by N. K. Smith
“Wwwwwe are such stuff as d-dreams are mmmmade on; and our llllllittle life is r-rounded with a sssssleep.”
“Very good, Elliott. That was the best I’ve heard from you in a while. Your W and M sounds were perfect even if a little elongated. How do you feel about it?”
I took a deep breath and shrugged. I didn’t want to talk about it because if I thought about it too much, I would mess up and stutter again. The truth was that I was proud that she was proud of me. It was nice to feel like I’d done something right. Since coming to live with Stephen, I’d put a lot of effort into correcting my speech.
He’d tried to get me into speech therapy in Chicago, but it was too soon. I couldn’t focus. I felt pressured to fix my stutter. I thought he wanted the same thing my father wanted, even if the method wasn’t the same.
Stephen didn’t want me to read the Bible every night. He didn’t punish me when I messed up. He hired people to help me speak, but I didn’t want to be in a room with them. I hid until they left.
None of the speech therapy helped. They tried a lot of things. There were devices that filled my ears with white noise or let me hear my voice a second after I said something. Everyone was really hopeful when they showed them to me, but I didn’t like the things that went into my ears. They felt strange, no matter which style they tried and I was uncomfortable with anyone trying to adjust them.
After awhile, Stephen backed off. He didn’t bring speech therapy back up until we moved to Damascus. He said that he wanted me to go to the same school as Jane and David because most of my behavioral issues were controlled, or at least not as prevalent anymore, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t.
I agreed to speech therapy only if they didn’t stick things in my ears. I wanted to go to the regular school. My experience with the one for kids with “issues” let me know that it wasn’t for me. I wanted to learn new things and I couldn’t do that in a room full of emotionally needy kids.
Stephen spoke with the school and got me out of gym class and made sure I would have physical space. He told me that the school expected me to behave in a certain way, so I tried really hard and practiced at home. I stopped hiding under tables and I forced myself to sit still at the dinner table.
I still didn’t sit next to David or Stephen. Jane sat on my left at the end of the table, and to my right was Kate.
Kate would watch me eat, like my mom used to do. There were times when David would ask me something or Stephen would speak and I would react instinctively. My body would tense up, and I’d bite my hands. I could see her out of the corner of my eye and she would shake her head slowly, letting me know that my reaction wasn’t appropriate. Sometimes she would clink her fork on the side of the plate or tap her fingernails against her glass to help distract me.
I guess I missed Kate.
I finished out the session with Ms. Rice. My reading wasn’t perfect, but it was a little better than it normally was.
After finishing with speech therapy, I found Sophie waiting for me outside. She was sitting on the low wall in between Jane and Andrea, and she was laughing. Her smile was amazing and I was so grateful to be able to see it.
Her smile shifted when she saw me watching her. This smile was only for me.
She said goodbye to Andrea. Jane stood when Sophie did and they both walked over to me.
Jane said nothing and I returned her silence before she turned to Sophie. “See you later.” She skipped over to Trent. I watched her grab his hand. He used the momentum to wrap her up in his arms, bringing her close, and pressing his lips against hers.
I was thankful to be driving myself every day. I did not miss witnessing the gratuitous public displays of affection between Jane and Trent, and David and Becca.
It was a beautiful day out and I was so happy to be able to share it with Sophie. Before she was in my life, I would have wanted to go home as soon as possible and close myself off inside my room until I was forced to sit through dinner.
Now I wanted to spend the gorgeous day with my beautiful girlfriend. It had to be nearly fifty degrees, which was still cool, but not bitterly cold. We drove to that little playground we’d gone to before and she chased me around until she was out of breath.
She was so much healthier now than she had been only a few months ago. Not only was she eating more, but she was physically stronger. She never spoke about it, but I suspected that her father’s purchase of exercise equipment was a huge benefit to her.
I let her catch me because in reality, as much fun as I was having running with her, it would never be as much fun as I had just simply holding her.
There were kids all around and it was only their presence that kept our contact chaste.
It was nearly five thirty when we decided to go back to her house. I was surprised, but I was finding her house more comfortable than mine. Mr. Young never bothered us when he was home as long as we weren’t behind a closed door.
When we arrived, we found him wearing a grilling apron, swearing at the stove.
“What are you doing to that saucepan?”
He looked up, almost guiltily, then took a gulp from his beer can and shook his head. “I was trying to cook this chicken, but...”
“It’s not the right pan.”
“But...”
She pulled her hand from mine and moved to the cabinet beside the stove, bent down, and grabbed what was apparently the correct pan. It looked almost identical to the one her father was using.
“Use this.”
“But...”
“It won’t stick. Don’t use metal utensils either.”
“But can’t you...?”
“And if you have time, I’d like a salad.”
Mr. Young looked helpless as he held the new pan in one hand and scratched his head with the other. Sophie turned around and I saw her smirk as she rolled her eyes.
“Sophie, I can’t... I mean, this is... maybe I should’ve just used the grill.”
“Don’t freak out,” she said over her shoulder. “Let me put my crap away and I’ll come save you, okay?”
“Yes, please.”
She took my hand and started pulling me toward the stairs. Before I could turn, Mr. Young said, “Hello, Elliott.”
“Hhhhhello, ssssir.”
Once I was up in her room, I thought we would just drop our bags and jackets on her bed and go back downstairs, but Sophie had other ideas. With her door wide open, she positioned us so that I fell back onto the bed and she came down on top of me.
“Sophie,” I whispered as she kissed my neck.
“I’ve waited all day for this,” she mumbled, “don’t tell me to stop. You’re so fucking sexy, Elliott.”
Her father could walk in at any moment and the thought worried me.
But everything worried me. She didn’t worry about being caught. I didn’t want to worry either, so I shut off the part of my brain that supplied all of the “what ifs” and the consequences and gripped her hips.
I allowed myself to simply enjoy the feeling of Sophie.
My dreams hadn’t stopped and the accompanying headaches in the morning were becoming worse. Even though I had made up my mind to discuss them with Dr. Emmanuel, it still caught me off guard when he brought them up first.
He’d asked me to write down what some of my dreams were about in only a few words, so I had written: God, the belt, dirt, and the basement.
After he read what I’d written, I thought he would talk to me about it, but he shocked me again by changing topics. “What about Kate? Do you dream about her?”
Sometimes I did, but they weren’t disturbing dreams, so they were hardly worth mentioning. Usually we just repotted plants together. “No.”
“How do you feel about Kate? Are you angry with her?”
I could understand his
preoccupation with Kate. She’d just died and I knew Stephen probably asked him to make sure I was handling her death appropriately. No one seemed to be able to understand that I didn’t need to cry for her to mourn her death. I was sad that she was gone, but I wasn’t devastated. It wasn’t as if her not being on the Earth affected me much. She was gone long before she died anyway.
But I thought about the question. It was possible that I was angry with her, but if I was, it wasn’t because I felt she’d done anything to me personally.
“Sssshe hhhurt J-Jaaane.”
“How did she hurt Jane?”
It should have been pretty obvious. “J-Jane needed a mmmmmom a-and K-Kate jjjust left.”
Dr. Emmanuel pinched his bottom lip and then scratched his right ring finger as he thought. “Do you think she should have stuck around out of obligation?”
“Yes.” My answer was immediate, but wasn’t entirely accurate. I did think that Kate owed it to Jane to at least remain present in her life somehow, rather than just dumping her completely.
“I’ve spoken at length with Stephen, so I have a deeper understanding of some of the issues at play here. Are you at all aware of Kate’s personal history?”
I didn’t know what he meant. What should I have known beyond the fact that she and her husband chose to adopt children she later wouldn’t want? “W-what history?”
He folded his hands together and looked to the ceiling for a moment. “Do you think it’s normal behavior for a woman to completely cut ties with her family?”
Again, I felt a little lost, so I shrugged.
“Was Kate very nurturing when you knew her, or did she always seem a bit distant?”
I thought about it; not only how to answer the question, but also to figure out where he was trying to steer me. She had never been overly nurturing. There were moments when she came out of her shell, but mostly she was distant.
“N-not o-o-overly,” was my short answer.
“Have you ever wondered what forces shaped her into the person you knew? What formed her into the distant woman who had a hard time connecting with other people?”
In truth, I had never really given much thought to why she left. I’d always just assumed that it was because of us, the messed up kids her husband chose.
But maybe it had something to do with her. Dr. Emmanuel seemed to know, so I looked at him expectantly.
“Dr. Dalton likes to fix things, doesn’t he? He likes to feel useful.”
His words were true, but I didn’t respond.
“Perhaps Kate wasn’t able to be fixed.”
My mind moved quickly, analyzing every last memory I had of Kate, testing the rapidly solidifying hypothesis. He was trying to tell me something and I felt the pieces connect like a puzzle in my head.
Maybe Kate was wounded, like David, Jane, and me. Maybe her ability to love wasn’t intact. Something had happened to cause her to be distant. It wasn’t me or Jane or David she failed to connect with. It was everyone. In the end, even her connection to Stephen was severed.
“Help me understand why the basement is important, Elliott. What was in the basement?”
My breath caught and once again, the rug was pulled out from under me. The shift in topic was abrupt and intentional, and I felt scared of the chaos it released in my mind.
It took me a second to settle, and then I was struck by how annoying therapists could be. He knew what was in the basement. He had to know. Robin would’ve told him or he would have read the file from Chicago. Why did they all want me to say the things they already knew?
But I was the one who wrote “the basement” on that little sheet of paper that now rested on the arm of his chair.
“Mmmmm-mmmmmy b-b-b-b-b-br-br-br...” I stopped and took a deep breath, willing away the block, but when I opened my mouth again, I still couldn’t say it, so I let that word go. “J-J-J-JJJJJoseph.”
I couldn’t look at Dr. Emmanuel, so I focused on my hands twisting together nervously in my lap. I wasn’t going to have a panic attack because I knew I needed to talk about this. If I didn’t, I would be haunted by the dreams forever, and Dr. Emmanuel wouldn’t stop hammering away until I answered.
“What did your father say about your brother being in the basement?”
My father’s voice rang clear inside my head. “G-G-G-G-God t-t-took the w-w-w-wrong ssssssson.”
“What did he want you to do down there?”
My head began to ache, so I closed my eyes against the brightness of the room. “A-a-a-a-a-an-n-n-nnn...”
“Would it be better to write it down?”
The thought of these words being given physical space on paper, even if we shredded them afterward, pushed them from my mouth. “Anoint him.”
I risked a glance at the doctor. His face was impassive. I looked at my hands, unable to stop the way the fingers on my left hand dug into the flesh of my right.
“As Jesus was anointed?”
I could only nod. My fingers tightened and I felt the pull of my skin. The short, clipped nails pushed into the soft tissue.
“How long was he planning to...?”
“F-f-fffffforty days.”
“Why forty days?”
I was annoyed. It should have been clear to Dr. Emmanuel. I realized that he was probably not as well-versed in Biblical studies as I was, but the answer seemed clear. “J-J-J-Jesus ap-p-p-peared ffffforty d-d-days after he d-d-d...”
When I didn’t finish the word, Dr. Emmanuel spoke again. I was getting tired. He asked more questions than Robin and, unlike her, he seemed to be able to acquire an answer from me against my own will.
“What did that mean for Joseph? Why did your father...?”
I shrugged. How was I supposed to know the mind of my father? I assumed that he wished to give God time to correct the mistake.
“The police showed up after nineteen days. Where were you when the police came?”
I saw the blue and red lights from the high windows. I moved from the center of the room and hid in the corner, wrapping my arms around my drawn-up legs. It was cold and damp and I couldn’t tear my eyes off of where I had just been. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I was frightened and in some pain. My father would be upset that people had come over.
“Th-the b-b-basement.”
When they came down the stairs, loud and fast, I was as still as I could be. But they noticed me and moved to come near, and I frantically tried to become part of the wall. I remembered wishing that it would just open up and swallow me.
There were a bunch of men and one squatted down to talk to me. I bit my hand. Shortly after, they sent a woman in the same blue uniform. She had dark hair that was pulled up on the top of her head. She inched closer to me very slowly. The gun on her hip was large in comparison to her small frame. She said words that I didn’t understand at the time, and I couldn’t remember now.
As I currently analyzed the situation, I figured they probably thought I was mute, or deaf, or both. I remembered not being able to focus on anything. They were moving Joseph and trying to touch me. There were noises upstairs, creaking floorboards and my father’s loud voice. He yelled and unknown voices yelled back.
I wanted to tell them to leave my house. Their shoes were dirty and they were ruining Joseph and my father was going to be very, very angry.
Blood from my hand dripped down onto my shirt. I could feel the warmth and was immediately seized with fear. My father would be upset about my soiled clothes.
“You were anointing him?”
I blinked, bringing my attention back to Dr. Emmanuel.
I nodded. “T-tw-twice a d-day.”
“Your father told you that it was supposed to be you?”
Again I nodded. He said I was so wicked, God didn’t want me, so
He took Joseph instead. “Sssssince JJ-JJJJ-JJJJoseph d-died ffffor mmmy sins, it w-was mmmy d-d-duty to p-p-prepare hhhim for J-J-JJJJesus.”
That was what he said, but I knew in my heart that he was waiting for God to take me and give Joseph back his life.
“Can we talk about Joseph when he was alive?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“M-m-mmmy hhhhead hhhurts. I-I’m t-t-tired.”
“Have you told anyone about Joseph?”
I wondered if he’d heard me say that I was tired and my head hurt, or if he just didn’t care. I shook my head to answer his question, but it only made my headache worse, and I was hoping that he would let me go lie down.
“Do you wish someone else knew what happened?”
“Y-y-you kn-know.”
He nodded shortly when I looked up. “I’ve read the police report, but it was written nineteen or twenty days after it happened.”
“N-night.”
“Hmmm?”
It was dark around me and I didn’t want to think about what he wanted me to think about, but he was asking me a question. It was respectful and right to answer when someone asked a direct question. “I-i-it hhhhappened at n-night.”
“What happened?”
Stephen had a large quartz crystal on his bookshelf. I’d always liked it, so I looked at it now. “Mmmm-mm-my d-d-d, father.”
“What? Your father...?”
I didn’t like his voice. It was too soft for what he was trying to ask about. He used that voice to make me feel comfortable. Just like Robin. It was all a trick and it never worked.
“I w-w-was t-t-taking the p-punishment I d-d-d-deserved, but I w-w-w-was wwww-w-weak and J-J-J-J-J-J-...” I gasped for breath, feeling it was out of my control.
“Joseph?”
I nodded and pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. My fingers dug into my forearms.
“Hhhhhe t-t-t-took the r-r-r-rest, b-b-but hhhhhe w-wasn’t w-w-well and mmmy ffffather w-was very d-d-determined to p-p-p-purify.”
I did not let my mind wander back to that night. I very carefully kept my mind focused on the crystal.
