog business.
But that’s not part of your mother’s story, is it? Well, our mom saw how upset she was and encouraged me to keep an eye out for gigs for her. But she got her own agent and landed a modeling deal—which ironically was the thing I’d wanted to do when we were little. So I don’t know if her becoming a model was just the universe having a sense of humor or if she deliberately took that opportunity over others out of spite.
Modeling was fine until she reached her mid-teens. Larry wasn’t the only predator around, not by a long shot. She was like this perfect, luscious canapé to half the people she met. They just wanted to eat her up. And she loved all that attention. There were parties, and drugs . . . she ended up in a relationship with a guy in his twenties. Brock Thurman. Mom and Dad did not approve, not at all, and they tried to get her clear of that, but Brock was incredibly charismatic and had Christy snowed. And we heard a rumor he was part of some cult somewhere. Anyhow, Christy turned sixteen and sued for emancipation, and got it, and she disappeared off the map for three years. That’s when she had you, and then gave you up for adoption.
Yes, we figure that Brock was your biological father, but it’s hard to be sure. We never knew a lot about him. I only met him one time. He was good-looking, for sure. Gorgeous brown eyes and thick lashes, like yours. His father was a record exec, I think? He had plenty of money, but no steady job that we could see. Had some bit parts in shows and did a little modeling himself—I’m pretty sure that’s how they met. I heard a rumor his father cut off his money and so they got sucked into doing porno movies, but I don’t know about that. Frankly, I don’t want to know.
Anyhow, she showed back up when she was nineteen, completely penitent about having left, but she didn’t want to talk about where she’d been the previous three years. Mom helped her get her GED and enroll at Los Angeles City College. For a while, it seemed like it would be a fresh start all the way around. I thought she and I could go back to being sisters like we had been before the show wrecked our relationship.
But she still held a grudge. I guess, somewhere along the line, she got it in her head that I deliberately made her sick so she couldn’t audition. She thought I had gotten her to eat a sandwich with spoiled lunchmeat on it. Someone—Brock, maybe, but who knows?—had convinced her that I was this pre-teen Machiavellian mastermind ruining her dreams of TV stardom. Silly, right? I can’t plan anything more complicated than dinner.
Oh, I wouldn’t say that—“crazy” is a really strong word. I think she had been through an emotional meat
grinder, and she’d been around a lot of drugs and people who preyed on all her insecurities to keep her under their control. I think they made me into the source of all her troubles to keep her from thinking about what they were doing to her, you know?
Hollywood is full of people who aren’t crazy . . . but they have crazy ideas. For instance, Mrs. Capaldi, who was our studio teacher when I was working on the show. Now, she was a great, great lady, and she loved all of us like we were her own kids. But she’d read all these articles about how dairy products are bad, which they definitely are if you’re allergic to them like I am now. At the time, I was not, but she was all, “No milk for you!” She had us drink soy milk instead when we were on set. Soy milk every day. I’m sure I drank a gallon of it every week. And that was fine, for a while, but then I started getting headaches, and one day I broke out in these godawful itchy hives.
Mom took me to the doctor, and the doctor said I’d developed an allergy to soy. He warned it could get a whole lot worse and become this life-threatening thing. So I obviously quit drinking soy milk and carefully avoided anything with soy in it.
Christy knew all about my allergy. And she was still convinced I’d made her sick, and she still wanted to get back at me.
Now, let me pause for a sec. Christy and I had a long conversation about all of this, and she and I are cool now. Cool about everything. She’s made it all up to me. So I’m not telling you this to make you think poorly of your mother. But you’re part of the family now, and these are family stories I think you should know, okay?
Okay, good, I’m glad you understand.
So, there was a 4th of July barbecue, hosted by a guy named Greg who we both liked and wanted to go out with. Christy brought a seven-bean salad . . . and she made it with edamame, and didn’t tell me. I’m pretty sure she just wanted me to break out in hives so I’d have to go home and she’d get Greg all to herself.
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