Does she? Does she know that I just lost my husband, the love of my life? I don't even know if my dad knows what my life has been like for the past few years. She must only know what my father has told her—that I'm a crazy nutcase who can't keep her feet planted on this earth.
"You know that my daddy died?" Sammy interrupts the awkwardness.
My dad walks over to Sammy and kneels in front of him. "What are you talking about, little buddy?"
"Don't you know that my daddy just died?" he asks.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
CAN’T COMPARE APPLES TO ORANGES
"CHLOE?" My dad waves his hand in front of my face, attempting to snap me out of my daze. "What is Sammy talking about?"
I don't know if I want to tell him. Will he even believe me? He has to. He has to believe me when I tell him where Sammy came from. I’m not sure how to explain it. I turn my hand over and look at the ring Alex placed on my finger. It’s still with me. It’s part of my heart too. I wiggle it around with my other hand and reveal the indent the ring leaves behind—the indent that represents the memories we made. I feel the pain creeping up from my stomach and twisting around my intestines. My throat tightens around my esophagus and I try to speak, but I can barely breathe. I don’t want to explain this, especially to someone who has never really cared to believe me? Will he care?
"Dad. I married Alex five years ago. Well, it will be five years next Wednesday, actually. We never did make plans for this anniversary, and now I know why." My mind begins to trail off in a different direction. What's the point of our anniversary if he isn't here to celebrate? We will forever have only been married for four years, yet we're soul mates. That doesn't make sense to me. My eyes refocus on my dad's concerned grimace. "Anyway, he had the same condition that I have. We understood each other, and that was all either of us needed. A year after we got married, we had Sammy. Alex was an amazing father to him. He taught him how to use his condition to the best of his ability, when to use it and when not to. He accepted him for being different and made sure he knew how special he was to be different." My words strike my dad like a knife. I can see the pain in his eyes. But it isn't pain from understanding my heartache. It's the pain from knowing that I was married to a man that was ten times better of a father in only four years, than he was to me my entire life.
He looks embarrassed in front of Cindy, even though she doesn't know the thoughts going through his head. She doesn't know how long he sat there and watched my mother mentally abuse me, keep me locked up like a criminal, and treat me as if I were a rabid animal. He tried to protect me from her physical wrath, but even then, he sometimes came up shorthanded. He was too scared of her, and he let her have her way with me more often than not. I wasn't worth that fight.
"Look, I can clearly see that you have some family issues you might want to work out before you begin doing this investigative work." Cindy walks toward the door, uncomfortable to be in on this conversation. "Paul, call me when she finds something." She opens the door and walks out quickly and without hesitation.
My dad places his hand on the door seconds after Cindy slams it and turns to give me a look of disappointment. "Were you trying to insinuate something, Chloe?"
"Nope. Just telling you about my life—the life you haven’t known." I shrug and walk back to the kitchen. "Look Dad, I don’t know what you expect from me right now. Let's not sit here and pretend you deserve an award for your parenting skills."
He nods his head with understanding and brushes past me into the kitchen. "Sammy, what's your favorite meal?" he asks, as he pokes his head into the refrigerator.
"You don't have to feed us. We'll be fine," I say.
"So, you'd rather eat your mother's slop? Is that what you're telling me?" he asks.
I can't help but smirk and realize that he's right. What am I thinking? "Good point. Okay, we'll stay for dinner."
He places three bowls of macaroni and cheese on the kitchen island, napkins with forks, pours three glasses of root beer, and tops off Sammy's with whipped cream and a straw.
Sammy keeps staring at me, trying to tell me something with his eyes, but I can't figure out what he's trying to say. He kicks me under the table, causing me to yelp. "What was that for?" I ask loudly. He places his hand over his forehead and nods at me, seemingly annoyed.
My dad is looking at him with an eyebrow raised, also trying to figure out what his problem is. "Chloe, why don't you start from the beginning? I want to know what has happened in your life for the past five years. Everything."
I drop my fork into my bowl, causing a clashing noise between the metal and glass, and I wrap my hand around the napkin below my palm, fisting it into a ball within my grip. "Well, let's see, where should I start?" I clear my throat. "No judgment and no are-you-crazy looks. Got it?"
"Yes, Chloe. I got it," he agrees. "Why don't you start from the part when you went missing from the hospital."
"Why do you and mother insist on calling that place a hospital? I think we're all quite aware that it's a mental institution—an asylum—one of those freaky ones from a horror movie."
He looks up at me, his eyes pulsing. "Anyway, let's hear it."
I can feel my legs becoming restless and jittery as I think of a good starting place for my story. I take a sip of my root beer and hold the glass up to my mouth longer than necessary, dragging out the silence. I can feel his eyes burning into my face, but the truth is—I don't know where to start. "The day I went missing," I curl two fingers in the air, showing air quotes around the word missing, "I was walking around the friendly white halls of the…asylum." I grin, knowing that the word is now irritating him. "When out of nowhere, Franco—you remember him, right? Or do you know him, as Tomas, James, or I don't know, Simon?" His face is quickly becoming flushed, knowing that this story might not be made up. "Well, he attacked me. Yes, that's right. He attacked me, beat me, detained me, drugged me and locked me in an abandoned cell down in the basement for almost two years." His hands begin to tremble and the noodles fling off of his fork as realization smacks him flat in the face. I stop for a minute to let him digest what I said.
His teeth grind from side to side and his eyes glaze over, staring over my head at the empty wall behind me. He drops his fork into his bowl. "Where does your—ah—husband, fall into play here? And where is Franco now?"
"Alex saved me." What else is there to really say?
"Did he save you, here in Massachusetts?" He asks carefully, probably scared if he asks the wrong question, I'll stop talking. Normally I would, but what do I have to lose now?
"He saved me both here…and in Paris, where we lived for a while." My eyes refuse to blink while staring my father in the face, waiting for his eyes to roll or a snide comment to fly out of his mouth.
"I see," he breathes.
And now we're in therapist mode.
"Here we go . . . ” I narrow my eyes at him, warning him not to start with the next set of questions that I'm sure will follow.
"I wish I could have met the man who made you happy and who obviously did a wonderful job being a dad to Sammy. Honestly, I do."
I can't tell if this is some kind of mind game, or if he's trying out sincerity. Either way, I'm done talking about this.
"We should probably get going," I say as I bring our three bowls to the sink.
"Do you want to stay here tonight and I'll take you over in the morning?" he asks.
"Whatever." I place the dishes in the dishwasher and grab the cleaner and wad of paper towels. It's not like my mother's house is going to be any better. It doesn't matter where we stay tonight. One thing is certain, I won't be sleeping, and I won't be happy.
"I'll go make up the beds," he says, looking as if I just battered him. It's no wonder my mother had her way with him. He crumbles the second someone isn't happy with him.
"Mommy, why are you being so mean to Grandpa?" Sammy asks, with a scowl spread across his lips. "He's trying to be nice to us." He shrugs.
&
nbsp; "Long story, buddy," I say, combing my fingers through his hair. "Come on, it's time for bed."
I lift him up and walk down the hall, looking in each nearly empty room until I come to the third and last room. The room has two mattresses on the ground. My father is hovering over one of them, pulling the fitted sheet over the corner.
"Will this be okay for tonight?" he asks.
Yeah, I slept on a padded floor for a few years. This will probably be okay for a night. "Yes. Thank you. Do you have any shirts I can put on Sammy since I don't have any clothes for him?"
"Yes, of course. Do you need anything?"
"I'm good, thanks."
After throwing a top sheet over the second mattress and placing a folded blanket in the middle, he walks out of the bedroom. I hear a closet door creak open in another room and he returns quickly with a large shirt.
"Thank you," I say, keeping my eyes focused on the white shirt.
"You sure I can't get you anything?" he asks again.
I shake my head. Just Alex. That's all I want.
He moves in closer to me and places his hand around the back of my head, forcing my forehead into his lips. "Love you, Chlover-Belle…even if you hate me." He pulls away and looks me straight in the eyes. "Goodnight."
Receiving any sort of compassion or love right now is a reminder of the pain caused from the last time anyone cared about me. I turn to look at the mattresses and see Sammy already sprawled out on one, taking up the entire bed with his three and a half foot tall body. I place the red and blue-checkered fleece blanket over him, the smell of mothballs and cardboard wafting from the fabric into the air.
After I get him settled, it takes less than a minute for his little eyes to close and fall asleep.
Lucky.
I slide my arms out from the sleeves of Alex's leather jacket, roll it into a ball and throw it down onto the other mattress. I kick my boots off and take the elastic out of my hair, letting it fall loosely over my back. I kneel down on the floor next to the mattress, close my eyes and say a silent prayer to Alex, begging him to help the pain go away. I roll onto the mattress, realizing it's not a mattress but rather a box-spring with a foam egg crate on top. Fantastic. I curl my legs up to my chest and cling to Alex's jacket inbetween my arms and torso, inhaling what's left of his scent. I squeeze my eyes shut, pleading for sleep, hoping for less pain, and needing more air to breathe. My chest has felt like a rubber band that's being pulled to its capacity, and every hour it seems to stretch a little farther. I'm not sure how far it can go before it snaps, but it just seems to keep stretching.
I try to visualize Alex, the way he looked, the way he smelled, the feeling of his touch, anything that might bring him back to me, even if only in my dream. But I can't dream—I can't sleep, I can't even see enough darkness to allow my imagination to pull him in.
An hour after forcefully holding my eyes closed, staring through the slit between my eyelids, my eyes pop open when I realize that I left Alex's notebook on my bed in my mother's house. How could I have been so stupid? I pull myself off of the mattress, hopping up and down as I pull on each boot. I have to go get it. If she finds it, I'm done.
I look over at Sammy, debating if I should wake him or leave him here with my dad. I'll leave my dad a note in case he wakes up, but Sammy's safer here than at my mother's house. I grab the jacket from the box-spring and shove my arms through the overly long sleeves that I can't pull my hands all the way through. I turn to look at Sammy once more, still wondering if I'm making the right decision. But I know it's not a good idea to take him with me or wake him this late at night. I'll only be gone for an hour, tops. He'll never even know. I wrap my arms tightly around my body and blow a kiss toward him, whispering, “I love you.”
I'm careful to glide my feet across the floor in an attempt to avoid any wood creaking, but the scuffling of my shoes makes a louder noise than the floors complying with my weight. I tiptoe across the living room and over to the kitchen where I see a notepad and a pen. I jot down a few words, telling my dad I'll be back in an hour. I'll let him figure out that I borrowed his car after I've gotten back.
I make my way over to the front door and carefully guide his keys off of the nail protruding from the wall. I slide the chain lock inbetween both pieces of metal, and wrap my hand around the cold doorknob, slowly turning it to the right until I see the doorjam clear. I open the door just enough for my body to slide through and close it just as quietly.
I look at his keys, searching for one that looks like a front door key and I find two. I carefully attempt to place the first one seamlessly into the lock, but it stops at the first nub of the key. I move onto the second one and it slides right into place. I turn the key until I see the lock seal in the door.
I look to the left and then right, unsure of which way the elevator is. I can't remember how we came up. I see a window at the end of the hall on the right, so I'll take my chances with that direction. I get to the end of the hall without seeing an elevator, but I see an exit sign with a picture of stairs. I push the door open and wish I knew how many floors we came up when we got here.
I make my way down the first set of stairs, and I see a sign that says Level Nine. Great, only eight more flights to go. I spiral down the staircase, careful not to lose my footing. My eyes are heavy and exhaustion is beginning to catch up to me. I haven't slept, and I have no clue how I'm even awake right now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
BREAKING AND ENTERING
I STILL REMEMBER the first time Sammy showed me what he was capable of. “Watch me,” Sammy said with a giggle. His face went blank. His eyes were wide and not blinking. I waved my hand in front of his eyes. But he wasn’t in there. We were sitting in Charlie’s kitchen eating breakfast, and my two-year-old thought it was a good time to try out his drifting abilities. I felt my stomach sink. I couldn’t figure out how a two-year-old could understand what he was capable of. What if he couldn’t get back? Where was he going? I swallowed hard and my chest tightened. It’s been thirty seconds. My knee started bouncing up and down and I was drumming my fingers on the table. “Okay, Sammy. Time to come back,” I said to his zombie-like eyes.
After a long minute of torture, his eyes blinked a couple of times, and a smile grew across his freckly cheeks. “Daddy say hi,” he said with a giggle.
I remember falling off of my chair and onto my knees. I wrapped my arms around his tiny legs. “Sammy, you saw Daddy?” He nodded fervently and smiled. “Do you want to go back with Mommy and see Daddy again?” He bounced his head up and down with excitement flashing through his blue eyes.
We could all live together in a drift—a dream. That’s what it was. Our perfect family was a dream.
***
I press the silver push bar on the cold metal door and thankfully see the revolving door I remember coming in through. The lobby of his apartment smells like potpourri—it's kind of nauseating, but I suppose it matches the decor of green carpet with a repeating pattern of red roses and golden vines.
After walking through the revolving door, wishing it weren't so heavy, or that it would just move faster, I'm whacked in the face with November's bitter cold winds, which quickly pushes me into full alert. I look around the parking lot for my dad's green Volvo sedan, clicking the lock button, hoping for a beeping noise to follow. I see a set of lights flashing in the distance. I head toward the car, wrapping my arms tighter around my body to keep the warmth that's escaping from the gaping openings in Alex's extra large jacket.
I sweep my hand over the car door, searching for the handle in the darkness. My hand glides over the metal and I grip my fingers under the handle, pulling up until the door pops open. The car smells the same as it did earlier, like a musky cologne. My dad never wore cologne before, so it's weird. I drag the key across the side of the steering wheel until I find the hole for the ignition. I only have to turn the key slightly before I hear the soft engine start up. I adjust the mirrors, bring the seatbelt across my chest and fl
ick the headlights on.
I just have to get to Route 9, and I'll be able to find my way to my mother’s. I should have been paying more attention when we were driving here, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Due to the roundabout way we had to get here to lose my mother who was following us, I lost track of where we were even going. Thankfully, after we passed a cop and went through a yellow light, we lost her.
Whatever the case is, I need focus. I would never be allowed to drive in this state—not with my records proving my condition. If I drifted while driving a car, it's safe to say I wouldn't make it out alive. Knowing that leaving Sammy isn't an option, I need to keep my eyes plastered on the road and my mind where it is. Although, I haven’t drifted since Alex died. It’s like there’s no pull—nothing better than what’s here in the real world.
After taking a few wrong turns, I see a bunch of streetlights up ahead. I can smell the hamburger grease fumes pouring out of Burger King's chimney, letting me know exactly where I am. I'm only about ten minutes from my mother's house. With my mind set back on the notebook, my heart pounds against my chest, and my apprehension grows. I have no idea how I'm going to break into the house, retrieve my notebook from my upstairs bedroom, and get back out to the car without her knowing I’m there. I don't even know if it's possible.
Approaching the driveway in a few yards, I shut off the headlights and pop the shifter into neutral. I can’t make any noise. I’ve seen this done in the movies. I laugh when it works.
I slip out of the car, leaving the door partially open. I’m kind of good at sneaking around, but she's similar to a dog who’s tail will start wagging from the slightest scent or noise.
I scan my eyes around the outside of the house, determining the best and safest entryway. My focus locks on the pine tree next to my window. What are the odds that my window is unlocked? I know I never locked it, but I'm sure she has. I guess it's my only hope right now.
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