J.T. Warren - Remains

I unzipped the zipper, and all sound stopped. All I could hear was the thunder of obvious silence. The bag fell away, and inside was Randy. His eyes were open, and his lips were parted. It looked as if, any moment, he was going to say something. I stared at his face, his body. I reached up, again thinking ‘no’ the entire time, and put my hand on his chest. My fingers were instantly ice cold.

Then he blinked, and I jerked my hand away. He blinked again, and his head turned to the side. His eyes focused in on me. His chest never moved, though.

“I can’t,” I said, “I just can’t.”

He didn’t say anything, only smiled. His lips moved closed, and he smiled. He blinked once more, then closed his eyes. Someone whispered “Angels and ministers of grace, defend us,” then whispered it again. The sounds all came back, and the whispering continued. Someone kept pleading for a defender.

I woke up lying flat on my back, my hands at my sides, and my head lolled toward my right shoulder. I was in the exact same position Randy had been on that table. I immediately sat up. Outside the window, the sky was a light blue. I felt more than heard my parent’s door open. I knew it was my mother; the footfalls were quiet. He wouldn’t have worried about anyone else’s sleep. I followed her in my head with each creaking stair.

I wanted Kevin there beside me. I wanted to roll over and watch him sleep.

Downstairs, I heard someone mumble. I thought for a moment that my mother might be talking to herself. She had always done that; had imaginary conversations with my sister for leaving socks on the living room floor or me for leaving the kitchen light on all night. I was smiling to myself when I heard the other voice mumble back. I stopped breathing. I turned on my side and listening with my whole body, every muscle tense to the point of popping.

Old houses like this one were made so that everything that went on could be heard from any point in the house. Before baby monitors, parents had to be able to hear a crying child no matter where they were. I’d always wondered if my parents had heard me sneaking back in, and one visit after I’d moved out, I’d heard my sister talking to her girlfriend at the time. The doors between the rooms had been closed, and she had been whispering. That was how I’d found out she was a lesbian. It was also what made the utter silence of my parents’ bedroom frightening.

It went on like that for what seemed like years. Her mumble, a pause, and then a lower rumbling in response. I felt the pressure change, then, and heard the front door creak. It only did that when it opened. With my eyes closed, the image of Kevin sleeping came back, only it wasn’t him lying beside me; it was Randy. I was looking at the sun on his face as it might have been had he lived to my age. At any moment, I knew it was going to turn toward me and speak, and I thought that I would scream if it did. I opened my eyes just as the pressure in the house changed: the front door had just closed.

I heard the creaking as my mother came back up the stairs. I heard the ‘click’ as she closed her bedroom door. Who had she been talking to? I only heard the front door after the mumbling had stopped; whoever she was talking to had been inside, already. The voice had been low, manly. Who had she been talking to if not my father? I hadn’t heard him go down the stairs; I’d have known his steps.

Like a dark cloud, the thought came over me. I knew who it was in that instant, but I shook it from my mind. A chill ran over my skin, and my teeth started to chatter. It was hard to breathe.

What if Kevin was wrong, though? What if he’d made it all up?

Why would he? Why go so far as to beat himself up just to—to what? Still, for all the reasons that didn’t exist for him to make it up, there were just as many for him never to tell me about any of it. If the sheriff was the monster he claimed, he was putting himself in danger. At any minute, should Aiken find out, Kevin could be killed. I wanted to call him just then. I wanted to hear him mumble into the phone and get angry with me to prove he was alive.

I bent one of the blinds back with my finger. Just beyond the back yard fence, lights were coming on at the neighbors. The sun was up enough to cast glares on the windows. It had to be about seven or so.

I wanted to call Kevin. I wanted to visit Pete McPherson, first, though. That is where my answer would be. I don’t know how I knew that, I just knew. Whatever Pete said would determine what I was going to do. I swung my feet off the bed, and reached down into the suitcase. My fingers hit paper before cloth, though. Instead of a shirt, I pulled out my plane ticket. I knew what it said, but I read it again. The return flight was in ten hours. I could exchange it, if need be.

‘You won’t have to,’ I thought. After all, this was all too weird. The ‘little town with a dark secret’ was the standard staple of television movies, not real life. ‘It might be the drugs,’ I thought. If so, then I would visit Pete, and then go try to convince Kevin to get into a program somewhere. Maybe he would move to be closer to me. Maybe I could leave Susan, and be strong enough to stay with him while he cleaned up. Lots of maybes; not enough becauses.

Who had my mother been talking to? I wondered if maybe I just hadn’t been awake enough, yet. Part of my mind grasped that idea anxiously. ‘A dream’, it said, and I felt better. Maybe it was just a dream, and I hadn’t heard anything at all. I would know once I talked to Pete McPherson, found out what he’d been told.

I’d let this whole situation get about as strange as I intended to let it without doing some fact finding, first.

The hot water streamed over me. My shoulders felt bunched underneath my bones. I turned my back to the spray, and leaned against the shelf my father had installed for my mother’s things. I put my forehead against it, looking down at my toes. They looked strange. I wondered how long it had been since the last time I’d really looked at them. I stood up, and backed into the spray again, letting my head fall backward. I closed my eyes and leaned back until the water smacked against my forehead, flowing over my skull.

Kevin. I wanted to see Kevin. I wanted to go see him, and then leave this town. Did I want him to come with me? That was the question. What was I going to do about Susan? It had all seemed much clearer yesterday.

I shut off the water and reached for a towel. I remembered being so young that I was too short to reach the towel rack from the tub. I would climb out of the tub and grab the towel and then climb back in as fast as I could. While I was drying, my mind would always wander to the footprints I would leave on the tile. “Why is there water on the floor?” my mother would ask. I would shrug, and she would sigh.

I looked for those prints. I looked for those tiny feet. There was no trace. I could almost see them, though.

Downstairs, the television was on. The paper rustled as I came down the stairs. “Nearly eleven,” my father commented, without looking away from the headlines.

I didn’t say anything. My mother was at the counter, reading over a cookbook. A measuring cup and two eggs sat next to the book. “Whatcha’ makin’?” I asked.

She looked up, and her face split. Her lips and eyebrows were drawn into a smile, but her eyes were dull and lifeless. “What, dear?” she asked.

“What are you making?” I asked, again. I opened the refrigerator and took out the milk. I sat the jug on the counter, and opened the top. She watched me without moving anything but her eyes.

“I know, cup.”

Her smile twitched wider for a second, then re-settled. “I’m making some poundcake.”