Vincent Zandri - The remains

Pulling the rest of the brown paper from the piece, Michael stared down at the image. My eyes began to tear. I took a tentative step forward toward my distant past, stood not beside my ex-husband but up against him. My unfocused eyes viewed Franny’s painting, but I did not see a static rendering of brown tress or overgrown pines or the heavy brush or the gray-brown clapboard house that stood in its center. My eyes instead saw the real events of that day, like watching a real-time film that somehow was being broadcast on the canvas itself.

Molly leads me through the woods, bushwhacking our way through the thick growth, twigs and branches slapping at our exposed faces, at our bare arms and legs, making our eyes tear from the sting. When we come upon the old two-story farmhouse it is like a vision or an illustration out of an old storybook-Little Red Riding Hood maybe; a secret place in the forest that would be entirely familiar to the Big Bad Wolf. It is a long-abandoned farmhouse, the farm having given over to nature; nature in turn devouring any semblance of humankind.

But the closer we come to the dilapidated and rotting clapboard house, the more I can smell a foul odor. It is an odor I sometimes recognize when walking over a sewer grate.

Molly turns to me, seemingly unaffected by the smell (or perhaps used to it by now?). She clothespins her nose and nostrils with the forefinger and thumb of her right hand; does it more for show than for the need to block out the rancid smell.

“ It’s the old septic system, Bec,” she exclaims while coming upon a front porch that has all but collapsed into the earth from rot and neglect.

“ God, how did you find this place, Mol?” I ask her, careful to breathe through my mouth instead of my nose.

“ It’s always been here,” she smiles. “The house just kind of found me.” Holding up her hands as if to say Voila! “It’s our place now; our secret fairytale castle in the forest; our hideaway home away from home.”

I find myself just staring at my sister who is me in every way, but so different at the same time. I’m not sure what I’m more amazed at: her or the discovery of this house and the possibility of having it all to ourselves. But then, unlike Molly, I’m half scared out of my wits. There’s a reason our father does not want us in these woods. At first I blamed the stream, the waterfall and the sudden drop off in the hill-side. But now I blame this old decaying house set in the middle of nowhere.

Molly goes up to the front door and tosses me another one of her irresistible John Wayne ‘Move ‘em out’ waves. She sets her right hand on the old blackened knob and, shifting her shoulder like a running back about to take on some linebackers, shoves the door open…

“Rebecca,” Michael barks. “What is this place?”

But I couldn’t answer him yet; couldn’t find the words inside my brain or my heart. I didn’t have it in me to speak. Instead I looked at the trees and the house and I saw it all in my mind like it was only yesterday: our entry though the front door into the dark home, the spider-webbed interior, the horrible stench that I tasted more on my tongue than I smelled though my nose.

Lifting my left hand, I touched the home with my fingertips, running the pad of my index finger along the five red-brown letters that made up the word ‘Smell’, each individual letter tattooed along the side of the house like graffiti.

“Smell,” Michael read, the word pouring like acid off his lips.

He could see the word clearly. It told me that Franny no longer felt the need to hide their titles. The lack of subtlety told me that Franny was screaming at me now. On Monday, when no one but me could recognize the word in his painting, he’d been whispering. Now that everyone could see the word, he was screaming. Screaming for me to use my senses, to pay attention, to watch my back.

“What. Is. This. Place?” Michael repeated.

I swallowed. He knew all about my secret. He knew exactly what this place was. He just needed to hear it from me; from my mouth.

“It’s the house in the woods,” I said. “It’s where Whalen took Molly and me.”

Confirming his worst fear, Michael cocked the painting over his head and threw it across the room.

It was up to me to calm Michael down. It didn’t matter now how much I tried to preserve the happiness of the previous night, Franny’s painting, his warning, had ruined the moment.

My ex-husband was sitting on the edge of the couch, hands pressed against his face, muttering something about tearing Franny ‘a new one.’

“It’s not his fault,” I exclaimed. “Franny is simply doing what Franny does. I know without a doubt now that he’s talking to me Michael; not tormenting.”

Michael lifted his head. He was sporting a three day shadow to go with his mustache and goatee.

“Then why does it feel like torment?”

I made my way to the painting and picked it up off the floor. Unzipping my art bag, I slipped the painting inside, out of sight, out of spinning mind. I fully intended to personally deliver it to Harris, just like I fully intended to reveal the texts.

Michael wiped both eyes with the backs of his hands.

“What’s going on here, Bec?” he insisted. “Why would Franny drop the painting off to the apartment instead of leaving it at the art center? That was the whole point behind your taking a couple of days off.”

“I don’t know,” I exhaled. “But I’m about to find out.”

Drawing in a deep breath, I pulled my towel tighter over my chest. I walked barefoot into the bedroom to get dressed. After that, I was going to call Robyn and find out why she gave Caroline and Franny permission to make a surprise drive-by to my home.

Michael stood by my side while I speed-dialed Robyn’s number and waited for a pick up. For the third time in a row I was greeted by her answering service.

My pulse picked up. This was so not like Robyn.

The fact that Franny and his mother made the effort to deliver the fourth painting directly to my door told me that Robyn had not showed up to open the art center that morning. Otherwise Franny would have simply left the fourth painting there for me.

There was only one thing left to do. I dialed the number for the center. I waited for a pickup but instead got the answering machine and my own digitally recorded voice.

“ You’ve reached the Albany Art Center. No one is available…”

My call waiting kicked in.

Pulling the phone away from my ear, I took a look at the number displayed on the readout. The number did not immediately catch my attention. But the caller ID did

Albany Medical Center.

With trembling fingers, I clicked over to receive the call.

She spoke to me in a hesitant whisper, almost like she was being held hostage. The whisper and the hesitancy were both punctuated with sobs.

Robyn’s mother, June.

“Rebecca,” she cried, “I… have… some…”

She let the sentence hang, as though to complete it was simply too painful.

Michael was staring at me. His shadowy face had gone pale. He opened his mouth as if to say something. But I quickly raised my open hand and pulled my eyes away from his, stopping him cold.

“June,” I begged. “What’s happened?”

I tried to keep my voice steady, even. I’d known Robyn’s mother almost as long as I’d known Robyn. I’d never heard her so upset, so devastated.

“Albany Medical Center,” she exclaimed. “ICU. Please come.”

I dry swallowed.

“Is she alive, June? Is… Robyn…alive?”

“She’s alive,” June whispered.

Then she hung up.

Wide eyed, Michael gazed expectantly into my face.