He shook his head. “I know what I’m doing, hon.” He waited until she was in the car, then he returned alone to the front door.
Ellen and Mitch were still in the family room. They were not speaking; they were watching him with an intensity that unnerved him. The boys were gone-whether out back or into the bedroom Ellen and Mitch were using, Jay didn’t know. He didn’t care, either. After the way Thad had acted the first day, after Josh injuring Elizabeth today, he didn’t give a damn if he never spoke to his sister again. He focused his attention on his father.
Abraham Morris looked old and frail in the filtered light. His skin hung loosely from his face, his lips trembled even though he was not speaking, and his eyes darted back and forth, as if he were trying to discover who this stranger was standing in front of him.
“Dad,” Jay said as gently as he could. “Dad, Linda and I have to leave. You understand?”
Abe nodded.
Jay wasn’t sure that the movement meant; there was something about it that suggested his father did not understand anything that had happened in the past few minutes.
“Look,” Jay continued, “I’ll call you as soon as we get home. We’ll have you out to our place soon. Maybe later this week. You can come out and stay until New Years if you want. Longer. We’ve got the room. And I don’t like the idea of you staying here in this house…alone.”
Abe’s eyes cleared. His lips stopped their nervous tremors, and when he spoke, Jay heard his father’s voice the way he remembered it from years before.
“I’m fine, Jay. I’ll be fine. You just take care of Lizzy-Bizzy and Anna-banana and Linda, and let me worry about me.”
Jay swallowed. He hadn’t heard his father use those pet names for years.
“Okay, Dad.” He paused, unsure what to say next. “Look, tell Ellen that…tell her I’m…I’m sorry and I’ll call her later, too. When I’ve had a chance to cool down.”
Abe nodded. “That would be wise. I’ll talk to her.”
Jay looked at his father and-on an impulse he would never quite understand but for which he was grateful for the rest of his life-reached out abruptly and threw his arms around his father. He felt the angularity of bone beneath the bulk of Abe’s clothing, and realized anew that his father was old and frail and thin. He hugged Abe with all the strength he could muster, and when the two men finally broke their embrace, both had tears in their eyes.
“Okay, Dad. And…thanks.”
“You drive careful, now. You hear?”
“Sure, Dad.” Jay left. Abe followed a few steps out onto the porch and waved at his daughter-in-law and granddaughters in the car. Then he turned and went inside and shut the door.
“Jay?” Linda’s voice was calm but subdued.
“I’m okay.”
“Should we…?”
“I told him we’d call. We’d have him out soon. For a long visit.” He cranked at the engine, relived that it turned over right away. “For a real long visit.”
The Slab- A Novel of Horror (retail) (epub)
Michael R Collings
13
Ellen’s family spent that night at her father’s house. Not a word was spoken abut Jay or Elizabeth or Anna. Neither Thad nor Josh was punished in any way, but all three boys were unusually quiet for the rest of the day.
Thad slept alone on the rollaway in the back bedroom. Twice Ellen made her sleepy way down the dark hall to check on noises that had awakened her, coming from that direction. The first time, just before she opened the door, she thought she heard Thad-who never talked in his sleep, who always slept like a corpse, barely even shifting his body during the night-cry out. She thought he was speaking, rather than just groaning from too many turkey left-overs at dinner time. But by the time she opened the door, he was silent and still.
The second time came much later, just before the first glimmerings of dawn. This time, for some reason, she woke a few seconds before the sounds filtered through her closed door.
She was up and heading toward Thad’s room before the muffled cries stopped, and this time she was able to step inside just as he fell silent.
“No, leave me alone,” the boy muttered, his new-found bass crackling unpleasantly into a childish treble. “I don’t want to. No!”
When her hand grazed his, he fell silent.
She spent the rest of the night perched on the edge of the rollaway, her hand stroking his long hair. He did not move under her touch.
He did not cry out again.
Later, at breakfast, she asked, “Did you sleep all right, Thad.”
“Yeah,” he answered, almost sullenly. That, at any rate was normal. Thad was a hard waker.
“No bad dreams or anything?”
He stared long enough at her to make her slightly uncomfortable. The rest of the table fell silent, as if waiting for his answer.
“No, nothing like that,” the boy finally said. “It was just… It… Sorry Gramps, but, Mom, those stuffed birds are creepy.”
Everyone, including Grandpa Abe, laughed at the intensity in Thad’s voice. After a tense moment, during which it seemed as if he might lose his temper-not an unusual occurrence for the teenager-even Thad joined in.
“I mean, every time I opened my eyes, there they were, hanging there, looking like they were about to pounce on me or something. Totally, totally creepy!”
The Camerons left before noon. Ellen promised to call her father later that week. They would talk things over, she promised. Maybe he could come down to San Diego for a long visit. A real long visit.
“We’ll see,” Abe said quietly. “We’ll see.”
14
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, 2005, started out unseasonably warm, but by early afternoon the ocean-driven clouds had invaded the valleys, bringing high winds and the threat of rain. The air was damp, charged with heaviness.
Abe noted the cloud cover as he closed the front door. A car had just pulled out of his driveway, but right at the moment, he couldn’t quite remember whose. It was important to remember; he new that much, but the names, the faces just wouldn’t come.
He leaned against the door. His face was flushed and hot. He shuffled into the kitchen and drew a cooling drink of water from the tap. He crossed to the cupboard and carefully took down a small revolving stand that supported ten or twelve amber plastic medicine bottles, all imprinted with his name. His hand hovered over several as he tried to concentrate.
This one, for sure. He knew that he had to take the little white one. His hand dropped to another bottle. The six-sided red ones? Were they once a day? Or twice? He couldn’t remember for certain, and even when he squinted at the tiny print on the label, he couldn’t be sure. He took one anyway. He took four others as well, washing them down with the cool water. He opened the refrigerator and took a thin slice of turkey from a plastic-wrap-covered tray.
Turkey. It tasted good.
And it reminded him…reminded him…reminded him… Yes, he would have to get the turkey out of the freezer in the garage soon. Wouldn’t do to have the Thanksgiving turkey still cold and frozen and dead when the kids got there. Ellen should be pulling up any time now, and Jay, with their kids. I’m gonna cook them a dinner they won’t soon forget, Abe reminded himself.
Just to be on the safe side, he took a pad from the kitchen drawer and carefully wrote a note to himself: “Kids coming-Thanksgiving tomorrow.”
He slid the pad back into the drawer and closed it. He looked around. For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. He felt dizzy, and his breath was painful as he drew air into his lungs. His arm and shoulder ached. He would lie down.
He went down the hallway, but instead of turning into his bedroom, he continued on to the specimen room. The rollaway was open in the middle of the floor, sheets and covers rumpled at the foot. One pillow lay like something lost on the floor, mostly hidden by the metal framework of the bed. The rollaway. That surprised him. He didn’t remember putting it down, but then he didn’t remember many things nowadays. He sighed. He removed the sheets and pillows, folding them carefully and setting them momentarily on the top of the bookshelf near the door.