Something in the Dark

by Pamela Cowan

  “I don’t think you have much choice in that, sweetheart. I’m so sorry, and the only way I can think to help is to get you to go see Mark again. Please. For me.”

  “You are such a pain.”

  “I know. Your appointment is at 1:30. Let me know how it goes.”

  “I will,” Austin said, resignedly.

  “Great. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Austin hung up, less angry and more relieved than she’d expected. Maybe Mark could help. The sense of being mired in something beyond her ability to cope was awful. Maybe talking to him would help her put things in perspective. She decided not to call Blake. It was too early in their relationship to drag him into this kind of drama. She felt emotional and shaky. Not exactly the kind of image she wanted to project on a date.

  After calling Bunny’s parents and getting no answer Austin straightened the house, then showered and dressed for her appointment with Mark. She arrived just in time, and this time did not hesitate to open the door to 310 and step inside. In moments, Mark was ushering her into his office, and she sank into the brown recliner.

  “You had a hell of a day yesterday,” Mark said, not bothering with small talk.

  “That’s an understatement,” Austin said.

  Mark swiveled his chair so it was facing hers and sat down. They were only inches apart. She looked up into dark brown eyes, noted his furrowed brow and, for no reason she could name, began to cry. Wordlessly, he handed her the box of Kleenex he kept nearby. She smiled, a nervous twitch of her lips that held more pain than mirth, and wiped her eyes.

  She told him about finding Bunny. About the tragedy of losing someone who was so young. She talked about her anger at death and how unjust it all seemed. She even told him about her father’s death. How he had flown his Piper Cub into the side of a mountain.

  “Everyone said it was an accident. That Dad was getting old and maybe he wasn’t as sharp as he should have been. That was bullshit. The only thing wrong with Dad was missing Mom. After she died he just started to fade away. We always thought, me and my brother I mean, we always wondered if it was an accident or whether he was he just tired of being alone.”

  “He had you and your brother.”

  “Not the same. Him and Mom had something special, a connection. Maybe it was all that traveling together. New places, new people, they sort of anchored each other, you know? When Dad died he left me some money. I used it to buy the nursery and I named it after her, Grace Gardens. I think he would have liked that.”

  “I’m sure he would.”

  Later, the sound of the front office buzzer startled Austin, and when she looked at her watch she saw that nearly two hours had gone by. It was remarkable to her that she could spend so much time talking about herself.

  She stood, and Mark took her jacket from the couch, where she’d tossed it, and held it for her. As she pulled it on she fought the urge to turn and press herself into his arms. She had seen therapists before and knew that the closeness was artificial, a mock intimacy, one that helped break through a client's reserve but would not, and probably should not, survive outside of their sessions. She buttoned her coat, turned and said goodbye and thank you instead.

  When she got home she would call Blake. Obviously she needed someone. She might as well try and find out if he was that someone.

  Chapter 14

  Late Friday morning the police told Austin she could reopen the nursery. The investigation was continuing, but if she kept clear of the cordoned-off potting shed, she and her employees could return to work.

  She called both Paco and Josh and told them she planned to reopen on Tuesday and might need their help, but she didn’t want to cause them problems with their unemployment claims.

  “You signed on to do lawn maintenance, not work the nursery,” she told them. “But if you are willing to, and if I could promise you full-time work, I’d keep you on. The problem is I was about to cut Bunny’s hours, and I can only promise a few hours here and there. I think you’d be better off drawing unemployment or looking for something else to get you through the winter.”

  “I’ll hold off filing for unemployment until after you tell me you don’t need anyone,” offered Josh. “Let Paco go ahead. He’s got a family.”

  “That’s thoughtful of you,” Austin said, grateful for Josh’s attitude. She had never paid “under the table” the way many of the small local businesses were forced to. Partly because she was intimidated by the idea of getting in trouble with the state or the IRS, and partly because she wanted to prove to herself that she could make it without having to submit to those kinds of practices.

  After she hung up she decided she had to face it. She had to go to the nursery. She knew Muncie would be angry that she hadn’t waited and asked him to go with her, but she knew she felt stronger since her session with Mark. Besides, she would rather be alone to deal with whatever emotions being there might stir up.

  As she drove she thought about Josh. He lived with his parents on a sheep ranch just over the hill behind Austin’s house. She’d met his parents several times. They were in their late sixties. Josh had been a late-in-life baby. A complete surprise to the Mikkelsons, who had decided it was God’s desire that they remain childless. This did not stop them from fostering one after another of their nephews and nieces.

  Because the Mikkelson clan was, aside from Josh’s parents, extremely fertile, there were many, many cousins for Josh to grow up with. Usually, they were troubled kids, sent to the sheep ranch as a last attempt to get them to straighten out. From what Josh said, the arrangement had worked out well.

  Josh made no secret of his belief that his parents were old-fashioned and hopelessly rule-bound, but he also liked to brag that they were the most successful foster parents in the state.

  “You know,” he had told Austin once, “If they paid my folks the money the state saves on jail time for some of those dumb-ass cousins of mine, they’d be rich.”

  Austin thought it was this somewhat unusual upbringing that gave Josh the opposing sides of his nature. He had his rebellious side, the side that had him smoking cigarettes (when he knew it drove his parents crazy), and his responsible side, which made sure he was never late for work. She thought it would be interesting to see which side ended up winning; probably neither. No one is all one thing, she decided, as she cautiously pulled around and passed a truck hauling a load of logs.

  The sky was overcast, with thick gray clouds slashed and tattered by the wind. The air smelled like snow. It would be strange to return to the nursery. She wondered if the image of Bunny would always be waiting there.

  She had to unlock the front gate, swing it open, drive through and then close and lock it behind her. She parked in front of the store, climbed out, and as her gloved fingers fumbled with the key, she began to reconsider whether she should call Muncie.

  She had sort of half-promised to take him with her. He was going to be ticked off. Besides, she had to admit she felt a little nervous. Company would make her feel safer. Then she firmly dismissed the idea. If she kept calling Muncie every time she felt uncomfortable or had a bad moment, he would never leave. He belonged in Portland, working on a degree in architecture. He shouldn’t be living in a small town, barely getting by, wasting his life taking care of his little sister.

  Ever since Muncie’s break up with Debbie, Austin had worried that it was her leaving Denver that had been the cause. Sure, she had never liked Debbie but still it bothered her that Muncie and Debbie’s relationship seemed to unravel so quickly right after Austin announced her decision to move to Oregon. It had been a simple decision. She’d been accepted by the college she wanted to attend, she’d never seen Oregon, and that was that.

  She hadn’t really thought about the fact that Muncie had worried about her, lived near her, and always tried to care for her ever since the night he and his friend had accidentally locked her in a bomb shelter.

  Austin was only seven then, yet she sti
ll remembered it. Or maybe she had played that memory over so many times that what she believed and reality had nothing to do with each other. How could she be sure? Memory was a funny thing. Sometimes the sound of a shoe squeaking against a hardwood or linoleum floor would be enough to trigger it. She remembered that, the slap and squeal of sneakers and the high-pitched shouts of their young voices echoing from the basement hallway’s brick walls. In the ceiling, the long panel of fluorescent lights flickering furiously, as if in protest against the noise.

  They raced down the hall, pounding toward the finish line. Her brother and his friend, Brian in front, side by side, when suddenly Muncie tripped. Running close behind, she had fallen across her brother’s prone body in a sprawling heap.

  Without hesitation Brian leapt aside, kept running, and seconds later slapped his hands triumphantly on the steel door at the end of the hall.

  "Not fair. I stepped on my shoelace," declared Muncie, pushing Austin away impatiently and climbing to his feet.

  “Your problem," said Brian. He turned from the door, an elfish grin on his face. He was tall for his age and bone-thin, with blond, almost white hair, light green eyes, and a pointed chin.

  She pushed herself away from her brother, sliding backward on her rear until she came up against the wall, where she sat, glaring at the boys, an expression of pure contempt in her dark brown eyes. Her dress was rumpled, and one of her socks had slid down her leg to bunch around a pale ankle.

  "Yeah, well, let's do something else,” suggested her brother. “I'm bored."

  Austin had pushed sweat-dampened bangs off her forehead. "We could play hopscotch," she suggested.

  "Right, Austin." Her brother rolled his eyes. "That sounds sooo exciting."

  "So what do you want to do, if you're so smart?"

  "I don't know,” he admitted.

  "Hey, I know," suggested Brian. "Let's explore the shelter.”

  "We're not supposed to," she'd said, still hoping they might change their minds and play hopscotch. She had just learned how, and wanted to play every waking moment. Only there weren't any girls her age in the building, and since the bad weather started, she hadn't been allowed outside. Her warning had exactly the opposite effect she was hoping for. The boys had become even more enthusiastic about their plan.

  The place they wanted to explore was a bomb shelter, a cold war relic. The entrance to it was at the end of the hall. Cut into the brick wall was an opening four feet wide and six feet tall. Its threshold two feet above the floor was a perfect perch for kids.

  The thick metal door to the shelter had been tied open, ensuring that no one could get inside, close the door, and become trapped.

  Standing just outside the entrance, they could see only a few feet into the hole, just as far as the hallway’s fluorescent lights could reach. That light revealed a dirt floor strewn with empty chocolate milk cartons, candy bar wrappers, and other bits of garbage. Beyond that, nothing, only utter darkness, and whatever your imagination could create. That was what made the shelter, the big hole-in-the-wall, both scary and intriguing.

  They gathered near the shelter. Austin reached inside and smoothed a small section of the cool dirt floor, careful to avoid a cheeseburger wrapper, and absently began to sketch a tic-tac-toe grid with her finger.

  "My dad told me this is where we would go if there's a war and they send bombs at us," Muncie had said.

  "I know," Brian had agreed. "My dad said when you shut the door, lights come on, and big secret panels in the walls open up, and there's all kinds of stuff."

  "Like what?” Muncie had asked.

  "Like beds and food rations and water. Stuff like that."

  "That would be cool.” Muncie said.

  "The children looked longingly into the mysterious black hole.

  "You know," said Brian, "I bet we could shut it.”

  They moved back to examine the door. A wire, about the thickness of a coat hanger, had been looped around the door handle, passed through the eye of a large bolt in the wall a few times, and then twisted together. The door was thick—a good eight inches of heavy steel, with strong, spring-loaded hinges meant to assist in its closing. Only three slightly rusty twists of wire were keeping it open. If they could untwist those strands, the door would close.

  They couldn't reach it. They weren't tall enough. They tried jumping for it but it was too high, even for Brian, the tallest of them, to reach. Austin and her brother knelt on the floor and let Brian stand on their backs, but still he could only barely touch the wire with his fingertips.

  If there had been anything else to do, they might have given up. But with the snow, and the cold, and no school because it was Christmas break, they had little to distract them.

  "We need a ladder,” Brian said. "Let's see if we can find one.”

  The boys galloped down the hall toward the laundry room, while Austin took her hopscotch necklace out of her pocket and tossed it half-heartedly onto the linoleum. The pattern of alternating dark and light colored squares made it the perfect floor for hopscotch. She sighed heavily, scooped up her necklace, and hurried to catch up with the boys.

  The laundry room was steamy and warm from the long banks of chugging, swishing washing machines and dryers. At one of the narrow folding tables in the center aisle, two women—the children's mothers—chatted and played gin rummy. Every so often one of them would get up and move a load of laundry from washer to dryer, or fold a few pieces of clothing and place them in a basket to be hauled upstairs later.

  "Hey mom," Brian said, tugging on his mother's sleeve. "Can we use that chair?”

  He pointed to one of several chairs placed randomly around the tables.

  "What do you want it for?" she asked.

  "We need it for a game."

  "I don't think so. What if you fell off and got hurt? Your father would be upset.”

  "Fine," Brian said, in a voice that said nothing was fine. He stomped away and began to kick morosely at the cement-lined trough that held the washers.

  Austin asked her mom for a drink. She took a sip of her mother's soda and placed the bottle carefully back on the table. She did not spill or drop things hardly ever anymore. She was a big girl, just turned seven.

  Muncie, who was two years older and somewhat wiser in the ways of getting around parental restrictions, didn’t ask for permission. He simply began to scoot a small table he’d spotted just inside the laundry room, a table no one used because it was missing one of its legs, out into the hallway. No one noticed.

  Once in the hallway, the table slid easily along the waxed floor. Before Muncie had pushed it halfway to its destination, Austin and Brian had seen what he was doing and bolted down the hall to help. The table slid even faster when they all pushed.

  Once the table was in place below the shelter’s door, Brian tried to climb on top of it but it immediately tipped.

  “Whoa,” he said, grabbing the wire to steady himself.

  Austin and Muncie moved forward, pushed the table firmly against the wall and held it there.

  Brian held on to the wire with his left hand and carefully reached up with his right to try and untwist the ends. The wire was much stronger, and more tightly wound, than he had expected. It barely moved.

  "We need a knife or something flat we can stick in here," he'd told them.

  Austin let go of the table and reached into her pocket. The hopscotch chain was there, and attached to it was a set of dog tags. Her dad had them made up for her at the Post Exchange. The dog tags were thin rectangles of tin, similar to her father’s real tags, but with her name and birth date printed on them.

  "Here," she said.

  Brian leaned down and took them from her. He used the corner of one of the metal tags to chip away some of the rust and then forced the thin plate between the wires. The tag bent with the strain but he kept pushing and twisting and finally, with a thin creaking sound, the strands of wire began to part.

  "Hey, if the door closes we won't be able
to see what happens inside," observed Muncie.

  "You're right,” said Brian. “One of us has to go inside."

  "Well I can't, I'm holding the table,” said Muncie.

  They both looked at Austin. "But I don't want to," she said.

  "Why not?" asked her brother. "Don't you want to see the room with all the stuff inside? Come on. It'll be fun."

  "You do it," she said.

  "I can't. I have to hold the table or it'll fall over."

  Brian leapt down from the table. "Come on," he said. Then taunting; “What are you, a scaredy cat?”

  “No.”

  “Are too.”

  “I am not.”

  “Are too. All girls are stupid chicken scaredy cats.”

  “They are not.”

  “And billy ittle sitches, too.”

  They were suddenly silent. Billy ittle sitches. Silly little bitches, it was an expression Brian had taught Muncie. Austin knew it was a bad thing to say, every bit as bad as the “F” word. It was the kind of thing you only said to your worst enemy or when you hit your head really hard and, even then, only when there were no adults around.

  Austin wrinkled her nose and wailed. “I’m going to tell. You called me a bad word and I’m going to tell my m-mother.” She turned and began to stomp away.

  “Wait,” Brian called. “Don’t you go telling your mom. Come on, you don’t want to be a tattletale.”

  “Yeah,” said her brother. “Tattletale.”

  “I’ll play hopscotch with you,” Brian shouted.

  Austin stopped and turned around.

  “I mean it,” he promised. “I’ll play hopscotch with you. You just go in and see what’s in there and then we’ll play hopscotch. We both will, won’t we?” he asked Muncie.

  “Sure,” her brother promised, unconvincingly.

  Shaking herself free of the memory, Austin thought that it was his failed promise to open the door that kept Muncie worried about her and made him feel like he had to take care of her. Soon after his breakup with Debbie, he had shown up on her doorstep in Portland with luggage and a bag of carpenter’s tools. He said he had left his wife and didn’t want to talk about it.