Alma closed the door on Paul.
She couldn’t help but sob, and covered her mouth to keep him from hearing through the door. She put her back against the door and slid down until she was sitting on the tile entryway. She pulled her knees up to her chest and cried as she curled up. She started to hum to calm herself, and then looked down the hall at her bedroom.
The bedroom light was on.
The hallway from the apartment’s entrance led straight to the master bedroom on the other side. The living room was to the right, with a porch that looked out onto the parking lot, and the kitchen was to her left. The bathroom was down the hall to the left, with a guest room on the right filled with junk she’d never gotten around to unpacking. Straight ahead, down the carpeted hall that led away from the tiled entryway that she sat on, was the closed door of her bedroom, and light shone from beneath it.
Her father could be in there.
She remembered one night, before her brother disappeared, when she came home to find the light on in her bedroom. She was six, and had been playing at a friend’s house. There were several bizarre details about that night that stuck in her mind, like how the taste of chocolate raspberries that her friend’s mother had made for them was still in her mouth when she came home. She recalled an odd smell that she couldn’t identify in her home, similar to what the house smelled like when the oven was set to self clean. There was a spider in the corner, and she walked to the side of the hall away from it, beside her brother’s door, on her way to her room. She recalled the feel of the carpet between her toes, and the trail of wetness that went from the bathroom all the way to her room.
Alma didn’t suspect anything at the time, and casually strolled to her room, more frightened of the spider than anything else. She ran the last few steps and was relieved when she opened her door and escaped into her room. That’s where her father was waiting.
He was nude, wet from the shower, and sprawled out on her twin bed, over the Animaniacs bedspread. He sat bolt upright when she walked in and just stared at her, as if terrified. His eyes were wide, and the whites were nearly awash in red, drowning his black pupils in crimson.
“You,” he said and then stared at her.
“Daddy?” she was terrified of him for the first time in her life. He was supposed to be away, on a business trip in Missouri. “What’s wrong?”
He stayed in the same position, staring at her, and didn’t bother to cover himself. His hair hung in long black, wet strands down to his shoulders. He smelled strongly of soap, as if he’d lathered and never rinsed.
“Would you miss me?” he asked finally and then, after a pause, added, “If I were in heaven?”
“What? Of course, I would.”
He stared at her, expressionless and silent, for a terrifying moment. Then he said, “Liar,” before falling back on the bed.
Alma left to go sleep in her brother’s room, but she couldn’t recall anything else from that night. In fact, she didn’t remember much about her brother at all these days.
She stared down the hallway of her apartment. The door at the end of the hall beckoned her, and she wondered if the floor would be wet between her room and the bathroom.
Alma considered sleeping on the tile entryway. She almost laid down and curled up within the small area, as if it could somehow protect her, but recognized how ridiculous she was being. She stood up, kicked off her loafers, and walked to the kitchen to get a knife from the drawer. Then she took out her cell phone and dialed 9-1, prepared to dial the final digit.
She walked down the hall and didn’t breathe the entire way. When she got to the door, she listened against it for any sign of life on the other side.
Finally, she swung the door open to reveal absolutely nothing to be afraid of. She gasped and was nearly relieved, but searched the closet first. Then she walked to the spare bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen pantry to make sure she’d checked everywhere. She was safe. Her father wasn’t in the apartment.
She tucked her phone back into her purse in an attempt to keep from losing it, which she often did. Then she closed her eyes and felt an overwhelming exhaustion.
Alma returned to her bedroom and set the kitchen knife on her nightstand, beside the alarm clock. The red numbers displayed the time, 12:14.
She fell back onto her pillows and set her hands over her eyes, exhausted and thankful for a new day. Perhaps this day would go better than the last.
As she tried to relax, she couldn’t help but do the math in her head. It was 12:14. One plus two is three. 314.
She turned the clock away from her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Recurring Nightmare
Widowsfield
March 14th, 1996
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” said Anna as she looked out of the library window. “Maybe there’s a low pressure system coming through or something.”
The school’s library looked out onto the field that separated Ozark Hills High from its sister school, Widowsfield Elementary. There was a gym class playing soccer and Anna looked for her ex-boyfriend, Clint, who had broken up with her two weeks ago because he wanted to be single for a while. His bachelorhood lasted two days before he started dating the captain of the swim team, Clarissa Belmont.
“Oh yeah, sure thing, Banana,” said Jamie. Anna despised that nickname. “You’re staring out the window at the football field because you’re a budding meteorologist and not because Clint’s out there. Do you think I’m an idiot or something?”
“I’m serious, I’ve got a headache and my dad said that weather patterns can cause them.”
Jamie gave a sideways glance away from her Social Studies book as she frowned. “Sure.”
“Don’t be a bitch. I’m not stuck on Clint. He can go fuck himself for all I care.”
Jamie folded the book cover’s inside flap, made from a brown paper bag from the grocery store, over her page and then closed the book. “Then what’s up? For real. You’ve been in the dumps since the dickhead dumped you. That’s not like you, Banana. You’re the most fun girl I’ve ever hung out with, but you’ve been a total downer lately.”
Anna scribbled her black pen in one of the spots on her book cover that had previously been adorned with Clint’s initials enshrined in a heart. She’d blackened out the picture, and now the paper bag cover was dangerously thinned. She didn’t doubt that her pen marks had managed to cut through the cover to deface the textbook, but she continued to scribble the circles anyhow.
“I’m not going to lie, I mean, I was pretty pissed at him, but it’s not like we haven’t done this before. You know? We’re always, like, breaking up and getting back together again. It’s sort of our thing. It’s like I have this need to be heartbroken or something.”
“Then why do you keep going back to him?”
Anna sighed and shook her head. She knew that Jaime hated Clint, and had since grade school. In fact, most of Anna’s friends disapproved of her relationship with the stoner. She was an Honor Roll Student, a member of the Mathletes, and all but guaranteed a scholarship to a major university. Clint, on the other hand, was the epitome of the ‘C’ student.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve got a self-destructive personality or something.”
“Yeah, ya’ think?”
“Give me a break, Jamie.” Anna set her pen down and put her head on her book. She worried that the fresh pen ink would stain her forehead, so she moved the book aside and then set her head down on the cold table.
“I’m just sick of you doing the same thing to yourself over and over. I’m sick of seeing you down like this.”