Michael Robertson - Crash

Finally feeling inspired to move, he looked to his right and saw that Michael was still asleep. Watching the gentle movement of the blankets he was wrapped in, Chris sank into the comfort of listening to his son’s shallow breathing. He’d been like that since his children were born, the anxiety that cot death would grab them in the first few months of their lives never really leaving him. Smiling at his little boy, he turned to his wife, the glow of compassion slipping off him like a silk sheet as he rolled over.

When he saw she wasn’t there, he lifted his head to see that Matilda had gone too.

Running his hand over Diane’s side of the bed, he noticed it was cold to touch. She must have got up some time ago. Moving quietly so as not to wake Michael, he gently opened the door, the creaking handle groaning like a raven in a graveyard. He then stepped out onto the freezing landing.

Because he was still dressed in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, the cold in the big house surrounded him. Within seconds, he was wearing the inescapable freeze like a suit of ice. With arms of gooseflesh, he hugged his own flabby body. It didn’t stop him shaking.

Stepping over the discarded hoover in the hallway, he walked downstairs, avoiding the chili powder at the bottom. The flagstone floor was so cold that when he stepped on it, it burned and he wondered if he’d leave the soles of his bare feet behind.

The house was quiet, but he called out anyway, “Diane! Matilda!” There was no response; the only movement in the house was the vapor from his warm breath and the perpetual shiver running through him.

The kitchen seemed cavernous in the near silence, and Chris felt like a spare part in his own home. The breakdown of their old lives was evidenced by a floor littered with smashed crockery and work surfaces covered in food wrappers. Scanning the room, he saw an A5 sheet of paper with blue writing on the table. Diane had written it, and there was a note from Matilda at the bottom. Beside it was the packaging from the last of their chocolate.

‘To my dearest Chris.’

The introduction shocked him, and his heart kicked because he knew something was wrong.

‘I know that things haven’t been easy and that we can’t find a way to get along, so I’m sorry to leave, but it’s what we need to do for the sake of the kids and for our family.’

Chris felt sick as he continued reading.

‘I’ve told Matilda that this behavior isn’t who you are. I don’t want her last memory of her daddy to be tainted with what we’ve become.’

The words ‘last memory’ drove a sharp sting through his heart.

‘I love you and Michael so much, and I truly hope it works out. We just couldn’t handle staying here any longer. Sorry. Diane xxxx.’

There was more affection in the letter than he’d experienced from her in the past ten years.

Beneath it, Matilda had written:

‘Love you, Daddy. Stay strong, Michael. Tilly.’

Chris snapped his fist closed with the paper in it and forced it into a tight ball as he bit down on his lip. Although he knew this day might come, he never really believed it. When he looked up, the coldness of the room found the wet tracks on his cheeks, and he felt like his internal organs had been ripped clean from his body. The fist he made around the note whitened through force until he launched the paper to the other side of the room with as much effort as he could muster.

Then he heard a noise. He was surprised that he hadn’t heard it before because he realized it had been there all along. It was coming from the garage, and it was his Ferrari’s engine. Because it was in an enclosed space, it sounded like a plane taking off. Looking at the door leading to the garage, he said, “Diane?” He then called out, “Diane, wait. I’m sorry.” The cliché of apologizing as a loved one was walking out of the door wasn’t lost on him, but he didn’t care, he couldn’t be without them.

Grabbing the handle, he noticed that it felt colder than he expected. It was like the other side was covered in ice. Snapping it down, he threw the door open.

Opening the door made a heavy rush of black smoke swarm into the house, and it hit Chris like tear gas. Covering his mouth and nose, he stepped into the freezing garage, ducking to avoid the thick part of the cloud and ignoring the burn in his eyes as best as he could. The discomfort from both the sharp drop in temperature and the restriction of his breathing was nothing compared to the anxiety he felt for leading his son into this place. It was a terrible way for him to find out, but wholly necessary if they were to avoid the fate of their neighbors.

When he turned to Michael, he expected a look of shock, maybe an open mouth, maybe frozen features, maybe tears. What he saw was devastation like nothing his mind could have ever imagined. Michael’s blue eyes seemed to split like tiny eggs, his soul pouring down his cheeks like spilled yolk. His fingers bent backwards, and he tapped his palms together in a palsied and unconscious movement. His loose jaw seemed to stretch to his knees, and the only sign of motion was his stuttered breathing.

“Michael,” Chris said as he looked at his little boy. When there was no reply, or even recognition that he was being spoken to, Chris rubbed his face as if doing so would somehow remove the smoke that was pushing against it, and cried, “I’m sorry that you have to see this now, but we have to keep moving, son. We can’t hang around, and I need your help.”

Michael looked at the flame-red Ferrari. He looked at the hosepipe lying on the floor. He looked at the tape securing it to one of the exhausts and its poisonous mouth that had spent the night playing its noxious requiem to his mum and sister. He looked at their still bodies in the car, open-mouthed with their heads back as if their final groan had happened just minutes before. When the haze of shock lifted, his eyes cleared and he opened his mouth to let out the first note of a scream.

Chris was on him in an instant, silencing him with his hand, panic making his actions clumsy and akin to striking his boy a blow. Time was running out, and although he felt terrible for hitting Michael, he wouldn’t pull his hand away as he stared directly into his son’s scared eyes. Being a citizen of this new world had turned Chris into someone he no longer recognized or liked, but life wasn’t all roses and ice cream anymore, and he had to keep going if they wanted to survive this harsh reality. Grimacing against the pain in his right knee from the sudden movement, he held his trembling boy and said, “Michael, look at me.”

Michael couldn’t, he was too preoccupied as he looked between his mum, his sister, and the hosepipe.

Painfully aware of how little time they had, Chris resorted to a tactic that would get his son’s attention. Moving his face so close that he could feel his body heat and smell the musty dirt on his skin, Chris squeezed his shoulder to the point where his wide eyes watered. Now that he had his attention, he said, “Michael, you little cunt, fucking man up! We don’t have any more time to fuck about. Grow a pair and do what I ask of you.”

Something between Chris and his son died at that moment as the petrified and distraught little boy looked at his dad like he didn’t recognize him. Chris knew things would never be the same again because the trust had gone. When Michael had needed a parent most, he’d completely let him down. Looking at his dead wife and daughter, he wondered who’d made the correct choice for the sake of their respective child. Snapping out of it, he reminded himself that their lives depended on momentum, mourning could come later.