Like Father Like Son
Walking home from work late Monday afternoon, I saw the man, my father, whom I killed the week before. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him since I took a knife to his abusive throat, but it was the first time he’d appeared outside my dreams. Nightmares really.
He and Mother were walking on the other side of the street. It was getting late. People were starting to collect on the street, making me uncomfortable. Besides, I was in a rush to get home to start dinner for my son, Sammy. But I paused to see if Mother would notice me and wave. That’s when I noticed him standing beside her. They held hands like they always had. She never believed a word I said when I tried to out him decades ago. That sort of thing will make you stop giving a damn. That is, until you snap and give a damn all over the kitchen and bag that give a damn up and dump that give a damn in the dumpster around back of the home you grew up in.
Right about the same time I noticed him holding her hand, Mother noticed me. She waved.
“Oh, honey,” she yelled across the street at me. “Wait up. Let’s get together for lunch tomorrow.”
That’s how she talked to me. That’s how she talked to everyone. Let’s get lunch. Honey this and honey that.
She smiled brightly as she always did. Father’s ghost gave a smirk that sent shivers down my spine. Mostly because the last time I saw that smirk while I was awake, it had finally stopped smirking. A dab of blood trickled down the same corner that always cocked upward right before he put his hands all over me.
Mother started to cross the street in my direction with Father in tow. His curled lip brought images of what I did last Tuesday. It brought images of what he did for two decades. It brought me to tears right there on Second Street in front of dozens of onlookers.
I ran home.
No matter how fast I ran, his face stayed ahead of me. Every time I bumped into someone and quickly excused myself, they would turn and it would be him, giving me that look again. How he found me or how he managed to be everyone on the street all at once escaped me and made me dizzy and nauseous.
I punched my pin code into the apartment building where I lived. As the door buzzed and the lock clicked, I turned to see him coming across my street with a brown paper grocery bag. He hated plastic bags. Mother was back on Second Street. How could she not see he was following me?
I slammed the building door locked, ran up the three flights of stairs, and fumbled with my keys for ages before I managed to open the door to my apartment. Inside, I slammed that door, too. The door was the sort that locked automatically, but I installed a chain lock, another deadbolt, and left a wooden chair by the door so I could slip its back under the door handle. It worked in movies. There’s no harm in a little added security.
“What’s wrong, mommy?”
Oh that lovely angelic voice.
The muscles in my body eased. I turned. Sammy’s face was plain and calm. Always inquisitive. Always calm. His angelic emerald eyes were breathtaking. Wonder if Mother ever looked at me the way I looked at Sammy. Looking at Sammy was like home to me.
“Nothing, sweetie,” I said, catching my breath from three flights of stairs at full speed. He rocked in his little rocking chair. Such a little angel, my Sammy. He smiled with his eyes, his whole face. “Nothing at all, sweetie. How was your second Monday of school?”
I brushed off my parking enforcement uniform.
He bounded off his rocking chair and skipped over to his new turtle backpack that was almost as big as he was. I told him so at the store, but he insisted that turtles were his favorite animal of ever. The week before it was bears.
He shuffled around in his pack with his back to me for a time. “We learned some big numbers today like one-teen no eleven-teen no eleven and we learned colors but I already knew the colors we learned like red and green and blue and white and I said white wasn’t a color and Mrs. Finnigan said it was and I said OK even though she was wrong…”
My Sammy was the smartest little boy of ever. He begged to watch older kid science shows instead of the “little kid shows” that his friends watched. That’s how he knew white wasn’t a color. That’s actually when I learned it, too.
“…and we drew pictures of whatever we wanted I said was going to draw a spaceship and Mrs. Finnigan said OK so I drawed you a spaceship but they didn’t have gray crayons so I drawed you a blue one I know they don’t make blue spaceships but that’s what I had to color with here it is!”
He spun around, his face bright as the sun itself and as pure as fresh snow. My heart softened. I hardly remembered that he was the product of Father’s advances. Not since his eyes stopped reminding me of Father’s. I read a saying once a while back that said, “It’s not what happens to you that matters but how you react to it that changes everything.” That changed me. Now I see Sammy for what he is: a gift. A beautiful, precious, innocent gift. A gift of home. A home away from home.
He bounced over to me flailing his blue spaceship picture in all directions in his excitement. It was as perfect as he was. It even read, “I luv you Mommy” in the corner in green and black.
I held it up pretending to inspect if for imperfections, which there were none.
“Do you like it, mommy? I made it for you,” he said as he craned his neck, stood on his tiptoes, and pointed at the corner. “It even says I love you mommy on it so you know it’s for you Mrs. Finnigan tried to walk me through the letters and the words but I know my letters and my words so I said she could help Carla who doesn’t know her letters and words yet so Mrs. Finnigan helped Carla so I did that all by myself no help from Mrs. Finnigan or anybody.”
“It’s lovely, sweetie,” I said. His picture went fuzzy behind tears that collected in my vision. I scooped Sammy up in my other arm and we danced over to the refrigerator to add his spaceship to the hand turkey and popsicle stick picture frame with a picture of Sammy and I at the park. It was just a selfie but Sammy liked it so much I got it printed and he made the popsicle stick frame last Wednesday.
I leaned close to the fridge so Sammy could hang it himself with the last of our unused magnets.
“We need more magnets, mommy,” he said rather emphatically.
“So we do, sweetie. I’ll get more tomorrow on my way home from work.”
“Can I come with you to get it? I want to pick one out.”
“No,” I said, kissing his forehead as he wrapped his arms around me in love. “You have to go to school.”
“I can do both.”
“That’s OK. I’ll pick up a good one and you can find a spot on the fridge for it.”
“OK.”
I set him down, “I’ll start dinner. How’s pizza sound?”
“OK!” He bolted off to his favorite rocking chair of ever. “No vegetables this time you tricked me last time with vegetables on my pizza I hate vegetables especially onions yuck.”
As I reached into the fridge for some pre-made dough, I swear Father’s face was on the side of the milk carton. I screamed and dropped the dough tube.
“What is it, mommy?”
“Nothing, sweetie.”
Upon closer inspection, it was an ad for their sweepstakes. I snatched up the dough and slammed the fridge closed only to find Father staring at me through the window by the kitchen table that looked out onto the next building. His ghost would not leave me be. That damn smirk. That look in his eye like right before he’d lead me into my room on nights mom worked late.
“Leave me alone,” I whispered to keep my little Sammy from worrying about what was happening. I went about my business. No silly ghost of a man was going to stop me from taking care of my baby. I’m a mother after all.
While the pizza cooked, I made my way to the living room to spend some quality time with Sammy. Alone. Without Father. I had to step over several of Sammy’s toys only to step on one of his action figures with the giant guns I disliked so much.
“Ouch,” I said. “When did you get so many toys, Sammy? Seems like every time I come home there’s more of them.”
He pretended not to hear me as he watched the television, quietly. What an angel, my little droplet of heaven is. So innocent and happy and pure.
“Sweetie? Why don’t you come over and sit on mommy’s lap,” I said as I sat in my only armchair. “We can watch TV together while dinner bakes.”
He bounded over without a word. His eyes glued to the TV, not paying any attention to his mommy. But that’s OK. I got to hold and squeeze my baby and he didn’t even squirm to get away. Not much more a mother could ask for really.
“I miss nana when can we go see nana I wanna go see nana,” he said, looking up at me with those big lovely green eyes of his. It warmed my heart that he left grandpa out of it.
“I miss nana too.” This was the truth. I did miss Mother. She might have ignored my pleas for help, but I blame myself for not saying anything clear enough. I miss home though. I miss being part of something. Even if that something was broken. Is broken. “We’ll see her soon.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“OK.” He snuggled closer to me.
Father stood behind Sammy’s tiny wooden rocking chair with his smirk. Sammy never saw him. Somehow that made things much better, tolerable even. Father and I stared at each other while Sammy dozed off in my arms.
After dinner, I filled the tub for Sammy’s bath. He even liked baths. He was such a good little boy. He played with his hulked up action figures and splashed and exploded imaginary ships while I washed his hair and scrubbed behind his ears. I know every mother thinks they have the perfect child, but I really do.
Sammy held his arms out for me to dry him off with his favorite fluffy beach towel. He insisted I use a beach towel because he could wrap himself up like a bug.
“Like a bug so warm and so snug,” he would sing and dance around. Never told him I had that beach towel from my childhood or that I never got to use it because Father never actually took me to the beach, just made me get ready for the beach.
I helped Sammy into his PJs. We were headed back out to the armchair for a bedtime story when a knock came at the door. Father still stood behind Sammy’s rocking chair. I sat in my chair and hoisted Sammy up into my lap.
“You’re getting big,” I said. “You know that?”
The door knocked again. I looked to Father. He just smirked.
“Mommy,” Sammy said. “There’s someone at the door.”
“You’re just excited from your bath, sweetie.”
The knock came again.
“Police!” a voice shouted from on the other side. “Open up.”
“Mommy?” Sammy asked. He was getting excited and I had had enough of them interrupting our quality time together.
“Once upon a time,” I opened the book he was holding and started to read. Ignoring the voice on the other side of the door.
Another knock, louder this time.
“Police!”
“Honey!” Mother. She’d come to visit.
I kissed Sammy on the forehead and stood with Sammy in my arms. “Nana came to see us.” He only half paid attention. He wanted his bedtime story. He traced the panda bear with his tiny little fingers and cradled his head against my neck.
“Coming, mom,” I said.
“Honey? Thank goodness,” she yelled. Then she whispered but I could hear, “See. They’re fine.” Then she yelled again, “Honey, they’re worried. Sammy hasn’t been to school in a week.”
I unlatched the chain lock, twisted the deadbolt, and moved the wooden chair. Mother was standing behind a man and a woman in police uniforms.
“Is everything OK?” I asked.
Mother gasped. Father stood behind her. He was somehow more real looking.
“You!” I screamed. “Leave me alone!”
“Miss,” the male officer said with a shaky voice. “Step away from it.”
“What?” I asked. “What do you mean it?” I looked around me. It’s just me and my Sammy.
“Margaret,” Father said with a look of horror in his eyes. The same look he had when I slashed him up. Only he wasn’t dead now.
“Ma’am,” the woman officer said. “Please put…him down.”
“Mommy I’m scared I don’t like these people.”
“Me either, sweetie.”
I took a few steps back into the apartment and fell backward tripping on something.
“Mr. and Mrs. Sethe,” the woman officer said. “You might want to stay back.”
The male officer followed me in. Holding Sammy tight, I scrambled away from the door. The officer gained on me so I turned and got back to my feet. Sammy was clutching me for protection. The walls I stared at had writing all over them that was never there before.
“I SEE HIM IN HIS EYES”
“SATAN’S SEED”
Written over and over and over and over. It was my handwriting but it wasn’t me.
The man officer tackled me, scraping my elbows on the carpet as I saved my little gem from bumping his head.
Mother was screaming so loudly now.
The officer spun me around and ripped my hands off my son.
“Sammy! No! You can’t take him!”
The male officer was swearing. Mother was puking. Father was silent.
Sammy held onto the woman officer. He looked different. His eyes were not the angelic emeralds. They were black and all sunken in like some corpse.
