Wednesday, October 28
I wake with a jolt, unsure of where I am, how I got here, and even very nearly who I am. It’s very dark. Hot. A dry, static hot, and my tongue swells in my mouth, begging for water. Yet my skin is covered in sweat.
In seconds, bits and pieces flash back to me. I was driving to my mother’s house, racing against the onset of a very bad panic attack. She opened the door, and I collapsed inside the house.
I’m in my mother’s house.
In a bed, must be the guest room upstairs. My body is so tightly spooled by sheets that I feel mummified. I try to lift my arms but my movement is restricted, and this alone makes me want to scream in fear. Relax. Move slowly. And when I do, I free my right arm, and then my left.
More memories flood in.
Of my mother taking me upstairs by the time the attack took complete control of me. Of being in a ball on the bed, immersed in the blackest of thoughts. The absence of all hope. The desire, the thirst, to kill myself, and the thought that even death wouldn’t provide me relief. The hell of everything.
I sit up and stare into the darkness long enough that I can finally make out the cracks of light around the windows and door. No idea what time it is, or even what day. I can hear the familiar sound of a space heater whirring somewhere nearby. My mother always uses these, because she thinks they cost less than the central heat, and the one in this room has raised the temperature to a thousand suffocating degrees.
I remember sobbing uncontrollably, crying until my lungs hurt.
There’s something else.
I was saying something, over and over.
It was…
I miss Daddy.
Rocking back and forth in the bed, crying into the dark like a scared, little girl, sobbing I miss Daddy.
More images from last night slowly take focus. My mother entered the room. Her hand on my back, there there-ing me, telling me she had a glass of water. Me, reaching for it, gulping it down greedily, feeling that it didn’t taste right.
Her telling me she’d put a little something in it. Just to help me sleep. Just a little special powder she sometimes gives Thomas when he’s upset.
Then it’s all a blur. But there was sleep. Sleep like death, deep and shapeless, dark and vulnerable.
And now I’m awake. Alive, I think. Feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck.
I get out of bed, stand with unsteady legs. Move to the wall, flick on the light, brace against the brightness. My eyes adjust, and I scan the room. No purse, no phone. Still in all my clothes.
Open the door, head into the hallway. Hazy light streams from the far windows, but it’s soft and weak, the light of morning. Thomas’s room is next to mine. I crack open the door and peek in. He’s asleep, headphones on, a bottle of prescription pills and a Mountain Dew can on the dresser next to him. I’m about to leave him alone, let him sleep, then choose instead to go inside. I’m pulled to him out of some emotion I can’t quite define, but its closest relative would be sadness.
I watch him sleep, listen to his heavy, heavy breaths. I feel weak just looking at him, knowing how much he struggles just to live a normal life. But Thomas isn’t normal; he exists in a state of arrested development, and the growing chasm between his biological and emotional years will forever define him. We are all defined by something, and in this moment, I think how I’ve been solely focused on my own labels, not considering nearly enough that Thomas’s struggles are no less real or significant than my own.
I never should have left him alone.
It’s a sudden, jarring thought, one as clear as if being spoken directly into my ear.
He should not be here.
I should not be here.
I came here seeking my mother’s comfort, and she responded by drugging me.
My gaze flicks to the bottle of pills on Thomas’s nightstand, the white, plastic cap resting, but not secured, on its top. I pick it up, remove the lid, and find the bottle half-filled. The capsules are the blue of a robin’s egg. So simple and pretty, in their own way. The label lists the drug name; it’s long, stuffed with vowels, and unfamiliar to me. Must be one of the meds for his bipolar schizoaffective disorder. Who knows what effect, good or bad, it’s having on him? I have an urge to take the rest of these and flush them down the toilet, along with the past fourteen years.
“What are you doing in here?”
My mother stands in the doorway, her frame filling a good portion of it.
“I don’t know,” I say. My throat is painfully dry. “I just wanted to see him.”
“He needs his sleep, Alice. As do you. You had quite a night. Poor, poor dear.”
I gave the pill bottle a little shake. “What are these for?”
She lets out a breath with effort. “They calm him down.”
“They’re a sedative?”
“Alice, please don’t come here and start judging. You don’t understand the needs your brother has.”
I put the pills back down on the side table. Thomas hasn’t stirred an inch. That whispered voice is back in my ear.
Don’t leave him here, Alice.
“What did you give me last night?” I ask. “I can’t remember much, and I feel like I weigh a ton.”
She takes a step inside the room and crosses her meaty arms against her chest.
“Something to help you sleep.”
“You sedated me?”
“You were quite a mess. I helped you. That’s why you came here, right, Alice? Because you needed your mother, and I helped you.”
It’s true. I didn’t want to be alone. The visions of yesterday afternoon stab at me.
The parking lot.
The fear in Jimmy’s eyes. His gun pointed at me.
The explosion. The screaming woman.
The blood.
I hold my hands up and see the faded red stains of Jimmy on my hands. Did my mother see the blood?
“You were in fits, Alice. What happened yesterday?”
“Where’s my phone?” I ask.
“Downstairs,” she answers. “Alice, what set you off yesterday? You were screaming, you know.”
Screaming? I close my eyes and concentrate. Before she moved me to the bedroom, I was on the living room floor. Thomas was there. Trying to comfort me, I think. My mother told him to leave me be, that she would handle it.
Then Thomas was yelling. At her, I think. Telling her It’s all your fault.
Then she moved me. Gave me the water with the powder. Then there was just darkness until I woke this morning.
“I don’t remember much,” I tell her. “God, I could go right back to bed. Sleep for a week.”
Her eyes widen at this. “Alice, yes, of course, dear. Go back to bed. Take as much time as you want. You could stay here for a bit, you know.”
“I can’t. I just can’t.”
“You’re falling apart at the seams, Alice. I can see it. You look terrible, you know. Does this all have to do with that book you received in the post? Is that why you went to London? You never tell me anything, and all I can do is sit here and worry.”
Thomas still hasn’t moved an inch, but I don’t want to wake him by continuing the conversation in his bedroom.
“Can I get some coffee?”
She wipes her hands on the front of her pants. “Yes, of course, dear. Come on, then.”
I follow my mother down the stairs, watching her take each tread carefully.
In the kitchen, she prepares a pot of coffee and offers me crumb cake, which smells the way God must. I take only a small piece, knowing too much sugar will make me want to crash even harder than I already do.
“I went to see the twins,” I say.
“The twin what?”
“The twins. The Glassin twins.”
Her eyes widen, and her fleshy cheeks immediately redden. “Jesus and Mary. Why on earth would you care to do such a thing?”
“I’m trying to figure out who sent me the book.”
When she puts her hand on her hip, it sends me back to every argument we’ve ever had. “So you flew to England and went to a prison to see those wretched girls?”
“No. I went to their home. They just got out.”
“They’re out? How are they allowed back into society?”
I shrug. “I don’t make the rules, Mom.”
“You don’t even seem upset,” she says.
“Well, I’m sure you wouldn’t have said that last night,” I say. “Right now, I don’t have the energy to be bothered by anything. Pour me a cup, and maybe that’ll give me the strength to work myself up a bit.”
The coffeemaker has spit out just enough to fill a mug, which my mother does and hands it to me. Dark and delicious.
I take a deep breath and try to find a solid, balanced center within myself. When I feel I’m close enough, I look down to the countertop and say, “Mom, whoever sent me that book—whoever did those drawings—has been following me. Stalking me. Is obsessed with me and the stabbing. I think he’s been following me for years. In fact…”
When I look up, I find my mother staring straight at me, the kind of stare that is so focused, it can only be used as an effort to keep from shouting.
But very softly, she does speak. She says, “In fact what?”
I let another long breath out. “In fact, this person might be the same person who found me that night. The one who called the police.”
“That’s ridiculous. That person was just a bloke who didn’t want to be involved. He saved your life.”
“I know he did. And now he seems to be obsessed with the idea of continually doing that.”
“Meaning what?”
“I don’t know,” I say, not wanting to reveal to her how deep this all goes. I don’t know if I’m trying to protect her from the truth or just don’t want to have to manage her reaction to everything. God, if she knew about Thomas shooting Freddy Starks…
“Wait, have you had contact with this person?”
“Some,” I admit. “A few emails. He’s baiting me, and I’m trying to find him.”
“Why in the world would you want to do that? What would you do if you even found him?”
That’s the question, really. What happens if you find Mr. Interested, Alice? Just tell him to please leave you alone? Or would you do what you did to that poor British man and nearly beat him to a pulp?
“I don’t know. But I can’t keep living my life knowing he’s out there.”
She shovels a generous piece of the crumb cake in her mouth, swallows quickly, then says, “Alice, you needn’t pursue bad things. Enough bad things have found you without any effort on your part. Leave the past in the past. Ignore this person… I'm sure he'll soon leave you be.”
“I don’t understand why you want me to sit back and be a victim.” Although I do understand. It’s the role in which she excels.
“I just want you to be safe.”
“I think I’m past that point now.” I allow a moment of silence between us, then say, “I also saw Charles Glassin.”
“Charles Glassin? I haven’t thought of that name in ages.” She takes another bite.
“He said you all used to get together way back when. Before I was even born.”
She looks startled, and for a moment, I think the crumb cake has perhaps cut off her airway. But she regains composure, swallows, then says, “We did a few social things, but not much. I hardly knew them, and what I did know of them I didn’t much care for. The mother’s a bit of a tart.”
“What did you used to do together?”
She seems to be filtering through her mind for the right thing to say. She decides on, “Drink, mostly. That’s more or less what everyone did back then. Drink and smoke.”
I accept this answer as at least some of the truth and press her no more.
“How did you find Charles?” she asks.
“He’s still in the same house.”
“You went back to the neighborhood?”
“Yes. The neighborhood. The park. I just knocked on his door, and he was home. He’s a very sad man. His wife left a long time ago. I think he said to New York.”
“What else did he tell you?”
I think back to my time with Charles in his suffocating little house with bare walls. “He talked about how they split up after what happened. How it felt to fail in doing the only job that’s important: raising your children. He took a lot of responsibility for what happened.”
My mother turns her back to me and starts wiping an already-clean counter with a dish towel. “Understandable, I suppose. He did raise those little monsters.”
The word strikes me. “Yes. Monsters. He said that, too. I remember thinking how very sad it was to hear someone call their own children monsters, even if that’s what they are.”
She stops wiping, turns, and walks directly to me, and then finally takes me into her arms and pulls me hard against her. I don’t know if she’s shielding me or if I’m shielding her. She holds me tight and says, “You need to let go of the past, Alice. Whoever is stalking you will surely tire of their little games. You should come home. Live here. Let me take care of you. It would be good for all of us.”
I gently push away from her. “Mom, this doesn’t all go away. He’s not going to tire of me. He’s been watching me for years, as far as I can tell, and now he’s slowly making himself known. He’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants.”
Or until he dies of whatever ails him, I think. But waiting that out is dangerous, if it’s even true. I suspect he wants some kind of closure with me before his life ends.
“Your father created him,” she says, and I don’t know what him she’s referring to, the character or the real-life stalker. Perhaps she means both. “He destroyed everything, and I’m left to deal with all the pieces. Thomas is a zombie, and you’re just a little bag of nerves.”
This is where it all turns. It’s like she switches into another role, or perhaps the exterior dissolves and the real her is exposed. But it’s always ugly, because all she can focus on is her. I don’t want to engage, so I need to leave.
“Mom, thank you for taking care of me last night. I do love you for it. But I have to go.”
“That’s right,” she says. There’s a fierceness in her tone. “Because that’s what you do best, Alice. You run away. Just like your father, you don’t look behind you to see the mess you’ve left.”
“I can’t do this, Mom. I can’t do this.”
“Then go, Alice.” She wipes her hands on her hips, back and forth, back and forth.
Then I see her from my dream, the one where she was teaching Thomas to swim. That awful, sickening moment when she lowered him into the water and calmly walked away, letting him drown, wiping her hands on her hips as her son’s lungs filled with water. I will get him out of here, I resolve. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I will take Thomas from here.
She shuffles after me as I grab my purse and phone and walk out the front door.
She stands in the doorway, and I can hear her huffing. She wants to shout something, and I’m waiting for it.
Maybe she can’t think of anything to say, or maybe it’s just all been said before, because, for a rare time in my mother’s life, she chooses to be silent.
I pull out of the driveway as she is swallowed back inside the house, back into her world of self-pity and control. As I drive, the tears well up in my eyes, and I begin to softly cry as I head back to Manchester. I cry not because of everything happening in my life, but for things that aren’t happening.
I miss my dad more than ever.