Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,20

we’d only met a few hours ago. As I opened the screen door, one clear thought stood out from all the others rattling around in my head: there was something different about her, and I had to find out what.

Nan lay in her silver-blue pleather recliner. It had a combo of red plaid dish towels and packing tape over the arms to hide the rips there. She kept the packing tape on the card table nearby since a new rip sprang up every time she sat in the chair. It was the same recliner she’d pass away in. She was watching Wheel of Fortune. Okay, not really watching. Snoring and staring at Pat Sajak with one glazed eye. Behind her, on the kitchen table, was a plate covered with foil.

The fish.

I pulled off the wrapping and, not finding a fork nearby, tore off a ragged piece of whitefish and popped it in my mouth. The salt stung my tongue. Gagging, I found a Coke in the fridge and downed most of it in one swallow. Funny how my knowledge of the future never seemed to protect me from things like that.

Then I heard my mother upstairs, the creaking of her mattress springs. She couldn’t understand why I tried to live a normal life. She thought that in order to truly control her own destiny, she had to remove herself from everything. And I guess it worked, somewhat. It never really mattered what she did in her room; because she always did the same things, like clockwork, it very rarely affected me in such a way that I would cycle. If she did go off script, say, choosing to watch Die Hard instead of Gladiator, it didn’t change her or my future a heck of a lot. But she had learned that even confinement didn’t make her immune to pain. If it was up to her, she’d isolate all of us. I could still remember being four years old, and my mom holding me to her chest. Sobbing. Just stay here, Nicholas. Stay with me. It’s the only safe place.

She saw that loft bedroom as her sanctuary. I saw it as a coffin.

I’d even told her that, once, a year or two ago. “It just became too much,” she’d told me. As if I hadn’t seen her and Nan and so many others die over and over again. As if I hadn’t lost enough. I didn’t care. No way was I becoming a hermit. Not if I could help it.

Just then, Nan turned to me, still bleary-eyed. “Oh, honey bunny. What happened to you?”

“Nan, the weirdest thing happened to me after tryouts,” I said, ignoring her question. “My mind … stopped.…”

“And so why do you look like you just took a beating?”

I’d totally forgotten, but the second she mentioned it my wounds began to sting. “I fell.…” I tried to explain, but as I stared at Nan, my mind went into overdrive, forcing the script to the background. It revved for a second, and in that second I stopped talking, the memory popped into my head. A memory of the future.

Of Nan. With that halo of clownish orange hair. Lying in fetal position at the bottom of the loft staircase, surrounded by broken plates and what was likely the remainder of Mom’s breakfast.

Her head was perfectly encircled by a large pool of blood.

“Nan!” I shouted instinctively, as if the danger was only seconds away.

She startled and kicked up the recliner. Her eyes ran over my body, probably looking for bleeding wounds.

I slunk backward, feeling guilty. She had diabetes and high cholesterol and all the other things that went along with enjoying food too much; I could have given her a heart attack. And for what reason? The vision could have been of tomorrow, the next day … who knew? I knew it would be soon, because in that vision, her hair was still the wrong color, that neon orange she’d accidentally dyed it. But it wasn’t going to happen right now. “Uh, nothing. Uh. Have anything for dessert?”

Her eyes narrowed for a second, then softened. She’d long since given up on trying to figure me out. “There’s a new half gallon of Turkey Hill ice cream in the freezer.”

I opened the freezer door and took the ice cream out.

“That fish was plain awful, wasn’t it?” she called into the kitchen. “I don’t think I’ve ever fouled up so bad in all my life.”

“It was okay,” I muttered, thinking, Just wait.…

I trudged