Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

Forgive and forget.

It’s impossible to drag information out from a five-year-old. The direct approach never works. You have to sidle up to the truth. If you ask specifically for the thing you want, they’ll shut down. Repeating the question never works. Kids go on lockdown. You have to be creative with your interrogation technique. Learn the gentle art of kindergarten cross-examinations.

“So the piñata project was pretty fun, huh?”

I get the slightest nod from Eli as he struggles to spin his angel hair with his plastic fork.

“Sandy should play baseball, don’t you think?”

Elijah glances up and wrinkles his nose as if to say, What a stupid question.

“It’s hard at a new school. All those new faces. Must be tough for Sandy to make pals.”

“Sandy’s got friends,” Elijah says, just to prove me wrong. That I’m an idiot.

“Oh yeah? Who?”

He shrugs.

“You don’t know?” I ask, mock incredulously. “You know everybody in school!”

“Nobody knows who he is.”

He.

“Oh?” I keep my tone conversationally curious. “A boy, huh? You don’t know him?”

Another shrug.

“He must be invisible.” It’s always good to posit the thought that this is all make-believe. An imaginary friend is easier to discredit. “Did Sandy say if this friend has a name? Lafcadio?”

“Noooo.” Elijah thinks this is hilarious. Sometimes I forget that he’s still a little little kid.

“No? Then I bet it’s, um…Skeletor?”

“No!”

“Then what is it, huh?”

“Sean.”

Elijah grins. His first smile all night. His lips are stained green, flecks of basil stuck between his teeth. He dives back into his meal. He must have assumed our chat is over. Case closed.

The pesto clings to the pasta and all I see is blonde hair covered in algae, fanned on a bed of kelp. Elijah twists my mother’s locks into the tines of his fork before forcing her hair into his mouth. I don’t know how long I stare, watching him eat. I haven’t spoken, haven’t cogitated a single thought beyond the name.

Sean. This is spreading somehow. Infecting others. Who here knows about my past?

Who I am?

Could this be me? The question pops into my head. It’s so abrupt, it almost doesn’t feel like I thought it. Somebody else must have asked it. Am I the one doing this?

I can’t see myself doing these things. It doesn’t sound like me. Feel like me.

The devil made me do it. Isn’t that what they always say?

This isn’t me. I have to keep repeating it to myself: This isn’t me.

What if…? Gnawing thoughts. I can hear them, like rats crawling through the walls. What if I’m responsible and don’t realize it? Is that even possible?

I have to get my memories straight. I need to begin at the beginning and work my way through everything I remember and try to understand what the hell’s happening.

Elijah returns to his coloring between bites, running red crayon over a fresh sheet.

The paper. Elijah is drawing on a sheet of paper he found on the kitchen table.

The adoption forms.

“Don’t.” I lunge and grab the paper from under Elijah’s crayon, accidentally sending an errant slash of red across the page. Eli’s shoulders bunch up to his ears, slipping into his shell.

Weegee. The drawing is unmistakable. It’s his cat, torn open. Crayola intestines spill out from its abdomen. The green grass swirls with so much red.

“Elijah.” I try to keep my voice as steady as I can. “Did you do this? To Weegee?”

Eli shakes his head. “You did.”

“That’s not true. I would never…” I’m unable to finish the thought the moment I notice the stack of adoption forms. I let go of the paper in my hand to pick up the next sheet.

A ring of children. A lanky stick figure towers over the rest, his arms extending beyond their normal proportions, as if he has four elbows. A daddy longlegs. A teacher.

Circle time.

“How did you…” I pick up the next sheet. A group of children stand in a ring. Crooked teeth colored in black sprout all around them. Not teeth. Headstones. They’re in a cemetery. In the center of the children’s circle is a boy dressed in his Sunday best. His skin is gray.

I flip through each sheet, grabbing the top page and glancing at the hand-drawn image. A tangle of stick figures knot into one another. An orgy of adults, teachers, a mass of spiders, their limbs intertwined and tugging. So many drawings. The entire stack has been colored.

There’s paper all over the floor. All from Sean’s childhood. My childhood. My lies.

“How…”

“Sean told me,” Eli says, staring back.

“Who’s Sean?” I demand. “Tell me.”

Eli won’t answer. He’s breathing deeply through his nose, afraid but holding his ground.

“Who’s Sean?”

Nothing. The fear is all over his face. I can see it but I can’t stop myself from yelling.

“WHO’S SEAN?”

My cell phone rings. Eli uses the distraction to escape, running out from the kitchen. The sound of his feet carries through the house as I scramble for my phone.

The area code seizes my attention. Someone is calling from Greenfield. Again.

Don’t answer.

I let the call go directly to voicemail. Not that they’ll leave a message. They haven’t before.

My phone rings again, the high-pitched trill working its way up my spine.

Don’t answer.

I bring my phone to my ear and listen. I don’t know what to say. I can hear breathing on the other end of the line.

“Sean? Is that you?” I haven’t heard her voice since I was a boy. I’m suddenly five all over again, just a scared boy, as if the last thirty years never happened.

“Mom?”

“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for—”

My fingers slide across the screen to power down my phone before she can call again.

Turn it off turn it off turn it—

The same number pops up again as the phone trills in my hands, like a baby bird. I could crush it, simply squeeze my fist until its fragile bones snap, and I’d never hear her voice again.

Don’t answer just turn it off TURN IT OFF.

But it won’t stop, will it? This will never end. She’ll find me. She already has. Swiping my phone,