Forest of Shadows (3 page)

“I love you, baby. Daddy will be right back. I have to go apologize to Mommy.”

She made some unintelligible noises and grabbed her stuffed bunny so she could gnaw on its ear with her drool-caked gums.

The phone started to ring just as he entered the bedroom. He contemplated answering it, but first things first. 

“Rise and shine, Anne. Your resident ass has come to say he’s sorry and to serve you breakfast.”

He walked over to her side of the bed so he could give her a kiss and lay the bed tray across her lap. 

The tray fell from his hands. 

“Anne! Anne!”

Kneeling beside the bed, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook.

Her lips had turned a light shade of purple. Her eyes were closed and didn’t even flutter as he tried to rouse her. 

“Oh God, Anne!”

John held her in his arms, shouting her name between sobs. Her lifeless body felt like a two-ton weight. Anne’s head dipped heavily into his chest while he rocked her. 

Out in the living room, Jessica smiled as she heard her grandmother’s frantic voice on the answering machine. 

“Anne, honey, it’s your mother,” she shouted. “Your father and I just got the paper and checked your lottery numbers. You won! Anne, you won the lottery! You won twenty-five million dollars! Anne, pick up the phone! You’re a millionaire!”

Chapter Three

Five years later

The kids next door giggled uncontrollably as they chased each other around the yard with water pistols. Keith, Eileen and Sarah spent every afternoon finding new ways to douse each other with buckets, hoses, cups and water pistols the moment they were let out of preschool. It had been a hot spring and an even hotter start to summer. Hearing their high-pitched laughter reminded John that he would have to pick Jessica up from school soon. 

Grabbing a cold beer from the fridge, he stepped out onto his back deck to watch them.

“Hi Mr. Backman!” Sarah shouted as she sprinted past and ducked behind a tree to lie in wait for Eileen and Keith. She was wearing a little flower print sundress and her long, black hair was matted to her head from sweat and water. John watched as the other two bounded into the yard and surrounded the little girl. She squealed and fired off a couple of shots, hitting Keith in the face, before taking off to the front yard. 

John slumped into a chair and took a long pull from his beer. He’d been in the house all day, kept comfortable by the central air he’d had installed last year. Now that he was out in the sun, he remembered why he’d stayed in the house. His father kept complaining that he was pale, even though he explained to him that tanning was officially out, a dangerous habit of the past. No sir, a little darkening of the pigment was all he really needed.

Despite the heat and humidity, the warm caress of the sun on his face did feel good. He’d have twenty minutes, tops, before his skin would start to burn. If he timed it just right, he’d have the beer finished at the exact moment it would be time to head back into the house. 

It was peaceful out in the yard. Most of the neighborhood was still at work, firing off emails in Manhattan offices or working in any of the thousands of various stores in Long Island’s malls. The few stay-at-home mothers on the block were inside their air conditioned homes, preparing dinner, getting ready to watch Oprah or playing with the kids. 

The shrill chirping of cicadas was hypnotizing. They had started a week ago when the heat wave swamped New York and hadn’t stopped since. At first, they were a welcome sign of the impending arrival of summer. By day three, they had become highly irksome. Now, almost seven days later, they had transformed into just another shred of white noise, like sleeping with the television on low. He suspected that when they finally did stop their hazy, hot and humid love song, people all across the area would talk in whispers for fear they’d disturb the silence. 

Knocking back the rest of the beer, he stretched from the chair only to find that he had sweated so much his shirt was plastered to his back. Rivulets of sweat ran from his hairline and down the sides of his face. The metal surface of his patio table was scorching to the touch. His heart picked up a few extra beats as the full force of the heat hit him at once. 

“Man, it’s hot.”

As he went back into the house, the palpitation of his heart visibly pulsated along his neck and throat. His mouth felt like it was jammed full of sawdust. 

He tossed his empty beer bottle into the blue recycling bin and cringed when it shattered. Walking on sea legs, he paused at the windowsill by the sink and eyed the bottle of Xanax. He thought about popping one in his mouth and how it would take about ten minutes for the drug to take effect and stem the rising tide of anxiety. It was a pretty high dosage, thanks to the tolerance his body had built up to it over the years, now used only for extreme occasions. 

John took a few deep breaths to settle his slightly racing heart.

His stomach turned and he felt an urgent need to run to the bathroom. He’d ridden out many panic attacks sitting on the bowl, shivering with fear and drenched in sweat while unleashing the shit of the damned. 

Look at you. Only thirty-seven and you can’t handle a little heat. Dad has more stamina than you, and he’s pushing seventy.

The pills rattled in the bottle as he plopped into a chair. John slammed it onto the table. 

“Not today.” 

Instead, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. It only took a few minutes to regain his equilibrium. 

The cool air in the house calmed him. As quickly as it came, the sense of dread had receded. The entire incident was painfully common for John. Living with anxiety disorder was like walking across a landscape where every square inch was filled with trap doors. It gets to the point where all you do is worry.
Is this the one that will open and swallow me up?
Eventually, instead of moving forward, you freeze, consumed by your own fear of what’s underneath the next trap door. Sooner or later, you have to make a decision.
Do I stand here pissing my pants or do I keep on walking?

John chose to walk. 

He grabbed the remote off the kitchen counter and turned the stereo on, hitting the button for CD One. A few seconds later, Tom Waits was lamenting the loss of love to liquor in a voice that could only be attained by hard living and occasionally gargling vodka with a shot of broken glass. He’d had speakers installed in every room of the house except Jessica’s, so Tom’s soulful cries followed him as he went upstairs to change his shirt, splash some water on his face and give one last check of his email before heading out to pick Jessica up from school. 

“Hey Sherry,” John said as he caressed his second baby, a two door, midnight black Jaguar XK, fully loaded with a 4.2 liter engine and an Alpine audio system that had contributed mightily to his future hearing loss. It was the one ostentatious purchase he had made over the years and he made no apologies. He’d wanted a Jaguar ever since he was a kid when his father had explained to him that people who drove Jags were people who had the world by the balls. It took him three years after winning the lottery to finally indulge himself, and he was glad he took that leap. He sure as hell didn’t have the world by the balls but at least he looked the part. 

He desperately wanted to open her up today but thought better of it because of all the kids getting out from school. Maybe later, when Eve came over, he’d take a drive and see just how long he could push ninety on the Long Island Expressway. Of course, he’d have to wait until the rush hour traffic cleared, which could take until seven o’clock. 

An Aerosmith song ended on the radio and now he was forced to listen to an ad for a pill that made you horny.
Who buys this crap?
he thought. He went to punch in another radio station but a bump in the road made his finger hit the SEEK button instead. A caller on a sports station was hollering about the mismanagement of the Islanders and called for the resignation of the entire front office. John quickly changed the station. He hadn’t been able to listen to or watch anything related to the Islanders since Anne died. There were a lot of things he couldn’t do since that day. 

Before he fell into another bout of painful remembrance and introspection, Jessica’s school pulled into view. Hundreds of kids were darting in every direction, some lining up for the half dozen yellow buses, others to their parents’ car and many more just walking home. He pulled as close to the front entrance as possible, which meant he was about fifteen cars away. 

Grade school boys walked by yanking off clip-on ties, laughing about things ten-year-old boys laughed about (farts, most likely). Little girls walked in packs wearing their uniforms, pleated blue skirts with powder blue knee socks and white shirts. One boy came running up behind a girl and smacked a stack of books out from beneath her arm. She immediately gave chase and caught up to him just a half block away. John winced as he watched the girl yank the boy’s hair so hard he fell into a nearby bush. 

Lesson learned. Mess with a girl and she will get you back, sooner or later. 

Jessica came running to the car, her long auburn hair trailing freely behind her. She looked so much like Anne, especially when she smiled, it was almost as if she’d never left them. 

She stopped at the door and turned around to wave goodbye to her friend Mary who was off to join the bus line. A second later she was in the car and chattering away about some incident that happened in the lunch room that day between a sixth grader and the lunch room monitor. It was hard to figure out the exact thrust of the story because she was talking so fast and further hindered by her lisp, thanks to the two front teeth she’d lost recently. 

“And hello to you, too,” John said. 

Jessica stopped momentarily. “Oh, hi Daddy,” and leaned over to give him a kiss. 

“Don’t forget to buckle up, squeak-pip.”

Jess had always been a tiny girl. When she was a baby and he had to take her for her doctor visits, she was consistently in the lower percentiles for height and weight. Now at age six, she was still the smallest kid in her class. When she was two, he started to call her squeak-pip, saying she wasn’t big enough to be a pipsqueak yet. It still held true, and in his heart, probably always would. 

She gave him an exasperated sigh. “I know, Dad. I already did. I’m not some little kid.”

John did his best not to chuckle. That would only provoke her. 

She continued on with her story. Five blocks into it with still no real understanding of just what exactly had transpired in the lunch room, John interjected, “Hey, did you miss me? I missed you.”

“I missed you mucho much,” she shot back before embarking on her tale yet again. 

Six-years-old and already she could out-filibuster any politician in Washington. After a day of being by himself, Jessica’s voice was music to his ears. It was hot, she was beautiful, so they stopped for ice cream on the way home and it wasn’t until an hour later that John was able to put all the pieces of her story together. Sure enough, it was about farting. 

Chapter Four

Eve Powers came to the house at six bearing a heaping bag of Chinese food. She was no more than three paces in the door before Jessica came bounding down the stairs. 

“Aunt Eve!” Jessica yelled as she wrapped herself around Eve’s waist, almost toppling her over.

“It’s nice to see someone’s glad to see me.”

“What did you bring for dinner?”

“Dinner? Your dad didn’t tell me to bring dinner. This is just a bag of laundry,” Eve said with a smile.

Jessica sniffed the air. “Your laundry smells a lot like Chinese food.”

“You know what? You’re right!” Eve grabbed her and started to tickle underneath her neck. Jessica squealed with laughter and darted towards the living room. Eve gave chase and caught up with her behind the couch where she proceeded to tickle her until she was almost out of breath from giggling. Eve helped her up and carried her into the dining room where she plopped her into a chair.

“Where’s Daddy?” she asked as she emptied the little white containers from the bag onto the table. 

“Upstairs, reading.”

Eve brought some plates and utensils from the kitchen, mindful to take out Jessica’s favorite Rugrats plate, cup and a straw. She dished out some fried rice and chicken and broccoli and poured her a cup of water. 

“There, you’re all set.”

Jessica needed no further encouragement. She started to dig in immediately, devouring the broccoli first. Eve never ceased to marvel at the girl’s penchant for veggies.

“I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to get Daddy.”

“Okay,” Jessica replied with a mouthful of green-specked teeth. 

Eve went upstairs to the spare bedroom, better known as John’s study, picking up Jessica’s discarded shoes, socks and assorted toys on the way. Near the top step, she even had to grab John’s sneakers. It was a wonder they didn’t kill themselves. 

The door to the study was open. She could see him lying on the loveseat, headphones firmly in place and a large book in his hands. The music was so loud she could make out every word of the song, even though she was still in the hallway.