Whisper Down the Lane

by Clay Chapman

  When Tamara arrived at the riverbank, she pulled Eli’s mud-covered body into her arms. His hair was matted down, that mop top covering his eyes. She couldn’t stop gripping him. She needed to touch everything, take inventory of his limbs to confirm nothing was missing.

  Tamara and I saw each other. Her eyes found mine and immediately turned away. It would take time to get everybody’s story straight. I just had to be patient. To regain her trust.

  Every day is a step toward understanding who I was and moving toward who I can be.

  I am looking for forgiveness.

  I am looking for myself.

  The last thing Tamara said to me was that she didn’t know who I was anymore, if she ever knew me to begin with. Are you Sean or are you Richard?

  That had been months ago. I respected her need for space, for distance, leaving them be. Then, out of the blue, the most miraculous thing happened…

  Elijah asked to see me.

  See me.

  Tamara supervised our hangouts. She refused to leave us alone. We’d meet at the park or a playground of Tamara’s choosing. After a few successful outings, we went to Elijah’s favorite restaurant.

  Is Eli sleeping through the night? I asked while he was in the restroom.

  No, she replied, giving as little of herself to me as possible.

  He’ll get there. Just give it time.

  Time, she echoed.

  Guess what? Condrey’s considering giving me my job back. Not my old job, exactly. There’s a summer program that she’s trying to start—

  Richard, stop.

  Sean, I corrected her. It’s…Sean.

  I have to believe we’ll find each other again. That I can find my way back to my family.

  Time. That’s all I have. Healing takes time.

  Sandy is on her own. No extended family, no relatives. Apparently, she screams her head off whenever social services tries splitting her and Eli apart. They found a foster family willing to house her temporarily, but that only lasted a few sleepless nights before they gave up.

  Tamara will foster Sandy for the short term until the state figures out what to do. She has an apartment near downtown that’s big enough for the three of them. Sandy apparently crawls into Eli’s bed at night. Tamara often finds them nestled together in the morning.

  Me—my new digs are farther off the interstate. I don’t know if I’m technically still in the county limits or not, but I’m close enough. I’m staying in a drab complex where everyone is content minding their own business, keeping their heads low, which is fine for the time being.

  Tonight is Eli’s first sleepover. It’s a big step and I’m not taking it lightly. Months of rebuilding trust have led to this. Tamara can call or text anytime she wants, just to check in. I know it’s hard, but she understands this is something he wants, and she’s at a point where she’s willing to give him just about whatever he asks for, as long as it brings him back to how he was.

  Who he was.

  I’ve already mapped out the itinerary for Boys Night: Pizza. A movie. Painting.

  I’ve been getting Eli’s room ready for him. The apartment isn’t much to look at. I haven’t decorated the place and I doubt I ever will. The eggshell suits me just fine. As far as furniture is concerned, I only picked up the essentials. A couch. A TV/DVD player. A set of cutlery for two.

  I also got my hands on some art supplies, just for tonight. The Big Night.

  When he finally arrives, he takes in the empty canvas surrounding him, four walls waiting for him to attack. “Go to town,” I say. “Paint it however you want.”

  “Really? Won’t we get in trouble?”

  “So what if I lose the deposit? You better go full-on Jackson Pollock in this joint.”

  Eli splashes the bedroom walls with all kinds of color. No need to stay in the lines. Just get it out, all that pent-up emotion. Release whatever might be trapped inside since the car accident. I don’t want him to hold onto his emotions, to bury them—like I did when I was his age.

  History will not repeat itself.

  There are moments when I see her—Jenna—standing in a crowd. I’ll pass her on the street. Spot her from the corner of my eye. I’ll stop and turn. Wait and see. But she’s never really there.

  If it hadn’t been for her, I never would’ve found myself again.

  Found Sean.

  Jenna helped me rediscover whom I’ve been hiding from. Had I known who she was before she died, I wonder if I would’ve been capable of asking her for forgiveness.

  I wonder if she would have been capable of giving it to me.

  I guess we’ll never know, will we?

  What I put her family through was unforgivable. What she put my family through was unforgivable too, but I hope we would’ve forgiven each other.

  I keep asking for forgiveness from ghosts. I need to ask myself the same thing…

  Can I begin to forgive myself? For all the things that I’ve done?

  How can I atone?

  Eli, I think. He’s my second chance.

  His bedtime is nine p.m. on weekends. Tamara wanted him in bed no later than nine thirty, but this is his first night here. It’s a special occasion. What’s an extra hour going to hurt? I tell him we can keep it between him and me. Our little secret.

  I tuck him in. A splatter pattern of paint still speckles our skin, illuminated by the nightstand lamp. I turn it off and the two of us are left in the dark. The bespattered paint on the walls looks like cobwebs in the shadows.

  “Do you think…” Eli hesitates, struggling to find the right words. Once he thinks he’s finally got them, he starts again. “Do you think Sandy’s mom really meant to drown us?”

  I choose my words carefully. “We can ask ourselves over and over, racking our brains for some explanation, but…there never will be an answer. Sometimes it’s best to just let it go.”

  Forgive and forget, I want to say, even if I’m not sure I believe it. I think about the moment in the car. On the bridge. Jenna started to accelerate, steering for the abutment.

  I heard Eli scream from the back seat. That’s when I grabbed the steering wheel.

  That’s how it happened. How I remember it happening.

  “Do you think you’ll ever come back home?” he asks. “With Mom?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Put in a good word for me. She’ll listen to you.”

  He laughs. “Okay…”

  It’s clear he’s struggling to put his thoughts into words. Something is still weighing him down. “Is there something else? Something you want to tell me?”

  When he finally speaks, his voice is barely there. “It was supposed to be a game…”

  I don’t say anything right away, letting his words sink in. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s all my fault. I told Sandy I was really mad at Mom for marrying you…I didn’t want a new dad. Then Sandy said her mom had a game we could play. To get back at you. Sandy’s mom told me to do all these things around the house. Little things. She told me to say stuff she knew would scare you. She said if I did it, you’d go away and it’d just be me and Mom again.”

  I think back to all those moments in the house, the inexplicable things that kept happening. Eli. The whole time. “You knew?”

  “I didn’t think it would end like that…I didn’t know Sandy’s mom would…would…”

  Just a game.

  “The bruises,” I say. “Your mother told me she found bruises on your arm…”

  “I did it—” he swallows “—to myself.”

  I realize my fingernails are digging into my palm. “Have you told your mother?”

  Eli shakes his head, no. “Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Honest.”

  He thinks I’m mad at him. He’s afraid of wh
at I might say, that I’ll give him up to his mother—but what I can’t admit, not to Eli, is that I’ve been feeling the exact same way. This boy has held my fate in his hands for months now. We’ve stalemated each other.

  “What do we do now?” I ask.

  Eli leans over and fishes through his backpack next to the bed. He pulls out a crumpled envelope. He’s held on to it for a long time, from the looks of it. The paper appears like it was wet, then dried. The ink has blurred a bit across the front, but I can still read the name:

  SEAN.

  “I found it in my backpack,” Eli says. “After the accident.”

  I take the envelope. It’s not sealed. “Did you read it?”

  Eli doesn’t answer. Of course he has. Curiosity killed the…but I stop myself. He’s six now. Whatever it says, I have to imagine—I hope—most of the words go right over his head.

  This must be Jenna Woodhouse’s final word against me. Her punishment. Did she know this would end with her death? How could she? I push the thought out of my mind. Whatever’s written in here, I’m sure it has the specific intent of poisoning my relationship with Eli. With Tamara.

  They’re lies, I hear myself—hear Sean—whisper. Nothing but lies.

  I rip up the envelope.

  Eli’s eyes widen as I send a flurry of torn paper into the air. I don’t need her words in my head. I will not let her have the final word over my life.

  “It’s okay.” I almost say water under the bridge. “I love you, Eli, no matter what.”

  He nods.

  “We just have to—”

  watch out for

  “—trust each other. I’m willing to do that, if you are. What do you say?”

  “I love you…Dad.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Will you stay with me?” he asks. “Just until I fall asleep?”

  “I’ll stay as long as you want.”

  I take in the room as Eli slowly drifts off to sleep. The stillness of the space is palpable. The dull glow of the building’s utility light just outside his window seeps into the room.

  Something catches my eye through the open curtains. I sit up, my feet finding the floor.

  Someone is out there.

  I spot a glimpse of their silhouette from the other side of the window. Their ashen features linger in my reflection, like two faces superimposed on the glass.

  A drab man hides inside me, the reflection of his face nestled within my own.

  The gray boy stares back.

  I walk to the window. Glancing out to the shadowed street, I search but can’t see him anymore. Just the halogen lamp, casting a coffee-colored patina over the patch of grass below.

  There’s a car parked down the block but no one’s in it. There’s a tree kids climb and play in during the day, but its branches are empty now, buckling in the breeze.

  I hold my breath, waiting for the brick. For the glass to shatter. I sense it coming for me.

  Any second now.

  Any second…

  “Who is it?” Elijah asks. He’s hoisted himself up on one elbow, trying to see what I see.

  I close the curtains, sealing us in. I turn away from the window, my back to the glass. I smile back at him.

  “No one.”

  Dear Sean,

  The first time I found you was outside your bedroom window. I don’t know how long we stood on your lawn, watching you and your mother as she read you a story. It felt like hours to me, but I was only five at the time. I couldn’t stop shivering in my pajamas. You looked so warm inside.

  “Look, Jenna,” my mother said. “Just look at them.”

  I remember wishing I was at home, in my own bed with my own mother reading a story to me, instead of hiding outside yours, freezing in the dark. All I could hear was my teeth chattering. I didn’t want to be here, peering into your life.

  “These are the people who ruined your father,” my mother said. “They ruined our family. Look how happy they are.”

  She had brought a brick with her. I’m not sure if she had been carrying it the whole time, but I remember watching her throw it. The arc of her arm. The sudden, ear-splitting shatter of glass. The sound was so loud, it echoed throughout the neighborhood.

  I remember hearing you scream.

  Before I knew it, my mother yanked me away from your house. We ran down the street. My feet couldn’t keep up, but she wouldn’t let me go. She didn’t slow down until we reached our car blocks away. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said. “This will be our little secret.”

  I felt giddy at first, sharing this moment with my mother. We did something mischievous together and nobody else knew. Just between us. Our own little secret.

  It’s the last fond memory of my mother that I have.

  Even though she would say otherwise, eventually laying the blame at my father’s feet like everyone else, I knew my mother never believed it. Your lies. She said what everyone else was saying to save her own skin. She knew that if she didn’t play along, people would start blaming her for what happened, too. She would be sucked into the same sinkhole that was swallowing up my father. I hated her for it.

  Hated you.

  * * *

  —

  I’ve known you my whole life. My earliest memories are of you. You were always there. On the six o’clock news. The front page of the newspaper. I’d turn on the television and there you’d be, talking about how my father was this monster, even though we both know that isn’t true. My father was so gentle. He loved me and cared deeply for all of his students, every last one of them. Even you.

  How many people did you hurt, Sean? Have you ever tried to put a number to it? You know…just done the math? I have. You can easily tally up the teachers and administration who were put on trial and served time in jail…but your lies extended into the lives of our community. Across the country, making so many people afraid. The power of your voice, your lies, was malignant. It spread everywhere…

  Growing up, it felt like I couldn’t get away from you.

  And then, just like that…you disappeared. Sean Crenshaw ceased to exist.

  I thought you were so lucky.

  You got to vanish.

  * * *

  —

  Nobody would let me forget who I was. Who my father was. Moving didn’t fix anything. My mother and I changed our names but that didn’t stop the stigma from following us. The stories always found us, somehow. Mom forced me into therapy because everybody assumed I’d been molested, too. By my own fucking father. I wonder if you know what it feels like to tell people the truth and not be believed.

  I moved out the second I could. I tried to get as far away from my past as possible, cutting out every last little bit of who I was until nobody knew. If I could go one day, just one day, without being reminded of my dad, it would’ve been progress. Healing.

  Or forgetting. Whatever you want to call it.

  I was making good progress when I was living in Richmond. I had my own apartment. People who passed as friends. I even had a job at a coffee shop down the block.

  When my manager told me we were going to host an art show, he asked me to close up the night of the opening. Why not? Free wine and cheese. I figured there’d be a few bottles of Two Buck Chuck left behind.

  That’s when I saw the sketches in the back. Simple charcoal drawings of boys and girls dancing in a circle, hand in hand. In the center was a boy. He was barely there, like a ghost.

  There was something familiar about the picture. Something I remembered.

  You probably don’t remember this—do you?—but you came up to me, pretty tipsy from the boxed wine, pleased that someone, anyone, was checking out your work.

  “I can get you a good deal on this,” you said, flirting. “I know the artist.”

  I recognized you almost imm
ediately, even though it had been decades at that point. But you didn’t recognize me.

  “Hey,” you said. “I’m Richard.”

  Richard.

  I wanted to punch you right in the face for that, but you did me a favor that night.

  You gave me an opportunity to get to know you.

  We moved to the bar after the show was over. Every time I thought you recognized me, you’d simply shake your head. I was scared but at the same time I didn’t want any of this to stop.

  You talked about your foster family. Your hopes and dreams as an artist.

  I kept waiting, hoping you’d catch on. That you’d recognize me. I was right there, right there in front of you. Inches away from your face. And still—still—you couldn’t see me for who I was. But I could see you. I could see right through your bullshit.

  At one point, I called you Sean. It slipped out, but you must not have heard me. Or maybe you did? How wasted were you, really? Blackout drunk? Or are you just a black hole? If I reached into your head, would I get sucked in? Would I disappear, too, just like Sean had? Sometimes that’s all I ever wanted.

  Going back to your apartment was a gamble. It felt like we were playing chicken. Who would flinch first? Just another minute longer, I’d say to myself, one more…

  Just when I thought you’d remember…

  Just when I thought you’d call me out…

  Just when I thought I couldn’t go any further…

  I left before you woke up. I was almost positive you’d forget me. I had given you a fake name anyway, just like you had, so it didn’t matter if you remembered or not. If I stood in a lineup of one-night stands, I highly doubt you’d be able to pick me out.

  That’s the trick about denial, isn’t it? Once you start lying to yourself, there’s no one else to stop you from believing your own bullshit. No one to call you out on your lies.

  * * *

  —

  I never wanted to bring anyone else into this life. It seemed wrong. Who wants to bring a child into a world like this?

  I kept telling myself I’d get rid of it, but I found myself stalling. And the longer I waited, the more I realized what a gift you’d given me.