The Underneath

by Melanie Finn

  Ben did not understand. The words were familiar, the conversation made sense, a parent to a son; but there was another level, below the soil. Ben had a sense of what was moving down there, toiling. But he could not see it.

  “Come on, little doggie.” Frank’s dad shifted Otto so the dog was under his arm.

  “Dad. We’ll just take him back, we’ll take him back right now.” Frank’s voice rose to an awkward adolescent squeak.

  “Someone might see ya, son. They might have already seen ya.”

  “We were careful. No one was there. No one saw us.”

  “A coupla 13-year-olds driving a Volvo? One with poison ivy all over his face.”

  “It’s acne,” Ben corrected. “Sir.”

  Frank’s dad examined Ben’s face. “It’s almost offensive.”

  Frank stepped forward. “Dad. Dad. I’ll take the dog.”

  His father stood.

  “Please. We’ll leave him somewhere, outside the dog pound, outside the feed store. Someone’ll find him and take him back.”

  But his father ignored him, moved deliberately toward the door. Otto now had a sense that all was not well. Perhaps he smelled Frank, for even Ben could scent his friend’s fear sweat. Otto began to wriggle in the man’s grasp.

  Frank held out his hands. “Dad, Dad, I’ll do it. Okay, I’ll do it.”

  Ben merely watched, as if this was TV, he was seeing it through a screen, these were people he did not know. Frank took Otto and walked out, down the path to the lake. He held the dog against him, cradling him gently, speaking softly. And Frank’s father watched, impassive as he waded out into the deep water with the dog.

  49

  At three minutes to four, Kay pulled into the parking lot at Kamp Wahoo. She felt the old elation, her mind putting pieces together, her hand moving clearly across the pages of her notebook. Ben and Frank, running a scam, drugs and logging. How did that fit together? She recalled Ammon: “Ask yer boyfriend.” She recalled Candice: “I think Ben knows.”

  Other parents waited in idling cars, windows sealed up against the heat. Kay put aside the notebooks; she was almost proud to join the line-up on time. Here I am: a good mother.

  At last, children straggled out from the building, dragging towels and backpacks. Hitting open air, they began to run or skip or dance, it was impossible for them to walk. Tom and Freya always ran out from school as if they were late or in a hurry, and Kay sometimes wanted to stop them, slow them, tell them to be careful and remember this—this weightless lightness in the world, because you will have years and years to be a grown-up, heavy as lead.

  The cars moved ahead of her, an orderly procession. She let several pass in front of her, their children lined up on the side walk. But not hers, Tom and Freya did not appear.

  Like bags from the carousel at the airport, surely, the next round would bring Tom and Frey. Kay waited, children came, children went.

  Until all the other cars were gone, all the other children being ferried home for supper.

  Still hers did not appear.

  Kay turned off the car, stepped out into the sun, seeking, searching. Again, again, straining to see them over the blue lake water, only here, instead, a building, a playground, today. She was continually losing her children as if they were car keys. The feeling of unease inside her again, a nut in its loose shell, rattling.

  A final clot of children burst from the doors, one, two stragglers. She glanced at her watch: 4:30.

  A boy went missing in the woods. His parents looked everywhere. Their friends and family joined in, they called the police who came with a dog, and they found the boy asleep in a pile of leaves.

  A boy went missing in the woods and was never found. Or was found.

  Phoebe Figgs exited, locking the doors behind her.

  “Mrs. Figgs? Phoebe?”

  She turned, and Kay felt as if she must perform, must present the right mother—not the mother who had nearly let them drown less than 48 hours ago.

  “Freya and Tom…?”

  Phoebe frowned. “They’ve left already.”

  “No, they haven’t.”

  “Yes. Their father—”

  “What father?”

  “He came earlier to pick them up.”

  “But he’s not here. He’s in Côte d’Ivoire.”

  “I’m sure he—”

  Kay was close to her. Kay wanted to grab her throat. She shouted: “Where are they? Where are my children?”

  For a brief moment, panic flashed in Phoebe’s eyes—doubt and headlines in national papers. Then she regrouped. “Michael. Their father. They said he was their father and he said he was their father and he’s on the list approved for pickup.”

  Kay’s mouth, dry as ash. “What?”

  “You put him on the list, don’t you remember? In the application?”

  “But he’s not here!”

  “Apparently he is.”

  “He can’t be!”

  Phoebe made a little shrug.

  “What time did this happen?”

  “Right after lunch.”

  “And they went with him?”

  “Yes, they went with him.”

  “And you never thought to call me?”

  Phoebe raised her hand, a stop sign between herself and Kay. “Look, Mrs. Ward, I don’t know what’s going on, if this is a custody issue or what. Your husband—their father’s name is on the list. He came, the kids went with him, they were perfectly happy. That’s the end of the story as far as I’m concerned.”

  Perfectly happy.

  Phoebe very nearly let a delicate smile of victory touch her lips as she walked away from Kay, confirming her opinion. Not even opinion: the ruinous facts of Kay. Phoebe got into her Honda Pilot and drove off.

  Kay’s hands were trembling as she turned on her phone. One message, received earlier in the afternoon. While she was interviewing Candice for a story that didn’t even exist.

  “I’ve got the kids,” Michael was saying. “They’re fine, they’re safe. We’ll talk later.” His tired, jet-lagged, man-of-the-world voice. His superior voice.

  They’re safe. And perfectly happy.

  Despite the heat, goose bumps sprouted on her skin. She began to shiver. Freya. Of course, it would be Freya. Kay scrolled through her phone’s call log. Four calls to Michael’s phone between 4 and 5 a.m. So, Freya’d woken up, she’d taken Kay’s phone, she’d crouched on the toilet. “Daddy,” she’d have said, sobbed, her face illuminated by the slab of the screen. “I love you, please come and get me, I don’t want to stay with Mum.”

  But it must have been further back, because Michael had to come from West Africa, not a spur-of-the-moment trip. He was in the airport yesterday—she recalled the gate numbers she’d seen during their Facetime. He’d already been coming back.

  And there they were: a half-dozen calls at random times over the past few days—all made in the middle of the night. Freya, getting up in the dark house, an angry ghost, a disappointed ghost. “Daddy, Daddy, I miss you.”

  Kay’s heart both broke and contracted like a fist. She let her forehead rest on the steering wheel and sobbed, ugly, heaving, snotty sobs of despair. Then the sobs ran out, and she was empty. All she contained was approximately 20 sobs, a few milliliters of tears. A dram of tears. She stared through her hands, over the rim of the steering wheel, out the windshield at the summer afternoon. Her hand was throbbing as if her pulse was a baseball bat. She started the car.

  The Dirty Ditty was down near the railroad that bisected East Montrose. She’d passed it every day, she knew exactly where to go, the tiny Siri in her head giving perfect instructions: park the car, three steps down, open the door, and pass into the forgiving gloom.

  She did not regard the other customers, that would have been impolite, but she ascertained there were three or four scattered along the bar. Private drinkers. She sat down. The barman, thin, long-haired, middle-aged, Black Sabbath t-shirt, his face incurious: “What kin I git you, hon?�
�

  “Bourbon, straight, no ice. Wild Turkey is fine.”

  The glass came, the lovely amber glow catching what there was of sunlight. The bartender moved off, having done his part. Kay drank, the warm liquid furring her throat, curling in her belly. She’d waited a long time for this moment, a simple drink in a bar, all by herself.

  Because she could, she ordered another. There was no rush. The day was long and she had no supper to cook, no dishes to wash, no shoes AWOL, no child’s turd abandoned on a fantastic floating lily of toilet paper. Who forgot to flush the toilet? It would never be claimed, not me, not me, pixies or Santa must have left it there.

  She watched the barman wipe down the glasses, glide back and forth behind the bar, smoothly wheeled, ferrying drinks of regret or solace, depending. How much time there was, suddenly. She felt time stretch out and lie down, a cat in a sunny window. She had three drinks, that was enough. Her limbs felt looser in their sockets, her vertebrae soft and snakey.

  50

  AFTER PIZZA, THEY DECIDED TO go into Littleton for a movie. They didn’t even know what was playing and they ended up at Alvin and the Chipmunks’ The Road Chip. The noise of helium-filled chipmunks made Ben’s head ache, but Jake laughed and bounced in his seat. There were only a handful of other kids in the audience: another dad who spent the whole time surfing on his mobile phone and a mom wearing ear plugs, taking a nap. This is what it’s like, Ben kept thinking, this is the other world outside the motel rooms and foster homes. Nothing grand, no velvet drapes sweeping back to reveal mountain vistas. Just a child laughing, the smell of buttered popcorn.

  It was late coming up Jones Farm Road, fireflies swarming above Ed’s fields, the grass raked into neat concentric rows. Ben stopped and turned the engine off so they could wonder at the flickering magic lights, the feel of the cool, soft air on their skin.

  “Dad.”

  Ben caught the word. It winded him.

  “Yes?”

  But it was a statement, Ben realized, not a question. An arrival.

  They drove home. The door was open. Just for a moment, Ben felt his mother’s kiss, and the wild, blind lurching love he’d had for her, regardless. Lying together on the motel bed when the men had gone and her high was still soft, she’d kissed him. “I’m sorry, Ben, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” But he hadn’t known what for.

  Ben got out of the truck, and he went around to take Jake’s hand. They went in. Shevaunne was still asleep on the sofa. It was as if she had never woken from her morning slumber. But she had arisen at some point: the TV’s sound was back on, the spindle was gone from the counter.

  “Mom’s still asleep.” Ben gently maneuvered Jake toward the bathroom. “Go brush your teeth.”

  He looked down on Shevaunne, dribbling out of the corner of her open mouth. Her works were out on the table, the burnt spoon, the thick rubber strap, the clean needle, and the empty spindle with its special, secret spike of fentanyl. These were so normal to Jake he hadn’t even noticed; the way other mothers fell asleep with their knitting or a book. She’d had time to put the syringe down after she’d dosed. He gazed at her placid face lost in nod. She looked so harmless. She was supposed to be dead.

  The tap in the bathroom turned on, Jake was brushing his teeth. Ben leaned into Shevaunne, so close, the handsome prince to kiss the sleeping princess. She was still breathing, only just. He picked one of her pink socks up from the floor. With his right hand he shoved it in her open mouth as he took his left hand, finger and thumb, and pinched her nostrils shut. He felt her body buck weakly and he heard her gasp and gag. Her eyes opened. She looked out but not at him. It didn’t take much, she was already dying, her heart maxed out, and within the count of one-two-three she receded. It was so simple. He felt a rush of fear and then joy and the smell of his mother’s vomit. She’d looked surprised like a jack-o’-lantern when he’d found her, and he’d turned her over because he couldn’t shut her eyes—they kept sliding back open like cheap blinds, those windows to her soul where none had been, only hollowed out, just like a pumpkin, and he’d calmly—then as now—picked up the phone and dialed 911.

  51

  The door to the bunny shed was wide open and dark inside. This was where night waited out the day, night stored itself away. Kay drove by, then stopped, turned around, parked. No one was about. She ambled over to the cages, eight of them, containing a dozen rabbits, and one with a mummy bunny and six fluffy babies. The rabbits barely acknowledged her, intent on cleaning themselves, nibbling their food, tidily excreting. Kay peered in.

  “Hello, bunnies.” Her voice sounded loud, so she whispered. “Hello, hello, hello, little bun-buns.”

  They were cute, they were adorable, snow white and clean, with pink eyes and white whiskers. Of course Freya and Tom wanted one to cuddle and pet; Kay herself felt the urge to reach in and take hold of one and press it against her, to feel that soft fur, that quick rabbit heart. While making a vain plea for one a few years ago, Freya had pointed out that rabbits made good house pets. They could be trained to a litter box and were fastidious. Would it really be such a big deal to have a house bunny, Kay wondered now.

  “Do you know what you are here for, little bunnies?” she murmured. “Should I set you all free and you could bounce off into the woods?” They ignored her. “But, oh, no, Mr. Foxy-woxy would get you.”

  The mother rabbit carefully groomed one of her babies. Kay tried to remember the word for baby rabbit—kit, kid? What about “pip,” wouldn’t “pip” be a good word for baby bunnies? “Look at your little pips, Mama, aren’t they beautiful?” She put her hand on the cage. The mother paused, eyed her suspiciously. Kay eyed back, noting the paler rose-colored iris around the deep, vermillion pupil, the white fringe of lashes. The bunny sniffed, the triangle of her nose lifting above the cleft of her upper lip.

  A woman’s voice: “What the hell you doin’?”

  The woman stood beside Kay’s car, hands on her hips. She was hard-looking with bad teeth and a smoker’s skin, crumpled like paper. Kay realized it was Alice.

  “Hi, Alice, hi.” Kay tried a smile.

  Alice, however, did not return the smile. “This is private property.”

  “I was just looking at the rabbits.”

  “Why?” Alice had planted herself between Kay and her car. Kay realized she was holding her injured hand defensively across her body. Why, indeed, was she here talking to rabbits. “This is my business, Mrs. Ward, not a petting zoo.”

  Kay could still taste the Wild Turkey. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.”

  “You should try rabbit meat. It’s lean, tender, cheaper than chicken. I could bring some up there for you.”

  An image of roast rabbit brewed in Kay’s mind, the little legs in the air, the stomach obscenely exposed, amid a garnish of roast parsnips. And Tom and Freya screaming.

  “That’s kind of you,” Kay offered as she tried to edge around Alice. “But I think we’re fine.”

  But Alice wasn’t quite done. She shifted her bulk, blocking Kay’s escape route. “Some do-gooder let them out last fall. It was all my money. That’s what people like you don’t think about, how hard life is.”

  People like you—but who was that, exactly? Kay herself had no idea, not a fucking clue. She stopped, turned hard to face Alice. They were uncomfortably close. “When did Frank ask you to take care of the house?”

  Alice blinked. “What?” Kay could smell her nicotine breath and assumed Alice could smell her liquor. How intimate.

  “Just tell me when.”

  “March. Early March.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since then, have you?”

  “Get off my property.”

  *

  When she got home, Kay considered drinking more. Drinking was taking an eraser and smudging the outline of your brain until your thoughts were all soft, blurry. But it wasn’t drink. She wanted out of this, away from this, to fold up and in, compact.

  She climbed the stairs, into the bathroo
m, and crawled inside Frank’s cupboard and shut the door. She cradled her burned hand and waited patiently in the dark, breathing in, breathing out, my children are gone, my children are gone, my children are gone, but she was anesthetized, she felt a glorious nothing, nothing at all.

  52

  BEN WATCHED THE MOTHS CAUGHT in the vortex of light. They fluttered chaotically. It was the worst kind of seduction, irresistible, self-destructive. And inescapable. Once they were caught in the light’s bright beam, they couldn’t leave. They wouldn’t mate, they wouldn’t lay eggs, they would just dance themselves to death. He had the strange thought that the moths were heroin fairies, or perhaps the spirits of dead junkies. There was Shevaunne, fluttering pointlessly, hurling herself to the flame.

  He held Jake in his lap. The red and blue lights whirled against the side of his house, illuminating the mildew stains. The ambulance doors were closing. Jake understood, but did not. Ben stroked his hair. “We’ll be all right.”

  A cop came over. She had a clear, intelligent face, Detective Polito.

  “You’re not the boy’s father, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “He’ll need to come—”

  Ben held his finger to his lips. “Let me explain it to him.”

  She nodded, stepped back.

  There should have been another way, thought Ben, but that other way would reach so far back, not just to Shevaunne and her family, but to the very first man who abused a child, the very first woman who abandoned her crying baby on the side of a grassy trail in Africa a million years ago. He propped Jake on the hood of his truck. He took the boy’s hands in his. He could only do this, now.

  “This nice lady is going to take you. You’re going to stay with some other people for a little while.”

  “No.” Jake shook his head.

  “We have to do this. It’s the law, and it’s how we get to be together in the end.”

  “And Mom?”

  “She’s not going to be with us. She’s not with us anymore.” He found he could not say she was dead. He could not say she was gone to heaven. He remembered his own failure to grasp death, the confusing mixture of fear and sorrow and relief.