Tales from The Lake 5

by Tales from The Lake

  And her Alex deserves all the special time he can get. By now he must realize his father isn’t coming back, though she isn’t sure if he knows it’s forever. She’s not said the words to him yet, she’s not voiced that his father is D.E.A.D. She hasn’t really said them to herself, either. Joel was only thirty-three for God’s sake . . . She had never known any other healthy thirty-three-year-olds who had heart attacks. But Joel did. One minute he was eating breakfast, the next, falling from his chair to the floor.

  Alex had laughed: silly Daddy.

  The funeral was small and quick. Alex stayed with his babysitter.

  Corrinne shivers. She hadn’t worn a coat and hadn’t made Alex wear one either. Time to go home, the last place on earth she wants to be. Alex’s wandering has led him out of her sight. “Alex, sweetheart,” she calls out. “Let’s go home, now.” She scans the shadowed areas beneath the playground equipment for him, watches for his tiny shape to emerge, smiling, and when it doesn’t she grows much colder. “Ready to watch Paw Patrol?” As if in reply, the wind shrills in her ear. She walks further into the playground. “Don’t play games, Alex. It’s cold, and I’m in no mood.”

  He’s not on or beneath the slide, not huddled under the monkey bars, not hidden within the giant tractor tire. To her left, a swing groans back and forth.

  “Alex, this isn’t funny. Come out this instant or you’re in big trouble!”

  The playground is bordered on one end by the road, which Corrinne is certain Alex wouldn’t have crossed without her noticing, and on the other end by a sprawl of trees that lead to a small neighborhood. If Alex wandered in there he couldn’t possibly be too far into them yet, could he?

  She steps through the park and into the trees, calling Alex’s name softly at first, with hints of laughter, because of course it’s all a big joke and he’s so funny to think of such a funny game, and he needs to know if he gives it up now that no, he wouldn’t actually be in trouble at all. But, before long, her calls grow louder and more frantic. The woods seem to swell around her. She sees a row of porch lights through the trees switch on, timed for sunset, and realizes she has crossed nearly to the other end of the small patch of trees and there is still no sign of her son.

  Except, now, in the sparse light passing between the trunks, she sees the bottom of a tiny shoe a few short yards away, turned up as if its owner has fallen onto his back. There’s a dead moist maple leaf stuck to it. She raises a trembling hand to her mouth. “Alex, baby?”

  “Mommy?”

  She spins at the sound of Alex’s voice, and there he is, thank God, standing between two thin trees, wobbling as if drunk. The woods focus around her, her mind clears, and she races to him, scratching her leg on a pricker bush. Warm blood slides down her shin and soaks into her sock. She falls to her knees and embraces him, squeezing.

  “Mommy, don’t cry,” he says into her hair.

  She releases him and leans back, wiping at her eyes. “I’m not, dear,” she says, smiling. “Not really.” And the way he stares at her as if nothing is wrong makes her want to scream at him, to shake him and tell him to never ever walk off on Mommy like that again. But she can’t bear to discipline him, not now when she’s just so happy he’s okay. She rubs his cheek with her thumb, knocks bits of caked dirt to the ground. “Alex,” she says. “Why are you so dirty?” His clothes, she notices, are also covered in dirt and mud.

  He shrugs innocently, with the distracted disinterest of a four-year-old.

  “Did you fall?”

  “I d’know,” he says. “Can we go home now and watch Paw Patrol?”

  Corrinne hugs him again, kisses his dirty cheek, and the boy hugs her back.

  And that’s what goes through her mind when he hugs her. The boy. In her delirious relief it doesn’t register then, but will soon, before she even reaches her front porch not ten minutes from the playground, his small hand curled within her palm. This boy’s hand.

  As she unlocks the front door and steps into the house, her breath hitched in her throat, she knows with chilled certainty the boy she’s taken home is not her son.

  ***

  She watches him from her chair opposite the couch where he sits watching television, and studies his slack face as he zones out to the various adventures on the screen. Eventually, as usual, he slumps to the side and falls asleep, the glow of the television flickering his shadow up the back of the couch like a shroud. All of this is familiar, she thinks. I must be over tired. That’s all there is to it.

  She scoops him into her arms and his head lolls into the crook of her arm, finds comfort against her breast. It’s been years since Alex fed from her breasts, but still, at moments like this, she’s reminded of how much she truly loved that time in his life. Looking down at the sleeping face in her arms, those memories feel wrong, almost tainted by the child in her arms. It takes effort not to let him fall to the floor. His eyes open briefly, slate blue and sleepy, and his lips smack. Everything seems right. This boy seems so much like her son.

  This boy.

  She lays him gently into his bed, and when she steps slowly from the room her hands are shaking.

  Sleep eludes her. For most of the night she’s unable to quell visions of her son, her real son, lying helpless and alone back in the woods.

  At some unknown hour, and by the gauzy moonlight filtering through her curtains, she looks to the photograph of Joel that sits atop her dresser. It’s of all three of them at the peach-picking farm in Parkville, smiling, happy, together. Her tears soak into her pillowcase and hair. “What’s wrong with me?” she whispers to the blurry photograph.

  ***

  She oversleeps, waking half an hour late to the screech of her cell phone’s alarm clock and realizing she’s heard it for some time now as a bizarre background noise within her dream. In the dream, she was walking through the trees beyond the playground, only they were miles deep now and there was no sign of the neighborhood. As she walked, a mist rose along the surface of the earth, thick and cliché and straight from every B-horror flick she’s ever seen. “Alex,” she cried. In her hand was the shoe she’d seen when Alex had gone missing. “I have your shoe!” This went on for an indiscernible amount of time, all the while the alarm buzzed in the distance, as if it were the sound of a plane overhead; there, but not. Happening, but unimportant.

  She grabs the phone and taps away the alarm. The room falls silent. She hears the television in the living room, one of Alex’s shows. It’s far too loud for 6:00 a.m. Corrinne slides from the bed and tosses on an old t-shirt with holes along the hem, one of Joel’s, before venturing first to the bathroom and then to the living room where she finds the boy before the television, fully absorbed and seemingly unaware that she’s there.

  “You’re up early, sweetheart,” she says. She tries to sound casual, not at all bothered by the boy on the couch. She sweeps from the living room into the kitchen and begins making coffee. From the kitchen, she repeats herself, louder. “You’re up early, sweetheart.”

  “Shh, Mom,” he says. “I’m watching TV.”

  “I see that,” she says. “Well, it’s time to shut it off and eat some breakfast before I take you to Mrs. Shirley’s.” Mrs. Shirley has been Alex’s daycare provider since he was ten weeks old. Corrinne intends to pay close attention to Mrs. Shirley when the boy is dropped off, to keep a watch for any concern or confusion from the woman upon seeing him. If there’s anyone else who knows her son as well as Corrinne does, it’s Mrs. Shirley.

  “It’s okay,” says the boy. “I ate already.”

  As the words are leaving his lips, Corrinne notices the cereal bowl in the sink, a dry circle of milk at the bottom.

  “Alex,” she scolds, and the name feels strange coming from her mouth. She looks at the boy and finds him sitting there happily, kicking his feet this way and that. “How did you get a bowl down? Did you climb the counters? What have I told you about climbing around in here? You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

&nbs
p; “I didn’t climb, Mom,” he says. “I was hungry and you were asleep. I took a chair from in there and got a bowl down.” He wriggles his head around. “And see? My neck’s not broke.”

  He isn’t being snotty, at least on purpose, but the way he speaks only furthers Corrinne’s belief that he is nothing short of an interloper in her home, even if she does appreciate in some small way his making one item on her morning list a bit easier. The boy is trying too hard, she thinks. He’s giving himself away. “That’s all well and good, dear, but you still need to be dressed so we can take you to Mrs. Shirley’s. Shut the television off, now, and pick out some clothes. If you’re big enough to handle your own breakfast without Mommy’s help, I expect you can pick a matching outfit.”

  “But, Mom—”

  “This instant.”

  He huffs, almost just for show, before slumping from the couch and back to Alex’s room. His socks scuff angry whispers along the hardwood floor. The television is still on. Corrinne shuts it off and returns to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee before stepping out through the sliding door in the dining room to the back deck. She reaches into the sconce covering one of the outdoor lights and removes one of several hidden cigarette packs. She takes out a cigarette and the lighter she’d shoved into the pack, lights up, and inhales deep and slow. Smoke whips from her mouth in the cool morning breeze, and it tastes good. She feels the weight of withdrawal lessen ever so slightly, and is even greeted with a slight buzz in her head. She hears from the window further along the house the sounds of the boy opening and closing the dresser drawers in his room.

  Before she’s half through with the cigarette, having yet to take a sip of coffee, she’s startled by the sound of the television bursting back to life. She looks over her shoulder and through the glass door into the living room. There’s the boy, Alex, sitting on the couch, and to her surprise he’s dressed quite well, tan shorts and a pink and blue plaid shirt. He’s watching the television as he distractedly ties his shoes. He’s chosen the same shoes from her dream, one of three pairs Alex owns.

  ***

  She arrives at Mrs. Shirley’s just as four other parents do and walks hand in hand with the boy in a sort of parent/child parade, everyone squeezing into the house one after the other, exchanging bits of small talk in an unwanted and impromptu social event. Corrinne doesn’t know the name of a single one of these other parents, or children for that matter, and so while the rest of the adults chat amongst themselves (“Oh, your son is getting so big. How is work? And your husband? Your wife? That’s just wonderful.”) she leads the boy over to Mrs. Shirley where she’s currently standing near her fireplace, noting the arrival of the children in a black moleskin daybook.

  The daycare is run entirely in Mrs. Shirley’s basement, and the children never leave it except on small excursions to museums or the zoo, or to go out into the grassy back yard to play. Corrinne has always felt the basement was like a second home for her son. Above the fireplace where Mrs. Shirley is taking down names there is a photograph of Mrs. Shirley’s husband, below which sits the urn that carries his ashes. Corrinne has always thought the urn a touch morbid, though she does find the reverent presentation of the photograph rather nice. The man had died of a heart attack just like her Joel, though at a more reasonable age—65.

  Mrs. Shirley looks up from the daybook and cannot, it seems, help a twitch of sadness at the corner of her lips. Corrinne hopes it is it because Mrs. Shirley has noticed something odd about her son, that he is wrong in some way. But Mrs. Shirley says, “Oh, honey, you don’t seem good today at all. Are you sick?”

  “Me?” says Corrinne. “I’m fine. Just fine. I didn’t sleep well. And this one has been up since sunrise.”

  Mrs. Shirley bends down and looks the boy straight in the eyes. This is when she’ll notice. This is when she’ll see. But she only smiles, big and wide and toothy. “Early riser, lately, is it?” She indicates with her head the picture of her husband, or possibly the urn. “I knew another early riser, always up before the sun. Said it was good for the mind. Go on now,” she says, and the boy waddles off to join the other recent arrivals. Mrs. Shirley straightens up and looks at Corrinne. She puts a hand on Corrinne’s shoulder. “And how are you, dear? Really?”

  She is asking about Joel. “As well as can be, you know?” says Corrinne. “You’ve been there.”

  “I have, love,” says Mrs. Shirley, and she glances at the photograph of her husband. “It never truly gets easier. You sort of, I guess, get used to it.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.”

  “Oh, now that I don’t believe. It’s early still. He’s only been gone, what?”

  “Three months.”

  “Three months. These things take time. It’s a change, is all. Things are different. But you’re strong.”

  Corrinne no longer wants to talk about Joel, even if Mrs. Shirley’s intentions are good. She glances over her shoulder at the boy. He’s sitting with another four-year-old, a girl in a beautiful paisley dress. The girl is chatting him up excitedly and the boy could not look less interested if he tried. Corrinne says, “I’m concerned about Alex.”

  Mrs. Shirley nods. “Some children don’t show their grief for a while, if ever.”

  “That’s not exactly what I mean. Does he seem . . . off to you?” She knows immediately that this line of questioning is not right. “Not himself, I mean?”

  “Not particularly, no. But let me remind you, Corrinne, that if he is sick he must stay home a minimum of twenty-four hours after he is better before I can allow him back.”

  “Of course,” says Corrinne, irritated. “I know that.” She sighs. “No, he’s not sick,” she says, then turns to leave. “Keep an eye on him, then, I guess. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “Take the day,” says Mrs. Shirley. “Call out sick, go home and rest.”

  Corrinne smiles, and it feels genuine. It’s nice to have someone suggest something for herself, even if she’s not likely to do it. She’s missed more than her share of days already, and at three months, bereavement is a hard case to sell any longer, which to her seems unfair. She’ll be in bereavement, as far as she’s concerned, the rest of her life. “I just might,” she says. “Maybe.”

  “Take care, love.”

  “I’ll see you at five.”

  ***

  Corrinne does, after all, think about what Mrs. Shirley had suggested, and rather than go into the office, where spreadsheets, small talk and tedium await her, drives home and sends a short email to her supervisor that she’s unwell and hopes to be in tomorrow. She closes her laptop and leans back on the couch. She takes in the strange aura of her home.

  It all feels different. It feels invaded.

  It’s 9:15, and the windows carve trapezoid sunspots on the carpet. On days like this in the past when she’s played hooky, she would make herself two or three additional cups of coffee and watch a movie, or two, before treating herself to lunch somewhere downtown and away from the office to avoid being caught. Or, if she’d managed to convince Joel to be bad and stay home with her, she’d spend them making love in the sunspots, loudly, with Alex far away at daycare and unable to hear or interrupt.

  Now, the thought of more coffee makes her queasy. The thought of watching a movie, taking her mind off of the problem with the boy, makes her anxious. The memories of making love make her want to cry. She peers from the couch to the dining room, to the space on the floor where Joel had fallen and remained until paramedics arrived. She’d held onto his hand, a hand she remembers as limp and sweaty and cold, and whispered into his ear little things she hoped might make whatever he was feeling, wherever he was going, easier. Things she imagined she would want to hear: I love you. I’ll miss you. Alex is a good boy, and I’ll take care of him for you. But you’re okay. You’re okay, Joel. Please, please, please don’t leave me.

  She’s been squeezing the couch pillows, digging her fingers into them. She’s crying, and now sobs loudly i
nto her palms, letting snot and spit drip down her face.

  There she remains for some time, an hour it seems to her, before her tears dry and she wipes her face with a tissue from the box on the end table. She’s made a decision. She walks with purpose to the kitchen and pours herself another cup of coffee, drinks it cold. Then she leaves the house and walks to the playground.

  ***

  Corrinne casually walks past the chain link fence and into the park, feeling odd that she is passing through without a child of her own in tow. One mother shies away from her toward the monkey bars. There is a courteous exchange of smiles between Corrinne and the mother, but it feels forced and phony. What does it matter? She doesn’t know these people. They aren’t important. She focuses forward and pushes through to the other end of the playground, to the trees.

  Everything looks different today. With full sun glimmering through the trees it feels like an entirely new place. She recognizes nothing, and, before long, she reaches the nearby neighborhood, and so heads back a ways, walking this way and that in search of anything, any sign of her real son. She’s nearly ready to give up and head home when she steps onto something stiff and rubbery. It’s a shoe, the very same one she had seen yesterday evening when she came here to search for Alex. She kneels down, dirt staining her pants, and with shaking fingers lifts the shoe up to her face.

  She lets it drop as if it carries an electric charge. Without thinking, without hesitating, she begins to dig. The earth is loose and light and comes away at her fingertips with ease. She blindly probes beneath the ground, and stops short when she makes contact with something soft, pliable. Her fingers run the length of this, and in her mind’s eye she sees Alex’s rosy cheeks. She probes further, lifts the flap of a lip. Glides across teeth. Tongue. She pulls back her hand, yelping, catching herself before she’s too loud and the others, all those other mothers out there, hear her, and before that mouth that must be so angry with her snaps shut on her fingers.