I remembered the old photo in the Thornhill house, the postcard from their long-gone son.I’m sorry I left all those years ago, but like I keep saying, I couldn’t live in our home any longer. I had to go.
How many kids had lain terrified in their beds over the years? How many had had nightmares they didn’t understand? It would go on forever if we didn’t stop it.
“I’m going to try,” I said, to answer Terri’s question. I held out my hand to her. “Let’s walk back to your house together, and you can go inside.”
“Will you be all right?” she asked uncertainly as she took my hand and we started to walk.
“I’ll be fine,” I told her. “It’s just a little rain.”
—
I watched Terri go inside her house, watched the door close behind her. I was about to turn when the door opened again and her father came out.
Charles Chatham—that was his actual name, according to his own introduction—was near forty, with the reassuring belly and beginning jowls of a successful husband and father. He was wearing an NYU Law sweatshirt, and his hair was receding at the temples. Likely, he looked in the mirror each day and despaired over his vanishing youth, the fact that he hadn’t become a rock star or an astronaut as he’d dreamed of. He had no idea how girls like me would have done anything, absolutely anything, to have a father like him—one who was home, one who cared even a little, one who paid enough attention to give the stranger who had gone bike riding with his daughter the glare he was giving me now.
“What were you doing with Terri?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
“She’s lonely,” I replied, serving honesty with honesty. “She shouldn’t live in this neighborhood. You should move.”
“Move?” He looked offended, but I saw the glint in his eyes. He’d already thought about it, was possibly even planning it.
“Look around,” I said, waving to the dead neighborhood under the gray sky, the desolate half-constructed lot across the street, the uncanny silence. “Can you honestly say you like it here? It’s a bad place for kids. Terri is all alone here, and she rides her bike alone. She walksin the woods alone. She should live somewhere with other kids on the street. Somewhere safe.”
Charles hesitated. He wanted to posture as the all-knowing dad, the authority figure with all the answers. But he didn’t have all the answers to this, and he knew it. I waited for him to admit it. He couldn’t admit it to Terri, but he could admit it to me.
“What do you know that I don’t?” he finally asked.
I thought, again, that I would have done anything for a father like him. I would have given anything at all.
“This isn’t a good place,” I told him. “This neighborhood, this town. Terri shouldn’t be here. You moved here for a job, didn’t you? Take a different job and move away. Quickly. Do whatever it takes. Bad things happen to children in Fell. To adults, too.”
He tried to scoff, but couldn’t quite make it believable. “You live here,” he pointed out.
“I was born here,” I replied. “I had no choice. You do. Terri has nightmares here. She doesn’t have them anywhere else.”
He looked startled. He likely knew about the dreams, but was surprised I knew, too.
“Do you have somewhere you can take her tonight?” I asked him.
I thought he would scoff again, but again he thought better of it. “I might.”
“Do it,” I advised him. “Take a trip. I don’t care where you go.” Before he could speak, I said, “Go for a few days if you can. Terri can miss school. You’re the dad—figure it out. Just get your family out of here, because it won’t be safe. By the time you come back, it’ll be over.”
“What will be over?” he asked.
“Whatever we’re doing,” I replied. “Someone should end it. So we’ll end it.”
Our gazes locked for a moment. Then Charles said, “I hate this place.”
I nodded. “You should. Some of us sprouted here, like mushrooms. But that isn’t you. So go.”
His jaw worked for a second, and then he gave a stiff nod.
As he turned to go back in the house, I called out, “One more thing.”
He turned back. “What is it?”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d leave your garage unlocked. I promise, whatever I borrow, I’ll pay for. Even if it gets broken.”
