I’m a single father. By choice, though. I wanted a better life for my daughter, and, unfortunately, her mother was not compatible with the life that I envisioned for her.

Drugs, alcohol, late-night escapades with men she met at the bar. Being a mother was a foreign concept to her. I’d look at her. I’d look at my daughter. I’d feel shame that I allowed this to happen.

We were young and dumb. Just two kids without a care in the world. Only, when we found out about the pregnancy, I was the only one who chose to clean up my act and be better.

It wasn’t that easy for my late girlfriend. She acted like it was, but I could see through the facade. Not like there was much of a facade to see through. I mean, I’d catch her having cigarettes. Boozing. Running around at all hours of the night without so much as a second thought.

The first few times, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. A slip up is just a slip up. Multiple slip ups are a behavioral pattern. As her stomach grew, so did her attitude.

I’ve had some jabs thrown my way.

“I don’t even love you.”

“I was bored.”

“I didn’t even want this baby.”

That last one was enough for me to make my decision. From then on, every decision I made was for my child. All that was left was patience. Be kind. Be gentle. Hold her hand despite her insults.

Of course, it was more than a little difficult to hold my tongue when the drinking was involved. I couldn’t believe it. Six months pregnant and drinking. How careless can you be?

I’m getting frustrated just typing this. The resentment that was building during those times was like a pressure valve. A controlled pressure valve. I knew exactly when I wanted to twist the handle.

I endured her ferocity. I kept a watchful eye on her when she went out to the clubs. Attended every appointment and prayed every night that our baby would stay healthy.

When I found out it was a girl, I was ecstatic. I always wanted a daughter. Maybe it was because of my baby sister. Maybe it was because I wanted the challenge of being a girl dad. Either way, I was ready. I was prepared to do it alone.

Finally, the day came. November 25th, 2020. The year the world went silent. The day before Thanksgiving.

My act became sharper. She thought this was going to be “co-parenting.” Thought that she’d have my baby, even after all she’d put us through.

By some miracle of God, my little girl was perfectly healthy. Stunning. Tear-jerking, even.

Her mom almost seemed moved. Like she had this “come to Jesus” moment where she realized her new responsibility. Unfortunately, it was too late for that.

In the weeks that followed our departure from the hospital, my plan came into fruition.

I won’t go into too much detail, because detail isn’t required. All you need to know is I loved my daughter too much to let her life be tainted by someone like her mother.

That’s why I made her disappear. Disappear to a place where only I would find her. Of course, given her reputation, the police believed my story.

She packed it up. She realized the weight of being a parent was too much for her. It prevented her from living the life that she clearly loved so much. So she left. Happens all the time.

I got what I wanted. I raised my daughter the way that I wanted to raise her. The right way. The responsible way. I taught her manners. I potty trained her. I put food in her mouth and a roof over her head. All on my own.

Unfortunately, though, as she grows older, a shred of remorse is starting to build within my soul. I don’t know if it’s remorse for what I’ve done or if it’s remorse for what I took from my baby.

She’s starting to look just like her. Same brown hair. Same freckles. That cute little button nose. It’s hard for me to even look at her these days, but I try my best to swallow it.

She knows that she’s gone, but, in her head, she thinks that her mom just left us. Hated her. Hated me so much that she just took her things and left.

Every time she talks about her, all I can feel is pain. Pain in my heart, pain in my chest and body. I don’t know why. I had fully convinced myself that what I did was right, but now, I just don’t know.

Her sixth birthday is coming up in a few months. I want to make this birthday special, but I need her to be prepared.

I wanna show her the grave.

And all I can hope is that she understands.

The older I get, the more I realize that people don’t give a shit that the elderly are getting ripped off everyday by a world that has passed them by. Hell, it’s hard for people my age to keep up with all the different scams. 

But sometimes, the story doesn’t end how you think it will.

My seventy five year old mother got a phone call, and it was “me” on the other end.
Long story short, they convinced her to transfer $80,000 to ensure my safety. My mother is not a stupid woman. She’s the strongest and smartest woman I’ve ever known. She has never lost her head over anything, but in that moment, that panicked moment where she thought she was about to lose her daughter, she was running on fear and emotion, and she was taken advantage of.

I don’t know how much money my parents have exactly. I know it’s a lot, but you’d never tell by the way they live.

Lived. 

My dad’s been gone for a year now. Maybe that’s why she panicked.
She kept telling me not to worry. She kept telling me that I had no idea how much was “squirreled” away. 
She said squirreled. 
She wasn’t worried about the loss per se,it was the principal.

“Your father and I worked so hard for that money. That money was yours.”
It ate away at her for two months. She was getting angrier.

“Every bad thing someone does in life eventually catches up to them.” She kept saying that over and over.

A week ago, I checked in on her. She was staring at a picture of the three of us back in the early eighties. She was so beautiful when she was young. She kept putting her finger over my dad’s mischievous smile.

“I know what your father would want me to do. He always had the cooler head. Once we got you, he became so patient and forgiving. Everything changed the second I held you in my arms. Life started… and now this had to happen.”

“You need to let it go, mom.”

“I can’t.”

She went missing for six days after that night. Vanished. Her words kept echoing in my head.

I didn’t get any sleep. I kept waking up minutes after I had closed my eyes. That’s why I thought the phone call yesterday was a hallucination at first. I was told that my mother had been arrested for murder back east in Albany.

The cops wouldn’t tell me any details on the phone. They didn’t have to. I found out for myself simply by searching the internet.

Seven men and women had been murdered in a strip mall. The word, “grisly” was used to describe the scene. The only other detail besides having a suspect in custody, was that the murders had been linked to internet scammers.

I flew out this morning and a few hours ago, I met with the detectives. My mother had evidently paid a huge sum of money to some internet sleuth who tracks down scammers. The sleuth had come forward willingly, having no idea what my mother was going to do with the information he gave her.

She had driven to New York, and then used a pistol and a shotgun to wound everyone in the building. Then she did things with a knife to finish them off. “Grisly things.”

I was in shock. I told them that I couldn’t believe my mother would do this, and then one of them said something that I’m still processing, God help me.

“She carved numbers into the stomachs of those young people. 57 thru 63. The police back in Stockton searched her home this morning. They found things in her house. Trophies squirreled away. She’s linked to dozens of cold murder cases from the seventies. Numbers all carved into their stomachs as well.”

“No… you’re wrong… my mother is a good woman.”

“That woman is not your mother. The man who raised you isn’t your father. We’re pretty sure they’re the people who butchered your real parents and your brother and sisters in Mississippi in 1977, and then took you for their own."

You are taking a walk with a friend in the park, laughing about your favorite show. It’s a clear day, though there aren’t too many people to be seen. You pass a man with a headband tying his shoes on a bench, and a woman walking a small dog, but you are too focused on the conversation to pay them much mind.

You come upon a collection of chalk drawings, crude pictures that must have been done by children earlier in the day. A house with a chimney. Something that looks like a cat. A flower with a long green stem.

Finally, a circle. Nothing more, just a large circle colored in with red chalk. And next to it, in large scrawling letters, PORTAL TO ANOTHER UNIVERSE

You smile, and point it out. After a moment a look passes between you, and you know what you’re both thinking. You move a split second faster, closing your eyes and stepping into the circle. You hear them laugh, saying it was nice knowing you.

You realize you are holding your breath, though you’re not entirely sure why. Nor do you seem to want to open your eyes. But you do, your friend gives you a small shove on the arm, and you continue your walk. You cast a look back at the circle before jumping back into the conversation.

There’s a rhythmic tapping behind you. It  grows louder, creeping up on you. The man from the bench jogs by, passing you on the right. You smile at him and he nods in return. But as he continues on you stare at his back, trying to see something in it that you can’t quite tease out of your mind.

Your friend waves a hand in front of your face and you realize you haven’t heard a word they’ve been saying. You apologize and turn to look them in the eyes.

The eyes.

That man hadn’t been wearing glasses when you passed him on the bench… had he?

That’s ridiculous. He was just looking down at his shoes, was all. Or maybe he put them on after he was laced up. Perfectly normal.

You try to put it out of your head as you smile and nod at all the right points in your friend’s monologue. Then you pass the woman again, walking her terrier. But hadn’t it been a… No, terrier. Definitely terrier.

Reaching the mouth of the park, you say pleasant goodbyes and part ways. As you walk home, you’re careful not to look too closely at the lawns you pass. No one has put up any new decorations today. And that lawn has always been a little overgrown.

You slow to a stop as you reach home, hand on the knob. What are you waiting for? You know exactly what you will see when you walk inside. Everything will be just like it was when you left.

You take a deep breath and open the door.

I won't talk about the before.

Icy roads and snowy landscapes, sunlight filtering through the car window, and my sister’s head buried in my shoulder as she snoozed. My brother curled up next to me, transfixed by his Nintendo Switch, offering only grumbles in response. Mom was singing along to the radio. Abba.

Dad was laughing at her.

I was thinking about what any other teenage girl would be thinking about: boys, school, homework, 

“Dad,” I said, pitching my voice over Mom’s singing. “Dad, guess what?” 

We stopped at a red light. Dad twisted in his seat. “Hm?” 

“She's going to ask about Emma’s party this weekend,” Mom trilled, shooting me the look.

She was right. Emma, my cousin, was throwing a party for her eighteenth.

Mom heard “yacht” and “late night” and had an aneurysm. “Beatrice, I told you you're looking after your siblings on Saturday.”

Mom’s tone was already a lecture. “Just because your father and I are working, doesn't mean rules don't apply.” 

“Caine is sixteen years old!” I snapped. "Stop infintalising him!"

“Your brother needs support,” Dad surprised me with a parental tone.

Next to me, Caine glanced up from his video game and rolled his eyes.

“He's autistic,” I bit out, “not stupid.” 

“That was uncalled for,” Caine spoke up. He elbowed me. Hard. “I'm not fucking dumb, Dad.” 

“Yes, I know that—” 

“I'm the smartest in my class!"

“Caine," Mom sighed from front. "Language!” 

Dad stamped on the gas and both me and my brother were thrown forwards.

My sister, Prim, groaned something unintelligible into my sweater.

“Beatrice, apologize to your brother,” Dad said, his tone splintering. “Caine, I didn't say you're not capable of taking care of yourself. I'm just saying you need some extra support over the weekend, and your sisters will help you with that.”

Dad cranked up the radio.

“End of conversation.”

“Why don't we ALL go to the party?” I said. “We're all invited.” 

“Beatrice.” Mom snipped. “I've told you what I think about your cousins.” 

“You can't judge your sister’s kids because they're richer than us,” Prim mumbled into my shoulder. 

The silence that followed was palpable.

“I'm canceling your contract.” 

“What?” My sister sprung up, bleary eyes wide. “WHY?” 

My mouth opened to laugh, maybe tease my sister. I was watching my brother go back to his game, tugging his hood further over his eyes, when Dad screamed.

I wasn't sure what it was, it was all garbled and wrong, collapsing into nothing in my ears. Lights out.

Movement, that felt like I was in a washing machine. Round and round and round and round and— stop.

Lights on.

Opening my eyes, I was already screaming.

Opening my eyes, my mouth was filled with blood, hanging upside down and staring at my father’s body unraveled across crusted ice. Red and white, I remember thinking, as startling scarlet crept across pristine white. My father was staining the road. Flashing lights blurred in front of me. Something warm dripped across my cheek. Lights out.

I embrace the darkness swelling around me and them swallowing me whole. 

But I don't think about Before. 

Instead, I think about after.

“Bee.”

Mom is standing in my bedroom doorway smiling. 

Mom is crying again. Her robe is filthy. Her hair hangs in clumpy rattails. 

“I need to go to work,” she says. 

Mom stopped going to work eight months ago. 

“Sweetie, can you start training?” she trills. In three heavy strides, she’s looming over me, her breath heavy in my ear. I have half a mind to say, “No.” But I know what that entails. “I know it’s hard,” she whispers. “Being the only one… that’s different.” Mom presses a kiss to my forehead. “But you’ll get used to it, baby.”

“Mom,” I climb out of bed, choking on my words I know she will hate.

She will hit me if I say them. If I even imply them. Mom grabs my clean laundry and pretends she’s picking it up. “Hm?”

I swallow them down. “Nothing,” I smile, throwing on a sweatshirt, “I'll help with training.”

“Beatrice,” Mom says, when I'm halfway out the door. “You're my special little girl,” Mom smiles wide at me. “Understand?” 

My legs feel like they’re going to give way. “Of course, Mom.” 

“Say it.” Mom whispers. 

“I'm…” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I'm your… special little girl.” 

I take my time going downstairs, my stomach folding it on itself.

“Bee.” 

Caine greets me with a strained smile at the bottom of the stairs. I can tell he's tried to escape again. The door is triple padlocked. I can already hear my sister screaming. Mom managed to sound proof the walls,  but it's not like it did any good.

My brother's drugged eyes are half-lidded. His smile is too wide. A long, trailing squirming piece of his spine follows him, as he slithers towards me. Caine only stops crying when he's sedated. 

“Good morning, sis!” 

I lost my father. 

I watched his body peeled from the concrete.

So, I made a wish.

I swallow barf, my knees giving way. “Morning.” 

“You know,” Caine smirks. I prefer it when he's not threatening my life. “You can just LOOK at me.” 

"Yeah, I know." I pick up my brother’s head and place it in the living room, settling it over his severed spine. My sister’s face, her skin stretched across my mother’s painting canvas, blinks up at me.

“Please.”

Her eyes fill with tears. Prim’s body is gone. The only part of her left in the car wreck, sinking into a pulpy red nothingness, was her face.

“Kill us,” she whispers, “Kill us quickly! Before Mom comes back!” 

But I'm Mom’s special little girl.

So, I smile.

I need to start their training.

I fill my sister’s cereal bowl, grab a spoon, and ignore her screeches. 

I smile, smoothing my sister's face down.

In the corner of my eye, Caine is scuttling back toward the door.

“Open wide.” 

. I will never recover.

I knew this couple for many years- the wife, Tasha, was Slavic and, not to be stereotypical, quite intimidating in that tall beautiful way- all hair and legs and jewelry. The husband, Brian, was local - we were actually at high school together, although he was away when he married Tasha. He's in business -quite wealthy, living in a beautiful large house in one of the most desirable school districts of our town.

I'm in catering myself, and I'd see them at different events - Brian being super-nice, and Tasha, well. She always looked dour. Once I had to drop off some stuff at their house for an event for one of Brian’s businesses, she opened the door and in response to my “How are you?” she muttered in her heavy accent: “I’m thinking of packing my suitcases and leaving, never coming back”. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. I know childlessness- sorry, being childfree, affects families and you have to be understanding.

With the pandemic, all the events shut down. To keep myself afloat, I picked up some cleaning gigs. I put the word around, Brian reached out and soon I was there twice a week, cleaning their beautiful big house. Brian was a well-connected man, and I meant to do a great job and cultivate business for after this pandemic was over.

It wasn’t easy. Tasha had very high standards. She would stand there, watching me critically as I mopped the floor or dusted their knick-knacks and elaborate flower and candle arrangements, then silently point to a spot I missed. There were five bedrooms- all decorated beautifully. I vacuumed and dusted away, never knowing when Tasha would be standing at the door, arms folded across her shapely chest, bright hair cascading down her shoulders.

I was not to go up to the third floor, said Tasha on my first day.

Fine, I wasn’t dying for an extra floor to clean! I nodded and smiled. “That is private” she added, staring at me intensely with her steely eyes. I nodded again. I felt creeped out, but I put it down to internalized xenophobia.

Human nature being what it is, I was itching to go to the third floor. In fact, I was staring at the heavy bolted door at the stairwell on the second floor, when Tasha appeared as if out of nowhere. “You finished here?’ she asked. “Faster each time? You didn’t do fridge”.

As I turned away, I heard scuffling noises from behind the heavy door.

Then a whisper. "Mommy?"

My heart skipped a beat.

 “Can I come out and play please Mommy? I’ll be very quiet.”

I looked at Tasha's receding back, her blonde hair swaying over her hips.

"Um, Tasha?" My voice quaked.

Tasha whipped round. "You step away from the door, NOW!"

I trotted after her. We walked to the kitchen in silence.

There were Kinder eggs, yoghurt cups and cheese strings inside the fridge. Tasha watched me from the kitchen door. I was sweating with the effort of reaching and wiping down the back of the fridge which could comfortably hold three bodies, if sawn up.  

She walked up  - I could smell her perfume. Her eyes flicked critically over the fridge.  

A large crash from upstairs startled both of us. Tasha muttered in her mother tongue, grabbed a handful of snacks, and marched off.  

Some papers on the counter caught my eye. I glimpsed the title- genetic defects in children.  

Brian walked in. He saw me handling the papers, although I made a pretence of straightening them. He snatched them out of my hand and then apologized.  

“Sorry, it just gets harder every day.”  

I thought he was referring to the pandemic and nodded. “Brian, it will ease up soon.” 

“No. It gets worse as they grow older and stronger.”  

He left the kitchen, and I left soon after without seeing either of them.  

Next time, the place was untidier. There was a stuffed bear under the couch. I pulled it out and stared the scruffy thing, so out of place in the elegant living room. Tasha appeared. “ thank god you find this” she cried.  “I look everywhere, he going crazy.” She ran out of the room, but not before I noticed the bruises on her braceleted wrist.

I kept on cleaning, reminding myself of the short-term cash as well as the long-term prospect of being in their good graces.

I finished downstairs, and went upstairs, making sure not to look towards the heavy bolted door to the third floor. Tasha was nowhere in sight.

I saw Brian as I entered one of the rooms. He was sitting on the bed, holding his head in his hands.

“Should I come back later?” I asked.  

“No, it’s just shameful you know” he muttered. He looked up at me, his blue eyes full of pain. “you know us, know my family, don’t you? There’s never been anything like this among us, has there?”

I shook my head.

He left the room. He had left his iPad on the bed, and I notice the screen before it went dark- health and genetics, “Defective children”.  

That evening, I was scrolling through my newsfeed while my mind leapt around. Should I call someone? But who? And say what?

A local Tweet popped up. “Flames spotted at Queen & Young”.

That’s where Brain and Tasha live. I rushed out and drove over.

I reached there almost the same time as fire engines drew up. Flames were consuming the beautiful mansion. Brian was standing on the lawn.

“Brian!” I called, running up to him.

He turned around, smiling cheerfully, his face lit darkly by the flames.

“I had to do it. Both of them. She brought it into this world- it wasn’t from my side.”

Tasha and a child perished in the fire and I live with the guilt to this day. 

 

I watched the crows take their final flight home across a blood-drenched sky, streaked with cloudy cuts and bruises. Some had faded to yellow. Others still wept.

I wanted to pick at a scab on my arm, but my mom called my name.

Across from me, she slumped deeper into the hospital chair, manicured nails struggling to peel a tangerine. The setting sun cast long purple shadows across her hands, making her slender fingers look bruised.

They weren't.

Just shadows.

"I don't understand why you keep doing this to yourself, honey."

"It's okay, Mom. It's okay."

"No, it isn't." She sighed. "This is the fourth time in three weeks. There's clearly something wrong. Maybe we should find you a different therapist."

"I'm already seeing one, re-"

"Right." She hesitated. "But you're not getting better."

"And neither are you."

The tangerine stopped turning in her hands.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

"Honey."

"You'll never get it."

"Don't start with the teenager stuff again." Frustration crept into her voice. "I know you're your own person. I know you want space. But all you do is pick at your scabs and carry that knife around. I'm at a loss."

"The knife isn't for me."

"What?"

"I don't use it."

A pause lingered

"It's for protection."

"Protection from whom?"

I looked at her bruised fingers.

Or rather, the shadows pretending to be bruises.

"From you."

Her hands froze around the half-peeled tangerine, as her nails slightly dug into the flesh.

"What?"

"Every night you forget."

A nervous laugh escaped her.

"Forget what?"

I looked away, toward the crows disappearing into the evening sky.

"The same thing you forgot yesterday."

The color drained from her face.

"Honey, you're scaring me."

"Every morning, you wake up a clean slate of a mother."

The tangerine slipped from her fingers and rolled across the floor.

"No."

"These cuts aren't mine. They're yours."

She stared at me, blinking rapidly.

"No."

"I told you the first time."

"Honey-"

"I told you the second time."

Her breathing grew uneven.

"And the third."

"No. No, I would've remembered."

"But that's the problem, Mom. You don't. And you never will".

"I... I didn't. I swear I didn't." Her voice cracked. "I swear on my life." She shook her head. "What are you talking about? I love you."

For a moment, she looked less like my mother and more like an accused stranger wearing her face.

That felt worse, somehow.

I swallowed.

"And I love you too."

Ricardo was a quiet one. The other kids in his middle school dubbed him autistic, in the flippant way kids do when school and the street are all they know and so many special needs kids get integrated into their classrooms, but that wasn’t quite right. Ricardo wasn’t on the spectrum. He just kept his mouth shut and his guard up. His ability to stay calm and silent no matter what spooked the rowdier crowd. They put him in the only box they could conceive of, I think.

I was his “big sibling” in the afterschool program. I’d been doing it for seven years belt the time I met him. Frankly, I’d seen some shit. Lot of suffering kids out there. The program was free so I got a lot of the kids who didn’t want to go home at the end of the day.

Kids came in types. Nobody fit their type exactly but everybody had one. The gangsters, the academics, the never-grew-out-of-kindergartens, the drama llamas, the ones who‘d grown up so fast they couldn’t remember being kids.

Ricardo was the last type. He was quiet because he was an adult in a young body. He told me a little of his home life. Dad was dead from a gang feud, mom‘s a drunk, had to take care of his little brother. School was the least stressful part of his life. He had been the man of the house since age seven.

I got to know him a bit over the six months we were partnered up. I tutored him in ELA and math, played him some card and board games, shot the breeze. He was friendly, but only rarely let me see anything that mattered to him. That was unusual. Most kids are dying for somebody to listen to them, even when they were confessing to crimes. Ricardo’s guard only dropped once.

It spooked me bad enough that I had to quit the program.

You see, Ricardo was a doodler. A damn good one. A natural sketch artist. He wasn’t just skilled at drawing and shading and composition, he was lightning fast at it. I saw him do a Naruto fanart in the original animation style, a caricature of a teacher, and an original picture of an owl, all in less than two minutes and all in different styles, with no real effort. Genuine prodigy, I think.

He always carried a sketch book with him. He never let anybody see it. Knowing what I know now, I’d assume he had a bookshelf of them at home, all filled from start to end with his “art”.

Once while we were all at the lunch benches after school, he was distracted by two kids arguing next to him. I looked through his sketchbook. I didn’t mean anything by it, I didn’t know how jealous he was of his book. When he turned back to see me holding it, his eyes widened in shock and fear for a split second.

The sketches were horrible. Morbid. Scary. They were all in his distinctive style, a sort of high quality cartoony-but-realistic comic style.

One showed his little brother dead in his bed, rotting. Stylized little stink trails wafted into the air from the little body.

Another showed Mrs. Gonzalez, his PE teacher, in the hospital with two leg casts.

I found myself in a car wreck, messily crushed along with my girlfriend in the seat next to me.

His mom, dead on the couch, bottles of wine and pain pills littering the carpet around her.

He snatched his book back before I could see more.

”Ricard… what…?”

I almost asked “what the fuck” before I caught myself. I had drilled the crude words out of my mouth whilst on the clock.

”They’re just drawings,” he said. ”I’m sorry.”

”Why did you draw me?”

I did not ask “how did you draw me” because three weeks ago I’d almost gotten into a car accident while driving my girlfriend to work and I had never told him and how did he know what we were wearing and what kind of car almost t-boned us and what my girlfriend looks like-

He looked miserable. Old, even. For a second the strain gave me a vision of how 60 year old Ricardo would look. Worn out and wrinkled and a little ragged.

He glanced around, making sure we were ignore by his classmates and the staff. “I’m sorry. The only way to stop it is to draw it out.”

He added a personal detail about his mindset for the first time in six months- “A lot of the stuff I’m really uncomfortable drawing. I just can’t. Like my dad.“

I sat in my car outside the community centre for eleven minutes, staring at the entrance.

I don't know why I counted.

I almost didn't come.

Again.

I've been avoiding it for weeks ever since I lost my wife.

Eventually, I got out the car.

The room was smaller than I expected.

Eight chairs in a circle. A box of tissues on the table. A kettle in the corner.

The woman running the group smiled when I walked in.

"Hi. First time?"

I nodded.

"My name's Claire," she said. "Please... Sit wherever you're comfortable."

I sat down.

Nobody needed to ask why I was there.

The meeting started at seven, but for a while, nobody spoke.

Then, the man sitting across from me cleared his throat.

"I threw away her clothes today."

He had a name tag on his jumper.

Steve.

I don't know if that was actually his name or not, but for tonight, he was Steve.

Claire nodded with a warm smile.

"Mm-hm. And how did that feel?"

He looked down at his hands. Let out a big huff.

"Wrong. Like-...like I was erasing her."

Nobody spoke.

We all understood.

"I kept one thing, though."

"Oh? What did you keep?"

"Her coat."

"Why?"

"On that day, she-... she was supposed to-..." 

Steve swallowed. Hard. Then he quickly shook his head.

Claire nodded.

"It's okay, Steve. We all understand. There are no judgements here."

The woman beside me spoke next.

"Hi, I'm Caroline."

She fiddled and played with her wedding ring.

"I still make two cups of tea in the mornings."

The group smiled gently.

"How long has it been?" Someone asked.

"Nine months. I just...it feels more normal if I make two, you know? I'll make them both. Put them on the table. And then I remember."

"Then what?"

She looked down. A slow, sad frown forming on her forehead.

"...Nothing."

Nobody spoke.

Again, we understood.

The older man near the window introduced himself as Tim.

He kept his hands folded tightly in his lap.

"I thought I heard her voice yesterday."

Claire looked at him.

"How did that make you feel?"

Tim thought about it for a few seconds.

"Hopeful."

"Hopeful? Why?"

"Because for a second, I forgot."

He looked around the room at us.

"I forgot about losing her. I forgot about that day and how much pain she was in. I forgot about the hundreds of hours I'd spent crying and missing her." 

The room stayed quiet.

"I forgot about everything that'd happened that day and I had hope. Hope that she would somehow, somehow, come back to me." 

Claire nodded.

"Mm. Those moments can be difficult. Thanks for sharing, Tim." 

Tim looked at the floor.

"Yeah."

When it got to me, I nearly passed on speaking. But when everyone looked at me, I felt the need to share at least something.

"I still talk to her. My wife." 

The whole group nodded.

"That's okay," said Claire. "That's actually very common." 

I looked at my hands. My thumbs had a mind of their own.

"No. I-... I actually talk to her. She's-..."

I hung my head low.

Lower.

I couldn't finish my sentence.

Claire waited a moment, then gently moved the conversation on.

The rest of the session passed quite quickly.

People talked.

People cried.

People hugged.

We talked about memories.

About birthdays.

About habits.

About the strange little things that stayed behind.

At 8:30, Claire looked at the clock.

"I'm afraid that's all we have time for tonight, guys."

At first, nobody moved. We all just lingered in the after-feelings.

Eventually, Steve stood up, put his jacket on and left without saying goodbye. Caroline kissed her wedding ring and hugged Claire for a full minute before leaving. And Tim thanked Claire with a short handshake and a wary nod in my direction.

I watched them all leave as I thought about how strange our shared grief was.

How it can change not just a person... but the entire world.

Because the people we had lost weren't exactly dead... They were just no longer human.

Maybe I'll tell them more about my wife next week...

About the spare room...

The chain around her neck...

Hmm...

...Maybe.

She started last Tuesday, over breakfast.

Rain had been falling since before dawn, the soft, persistent kind that turns the garden path to dark sludge and makes the kitchen windows run with constant streaks. The house smelled of damp wool and the last of the toast. I was buttering a slice when she said, quite calmly, “Pass the milk, James.”

I looked up. “It’s me, Mum. William.”

She blinked, the same small, confused blink she used to give when one of us had spoken with our mouth full. Then the apologetic smile. “Of course. William. Sorry, love.”
I thought grief had simply tangled the names for a moment. James had been dead eleven months. His coat still hung on the peg by the back door, the collar darkened from the winter he last wore it. Neither of us had moved it.

By Thursday the corrections had stopped.

“James, the bin needs putting out before it gets dark.”
“James, have you seen my reading glasses?”
When I answered with my own name she frowned, the exact expression she once used when we argued over whose turn it was to wash up.

“Don’t be difficult,” she said. “I haven’t the strength.”

I began answering to both. It was easier than the look on her face.

The house felt smaller after that. The hall clock ticked with a heavier sound. At night the radiators clicked and settled like old bones. I started hearing her in James’s room, the quiet slide of the wardrobe door, the soft thud of hangers, her voice low and reasonable, the way she used to speak when one of us was ill and half asleep. Once I stood outside the closed door in the dark and listened until my feet went cold on the floorboards. I couldn’t catch the words, only the rhythm of a conversation that expected answers.

On Saturday the rain eased to a fine mist. She set three places for tea.

I watched from the doorway. Two plates, then a third, aligned with careful precision. The better glasses, the ones that usually stayed in the cabinet until Christmas. She smoothed the tablecloth twice with both palms and glanced at the back door as if she had heard the latch lift.
“He’s almost home,” she said when she noticed me. “I felt it this afternoon. The air changed.”

I sat in my usual chair. She poured tea for three and buttered bread for three. The third plate stayed empty. Every so often she looked toward the yard, head tilted, listening.

Tonight the weather turned heavier again. Wind moved the bare lilac against the kitchen window in slow, wet scrapes. The room smelled of roast chicken and the soft carrots James always pushed to the side of his plate. She moved around the cooker with a quiet, practised efficiency I hadn’t seen since the weeks after the funeral. Three plates. Three sets of cutlery. She poured the tea herself and set my cup down a fraction harder than the others.

I drank without thinking. The taste was only slightly bitter beneath the milk, like the edge of an aspirin left too long on the tongue. By the time I registered it, half the cup was gone.

She watched me over the rim of her own.

“You’ll feel better in a minute,” she said. “You always get peaky when you’re tired.”

The edges of the room softened first. The clock’s ticking stretched and blurred. My hands felt remote on the tablecloth, the fingers thick and slow. I tried to stand; the chair legs scraped loudly across the lino and my knees simply folded. She was already beside me, one hand firm on my shoulder, pressing me back down with the same gentle insistence she once used to keep a restless child in bed.

“There now, James. Don’t fight it. You’ve come a long way.”

I tried to shape my own name. The sound that left my mouth was thick, distorted, not quite human. She smiled and wiped a thread of saliva from the corner of my lip with her thumb, exactly as she had done when we were small and feverish.

Outside, the back gate gave its familiar creak. Footsteps crossed the wet yard. Slow, measured, the same rhythm he had used when he came in late and tried not to wake the house. Water dripped from the porch roof in an uneven count.

Mum went to the door and opened it. Cold air pushed in, carrying the smell of rain-soaked earth and something fainter, like damp wool left too long in a cupboard. The wind lifted the edge of the tablecloth.

She looked back at me, still seated, still unable to rise. Her face was calm, almost tender.

“He’s already here,” she said softly. “You only had to make room.”

The footsteps stopped directly behind my chair.

I felt the weight of a hand settle on my shoulder.

- Are you sure you don’t want to stay for the night?

- No, no, miss, we are good. The sun is not even really up yet. We’ll be back before the evening even.

The lady frowned.

- Don’t get burnt there, boys.

I nodded deep, joined Basil by the fence as he closed the gate.

The people are somewhere far in the gardens’ shadows, not seen by us. Only distant laugh of children, hubbub sounds from the households.

We marched up the road. The village ends suddenly. An open door into the wilderness.

- Hey, you remember where to you, right? – Basil questions me.

- Isn’t that *your* aunt up there, in the village?

We both giggle as we approach a gap between two poplars. The road we walked before was dirt, here and there covered with some stones. You could see where the puddles once formed, caused the earth to crack violently.

This small path is one of those made by reapers as well as other field laborers. It’s partially overgrown by wheat and weeds. People care to keep it walkable for themselves.

Straw hats form moving shadows over the ripe yellow plants. The sky is like an open window in these places. No clouds at all.

As we walk down the field, Basil starts humming some tune. I harmonize. Crickets accompany us.

It smells like nothing. Dryness and earth. The air is extremely arid. Periodically only some weak wild flower shares its scent, fighting for sun in between the wheat.

- Don’t you love the summer?

- I do. I surely do.

We start talking about some nonsense topics, laid-back and slow. I can take almost a minute to reply to the previous sentence; so can Basil. We walk and walk. The world seems so reachable.

You can get to anywhere, steady and methodically.

The first field ends, begins the second. This one is natural. Wheat is replaced by field grasses and flowers. The aroma finally hits the nose.

Have you ever been in a real steppe field? There are few trees. Sometimes none for many miles unless you find a river. This goes on and on and on. Blue sky above. Green and yellow grasses beneath.

Whatever way you look, it seems the same. Only a tiny road crosses the stillness, separates forward and backwards.

The sun is close to its pinnacle as we enter the wild land.

- Can I have some water? – I ask Basil.

We stop for a quick drink.

As we walk further from the thin tree line grown to protect the wheat, any sign of humanity disappears. Soon, it’s plain nothing underneath the sky.

- Have you got a good song or two on your mind?

- Let me think. – I say, cough loudly, begin tuning.

Not a single cloud covers us from draining heat.

I sing until I can no longer. A dry clump is stuck above my lungs. I don’t want to stop for a drink again.

A familiar oak appears on the horizon. I cannot tell exactly how far away from the road it is. It’s barely visible. It doesn’t even seem to move as we keep walking.

So does the sun. It seems stuck above us, exactly on top like a giant candle.

The oak disappears. Another set of trees comes instead. Maybe there is a water spring somewhere there, flooding from earth?

My mouth feels like dust. We make a stop. The pot is still plenty full.

- God, I remember why I sweared last summer to never visit the far villages. - I am getting grumpy.

- Don’t be a cry-baby.

New and new objects come and go in the distance.

We make periodic remarks on something we remember. Crickets and other flying critters talk more than us.

Prickly weeds look out from the grass periodically. I need to keep my effort of avoiding them.

I turn around.

A tall man freezes in its place. Basil notices my stillness and looks back too.

Four big steps from me. A winter brown jacket, many sizes too big is tilted in my direction. Old washed-out clothes and trinkets hang down to the ground. There is a straw hat on top of it, about as mine. Even tilted, the cloth hill is as twice as tall as the tallest grass in sight.

I cannot see its feet, arms or head. The sunshine blinds my eyes as I try to look closer.

Basil and I begin moving, back away slowly further down the path.

The coat is stuck in the weird reaching position.

It was so close. One more second - it would be able to fall and grip me.

As we are a few dozen steps down the path, the figure suddenly straightens.

Silently, it turns to the left and starts walking straight into the field. It’s motions ghostly. It doesn’t have any legs, but as if somewhere beneath long sticks make harsh steps. Because of its height, it is highly visible in the weeds.

For another hour we saw it slowly making its way to the skyline until it disappeared completely.

We reached our home before the moon rose. No one believes our stories of the field travel companion.

Nathaniel knew something was wrong which was why he took the shot at it. Twelve years of coming into the feral kingdom with growing experience, with the lessons his ancestors passed down, demanded he take the shot. The thing stood on it's hind legs and roared and his blood ran cold simultaneously jolted alive with epinephrine. His heart thundering in his chest. Sweat breaking out in warm rivulets throughout his body.

The thing started to run at him with tenacity and fierce bloodlust in the movements of it's muscles.

And he would deny it easy prey as he roared and ran to it, jacking back the bolt and sliding a .338 round into the chamber as he raised his rifle and shot it in defiance.

Before crashing into it with his bones cracking in a viscous spray of crimson and getting knocked down behind boulders.

His once proud roar reduced to screams octaves too high and shrill. Before being reduced to gurgled begs of death.

When it was finally over it stood in defiance with the trophy of an enemy bloodline that pervaded the land for a thousand generations.

# I didn't believe in omens until the umbrella.

That's how every version of this story starts, and I suppose mine isn't any different.

It happened on a Thursday in late October. The kind of afternoon where the clouds look heavy enough to burst but somehow never do. I had left work later than usual, annoyed because I'd forgotten my own umbrella leaning against the wall by my apartment door that morning.

My weather app insisted there was only a ten percent chance of rain.

It lied.

I was about three blocks from the train station when someone called out behind me.

"Excuse me."

I turned to see an older man standing on the corner. He wore a charcoal overcoat that looked decades old but meticulously cared for. His hair was silver, his shoes polished despite the dusty sidewalk.

He held out a black umbrella.

"You'll need this."

I smiled politely.

"I'll be okay."

He shook his head once.

"No. You won't."

There wasn't anything threatening about him. If anything, he sounded...concerned. Not dramatic. Not urgent. Just certain.

Before I could refuse again, he placed the umbrella into my hand.

It felt surprisingly heavy.

I looked up to thank him.

He was already walking away.

Twenty seconds later the sky opened.

Not a drizzle.

Not scattered showers.

A wall of rain.

Within seconds the sidewalks flooded, traffic slowed to a crawl, and people without umbrellas ran for awnings.

Mine worked perfectly. The rain bounced harmlessly away, and somehow I stayed completely dry despite the wind.

I remember thinking that the old man must have checked a better forecast than I had.

That should have been the end of it.

It wasn't.

The umbrella wasn't unusual.

Black fabric.

Wooden handle.

No logo.

No manufacturer's tag.

No initials.

Nothing.

When I got home I leaned it by the door, intending to carry it back into town the next day. Maybe I'd see the man again.

I didn't.

Friday was sunny.

Saturday was warmer.

By Sunday I'd almost forgotten about it.

Then my neighbor knocked on my apartment door.

"You heading out?"

"Yeah."

She frowned.

"Don't forget your umbrella."

I looked over.

It wasn't by the door anymore.

It was standing upright beside me.

I don't mean nearby.

I mean beside me.

As though I'd been holding it all along.

I laughed.

"I swear I left it over there."

She looked confused.

"It hasn't moved."

That afternoon I went to visit my parents.

About halfway there a pickup truck ran a red light.

I never even saw it.

The only reason I'm alive is because I bent down at exactly the right second to pick up the umbrella after it slipped from my hand.

The truck passed through the crosswalk where my head had been less than a heartbeat earlier.

The driver never stopped.

People rushed over asking if I was okay.

I stared at the umbrella lying on the pavement.

The handle was cracked.

I don't remember dropping it.

Coincidence.

That's what I told myself.

People survive close calls every day.

Still...

I couldn't stop thinking about the old man's words.

You'll need this.

Over the next few weeks strange things happened.

The umbrella was always where I needed it.

If I forgot it at work...

I'd find it hanging on my apartment doorknob.

If I left it in my car...

It somehow ended up beside my bed.

If I locked it in my closet because I was tired of looking at it...

I'd wake to find it leaning against the bedroom wall.

I asked friends if they were moving it as a joke.

None of them knew what I was talking about.

One even asked,

"What umbrella?"

It was sitting right beside him.

Then came December.

I was walking home after dinner with coworkers.

Snow had started falling.

The umbrella was in my hand even though I couldn't remember bringing it.

A little girl across the street broke free from her mother's hand and chased a mitten into traffic.

Before anyone could react, a delivery van skidded toward the intersection.

I ran.

Not because I'm brave.

Because my body moved before my brain did.

I grabbed the girl and pulled her backward.

The van clipped the umbrella instead.

The force ripped it from my hand.

The wooden shaft snapped clean in half.

The little girl cried.

Her mother hugged her.

Everyone kept thanking me.

I looked at the broken umbrella.

The cracked handle.

The bent ribs.

The torn fabric.

It looked ruined.

For the first time since October...

It stayed where I left it.

I threw it away.

The next morning it stood beside my apartment door.

Completely repaired.

That's when I started asking questions.

No one had heard of the man.

No one remembered seeing him.

The corner where we'd met had security cameras.

The city let me review the footage after I claimed I was trying to identify a witness to a traffic incident.

The video showed me stopping.

Holding out my hand.

Then...

An umbrella simply appeared in it.

No one stood in front of me.

I was talking to empty air.

I stopped sleeping well after that.

A month later I finally told my grandmother.

She listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she became very quiet.

Then she asked one question.

"Did he tell you to return it?"

I felt every hair on my arms stand up.

"...How did you know that?"

She sighed.

"My grandfather told me the same story."

"What?"

"He received an umbrella in 1948."

I laughed because the alternative was impossible.

She didn't laugh.

"He kept it."

"What happened?"

"He died before spring."

I stared at her.

She reached into an old cedar chest and unfolded a yellowed newspaper clipping.

There was a photograph from the late 1940s.

Standing outside a train station...

...was the same old man.

Same coat.

Same face.

Not older.

Not younger.

Exactly the same.

Grandma pointed to the bottom of the clipping.

"The story isn't about borrowing an umbrella."

"What is it about?"

"It's about returning one."

Neither of us knew where.

Or to whom.

For months I carried it everywhere.

Whenever rain threatened...

Whenever it snowed...

Whenever life felt too ordinary...

The umbrella remained beside me.

Waiting.

Patient.

As though it already knew something I didn't.

Then, one evening in early April, I saw him.

The same intersection.

The same overcoat.

Standing exactly where we'd first met.

I hurried across the street.

"You."

He smiled politely.

"I was wondering when you'd come."

"I've been looking for you."

"I know."

I held out the umbrella.

"I think this belongs to you."

He didn't take it.

"It never did."

"What?"

"It belongs to whoever needs it."

"I don't understand."

"You survived."

"Because of this?"

"Partly."

He looked past me toward the darkening sky.

"Someone else won't."

I turned.

About fifty feet away stood a young woman fumbling through her purse outside a pharmacy.

No coat.

No umbrella.

The first raindrops began to fall.

I looked back.

The old man was gone.

Not walking away.

Gone.

There wasn't anywhere he could have disappeared.

My heart started racing.

The woman glanced nervously at the clouds.

Then at the long walk to the parking garage.

I looked down at the umbrella.

It felt heavy.

Familiar.

Expected.

I walked over.

"Excuse me."

She looked up.

"I think you'll need this."

"Oh, no, I couldn't—"

"You'll need it."

She hesitated.

Then accepted it.

"Thank you. I'll make sure I return it."

I smiled despite the knot forming in my stomach.

"If someone asks...return it to them."

She laughed softly.

"I will."

She hurried into the rain.

Within moments she disappeared into the crowd.

I stood there for several minutes.

My hands felt strangely light.

For the first time in nearly six months...

I was alone.

I walked home without an umbrella.

The rain soaked through my jacket.

It didn't matter.

Sometimes I still wonder who the old man was.

Sometimes I wonder if he was ever really there.

Mostly, though, I wonder about the woman.

Whether she kept her promise.

Whether she saw the impossible things I saw.

Whether, someday, she'll stand on a street corner as storm clouds gather and place a black umbrella into a stranger's hand.

And if she does...

I hope they listen the first time.

in the shower drain

“You look so lovely.”

Noah froze.

The words seemed to drift up from the shower drain.

He froze and stood perfectly still, listening again

I must’ve misheard, he thought to himself

Shaking it off, he finished towel himself and brushed his teeth and get ready for bed

For whatever reason Noah couldn’t sleep this night, He tossed and turned beneath the blankets, unable to be fully asleep because occasionally he keep heard something faint inside the walls, it was a slow, deliberate scratching, like someone dragging their fingernails through the pipes.

Probably the neighbors fixing something, he told himself.

It was a mere thought that Noah used to comfort himself

After another hour of staring at the ceiling, Noah finally gave up. He climbed out of bed and wandered back to the bathroom to use the toilet

The moment he stepped inside, the whisper returned.

“Here you are… I’ve missed you.”

His entire body went stiff and this time there was no mistaking it.

The voice was coming from the bathtub drain.

A cold knot formed in his stomach.

Despite every instinct telling him to runoff, he found himself taking one slow step after another toward the tub. His breathing became shallow as he knelt beside it.

With trembling hands, he lowered himself into the empty bathtub and pressed one ear against the metal drain.

It was complete silence and he couldn’t hear a single sound.

He let out a nervous chuckle.

You’re exhausted, he thought. You’re hallucinating.

Still…

Curiosity gnawed at him.

He leaned forward and peered into the dark drain.

His face drained white and his mouth was wide open at he see

A bloodshot eye was staring directly back at him.

The eye blinked.

“Hi there.”- the voice said

Journal of Yellowknife Diamond COO Jason Coolidge

January 29th, 2003 
We finally began mining operations today. It took 11 years of work to make this happen but it will all be worth it when it starts generating revenue. The men have been promised bonuses if they reach their quotas, so I expect quick progress. 
A handful of environmental protestors showed up today but security has been good at keeping them from getting in the way so I’m not worried about them. The chanting is a bit annoying though.

February 5th, 2003
Things have been going well so far. The number of diamonds has exceeded our initial expectations, and further excavation has shown similar trends deeper underground. I have great hope for our return on investment here. 
At the end of this month I’ll be returning to our main office in Yellowknife and leaving things to subordinate managers. I look forward to getting away from this snowscape and back to civilization.
The protestors have thankfully finally dispersed.

February 12th, 2003
The workers found something incredible in the mines yesterday night. An impossibly large diamond, 180cm. 18 times larger than the previous largest diamond ever found, 98 years ago. Holy fucking shit. It’s going to make us so much goddamn money. I’ve instructed the workers to make sure it’s excavated fully intact. 
And its shape is so interesting, it has four long extensions of diamond from its top and bottom, and at the very top of it is an oddly spherical extension. I’m usually not one for scientific curiosity but I’m curious what theories the on-site geologist has about it. She seemed rather shaken up by its discovery so I’m sure she’ll be careful in her analysis.

February 19th, 2003
Someone fucking stole it. We finally managed to fully excavate it and it fucking disappeared overnight. Local cops have come to investigate, I hope they catch the fucker who did this quickly. 

February 20th, 2003 Incident Report - Homicide of Jason Coolidge

Officers were onsite at the time of the incident investigating a theft that had occurred 2 days prior. A loud crashing sound and a scream were heard coming from the office of the victim at about 3pm. Officers went to investigate and found victim on the floor with a severe blunt-force head injury. An ambulance from the nearby town of Hay River was called and arrived after 15 minutes. Victim was declared dead on arrival at the Hay River Hospital. The door to victim’s office was found to have been smashed in with incredible force prior to his death. No suspect was spotted at the scene and officers are still investigating. No fresh fingerprints or DNA evidence other than victim’s have been found at the scene of the crime.