Force

by A.R. Rivera

  Part of me worried that, despite Eli’s assurance to the contrary, Daemon might have beaten me here, but the lack of mess and personal items, well it just looks like they left in a hurry.

  Last time I was here, the house was empty, too. Everyone was gone at the hospital, making burial arrangements for Carrie when I left my mother a note inside her writing case. It was the one thing I knew she’d take to the loony bin. But that writing case is still on the high shelf over the incomplete set of Funk and Wagnall Encyclopedias. We had A through K and P.

  Gripping the smooth, dark box, the lid slides back easily to reveal the note I left for her, that she apparently never found. This plucks at me, prickles the skin on my arms.

  Reopening my note, I read through the short plea and one, very significant detail surfaces over the fog in my brain: this was not the only note I left that day.

  My father used to keep important papers next to his underwear so back inside my parents’ room so I pull out each dresser drawer. Most are empty.

  Damn.

  Checking every panel, scouring every surface for a clue. When the bottom drawer comes up empty, I’m out of ideas and patience. The drawer sails into the stripped bed and bounces, smacking the drywall. I stare at the v-shaped dent and think.

  Everything but the shooting is still fuzzy. I wrote something about going somewhere. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was leaving a note that might send my father to some place I’ve never been. A place he was sure I’d been once before.

  Where was it he thought he knew me from?

  Out back, all the switches inside the fuse box are in the ‘on’ position, but the main power’s been shut off. I flip it up and walk back into a lighted house. While waiting for the heater to warm me up, I bundle up in my sweatshirt and try to piece together the last hours I spent here.

  Outside the living room window, a small bird sits alone on a wire, singing and ruffling his feathers. No flock in sight. Just him, in the dead of winter.

  More out of habit than anything, I take my smoke on the driveway, staring at the high brick wall that marks the end of the dead end street.

  The time I spent here was precious and tragic. Is it possible that the time I spent with them altered their future? Has everything gone all “Doc Brown” and there’s some strange alternate timeline or has my little sisters’ final resting place simply changed?

  My dad could’ve decided to have her moved when we moved. Maybe. But that doesn’t explain the house full of furniture. When we left, it was a full year later. And we put everything in storage—minus the crap in the garage.

  My mother’s writing box is still here. Does that mean she isn’t a deserter? Did she change her mind and take everyone with her instead?

  Seeming so devoted and demure, my mother called me by my proper name the last time we spoke. I was standing very near the place I am now, on the driveway. We talked as she held her giant key ring.

  Bits of conversation dribble back as I stomp out my cigarette.

  My mother looked puzzled when I asked about her ‘I love New York’ key chain.

  “Isn’t that where you two met... Crosby Street, the apartment over the bakery?”

  That’s it.

  The note I left for my dad.

  I told him to go back to the place where he was before.

  “New York.”