Mother Dearest(7)

 

As he unloaded it he saw more and more of the papers stacking upunderneath, with various articles of murders that dated as far backas when Mother was a child. He moved the papers that had been in the photo album to the desk inone large pile, and one of the separation papers fell out of thestack and hit the floor. The smell of the papers filled the room, his nostrils were loadedwith the fragrance and if it wasn’t for his focus on his task, hemight have felt sick. He looked down into the box and saw several photos stacked in thereof little kids, one of them obviously Mother, standing in front of atree. There were four of them in one picture. He saw the paper that had fallen out of the stack, and reached for itwhile he was looking at the pictures in the box, piled helter-skelterwithin, a chaotic pile of memories. The other picture had three people in it. In the first picture it waswinter, in the next it was probably summer. He felt the paper brush his fingertips and tried to find the edge toget a good hold on it. The next picture was in fall, a pile of leaves stacked behind themand the telltale grin of a Jack-o-Lantern peeking out in the cornerof the picture. There were only two in that picture. Tom turned his attention away from the photos to get a good grip onthe paper and saw that it was no blank, but had a bunch of writing onit. It was a computer printout. He looked down at it a moment before he paused. Breath was sucked out of him. He recognized the print out; it was an article that he knew all toowell. The words on the top were a more generalized font, probablyfrom the printout, but it was obviously the same one that he knew byheart.

 

It was an article he had written only a few months before. Attachedto it was a small picture, the paperclip was hardly noticeable beforein the huge pile. He looked down at it unsure if what he was seeingwas real or not. The article was his, and the picture had been his at one time. Hedidn’t recall missing it, but he knew that he hadn’t left itsomewhere in easy access, it was somewhere it had to be looked for.Mother had gone looking for the picture. It was Trisha. THE CEILING fan brushed the air, scooping it from one side of theroom to the other in endless repetition. The faint “swoosh” ofthe fan blades was all that Tom could hear as he stood in his room,looking down at the box that he had removed from the study. He had carried the box back with him and sorted through each article,reading the entire entry of some and only skimming over the rest.What he found was an unconnected mass of collected murders, throwntogether without reason and locked away where they were neverintended to be found—not by Tom or anyone else. But he had found them. He had read most of them, and he didn’tthink there was a connection between them, and how they relatedMother—save for the ones that were about his father and her withher friends—was a mystery to him. But still, for some reason, thecool trickle of ice slithered up his spine. In front of him were piles of the articles, arranged by how he hadread them and what he thought was important. One side whispered ofthe deaths of several children, mostly young girls, sometimes and ayoung boy. The one to that pile’s left spoke wistfully of thedeaths of more children, this time younger children, ones who werealmost without parents because they were working all the time. Theywere constantly left with a babysitter, and one day they turned updead, the neighbor was suspected. The next three piles were just anunrelated articles about disappearances and deaths, some suicides,others not. The final two, one pile only containing one article, theone about the murdered prostitute, and the last one containing theinformation about his father’s death on the bottom, and on theupper half of the pile was all about Trisha.

 

The slithering chill expanded, as if it were slowly swallowing hisspine. There was a lot of information there about Trisha’s disappearance,and he had no idea why all of it was in the box, locked away in adrawer where it wasn’t supposed to be found. The computer printouts were lined up neatly, and the small articlethat had been released was piled on top. With that, was a singlepicture, a portrait that had been deliberately taken, it was one ofthe best photos he’d had of Trisha. How Mother had gotten it was hewasn’t sure, and even more disturbing, was the question of why shehad taken it. He looked down at the picture. The picture was Trisha in her bestclothes, she had bright pearly smile in it, her almond eyes sparklingwith that internal joy and her perfect brown-leather hair fixed in away that was both elegant and simple. It was really the best picturethat he had seen of her—and Mother had taken it. She had stolen itfrom him. It didn’t make him mad. It didn’t make him depressed. It offended him. Deep down, there was a deep offense, at seeing thepicture piled among the stories of murder and disappearance. Therewere piles of articles of children who had probably been killed by apedophilic maniac, there was a prostitute that nobody cared about whohad probably been killed by one of her own customers and there washis father, victim to a tragic, violent auto accident—and Trisha,in that beautiful picture, had been thrown in the middle of it. Hersmiling face had been rubbed in the same pile as that of aprostitute, and a maniac’s publicized evil deeds. That offendedhim. Trisha wasn’t like them; she shouldn’t be packed in with themlike that. They were dead. She wasn’t. They were unknown to him. She wasn’t.

 

They were all part of Mother’s strange obsession. Trisha was not. Trisha was his. Mother didn’t like Trisha much at all; Tom lovedher with all that he was. She didn’t belong there. She didn’tbelong in Mother’s box. She didn’t belong to Mother, not one bitof her. He looked at the photo, and the rest of the articles that were lyingon the floor. He thought that he should leave. If Mother were goingto hide that much from him, then perhaps it would be better if hemoved out while he tried to find out who Mother really was, insteadof the illusion that he had grown up knowing. Perhaps he should justleave— —and never come back.Tom bent down and picked up the picture and put it into his pocket,reclaiming it from the pile.The clock ticked in the corner, it told him it was past four in themorning but he didn’t care—not in the least. He thought about it once again, just packing up and leaving. He wouldtake his picture of Trisha with him. But he knew he couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. He had to look forTrisha, he had to help her, and Mother was sick. She may haveoffended him and betrayed his trust, but she was still his Mother andshe still needed looking after. But the temptation was still there. <I>Icould just pack up and go, forget everything else; nothing elsematters, just getting out of here and away from Mother. </I>He would not give in. He would stay. He would stay to find Trisha.

 

THE BOX was in his arms. The weight of the articles pushed againsthis chest as he held it, slightly inclined towards him. He could feelthe grit of the old cardboard under his fingertips, the dust encasingthe box in tiny, near invisible layers. The sweet smell of the oldcardboard filled his nostrils as he walked through the dim hallway.It was mid-morning, the perfect time for him to confront Mother withwhat he had found, and demand an answer of her. The house around him commanded the same silken that the study had thenight before, as if everything were shrouded in stillness. The pictures on the wall stared back at him in grim recognition, andeerie watchfulness. Their eyes were piercing, thought filtered by theclean glass in frame. The faces were all familiar, but they werepossessed by a strange otherness, something that was not quitenatural, something that stared him through and caused the slitheringchill on his spine to engorge itself on the dread that was suddenlycoursing through him, like a terrible leech. The smell of the dusty cardboard, mixed with the shroud of silencemixed together to form an atmosphere of caution, something thatwouldn’t be artificially produced—it was something that came fromill will and evil intent. Why he was feeling it, he was unsure;perhaps it was his own fear of what he would find out about Motherthat she had tried so hard to hide. Perhaps that was why she hadtried so hard to hide it; perhaps in the end he really didn’t wantto know. But he had to. The doorway framed the room in a way that was only possible in theatmosphere that he was feeling. It was almost like the screen to atelevision, but he knew that it wasn’t, something about it justmade the whole thing look unreal. The doorway into the masterbathroom was illuminated with the gray light that was coming throughthe window, faintly outlining the blinds that were on the bathroomwindow in the shadow on the ground. Outside he knew that the treeswere shuddering in the breeze.

 

The lighting from the windows in the room was even dimmer thanks tothe thick sheer curtains that blocked it out. The dull glow thatilluminated the room was surreal looking, as if not of this world. Itoccurred to Tom that it had never looked that way before. He walked through the door as quietly as possible, the heavy boxleaning on him, pushing him backwards with its weight, as if warninghim in that mocking little voice. No, no, don’t go in. You don’twant to know the truth. But he had to. He had to know. The room was surprisingly empty. The bed was neatly made, as if Mother had just made it and carefullyand quietly departed. He knew she was around somewhere, his room doorhad been open the whole morning and he knew that she was in there. He took another look around, seeing there was no sign of her, as ifshe had vanished. The box shifted, rolling its weight to his left, the papers shufflinginside, mixing into further unintelligible masses. He was kind ofangry about it, but he didn’t see any reason in getting very upsetabout it. It was what was on the papers that mattered, and that waswhat angered him, knowing that he was mixing around the murder of aprostitute and the missing reports of Trisha.He looked around the room and saw that Mother really wasn’tanywhere. The chair off to the side, bathed in the dreary light wasempty, as was the bed. The bathroom was obviously empty for the doorwas standing wide open. Not a soul stirred. The leech on his spine slowly fed on more. The dread grew, like a weed it slowly grew.