Mr. Murder

now in a world under glass, appreciated and loved, loved.

“Where’s Paige?” his mother asks, looking through the open door into the snow-filled day. “Where are the girls?”

“We were having lunch at the diner,” his father says, “and Janey Torreson said you were on the news, something about you shot someone but maybe it’s a hoax. Didn’t make any sense.”

He is still choked with emotion, unable to reply.

His father says, “We tried to call you as soon as we walked in the door, but we got the answering machine, so I left a message.”

Again his mother asks about Paige, Charlotte, Emily.

He must gain control of himself because the false father might arrive at any minute. “Mom, Dad, we’re in bad trouble,” he tells them. “You’ve got to help us, please, my God, you’ve got to help.”

His mother closes the door on the cold December air, and they lead him into the living room, one on each side of him, surrounding him with their love, touching him, their faces filled with concern and compassion. He is home. He is finally home.

He does not remember the living room any more than he remembers his mother, his father, or the snows of his youth. The pegged-oak floor is more than half covered by a Persian-style carpet in shades of peach and green. The furniture is upholstered in a teal fabric, and visible wood is a dark red-brown cherry. On the mantel, flanked by a pair of vases on which are depicted Chinese temple scenes, a clock ticks solemnly.

As she leads him to the sofa, his mother says, “Honey, whose jacket are you wearing?”

“Mine,” he says.

“But that’s the new style varsity jacket.”

“Are Paige and the kids all right?” Dad asks.

“Yes, they’re okay, they haven’t been hurt,” he says.

Fingering the jacket, his mother says, “The school only adopted this style two years ago.”

“It’s mine,” he repeats. He takes off the baseball cap before she can notice that it is slightly too large for him.

On one wall is an arrangement of photographs of him, Paige, Charlotte, and Emily at different ages. He averts his eyes from that gallery, for it affects him too deeply and threatens to wring more tears from him.

He must recover and maintain control of his emotions in order to convey the essentials of this complex and mysterious situation to his parents. The three of them have little time to devise a plan of action before the imposter arrives.

His mother sits beside him on the sofa. She holds his right hand in both of hers, squeezing gently, encouragingly.

To his left, his father perches on the edge of an armchair, leaning forward, attentive, frowning with worry.

He has so much to tell them and does not know where to begin. He hesitates. For a moment he is afraid he’ll never find the right first word, fall mute, oppressed by a psychological block even worse than the one that afflicted him when he sat at the computer in his office and attempted to write the first sentence of a new novel.

When he suddenly begins to talk, however, the words gush from him as storm waters might explode through a bursting barricade. “A man, there’s a man, he looks like me, exactly like me, even I can’t see any difference, and he’s stolen my life. Paige and the girls think he’s me, but he’s not me, I don’t know who he is or how he fools Paige. He took my memories, left me with nothing, and I just don’t know how, don’t know how, how he managed to steal so much from me and leave me so empty.”

His father appears startled, and well might he be startled by these terrifying revelations. But there’s something wrong with Dad’s startlement, some subtle quality that eludes definition.

Mom’s hands tighten on his right hand in a way that seems more reflexive than conscious. He dares not look at her.

He hurries on, aware that they are confused, eager to make them understand. “Talks like me, moves and stands like me, seems to be me, so I’ve thought hard about it, trying to understand who he could be, where he could’ve come from, and I keep going back to the same explanation, even if it seems incredible, but it must be like in the movies, you know, like with Kevin McCarthy, or Donald Sutherland in the remake, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, something not human, not of this world, something that can imitate us perfectly and bleed away our memories, become us, except somehow he failed to kill me and get rid of my body after he took what was in my mind.”

Breathless, he pauses.

For a moment, neither of his parents speak.

A look passes between them. He does not like that look. He does not like it at all.

“Marty,” Dad says, “maybe you better go back to the beginning, slow down, tell us exactly what’s happened, step by step.”

“I’m trying to tell you,” he says exasperatedly. “I know it’s incredible, hard to believe, but I am telling you, Dad.”

“I want to help you, Marty. I want to believe. So just calm down, tell me everything from the beginning, give me a chance to understand.”

“We don’t have much time. Don’t you understand? Paige and the girls are coming here with this . . . this creature, this inhuman thing. I’ve got to get them away from it. With your help I’ve got to kill it somehow and get my family back before it’s too late.”

His mother is pale, biting her lip. Her eyes blur with nascent tears. Her hands have closed so tightly over his that she is almost hurting him. He dares to hope that she grasps the urgency and dire nature of the threat.

He says, “It’ll be all right, Mom. Somehow we’ll handle it. Together, we have a chance.”

He glances at the front windows. He expects to see the BMW arriving in the snowy street, pulling into the driveway. Not yet. They still have time, perhaps only minutes, seconds, but time.

Dad clears his throat and says, “Marty, I don’t know what’s happening here—”

“I told you what’s happening!” he shouts. “Damn it, Dad, you don’t know what I’ve been going through.” Tears well up again, and he struggles to repress them. “I’ve been in such pain, I’ve been so afraid, for as long as I can remember, so afraid and alone and trying to understand.”

His father reaches out, puts a hand on his knee. Dad is troubled but not in a way that he should be. He isn’t visibly angry that some alien entity has stolen his son’s life, isn’t as frightened as he ought to be by the news that an inhuman presence now walks the earth, passing for human. Rather, he seems merely worried and . . . sad. There is an unmistakable and inappropriate sadness in his face and voice. “You’re not alone, son. We’re always here for you. Surely you know that.”

“We’ll stand beside you,” Mom says. “We’ll get you whatever help you need.”

“If Paige is coming, like you say,” his father adds, “we’ll sit down together when she gets here, talk this out, try to understand what’s happening.”

Their voices are vaguely patronizing, as if they are talking to an intelligent and perceptive child but a child nonetheless.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” He pulls his hand free of his mother’s grasp and leaps up from the sofa, shaking with frustration.

The window. Falling snow. The street. No BMW. But soon.

He turns away from the window, faces his parents.

His mother sits on the edge of the sofa, her face buried in her hands, shoulders hunched, in a posture of grief or despair.

He needs to make them understand. He is consumed by that need and frustrated by his inability to get even the fundamentals of the situation across to them.

His father rises from the chair. Stands indecisively. Arms at his sides. “Marty, you came to us for help, and we want to help, God knows we do, but we can’t help if you won’t let us.”

Lowering her hands from her face, with tears on her cheeks now, his mother says, “Please, Marty. Please.”

“Everyone makes mistakes now and then,” his father says.