by Jodi McIsaac
Emma glanced at him, distracted.
“You know those voices in your head?” Wes said. “I hear them, too. But they’re not real. They’re lying to you, and you can’t let them take control.”
Emma was staring intently at Wes now, but her finger was still on the nozzle of the hair spray.
“Wes, don’t get too close,” I urged.
The kids in the backseat were crying now.
“Put it down, Emma!” Adrian yelled, and Emma’s attention was ripped away from Wes.
“I want my husband back!” she screeched, and then she pressed the nozzle of the hair spray and lifted the lighter in front of it. Wes dove to the ground as a jet of fire burst through the air toward Adrian, who ran away from the car, where his children were now screaming in terror.
But Emma had found her mark. The flames caught Adrian’s shirtsleeve. He yelled and dropped to the ground to smother them.
She followed, her makeshift blowtorch still raging. A loud pop exploded through the air, and Emma and Adrian were engulfed in a ball of flame.
Everyone around us was screaming now. I ran toward Wes and helped him to his feet, but both of us were knocked to the ground seconds later. The uniformed members of the security team thundered past us. They all wore white masks over their noses and mouths. Had the CDC’s worst-case scenario come true?
Someone grabbed my arm and helped me up. It was Kenneth. I hadn’t even noticed him there. “Come on. They’ve got this,” he said, his face ashen and his eyes fixed on the horrible scene. He, too, was wearing a mask. He gave Wes a hand, helping him to his feet.
One of the men had thrown a heavy blanket on each of the victims. Emma wasn’t moving; Adrian was moaning loudly. “Let’s go,” Kenneth said, and he led us back into the hospital lobby, where he guided me to a chair. Wes sank down into the seat beside mine.
My hands shook in my lap, and my breath was ragged. “I know her,” I whispered.
“Who is she?” Kenneth asked, sitting down across from me. He rubbed my arms with his hands, as though I had hypothermia.
“Emma Ross. We were friends in high school,” I said, my voice faint.
“Oh, Clare . . . I’m so sorry,” he said.
“We kept in touch on Facebook,” I continued. “She was pregnant.”
The muscles in his forehead convulsed, but he didn’t speak. What was there to say?
“The masks,” I whispered. “Why are you all wearing masks? Is it . . . true? Is it contagious?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But if it is . . . God help us.”
Wes and I drove out of the hospital parking lot in silence. I’d given Kenneth my cell number, and he’d promised to call if he learned anything new about Emma’s condition. A semblance of calm had returned now that the chaos of the hospital was behind us. But I knew it was an illusion—and a temporary one at best.
“Where are we going?” Wes asked, once we were on the main road.
“Your choice: we can stay with Uncle Rob or go back to Mom and Dad’s. I guess I should go there at least once before I head back to Seattle.”
“I want to stay at Mom and Dad’s. I want to see the place again. Say good-bye, y’know?”
“Okay. Maybe we can find the keys for your new apartment. We can get you set up.”
He was quiet for a minute, then said, “Maybe I’ll live at Mom and Dad’s.”
“You would want to?” I tried to picture Wes rattling around the place, lounging about the living room with its doilies and Royal Doulton figurines, cooking drugs in the pristine kitchen. “Besides, I imagine we’ll have to sell it. To pay for the funeral and stuff.”
He shrugged. “I have good memories there.”
I didn’t reply. I gripped the steering wheel tightly, on the lookout for any signs of trouble around us.
“Hey, can we stop for some smokes?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess.” I pulled up to a convenience store. “I’m assuming you don’t have any money?”
“Nope.”
I handed him a bill and said, “I’ll wait here.”
He hopped out and went inside. A minute later he came back with a pack of cigarettes and a bag of Swedish Fish. He tossed them in my lap. “Still like these?”
I picked up the bag. “I do. You remembered . . .”
“So, how are we going to get into the house?” Wes asked.
“I have a key.”
“Oh. ’Cause I was going to say I could break a window or something.”
I grinned despite myself. He grinned back.
We stopped at Rob’s apartment to get my stuff. He was out, but he’d given me a key. I left him a note saying we were going to spend the night at Mom and Dad’s.
We drove a bit farther, and then there it was, an unremarkable split-level with yellow siding and white trim, on a street filled with other unremarkable homes. My chest constricted as I took it in. The bright pink impatiens my parents planted every year were in full bloom, and the bird feeders my dad hung on the crab apple tree in the front yard were still filled with seed. They’ve only been gone three days. It felt like so much longer.
We parked in the driveway, behind their Ford Fiesta. The fluffy orange cat from next door ran over as soon as she heard the car; Mom was notorious for giving treats to all the neighborhood cats. The cat walked in circles on the small landing in front of the door, meowing.
I glanced at Wes, who made no sign that he was about to get out. His blue eyes were fixed on the house, his mouth grim. “I used to sneak out that window,” he said, eyeing one of the two dormers above the garage.
“I know,” I said. “Until Dad nailed it shut and you started sneaking out of mine.”
He snorted. “You snuck out, too.”
“Not out the window, though. I wasn’t as brave as you. I used the patio doors.”
“Mom knew about that.”
“She did not.”
“Yeah, she said something about it a while ago. Said you always used to leave your nightie on the patio so you could change back into it before coming back inside.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Then why didn’t she stop me?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Jesus.” What else had she known? Had she known all my secrets?
“You shouldn’t swear,” he reminded me.
“You swear all the time,” I shot back.
“There’s a difference. I say words like ‘fuck’ and ‘shit.’ They’re just words. I don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. It’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?”
“There are spiritual forces in the world. Jesus’s name has power against them. If they know you don’t take it seriously, it makes you vulnerable.”
I put my hand over his. “You know I don’t believe that.”
“You should. I’m praying for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound sincere. Then I opened the car door, more to change the subject than anything.
He grabbed his bag from the backseat, and I got my suitcase from the trunk. I knelt on the landing and gave the cat a few rubs. She purred happily and wound herself around my legs. “Hey, Fluff Bucket,” I whispered. It was the nickname my mother had given her years ago. “You don’t seem very sad; I guess no one’s told you the news.” My throat grew tight as I stood up and fumbled with my keys.
“How come I don’t have a key?” Wes asked.
“Because you steal things and sell them for drugs,” I said matter-of-factly.
“That was years ago. I’m different. I got serious about my Christianity.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Whatever. I’ll be right in; I’m going to have a smoke.”
I pushed open the door and braced myself for the onslaught. The smell hit me like a truck: a mixture of old carpet and wood shavings and tanning oil. My parents had never been much for redecorating, and the entryway looked pretty much identical to how it had looked when Wes and I were in the fourth grade. Peach-colored wal
lpaper, beige linoleum, and one of those old coiled rugs in brown and yellow.
My dad’s hat still hung on one of the hooks on the wall. They must have chosen a warm night for their ill-fated walk; he was seldom without his hat, an old-man newsboy in burgundy. My stomach ached at the sight of it.
My eyes went automatically to the patch in the wall where Wes had kicked a hole with his steel-toed boots. I couldn’t remember exactly what they’d been fighting about; maybe it was the first time he’d stolen from them. But they’d never bothered to properly repair it—they’d just plastered it over and left it like that. Their decision not to cover it up had never made sense to me.
“You okay?” Wes asked from behind me.
“Yeah. It’s just weird . . . being here without them.”
“Yeah. Super weird.”
Pictures of us as kids covered the walls and the mantelpiece in the living room. Dressed up for Sunday school, at a family picnic, holding our awards for earning the highest marks in our grade at school. We had tied one year. There was my grad photo, hideous as it was, and the photo my mom had forced Wes to have taken even though he’d never graduated from high school. In it, his face was smooth and tattoo-free, and his blond hair was full and brushed back. The smile on his face verged on a smirk, but it was charming all the same.
I walked into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge out of habit, then closed it. I couldn’t eat the leftovers of the dead.
“Want to order pizza or something for lunch?” I asked Wes, who was coming up the stairs.
He shrugged. “Sure.”
I pulled out my phone and searched for pizza places in Clarkeston, then started filling out the online order form.
Wes watched me warily.
“What? You still like meat lovers?” I asked.
“You’re ordering pizza over the Internet?”
“It’s not a new thing.”
“Yeah, but now the government knows what kind of pizza you like.”
I checked his expression to see if he was joking. He wasn’t.
“Fine. I’ll make the order over the phone if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
“Hey, I’m not trying to be difficult,” he said. “I just don’t trust the Internet.”
“It’s okay.” I dialed the number and placed our order.
Some papers lay on the counter, along with a silver key. “Here’s your rental agreement,” I said, handing him the papers. I held up the key. “Want to go check it out?”
“Later,” he said. “I want to stay here for a bit.”
My phone rang. I answered the call and headed into the other room. “Hey, Rob.”
“Hey, kid, got your note. How you holding up?”
“Fine.”
“Everything go okay at the hospital?”
I knew I should tell him what had happened, but I frankly didn’t have the energy. “It was kind of crazy there. But I got him in the end. We’re at Mom and Dad’s now.”
“Sorry I missed you this morning.”
“No worries. Where’d you go?”
“To the paper office. Gave them the obituary notice.”
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I was supposed to do that last night.”
“Don’t you worry about it. You’re doing enough. Do you need anything? Do you guys want to come over?”
“No, we just ordered pizza, and Wes wants to hang out here for a bit. We might go check out his new apartment later; I’ll let you know if you we do. Thanks, though.”
“Okay. Well, in case I don’t see you, the wake is set for tomorrow morning at ten at Bishop’s. You okay with that?”
“Yeah. Whatever works.”
“Okay. Call me if you need me.”
“I will. I gotta go.”
I hung up and headed back into the kitchen, where Wes was sitting almost meditatively at the table. “What do you want to do now?” I asked.
“Dunno. Play chess?”
“You play chess?”
“Yeah, I learned in the hospital. You play?”
“Not well. But I think Mom and Dad had a board around here somewhere . . .”
I went into what had once been the dining room but was now the pile-everything room. Our old piano was still there. Neither of our parents played, which made me wonder why they’d kept it. There were two tall cabinets where my mom had stowed photo albums and games and all the dishes she’d inherited from my grandmother. They were too “fussy” to use, she’d said, so she’d kept them tucked them away.
I found the chessboard hidden underneath Sorry! and Monopoly. We set it up on the kitchen table.
Strategy had never been my forte. Wes was creaming me when I was rescued by the doorbell.
“Pizza’s here,” I said, jumping to my feet.
We ate slowly, talking little. Once we were finished, he sat back in his chair and burped loudly. “I wrote some songs. Wanna hear ’em?”
“Sure.”
He ran downstairs and returned with our father’s old guitar. I opened my mouth, then forced it shut. Dad had loved this guitar. But he didn’t need it anymore, so what did it matter if Wes played it?
He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and smoothed it out on the table. The lyrics were written with heavy black pen in his angular scrawl.
“I only know power chords,” he said. I moved my chair back a few inches.
“Ready?” He grinned.
“Ready,” I said, smiling at his enthusiasm.
Then he began. I wouldn’t call it singing, exactly. More like screaming—or rasping. Still, I could make out the words.
Jesus! Jesus is the way!
Bow down to him, all you sinners!
Leave your sins behind! He will forgive you!
Don’t delay! Accept his spirit today!
You must turn to him! Or else burn, burn, buuuuuuuuuurn!
He ended by jumping off his chair onto the floor, still beating at the guitar as he rolled onto his back and kicked his legs in the air. Then he dropped the guitar and grinned up at me, panting.
“Pretty good, eh?”
I struggled to find words that were not outright lies. “Um. Wow. It was a really dynamic performance.”
“I know! I was thinking of calling up my old bandmates to see if they want to get together again.”
I had a feeling that Wes’s old bandmates were probably married with children and careers by now. “Do you want to see what’s on TV?”
“Yeah. But first I want to talk to you about something,” he said, suddenly serious.
“About what?”
“Is there any hot chocolate?”
“That’s what you want to talk to me about?”
“No. I just . . . it will be easier with hot chocolate.”
I opened the pantry and found a container of instant hot chocolate, the kind with the little marshmallows in it. I put the kettle on and sat back down at the table. “What’s up?”
“Let’s wait until it’s ready.”
“You’re not going to throw it at me, are you?”
Wes smirked. “No.”
I cleaned up the chessboard and the dishes we’d used for the pizza. Then I rescued the screaming kettle from the burner and poured the boiling water into two mugs of sugary powder, adding some milk from the fridge to cool it off. I dug around in the pantry and found a bag of mini marshmallows. The ones in the mix were never enough. They were hard as rocks, but the hot chocolate would soften them up.
“Remember when we used to sit here at night after Mom and Dad went to bed?” I asked. I handed him his mug and sat down at the table.
“Yeah. I’m glad you remember.”
Of course I remembered. It had been back in that strange phase when I’d thought everything was normal—or, at least, that every family was like ours. At the time we’d thought Wes was just a screw-up. We’d known so little about mental illness and had never thought it would rear its head in our family.
He’d been doing drugs and livi
ng on the street half the time. His mood swings had been wild and often violent, and you’d never know what version of him you were going to get. In desperation, our mother had forbidden Wes and me from speaking to each other; she was worried his behavior would rub off on me.
Or maybe she’d wanted to protect me. I traced the grain of the table with my finger. Whatever her motivation, it had only made us more determined to see each other. So we would sneak downstairs at midnight, drink hot chocolate heaped with mini marshmallows, and talk about absolutely nothing. More often than not, Wes had been stoned or high. Acid had been his drug of choice back then, and he’d dropped it more than once a day. I’d make faces at him from across the table while he was tripping and then giggle when he freaked out, seeing God knows what in my expressions.
So stupid. So naïve. I’d had no idea that what he was doing would help destroy him, damaging us all in the process.
“So what’s up?” I asked again.
“I want to talk to you about why you left,” he said, his stained fingers gripping his cup.
Not now. Not this.
“When?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “Yesterday at the hospital?”
“No,” he said. “You know when.”
“Oh.”
“When you left for London.”
“I don’t want to talk about that right now, Wes. It’s just . . . too much, with everything else.”
“You never want to talk about it. And if you’re taking off in a few days, we need to talk now.”
“You know why I left.”
“Not really.”
“C’mon, Wes, that was nine years ago. You couldn’t expect me to stay here forever.”
He let go of his mug and grabbed my hands. I tried to pull back, but his grip was as tight as ever. “Clare. They’d locked me up. You knew it wasn’t right.”
“There was nothing I could do. I tried.”
“Did you?”
I yanked my hands away and stood up. “Jesus Christ, Wes! And no, I’m not going to apologize for swearing. You know what happened. What did you expect me to do? I just wanted to get away from this shit hole of a town, and that was my chance! Did you want me to stay around here for the rest of my life so I could baby you and make excuses for you, like Mom and Dad always did? Is that what you wanted?”
