Page 53 of Secrets That Bind Us
“Zoey! This isn’t funny!” I call down to the dark corridor leading to the basement. I put my foot on the first step.
There’s a chill, and the hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end.
Dontgointothebasementdontgointothebasement
The warning rings loud for me– even though I only heard it in a dream– but it rings so loud through my mind. I slam the door of the basement closed, locking it from the outside. Then creaks– like footsteps– begin on the floor above me. I pad slowly to the base of the stairs. The air fills with what feels like heavy static as I back away. Slowly. Every hair on my body rising as the sound continues into the upstairs hallway and–creak, creak, creeaaakdown the stairs.
I keep my eyes on them, toe-heel, toe-heel, until my tailbone touches the wall. It’s tight. My chest. The sides of my vision turn hazy, tunneling. Ican’t see it, but I feel it all around me. They shouldn’t be creaking. They were just replaced. They’re new.
They don’t stop.
It's an anger-like tension– like after an argument where you feel like you’re walking on eggshells because one more word and they might explode. It’s a feeling I know all too well. A feeling I tried to avoid the last two years of my marriage, and it makes me want to sink through the floorboards and never resurface.
For the first time in a very long time, I’mscared. Frozen solid by a dread, with my heart barely beating, I withhold the shiver that wants to skate down my spine. I can feel it crowd around me– thispresence– like a thick, unrelenting fog. And I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t hear anything. All I feel is this pressure encasing me, pressing me further into the wall and I slide upwards on a choke until only my toes are touching the hardwood floors.
Knock. Knock.Knock.
I drop to the ground on my naked knees, taking deep, labored, wet breaths– gasping. My cheeks are numb, and my fingers tremble.
Knock.Knock.Knock.
“Coming!” I choke out with a raspy voice, finding purchase so I can push myself up. Inhaling as deeply as I can to steady myself, stumbling until I get to the foyer on trembling legs, only to open the door. I step out onto the porch, blood pounding in my ears, and look around. Nothing. No one. The men working on that barn must’ve left because the driveway is empty. There’s not even a breeze to blame the knocking on. I close it, locking it behind me, turn, let my spine rest against the oak, and then hang my head.
I’m going crazy. I have to be.
It’s a relief later on, when the front door opens and Noah screams “Mommy!” so loudly that I can hear him from my office.
I’m sitting on the alcove I had Will install here so I could watch the rain and maybe, quite possibly snow – if the weather decided to cooperate – while typing away remotely from my desk on my laptop. It hardly rained since the Fourth of July and tomorrow we’re expecting a huge storm. All I have had the displeasure of staring out at is an open field of sunflowers that have yet to bloom. Why haven’t they bloomed? It’s almost September.
“In here, booger butt!” I scream back. I’ve been here though, looking at the crumpled letter, rereading it over and over, replaying what happenedafter I read it– no longer afraid, just really fucking lethargic. Like I simply don’t have the energy to deal with it. And what’s worse is I can just feel a lingering sensation of that darkness, like it’s above me, watching in wait.
Noah comes to kiss me after kicking off his shoes. I wipe his slobber off as he leaves his Paw Patrol backpack on the ground, and then I hear the little patter of his light footsteps as he retreats up to his room.
“You look like shit,” Zoey says, and I just can’t deal. “I thought you were going to get some rest - what happened?” She steps closer to me, her shoes now in my periphery and I’m just… exhausted.
I hand her the wrinkled note. She takes it from me and gasps, falling to sit beside me on the window bench. Her eyes skimming over the letter, to me, back to the letter. “Holy shit, Ver. Fuck. I-“
“Mom?” I look up to see Savannah standing by the threshold, her hand on the doorknob. I hate how she looks so nervous to come into my space. She was never like this until that huge blowout with Micah when she was six and she watched me kick him out.
I sniff. “Yeah, honey?”
“Everything okay?”
I blink. “Everything is fine. Um… Did you eat?”
She shakes her head. She used to be my happy girl. “Aunt Zoey said Evan is coming by later with sushi.”
She loves sushi. It’s her favorite. I begin to nod. “Yeah, that’s right. Okay, good. I’ll be right out. I just need to talk to your aunt, and then I'll be out in case you need help with your homework. Okay?”
“Actually, I need to use your computer, but I can keep my headphones on.” She replies, waiting for my approval, which comes easily.
That kid and her headphones.
I agree, and she sets her backpack over my desk, taking out a science textbook and her notebook that has different science-like doodles on it. I smile at it, remembering that I used to do the exact same thing- with a boy that looked just like her watching me do it, then asking if I’d do the same to his.
“What are you going to do, Vee?” Zoey asks, as soon as Savannah tugs her headphones off her shoulders and slides them over her ears.She hands me back the letter and I fist it back into a ball only to straighten it out again. The last letter my mother ever wrote me. It feels as precious as much as it feels tainted.
I shrug. What can I do? Iwantto scream. I wouldliketo cry. I would also like to tear my hair out of my scalp– but what good would any of that do? So I shrug. “I dunno, Zoey.” I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees,only to reach to the pendant that’s hung from my neck for the last thirteen years of my life– a comfort.
