A child entered our home. He was small for a 6-year-old with straggly copper hair, bald patches only hidden when his hair fell just right. Thin, with a round belly, and one missing toe. But what my wife couldn't stand were his eyes. She, using her colorful, flouncy words borrowed from her romance novels, described them as "smoldering embers drowning in a dusky sea."
There were whispers of our desperation, our direct involvement, our ignorant and blind kindness. They followed me to the office, in the car, in traffic. They followed her into grocery stores, into our garden, into the dark corners of our wine cellar. At first, we were tolerant. Why were people so cruel and heartless?
And then we became one of them.
Our transformation wasn't immediate. It was a slow-spreading virus. There was no cure, and death was expected. As for whose death, I'm not quite sure. What was certain was that, if there was a God Almighty, He was punishing us. And would continue doing so.
She's always wanted children. Even before we got married, even before I thought about children outside the world of bad taste, outside the "good ol' days." She was the kind of little girl that played house every day, pretending her stuffed animals were her children, and these children were obedient and always ate their vegetables because she was an amazing mother.
When her sister died from an accident--details were vague--we were already aware that we couldn't have children. Gizelle was open to the idea of adopting her nephew. We spent a considerate amount of time preparing for his arrival, decorating his room with airplanes, child-locking the oven and drawers. She was excited, as grieving as she was of her sister's death. It would be, as she said, "a breath of fresh air."
We woke up the morning of Scotty's arrival to a sky of black and purple clouds. God-sized gunshots rumbled across the sky, and lightning struck the sky in anger, or in fear. Gizelle was worried that Scotty would be afraid of the storm and hopped out of bed to call her bachelor brother, who would be bringing Scotty to our house from his home in Maine.
I got dressed for work. Scotty wouldn't be at our house until 7. I would be back from the office by then to welcome our new son into our home.
"Hey Brandon, give me a call when you get this. It's storming here, so please be careful. Be sure to give Scotty extra attention! Love you, bro. See you soon!"
I left for work. It was a typical day. Broken fax machines, broken printers, broken office-romance-hearts. I was looking forward to returning home.
Stuck in the storm, I didn't get back to the house until 6:30. Gizelle was on her way to finishing making dinner when there was a phone call. I picked up and said hello five times. No answer.
"Who was it?"
"I don't know." I frowned. "Must be this storm. If it was important, they'll call back."
7 o'clock rolled around. And then it became 7:30. By 7:45, Gizelle had called Brandon over thirty times with no answer. The doorbell rang, and we ran to open the door.
A child entered our home. He was small for a 6-year-old with straggly copper hair, bald patches only hidden when his hair fell just right. Thin, with a round belly, and one missing toe. But what my wife couldn't stand were his eyes. She, using her colorful, flouncy words borrowed from her romance novels, described them as "smoldering embers drowning in a dusky sea."
"Scotty? Scotty, where's Uncle Brandon?"
"Gone."
"Gone where?"
"Gone."
"How did you get here?"
Silence.
His blank eyes left me shuddering, as if a cold, skeleton hand had traced a malicious trail up my spine, all the way up to my throat.
"Come in, come in." Gizelle was less sensitive to the creepy vibes the kid was sending out with his impassiveness. Her motherly instincts took over. "Let's get you dried off, you poor thing. Come here and wait. Harold, go and grab a towel from the closet, please."
The skeleton released its grip on my windpipe and I went to grab a towel. I didn't like this feeling. I should go out and find Brandon. I tossed the towel to Gizelle and promptly dialed his cell phone. It rang once, twice.
"Hey, it's Brandon. Can't come to the phone right now--"
When Scotty turned 16, he ran away. We all breathed a sigh of relief. All except Gizelle. But I was glad. The skeleton disappeared the night Scotty took our old station-wagon--the one he'd been working on for several years--a small suitcase, and some food.
He stunk of death. Of darkness. I expected light and life to reenter our lives after he left. But the feeling, the stink, never left the house. And we were never the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment