by Clay Chapman
Eli lets out a groan, clearly unhappy at the interruption. “Okay, okay.”
Dinner is stilted. Without Tamara around to run interference between us, there aren’t many topics for the two of us to choose from. He’s still mad at me, I get that. He hasn’t made eye contact with me all night, pretending to look elsewhere whenever I turn to him. I have to hope that he’ll forgive me at some point.
Forgive and forget.
It’s impossible to drag information out from a five-year-old. The direct approach never works. You have to sidle up to the truth. If you ask specifically for the thing you want, they’ll shut down. Repeating the question never works. Kids go on lockdown. You have to be creative with your interrogation technique. Learn the gentle art of kindergarten cross-examinations.
“So the piñata project was pretty fun, huh?”
I get the slightest nod from Eli as he struggles to spin his angel hair with his plastic fork.
“Sandy should play baseball, don’t you think?”
Elijah glances up and wrinkles his nose as if to say, What a stupid question.
“It’s hard at a new school. All those new faces. Must be tough for Sandy to make pals.”
“Sandy’s got friends,” Elijah says, just to prove me wrong. That I’m an idiot.
“Oh yeah? Who?”
He shrugs.
“You don’t know?” I ask, mock incredulously. “You know everybody in school!”
“Nobody knows who he is.”
He.
“Oh?” I keep my tone conversationally curious. “A boy, huh? You don’t know him?”
Another shrug.
“He must be invisible.” It’s always good to posit the thought that this is all make-believe. An imaginary friend is easier to discredit. “Did Sandy say if this friend has a name? Lafcadio?”
“Noooo.” Elijah thinks this is hilarious. Sometimes I forget that he’s still a little little kid.
“No? Then I bet it’s, um…Skeletor?”
“No!”
“Then what is it, huh?”
“Sean.”
Elijah grins. His first smile all night. His lips are stained green, flecks of basil stuck between his teeth. He dives back into his meal. He must have assumed our chat is over. Case closed.
The pesto clings to the pasta and all I see is blonde hair covered in algae, fanned on a bed of kelp. Elijah twists my mother’s locks into the tines of his fork before forcing her hair into his mouth. I don’t know how long I stare, watching him eat. I haven’t spoken, haven’t cogitated a single thought beyond the name.
Sean. This is spreading somehow. Infecting others. Who here knows about my past?
Who I am?
Could this be me? The question pops into my head. It’s so abrupt, it almost doesn’t feel like I thought it. Somebody else must have asked it. Am I the one doing this?
I can’t see myself doing these things. It doesn’t sound like me. Feel like me.
The devil made me do it. Isn’t that what they always say?
This isn’t me. I have to keep repeating it to myself: This isn’t me.
What if…? Gnawing thoughts. I can hear them, like rats crawling through the walls. What if I’m responsible and don’t realize it? Is that even possible?
I have to get my memories straight. I need to begin at the beginning and work my way through everything I remember and try to understand what the hell’s happening.
Elijah returns to his coloring between bites, running red crayon over a fresh sheet.
The paper. Elijah is drawing on a sheet of paper he found on the kitchen table.
The adoption forms.
“Don’t.” I lunge and grab the paper from under Elijah’s crayon, accidentally sending an errant slash of red across the page. Eli’s shoulders bunch up to his ears, slipping into his shell.
Weegee. The drawing is unmistakable. It’s his cat, torn open. Crayola intestines spill out from its abdomen. The green grass swirls with so much red.
“Elijah.” I try to keep my voice as steady as I can. “Did you do this? To Weegee?”
Eli shakes his head. “You did.”
“That’s not true. I would never…” I’m unable to finish the thought the moment I notice the stack of adoption forms. I let go of the paper in my hand to pick up the next sheet.
A ring of children. A lanky stick figure towers over the rest, his arms extending beyond their normal proportions, as if he has four elbows. A daddy longlegs. A teacher.
Circle time.
“How did you…” I pick up the next sheet. A group of children stand in a ring. Crooked teeth colored in black sprout all around them. Not teeth. Headstones. They’re in a cemetery. In the center of the children’s circle is a boy dressed in his Sunday best. His skin is gray.
I flip through each sheet, grabbing the top page and glancing at the hand-drawn image. A tangle of stick figures knot into one another. An orgy of adults, teachers, a mass of spiders, their limbs intertwined and tugging. So many drawings. The entire stack has been colored.
There’s paper all over the floor. All from Sean’s childhood. My childhood. My lies.
“How…”
“Sean told me,” Eli says, staring back.
“Who’s Sean?” I demand. “Tell me.”
Eli won’t answer. He’s breathing deeply through his nose, afraid but holding his ground.
“Who’s Sean?”
Nothing. The fear is all over his face. I can see it but I can’t stop myself from yelling.
“WHO’S SEAN?”
My cell phone rings. Eli uses the distraction to escape, running out from the kitchen. The sound of his feet carries through the house as I scramble for my phone.
The area code seizes my attention. Someone is calling from Greenfield. Again.
Don’t answer.
I let the call go directly to voicemail. Not that they’ll leave a message. They haven’t before.
My phone rings again, the high-pitched trill working its way up my spine.
Don’t answer.
I bring my phone to my ear and listen. I don’t know what to say. I can hear breathing on the other end of the line.
“Sean? Is that you?” I haven’t heard her voice since I was a boy. I’m suddenly five all over again, just a scared boy, as if the last thirty years never happened.
“Mom?”
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for—”
My fingers slide across the screen to power down my phone before she can call again.
Turn it off turn it off turn it—
The same number pops up again as the phone trills in my hands, like a baby bird. I could crush it, simply squeeze my fist until its fragile bones snap, and I’d never hear her voice again.
Don’t answer just turn it off TURN IT OFF.
But it won’t stop, will it? This will never end. She’ll find me. She already has. Swiping my phone, I open the channel between us again.
“Sean.” It’s no longer a question. “You changed your name…why would you do that?”
“Mom…” My voice sounds so small. It feels weak, her name quickly dissipating. I’m trembling. There isn’t a bone in my body that can hold the rest of me up. Hold me together.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you? That you could hide from me?”
Eli is in his bedroom. Tamara is still out, so it’s just me. Me and my mother on the phone. I can see her, imagine her after all these years, still as young as the last time I laid eyes on her. Still as beautiful. Sunk in the murk. The water all around us. Swallowing us whole.
“Why?” she asks. “Why are you hiding? Why did you run away from me?”
“Because…” Because I’m afraid. Because I’m ashamed of what I’ve done.
To her. To Mr. Woodhouse
.
This is all my fault.
“Don’t worry, hon,” she says, her warm voice offering up some semblance of security. She’s trying to comfort me. “Of course you’d run. Who wouldn’t? After what you did?”
I look around the kitchen. The house has settled into its stillness. Her voice feels like footsteps on the floor, the warp of the wood bending with each step. She’s coming closer.
Closer now…
Closer…
“All those lives you destroyed. The families you tore apart…You did that, Sean. You.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“That’s very considerate of you, Sean. Should I call you Sean? Or do you prefer Richard?”
She’s mocking me. Taunting me. Is Mom laughing? This can’t be happening, I think. It’s not possible.
“It’s not you,” I say.
“Then who is it, Sean? Who am I?”
Kinderman. Her face pops right into my head. Could she have found me? Tim and Nancy had severed ties with her immediately following the trial. They’d gone out of their way to distance me from anyone associated with the case, no matter what they said to the press.
“My mother is dead.”
“Does that mean you won’t talk to me?”
“This is sick,” I hiss into the phone. “Whoever this is, you’re sick.”
“I believed you, Sean…Every word.”
“I’m calling the police!”
“What are you going to tell them? Will you tell them about me? About you, Sean?”
I need to hang up. Turn off the phone. But it clings to my skin. Everything feels like it’s covered in a glistening film, like I’m caught in a cobweb. It’s too late. Too late to run.
“I see you’re drawing again, Sean. I love it when you draw. I always have.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she says. “I saw you. Saw your picture of me.”
She’s here. She’s seen me in the studio. Seen the sketch. Where is she calling from? Could she be here now? Outside our house? Is she in our yard, peering through a window?
“Go out to the studio. I have a gift for you.”
“No,” I protest. But it’s weak. My voice is so small. A boy’s voice.
I’m powerless against her. I do as I’m told.
“There’s something I want you to see…See for yourself.” She continues to talk as I leave the kitchen. “I’ve found someone new for you to sketch.” Her voice follows me as I step outside, crossing the yard to the garage. “To inspire you…” The cold air crystalizes in my lungs, each breath scraping my throat. “It makes me happy to see you expressing yourself again.”
A harsh odor washes over me as soon as I open the garage door. Sweet meat. Spoiled fruit. The grease of it coats my throat the moment I breathe in, unable to spit it out. I suddenly remember that it’s Weegee. I left him in my studio last night and forgot to dispose his body after the Eli incident. Now the smell of him has permeated the space, clinging to the beams. Wood has a memory for scent, absorbing decay. Now it’ll never forget. My studio will smell like death forever.
Before I enter, I know someone has been inside. There are small white squares scattered everywhere.
Polaroids.
My studio is filled with them. Dozens of photographs taped to the walls, arranged on the floor, attached to the easel.
And they’re all of the same person.
A girl.
Sandy Levin.
Some are out of focus, her form fuzzy around the edges. The camera came too close to her, the flash blanching her pale skin. She’s wrapped her arms around her shins, shielding herself from the probing lens, as if to protect her against its intruding gaze. In some pictures, she glances off, trying to hide from the camera. In most, though, she stares directly at the lens, looking out at me with empty eyes.
My stomach clenches. She’s everywhere. “I…”
“Yes, Sean? What is it?”
I forgot I was even holding the phone. My mother’s voice startles me. “I didn’t do this.”
“Do what, son?”
“This wasn’t me.”
“If it wasn’t you, then…who?” She answers her own question. “Was it Richard?”
I buckle forward and vomit across the floor. Angel hair pasta fans over my feet. Her hair. The swell of bile from my stomach came so quick I didn’t have time to run for the door.
This wasn’t me. This wasn’t me. It’s all I can think, can say, repeating it to myself over and over, echoing through the studio. “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t—”
“You’re married now,” Mom whispers into my ear. “You have a son. You must be so happy. To have this new life. But it can all go away, Sean. Families can be so fragile, can’t they?”
What if…? the gnawing thoughts whisper. What if you’re talking to yourself?
I glance at the phone in my hand, suddenly wondering if I’m even talking to my mother—or not. Am I doing this to myself? Who else but me knows what happened?
Mom did.
Bringing the phone back to my ear, I ask, “What do you want from me?”
“You’ve made other people very, very angry, Sean. Stirring the pot, like you have. Double, double toil and trouble. They’re watching you right now. They want to finish what you started. Full circle. Unless…”
Silence from the other end. “Unless what?”
“You can end this, son. It’s the only way. Do it for me, Sean. For your mother.”
History must repeat itself.
Must come full circle.
The line goes dead. The garage window is before me. The world on the other side is black. Obsidian. The longer I stare through it, the more my eyes can make out shadows.
Shadows within shadows taking shape. Silhouettes of strangers staring in. Of others.
This is not me, I say. But I can’t hear myself say it. The words have no voice. I have to force myself to say it again, louder this time, nearly shouting, “This isn’t me.”
I pick up the Polaroids from the floor. I scour the garage, checking under every chair and box until I’m convinced I’ve collected them all. Now I have a deck of cards. I shuffle them, feeling the flick of each picture against my fingertips before tossing them into the fire pit Tamara and I set up for those cold nights together. I only have a little bit of time left before she returns home, so I douse the scattered stack and light the match right away, watching every last image of Sandy warp and bubble, listening to them hiss and crackle.
Other people, Mom said. Other people.
This isn’t me, I keep repeating to myself. My own incantation around the fire. Rather than invoke some spirit, summoning them from the flames, my own personal sacrifice, I wanted to do away with this demon. Whoever he was. He wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.
This isn’t me. This isn’t me. This isn’t me.
I almost believe myself by the time the last Polaroid curls into ash. Glancing back at the house, I spot the gray silhouette of a boy at the kitchen window. He steps away from the glass, knowing he’s been caught spying, disappearing from sight. I watch Elijah run back to his bedroom.
DAMNED IF YOU DO
SEAN: 1983
Officially speaking, nobody knew who started the fire.
But everyone knew who started the fire.
A window in the cafeteria had been smashed during the night. An unknown assailant crept into the building, wandering down its darkened halls. There were no alarms, no night guards. Each empty classroom sat in perfect stillness. The desks were lined up in even rows, chairs pushed in, like skeletons hunched over in the shadows.
Mr. Woodhouse’s classroom was at the far end of the northern hall. Its walls were covered in charcoal self-portraits drawn by the students. The assignment for the students was to dr
aw themselves how they wanted the world to see them: As a superhero. President. Even a cat, if they wished. Mr. Woodhouse didn’t give his children any restrictions. He merely wanted them to imagine their future. The possibilities. Be whoever you want to be. Their scribbled eyes stared blankly back at this unknown assailant.
One charge brought against Mr. Woodhouse that received the most media attention was his usage of rituals in class, such as circle time.
Circle time was usually at the end of the day, just before the final bell. Mr. Woodhouse would have his kids sit on the carpet in a perfect circle. He didn’t like using the term Indian style, though most teachers still called it that. He preferred criss-cross applesauce. His kids formed a ring on the floor, knees touching.
Mr. Woodhouse would ask his students to talk about their favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day. What’s your rose and what’s your thorn?
He would have them close their eyes. Can you see it? he would ask. Is it clear in your inner eye now? He would then ask his children to imagine themselves putting that knowledge in a box. It could be as simple as a cardboard box—skrch-skrch—but it was their own special, secret receptacle hidden within their head where only they could access that knowledge.
You’ll hold onto this knowledge for the rest of your lives, Mr. Woodhouse insisted, pressing his index finger against his temple, where it can be called upon whenever you need it. Even as adults, it’ll be here. Right here. Just waiting for you to open it…so fill it up.
Mr. Woodhouse would then have them all sing special songs with words nobody had heard before, lyrics that Mr. Woodhouse himself had written, just for his children. The students were told not to share the words with anyone outside the circle. Not their parents or their friends.
The songs themselves could only be sung when it was circle time, when the students’ eyes were closed, so that they couldn’t see what Mr. Woodhouse was doing.
Sean said he peeped. He hadn’t meant to. He knew Mr. Woodhouse would be very mad if he found out Sean had opened his eyes during circle time. But Sean couldn’t help himself. He had to look. Just once. The students’ voices were climbing higher and higher. It was impossible not to sway as they sang. A steady rhythm manifested itself naturally as they rocked left to right, like kelp along a river bottom. The higher their voices climbed, the faster their bodies swayed, which was strange, because Sean wasn’t aware of the students’ movements when he’d had his eyes closed. In the dark, there was nothing but the music. It was only when he peeked that he was even aware of this strange, rhythmic motion.
