Another Little Piece (5 page)

The whole thing looked almost bloody. Like a crime scene. Except I knew blood. Blood wasn’t really red; it was black disguised as red. This was reddish orange. It smelled sweet too, with no hint of blood’s sour metallic tang.

I popped another three breath strips, while the dad stood there staring at the mess. Taking a step farther into the basement, I noticed another room. Of sorts. More of a drywall border with a doorway cut into it. The light was dimmer on the other side of the wall, but I could just make out three cots lined up in a row. One was neatly made up with sheets and a blanket. A digital alarm clock glowed beside it on the floor. It looked lived in, in a way that their bedroom had not. I had a horrible feeling that this was where the dad had been sleeping.

“Your mother started this during the whole Y2K scare,” he finally said softly, still not looking at me. “You know what that was?”

I did. Although, like all my memories, it was detached. The fear that the computers and all the things that helped run everything from banks to electric companies would fail because they weren’t programmed to change from 1999 to 2000. Some people had panicked, but in the end it was all for nothing.

I knew this, but I didn’t remember who told it to me, any more than I could remember where I was when that New Year was rung in.

“Yeah,” I answered at last.

“It was only half as much then. She was embarrassed afterward, said it was silly. . . . Anni—” He stopped, and quickly corrected himself. “
You
would bring your little toy grocery cart down here and pretend to go grocery shopping. And I would joke with your mom about it. You know, saying, ‘More cans of peas, the end is near!’ Or something like that. It was funny. Harmless. But then 9/11 happened, and, well, after that . . . She never said anything, but every few weeks another shelf would appear, and food to fill it.” His voice was thick, like he was crying, or trying not to.

I opened my mouth to say I was sorry. Sorry for making their worst nightmare come true. If a basement full of nonperishable items can’t keep your child safe, then what could? And that’s when I guessed what had happened here. What—or who—had sent those three jars of spaghetti sauce crashing to the floor.

“Was she upset last night?” My voice shook. I felt nosy asking, like it was none of my business.

Maybe he felt that way too, because he hesitated a long time before finally answering. “Yes. After we got you into bed, your mom was . . .” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen her like that. Not the whole time you were missing.” For the first time since I’d joined him down here, he looked at me. Straight on. Actually, it might’ve been the first time the dad really looked me in the eye at all.

“You have to understand, it was bad. The way you went missing, everything we knew . . . Your mom doesn’t want you to know the details, but suffice to say, no one thought you were alive. Almost from the beginning they were searching for a body. Except your mom. She couldn’t believe it. And I let her have that hope, because I was afraid of what would happen if she didn’t. It’s because of her that we kept looking. If she hadn’t, we never would have found you.”

Now it was my turn to look away. Suddenly shaky, I sank down onto the bottom step and laid my cheek against my knees. The mom had been better when I was missing. The belief that she would find her daughter had fueled her. Now that she had me, it was worse. I was wrong. I’d thought an impostor might be better than no daughter at all. But the mom had never really lost Annaliese, because she’d refused to let her go.

“She was so angry last night,” the dad continued. “She attacked that boy, and I had to hold her to keep her from going after him again until the cops drove him home. Even then, it took a long time before she calmed down. I went to make her some tea, and get her pills, and that’s when I heard her down here. She threw a few cans first, and then started in on the jars. More satisfying, I suppose.” He hesitated once more and I waited for him to tell me this was all my fault.

It
was
all my fault. I should’ve stayed lost in those endless fields of Oklahoma. Or even better—I should’ve taken that garbage bag and wrapped it around my head instead of my body.

The dad’s hand landed on my hair, gently, as if to comfort me. His palm half covered my ear and so I was certain that I misheard his next words. “We are so sorry, Annaliese. We failed you. We thought we could keep you safe, that all this would protect you somehow.” He laughed, but the sound was hollow. “We didn’t know you were at a party that night. We didn’t know you were with that boy. We didn’t know that you were with any boys at all. I guess . . . I guess we didn’t know you. And we’re sorry for that. We should have done better. We should’ve known.”

I wanted to tell him that Annaliese was a typical teenager who in a moment of rebellion had made a mistake. And that she wasn’t with that boy. Or any other one. She had been the girl they believed her to be . . . but she wasn’t. Not anymore.

I didn’t say any of this though.

Lifting my head, I took his hand in my own. “I’m sorry too. And I’m gonna do better.” Finally, I forced my eyes to meet his again. “Dad.”

And with that one word, I hated myself even more, because he finally smiled at me, as if I truly were his long-lost daughter.

TWO BOYS

SEVENTH SEASON

Winter to spring to summer to fall.

The seasons change

and change nothing at all.

This is my seventh season of loneliness.

I begin to despair it will never end.

—ARG

REDHEADED BOY

It was decided that my return to school would be delayed a week. Or perhaps more. We were going to “wait and see.” Those were the mom’s words, although she never specified exactly what we were waiting to see. In the meantime I was supposed to rest and relax. This was code for “stay in the house away from other people.”

I didn’t mind. So far other people hadn’t brought out the best in me. Plus it made the mom happy.

My fears of the mom turning on me were unfounded. If anything, she clung to me tighter than ever. The only difference was that I held her right back. We were a perfect little circle of neediness, one completing the other. And if there were instances when I felt a bit suffocated by it all, well, they were brief and passed quickly.

Each day the mom had a project to keep us busy. The dad, who had returned to work that Monday, would pretend to look disappointed because he was missing out, as she announced at breakfast that we would be scrapbooking baby pictures or bedazzling T-shirts. There was also baking.

On Tuesday we made oatmeal raisin cookies.

On Wednesday we ate the cookies during a Disney-movie marathon. We took turns picking. The mom chose
Dumbo
and
Bambi
. I couldn’t help noticing that they were two movies where the moms got top billing.

As for me, I went with
Pinocchio
. Three times. I told the mom I couldn’t get enough of the song about wishing on a star. That made her happy. She liked thinking I was still a girl who believed in dreams. But it wasn’t true. What I really couldn’t get enough of was the end, when Pinocchio became a real boy, and not just a puppet who’d found a way to move without strings.

Thursday I woke up on the couch. Some sort of ringing noise had woken me, but in my groggy state I couldn’t place it. My head pounded.

I hadn’t been sleeping well. My nights were filled with nightmares. Or memories, maybe.

The first time I had one, I’d cried out in my sleep. The mom was instantly out of her chair and at my side, looking for the injury, wanting to fix it. I lied and told her my stomach hurt. I didn’t want her to know I’d been having a bad dream. Didn’t want her wondering what the dream was about.

I started going to bed early, so I could get a few hours of sleep before she set up her nightly vigil. Then I’d sleep for a few more hours after she crept out at eight to see the dad off to work. Last night, though, our movie marathon had run late. I’d been so exhausted, I couldn’t even remember falling asleep.

But I remembered my nightmare. One clip played over and over on a constant loop, and I spent the night trying to escape it.

Now, as I stumbled to my feet, moving toward the ringing noise, the scene played again.

I was back in the trees. With Annaliese. She had a bright red apple held in her two hands. It glistened slightly. As if she had plucked it from a dew-drenched tree. Her long fingers, pale white against the harsh red, seemed to clench the apple tighter as it came closer to her mouth. Snow White ready to bite into the poisoned apple.

And that’s when I knew. But it was too late.

Her mouth was opening wide to take a bite, and an instant before her teeth sank in, a drop of juice fell from the apple. Not the juice of overripe fruit, but blood. Blood, still warm from the heart it had been pumping through. Her mouth snapped shut, straight white teeth closing over red. And then everything went red . . . until the clip started once more.

Rubbing my eyes, I tried to focus and pull away from the dream. I’d followed the noise into the front entryway, and now, looking up, I saw a white box stuck to the wall right above my head. Smoke detector, I thought. But no. Those were round and went beep. This was square and the sound was more like
dingdongdingdongdingdong
. At the same time my brain finally identified the doorbell, three loud knocks made the front door shake.

After an initial backward jump of surprise, I rushed forward to open it, then stopped. I wasn’t supposed to answer the door, or the phone, or do anything that might put me into direct contact with anyone other than the mom or the dad. And where was the mom? How long had that doorbell been ringing? I spun around, expecting to see her only a few steps behind me. Nothing.

Whoever it was knocked again.

It occurred to me that maybe it was the mom. If she wasn’t inside with me, then the only thing that made any sense was that she was on the other side of the door, trying desperately to get back in. Maybe she ran to grab the mail, and had locked the door behind her. An automatic response. Lock me in. Keep everyone else out. Except now she was locked out.

A smile was on my face, ready to make some small joke, as I pulled the door open. It fell away almost instantly.

It wasn’t the mom leaning on our doorbell, but rather an overweight boy with a freckle-covered face and a head of curly red hair. He didn’t seem to notice that my own smile had been fleeting as he grinned up at me.

“Hello again, my girl.” The words came out in a silky tone that didn’t quite match the little-boy pitch of his voice.

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped at him without even meaning to. The words were automatic, the same way I instantly answered “fine” to the mom’s constant query of “You okay, hon?”

He laughed; his round cheeks dimpled and shook in a way that was oddly sinister. “That’s my girl. And they said you’d forgotten. Brilliant angle. Always were clever.” Reaching up, he gently flicked a finger against my cheek. I shivered. “Now be a good girl and tell me where you’ve been the last year. Physician wouldn’t tell me nothing. Fucking typical, right?”

I couldn’t imagine Annaliese being friends with this boy. He had to be at least two or three years younger than her, but his manner was so familiar. And he’d mentioned a physician. Maybe they shared a doctor? That seemed unlikely. He didn’t act as if he simply knew her, but as if they had a long-standing relationship. The type where you saw things about someone that they couldn’t even see about themselves.

“I’m sorry,” I said, uncertain. “I really don’t remember. . . . We’re not . . . are we friends?”

Now his smile faltered, although he regained it quickly enough, along with a hard laugh. “Shit. You really can’t remember, can you?”

I could no longer miss the malice in him. Hard eyes stared out of his soft, round face.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, no longer caring who he was, only wanting to get away. Closing the door, I added, “For whatever I did.”

He slammed against it, pushing both of us into the house. I stumbled over my own feet and hit the ground, but he didn’t let up. He was short but round, and he positioned his considerable bulk over me, planting a dirty sneaker on my chest.

“What you did? What you did!” The pressure against my chest increased. “What you did was fuck everything up.”

His voice cracked on
everything
, and I let out a nervous giggle. His foot slid forward, nudging the base of my chin.

“Something funny?”

I gave only the slightest shake of my head in reply.

“Good.” His foot eased back slightly, just enough that I could swallow without him detecting the motion through the tips of his toes. “’Cause I didn’t think it was funny when you disappeared without a trace in the middle of a switch. And I didn’t think it was funny when I got a note from the Physician telling me to take this fat little fourteen-year-old and wait. Wait. Those were his fucking instructions. Wait. So I’ve waited. And waited. Nearly a whole damn year I’ve waited. And that hasn’t been funny either. But what’s really not funny is that you left it till the last minute. You come back with the clock ticking down to the last few weeks, and then . . .

“KABLOOEY!” He leaned down so his face was in mine. I shook. He laughed.

“Yeah, you don’t remember what happens then. Now, that is funny. But you probably wouldn’t think so. Way I remember it, you sure weren’t laughing the last time you thought you’d found a way out. So you better get your next stooge lined up, ’cause I’m more than ready to be finished with this fat suit.” He looked down at himself with a sneer of disgust and poked at his round little belly.

“Please go away.” I could barely get the words past my trembling lips.

At this his eyes flickered away from me, and then back. It wasn’t guilt that made him look away. Rather, he seemed to be calculating something.

A moment later, his foot finally lifted from my chest. As it hung in the air above me, I wondered if he’d decided to kick me in the face. He was capable of it; I had been able to feel that right through the sole of his shoe. Instead he knelt beside me. Instinctively, I leaned away, but there was nowhere to go. His fat fingers grabbed the back of my head, twisting into my short hair.

“Anna, I love you. Don’t you remember
that
? And you love me. We belong together. We’re the same. You know it. Even if you don’t remember. You know it.”

The switch from fiery vengeance to equally fiery lover left me blinking at him in surprise. And then his lips were on mine. His tongue too. Forcing its way in when I opened my mouth to protest.

I bit down, trapping his tongue between my teeth, hard enough to draw blood. That tiny bit of blood filled my mouth. Gagging, I unlocked my jaw. He jerked away, but not quick enough to miss being splattered by the bile my empty stomach spewed out.

Even after there was nothing left, I continued retching while my shaky hands fumbled for the pack of breath strips. I could hear the boy cursing in the background and closed my eyes against him as I crammed a whole handful of the strips into my mouth, not letting them melt, but chewing them so that they squeaked and crunched between my teeth. Pressing my forehead against the cold tile floor, I focused on the burn, desperate not to think about the way his tongue had felt in my mouth. Or how horribly familiar the taste of blood had been. And definitely not about my sneaking suspicion that this boy didn’t know Annaliese at all. That maybe he knew me. Whoever I’d been before I became Annaliese.

Something bounced off my curled spine, before hitting the floor beside me with a soft thunk. “We belong together, Anna. Always have.” His sneakers scuffed across the floor, away from me, and then the door closed.

I was alone.

Stumbling to my feet, I twisted the dead bolt and then the smaller lock on the door handle itself. Trembling, I sank down once more. Beside me a bulging manila envelope lay on the floor. He had left it for me.

Picking it up between two fingers, I flung it across the room. But a few minutes later, I was crawling after it, needing to know what was inside. I shook the contents out. A pack of cigarettes fell first, followed by a lighter. Something else was still in there, wrapped in paper towels and wedged into the bottom of the envelope. I left it. The cigarettes were already in my hand, the cellophane crackling as I tapped the box against the palm of my hand. Red letters against a faded white background read Winston.

“Winston tastes good . . . like a cigarette should.” I murmured the words, not sure where they came from. Tearing the cellophane wrapper away, I slid one from the pack. It felt right perched between the V of two fingers, and even better when I brought it to my lips in perfect coordination with the flickering lighter and a deep inhalation to start it burning.

I sucked the smoke into my lungs. The acrid tang obliterated everything else, and this felt right too. The entire ritual, like a form of meditation. So, I was a smoker. Exhaling, I reached toward the smoke, trying to snatch it from the air.

No, I wasn’t merely a person who smoked. I was the smoke itself. A smoke person. It was real, and it wasn’t. There and then gone. Ashes to ashes. Dirt to dirt. Smoke to smoke.

Already I could feel myself drifting away.

“Not smart for a boy made of wood to take up smoking,” the mom had said, the second time we watched
Pinocchio
. It was the part when they were on Pleasure Island. I had laughed.

The red tip of the cigarette glowed in front of me as I exhaled a long plume of smoke, and at the same time I pressed the burning tip against my thigh, an inch above my knee. The thin flannel of my pajamas burned away too quickly, and then there was skin.

The pain was real. Vicious. Even so, I pressed harder, grinding, until it went out. With a hiss of agony I pulled it away, and then brushed the ashes aside, wanting to see the red-blistered skin below.

I touched the spot gently with the tip of a finger. It was ugly and angry and already oozing something viscous and clear.

Perfect.

This would leave a scar. A permanent mark to say: I Was Here.

BOY WITH THE RED EYE

I stumbled around. Up and down, from one end of the house to the other. I must have been through the kitchen five or six times before I saw the note on the table.

Annaliese,

Had a doctor’s appointment this morning.. Wanted to let you sleep, you looked so tired. I left some waffles and bacon warming in the oven. Please do not leave the house or open the door to anyone. Will be home soon.

Love and hugs and kisses,

Mom

There was something about the brevity of the note that bothered me. The mom had given me a shoe box stuffed full of letters that she’d written to Annaliese while she was missing. It was another suggestion from a shrink. The letters didn’t say much. Mostly that she missed Annaliese and thought about her all the time. Still they managed to ramble. None of them were this short or to the point. The only part of this note that felt like the mom was the “love and hugs and kisses” at the end.

I didn’t really care. The important thing was that I hadn’t been abandoned, and soon the mom would be home. She would keep that horrible boy away from me. Or maybe I should worry about keeping him away from her, so he wouldn’t tell her about the real me. The me stowed away inside of her daughter.

I sank to the floor with that thought.

But I didn’t stay there long before getting up again. I was all business this time.