It followed you everywhere, like footsteps. But then came worse.
It was as if behind the bedroom door Cole’s father had split into several different people who could be heard at different times chattering, arguing, laughing, and once even singing with one another. Cole listened, his blood running cold.
“Get out, get out, you spider cunt! I’ll kill you, Serena!”
Cole nearly collided with his mother as they both ran out into the hall. There was no color in her face. “Dad doesn’t know what he’s saying.” But he kept saying it, over and over.
Once, he found her slumped on the landing with her legs tucked under her and her hands over her ears. Behind the door his father was calling, “Mom! Mom!”
Fever dream, his mother explained. “He’s back in his childhood.”
Yes. But why did he sound so scared?
Middle of the night. Cole woke to hear his parents talking. To his surprise, the noise (why were they being so loud?) came not from their room down the hall but from downstairs.
So his father’s fever must have broken. He was probably in the kitchen, getting something to eat. He’d be starving, of course; he’d eaten hardly anything this past week. Cole wanted to see him! He wanted to go down and join his parents—but not if they were fighting. Wait—how could they already be fighting? And where did his father get the strength to raise his voice? Had his mother picked now of all times to announce that she was leaving? This, Cole could not believe. The only explanation was that Cole was still asleep; he was dreaming . . .
Morning. He found his mother in the kitchen, alone. She was sitting at the table, her laptop open in front of her. Instead of her bathrobe she was wearing her winter coat. His father wasn’t there. He wasn’t upstairs in bed, either. The door to his room had been wide open when Cole passed on his way down.
Before he could form the question, his mother spoke. “I’m sorry,” was all she said.
Cole’s head started jerking helplessly from side to side, as if someone were taking swings at him. The pounding in his ears was so fierce it felt like a sudden loss of hearing.
“But I heard him last night—”
“Don’t shout,” she whispered. She stood up and embraced him. They staggered together, gripping each other for support, a macabre little waltz. She let go of him then and coaxed him down onto a chair, saying, “Sit, sit, sit.” They were both crying.
She went to the fridge and took out a bottle of water. She took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water and carried it to the table and set it in front of him. Every movement careful and slow, as if even the least gave her pain.
Cole stared at the water as if he had no idea what it was.
She gripped the edge of the table with both hands. “I have to lie down before I pass out.” Her voice was a croak; her eyes looked as if someone had tried to scratch them out. “I’ve been up all night.”
He wanted to help her. He picked up the glass and tried to give it to her but she waved it away.
She didn’t want to climb the stairs. Without taking off her coat she stretched out on the living room couch, resting her heels on one of the arms so that her feet were higher than her head. Cole knelt on the floor beside her. He sucked in his lips to stop them from trembling.
It wasn’t his father he’d heard, she said. His father had been unconscious.
“He needed to get to a hospital, but I knew I’d never get an ambulance to come here.” She had run out into the street and started knocking on doors. Two houses down lived a retired widower—the owner of the chocolate Lab that sometimes roamed the neighborhood—who’d agreed to come back with her.
“I wanted him to help me carry Dad to the car. He tried talking me out of it. He said the hospital wouldn’t be able to do anything. But I wouldn’t listen. I hung on to his arm, I begged him until he gave in.”
“Why didn’t you wake me, Mom?”
“Oh, sweetie, I don’t know.” She looked at him imploringly. “I wasn’t sure, I didn’t think it would help if you—yes, maybe I should have woken you. Can you understand why I didn’t think so at the time?”