Lost (25 page)

I grabbed an apple from where I always hid them in the cabinet, behind her brushes and cleaning supplies. I also had blankets and pillows in there.
Because I slept in here … a lot.

I remembered trying to have a slumber party with her in my room once. She’d made a huge mess for Dad to clean up and got banned from the house.

Under her food and my blankets, I found another notebook. I’d written in a barely perceivable size again.

Dad says Snowflake and I are the same age. She’s fifteen and so am I. If she’s lucky, she will live to her thirties. If I am lucky, I will die with her so I won’t have to stay here until I’m old.
Or at least until Mom and Dad die.
I assume he will die first from Mom wearing him down and making him take care of us. Then she’ll go. She’ll try to hold on for me, but they are more in love than the people in the movies we watch. It won’t take her long to die without him. I’m scared to bury Snowflake. I’m terrified to bury my parents. But I know I will have to. Who else is there to do it? Then I’ll escape finally and live in the world they think is full of monsters. I bet there is no such person as Julian. I bet people sing and dance in the streets like the movies. And go to college and cheer at football games.

I sank to the floor of the stall. I’d written about saying goodbye to my horse one day. And if we were living in this secluded life, I would at least have to bury one of my parents alone. And I thought that would be my mother.

Snowflake came in and lay next to me. I rested my head on her, like I’d done it a million times. “At least they’re happy, right?” She grunted, and I chuckled. “They weren’t happy in our old life,
Snow
. She worked too much, sacrificed everything. I can sacrifice for them now.”

I fed her an apple as we lay there. I flipped through the notebook, fighting terror. In this life, I was preoccupied with how my parents would die. How I would find them. I assumed I’d bury them in the stable next to Snowflake. I’d written several pages about what life would be like after Dad died – cooking for Mom and taking care of her when the thought of Julian made her sick. I was worried about how I’d keep everything running. I didn’t understand how the generator worked. I didn’t know how to care for the pipes that flushed fresh water into the house and our waste out.

 
“I can do this, Snow. Everything is going to be fine.”

I kissed Snowflake and left. I took a shower to wash the stable off of me. I found Mom and Dad in the kitchen, dancing to no music. It was the cutest thing ever. It took them a moment to notice me. When they did, they danced over and pulled me into the huddle.

I twirled around the kitchen with my parents, letting my head lull back. The racing cabinets made me dizzy as I basked in the sounds of their laughs.
The sounds of a happy family.
Round and around we went, cackling and squealing, finding joy in this terrible existence.

It overwhelmed Mom first. She stopped spinning and pulled me tight into a hug, crying and thanking God for giving them their baby back.

I hugged her back, cutting Dad out of the tearful celebration of our twisted life.

“I’ll start lunch,” he said. “It’ll take me a while. I’m thinking we should have a mid-day feast.” Mom yanked me behind her back.

“Be careful, Gavin.” I stood on my toes to see what he needed to be careful with. He’d pulled out a knife and started chopping onions. “Sweetie, let’s go in the other room. I’m too tired to worry about that knife slipping out of your Dad’s hand or something.”

She tugged me toward the doorway.

“
Lyd
, everything’s fine. I have the knife.” He shot her a reassuring glance, and she loosened her grip on my arm. The memories I’d gained from this life didn’t help me understand. Common sense told me she didn’t want me around knives. Maybe she was worried I’d do something to myself. Maybe I had before.

“I’ll stay right here next to you, Mom. I’m okay.” She put her arm around my shoulder, and we watched Dad chop. I could feel her shaking at my side. “I won’t go anywhere near it.”

I wanted to apologize for trying to hurt
myself or whatever I’d done to frighten her,
but it seemed like the wrong time to bring it up. Her face was soaked and scarlet now.

“Gavin, please. I told you I was tired. Why can’t we cook later? Why does it have to be now?”

“Lydia, honey, please. Everything is completely fine. Just breathe and relax.”

She pushed me behind her again. “How am I supposed to relax!” she screamed. “I’ve told you time after time, keep sharp things away from my baby. I won’t let her get hurt. I love you, but … it applies to you too. Put the knife down!”

Dad dropped the knife and stepped back with his hands up. “Let’s go upstairs, baby. You need to rest. You don’t sound like you feel well.”

Mom held out her hand, and the knife flew into it. “When is the last time you left the house, Gavin?” she whispered.

I stepped away, terrified of her.
Of the knife.
Of her tone.

“I went outside three weeks ago to check the water.
To see if it was safe to drink.
Remember?” He spoke slowly, like she was a mental patient. She sure looked like one.

“Did you talk to anyone? Did someone ask you to turn us in? I had a dream about it.” I rubbed her back, trying to calm her down. Her chest was huffing like she couldn’t get enough air. “I’m sorry, baby. But I can’t let you hurt her.”

She pointed the knife at him, and I screamed. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her away from him, struggling to reach her hands to free the knife.

“Christine, honey, let her go,” he said.

“No! Dad! What’s wrong with her
?!
”

He shushed me and smiled at Mom. “Okay. You’re right, baby. I understand that you need to protect her.”

“Dad!”
 
He held a finger to his lip and stepped slowly to Mom who was still wielding a knife and bawling. “Please, Mom. Stop!”

“You have to do what you have to do,
Lyd
.” Dad opened his arms. “Can I have a kiss first? One last kiss.” She nodded and walked to him, dragging me with her. I screamed for either of them to stop. They didn’t listen. I was about to have to bury him sooner than I’d thought if he was going to be a psycho and let her stab him. “Let go, Christine,” he whispered and winked at me.

Wanting desperately to trust that our lives couldn’t be this insane, I let go. Dad let Mom kiss him as she held the knife dangerously close to his neck. He reached behind him and pulled out a drawer. I gasped, praying that I was not about to witness the lovebirds having a knife fight.

He pulled out a needle and thrust it into her arm.

Neither of them answered my screams or pleas to help me understand what was happening. He drained the contents of the syringe into her arm, and she dropped the knife. Dad picked her up. She didn’t look like she could stand on her own anymore, her muscles lax and flimsy.

“I’m going to put Mom to bed, honey. I’ll be right back.” He smiled and carried her out of the room. I stood
there,
stunned and confused, until I crept to the drawer he’d gotten the needle from, expecting to see something even more terrifying. Fear stalled my feet, but I forced them forward, like slushing through mud. I peered into the drawer and gasped. It was full of needles. How often did she need to be sedated? How often did she freak out and try to stab him?

I ran up the stairs to either check on them or to see if I’d imagined the whole thing. I wasn’t sure. He laid her on their bed and threw a blanket over her.

“I’m so sorry,” she slurred. “I got confused.”

“I know, baby. You’re just tired.”

“I should’ve killed Julian. If you’d let me find him, I wouldn’t have to worry. I should’ve-”

He shushed her. “Rest, baby. I know you want to feel better for tonight. We’re watching your favorite movie.” He kissed her on her dead lips and turned off the lamp by their bed.

He looked at me with hiked eyebrows. “What’s with you, kid? You’re freaking me out.”

I shook all over. “
I’m
freaking
you
out? What the hell?”

He pushed us out of the room and closed the door. “You haven’t reacted to your mother taking her medicine like that since you were maybe … ten. Why is it bothering you?” I couldn’t answer. Mom needed sedatives to calm down and had needed them for years. Oh, God. “You usually laugh at her and go to your room.”

“She almost stabbed you. That’s not funny.”

He wiped my face and put an arm around my shoulder. “Well do you want to go play the guitar like we used to do when Mom got sick?” He looked at me skeptically, like he was afraid I’d hurt his feelings.

“Sure,” I said, even though I didn’t know how to play the guitar.

Crooked and colorful musical notes covered his studio door. In the center, he’d posted my drawing of him playing the guitar next to a stick figure with yellow hair – Mom. In my old life, I’d skipped stick figures. I could draw full bodies and faces before I’d learned to read. A humorless chuckle jerked up to my throat. Using the portal had made me a normal child in the least normal life possible.

“How long has it been since you’ve been in my studio, pumpkin?” Still shaking from the terrifying moment he was apparently desensitized to, I hunched my shoulders. “I dust your guitar, so it doesn’t seem so long to me.”

He held me close to his side as we eased down the dark steps that I assumed, almost more than assumed, would lead to our basement. I remembered that most of it belonged to Dad and was where he spent his time when he wanted to be alone. But he never shunned visitors; we were always welcome to come listen to him play.

He flipped on a light at the end of the stairs, and I stopped myself from shaking my head in awe. His studio was as immaculate as the rest of the house, our well-equipped prison. My throat tightened. It felt like I hadn’t been in here in years, not like it was my first time. My old life was floating further away as this one settled into my veins.

He motioned me over to the pink and white guitar I’d obviously outgrown years ago. I grabbed it tentatively, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to play.

“I’ll do your favorite,” he said. He propped a guitar on his lap. Within seconds, I knew the song. It was my favorite because I would make up different words to it every time I heard it.

I’d made up one about my teddy bears, a few about Mom singing me to sleep, and countless ones about Snowflake. He jerked his head to a table at my side. I took the pick he wanted me to see. Like I’d played it a million times before, I found the chords I needed. Only three – A, D, and E – composed my favorite thing to hear and sing to. I knew how to play the guitar. And well. I wanted to fight these memories as tears streamed from my eyes, thinking of my mother lying sedated in her bed.

The song I’d make up today would be about regret, about ignoring that I had everything I needed, and in a moment of extreme selfishness and stupidity, gave it all away. My skin felt as though it wanted to fall from my bones, help me disappear into the nothing I felt like for leaving Nate in another world.

My best friend.
My heart. He loved me, maybe not as much as Mom because it was impossible, but he loved me with all of him. With all that he had. And I didn’t honor that. I didn’t choose him.

And … poor Dad.
He didn’t have friends and a life outside of Mom in this world. My heart bled for him. He went along with anything she wanted in any life, hiding together or living apart. Like they shared a brain.
A sick one, in this new world.

“Talk to me. What’s going on with you?” he asked without skipping a note.

“Would you believe me if I told you none if this was real? That yesterday we were doing something very different?”

“Yes, I can. Yesterday, you wouldn’t come out of your room. I hope this is real. I miss my daughter.”

Dad changed the song to one of his favorites, a duet. I remembered when he wrote it for us to sing to Mom on her 27
^th
birthday and their 10
^th
anniversary. They’d laughed when I’d belted out an
ad lib
, getting far too carried away with a high note.

I snapped out of the memory, my heart twisting so painfully I thought it would stop.

“How are you letting this happen, Dad? She needs help.”

He played for another minute without answering. “Mom feels guilty, and sometimes it scrambles her head. She feels responsible for your sadness and the state of the world. And because she chose us, I will be here every day to support her decisions, even the hard ones.”

He didn’t know hard decisions. The one Mom had made was gone now. I’d forced her to take the easy route. Hard was letting your husband and child live separately since the only other option was this.

“I love you, but you have to be more grateful for what you have,” Dad said. “We are safe, alive, we love each other, and every day you choose to see only the bad.”

That was truer than he knew. I’d been focusing on the bad my entire life. I lived in an upscale orphanage with nuns who let girls do whatever they wanted, and I chose to sulk for years. I never tried to make a friend to make it better. And I couldn’t remember one instance of trying to find Leah’s story in the Bible to see if there was something good about her, to see if the nuns cared for me, even a little. And worse, after Sophia rescued me from the hell I allowed myself to live in, I discovered I was human, like I always wanted to be,
and
a millionaire, and could only focus on keeping Nathan. When I kept him, I started obsessing over the parents I didn’t have.