“I sort of did.”
Jenna points to the staircase but keeps her eyes nailed to me as she says, “Devon, please go to your room.”
Devon looks at his mom, looks at me, and gets the picture. He’s out of here.
“You drove yourself.”
“Honey, I just wanted to get home.”
“After I told you not to.”
“Basically, yes,” I say, then quickly add, “But I swear, I wasn’t trying to make you mad.” I inhale sharply. “It was something else . . .”
Jenna must sense my distress because her expression softens. Her tone, too. “Chris, what are you saying?”
I draw some more air, let it out slowly. “Something happened. I got scared.”
She takes a seat at my side, studying me with guarded concern.
“I told you I lost control, but what I didn’t tell you . . .” I steeple my hands, keep my eyes aimed on them. “ . . . is that I saw things.”
Jenna’s body relaxes, but the action doesn’t signal relief—it’s recognition—and without speaking, she says: I get it.
A few seconds of quiet stretch between us, and I need them, because I’m not sure what to say, and because the fear I was speaking of earlier now seems that much more real.
“Baby,” Jenna whispers, “you are not your father.”
All I can do is shake my head.
“This isn’t the same thing.” She reaches for my hand, gives it a squeeze. “It’s not him.”
“It is him. It’s always him.”
“You’re upset. That’s making everything seem worse.”
“I know . . .”
And I do know. I know that my exhaustion from work could have played a part in what I saw before the accident, then my head injury further precipitated the visual distortions after. But that doesn’t make this any easier. Jenna is well aware of my fear, knows that I battle it every day. Fear that any misperception, anything strange, could be a whisper from the past, coming to pay a most unwelcome visit. That what happened to my father will happen to me.
“Just a few moments,” I say, “that’s all it takes. Just a few moments of uncertainty, and I’m there again.”
“The accident played with your mind.”
I nod.
“Please promise me you’ll have this looked at tomorrow.”
“I’ll have it looked at.”
“You still should have told me.”
“I know.”
“But I also understand how you can get.”
“I shut down. I close up.”
She smiles a little. “Let’s keep working on that, okay?”
I try to smile back.
“And do me one more favor? No more driving with a dented head again. Ever. Got it?”
“I promise.”
“And if you get scared like that, you tell me.” Jenna leans over, gives me a kiss, and I feel a little better.
That is, until I catch sight of Jake over her shoulder, body inert, expression stoic and fixed on the front door. Like he’s waiting for someone.
Or something.
15
THE MAN IN THE DRAIN
Trouble was on the slow burn and moving through our home, through our lives.
My father began acting just a little odd. At first it didn’t feel like much cause for alarm. I’d occasionally overhear him mumble quietly while doing things around the house, but it seemed more like thinking out loud than anything else. So I brushed it off.
Until the mumbling turned into what sounded like an exchange with a voice only he could hear. Then, little by little, his comments took a disturbing turn, straying far outside the lines of normalcy, his shades of gray falling deeper into darkness.
My mother, just like always, pretended nothing was wrong. She wrote off the statements as his offbeat humor. Then in a fleeting moment during dinner one evening, the earth shifted beneath our feet, and just like that, we found ourselves on a whole other planet.
“There’s someone inside the drain,” my father proclaimed matter-of-factly, speaking around a mouthful of potatoes.
“What’s that, darling?” My mother regarded him briefly, her smile revealing negligible interest as she placed a bowl on the table.
After swallowing his food, he said, “In the drain.”
“There’s something in the drain?”
“Someone.”
“James, take some collard greens. You love those.” That was her response.
My father shrugged, then scooped greens onto his plate. “He’s in the bathroom. In the tub. A man—or I’m pretty sure he is, anyway. It’s hard to tell sometimes.”
“Stop being silly,” my mother said with a dismissive giggle, then with a grin of encouragement, motioned enthusiastically toward his plate, “Try those greens! Tell me what you think!”
“I’ve seen him there twice,” he said, throwing me a confidential wink and smile, as if revealing some secret we’d been sharing.
I wasn’t smiling. I was unnerved. Not only because of his nonsensical observation but also because there was something in his demeanor I didn’t recognize—as though a stranger was posing as my dad.
“Honestly, James,” my mother remarked, “the things you say sometimes.”
Dad reached for a slice of bread and shrugged again. “He’s there. You’ll see.”
“I forgot the dumplings!” And with that, she was gone from the room.
After she returned, dinner went on for several minutes in tight silence, until my father shook it loose.
He pushed his plate away, leaned back. “He says he’s going to kill us all.”
It was as if every bulb in the room had blown because all I saw was utter darkness. My father’s mind had turned inside out and landed smack dab on the dining room table. Even Mom couldn’t ignore that one, and her face—blank and nearly bloodless—showed it.
But the dinner horror show paled in comparison to what I saw a few hours later.
I walked into the bathroom, and my legs went flimsy.
There was my father, inside the tub and hunched over the drain.
Talking to it.
Pleading.
16
My headache refuses to let up.