On the floor above the father, the mother had risen up. The mother knew she needed something but could not think of what or how to name it, how to put her hands in a way that would bring that something closer or quell the ache. The mother did not realize she was naked. The parents’ bed had moved. The parents’ bed sat against the wall opposite from where it’d been last. Their sheets were wet and upside-down. The designs on the sheets—same as those in the son’s room, and the guest room, and elsewhere in the house—showed backward through the fabric, becoming something.
The mother moved beyond the bed. She went into the bathroom where the sink and bathtub overflowed. The floor was slick with wet from both. The water had not touched the bedroom carpet. The mother stepped into the water. She did not see anyone in the room. She did not see the father or the son or the other father. The mother walked back out into the hall.
The mother went down the hall to the door to the son’s bedroom and put her hand against the door. She beat the shape and knocked and called his name out. Name! Name! she said, croaking. Son! Son! She shook. The door would not come open. Her wet feet had not left a trail behind her on the carpet.
The mother put the lock against her eye. Through the lock she could see nothing. She took her eye away. She replaced the place where her eye had been with her mouth and blew through the keyhole into the door. The mother had learned this trick. Her breath was made of air and water, laced with house dust. The mother touched the knob again. The door came open. Inside the son’s room as well the bed had moved from one wall to another—through the wall the parents’ and the son’s beds had come to kiss. The wall seemed to bow slightly between them. There was a sound but not a sound.
On the floor, bunched on the carpet, the mother saw a box. The box was neat and had black coating. The box did not have seams. The mother moved. The windows rattled. Her cell phone rang. She could not hear it. She could not hear. Her neck muscles pinched, contracting. Her right thigh began to spasm. The mother stood above the box. She nudged it with her foot. The box didn’t move much. In the grass below the window something thrashed or rattled. The mother squatted on her popping haunches. Her nails and hair were getting longer. The box rotated. Her eyes burst vessels. There was a sound but not a sound. Around the house the trees were bending. The mother took the box and made it shake.