“All gone.”
Shaun’s head drooped. Evan smiled and patted him on the back, then cleaned up their supplies. His eyes kept trying to roam toward the house; he knew they would soon have to go inside. The clouds continued to build across the lake, but he heard no thunder and hoped it wouldn’t storm.
Evan fried the fish they caught in flour and butter, seasoning it the best he could with salt and pepper. They ate with relish, Shaun smacking his lips several times, doing it again when he didn’t need to simply to get a rise out of Evan.
After dinner Shaun had a bath. Evan washed his hair and scrubbed behind his ears. As he rinsed a washrag, a strange feeling intruded on his mood, a cloud covering the sun. One more bath, another day gone, meal after meal. It was simply a meter, wasn’t it? A marking of time until the days were thin, the end near, near enough to touch, to taste. Is that what he was waiting for? The end? For this all to be over?
Evan gazed at his son and stopped him from putting the bar of soap into his mouth, for the tenth time. Shaun splashed the water, and a small runner of drool rolled down the side of his chin. Evan wiped it away, the sight of it more depressing than anything he’d seen in a long time.
“Let’s get you out, honey.”
~
They sat at the kitchen table working on tracing until Shaun’s fingers couldn’t hold the marker properly anymore. Evan watched him close, waiting for his attention to stray to the basement door, but either he had forgotten the prior night’s incident or he chose to ignore it.
“Okay, time for bed. Big day tomorrow, gotta go to the hospital and do some therapy.”
He helped Shaun out of his chair and let him walk to his room, his fingertips barely helping to balance him. After tucking him in, Evan sat on the end of the bed.
“This was a good day, buddy. I had fun.”
“Bub, bub.”
Shaun struggled with the word, and Evan let him work on it before helping.
“Bubble.”
“Bubbow,” Shaun repeated.
“Yeah, we had bubbles, didn’t we?”
Shaun smiled, snuggling into his pillow. “Moon?”
“Moon?” Evan said, glancing at the darkening window. His stomach sank. “You mean Goodnight Moon.”
He had forgotten the book at home. How had he missed it? He could even see it sitting on Shaun’s bedroom floor. Elle would’ve never forgotten something so important.
“I’m sorry, buddy, it’s not here.”
Shaun’s face darkened. “Moon?”
Evan opened his mouth to try to explain, but instead the first words of the story came out. He spoke easily and found that he could see every page in the book, the words standing out in bold black and red ink. Shaun’s eyes closed as Evan’s voice carried him away. He paused at the page about clocks but pressed on, ignoring the shiver that tried to run through him. At last, Shaun’s breathing became deep and his arm jerked a little as sleep took him fully.
The creaking of a door opening in the kitchen met his ears.
His head snapped in that direction. He waited, listening to the quiet of the house. With his pulse picking up speed, Evan stood and made his way through the living room to the kitchen, expecting the basement door to be standing ajar.
But it wasn’t. He checked all the other doors, and none were open even a crack. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, wondering why the hell they hadn’t left today.
Curiosity killed the cat.
The words seemed to come out of nowhere, and he shook his head, moving to the counter to make some tea. While the water heated, he watched the light fade from the day, the clouds on the horizon suspended, no closer or farther away than before.
He and Shaun were the clouds. Unmoving, unable to go forward or disperse, static in life. Soon they would both be old, himself in his eighties, Shaun nearing sixty. How would he take care of him then? How would he ensure that Shaun wouldn’t be scared if he couldn’t come to his calls right away, or if he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do when he got there? What would they do when he couldn’t help them anymore?
The thought terrified him. This was the unsaid horror that stalked him each hour, submerged beneath the everyday trials and tribulations, the sadness and suffering. The image of Shaun alone and scared was too much to bear, so he banished it back to the depths of his mind from which it came, to hibernate with fangs of fear ready in its black mouth.
His hand felt cold, and when he looked down, he saw he was holding the basement-door handle. He yanked it back, surprised more by not remembering moving to touch it than by the chill it gave off.
“Basements are cold, that’s a fact,” he said to the kitchen.
His tea water wasn’t as hot as he liked it, but he poured it over the tea bag anyway, then sat at the table with his laptop. His email yielded no new messages, but he remembered he had no Wi-Fi service and couldn’t receive anything. He opened his article notes and scanned what he’d already written, and then typed for a moment.
Abel and Larissa Kluge—dead under mysterious circumstances. Allison Kaufman—died the same day as Larissa, look into death. Cecil Fenz—related to Kluges? Bob’s story—notes in basement.
Evan paused, his fingers hovering over the keys.
Clock at the center of everything?
He glanced at the basement door before snapping the laptop shut.
“Nope, I’m tired.”
Without bothering to put his untouched tea away, Evan shut the lights off and headed for bed.
But sleep wouldn’t come. It seemed drifting off was a magic trick he’d forgotten, a subtle secret of the mind that wouldn’t show itself. His thoughts played on a continuous loop, facts and words whirling like a tornado in his skull. After nearly two hours of tossing and turning, he rose and headed to the basement.