Henry Franks A Novel

nine





The door opened up to the heat, and where the outside met the air-conditioning inside was a weather system unto itself; moist, hot, and too thick to inhale. The bright sun burned off the blacktop and his sunglasses did little to dull the impact. A headache started almost immediately.

His father waited in the parking lot, engine running to keep cool, and Henry slid in as quickly as possible.

“How’d it go?” his father asked as he pulled onto Demere Road.

Henry turned up the air-conditioning and then rested his head back on the seat, eyes closed. “Fine.”

“Henry?”

He opened one eye, peering at his father through the hair falling in front of his face. He sighed. “It’s a process.”

“Did Dr. Saville say anything?”

“About?”

“You?” his father asked.

“No.”

Henry pulled at the collar of his shirt, closed his eyes, and looked away.

His father turned the car into Harrison Pointe and parked in front of the house. “I’ll be working late again. Don’t forget to do your homework.”

“Fine,” Henry said before grabbing his backpack and opening the door.

Inside, he waited until his father drove away before rushing down the fragile wooden stairs into the basement, stepping carefully to avoid the splinters that were poking out of the old lumber.

He pulled the cord but the weak light failed to reach the corners. The mess he’d left the day before was gone. Stacks of cardboard boxes lined the room, with well-swept and cobweb-free aisles between them.

Henry ran to the circuit box.

The SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES box sat nearby, but when he lifted the box on top, it was far too light to still be filled with ancient photographs. A few scraps of archival paper and stickers rattled around, but there were no pictures.

One by one, he searched through the rest of the boxes. It took him hours, but by the time he was done he’d failed to find the photographs in any of them.

Drenched in sweat, he climbed up the stairs, put the cart back in place, and collapsed into a chair, resting his head on the kitchen table next to his backpack. A branch scraped across the side of the house like fingernails on a blackboard. Henry jumped up and crossed to the sink to look into the backyard. Light filtered through the leaves, casting fluid shadows that seemed to move with the breeze. Spanish moss hung, still and silent, from the towering oaks, not moving, and when he looked closer there was no wind at all.

Henry walked down the hallway, to the door to the master bedroom. He put his ear to the wood, trying to hear something from the other side, but there was nothing but the hum of the air-conditioning. Just to be safe, he knocked. The sound was loud and seemed to linger in the too-warm air. The knob was cool in his hand but, even though it turned, it didn’t open the door.

“Damn,” he said, before slapping his palm into the door. It tingled, but just a little, and there was no pain from hitting the wood.

In his father’s office across the hall, Henry pulled out drawers, looking for the photographs of Frank, but the drawers were empty. Dust coated the top of the desk and the shelves were bare. When he rolled the desk chair out to look underneath, the metal wheels squealed in protest and left tracks through the dust on the floor. Behind him, his own footprints stood out in stark relief, and only when he was in the hallway again did he relax enough to breathe.

Henry ate dinner alone in the empty house and then went upstairs to his room. He surfed around the Internet but gave up after only a minute or two. The sun was still bright in the August sky and he watched it crawl toward the horizon. In his lap, his dark index finger idly scratched at the scar on his wrist.

He took a deep breath and then unfolded the piece of paper hidden beneath his pillbox. When he grasped the pen, it slipped out of his fingers and, try as he might, he couldn’t get his mismatched index finger to hold on to it. With it squeezed in his fist, he added Frank to the list of names.

Henry went back downstairs when he heard his father return home, but by the time he got to the kitchen, the room was empty again. He looked down the hall toward the master bedroom. Beneath the door, a sliver of light glowed.

He took a step onto the hardwood floor and stopped. The corridor seemed longer than it had when he was still standing on the tile of the kitchen. The floor squeaked with each step, a high-pitched echo of his heartbeat, until he finally reached the door. Up close, it was carved, the dark wood etched with faint patterns that matched the wainscoting. He took a deep breath, thinking of all the questions left unasked. Unanswered.

He knocked.

“Dad?”

Silence, save for the constant hum of the air-conditioning. Henry tried the knob but it didn’t turn. He rested his finger on the deadbolt lock above it.

“Dad?”

He knocked, again.

At his feet, the light from under the door disappeared without a sound.

Henry sat at his desk, the house an empty shell around him despite the presence, somewhere, of his silent father. The summer sun had finally given way to night, cooling his room almost enough to notice. Still, the central air and ceiling fan worked non-stop.

Next to his monitor a generic plastic box divided into sections held his medicine. AM and PM and each day of the week were scrawled on pieces of masking tape on top. He flicked his finger through the Tuesday PM pills but couldn’t find the energy to take them.

He closed the lid and sat there unmoving, staring at the screen saver on his computer defining words he couldn’t remember as he re-opened the pillbox.

He was still sitting there when he fell asleep, medicine untaken in his hand.

“Daddy!”

Elizabeth comes running up to me, flinging herself into my arms. Her weight is a comfort against me as I swing her around. Just a child, she still shrieks with glee, making funny propeller noises as she flies.

Around us, petals fall off the trees like leaves in autumn, falling in patterns to the ground. They smell of earth and roses and I know they’d taste of ice cream.

“Chocolate,” Elizabeth says, her tiny hand tucked in mine as we wait in line.

“One scoop?”

“Two,” she says.

I have to use more pressure than I expect to drag the spoon through the vat of ice cream, scraping up a small ball that rattles around her cup, making odd metallic creaking noises like artificial bones held together with pins and prayer. The sun burns down, melting the ice cream into drinkable joy.

Elizabeth slurps and smiles and holds my hand as we wander through the empty park. Red and golden leaves crunch underfoot.

“I’ve got a secret,” she says.

Ice cream has given her a chocolate mustache and she licks it off. Her pigtails are coming undone and her dress is communion pretty; a small red poppy trails a Memorial Day ribbon on her chest.

“A secret?” I scoop her up in my arms and she squeals with delight.

“Daddy!” She laughs as I swing her around, making airplane noises.

We land, walking hand in hand down a deserted airport concourse. She tugs us forward, pulling me faster and faster until we’re running, flying over the moving walkways and abandoned luggage to our gate.

“See?” she asks, pointing toward the two people sleeping in the hard orange chairs. On the TV above them, all the flights have been cancelled.

“This is your secret, Elizabeth?” I ask.

“Your secret, Daddy.” She smiles. “I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone. Not even Mommy.”

“My secret?”

She pushes me toward the gate, closer to the people lying there. At first, I think they’re Martians, their skin is so purple. They aren’t breathing.

Humans. Beaten so badly as to bruise their skin darker than grapes.

“Elizabeth?” I call her name, spinning around and around in the empty airport. “Elizabeth!”

But there’s no one there.

Just a white dress lying on the floor, a growing red stain like blood from where I’d pinned the poppy on her.

On the TV set above my head, there is suddenly one more cancelled flight.