Whisper Down the Lane

by Clay Chapman

  Quiet doesn’t even begin to describe it. Sleepy is a bit closer. Coma is more like it. Boarded-up storefronts blighted the main drag for decades. Amazon killed all the mom-and-pop shops. A cancer of foreclosures spread through, most homes dying a slow death of debt. If anyone tried to sell their house, it never helped that two or three homes on the block were sealed up with plywood sheets.

  Then the antiquers came. The domestic treasure hunters dusted off the cobwebs, polishing this parish right on up until it sparkled again—for twice the listed price.

  What most likely happened is this: Some young professional couple from D.C. took a wrong turn too many, pulling into Danvers for a pit stop after their cell service faded and the little blue dot on their Google Maps veered way off course. Then they spotted the local secondhand shop. Probably bought themselves a pre-Victorian dresser for a steal. Now that they were here, taking in the quaintness of their surroundings, well…Why not putter along the main drag and see what else we might find? Sniffing through town, this couple caught wind of the empty four-square colonials going to waste just down the road. Can you believe this? Look at these gorgeous homes! They’re stunning! They just had to bring their contractor down. A few new floorboards, a fresh coat of paint, and these homes would be good as new. Better than new.

  Reborn.

  This couple went ahead and probably whispered to their friends back in Georgetown how they uncovered buried treasure—An honest-to-God real estate gold mine!—less than two hours from the Beltway. Those friends probably went ahead and bought the shuttered colonial next door. Then their friends plucked up the next. Next thing you know, a pilgrimage of newlyweds seeking to escape city living swooped in, ready to raise a family with a sprawling backyard all their own.

  More than 164 properties had been listed online during Danvers’s decline and nobody noticed. Dozens of foreclosed homes were just wasting away. Empty manses sinking into disrepair.

  And then, just like that—Sold!—all gone. Not a single house left. Scooped up in a realtor feeding frenzy. How long before a coffee shop opened in one of those shuttered storefronts? What about an organic grocer taking over the former Piggly Wiggly? A microbrewery?

  The lifers, the elder set who had always called Danvers home, whose roots were tethered to this soil for generations, watched their town undergo a transformation before their eyes. What could they do but simply sit back as the young mothers jogged by with their aerodynamic strollers, a travel mug of ethically sourced fair-trade coffee tucked into a cupholder. This was no longer their town. Not with the flood of new blood rushing in. Danvers became a theme park. Norman Rockwell Land.

  A group of civic-minded parents were motivated to incorporate Danvers and improve its services. A layer of local government made way for better education. Rather than drive their kids twenty miles to the nearest “good” school, they could start one right here in town.

  The Danvers School was a remnant of the old school building that closed back in 1979 due to redistricting. It had high ceilings. Massive windows. Sturdy masonry. There just hadn’t been enough students to fill it. Not only did it need infrastructure upgrades, it needed children.

  And an art teacher.

  By the time I moved here, the Disneyfication of this town was well underway. I didn’t ride that initial wave of gentrification into Danvers. The coffee shops were already here. The artisanal delicatessens. The farmers market. This place had the veneer of Small Town, USA—but even I knew it was a mask, more a replica of a bygone era than the actual artifact. Families could have the feel of the good ol’ days, but with all the modern accoutrements at our disposal. The greasy spoon with Wi-Fi. The gluten-free soda fountain.

  Danvers was now home. My home. I just had to find my place within it. Put down roots.

  I have very lofty goals for tonight’s dinner. Vegetable stir-fry with peanut sauce. Tamara never imposes her vegetarianism on me—which I appreciate, thank Christ—but I have to fend for myself if I ever want to eat meat. She won’t cook it, won’t touch it, not one single fork tine, not for me and certainly not for Eli. Maybe there will be a fillet o’ fish on the rarest of occasions, but that boy is growing up in a meat-free household…and now so am I.

  Tamara texted to say she and Eli were running late. No explanation, which is perfect.

  Time to shine…

  The recipe suggests it will only take twenty minutes, but I’m thirty-three minutes in and nowhere near done. I should have followed the instructions and used precut vegetables—but nope, no sir, I chalked that up to cheating. I want this to be homemade all the way. Every slice and dice has to come from these hands, not some preprocessed package. Just the way Tamara likes it. Little did I know most of the cooking time is for cutting.

  Full confession: I am not a cook. Or, more to the point—pre-Tamara, I rarely cooked for myself. I remember when Tamara first realized this. It was early in our relationship. Maybe the first or second time I spent the night at her place. Their place. One morning, after we all woke up, Tamara suggested we take a stroll to the farmers market—Eli included—and pick up some fresh veggies to make omelets. I was all for it. Why not? But we could also, you know, just go to the local diner. The greasy spoon makes perfectly fine omelets. Less hassle, fewer dishes.

  Do you even like food? she had asked, point-blank, almost offended. The Culinary Inquisition had begun.

  Who doesn’t like food? I had shot back, already on the defensive.

  But if you had a choice between eating an actual, home-cooked meal you made yourself or—I don’t know—popping a pill, you’d be just as happy swallowing the pill, wouldn’t you?

  I wasn’t about to cede any ground and admit that yeah, sure, I’d probably be just as happy popping the pill.

  Didn’t your mother cook for you as a kid?

  Of course, I said, on reflex. Then I started thinking about it, sifting through my memory for my favorite meal. Pasta. I vaguely remembered loving Mom’s spaghetti, I think…

  Now I have something to prove. I’ve had a year to crash-course my taste buds, expanding my flavor palate. I have to learn how to cook. Not only cook, but cook vegetarian.

  Afresh start, I think. Some very distant memory tickles at the stem of my brain.

  Weegee hops onto the counter, startling me. “Jesus—”

  Fucking cat.

  If there’s one thing I wish I’d pushed back against, it’s Tamara’s goddamn tabby. The cat has somehow outlived every conceivable catastrophe that could befall him. Kitty cancer. Heartworms. Diabetes. He just won’t die.

  Weegee squats on the counter, his flaming mane of unkempt fur ready to shed and contaminate my meal. “Shoo.” I raise the spatula. I’ve never been a fan of Weegee, nor has he ever been a fan of me. He was here first and he always goes out of his way to make a point of it.

  Weegee just stares back, indifferent to my threats.

  “Hellooooo,” Tamara calls from the front hall. I hear the door shut, the keys tossed into the dish on the console table. “Uh…What’s that smell?”

  “I’m burning the house down,” I holler back.

  “Should I call the fire department?” Tamara halts in the doorway, struck by the green sprawl before her. Her expression suggests she has come upon a stranger in her home. Who is this man making a mess of her kitchen? She mugs for my sake, pleasantly impressed—if not a bit bewildered. “Wow. What’s going on here?”

  “Surprise,” I say, grabbing the knife. “Hope you two like stir-fry.”

  “Is that what we’re calling it? Interesting…”

  Elijah races into the kitchen, slipping past me and reaching for the cabinet.

  “Mister Man!” I say. “How was school?”

  “Okay,” he says in a way that makes it sound clearly not okay. He opens the cabinet and pulls out a bag of Sun Chips.

  “No snacks,” Tamara says sternly. “Straight t
o your room.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. Now.”

  Eli looks to me to help bail him out. I’m about to toss the kid a lifeline, which is clearly not the right call as far as Tamara is concerned. She drops the hammer. “Upstairs until dinner.”

  “Fine.” He huffs, storming out of the kitchen.

  “I’m grilling steak,” I call after him. “How ’bout some juicy red meat tonight, Eli?”

  “Okay!”

  “Hear that?” I ask Tamara. “I’m making a convert out of him.”

  “Nice try.” She stands behind me, flossing her arms through mine to steal a carrot. She chomps it just next to my ear. It sounds like the thinnest femur fracturing.

  “So what’s up with the big guy?” I ask. “Why send him to his room?”

  Tamara plops down at the table where a freshly uncorked bottle of merlot waits, purchased by yours truly. “Elijah had to stay after school.”

  “What for?”

  She takes a big gulp before answering. “He hit someone.”

  I put the knife down and give Tamara my undivided attention. “Seriously?”

  “Apparently he was sticking up for someone else. A girl from his class was getting picked on in the hall by a couple of third-graders, so…he just took a swing.”

  I can’t believe it. “Who did he hit?”

  “Condrey wouldn’t say. She doesn’t want parents to ‘take matters into their own hands.’ ”

  “Did Eli tell you who it was?”

  Tamara looks at me. It’s a difficult expression to decipher. “What? You want to hunt them down tomorrow? Give them a hard time?”

  “Maybe I do.” I’m trying act manly. Dadly. Or something.

  “That’d go over well,” she mutters. “That’s exactly why Condrey won’t say. She doesn’t want you pulling out the pitchfork and torches.”

  “So Condrey’s protecting these dipwads? Fuck that. And fuck her for protecting them.”

  Tamara puts her glass down and holds up her hands in surrender. “I’m not taking her side. School policy. I’m just worried Elijah’s going to be bullied by these creeps now.”

  Eli is already a prime target, considering his mother teaches at Danvers. Tamara has always been the cool pre-K teacher. The Doc Martens. The highlighted hair. The subtle punk accents suggest she can throw down on a Sunday night and still show up Monday morning and power through her lesson plan without puking. You better believe my inner soundtrack was blasting the Ramones as soon as I laid eyes on her.

  “Here’s the thing.” She pours herself another glass. “You can’t get mad, okay?”

  “You can’t tell me not to get mad at something before you tell me what it is.”

  “Promise me or I’m not going to tell you,” she says, a little too matter-of-factly.

  “You saying that makes me know it’s something that’s going to make me mad.”

  “This isn’t coming from me, I swear. It’s from the little man himself.”

  “Fine,” I say. Annoyed. “I promise I won’t get mad.”

  Tamara takes another sip. “He doesn’t want you to know.”

  That stings. “Why not?”

  “He…” Tamara searches for the right way to articulate this, how best to thread this parental needle. “He doesn’t want you to feel like you have to talk to him about it and…you know. Make it into a thing.”

  Some invisible force presses against my rib cage. “And what did you say to him?”

  “I told him okay.”

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  “What else was I going to say?”

  “You could’ve said—I don’t know, ‘Hey, maybe Richard could help out. He’s a guy.’ ”

  “Oh, is he now?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No. Please. You’re a guy. Tell me.”

  “All I’m saying is…Maybe he could use a different perspective on this.”

  “From who, exactly?”

  “Someone to help him navigate what he’s going through. Help him understand it from a—from a guy’s perspective.” As I am saying this, I am keenly aware of how wrong it sounds, but the only course of action is to keep on talking.

  Tamara is ready. “What you mean is, because he’s been raised by a woman, it’d be helpful for Elijah to finally have a dude to step in and tell him how it really is?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I abandon my burnt meal, the scabs of scorched peanut butter and wilting vegetables, to kneel before her. “You are, hands down, the best mom I ever met. You raised a kickass kid.”

  She doesn’t respond so I pry her legs open just enough that I can ease between her knees. I press myself against her chest, kissing her between my effusive compliments.

  “Elijah’s a rock star,” I continue. My hand slides under her shirt, snaking its way along her rib cage. My fingertips scale each rib, climbing until I feel the coarsened skin along her chest. Even now, it still startles me. “He stuck up for a classmate because you raised him right.”

  “Damn straight.” Her breathing deepens at my ear, catching itself.

  I run my index and middle finger along her scar tissue, tracing the textured flesh that spreads over the bulb of her shoulder and down her arm.

  “I’m just here to fuck things up,” I say. “Ruin the amazing work you’ve already done.”

  Tamara pulls away. “Are you trying to get out of cooking? Should I fix it?”

  “No. I started this meal, I’m going to finish it, and you’re going to like it, damnit.”

  “Good luck,” she says into her glass, teeth biting the rim. I don’t know if I believe she is forgiving me, but still—she is choosing to move on, letting me pull my foot out of my mouth, which is a relief. She takes another sip, swishing the wine in her mouth before swallowing.

  “Who was the girl?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say…I could kill those third-graders, though. Little shits.”

  “Got any thoughts on who they are?”

  “Still want names?” Tamara grins, her cheeks warm with wine. “What’re you gonna do, tough guy?”

  “I’m going to find them in the hall. Drag them outside and—”

  “Elijah!” Tamara says unnaturally loudly.

  I turn and see him in the doorway, eavesdropping on my master plan, eyes wide.

  “Hey, Eli,” I say. “You hungry?”

  DAMNED IF YOU DO

   SEAN: 1982

  Where did these bruises come from?

  It was such a simple question. The answer was already there, perched on the tip of Sean’s tongue. All he had to do was say a name. One simple name.

  Tommy Dennings.

  That wouldn’t be so hard, now, would it? It was the truth, after all. The bruises were Tommy’s fault. He had zeroed in on Sean at the beginning of the school year, targeting him on the playground. In the boy’s bathroom. The cafeteria. The hallway. Sometimes even in the classroom, in front of all the other boys and girls, whenever Mr. Woodhouse had his back turned. Word had finally spread among the other kids that Sean wasn’t actually a Richie Rich; he was a charity case, and he didn’t have a dad like all the other kids in class. The perfect target.

  Now he had the bruises to prove it. Mom spotted them in the bathtub and gasped.

  “Where did these bruises come from, Sean?”

  He wanted to tell her. He really did. But there was something about the sound of his mother’s voice that worried him. An elevation in her pitch. It sounded urgent, like she was worried. Scared, even. Sean got afraid of his mom in moments like these. When her voice lifted to this level—Code red! Code red!—Sean knew giving her the answer wouldn’t be the end of his worries with Tommy Dennings. It would be only the beginning. If he told her The
Truth, Mom would get on the phone. She would call the school and demand to speak with the headmaster.

  Or worse…What if Mom called Tommy Dennings’s mother? His goose would be cooked, as he’d heard adults say. Sean would never survive to see the end of the school year.

  “Talk to me, Sean,” she implored. “Please.” Mom’s voice always sounded like this lately. Ever since Sean brought home that letter—The Letter—from school. Sean had watched her read it, witnessing the low-grade fear take over her face, but she never told him what The Letter said. She balled the paper up and threw it away, as if she were sickened by it.

  When Mom talked to Sean now, her words were always urgent. She had never been good at hiding her feelings, especially when she was afraid of something. And Mom was afraid of a lot of things. Boring things, mainly. Like bills. Or work shifts. Or getting Sean to school on time so she could make it to her job. Dinner, bath time, story time, bedtime, wake up time. But something else was bothering her now. Something new.

  Their fresh start was starting to feel like a bad start. They lived in a constant state of code red. There was a time when Mom wasn’t afraid but now she acted like something terrible was going to happen to him at any moment. She had even changed her schedule so she could pick him up from school. Sean didn’t understand where this was coming from. If the world was so scary, why couldn’t they stay together forever? Why did he even have to go to school? Sean hated school.

  Well, Mr. Woodhouse made it okay, he guessed. He was fun. He was always making up cool new games for the students to play in class. Sean knew these games were actually lessons, but he still liked them. He was becoming sensitive to the intentions of adults.

  Mom had been asking Sean a lot about Mr. Woodhouse lately, wanting to know what he did with the rest of the students. She kept asking the same question, only with different words.