Page 56

My legs wobble and my loins ache while walking up the driveway to the house. After having the stuffing screwed out of me, I’m amazed I can walk at all. I can feel the bite mark that Wolf left, renewing the old one that had since faded away. It throbs a little. I don’t mind it. It’s a good pain.

I reach out to push the front door open, and pause as the realization hits me like a truck.

The door is already open.

Just a crack, like someone was rushing through too quickly to realize the latch hadn’t clicked in place.

Wait.

A second realization hits. I wheel around and look across the street. Where there should be a bike and a biker, there isn’t.

Alarm bells blaring in my head, I grab a broom off the porch and push my way inside.

The TV shows one of Artie’s cartoons, the characters going about their wacky hijinks to an audience of zero. The lights are on, including a lamp on the table beside Mom’s favorite chair. She’s begun to get back into embroidery, a hobby that tapered off around the time in my teens and was then exchanged for blank downward stares at her clasped hands. The pillowcase she’s been working on drapes over the arm of the chair, the needle jutting straight up from the fabric.

I scrape my throat and call out. Maybe all of this doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I’m the one responsible for the door not being shut all the way. Maybe the biker outside was called away to deal with a family emergency. Maybe Mom and Artie are in a different room. Artie’s room, or the bathroom, because Artie loves to play in the tub.

When no one calls out to answer me, when my son doesn’t break away from whatever activity he’s engaged in to come and throw his arms around me, I know it was all wishful thinking.

“Mom?” I shout louder. I grab the remote off the coffee table and mute the cartoons. I strain my ears, though my pounding pulse makes it difficult to hear anything.

Then, I do hear something. Rustling, or shuffling. A groan, or a whimper. It comes from the kitchen.

My breath lodged in my throat and my stomach roiling, I run there. It’s like running in a dream where the living room seems to stretch out impossibly long ahead of me.

I hit my arm hard on the wall while rushing through into the kitchen. I barely feel it.

A drawer by the oven has been pulled out and left there, in spite of Mom’s anal-retentive insistence on all drawers and cupboards being closed up when the contents aren’t in use. On the counter, there’s a serving bowl of fruit, with two smaller bowls waiting to be filled with a mixture of berries and grapes. The loaf of bread lies open, with jars of peanut butter and jelly waiting in the wings. It looks like an early lunch was being prepared. Artie probably got hungry from running around and playing.

The moan from before comes again. I spin away from the kitchen toward the dining room. There, on the border between the two where tile meets carpet, lies a heap of discarded laundry. The heap shifts and groans.

“Mom!” I drop to a skidding stop on my knees beside her. An awful, boiling hate fills me, aimed at myself for thinking for even one second that she was something so insignificant. I grab her by the shoulders and try to sit her up.

She lolls in my arms, light as a bird despite the weight she’s been putting on. She slumps against my chest with her arms at a strange, awkward angle behind her back. I run my hand down one arm and find something hard and bendy at her wrist.

What looks to be a black charger cord winds around both of her thin wrists, binding them together at her back.

She makes another sound and I see that she’s had a rag jammed into her mouth. Taken from the drawer in the kitchen, no doubt. The rag is held in place with yet another cord, tied at the back of her head.

The awful cherry on top of the horror sundae? One of her eyes is swollen shut and turning from reddish purple to black.

“Mom!” My voice has shrunk down to that of a child, far too similar to Artie’s. I claw at the knot at the back of her head to no avail. I jump to my feet and go to the knife block. I grab the pair of kitchen shears and race back. The thick, sharp blades slice through the cord with only a little effort.

I yank the rag out of Mom’s mouth and press my forehead to hers. “Mom!” I plead again. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Mom opens her one good eye. Hazy at first, it then focuses on me. “Malcolm came,” she rasps.

I pause in hacking at the thicker cord around her wrists, my skin prickling all over like I’m standing out in the freezing rain, pelted with tiny needles. “He was here? But, the guard!”

“He had to leave,” Mom says. She’s sitting up on her own now, seeming to get some strength back. “He came to tell me, said his wife slipped and fell. He needed to go to the hospital to meet the ambulance, but he’d stay with me until someone else came. I told him not to be so silly, his wife needed him. I said me and Artie would be okay until his replacement came. I must have forgotten to lock the door after he left, because it opened when I was making lunch and, oh, God…”

She squeezes her eye shut tight. Tears trickle down her cheeks.

I’m starting to feel dizzy and hot and sick. “What happened?”

“I tried to stop him, but he hit me and I fell. I’m so weak. He tied me up. Artie was yelling. Then it got quiet and I-I think I fainted for a bit.” Mom sobs and bites her lip so hard I think she might break the skin. “I’m so sorry. I should have been able to do more.”

“Stop, don’t.” Crying myself, I pull her in tight. “You did what you could. You were so brave. I have to… I have to call Wolf.”