House of Sand: A Dark Psychological Thriller

by Michael J Sanford

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  My head reels and I’m seeing double. I find the rough brick wall and slide down it to sit in a puddle. You can’t get wetter than wet.

  “I went to the driving range,” I say.

  “All night?”

  “No, in the afternoon.”

  “And then?”

  I open my eyes, looking for something to focus on. Something to keep the world from spinning. Why is Joy asking such inane questions? Of course I was home. I wouldn’t have forgotten to be there when Aza got home and I wouldn’t have forgotten the meeting with her teacher. Pharmacy, conference, don’t forget.

  “No, I was there,” I affirm. “I didn’t miss it. Aza punched another girl.”

  Joy sighs. “You weren’t there. Aza must have told you that.”

  “No, no. I was there. Of course I was. Joy, you’re not making sense.”

  “What else did her teacher say Aza did? Hell, what’s her teacher’s name? Can you tell me that?”

  I can’t. Joy’s questions don’t make sense. What kind of game is she playing? When agitated—which is almost always—she often zeroes in on my ineptitude as a parent, but this is even more sinister.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I ask. “Just because Aza listens better to me than you, you think you can attack me like this?”

  I hear Joy breathing, but she doesn’t answer.

  I wipe rain from my eyes and catch myself wondering if the water will damage my phone, maybe even electrocute me in in the process. What would that feel like? Can pain reach such a point that it’s no longer painful? Can agony transcend perception?

  “Where are you now?” Joy asks. The malice is completely gone.

  “I— The interview.”

  “Oh. Good. Did you stop by the pharmacy yesterday while you were…?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I can’t remember going, but I must have. Pharmacy, conference, don’t forget.

  “Okay, well I have to go.”

  I don’t get a chance to answer before the call terminates.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Dahlia called me,” Joy says flatly.

  I load the last dinner plate into the dishwasher and kick it shut. It’s the first she’s talked to me since she got home. Even over dinner, she only spoke to Aza, acting as if I didn’t exist. Aza kept flashing her middle finger in Joy’s direction anytime she wasn’t looking.

  “I didn’t get there in time. Traffic.”

  Joy’s eyes are deeper than the ocean. “Aza, go clean your room, please.”

  Aza, who is just finishing off a cookie the size of her head, scowls. “I don’t want to clean my room. I want to play outside.”

  “Room. Now,” Joy says.

  Aza looks at me. I nod. She mouths for fuck’s sake and leaves the kitchen, stomping her feet the entire way.

  “We need to discuss grounding her,” Joy says. “She didn’t just hit that girl at school. Aza told her that she was going to, and I quote, ‘fucking murder you one day.’”

  “Well, shit,” I say without thinking.

  Joy gives me a look that’s all too easy to read. “You feel like telling me why you missed your interview?”

  “I did.”

  “I had to pull some pretty big strings to get you that interview, the least you could have done was show up.”

  “I tried.”

  “Did you? Did you, really? No, I don’t want to hear it. You’re going to call Dahlia and beg for another chance. Unless you have other prospects I don’t know about.”

  “Excuse me?” I ask as I fish a cookie out of a ceramic bear.

  “You can’t sit around all day, avoiding every bit of responsibility that comes your way. You need a job and I offered you one up on a silver platter. All you had to do was show up and act like a human being and you would have had a real shot. But you didn’t. Just like you didn’t show up at Aza’s school. Not to pick her up and not for her conference.”

  Part of me wants to protest. My fingers quiver, begging to go to war, but I resist the impulse. Instead, I swallow it down with a bite of cookie. Damn, I sure can bake.

  Joy pulls out her phone and dials. She hands the phone to me.

  “Are you serious?”

  Joy crosses her arms and stands toe to toe with me.

  “Hello? Joy?” a voice asks from the phone.

  I scowl, but press it to my ear. “No, Dahlia, this is her husband. Listen, I know I missed our appointment today, and while I won’t waste your time with excuses, just know that it was unavoidable. However, I’d still love a chance to meet with you and discuss the opening you have, provided it’s still available and won’t inconvenience you too terribly. I was really looking forward to it.”

  I hear papers being moved in the background. Dahlia sighs. “I can free up a bit of time at nine tomorrow, but it’s all the chance I can give you. I love Joy dearly, but I’m trying to run a business here.”

  “I understand completely. Thank you so much. I’ll see you at nine. Actually, make that eight forty-five. Promise.”

  Dahlia hangs up.

  “I see why you two get along so well,” I say.

  Joy snatches her phone back. “Was that so hard?”

  “I don’t need you to hold my hand.”

  “Don’t you?” she quips. “Anyway, I need to get some work done, seeing as I have a job. Make sure Aza cleans her room and keep an eye on her outside. And we still need to discuss her punishment.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say with perfect sincerity. I bow for good measure.

  Joy wants to say something. Her face is all scrunched up and her brow furrows enough her eyes nearly vanish. She spins in place and storms out of the kitchen much as Aza did. The office door slams shut a moment later.

  I finish my cookie, savoring each morsel. I dig two more out and head for Aza’s room.

  Despite her outburst, I find Aza straightening her room. She’s singing to herself as I enter, and I stand in the door a moment, just listening. It’d be so quiet without her around. Too quiet.

  Aza turns and shrieks. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. For—”

  “Hey!” I shout.

  “—flippin’ flipper’s sake.” She smiles. It’s enough to wash away my previous interaction with Joy.

  I toss Aza one of the cookies and bite into the other. “Finish that bed and you can play outside till dark.”

  Aza’s eyes widen. She flings the cookie back at me and attacks her bedding with a vengeance. I’m still eating my cookie when Aza finishes her bed and runs at me. I stop her with a hand to her chest.

  “Jacket,” I say.

  “Cookie,” she says.

  I hand over her cookie that’s in several pieces at this point. She stuffs the entirety into her mouth and dons her jacket.

  “You look like a squirrel.”

  “Mmm phh ack.”

  I lead Aza to the backyard and she sprints for the rusty jungle gym that sits in the center of the space. Surrounded by towering pines, our backyard is like an oasis, completely hidden from the world, making it easy to forget all that lies beyond.

  I watch her swing for a while, enthralled in the utter joy such a thing can bring her. And at eight, why shouldn’t it? Even so, I find it hard to believe I ever existed in such a state. If I did, I don’t remember it.

  But even as entrancing as my beautiful daughter is, I can’t shake Joy’s words from my mind. If I lose Joy, I lose Aza as well.

  “Aza!” I call. “I have to do some work in the garage. Be safe for a bit, okay?”

  Aza hits the peak of her swing and sticks her tongue out at me. “For all the sake in the world, Dad, I’m not a baby.”

  In the garage, I pop the trunk of my car and take out what’s left of my three-hundred-dollar suit. Torn and muddied, I only hope to be able to salvage it. As infuriating as Joy is, she’s right—I need that job. But not because she thinks it’s right for me, but because it will afford me some measure of freedom. Staring at my suit, however, I�
�m not sure which task presents the stiffer challenge—mending my marriage or my suit.

  I carefully lay the pants and shirt on my workbench and study them. Both knees and both elbows are blown out. The shirt is missing more buttons than it has, and it’s nowhere near its original color.

  In the corner of the garage, I find Joy’s old sewing machine. I don’t dare use it—it’d make too much noise—but I find a needle and thread and begin mending the holes. Hunched over my work, it’s easy to focus. But the longer I stare at the ruined fabric, the more I think back to standing in that godawful waiting area of that stuffy office building. The woman—I never got her name—what was she trying to do? She must have been the group’s ringleader, bent on keeping me from the job. Sabotage.

  I curse quietly. Why didn’t I see it before? Why did I panic and run? I don’t know how I’ll show my face there again.

  I finish the first knee and tug on the new seam. It holds. I take a few steps back. It’s by no means invisible, but it’d take a sharp eye to see the repair. I begin on the second knee.

  I’ve had panic attacks before. As a child, they were a near daily occurrence. But that’s where I left them—in childhood. Along with my innocence and naivety.

  “It wasn’t a panic attack,” I whisper to my needle and thread. “They were mocking me.”

  As the anxiety of my childhood had receded, it was replaced by an uncanny ability to read people. Not psychically, that’s bullshit, but still something approaching the supernatural. How are you today? Not much. Not much. Not much.

  “Dammit!”

  I hold my breath and look at the door leading into the house. I glance out the open garage door at the street. There’s no one there. I hear muted singing from the backyard, but nothing more.

  I finish stitching the holes in both knees and both elbows.

  I don’t find any buttons in Joy’s sewing materials, but I remember a dry cleaner on the drive downtown. If I leave early enough, I might be able to convince them to do a rush job on it. And if I’m lucky, they’ll be able to fix the buttons.

  I survey the suit once more, lingering on the stitch work, wary that it won’t hold up to the scrutiny of the monsters in Dahlia’s office building. But I need a job. It’s the first step in—

  Aza shrieks from the backyard and I’m instantly in motion.

  I round the corner of the garage just as Joy exits through the back door of the house. Aza is laying in a heap, near the jungle gym, screaming bloody murder. Dead girls don’t scream, but I run for her thinking to discover the worst. Joy arrives first and shoves me roughly aside.

  “You were supposed to be watching her!” Joy screams.

  Joy puts a hand to Aza’s head and another on her back. Aza’s shrieks don’t abate, but she allows Joy to roll her onto her back. Aza’s left arm is clearly broken. The bone is jutting through her skin and she’s bleeding both from the fracture and from a gash at her temple.

  “Holy shit,” I say.

  Joy jabs a finger at me, but whispers softly to Aza. “Aza, it’s okay. Honey, it’s okay. Shh. Everything is going to be just fine. Listen to my voice. Aza?”

  Aza quiets, but her eyes are rolling lazily and the tension has vanished from her body.

  “We need to get her to the hospital,” I say, and reach for her.

  Joy slaps my hand aside. “We can’t move her. She’s hit her head. Damn it, I asked you to do one thing. One—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” I glance at Aza, hoping for a smile at my vulgarity, but receive nothing but a listless stare. “I’m not going to sit here and fight with you about this. I’m calling an ambulance and we’re going to take care of Aza.”

  Joy’s expression hardens, but just for a moment. She starts crying and nods. I dial 911 and grab Joy’s hand. She pulls it away and curls herself over Aza, whispering softly and stroking her hair.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The waiting room is oppressively small and the lights hurt my eyes. On the surface, it smells of cleaner and deodorizer, but below that, under the sterility, the hospital is rotting.

  “Quit squirming,” Joy says from the seat next to me.

  I fight to keep my knees from jumping. The fabric of the chair is scratchy and everything about being here makes me…twitchy. Joy doesn’t say anything, and I hardly glance her way to signal that I’m trying. In fact, she’s said little to me since the ambulance carted Aza off down our country road with us following in my car.

  I stare at the swinging door that leads into the bowels of the hospital. Somewhere past there, my little girl is under the knife. The doctor had claimed the injury not serious, but also stressed the importance of surgically resetting the bone. You can’t have it both ways, doc.

  “Think they’re done with her arm yet?” I ask. I hate sitting in silence. It’s impossible to ignore what I know Joy is thinking. She’s the easiest to read.

  “They were going to do the scan first, make sure there’s no swelling on her brain. Then they’ll fix her arm.”

  Joy won’t look at me when she talks, but I can see her eyes are lined with red and she keeps sniffing. But deeper than this, I know what she’s thinking about me. I know what she wants to say, but won’t. Not here. Hidden behind her sorrow and grief are hatred, revulsion, and contempt. Just as I know the secret this hospital hides, I know Joy is hiding one of her own.

  “You should go,” Joy says softly. Like she doesn’t want anyone but me to hear.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I hiss back.

  Joy looks at me. “I’m not trying to be a bitch. You have the interview tomorrow morning and should prepare for it. Rest up. All that. We’re going to be here all night, might not even make it back before morning. I’m sure they’ll want to keep her overnight to monitor for a concussion.”

  “But—”

  “Aza will be fine. It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

  “Oh,” I say, defeated. I grab Joy’s leg and squeeze gently. She smiles, but it’s false. Just like her whole charade. “You sure?” If I strangled her, would she even try to scream and fight? Or would she keep smiling and nodding like everything is perfectly fine?

  “Yeah, yeah,” Joy says. “No need for both of us to sit here all night. I’ll call if anything comes up. And I’ll have my dad pick us up. Don’t worry.”

  I want to insist that she be the one who leaves. Leave us! I want to shout, but I don’t. I can’t. Not here. Not here.

  So I do the only thing I can do in the moment. I leave.

  I phone Ty once I’ve begun driving.

  “What up?” he answers through an obvious mouthful of food.

  “Oh, sorry. You busy?”

  “Nah, just downing some Chinese food and watching the sunset.”

  “It’s dark out. Sun set a while ago.”

  “Oh. Damn, this sake is strong. Want to swing by, help me finish the bottle off?”

  The thought of Ty drinking alone and binging on takeout repulses me. The more I think about it, the more I smell it as well. I gag.

  “Hello?” Ty asks.

  I shake my head violently, knowing I shouldn’t shut my eyes while driving. “Yeah, I’m here. I really fucked up today, Ty.”

  “Interview not go so well?”

  “Never even made it that far.” It was fuzzy before, when Joy was interrogating me, but talking with Ty crystallizes the memory of my failure. “But that’s not even the worst of it. Aza fell off the jungle gym tonight. Broke her arm really bad. Maybe hurt her head, too.”

  “Damn. She all right?”

  “Gotta have surgery for her arm and a scan for her head. I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s tough. But…”

  “Joy’s pissed, huh?”

  I pound the steering wheel. “She’s hiding it, but yeah, I’d say she’s at an eleven. I need that fucking job, Ty.”

  “Thought you were too good to be scrubbing toilets.”

  “Just as a backup. I’m getting a second chance with Dahlia tomorrow, but in case I fuck it up
again. I need something to change, man. I need some leverage.”

  “I hear ya.”

  “I…I think Joy’s going to leave me soon.”

  “Shit. For real? Just give her time to calm down. She’ll come around. Ain’t nobody gonna leave your fine ass.”

  “I’m being serious, Ty. She hasn’t said anything, but how could she not? And if she goes, then Aza goes, and I’m left with nothing. Nothing!” I punctuate the statement by punching at the steering wheel again. I sense other drivers looking at me, wondering what madness has consumed me. If it wouldn’t derail my plans, I’d run every single one of them off the road.

  “No one’s leaving anyone,” Ty says. “You’re just stressed ‘bout the whole job situation. Got too much free time to think on it. Listen, send me a copy of your resume and references, and I’ll pass it on to the appropriate parties. Just in case.”

  For a drunk bachelor of questionable tastes, Ty is awfully supportive. He almost makes it difficult to be mad at the world. “All right, I’ll drop it off on my way to my interview tomorrow. Thanks.”

  “No sweat. It’s the least I can do. Oh, and never mind about coming over tonight. I can’t find the sake. Must have finished it.”

  At home, I gather up my suit and stow it in the trunk of my car. I curse as I remember the tie I tore off, left to rot in the alley near the office building. I still have the suit jacket, however, as I never wore it in to the interview in the first place. It’ll help cover the shirt. Could be my saving grace.

  I head for our home office and begin rooting around for resume paper. If I’m going to go through the trouble of preparing one, I might as well do it right. I find two sheets in the bottom drawer. It’ll have to do.

  I jab at the keyboard to wake the computer up and load the resume paper into our printer. I hadn’t even thought to bring a resume with me to the first interview attempt. Maybe it’s a good thing I missed it. I’ll be prepared this time. I don’t have a choice but to nail the interview.

  The computer screen flashes to life. Joy’s email account is up. She’s still logged in. I look away like I’ve just walked in on my parents fucking. My cheeks burn. It’s a strange sensation, but Joy never forgets to log out. She’s paranoid in general when it comes to “her” office. She’s run me out of it a dozen times.