familial spirits

by Peter Naughton

Renee sat by her mother’s bedside, listening to the machines across from her beep and chirp and ping like they were having a conversation.

She had been reading her mom a story from a book she’d had since she was a teenager but stopped when it became clear that her mother wasn’t listening. There were good days and bad days with her mom, though lately it was difficult telling them apart. Mostly, it had become a series of long silences punctuated by brief periods of lucidity.

Jesse would be home from school soon, and she wanted to be there when he got back. It was the only sliver of normalcy Renee could provide in the chaos their lives had become. Not that Jesse saw it that way, at least she hoped he didn’t. Her brother seemed like the same goofy, smiley kid he’d always been.

Except for the part about him thinking that their father was haunting them.

*****

Jesse was crouched down next to the exterior corner of the gymnasium, sneaking surreptitious peeks at the bus concourse to see if Kevin Rutherford was still there.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he didn’t have a single friend that went with him from junior high to high school because they lived just over the zoning border, he’d also managed to attract the attention of a major-league dickhead who seemed offended by Jesse’s very existence. It had barely been three months and already his life was a living hell. He had asked his dad if he could possess Kevin, or maybe just scare him. Jesse was sure he’d seen the lamp in his bedroom flicker, but his sister said that he was just being silly.

When he glanced around the side of the building again, Jesse saw that Kevin was finally gone and thought it was probably safe to wait for the next 214 to come along. He wished one of the busses went to the hospital his mom was at so he wouldn’t have to rely on Renee for a ride. She didn’t like taking him along because she said seeing their mom like that wouldn’t do him any good. It was the same with their dad. Making up things because she didn’t think he could handle the reality of it. Renee still acted like he was a baby and pretty much never let him go anywhere except for home or school, not that he really had anywhere to go, or anyone to go with him.

Down at the far end of the road, he could see one of the lumbering Pace busses heading toward the concourse.

He wondered what his sister had planned for dinner and if he could convince her to make it pizza instead.

*****

On the drive home from the hospital, an image of Jesse and her dressed in black standing beside an open grave as they lowered in the casket surfaced in Renee’s mind.

It was a scene that had played repeatedly in her head ever since her mother’s condition had taken a turn for the worse, and it always brought the same awful mixture of heartbreak and relief.

Renee hated watching her mother endure one treatment after another, each with the same dangling promise of remission. The truth was that nothing short of a bona-fide medical miracle was going to save Darlene Slade and, in the meantime, she was being made to languish and suffer for the sake of her children.

She sometimes wondered why her mom didn’t go back to Darlene Bishop after their dad split on them.  Renee supposed it was because Jesse and her were Slades, though as far as Renee was concerned they could have all become Bishops. Their mom once joked to their dad that the last name was the reason she’d married him; that Darlene Slade sounded like a rough-and-tumble gun moll, or a mysterious femme fatal from a hardboiled detective paperback.

Renee pretended she was okay with their dad because she didn’t want to hurt Jesse, but inside she wished every torment imaginable upon him.

‘What kind of asshole takes off right when their family needs them the most?’

Answer, Martin Slade.

Renee wished she could be like Jesse and just pretend he was dead. It would make things so much easier.  She supposed it was possible that he actually had died, or maybe he was living under an assumed identity to avoid child support payments.

She pulled the car into one of the crumbling asphalt spaces in front of their apartment building and killed the engine. When she went to unlock the deadbolt to their unit, the key turned without any resistance.

“Dammit, Jesse, I told you to lock the door if you’re home alone.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“You always forget.”

“Thought you’d already be here.”

“Traffic was a nightmare.”

“How’s mom?”

“A little better.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she had more color in her face today than last time we saw her.”

“When can I go back there?”

“Soon.”

“When?”

“Soon, Jesse. Please don’t give me a hard time right now.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m just really tired from work and driving all over.”

“What’s for dinner?”

“A casserole.”

“What’s in it?”

“The box is in the freezer. Why don’t you take it out and turn the oven on to whatever temperature the directions say.”

“What’s Chicken a la King?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

“The picture doesn’t look promising.”

Renee put her bag down on the kitchen table and took the box from Jesse.

“Wow, that really does not look appetizing at all.”

“Yeah, and the picture is always way better looking than the actual food.”

Renee sighed.

“Pizza?”  Jesse said.

“Yeah, fuck it...er fudge it.”

“You really think ninth graders don’t say fuck?”

“Point taken. Just don’t say it around mom.”

“Yeah, no shit. You think I’m fuckin’ crazy?”

 “Alright, Andrew Dice Clay, cool it with the cursing.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“No one.” Renee said and laughed despite herself.  “Go order the pizza, Mr. Potty-Mouth.”

“Can we get cheese sticks?”

“Sure.”

“Kick ass.”

*****

Jesse sat on the edge of his bed playing through a level on a videogame he’d already finished twice before.  New games weren’t a luxury they could afford anymore, but he felt lucky to still have what he did and often wondered how long they’d be able to hold on to it.

His sister tried to keep that stuff from him, but he knew that money was tight, that Renee wasn’t actually on leave from college, and that their mom...probably wasn’t going to get better.

He hoped he was wrong about that last one, but each time he went to see her in the hospital she looked less and less like herself. To Jesse, it seemed as if his mother was slowly being replaced by a replica that only vaguely resembled her, like the wax statues of celebrities he’d seen in a museum in California when he was seven. 

At the edge of the forest, a black dire wolf emerged from the treeline, and Jesse pressed a button on the controller that caused his armored avatar to draw his sword from the long scabbard strapped across his back.

The lamp on his desk flickered and then blinked on and off twice.

“Dad?”

Jesse hit another button and paused the game.

“Dad, is that you?”

He waited for a reply, but the bulb remained steady.

“No one believes me, but I know you’re there.”

Jesse waited a few more moments then resumed the game. Normally, it would’ve been easy for him to dispatch the wolf, but he wasn’t really interested in playing anymore. He put the controller down on the bed and watched as the giant lupine jumped on him, sinking its teeth into his character’s neck and ripping out a patch of flesh as blood sprayed out onto the snowy field.

“There’s this kid at school, Kevin Rutherford. He’s been messing with me a lot lately. Everyone there pretty much knows he’s an asshole, even the teachers, but his dad is some bigshot on the school board, so they all pretend it isn’t happening. I don’t want to worry mom or Renee, but I’m not sure what to do about it. Anyway, just figured I could at least tell you.”

The lamp on the desk blinked once.

“Thanks Dad.”

*****

Renee re-read the last paragraph, again, and realized she’d been staring at the same email for almost five minutes.

The request was simple: Generate a report she’d run dozens of times for one of the managers three floors above her. It was the kind of mindless task that comprised most of her job duties as a Resource Coordinator, which was an ill-defined mix of clerical assistant, data wrangler, and low-level tech support. She’d started there as a temp shortly after coming home, and six months later the company offered her a permanent position. Renee resisted at first, thinking that working for the temp agency offered her more flexibility in case she wanted to start taking classes again at the community college. The truth was that between work and looking after Jesse, she didn’t really have time for much else. Besides, being on staff came with medical benefits that weren’t ludicrously expensive and covered more than the barebones basics.

This was her life now, and she needed to accept it. Anything extracurricular or personal would be on hold for now and for the foreseeable future.

There were moments when the bitterness and resentment crept in, and she had to remind herself that they were lucky. They had a roof over their heads, and their mother was still on extended leave from the high school, which covered most of her medical costs and also provided some money to help make ends meet.  That wouldn’t last forever, however. At some point, her sick days and PTO would run out, assuming she made it that long.

And there it was.

The thing Renee thought about endlessly, but refused to let herself actually believe. In some ways, it was easier to have a parent simply vanish the way their father had than to face this slow-plodding march toward the inevitable.

A tear traced its way down her cheek and fell onto the faux-wood formica desk.

Renee hit reply on the email, attached a PDF file, typed a perfunctory response, and clicked send.

*****

Jesse was changing out of his gym uniform and back into his regular clothes when Kevin and two of his friends walked into the locker room.

“Nice boxer shorts,” Kevin said.

Jesse quickly finished pulling on his jeans and was reaching for his t-shirt when the boy to the left of Kevin, who Jesse didn’t recognize, snatched it off the bench and threw it on top of the lockers.

“What’s your problem?” Jesse said, but the boy didn’t reply.

“He thinks you’re a puny, pathetic fuck,” Kevin said, “and so do I.”

“Yeah, you skinny, little pansy,” said the boy on Kevin’s right, a greasy-haired mullet-head named Todd Downing with a face full of explosive acne.

“What do you want?” Jesse asked.

“We were just checking up on you. Figured someone should, what with your mommy in the hospital and your dad flying the coop.”

“Still has his sister.” Todd interjected.

“That he does,”  Kevin responded, “and what a hot piece of ass she is, if you don’t mind my saying. Found my older brother’s yearbook, and there’s a photo of her in color guard wearing this spandex outfit. I tore that page out and keep it under my bed for special occasions.”

Jesse started to get up, but the mute boy, who looked like he should have graduated years ago, slammed him back down.

“You ever do that?” Todd asked.

“Do what?” 

“You know.”

“Todd wants to know if you jerk off to your sister,” Kevin jeered.

“That’s sick.”

“Not when she looks like that.” Kevin said.

“I bet he does,” Todd added.

“C’mon, just admit it. We won’t tell anyone,” Kevin said.

“You’re both fucked in the head.”

“Admit it,”  Kevin challenged, pulling out his phone. “Confess to the camera that you beat your meat thinking about your sister.”

Jesse crossed his arms over his chest to cover himself up. “Give me back my shirt.”

“Not until you say it,” Kevin said.

“I’m not saying that disgusting shit, you perverted asshole.” Jesse said and turned around, trying to grab his gym shirt out of his open locker.

The behemoth grabbed Jesse by the forearm and forced him to the floor.

“Maybe, I’ll just go and ask her myself,”  Kevin threatened. “I think your sister and me would really hit it off, if you know what I mean.”

Jesse bucked out from beneath the large boy’s grasp and made a wild leap for Kevin but was shoved down hard by the silent giant with the back of his head rebounding against the concrete.

His vision blurred and black dots burst in front of his eyes.

Jesse lie there on the floor and waited until he heard them leave before attempting to move.

*****

“What happened?!”  Renee asked.

“I already told you. I tripped when I was changing.” Jesse held a bag of frozen peas to the base of his skull.

“There are bruises all over your arm.”

“Probably hit it on the bench on my way down.”

“Jesse, tell me what happened to you.”

“Why? You don’t believe me when I do.”

“I just want to know the truth.”

“Like you telling me the truth about dad?”

“He isn’t dead, Jesse. He left.”

“No way dad would do that to us. Not in a million years.”

“I don’t know why he did it. Maybe he couldn’t handle mom getting sick.”

“Doesn’t matter, I guess. Either way, he’s gone.”  Jesse stormed off to his room.

Renee let out a long sigh and went into the kitchen, looking over the dismal array of dinner options.

She opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Cheers Dad.  Thanks for everything.”

*****

Jesse was on top of his bed with all the lights off except for the desk lamp.

“I know you’re there. Just give me a sign.”

The lamp didn’t react, even when Jesse reached over and flicked the shade with the tip of his finger.

He checked his phone to see if anything had shown up on social media about the video, but so far there was nothing. Jesse supposed that posting it would prove that it hadn’t been an accident. When his English teacher saw him walk into class, she took him to the nurse’s office, and they had almost called an ambulance, but Jesse managed to convince them not to. There was some skepticism about his story, but no actual evidence to the contrary, and the last thing he wanted was more attention.

“C’mon Dad, do something.”

Jesse stared into the bulb, letting its illumination fill his field of vision until there was nothing beyond its soft yellow glow.

“...please….”

The lamp blinked.

*****

“This isn’t what I asked for.”

Renee looked at the report one of the sales leads had printed out.

“It’s all of the sales made in your region during the last quarter,”  Renee said.

“I wanted it broken down by individual rep. This is just a list of client purchases.”

“That’s fine, but it isn’t what you requested in your email. I’ll have to reformat everything and then run it again.”

“It is what I requested.”

Renee pulled up the message and tilted her screen so the man in the charcoal gray suit could see it.

“Well didn’t you understand what I meant? Why would I possibly want this?!” the man insisted, brandishing the sheaf of paper at Renee like she was a disobedient dog who’d just peed on the carpet.

“I’m happy to redo the report for you.”

“How long will it take?”

“A couple of hours.”  Renee lied.

“Great. That’s just great. I need it for a meeting at noon.”

Renee shrugged. 

“Still want me to run the new report?”

“There’s no point now. You people down here are completely useless.”

“Alrighty then, well you have a good rest of your day.”  Renee cooed, smiling at the man as he mumbled something under his breath and headed back toward the elevators.

She heard her phone buzzing in her purse and normally wouldn’t answer it at work, unless it was the hospital, but when she saw the name on the screen Renee picked up.

It was Jesse’s school.

*****

He couldn’t reconcile what had happened.

Even now, after everything was over, it still didn’t make sense in his head.

Jesse remembered seeing Kevin alone and walking over to him with the intention of trying to have an actual conversation away from his goons, hoping that maybe he’d be reasonable without anyone nearby to impress.

They were talking and then....

Someone, a grown-up, was pulling Jesse away and escorting him down the hall to the Dean’s Office.

The dean had spoken to him and then the guidance counselor, wanting to hear his side of things, but Jesse didn’t know what to tell them. All he really knew was that his hands hurt, and he wanted to go home.

When his sister finally showed up, it seemed like hours had gone by, though he wasn’t really sure. She had a conversation behind closed doors and then they were walking across the parking lot.

“You don’t have to talk about it now,” Renee said.

Jesse nodded.

“But at some point I need you to start letting me in. Otherwise, they might split us up.”

Jesse pulled open the rear door of their rust bucket ’87 Caprice Classic and stretched out over the back seat.

Renee switched on the radio, scanning through commercials and drive-time DJs doing their afternoon commute spiels, until she hit upon a familiar song.

Jesse swung his legs down into the footwell and sat up. “Didn’t mom used to play this?” 

“It was one of her Saturday morning tunes.”

Van Morrison broke into the chorus of Domino and Jesse smiled. “Oh yeah.  She would dance around the kitchen to this song.”

“Among others,”  Renee added ,and they both laughed.

They turned onto a side street just a few blocks from their apartment, passing the park that their mom used to take Jesse to when he was little.

“...he said things...bad things....”

“Kevin did?”

“About you.”

“What did he say?”

Jesse shook his head and then pressed his face against his palms, as prickling heat filled the hollows of his cheeks.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything else.”

Renee pulled into the parking lot of their building and shut off the engine.

“C’mon,”  Renee said. “I’ll make us breakfast for dinner.”

“Can I go see mom in the hospital?”

“...yeah...of course....”

The two of them walked up the stairs to their unit and shut the door behind them.

Renee opened the kitchen cabinets, searching around for pancake mix.

Jesse went to his room and switched on his desk lamp.

*****

During her initial meeting with the school, Renee was told there would be disciplinary action taken against Jesse, but they wanted to fully investigate the incident before making a decision.

Now, she was sitting in an uncomfortable, plastic chair outside the principal’s office feeling the same way she had in high school whenever shit went sideways, which happened to her a lot back then. There hadn’t been much in the way of fights, but between cutting class, smoking in the auto shop, miscellaneous mouthing off, and junior year when she was suspected of cheating on a trigonometry test, Renee had spent her fair share of time shifting around in shitty seats, waiting for the powers-that-be to deliver her fate.

A matronly woman in a gray wool skirt and pleated white blouse stood up from behind a crescent-shaped wooden desk.

“Principal Graham will see you now.”

Renee stood up and crossed the waiting area turning left into an open doorway.

“Ms. Slade, lovely to see you again. Please, have a seat.”

As she started to sit the door behind her suddenly closed, and Renee nearly jumped out of her skin.

“I apologize,”  Graham said.  “It’s wired to a button under my desk, and the motor is a tad aggressive.”

“That’s new.”  Renee swallowed down the internal organs that had attempted to flee her body.

“It’s one of the little improvements they made when the office was renovated last year. So, Jesse....”

“Yes?”

“I’m sure you realize that physical violence against another student is an extremely serious offence.”

“Of course.”

“Expulsion is the standard consequence for such an infraction.”

“You can’t expel Jesse!”

Renee said it without thinking in a voice that was almost a shout.

“Please,”  Graham responded, holding out the palm of her right hand.

Renee nodded.

“I’ve spoken to Jesse’s counselor, and I know how difficult both of your lives have been regarding your parents. After speaking with the district superintendent, I was able to get him to agree to a six-month suspension. This will require that Jesse repeats the ninth grade.”

“You can’t do that, Principal Graham. It’ll crush him.”

“The Rutherford’s wanted far worse, including criminal charges, for assault and battery.”

“And what about their little shitbag son?”

“I understand you’re upset, Ms. Slade, but—”

“This kid has been bullying Jesse all year. Taunting him in the halls and stealing his lunch.”

“That still doesn’t excuse physical violence.”

Renee snorted. “Last week he attacked my brother in the locker room.”

“Jesse told you that?”

“He didn’t have to. I saw the bruises on his body.”

“As far as I know, there hasn’t been any report of this alleged incident.”

“Of course not. No one rats on the rich kids because we all know it’s useless. They get away with everything, while our mom sits in a hospital bed hooked up to machines, worried about how she’ll pay off the medical debt if she somehow manages to survive.”

 “Please, believe me when I say that this is the best possible outcome for Jesse, and one I had to fight very hard to get.”

Renee lowered her head and let out a long shuddering breath.

She looked up at Graham.

“...I do believe you...that’s the sad part. I’m sure it took a supreme effort to keep Jesse from being expelled and sent to juvy...that you probably had to move heaven and earth to make it happen...and that this life is the best thing we can ever possibly hope for....”

*****

It had been over two hours since his sister left, and Jesse wondered if she was still at his school, or if she was out driving around to avoid telling him the outcome.

He glanced over at his desk lamp.

The lamp hadn’t flickered or blinked on its own recently, and he’d been intentionally keeping it on in hopes that it might encourage his dad to come back, like leaving a bowl of food on the front porch for a lost pet.

Jesse wasn’t sure if the lamp was really inhabited by the soul of his father. Still, even if it wasn’t, he still liked the idea of it.

He wished Renee had something like the lamp. Sometimes, he heard her pacing around the living room in the middle of the night, and a couple times he was pretty sure she was crying.

There was a loud click from the deadbolt and Jesse tensed.

“Hey, can you come out here so we can talk?”

“Yeah, one sec.”

Jesse stared over at the lamp and wondered if it had the power to grant wishes.

*****

He was calm.

When Renee told Jesse about the suspension and having to repeat his freshman year, he just nodded and asked if he could go back to his room. Part of him even seemed relieved. Maybe, he was expecting something worse, but Renee still wasn’t sure quite how to feel about it.

She flicked the metal wheel on her lighter and held the flame to the end of the cigarette, taking a long drag and blowing a plume of white smoke out over the edge of the balcony.

The smokes were a stress-induced impulse purchase made on her way home, after having quit for over a year ago. There was a moment when she hoped she’d find it disgusting, like an A.A. member now nauseated by the smell of beer, but they were just as wonderful as she’d remembered. Their mother’s cancer was caused by a genetic predisposition in her family, but the Marlboro between Renee’s lips still felt like a betrayal. Both Jesse and her had been tested for it and, thankfully, neither of them had the DNA markers. It was the closest thing to a silver lining they’d experienced in this shitstorm.

Renee took another long drag, then dropped the butt onto the balcony floor and crushed it out with the tip of her shoe.

She was worried about Jesse.

That he wasn’t fully processing what had happened, or worse yet, that he simply didn’t care.

“Wherever you are, Dad, from the bottom of my heart, go fuck yourself.”

Renee imagined her father’s reaction to hearing this from his only daughter, feigned shock followed by a shit-eating grin, and laughed despite herself.

“Goddammit.”

She wiped at the corner of her eye and silently cursed herself for missing him.

That was the thing though.  Before it had all fallen apart, he’d actually been a good father. Renee didn’t know what had caused him to leave. If it was the pain of watching his wife fading away in front of him, or the panic and fear from seeing the rest of his life laid out before him as a widower and single father. Even if he’d come home a few days later with his tail between his legs, it still probably would’ve been okay.

Parental abandonment.

That was the term the social workers used to describe the situation. The clinical phrase for moms and dads who go out to get a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, or a pack of smokes, and never come back.

Renee traced the outline of the pack in her pocket with the tip of her finger. Her dad smoked Camels, and she could picture him with the gold-banded filter tucked into the corner of his mouth as clear as if he’d been standing in front of her.

She stared up at the moon and wondered if, maybe, Martin Slade was gazing at that same moon at that very moment and thinking about his little girl.

*****

It happened three weeks into Jesse’s suspension.

They’d gotten the call a little after seven in the evening telling them they needed to come down to the hospital immediately.

Renee and Jesse had both seen their mother just a few days earlier, and she’d actually seemed more alert and energetic than usual. 

The expression on her face was peaceful, like she was simply sleeping, but the doctor told them there was a good chance she wouldn’t regain consciousness. They stayed by her bedside for five days until her breathing finally slowed and then, finallly, stopped.

They both knew about the D.N.R., but it was still difficult to watch their mother silently slip away without getting to say goodbye.

During their previous visit, the three of them had talked about taking a trip. It wasn’t a real discussion, just something nice to think about, but their mother had made them both promise to go no matter what. Saying they should use the life insurance payout for travel expenses…if it came to that.

“Mom always wanted to see California,”  Renee said.

“Yeah.”  Jesse said.

“Can’t take another one of these Midwest winters,” the two blurted out simultaneously, which was something their mother had said every January for as long as either of them could remember.

“So, what do you say? West Coast or bust?”  asked Renee.

Jesse nodded.

“I asked mom something the other day...when you weren’t in the room,”  Jesse said.

“What ?”

“...it was stupid...I shouldn’t have said it.”

“You can tell me, Jess. I promise it’s okay.”

“I asked her if she...ya know...if she wasn’t around anymore...if she’d be my new ghost.”

“...oh yeah....”  Renee said, fighting back tears.  “What did she say?”

“That she would always be there to look after me.”

“Cheers, Mom.”

They stood on either side of her, each taking one of their mother’s hands as they watched the sun sink down below the horizon, disappearing into a golden orange glow.

Photo of Peter Naughton

BIO: Peter first fell into fiction penning stories to amuse his grammar-school classmates, which helped him overcome his shyness, but resulted in very few completed homework assignments. He is an avid fan of horror movies, especially those with a sense of humor, food served from carts and roadside shacks, and the songs of The Ramones, The Replacements, and other bands of like-minded misfits who found a way to connect with the world through their music and their words. He currently resides in the Chicagoland suburbs with his wife and cats and his writing has appeared in various online and print publications. You can find out more about Peter and his writing at: http://ravenpen.wixsite.com/authorsite