Deeper Than the Dead

7

Tommy sat alone at the top of the steps, listening. He was supposed to be in bed. He had taken a bath, like he did every other night of his life. He had put on his pajamas and brushed his teeth with his father supervising. His mother had given him his allergy medicine to help him sleep. He had pretended to take it.

He didn’t want to sleep. If he went to sleep, he was pretty sure he would see the dead lady, and he was pretty sure that in his dream she would open her eyes and talk to him. Or maybe she would open her mouth and snakes would come out. Or worms. Or rats. He didn’t know if he would ever want to sleep again.

But he didn’t dare to go downstairs either. First of all, his mom would freak out because it was twenty-seven minutes past his bedtime. It wasn’t a good thing to mess up the schedule. Second, because she was yelling—about him.

What was she supposed to do? What was she supposed to say when someone asked her about what happened? People would think she should have picked him up from school. They would think she was a bad mother.

His dad told her to calm down, that she was being ridiculous.

Tommy cringed. Bad move on Dad’s part. He should have known better. His mother’s voice went really high. He couldn’t see her from where he sat in the shadows on the stairs, but he knew the face she would be wearing. Her eyes would be bugging out and her face would be red, and there would be a big vein standing out on her forehead like a lightning bolt.

Tears filled Tommy’s eyes and he pressed himself against the wall and wrapped his arms around himself and pretended his dad was holding him tight and telling him everything would be all right, and that he didn’t have to be afraid. That was what he wanted to have happen. But it wouldn’t.

Now his mother was going on about how they would have to take him to a psychiatrist, and how terrible that would be—for her.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Sometimes he was a lot of trouble. He didn’t mean to be. He hadn’t meant to fall on a dead lady.

Very quietly, he stood up and went back to his room and crawled halfway under his bed to get his bear—which he was supposed to have given up by now. People would call him a sissy and worse if anybody knew he still slept with his bear. But tonight he didn’t care.

Tonight, with his parents still fighting in the room beneath him, and visions of a dead lady stuck in his head, he was feeling very alone and very afraid.

Tonight was a night for a bear.

Wendy snuggled next to her mother, listening to her sing a song.

“Hush, little baby, don’t you cry. Mama’s gonna sing you a lullaby ...”

It was a dorky song, but Wendy didn’t say anything. Her mother had sung it to her all her life, whenever she was feeling sick or afraid of the dark. Even if she didn’t like the stupid song, she liked the sound of her mother’s voice. It made her feel safe and loved.

They were cuddled together in her bed, in her pretty yellow-and-white bedroom with all her stuffed animals and dolls looking on. The lamplight was warm and soft. What had happened that day in the woods seemed long ago and far away, like a scary story she might have read once but had started to forget.

Of course, she hadn’t forgotten. Not really. She just didn’t want to think about it, that was all. Not now.

She wondered if Tommy was thinking about it.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” she asked, looking up at her mother. She had asked this question a million times already. She only wanted to hear the answer again.

“All night long, sweetie.”

Wendy sighed. “I wish Daddy was here too.”

Her mother didn’t answer right away. “He’s in Sacramento on business,” she said at last.

“I know,” Wendy said. They had already been over this a million times too. “But I still wish he was here.”

“Me too, baby,” her mother whispered, squeezing her tight. “Me too.”

It was late when Dennis heard his father come in. His stupid sisters were asleep, but his mother was still up. She was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and watching TV. His dad would want supper now—even if it was practically the middle of the night—and she would heat it up and serve it to him because that was her job.

Dennis charged down the stairs, barreled into the kitchen, grabbed the back of a chair, and slid to a stop.

“Dad, Dad, what happened? Did you get to dig up the dead lady?”

“Dennis!” his mother snapped. “You’re supposed to be in bed. Your father had a long night at work.”

Dennis rolled his eyes. His mother was so stupid. His dad said so all the time.

“Yeah, they dug her up,” his father said, pulling a beer out of the refrigerator and popping the top.

“Was she all rotten? Was she a skeleton? Was she all hacked up with an axe?”

“Dennis!” his mother said again, her voice a little higher and a little louder than the last time.

Dennis ignored her, keeping his eyes on his father. His uniform was rumpled, but not dirty. He should have been dirty if he had dug up the dead body himself. He probably supervised. He was too important to have to dig up a dead body himself—even if he probably wanted to.

Dennis would have helped if he had been allowed to stay. But his father had lost his temper at him for being in the way and had sent him home.

Dennis had been really angry about it, but then he got to ride home in a squad car with another deputy, and that had been pretty cool. His dad didn’t let him get into his squad car. He didn’t want Dennis to mess something up, was what he had said the first two thousand times Dennis had begged to play in the car. The two-thousand-first time Dennis had asked, his dad had lost his temper. Dennis hadn’t asked again.

“No, she wasn’t,” his father said, popping a couple of Excedrin from a bottle on the counter. “We put her in the hearse and they took her to the funeral home.”

Dennis’s mother scurried back and forth from the refrigerator to the stove, banging pots and muttering under her breath as she hurried to heat up a pork chop. His father picked up the cigarette his mother had left burning in the ashtray on the table and took a drag on it. The television on the counter was showing a guy spray-painting his bald spot.

“Mendez wants to call in the FBI,” his father said to no one in particular. “Prick.”

His mother said nothing.

“Why don’t you want the FBI, Dad?” Dennis asked.

“Because they’re a bunch of pricks—just like Mendez.”

“He’s a spic prick,” Dennis said, proud of his cleverness.

His father gave him a look. “Watch your mouth.”

His mother wheeled on him. “Dennis, go to bed!”

She looked like her eyes were going to pop out of her head, like in a cartoon when one character had his hands around the throat of another character, choking him.

His dad turned on his mother then. “Cook the damn food! I’m hungry!”

“I am!”

He looked at her like he was just now seeing her for the first time since he had walked in the room. His face twisted with disgust. “You couldn’t wear something better than that?”

Dennis’s mother grabbed her old blue bathrobe together just below her throat. “It’s the middle of the night. Was I supposed to put on a dress and makeup?”

“I’ve been at a murder scene all night. You think I want to come home and look at this?”

Dennis’s mother reached up and shoved a big messy chunk of hair out of her face and behind her ear. “Well, I’m sorry I’m not up to your high standards!”

His father swore under his breath. “Have you been drinking?”

“No!” she exclaimed, looking shocked. “Absolutely not!”

She yanked the frying pan off the burner, dumped the pork chop on a plate, and all but flung it at the table. “There. There’s your fucking dinner!”

His father’s face turned purple.

His mother’s face turned white.

Dennis turned and ran for the stairs. Halfway up, he stopped and sat down, grabbing the balusters and peering through them like he was behind bars. He couldn’t see much of the kitchen, but he didn’t need to. A chair scraped across the floor and thudded as it tipped over. A pan slammed against the top of the stove. A glass broke.

“Here’s my fucking dinner?”

“I’m sorry, Frank. It’s late. I’m tired.”

“You’re tired? I’m the one that’s been working all night. I finally get home and all I want is a little dinner, and you can’t manage that?”

His mother started to cry. “I’m sorry!”

There was a silence then that made Dennis more nervous than the yelling. He jumped a little when his father emerged from the kitchen, his expression dark, his hands on his hips. He turned and looked straight up at Dennis.

“What are you looking at?”

Dennis turned and ran up the stairs, stumbling twice, trying to go faster than his legs could possibly manage. He ran into his room and into his closet, pulling the door shut behind him and hiding himself under a pile of dirty clothes.

He lay there for a long time, trying not to breathe too loud, trying to hear over the pounding of his pulse in his ears, waiting for the door to fly open. But a minute went by and nothing happened. Then another minute . . . then another. . . until finally he fell asleep.