Switch

by Megan Hart

  room's dimness. He reached at once to turn on the table

  lamp when I entered, but not even his smile could convince

  me nothing was wrong.

  I didn't spil the coffee, but I did set it down so hard on the

  corner of his desk that I sloshed it over the rim. I went

  around the corner of the desk and knelt in front of him as

  he turned in the swivel chair to stare at me. I reached for

  his hands before I knew it, and he took them, his fingers

  strong and warm and heavy in mine.

  "What's wrong, Paul?"

  "I can't make these figures work," he said calmly. Solemn.

  His fingers tightened briefly, a twitch.

  I squeezed back, gently. "Do you need me to take a look

  I squeezed back, gently. "Do you need me to take a look

  at them?"

  "No," he said. "I just need to sit here for a few more minutes to get them straight. Okay?"

  Whatever this was, it wasn't normal, but it didn't feel

  wrong. He trembled briefly, the twitch of his fingers

  echoing in his entire body before he stiled. I saw the effort

  in his eyes, what it took to stop himself from shaking.

  I had known since the first week I worked for him that

  Paul needed more attention than any other boss I'd ever

  had. I'd been warned, but for the wrong reasons, and we'd

  gotten along more than fine. Great. We'd made an

  understanding. I didn't know what was wrong with him

  right now, but it didn't realy matter. I had to take care of

  him.

  "Do you want me to cal your wife?"

  He blinked and sighed. His shoulders hunched. "Paige, I'm

  just so very, very…overwhelmed."

  I looked past him to the computer, where a few windows

  spread out across the screen. I stood and reached past

  him to click them al closed, one by one, until al that

  him to click them al closed, one by one, until al that

  remained was the plain blue walpaper and tiny icons of his

  desktop. Paul didn't move until I moved back to lean

  against the desk. Then he swiveled his chair away from

  me.

  In profile, he looked older than he had before. He was a

  man who wore his age in the lines of his face and his

  frown, and in his heavy sigh.

  "I just need a few minutes," he said quietly.

  "How long has this been going on?"

  He looked at me then and managed a smile. "A long time.

  My whole life."

  "Do you take meds for it?" I kept my voice soft, and if the intrusive question offended him he didn't show it.

  "Yes."

  "Aren't they working?"

  Paul sighed, but smiled a little broader. "Not today, I

  guess."

  "Can I help you?" I asked without reaching for him again,

  though I wanted to run a hand over his hair and cup his

  cheek. Something smal and soft to comfort him. The way

  my mom used to touch me when I was upset.

  "You've helped me so much, you don't even know." Paul

  took a deep, long breath and squared his shoulders. "Just

  having you here has been such a…pleasure, Paige."

  I smiled at his hesitation. "Uh-huh."

  He rumpled his hair, and some of his tension eased with

  that simple act. He took another slow breath and let it out.

  He looked at me with naked eyes. "I find, sometimes,

  knowing that you're there with my coffee is enough to

  keep me on the right track. You never balked, Paige. Not

  at anything I asked you. You never made me feel like a

  tyrant for needing things a certain way."

  "Of course not."

  He half lifted a brow. "Others did."

  "I know they did."

  We shared some silence.

  We shared some silence.

  "You realy know me, Paige," Paul said finaly. "I'l be sorry when you leave."

  This time I did reach for him, if only to give his tie a gentle

  tug. "I'm not going anywhere."

  The cough interrupted us, and we both looked toward the

  door. I didn't drop his tie, not at first. Not when I saw it

  was Vivian, her blond hair freshly styled and her brows as

  high as her heels. I let Paul's tie slide from my fingers as

  slowly as I stood.

  "I brought those files to go over, Paul." She didn't come

  into the room.

  "I thought you were going to cal me first," he said.

  She and I both looked at him. I couldn't see her face, but I

  knew my mouth had dropped a little. Paul, as a rule,

  wasn't mean. Not even close. And he'd pretty much just

  spanked her, and not in the good way. I wanted to laugh,

  but settled for a smile he returned.

  "I can come back in fifteen minutes," she said cooly.

  "Would that suit?"

  "Would that suit?"

  "How about twenty? Paige and I were in the middle of a

  meeting."

  She left without saying anything, and his shoulders tensed

  again, but he took another long, slow breath. When she'd

  gone he ran a hand over his hair again and let it cover his

  eyes for a minute. When he looked at me, though, his smile

  seemed genuine and the horrific blank look in his gaze had

  faded.

  "She's going to think we're fucking," I said in a low voice.

  It was perhaps an inappropriate thing to say, but we'd

  moved beyond the pretense of formality.

  He nodded. "She might."

  "Is this going to be a problem for you?"

  Paul didn't even look at the photos of his wife and family,

  though his mouth tightened. I wondered if I'd been wrong

  about him and Vivian. "It might be a problem for her. But

  not me, no."

  He paused. "It could make a difference when she's your

  He paused. "It could make a difference when she's your

  boss, though."

  "I already told you, I'm not applying for that job."

  I went to the bathroom to get a wet paper towel to take

  care of the coffee dripping on the desk. When I came

  back, Paul had moved the mug, contents half gone. He'd

  puled out a pad of paper and his pen rested on it, though

  he wasn't writing. I wiped the spots and tossed the paper

  in the trash, then leaned over his shoulder to look at the list

  as yet unwritten.

  "Start with your e-mail," I said. He wrote it down. "Then sort through the mail in your in-box. Take care of what

  needs done with those things."

  He wrote that down, too, and the rest of the instructions I

  gave him.

  "Send me home early," I added, and he looked up, the

  scratching of pen ceasing. "I have to be able to pick up my

  little brother from the after-school-care program every day

  this week. I'l need to leave by three, al right? I'l go

  without a lunch break and come in earlier if I have to."

  Paul slowly wrote down, Paige leaving early, and looked

  Paul slowly wrote down, Paige leaving early, and looked

  up at me again. "No, you don't have to. Just make sure

  your work's done." Another pause. "As if I need to tel

  you."

  I leaned closer, just a bit, to say in a low voice, "Write it

  down in a list for me. It wil make you feel better."

  I left the office with Paul's chuckle ringing in my ears.

  Chapter
32

  "Can we have macaroni and cheese for dinner? Please?"

  Arty clung to my hand like the monkey I'd always caled

  him, then lifted his feet off the ground, so I staggered from

  his sudden weight.

  "Cut it out." I shook him off and set down my overnight

  bag.

  The living room smeled like my mom's perfume and

  something else. Old Chinese food, maybe. I'd have to do a

  search. My mom had been known to set down a container

  or plate next to the couch while she watched TV and

  forget about it. Arty tossed his shoes, coat and book bag

  onto the floor by the front door in an amazing one-two-

  three slingshot move I wouldn't have believed possible had

  I not seen it in front of me. He was already off and running

  toward the kitchen when I caled him back.

  "Pick that stuff up!" I pointed.

  "I need a snack!"

  I happened to know they fed him at his after-school

  I happened to know they fed him at his after-school

  program, because my mom had told me how great it was

  not to worry about him being hungry when she picked him

  up. "Have a piece of fruit."

  Arty stopped in midleap, so fast he skidded on the worn

  carpet in the kitchen doorway. "Fruit?"

  "Mom doesn't make you eat fruit?"

  He made a face like I'd asked him to eat dung. "But I

  wanted a Doodle."

  I had no fucking clue what a Doodle was, but it didn't

  sound pleasant. "Fruit. Or some crackers. I'l make dinner

  in about twenty minutes, just let me get settled in."

  Arty grumped and groaned and stomped, but came back

  out in a minute with a box of cheese crackers. He hurtled

  himself into a beanbag placed close enough to the TV he

  could have read Braile on the screen, and turned on

  cartoons loud enough to make me wince. He wasn't happy

  to scoot back or turn it down, but he did. I tried to ignore

  the crumbs spewing from his mouth with each guffaw.

  I took my bag up the narrow stairs and down the dark,

  close hal to the room at the back of the house. My mom

  close hal to the room at the back of the house. My mom

  had taken the front room, overlooking the street, with a

  panel of four large windows. Arty's smaler room was

  between hers and the bathroom. The room at the end

  should've been a nice den, a sewing room, a playroom, but

  for some reason nobody in the house used it.

  There was a bed, at least, a creaking twin bed that

  matched one of the dressers I'd inherited from my

  grandma. The sheets were clean, and the bedspread, and

  my mom had laid out clean towels for me, too. I set my

  bag on the rickety, spindle-legged chair I'd never have

  dared sit on, and I colapsed onto the bed. The ceiling had

  cracks in it, and water damage. One high, narrow window

  had a blind but no curtain. That would be pleasant in the

  morning.

  "Paiiiiige! I'm hungry!"

  The wail drifted up the stairs and I heaved myself out of

  the bed to holer, "I'l be right down!"

  When I yanked the door opposite the foot of the bed,

  though, al I did was chip a nail on the knob. The door

  stayed stubbornly shut. Not the closet, then. It must have

  been the door to the attic. I tried the one next to the

  been the door to the attic. I tried the one next to the

  dresser, revealing a set of wire hangers I used to quickly

  hang my work clothes for the next couple days. Then it

  was downstairs to the kitchen, which looked as if it had

  been cleaned in preparation for my arrival.

  Which meant my mom had wiped down the counters and

  cleared out the sink, but the floor was a little sticky in front

  of the fridge and crumbs coated the table. When I was

  younger, it had never occurred to me that other people

  stored leftover food in the fridge or the freezer. When we

  got pizza it often stayed out on the counter until it was

  gone. Sometimes she put it, stil in the box, in the oven until

  we remembered to take it out and throw it away. My mom

  cooked but haphazardly, so spaghetti sauce had always

  made Rorschach blots on the stovetop and stiff noodles

  stuck to the ceiling where she'd tossed them to see if the

  pasta was done.

  When I was in elementary school, I'd come down with

  food poisoning. To be fair, it wasn't my mom's fault. I'd

  spent the day with my dad at his country-club pool, where

  they fed me extravagantly on fries and hot dogs instead of

  making me eat the peanut butter and jely sandwich my

  mom had packed for me. I brought it home and ate the

  sandwich later that night for dinner. An hour after that, the

  sandwich later that night for dinner. An hour after that, the

  world began to spin. An eternal half hour after that, I

  started to puke.

  I had a morbid fear of food gone bad after that. I wouldn't

  eat anything I suspected, even vaguely, of having turned.

  When I opened my mom's fridge and saw the containers

  and jars, al potentialy swimming with bacteria, my

  stomach clenched tight in protest.

  "Let's go out to eat, okay?"

  I didn't have to say it twice. My arms filed with squirming

  little boy as Arty tried to squeeze the breath out of me and

  mostly succeeded. I put the kibosh on McDonald's, but

  conceded to Wendy's, where he thought he tricked me

  into letting him get a Frosty, when realy I just wanted an

  excuse to get one for myself.

  Inside the restaurant, Arty launched himself across the

  room. "Leo!" Arty seemed incapable of using a voice at

  anything less than a shout, but Leo didn't seem to care. He

  patiently let Arty leap al over him, then looked at me over

  the top of Arty's head.

  "Hey, Paige."

  "Hey, Paige."

  I stuttered for a second. "What…hey. What are you doing

  here?"

  He lifted his bag of food. "Getting dinner."

  Arty had settled back down to the toy he'd found in his

  kids' meal bag. Leo was hesitating, but I gestured at the

  table, and he sat. "It's good to see you, Leo."

  "You, too. What's been going on?"

  Of al my mom's boyfriends over the years, Leo was the

  one I liked the best. He'd never tried to be my dad, and he

  hadn't forced friendship on me, either. Maybe it was

  because I was already grown up and moved out of my

  mom's house when they started dating.

  I glanced at Arty, lost in his own world of ketchup-firing

  French-fry cannons. "I thought you and my mom were

  going away together."

  Leo's eyes never left mine, though his mouth set into a hard

  line centered in his bushy, biker beard. "Obviously, we

  didn't."

  "So where did she go?"

  He shrugged and looked away. "That's between you and

  your mom, Paige."

  Another guy? It had to be. Why else would Leo look so…

  lost? And on a man his size, with that beard, the tattoos

  and the denim biker vest, lost wasn't a look I'd ever

  expected to see.

  "I gotta run," Leo said and l
eaned across the table to ruffle Arty's hair. "Take care of the kiddo."

  "Of course." I watched him head out and turned back to

  Arty. "Where did Mama say she was going?"

  "To a spar," he said.

  "A spa?"

  "Yeah, that's what I said. A spa. She's going to get a

  message."

  I sighed. "A massage?"

  He grinned, showing the gap between his teeth where he'd

  He grinned, showing the gap between his teeth where he'd

  lost one. "Yeah."

  "Alone?"

  "I guess so." Arty shrugged.

  It wasn't like I could realy expect him to know more, but

  why had she lied to me?

  I woke, disoriented, when a smal hand tugged my arm.

  Expecting Arty, I sat up and fumbled for the light next to

  my bed, but there wasn't one. I blinked until my eyes

  focused, but my brother wasn't hovering over me. The

  touch I'd felt had come from nothing.

  I sat straight up, the blankets I'd tucked so carefuly

  around me fighting against me now. At the foot of my bed

  stood two smal children, both about Arty's age, clutching

  each other's hands. Pale, white children I didn't need a

  lamp to see because they both gleamed in the darkness.

  Pale children with empty black holes where their eyes

  should've been and blood dripping from their ragged

  fingertips. Behind them, the attic door gaped wide.

  I waited for the blood to start pouring out of the door like

  it did in The Shining, but al that happened was they

  it did in The Shining, but al that happened was they

  stared. And stared. The pounding of my heart became a

  roar and I did the only thing I had the courage to do. I

  closed my eyes, then clapped my hands over them, too.

  Nothing happened until I heard a smal voice whisper,

  "Take care of us."

  Then I screamed, and screamed and screamed…until I sat

  straight up in bed to the sound of my phone ringing. The

  attic door was stil closed. No ghostly children were

  begging me to adopt them. The room wasn't even that

  dark, lit as it was by the light from an outside streetlamp

  through the window.

  I stumbled out of bed and dug in my purse for my cel. My

  heart had started pounding again, but for a different

  reason. I got al kinds of texts and cals in strange hours,

  but this one felt wrong, and I didn't recognize the number.

  "Ms. DeMarco?"

  "Yes, who's this?"

  "This is Dr. Philips at the Hershey Med Center. I'm sorry

  to cal you so late, but your mother's surgery has had some