Whisper Me This(11)
Maybe I’m driving Elle into a trap. I could let this traffic circle swing me right back around, let it fling the rental car free back onto the highway, back toward Spokane.
Small towns sleep at night, I remind myself. It is two a.m., and we are not in Kansas City anymore. I’ve got enough to worry about without adding imaginary dangers into the mix.
Dad, for example. He hasn’t responded to any of my calls since our brief and disturbing conversation. At least the hospital has people to answer the phone to tell me my mother is still alive and breathing. They also can tell me that they have not seen my dad, that he hasn’t come up to visit her, and that in itself is the most ominous news of all.
I try to blink some moisture into my eyes, but the lids grate like sandpaper. My face feels like it might crack if I dare yawn or smile or do anything other than stare at the road. My hands are fused to the steering wheel, and my whole body thrums with the vibration of tires on pavement.
All the way through town, I entertain the hope that everything is a huge misunderstanding. Dad and I will laugh about Mrs. Carlton, the wicked witch next door, the way we did when I was a child. Every one of her stinging remarks to me, about me, were softened by the stories Dad would tell.
Me, the fairy-tale princess. Her, the spiteful but powerless witch, bound by a magic spell that kept her from inflicting any true harm.
I tell myself that the real fairy stories are the ones the cop was spinning on the phone. Dad was in shock, that’s all. Who wouldn’t be? And there’s no way he let Mom lie unconscious for three days without calling for help.
But then I turn onto our street and all my make-believe falls into ashes.
The house is lit up like a carnival, every window glowing. Smoke pours out of the chimney—black, copious, and all kinds of wrong.
My parents, for as long as I can remember, have been in bed every night by ten. All the lights off, except the dim one over the kitchen sink. And the fireplace is used only for ceremonial purposes. Small, decorative fires at Christmas. An occasional blaze on a Saturday night to go with hot cocoa and whipped cream.
I skid into the driveway far too fast and slam on the brakes just in time to avoid crashing into the garage door. Elle bolts upright, eyes wide but glassy with sleep and confusion.
She follows me out of the car and up to the front door, which is locked.
I beat on it with my fists, shouting, “Dad! It’s Maisey. Let me in!”
Nobody comes to the door. Acrid smoke drifts down from the chimney and into my nose. Panic freezes my brain, and it takes me way too long to lift the fake rock sitting right beside the door for any would-be thief to see. My hands are shaking, and I drop the key not once but twice before I manage to turn it in the lock and open the door.
The entryway is blue with smoke.
“Get back in the car,” I order Elle. “Call 911. If the house explodes, run for it.”
“If you’re exploding, so am I,” she protests. “But I’ll call.”
No time to argue. I dash through the entryway, down a short hall, into the living room.
“Dad!”
A haze of smoke drifts along the ceiling, but the only flames I can see are in the fireplace. Dad is on his knees in front of it, the poker in his hands. A sheaf of half-burned paper, some black and smoldering, some flaming, spills out onto the hearth. He pokes more paper into the fireplace, and with a whoosh it ignites. Hot paper ash floats out into the room, sucked by the current of air from the open door. Some lands on the carpet. A spark lands in Dad’s hair, and he drops the poker and swats at his head.
A wad of flaming paper stuck to the poker continues to burn perilously close to his pant leg. He’s as oblivious to the danger as he is to our arrival.
“Dad! What on earth are you doing?”
I rush across the room and stomp out the flames on the paper, grinding ash into my mother’s carpet. The stink of hot chemicals and singed hair fills my nostrils.
She’s going to kill me, I think, before I remember that she may never know or care what happened. That is the thought that sends a spike through my chest, skewering my heart.
Dad turns his head, so terribly slowly, and looks at me. His eyes are blank, his face so expressionless I’m afraid that he doesn’t even know who I am.
But it’s even worse than him not knowing. He is not happy to see me.
“Maisey,” he says. “I figured you’d turn up.” His tone is one of final resignation, not joy or gratitude or relief. And then he turns his back on me, picks up the poker, and starts turning over the unburned papers in the fire.
I hear the town siren begin to wail, a lonely, terrifying sound that has always made me want to dive under the furniture and hide.
I drop to my knees beside him, careless of the soot and ash, and take the poker out of his hands.
“It’s plenty warm in here, don’t you think? Maybe we should let this go out.”
Something fierce passes through his eyes, and I actually think, Oh my God, I’m about to be smacked with the poker, before his hands let go and he melts, as if he’s made of wax and the fire has softened him. His shoulders round. His back curves. His chin sinks down onto his chest.
“There’s more,” he says. “I know there’s more. I’ve forgotten something.”
He’s not talking to me.
My whole body feels stiff and strange and without sensation. Plastic. I don’t know how I am supposed to behave if my father has forgotten that he loves me, if my mother isn’t here to tell us both what to do.