Invisible Fences (10 page)

“Can we save the philosophy, or dog psychology or whatever? It’s after four o’clock, and—” 

“There’s more,” I said, my voice rising. I wanted to keep talking with my sister, and I knew I was avoiding the point, starting to ramble. But it would sound too crazy if I simply blurted out what I thought was happening: that for some unknown reason, my parents or their stories were haunting me; that I’d seen some kind of apparition, actually laid my hands on the face of a ghost. The trappings of psychology, an indirect approach through metaphor and analogy, gave plausibility and poetic truth to my account. “It’s like Dad left traps here, or like some part of Mom stayed behind in the house she wouldn’t leave while she was alive. Emotional triggers, maybe, like how those needles in the back yard reminded me of Mom’s warnings about dope fiends. I got stuck by a few of those needles, Pam. The whole night started to get weird on me.” 

“What, you think you got drugged by something?” 

“Maybe it was only the shock of reaching into a bag of needles. You know my phobia, and how I’d freak out about rust, tetanus, or dried blood. Then I thought I heard one of those kids out front.” 

“Kids?” 

“That’s what woke me up to start with. I’d fallen asleep in my old bedroom, and I heard a tap and some kid’s laugh outside the window. The locals would have known Dad died, and Mom’s spooky stay-at-home reputation might have drawn them to investigate the empty house. I was going to chase them down and surprise them.” 

“They woke you up?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You’re awake now, right?” 

“Well, yeah.” I’d paused briefly, as if I had to stop and think before answering. “Of course.”  

“Nathan, here’s what you do. Get out of that house. Go back to your apartment, and take a break from the cleanup for a day or two.” 

“I will. I will.” In the dimly lit room, I stared at the curtains I’d closed earlier. I hadn’t wanted anyone to look in. “It’s late, though. I’ll wait until morning.” 

“Get help if you need it. With the cleanup or…with other things. You seemed pretty together at Dad’s funeral, and it was nice to hear you’d come to terms with that mess from the past—you know, Aaron and the creek and all.” 

“I still think about it.” 

“I’m glad you remembered.” 

“Doesn’t matter that we were only little kids. Things like that stay with you, Pam. It changed everything.” 

“Of course it did. Watching your best friend drown. Probably feeling responsible, like I did for—” 

I gasped. 

• • • 

“Nathan? Oh God, Nathan, I thought you knew.” Pam pleaded, as if afraid I wouldn’t respond. “You mentioned him to Aunt Lora the day of Dad’s funeral—how sad or sorry you were about Aaron. I really thought you’d remembered.” Her words cracked in the speaker; they seemed to vibrate through the chair cushions on either side of my head. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” 

“No, no. It’s all right.” My voice projected a clinical calm, probably far more ominous than the nervous tremor I’d displayed during my previous ramblings. “Tell me.” 

“I can’t, Nathan. All these years we never discussed it. Not really.” 

“Because of me. You protected me.” 

“My little brother.” 

“That’s why I gasped: I started to remember. To feel the truth. I can’t explain right now, but I need you to tell me everything. I need you to tell me, Pam.” 

Because there was another reason why I gasped. 

• • • 

If you’re sure,
Pam said. 

She began with the syringe Aaron had transformed into a squirt gun, the bait that lured us deep into the woods. Twisted paths, Aaron leading the way with goofy certainty. The downhill trudge, our discovery of the flooded creek. How they both made fun of my muddy clothes, and Aaron revealed he’d tricked us and hadn’t actually found his needle in the woods. 

(Yes, I thought to myself. Go on.) 

How, in retaliation, I’d dared Aaron to climb the log that spanned the roaring stream. 

(I’ve always admitted that part, and regretted it.) 

Aaron slipped and fell in the water, and I laughed at him. 

(No, I didn’t laugh right away. Did I?) 

Aaron was out of reach. We told him to swim, but the current was too strong in front of him. He tread water, hands cupped and arms waving.  

(Yes. Like a mime in a windstorm.) 

As for ourselves, neither Pam nor I had yet learned how to swim. She came up with the idea of a human chain, holding my arm to extend our reach from the water’s edge. Aaron, tired and scared, liked the idea, but I’d refused to step close to the creek. 

(The awful smell. But the water was also deeper than I remembered.) 

Then Pam told me—if I was
certain
I wanted to hear more—Pam told me how I’d done this thing with a stick. A low-hanging branch I’d bent then ripped from a nearby tree. I held it out to Aaron, pushing it clumsily close to him, possibly interrupting the rhythm of his treading arms, slapping at the water and yelling “Grab it,” but the four-foot branch too heavy in my grip, an out-of-control wobble and somehow the tip pressed against his shoulder, snagging the shirt. It almost looked like I intended to push Aaron under the water.  

(I was trying to help.) 

She told me how Aaron did go under, then flailed up for a second, caught in a current that gripped him from beneath to drag him away. “Swim,” I had yelled. “Why don’t you swim?” His body rushed down the creek. Aaron’s arms flailed, and he dropped beneath the surface. 

(No, that was a cardboard box. It caught a spin in the current, then sailed out of sight.) 

Pam didn’t mention a cardboard box. She told me how I’d yelled after Aaron, begged him to swim, then shifted to cursing—words she’d never heard me use before, angry wild shouts and name-calling and then more tearful pleas for him to swim. 

(Oh.
I
had cursed at
him.)
 

Long minutes passed beside the creek, each more breathless, more hopeless. Pam had reached out to hug me, but I shrugged away and ran back through the woods.  

• • • 

“Are you all right, Nathan? You’ve been pretty quiet.” 

“I’m just…processing.” Despite deep layers of memories that conflicted with Pam’s version of events, I knew she was telling me the truth. But so many pieces still didn’t fit. It was like heavy lifting, my mind trying to shift and tug and force each new revelation into place. “When you caught up with me, Pam…you told me, ‘He’s right behind us’.”  

Silence for a moment. Then Pam said: “You asked me how Aaron would find his way out of the woods. It was like you’d already forgotten what happened. I guess I just wanted to calm you down, since you’d been so hysterical back at the creek. So, yeah—I told you Aaron was following us.” 

“I saw him.” 

“When you looked behind that first time, a wave of relief just washed over your face. I wasn’t going to take that away from you. So I said it again and again as we ran toward home: ‘He’s right behind us. Keep going.’ A couple times, your expression when you looked over your shoulder was so convincing. You almost made me believe my own lie.” 

I closed my eyes, trying to picture what happened next. “We went straight home,” I said. “Mom called me into the living room and—” 

“No,” Pam interrupted. “I had to practically carry you inside. Mom yelled for Dad so loud he could hear her from the garage. We both looked awful, but you were warm with fever and nearly fainted.” 

“I remember being sick for a few days…” 

“More like a week. We protected you from the search and recovery of Aaron’s body, the investigation, Mom’s long tearful phone calls with Mrs. Lieberman. I had to explain on my own how it was all an accident, how we did the best we could but weren’t able to pull Aaron from the creek. It was so awful, Nathan. In the newspapers and everything. Nobody in the neighborhood would speak to me. I wanted to talk with you about it—to ease my mind I guess—but obviously couldn’t. Dad went through a pretty tough time, too.” 

I stared at the curtains again, trying to trace patterns in the dark folds. “Wait,” I said. “Wait. I saw Aaron later. At the swing set.” 

“One day while you were still sick, I walked in to check on you and your bed was empty. I never guessed you’d have the nerve to wander over to the Lieberman’s back yard.” 

“David was there. And Aaron sat in one of the swings.” 

“The swing set was still broken when I arrived,” Pam said. “I heard you yell. David had you on the ground and was pounding your back with his fists. I pulled you away, and David chased us to the end of their yard, warning us never to come back. The guy was always kind of a jerk—but he’d lost his little brother, you know?” 

“It’s like I can still see Aaron sitting there in the swing, staring at me. Angry and refusing to speak.” Another revised memory shifted awkwardly into place. “I told David I’d tried to help Aaron out of the water, but he wouldn’t believe me. So I looked right past him, and begged Aaron to speak the truth about what happened. That’s when David threw the first punch.”  

Pam sighed, relieved to be near the end of the story, and also relieved she’d finally told it to me after all those years of silence. “The whole family had to move after that,” she said. “Just packed up all that junk and moved, practically in the middle of the night. We had to, before we got chased out by an angry mob or something—like those frenzied, torch-waving townspeople who storm Dr. Frankenstein’s castle.” 

I gave a quick laugh to acknowledge Pam’s comparison. “I don’t remember the move at all. It’s like I suddenly appeared in a new house in Alabama. New house, but a lot like the old one.”  

“We protected you, Nathan. It seemed like the right thing to do.” 

“Maybe it was,” I said. 

Pause. “You think you’ll be all right?” Pam asked. “I mean, it’s a lot of stuff all at once.” 

“Yeah, I’ll be okay. I really did need to hear everything. Thanks for telling me.” 

“Sure. Call me tomorrow, okay?” 

“I will. Not so late next time, though—right?” 

“Right. Good night.” 

“Good night, Pam. Bye.” 

My arm trembled as I reached over to click off the phone.  

A lot of stuff all at once, indeed. I took a few deep breaths to brace myself.  

“Hello, Aaron,” I said. 

Surrounded by the musty smell of the creek, amid the rustle of curtains and the crackle of dry newsprint, I heard my name again. 

• • • 

I’d gasped for two reasons when Pam revealed that Aaron had drowned. First, despite what I’d remembered for so many years, an instantaneous awareness that Pam spoke the truth. Second, the growing dread I was no longer alone in my parents’ house. 

It had been difficult to remain calm, to keep my sister talking so she’d tell me everything, everything, without worry that I’d fall apart. Her words reshaped my childhood memories, wrenched my past into new perspectives. As she spoke, an extra presence struggled into the room, breaking through into a world I’d always assumed I understood.  

Until that point, my experiences that night had been terrifying, yet dream-like. An air of unreality separated me from the supernatural events: I was a spectator, simply waiting for the movie to end. I knew it would end, because there was no
reason
for it. My father and I had grown more distant, but children commonly aged away from one parent or another in their later years. There was no reason why he would lay traps for me as punishment, why he’d choose to haunt me through his stories simply because I loved him maybe a little less than I had as a boy. As for Mom, memories of her certainly lingered over every scrap of paper she’d written on, every item she’d hoarded around her couch in the living room. If ever a person’s spirit could attach itself to a place, Mom’s spirit could claim her favorite area in the house she’d always refused to leave. But if she haunted the house, she wouldn’t haunt me. The two of us had grown closer towards the end of her life. We’d made peace. 

The other possibility I’d considered was Jamie, her spirit summoned by the tumble of plastic bowling pins, her face pressed against the side of a plastic bag like the croup tent she’d pounded at with tiny fists in the hospital where she’d died. Again, though: no reason my baby sister would choose to haunt me.  

But Aaron. Aaron had a reason. 

As Pam spoke, I realized Aaron had borrowed the energy of the house, the crowded connotations of objects and sounds and smells from my childhood; he harnessed the residue of my grief and regret after the deaths of both my parents, inhabiting the evocative spell of their cautionary narratives.  

The slap at the window, the scratch of needles, the rising shadow from the road and the faces pressed gasping against stretched plastic…All of these had been
attempts.