“Hey honey, what’s that?”
Simone’s face went white as she detected a slight tone of alarm in Dave’s voice. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Out there, on the wing.” Dave pointed out the rain-streaked window of the plane. Simone strained her eyes to see, her heart climbing farther and farther up her throat until Dave finally chuckled. “I think it’s a gremlin wrecking the plane,” he said. His face broke into a smile as though he had just pulled off the most brilliant practical joke in the world.
“Don’t start this now,” said Simone in a voice low enough so the children couldn’t hear. Dave smiled sheepishly, feigning ignorance, but they both knew what she meant. Whenever they visited Dave’s mother, he always became a little malicious toward her. Moving her voice back to a more conversational level, Simone added, “When something goes wrong I’m going to be the one who gets to say, ‘I told you so.’”
“You won’t be able to say anything, Mom,” said Sarah, their 14-year old daughter as she looked over the cover of her book. Her black lipstick made her slight frown seem all the more disturbing. “You’ll have to put on an oxygen mask as we go down. Plus, there’s only a 10% chance that we’d survive anyway.”
Simone shot her daughter a look that told her exactly how unhelpful that piece of information was. Sarah’s eyes bugged out a little and then disappeared behind the cover of her book. The novel’s dust jacket was black, with bloody letters spelling out the title. Simone looked away before she could read the gruesome words. She took a deep breath in and closed her eyes, trying to shut out the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the plane chose that moment to hit some turbulence. Simone clutched her arm rests as the plane shook like a dying roller coaster. When she opened her eyes, her knuckles had turned white.
“It’s okay honey…it’s only an air pocket,” said Dave, trying to play the good guy now that a fight had only narrowly been averted.
Simone remained silent, having barely heard her husband’s words. She took a sharp breath inward as the plane shuddered once again against thundering wind and driving rain. As she tried to ignore the fact that she was still trapped in what amounted to a rocket-powered lightning rod, the phrase “Atom bomb clause” drifted languidly into her head. Some people write an atom bomb clause into their wills; if some accident were to occur and the entire family were to die (“God forbid,” said the lawyer in his obligatory way when he introduced the concept to her), the party or organization listed in the clause would get everything. She knew vaguely that she and Dave had put something like that into their will, and now she rummaged through the back areas of her mind as the plane continued its battle its way through the stormy skies. Which one of them had decided upon the group? If she had made the decision, then everything would probably go to her high school. If the call had been Dave’s to make, then it would undoubtedly be something stupid, like his favorite golf course. The thought of Dave’s country club friends strolling through the living room gave her a chill of distaste. She did have to admit, though, that the image of her crazy art teacher Mr. Golden rummaging through her underwear drawer didn’t exactly appeal to her either. She focused her imagination on the wild-eyed old man with thinning hair and fake knees. The recollection of him flailing his arms around in the claustrophobic classroom that resembled Dr. Frankenstein’s attic somehow took her attention away from the shaky ride and the trembling wing viewable from her window.
Despite crazy old Mr. Golden, she had a special place in her heart for those high school art classes. She recalled a landscape painting she had done in her senior year of a snow-swept range of mountains bathed pink and gold from the growing rays of a rising sun. Mr. Golden had proudly put that piece on display in the school library. After four years of college, Simone had returned to teach music at that school, until three children and Dave’s constant nagging about the prices of day care pushed her into the role of a housewife. When she turned in her resignation, the painting still hung on the library’s west wall.
Her mind’s brief tangential journey into the past almost brought a smile to Simone’s lips. Then a low rumble of thunder brought her back to the present, eliciting a shiver as she returned to the craziness of a reality in which she was expected to believe that a 20-ton hunk of metal could fly safely under its own power.
Dave opened his mouth to say something, and Simone began to mentally stockpile quips for a potential argument. But then their youngest daughter Christine started crying because her brother Gabe had stolen her apple juice, and Dave turned in his seat to deal with the sibling squabble. Simone closed her eyes and leaned back, resigning herself to the lysol and styrofoam peanut smell of coach class
There were five of them all together: herself, Dave, Gabe, Christine, and the eldest daughter Sarah. The 14-year old sat curled up in her own little world, headphones straddling her ears and her nose buried into a copy of Stephen King’s latest book. It was Sarah and her lust for horror that had probably inspired Simone’s fear of flying in the first place. She always had a particularly gruesome description of a scene she had read or a disturbing fact that she had picked up off of the internet ready to share at the breakfast table. Simone had been inundated with stories of homicide and rabid animals ever since her daughter had begun this phase of hers. Thanks to Sarah she had learned that an average person swallows two spiders a year in her sleep and that 60% of Americans don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom. (Dave had tried reassuring her that 83% of all statistics are made up on the spot, but she didn’t get the joke.) There must have been an airplane hidden somewhere in that gruesome savoir faire.
Dave slumped back in his seat as Christine continued crying. He gave Simone a helpless look as Gabe started kicking the back of his seat and slurping up his sister’s juice box. Dave was usually too meek to be the disciplinarian; it was always up to Simone to play the bad cop. Twisting around in her cramped seat, she lifted her head over the rest and fixed the two children with a glare that could have frozen a fresh Thanksgiving dinner. Gabe lowered the juice, leaving the plastic straw hanging dumbly in his parted lips. Christine gave one last sniffle before drying her eyes and then fixing them on her mother. In the space of thirty seconds, both children had fallen silent and stared transfixed at Simone, as though she were a cobra ready to strike.
“Gabriel,” she hissed in a dark voice, “give your sister back her juice.”
Gabe’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move.
“Gabriel, do you know what I am going to do if you don’t give your sister her juice back?” Simone’s voice scared even herself. She sounded like some sort of ghost out of one of Sarah’s books. “When we get home, I’m going to put on my big winter boots and step on all of your Legos. Now give Christine her drink.”
This time it was Gabe’s turn for tears. He spat out the straw and passed the juice box back to his sister, his eyes rapidly becoming glassy and wet. Simone turned back in her seat, shaky and pale herself. Sarah had the aisle seat, so Simone tapped her daughter on the shoulder and signaled her to lower the headphones.
“Can you get the steward to bring Gabe an apple juice?”
Sarah nodded absently and placed her book face-down on the tray table in front of her, craning her neck down the aisle to find a flight attendant. Simone didn’t hear her daughter’s actual conversation; she had already slumped back in her seat, doing her best not to look at anyone else as she reflected upon the unusually horrible punishment she had threatened Gabe with. It had to be the stress of the plane ride; usually she relied on stern looks and threats involving video game privileges or brussel sprouts to keep the kids in line.
“Oh god,” she muttered under her breath as the steward brought an end to the conflict by delivering a second box of juice, “I’m starting to become my mother-in-law.”
The hateful old bag of dentures and bones that Dave called his mother was really the one at fault for this entire ordeal. The entire family unit was bound together on vacation, stuck in an aerial death box thanks to that woman. Two generations of her loved ones waited to be snuffed out at any moment, all because grandma had asked them to come see her. It would only have been a three-day drive, she had told Dave, but no, everyone had to see that insufferable old woman as soon as possible.
By all accounts, grandma Phyllis had been the most controlling, domineering she-devil that the world had ever seen. Dave had spent his childhood under that woman’s hawk-like eyes, and he didn’t get a moment of peace or freedom until college. Since then, though, he had convinced himself that everything had changed. Her old age had made her frailer and kinder. Now all she wanted was to stay in touch with her son and grandchildren in her twilight years.
Bull, thought Simone.
She looked over her surroundings again. Peace had been restored for the moment. Dave gazed quietly out the window and Christine had slumped over on her armrest for a nap. Gabe sang quietly to himself, his apple juice lying untouched on the tray table in front of him. The drink seemed to have lost its appeal now that it didn’t belong to someone else. Sarah’s dark eyes darted over the final pages of her book, and she slammed it shut triumphantly, immediately rummaging through the black satchel that she always kept on hand for some new reading material. Somewhere behind her Simone heard the white noise of loud snores, incessant chattering, and children crying. Those were other families; not her concern.
A clap of thunder outside made her jump in her seat. She was still stuck in the plane, hurtling through the air and waiting to die. Everyone’s problems seemed to be solved except for hers. Simone’s mind turned once again to her mother in law, who always served as an easy target to blame for things gone wrong.
Phyllis hadn’t really changed; she had just become more manipulative in her old age. Everything she did seemed designed to make Dave a little boy again and to mold the family into what she wanted it to be. When she used to live closer to home she would stop by under the pretense of making small talk while Dave was at work. Those idle conversations that occurred after Sarah had been put down for a nap turned into lectures on how Simone should raise the children. While she spoke, Phyllis would wander through the kitchen, rearranging the pantries so they could be “as Davey likes them.” Those lectures never ended, and even from her roost in Florida the old hag still thought that she could be a better mother than Simone. She was sweet as a bell when Dave was in the room, but the moment he was gone the battle began.
When she was very young, Christine had found Simone’s old softball glove in the closet. That mitt had become a security item for her, and she slept with it pressed to her side like a Siamese twin. Phyllis had decided that little girls needed to play with dolls, and had tried her hardest to get Christine to abandon the old worn piece of sports equipment. One night Christine woke up shrieking like a banshee because the glove had gone missing. After an hour of searching, Simone finally found it…in the trash bin outside.
These small battles raged behind the scenes while Dave remained blissfully ignorant. Simone hovered around her family, protecting them from the human wrecking ball that insisted that Gabe needed a spanking now and again, that Christine needed to act more feminine, and that Sarah should be thinking less about books and more about boys. Three times she had rushed out to a bookstore to replace one of Sarah’s Stephen King novels that had mysteriously vanished. Not once did Dave ever acknowledge that his mother might be at fault.
“You know how absent-minded Sarah gets sometimes,” he said. “Just try a little harder to give Mom the benefit of the doubt, okay?”
All things considered, it seemed that Dave should have been the one to try a little harder. Visiting her mother in law was something that Simone despised, but she could at least tolerate it. Phyllis’s assaults on the family would last no more than a week and then she’d be nothing but a speck in the rear view mirror.
You want to go to Florida and visit Mothra? Fine. But give me a little bit of say over how we get there.
A three day drive might cut into the vacation, but it would have been safe. In a car, Simone could see the other vehicles coming. She could decide how fast she needed to go and which radio stations to play. She had been in three accidents in her life, and even hospitalized once when she was blindsided by a drunk driver. But she had control over the catastrophes on the ground. She could hit the brakes when she needed to. She knew how to turn into a skid and what to do if the brakes went out. In an airplane, who could she trust? Certainly not the pilots, who hid away in the cockpit and only communicated to the passengers through an intercom. For all she knew they had steered the plane toward a mountain and jumped out by now.
The vote had been four to one. None of the kids had been in a plane before, and Dave won them over in the blink of an eye. The whole situation infuriated her. Since when had her family become a democracy?
She should have made a scene; she should have stuck to her guns and made them see her point of view. How many people had ever had a safe, enjoyable trip in an airplane? None; she had never spoken to anyone who enjoyed a flight, and as far as she was concerned such people didn’t exist outside of mental hospitals. No one ever mentioned having fun on an airplane. Instead the stories were all about airport security that would break souvenirs and arrest you for having brown skin, about uncomfortable seats, bad weather, rude stewardesses, and shaky landings. The family had already experienced some of that airport hospitality when one of their suitcases was selected for a random baggage check. One careless employee had smashed a silver frame that held the family photo that Dave was going to give his mother. They got no replacement and no apology; just a cold, “Move along” from the security guard.
Worse than the oppressive airport security was the news stories. Shaky cameras pointed at burning wreckages, the air painted black with smoke and death. The media would replay images of the shattered fuselage for days on end. The one thing they never showed was survivors, and Simone felt sure that the reason was because there never were any. All you would ever see or hear from actual people would be the screaming horror of panicked pilots conveyed over the recovered black box.
As if sensing her mother’s thoughts, Sarah piped up. “Hey mom…you know my friend Rick?”
Simone barely heard her, but nodded anyway.
“Rick collects comics, and he’s got this one issue of The Incredible Hulk where the Hulk knocks an airplane out of the sky.”
Simone’s face paled as she looked at her daughter. What kind of stories were they telling to kids these days?
“Don’t worry, though. It all turns out okay.”
Simone still held her breath. She wasn’t sure what “okay” meant when it came to Sarah. “Do the passengers survive?”
Sarah frowned a bit and shook her head. “No, of course not. There were like 300 dead bodies, but it turned out that the Hulk didn’t really do it. He was framed.” The girl smiled with inexplicable triumph before disappearing behind the cover of her book again.
Great, Simone thought. Now I can worry about giant green monsters on top of everything else.
What if it began to hail? She had heard tales of birds flying into jet engines and crashing the entire vessel on takeoff, of terrorists taping a roll of quarters to the inside of the intake and sending hundreds screaming to their doom. Couldn’t a small chunk of ice do the same?
She imagined the plane torn apart by some freak accident, her family scattered on the wind and sent spiraling amidst the flaming wreckage down to the ocean’s spindrift below, her house doomed to be inhabited by crazy old Mr. Golden, who would inevitably have wooden teeth now to go with the rest of his visage of craziness.
“See hon? I told you there was nothing to worry about.” Dave patted her hand again, snapping Simone out of her worries as the soft bing of the seatbelt light came on. She looked out the window to see clouds melting away like semi-solid pieces of smoke. Glancing hesitantly downward, she saw the shimmering oasis of a landing pad. Looking back to her family, she glared at Gabe, who was bouncing in his seat, struggling as Sarah tried to belt him down. Dave smiled in a condescending manner, letting her know that she had spent the last few hours worrying for nothing.
Then they touched down.
Dave’s smile disappeared, replaced by a frightened look of shock as a noise like a gun going off sounded throughout the passenger area. The plane lurched forward and then began skidding. Straining her vision out the window, Simone saw sparks from beneath the vessel and realized that one of the tires had blown out. The PA system opened up immediately with the voice of one of the copilots, muttering reassurances that everything was under control and that everyone just needed to sit still while they regained control of the plane. Some people listened, gripping the armrests and freezing like statues in much the same way that Simone had sat for most of the flight. The intermittent shouts of the many that panicked reached Simone’s ears. In less than a second she shut out those worried cries. They weren’t her concern. She was only responsible for the four seats immediately surrounding her. Everyone else would have to turn to their own mothers.
She smiled and breathed deeply. She could deal with the catastrophe, where the danger was on the ground. How many times had she blown a tire of hit a patch of black ice in her own car? The ground was her domain; she could deal with anything here. She reached under her seat, rummaging through her carry-on bag in the overhead compartment. Christine had started crying, but Simone knew how to fix that.
“Here sweetie,” said Simone, passing her old softball glove to her daughter, “hold onto this.” Christine nodded, clutching the mitt to her body and drying her tears. Simone moved on to Gabe, who gazed out the window with a devilish grin, as though the accident were a new kind of amusement park ride. She checked his seatbelt, making sure that her young daredevil hadn’t loosened his belt in order to get a better view.
Sarah’s face had gone pale. Her book dangled in numb fingers as she sat frozen in her seat during the ordeal. Simone let her daughter be; at least she wasn’t jumping around in panic. That only left Dave. Sitting back in her seat, Simone grasped her husband’s hand. His mouth hung open at the sudden disruption. He didn’t look at his wife, but squeezed her hand so tightly that Simone could feel the blood in his veins. His pulse was racing; he hadn’t been this nervous since their wedding day.
It took the pilots only a moment to regain control and bring the plane to a stop. The large vessel shimmied and bucked, reminding Simone of the banged up old Al Camino that her father had let her borrow when she was 16. A moment of silence fell over the cabin when the plane finally came to a screeching stop. Then the pilots were back on the PA system, assuring the passengers that everything was under control and that they could calmly exit to the airport.
Simone looked at Dave, whose face had gone pale and trembling as he saw his own atom bomb clause play out before his eyes.
“We’re safer in the air than we are on the ground,” she said sarcastically, patting his hand as she unbuckled her seatbelt and stood up to lead her family back to solid ground. It was the closest thing she could think of to, “I told you so.”
Simone sat by the pool, sleepily watching the thick haze that hung in Florida’s air. Her feet dangled in the water by the deep end, and she occasionally kicked upwards, creating small splashes that scattered the clouds of black flies that gathered in the humidity. Dave splashed along happily a dozen feet away from her, playing Marco Polo in the shallows while Gabe started splash wars and Christine pumped her arms hard in an attempt to swim, buoyed by her water wings. Officially, this was a family vacation. In reality, it was Dave’s vacation; his chance to get away from work – all work, not just his job as a financial consultant and the occasional tasks that Simone asked of him – and actually play with the kids. At home, Dave was a nervous wreck even during meals and any free time he might have. He had some sort of nervous disorder, or so Simone believed. He wouldn’t take up her offer of seeking some counseling or even a stress management course at the community college; he had insisted that he was fine.
“I should have brought a camera,” Simone said to herself. A picture of Dave’s full smile as he laughed and played with the kids compared to his tiny nervous smirk at home would definitely convince him that he needed more R&R away from the office. Simone leaned back and stared into the bright blue sky, giving a sigh as she idly began considering buying a disposable camera at the drug store down the street.
Suddenly, she snapped back up, losing her smile and narrowing her eyes. Uh-oh…I’ve been enjoying myself, she thought. Where is the old hag and what’s she planning?
Simone scanned the side of the pool. Phyllis never put her bony body into a bathing suit, keeping the pool only as a lure that could drag her grandchildren to her lair. Still, she was undoubtedly hovering around somewhere, like a buzzard over a fresh carcass. Simone glanced around, but only saw Sarah. The teenager sat in a lounge chair in a dry black two-piece bathing suit, shaded by a large umbrella and thumbing her way through a new book, as expected. Simone noted with distaste that someone had conveniently put a small stack of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson magazines next to Sarah’s chair, but they remained untouched. More importantly, Phyllis was nowhere nearby to lecture Sarah on what a proper girl should read.
Simone’s ears perked up at the sound of small footfalls on the deck behind her. Phyllis’s dry old skin fell against the patio like a pair of flippers. Simone turned slowly to see her mother-in-law walking toward her dressed in a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt and sporting a grin that pulled the skin tight against her face, turning her head into a pale skull with verrucose veins.
“Come with me dear,” said Phyllis, touching Simone’s shoulder. “I have something to show you that I think you’ll enjoy.”
Simone looked venomously at the old bag’s talon-like fingers. “I’m spending time with my family,” she said firmly, gesturing toward the far end of the pool.
“Oh, fud,” said Phyllis in a doddering and yet somehow malevolent tone. Simone wrinkled her nose and mouthed the nonsense word “fud.” What was that supposed to mean? “They’re having plenty of fun without you. They don’t need you…for a few minutes.”
Simone stared into the tiny brown specks that made up Phyllis’s eyes and grimaced. The pause in her statement had been a bit too deliberate, but the old bag was right about something. The family would continue having fun without Simone for now; she had been more an observer, keeping a watchful gaze on her vile mother-in-law. If tolerating her presence alone for a few minutes kept the witch away from her family during that time, then it would be worth it. “Okay,” she said, deliberately keeping the coldness in her voice. She turned and gave a shout to Dave on the other end of the pool. “Honey, I’ll be inside, okay?” Dave raised an arm and waved at her absently while Gabe jumped on his back and tried to force him under.
“See? They’ve forgotten about you already,” said Phyllis, her pale lips drawing into the type of smile that a hyena should have.
Simone rose and followed the old woman, making a mental note that Dave owed her big time for this trip. “What is it you wanted to show me,” she asked, using her best saccharine-sweet voice lest the old bag report back to Dave with tales of how harsh and unfriendly Simone was.
Phyllis’s smile widened to the point where Simone could see the dull yellow of her dentures. “That’s what I like about you, dear,” she said, taking note of Simone’s forced tone. “You’re always so nice.” She added undue emphasis on the last word, letting Simone know that the ruse was up already. “I just though that you’d appreciate a painting I bought recently.” She began navigating through the narrow hallway of her one-floor house, twisting by the smoky-colored washer and dryer set as she headed toward the bathroom. “I didn’t tell Davey this, but I was up in your area a few months ago to see some of my old friends and I saw this painting. I just had to get it, and I knew you would want to see it. After all, you used to be quite a painter yourself didn’t you?”
“Well, not reall–” The last syllable of her statement died in Simone’s throat as Phyllis opened to bathroom door and gestured at the painting that now hung opposite of the toilet. Her mouth hung open in shock as she regarded the pink and gold sunlight that fell across familiar snow-swept mountains. Beneath the vibrant colors, hidden between an old decaying barn and a winding dirt road, was her signature, painting in delicate black letters that only appeared if you knew where to look – Simone Langely, her maiden name. The last time she had seen this picture it had been hanging on the west wall of her high school library. It must have thrilled Phyllis to no end that she could now wipe her ass in front of Simone’s soul.
“See? You’re speechless.” The old woman chuckled a bit and patted Simone on the shoulder with a withered claw-like hand. Simone swallowed and sat down dumbly on the toilet, her eyes unable to break away from the painting.
“Where did you get it,” she finally managed in a choked voice.
“I told you dear, I took a trip up north just after Christmas. I didn’t want to bother you and Davey by stopping in uninvited, so I decided to see the sites for my own.” She walked in front of the painting, obscuring Simone’s view of the picture. “I saw this lovely painting in the old library, and I insisted on buying it from them. It cost a pretty penny, but I think it looks good here in my bathroom. It’s not perfect, though. I would have added more blue to the mountains.” Phyllis stepped away from the painting, taking one last look at her dumbstruck daughter-in-law. Her facade of cheerfulness had become malicious now, like a Halloween mask whose rubber had been stretched too far. “I’m going to go check on Davey. I think my son might be looking for me.” She almost spat those words and then shuffled out of the room, humming to herself.
Simone didn’t move. She simply sat and stared at her youth that the hag had turned into a prisoner on yellow wallpaper.
* * *
“Are you even sure that’s yours?” Dave leaned toward the painting and squinted his eyes at Simone’s almost invisible signature. “It’s been, what, twenty years since you took that art class?”
Simone leaned out the bathroom door and strained her ears. Leaving the old bat with the kids was something that she generally avoided, but for now she had to gamble that Sarah’s dark wit could keep her off balance. Phyllis had finally left proof of her vendetta. The knowledge that the she-devil now owned her painting would be a price worth paying if it finally showed Dave what kind of person his mother was.
Of course, the plan seemed much more effective in her head than in practice.
“I mean, didn’t you have a moose or something painted on this hill,” he asked, as though he had ever done more than casually glance at the painting when Simone had shown it to him. His arsenal of ignorance never seemed empty.
“No, dear,” she responded through clenched teeth, putting undo sarcasm on the last word. “There was never a moose in the painting. It was always about the hills. And you know damned well that’s my signature.”
Dave sighed and wiped his hands on his shorts, only to discover that they were still damp from the pool. “Honey, it’s old canvas and smeared black paint. It could be anyone’s name.” He gave a sigh that lingered in his voice and pervaded his next words with a sense of utter exasperation. “Anyway, let’s say that it is your painting. It doesn’t prove anything. Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, Mom likes the painting?”
Simone wrinkled her nose and gave Dave a hard look, standing with her arms akimbo. “Since when has your mother liked anything that I’ve ever done?”
Dave shook his head and tried leaving the room, but Simone blocked his way. “You’re the one who’s always picking the fights,” he said. Simone reeled as though the accusation had been a physical slap across the face.
“You think I like fighting with your mother,” she asked, her voice aghast as Dave finally pushed past her and stepped into the hallway.
“Yes, Simone, I think you like fighting with my mother.” He started down the hall but then turned back to his wife, his eyes blazing at the sudden tempest of a new argument. “I think that pointing out all of her flaws makes you feel like a better mother.”
Simone turned toward her husband and snorted at the accusation. “I hardly need to prove that I’m a better mother than her.”
Dave nodded sarcastically, his face wooden. “Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard all of my horror stories. But guess what, Simone: people change. She’s trying to make up for her mistakes. Did you ever think her buying your painting was a way of trying to bond with you? No, you never did. Because you’re the perfect mother.” Simone opened her mouth to object, but Dave kept rattling on with his rant. “You never make mistakes, do you? And you never forgive people for their mistakes, either.”
“That’s not true,” objected Simone.
“Oh? What about your job at the high school? What is it that you always say? ‘I’d still be there if Dave hadn’t made me quit.’”
Simone threw her arms into the air in exasperation. “That has nothing to do with this conversation.”
Dave crossed his arms and glared. “It does, because I have to hear it every day. Just once, give someone the benefit of the doubt, okay?”
Dave turned on his heel and stormed off after that last statement, leaving Simone alone with her hard evidence. After a few moments she looked out the window and saw Dave playing with Phyllis and the kids by the pool. Even Sarah had left her book to join her family now. The only one left alone was Simone.
* * *
Simone stayed inside for most of the day, monitoring Phyllis carefully and trying to avoid Dave as much as possible. The last thing that she wanted to do was risk a fight with Dave in front of the kids. Even worse would be arguing in front of Phyllis and letting the old woman know how well she was disrupting their marriage. Eventually, resigned to her solitary existence on this vacation and drained from the continued knowledge of her painting’s new whereabouts, she went into the guest bedroom and took a nap.
She slept longer than she had expected, waking just as the last rays of the sun began creeping away over the horizon. The insects outside her window gathered in a thick black cloud that hung almost menacingly outside in the Floridian humidity. Shaking the last remains of sleep out of her eyes, she stood up, dressed, and headed toward the living room. She didn’t make it more than five steps before she realized how quiet the house had become. Moving slowly through the rooms, she saw that both the house and the yard were empty. Sarah’s stories about alien abductions drifted into her head unbidden. As she passed the doorway to the kitchen, a sudden call of her name was enough to make her jump out of her skin.
“Simone darling, come in here for a moment.” Phyllis’s voice floated out of the doorway. Simone wondered if the old woman was about to offer her a poisoned apple, but moved into the room anyway. Better to face her than get stabbed in the back, after all.
Phyllis sat on the far end of the small kitchen table, a small plate of cookies and a tall pitcher of fruit punch in front of her. “Come here, dear,” she said. She was trying to speak gently, but that only made her voice seem more ominous to Simone. Nonetheless, Simone pulled up a chair at the table as Phyllis poured a glass of punch for her. “Here, drink this down and let’s talk.”
Simone looked at the thick red liquid in front of her like it was poison, but finally took a long sip when it didn’t bubble or hiss at her. She made a bitter face, but continued drinking. As usual, Phyllis had left the air conditioner off and left her sweating like a pig in the house. “What’s in this,” she asked, placing the half-empty glass in front of her.
“Do you like it,” asked Phyllis, refilling the glass. “I made it myself.”
“Where is everybody?”
“Oh, Davey took the little ones sightseeing. It gives us some time to talk.” Phyllis reached out an arm to pat Simone’s hand, but Simone pulled away as though she were dodging a large hornet. “I know about the argument that you and Davey had today,” said the old woman in a confidential tone. “Davey told me all about it.”
“Dave told–“ Simone frowned deeply. “That’s really none of your business.”
“But it’s about me,” retorted Phyllis, offering a cookie that Simone waved away. “You think I’m out to get you, don’t you dear?”
Simone gave a sarcastic laugh that came out louder than she had intended. “Well aren’t you?”
“Dear, I might be hard on you sometimes, but that’s only because I want the best for my son. But I suppose it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
Simone finished the punch and Phyllis refilled her glass. Licking her lips, Simone found that her mouth was still dry, despite the refreshment. “What do you mean,” she asked, refocusing on the conversation.
“Davey wants a divorce.”
Simone’s mind froze. She investigated Phyllis for a hint of a lie, but the old woman’s face remained completely straight. Not even the faintest trace of a sneer crossed her lips. “Did Dave tell you that?”
Phyllis nodded. “He said you’re too controlling, always out to find the worst in people. He brought up the fight you put up about taking a plane down here. He said you blame him and the kids for taking you away from the school.”
The blood drained out of Simone’s head and made a rush to the floor. They had argued those from time to time, but the fights never lasted. She didn’t blame Dave for anything…did she? “He really said that?” No sooner had the words come out of Simone’s mouth did the sneering smile return to Phyllis’s face.
“Not yet,” she said, rising from her seat and walking to the refrigerator. “But he will. I never thought you were right for him anyway.”
“I don’t give a fying fluck what you think!” Simone blushed as she stumbled over her words. Slamming her hands against the table, she propelled herself into a standing position and then reeled as the world spun around her. Through vision that seemed suddenly blurred, she looked down at her empty glass. Her mouth was still dry. “What was in that punch?”
Phyllis opened the refrigerator door and began removing an armful of half-empty schnapps bottles. “I really need to throw these out.” She pretended to speak to herself, but kept her voice loud enough for Simone to hear. “Some people will mix them into anything to hide the taste of alcohol.” Simone squinted through blurred vision as Phyllis left the room. “You know Davey hates drinkers, dear,” she said as she started toward the back door. “His father had some problems with alcohol and poor Davey never really got over it.”
“You spiteful old hag,” she muttered, stumbling her way to the door. All through college, Simone had avoided drinking. She never got the taste for it, and now she realized that she had never built up much of a tolerance, either. Somewhere in the swaying background of the world, she heard the front door open. A flash blinded her as she stepped into the hallway.
“Surprise,” shouted Sarah, her black lips turned up in a smile for a change as the camera in her hand gave a buzz. Simone stared dumbly at her daughter as Dave, Gabe, and Christine came up behind her. Gabe had a mini baseball bat with the Marlins logo imprinted on it and Christine held a new doll in one arm and the old softball mitt in the other. “Do you like it,” asked Sarah, her face glowing. “It’s digital. It can take videos and stuff, too. Now I can make my own horror movies! Dad got it for me.”
Simone remained silent and swayed slightly as she stood. “Actually, Grandma gave me the money for it,” corrected Dave. He looked at Simone’s pale face and frowned, narrowing his eyes. “Sarah, why don’t you take your brother and sister out to thank her?” Sarah shot one more smile at her father and then grabbed her exhausted-looking siblings by the arms, practically dragging them out of their skin as she ran off.
“Are you okay?” Dave spoke in a low voice that seemed to warn of unspoken danger.
“Fa-fine.” She spoke slowly to keep her words as coherent as possible. “Just need ta…to lie down a bit, I think.”
“You’ve been inside all day. Why don’t you come sit by the pool for a while?”
Simone shook her head and nearly fell over in doing so. “No…not feeling so well. I’m gonna take a nap.” She pushed past Dave and walked slowly down the hall, stumbling over her own feet as she did so. She held her breath when Dave helped her back up, but his frown told her that the smell of alcohol was only too clear.
* * *
“Come on, just get out of me,” Simone said to the contents of her stomach. She leaned over the toilet in just her bra and underwear and spit again. Nothing else came up, although the concoction of liquor in her stomach sloshed like the inside of a washing machine. The house was silent except for her mutterings. Everyone was sleeping snugly in their bedrooms – even Dave, although he hadn’t spoken to her all night.
“Gonna get a divorce,” she muttered in a feeble voice. “It’s all her fault, and he won’t even believe me…” She wondered who would get the kids in this case. Most likely he’d get the claim because he was the one with the job. Suddenly Simone was stuck in the airplane again, alone with her fears and waiting for impending disaster. She spat into the toilet again, this time coughing up a mouthful of bile. The small purge made her stomach feel a little better, but her brain balanced it all out with more panic signals. Somehow, this boiled down to being her fault. If she had been less of a bitch, if she didn’t always try to be right, Dave would put more weight on her words. If she had just smiled, nodded, and boarded that damned airplane, this vacation would have started off right and Dave would still love her…
Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt when she heard a light tapping on the door. “Mom?” Sarah spoke in a whisper that barely carried beyond the wooden frame.
“Just a second, sweetheart,” replied Simone, spitting into the toilet again. She lurched and thought that she felt the rest of the cocktail in her gut come up, but only gagged. She closed her eyes at the burning sensation in her throat. When she could see again, Sarah had swung the door open.
“Mom, I need to talk to you.”
Simone fell backwards and stared dumbly at her daughter. To her children she was always the proper one, in control of every situation. No one but Dave had ever seen her this weak. After a moment of looking at her daughter, she glanced at the mess in the toilet and flushed.
“Sarah…”
“Mom?”
“Sarah, don’t –” Don’t tell your father. That’s what she wanted to say. But she choked on those words, afraid to turn her daughter into a liar. “Don’t ever drink, okay? Don’t do,” she paused to wave at the toilet, “this. It’s stupid.” She gagged again, and her eyes began to water. “And it hurts.”
Sarah remained silent for a long moment. With her midnight blue pajamas and devoid of any of her dark lipstick, she looked like a child again. “Christine lost her glove again,” she whispered, her face blank. Looking to her left and her right down the hallway, she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door again.
“Did you check in–”
“In the trash, yeah.” Sarah sat cross legged on the floor across from her mother, placing her back against the door. The silver camera that Dave had bought her dangled from the strap on her wrist. “It was there, and I gave it back to her.” She blinked at the ensuing silence and then continued. “You know, half of all marriages end in divorce.” She looked at Simone timidly, her voice shaking at real-life horror. “Which half are you and Dad going to be on?”
Simone tightened the straps on her bra, avoiding her daughter’s eyes. She opened her mouth to tell a reassuring lie, closed it, and then opened it again. “I’m not sure.”
Sarah frowned and looked at her knees. “You didn’t even ask about my camera today.”
“I’m sorry. I was…” Drunk. “…distracted.”
Sarah pushed herself across the floor to her mother and lifted the camera. She pressed a button, and the machine blinked and whirred to life. “It takes videos. See? I took some already.”
Simone watched the tiny screen on the camera as it played through the events of Sarah’s day. She looked at it distractedly at first, but then became more focused as her daughter showed her some of the videos she had taken during the evening. Her eyes lit up, and she suddenly didn’t feel sick anymore.
“When you dress in black and read books all day, people tend not to notice you as much,” explained Sarah. “You see all sorts of things.”
“Have you shown your father these?” Simone’s voice became more hushed, but kept a tone of excitement to it.
Sarah shook her head and grinned. “No, but I bet you know which half you and Dad are going to be in now, huh?”
* * *
“Having some more punch, are we?” Phyllis grinned wickedly as she walked into the kitchen. Simone had been nursing a hangover for most of the day, but it had begun to fade. Now she sat at the kitchen table with Christine, drinking a tall glass of lemonade. Christine clutched her softball mitt defensively against her chest as Phyllis sat down opposite the two at the table.
“Not really. Christine and I made the lemonade ourselves. Didn’t we, sweetie?”
Christine nodded, turning her sea green eyes toward her grandmother. “Mom says that you don’t know what other people might put in their drinks.”
Phyllis curled her lips back, causing Christine to defensively put a pair of fingers in her mouth and shrink back in her seat. Then she turned that crow-like gaze onto Simone. “Where’s Davey?”
Simone smiled smugly. “I think Sarah is showing him some home movies.”
“Home…movies?” Whether Phyllis fully understood Simone’s meaning or not, she spun on her heel and dashed down the hall faster than Simone had thought the old woman could ever move.
“Stay here for a moment, sweetheart.” Simone rose and gave Christine a kiss, then strode after her nemesis. She arrived in the living room just in time to see Gabe, Sarah, and Dave watching Sarah’s digital video on a 19-inch flat screen television. Phyllis stood helplessly in the back of the room, her lips turning purple as the video showed her taking the armful of liquor bottles out to the trash. Then the film cut away to static, tuning back in to see another of Phyllis’s trips to the garbage, this time carrying Christine’s softball glove. When the film ended, Sarah smiled with those thick black lips of hers and said, “Thanks again for the camera, Dad.”
Dave said nothing; he didn’t have to. His eyes took on a look that Simone hadn’t seen since she met him, the rebellious, angry gaze of a son who finally realized exactly who his mother was. Phyllis shrank under the gaze like a vampire away from sunlight. Her lips trembled as she tried to stumble into an explanation, but lost her voice as Dave’s gaze turned to Simone. His anger shifted to apologetic confusion, and he opened his mouth to say something to her. Simone shook her head and smiled at him, cutting him off. Right and wrong didn’t matter at this point, and for once she didn’t want to be the one in control. Finally Dave spoke, breaking the expectant silence and turning his gaze back toward his mother.
“Sarah, take Gabe and Christine and get your things packed. We’re going somewhere else for our vacation.”
“Are we taking another plane ride,” asked Gabe, his face glowing in excitement and his young mind not fully comprehending the situation.
Simone’s face paled at the thought of another plane ride and the term “Atom bomb clause” returned to her mind. Dave shook his head, remembering his wife’s aviophobia. “No,” he said. “This time we’ll drive.”
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