Mother (58 page)

A deep voice spoke behind her. “It’s me. Timothy. I’m here.”

Claire turned and saw him. He stood in her bedroom doorway, not the closet, and he was wearing his favorite red baseball cap, blue jeans, and a black windbreaker, zipped all the way up. For a moment, he seemed shrunken, too small. Then the air swirled around him and filled out. Yes. It was Timothy. It had to be. “Tim?”

“Hey, little sister. How are you?”

His voice sounded too deep. But maybe not. It had been so long since she’d talked to him.

“Tim, is it really you?”

“In the flesh.” For a moment, his skin seemed to drip off of him. “It’s me, Claire.” He looked normal again.
 

Claire shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut. “No. You’re … you’re dead.”

“But I’m coming back.”

She opened her eyes again. It was Tim all right. The ants appeared on the wall behind him, marching up, down, and back and forth, as the walls changed from yellow to sky blue to pink, shifting colors like a basket of Easter eggs. “But how?”

“I don’t want you to leave. Not ever.” Timothy smiled. His lips were too red. “I want you here, where I can see you every day.”

“But-” Claire looked up. Timothy was gone. “Tim?” She stumped to the open doorway, saw nothing. “Hello? Hello?”

She peered down the hall in both directions. It was empty. “Hello?”

“I’m down here, Carlene.” Mother’s voice drifted upstairs. “Did you need something?”

Claire waited to see the words come bouncing up the hall and for a moment thought they did - but they vanished before she was sure she’d seen them. “No, Mother. I’m okay.”

“You’re sure?” called Mother. “Is the baby keeping you up again?”

The baby? Again? What?
Claire retreated into her room and sat down on the bed. She touched her stomach. “It’s too soon for you to kick, isn’t it?”

Then she felt it. The baby was knocking -
tap, tap, tap
- from within her.
Qu'est-ce que c'es
t?
it asked.
Qu'est-ce que c'es
t?
 

Then it kicked. Hard.

Her stomach bounced beneath her shirt. She pulled it up and saw a small face pressing against her skin from within her belly. Then she saw the outline of a hand, then a foot. A cloven hoof. Claws. The points of horns. Claire whimpered, eyes filling with tears of terror, and she raised a shaking hand to her mouth.
It’s going to rip me open!

“I’m coming back.” She heard the words in Timothy’s strange gruff tone, saw them appear from between her legs, rising to swirl around her head.

Claire squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m going mad. I’m losing my mind.”

“Now why would you say that?” Mother’s voice startled her.

Claire looked up and saw her approaching the bed. Her face began to melt, dripping off her bones like wax down a candle. Her hair was a Medusa of writhing snakes that matched the green of her robe.
 

Claire screamed, pressed herself against the wall, and kicked. “Get away from me! Get away from me!”

“Carlene!” The Mother-monster grabbed her wrists, pinned them, held them. “Calm down!” The words were liquid, cold, hitting her face like buckets of freezing water. “Calm down!”

Claire screamed, writhed, kicked, watching as the monster pinned her down and tied ropes around her wrists, then her ankle, securing her to the short bedposts. “No! Stop it! Get away from me!”
 

“Be calm,” said the Mother-monster. “Everything is okay. Right as rain. You’re safe. The doctor’s coming.” She pulled a phone from her pocket.

Claire’s heart pounded, then within seconds it slowed, and her thoughts turned to sludge. Ants zigged and zagged across the Easter egg-colored ceiling.
Mother’s favorite colors.
 

She heard the monster’s voice - it sounded like a record set to slow. “Sorry to call at this hour, Gerald. Mm-hmm. She’s gone over the edge. I need your diagnosis and something that will calm her down, then we can take it from there.” The droning voice sped up, up, until it was like the chirp of a chipmunk. “Yes, I think you’re right - it might be a psychotic break. I only pray she can stay at home where I can care for her. My poor little girl.” The monster, who now looked like a younger, prettier version of Mother, studied Claire and frowned. “The doctor is on his way, Carlene. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. I’m afraid you’re going to hurt yourself or the baby. We can’t have that, can we, honey?” Mother-monster changed form again, its eyes glowing red, fangs dripping venom. It peered down at Claire and stroked her hair with its talons. “Now, now, don’t struggle. Everything will be all right.” Mother-monster grinned and its teeth went up to its temples. “Doctor will be here in a little while. Just close your eyes and rest. I’m going down to open the door for him.” The monster’s face split, right down the middle. Blood and gore and goo oozed from the raw, wet gash.

Claire screamed and writhed in her constraints.

Mother shut off the lights. “Monsters live in the dark,” she said, and closed the door.

Downstairs, Priscilla made herself a nice cup of Sleepytime Tea, then started
Teddy Bear’s Picnic
again and sat down near the vent that allowed her to listen for Carlene. Smiling to herself, remembering how much she enjoyed Timothy’s infancy, she couldn’t wait to hold her new grandson in her arms.
 

Twenty minutes passed. She thought about the potluck in the morning. While Carlene was raving, Prissy had made a gallon of potato salad that was still cooling on the counter in the kitchen. She was happy Carlene hadn’t been terribly loud. It was all rather humiliating, how her daughter was coming unhinged and it wouldn’t do for the neighbors to come poking around, to hear her daughter ranting and raving and talking to Timothy’s ghost.
As if Timothy would be spending his time floating around upstairs!
 

“Isn’t it sad, Timothy?” Prissy said. “Your poor sister is trying so hard, but I don’t think she’s a very capable girl. It’s a good thing Mother is here, isn’t it?”

Timothy didn’t answer, but she knew he was there. He was always with her.
 

“I love you, Angelheart,” she murmured, sipping tea. “Where is that damned doctor?”

As if in response to her question, she heard a car turn onto Morning Glory Circle. A moment later, headlights flashed as Gerald Hopper, M.D., pulled up in front of her house.
 

“It’s about time!” She rose and opened the door and waited while Gerald gathered his medical bag and strolled up the walk. “Can’t you walk any faster?”

“Priscilla,” he said, “this is highly unusual, even for you.”

“You’re a doctor, you make house calls.”
 

“I don’t. My wife-”

“Your wife what?” Priscilla laughed. “Does she think you’re having an affair?”

“You dragged me out of bed at an ungodly hour. If your daughter needs medical help, you should have taken her to the emergency room.”

“What am I supposed to do, Gerald? Carry her down the stairs by myself?”

“You could have called an ambulance.”

Prissy drew herself up to full height, straightened her shoulders, and glared at Hopper. “I called
you
, Gerald.”

The neat little man, his bald head shining, his brown eyes blinking behind wire-rimmed glasses, stared back. “What is it you want from me, Priscilla?”

She smiled. “I need you to examine Carlene. I do believe she’s had a psychotic break.”

“You’re very quick to dole out a diagnosis, Priscilla, and I don’t think an RN is qualified to make psychiatric evaluations. Nor am I.”

“You’d best watch your mouth, Gerald. It might get you into trouble.”

“Your games have gotten old, Priscilla.”
 

“Games? I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years about the games you’ve played.”

“The games
you’ve
made me play.”

“Me? Nonsense. As you said, I’m only a nurse. The doctor is
always
in charge. And don’t forget: You made at least one medical error that was all your own. That first error.”

He broke eye contact. “I should have admitted it to the board. Then you never would have had anything to hang over my head.”

Priscilla patted his cheek. “What about
all
those other things you did after that? The drugs you’ve prescribed that weren’t called for and-”

“I know what I’ve done and if those things were to come out, you would be guilty as well. And, rest assured, Prissy, I would no longer keep your secrets. All those accidents your daughter and son had? The illnesses? All of that?
 
We both know you forced me to cover for you.” He paused. “I must admit, I’ve wondered about your daughter’s current injury.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the doctor. I wouldn’t forget that if I were you. And how dare you imply anything about Carlene’s broken leg? I wasn’t even there when she fell.”

Refusing to meet her gaze, Gerald Hopper spoke. “I’d better examine her now.”

Prissy smiled. “Follow me.”
 

Claire’s bed floated toward the ceiling. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel the gravitational pull of the darkened overhead light. It was a black hole sucking her in, and when she was close enough, it would enter her body, crushing through her chest.
 

She closed her eyes, waiting for death and wondered if that’s how her brother had felt when he kicked away the chair to escape Mother once and for all. She closed her eyes and saw him hanging from the belt he’d used as a noose. His skin was blue-gray and bloated. His eyes popped open and Claire gasped.

His mouth moved and he spoke around a swollen purple tongue, but his words were clear.
“You’re remembering, little sister, that’s good. But you need to remember more. Let me help you.”
Tim sounded the way she recalled - not like he did in her bedroom doorway, deep and weird and slow.

“No,” said Claire. “I can’t. I don’t want to remember.”

“You have to, little sister. Do it for me.”

“Please, no.”

“You found me this way,” Tim said. “Remember?”

The memory was an unstoppable train.

Carlene is ten years old. She knows this because she just had a birthday and Timothy had sent her a new doll, one she had secretly yearned for. She’d told him she was too old for dolls, but they both knew better. Her big brother had mailed it from Brimstone, Arizona, where he’d been living with Steffie Banks for well over a year.
 

But he’s home again now, because he had an accident and hurt his leg. Mother went to Brimstone and brought him back. Carlene is glad he’s back, but she is also sad for Tim because she knows how happy he was with Steffie.
 

Tim hasn’t been himself since his return, though. Someone turned off the lights in his eyes - the lights that had always shined so bright. Mother says he has been drinking a lot. Carlene believes this because she has smelled it, and she has heard him slurring his words and saying funny things. Mother gives him lots to drink, leaving it for him even though he asked her not to.

He says he’s going to move back to Brimstone to be with Steffie when his leg heals, but there’s something in his voice when he says this - something that tells Carlene he doesn’t quite believe it. He hasn’t been very talkative and Carlene thinks this is probably because his leg hurts. She feels like there’s something more, but she doesn’t know how to define it.

Today, she goes down to the basement to get a new box of detergent for Mother. When she reaches for the box, it falls, and knocks several items off the shelf beneath it. Carlene spots something she’s never seen before and, standing on a stepladder, sees jars of liquid and other things. She pulls them out and unscrews the lids. Sniffs and recoils. It’s pee! And in the other jars, she finds fingernail and toenail clippings. In another, she finds wadded tissues, crusted with something
 
yellow-white. It doesn’t look like snot.

“Carlene?” Mother calls from upstairs. “What are you doing down there?”

“Coming, Mother.” Carlene replaces the jars just as she found them, takes the laundry soap to Mother, and heads to Tim’s bedroom to tell him about the jars of pee and fingernails. They must be his -
they aren’t
mine! - and she wants to ask him why Mother would keep such things.

Tim isn’t answering his door.

Carlene knocks once more, steps inside. The room is empty. “Tim? Hello?”

Only silence answers.

She notices his closet door is cracked, and as she nears, is able to make out the metal of his wheelchair. Somehow, he has managed to wheel himself inside. “Tim, what are you
doing
in there?” She opens the door, thinking he’s playing hide and seek.

And screams.

Tim is hanging by his neck from his belt. He’s like a rag doll, limp and boneless, and Carlene knows he’s dead.

Her tears are a torrent, hot and gushing. The screams are ripped from her lungs as if by a pair of hands. But she’s frozen in place.

On the seat of the wheelchair, Carlene spots a small sealed envelope. With trembling hands, she grabs it. It’s a letter from Timothy addressed to Mother.

“What’s going on?” Mother’s voice shatters Carlene’s trance before she can open the letter. She stuffs it in her pocket.
 

Mother shrieks, grabs Carlene’s arm and yanks her out of the way. She’s screaming, crying, trying to get Tim down. When she does, his body falls hard onto the wheelchair. Mother is slapping him, blowing into his mouth, screaming at Carlene to call 911.

Carlene races down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time. She stops at the bottom, looks up, and thinks,
‘This is Mother’s fault. She killed Tim. She killed my brother.’
She hears another of Mother’s cries - a heartbroken keening, a fierce and primitive wail, unlike anything she has ever heard before. She sprints for the phone.
   

In the dark, Claire was paralyzed. For a fleeting moment, she remembered where she’d hidden the letter, but like a dream upon a rude awakening, the recollection shattered and fled.