Calamity

“That is to be expected. Your children?”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“It is not up to you to pace yourself, to only act when you feel prepared. Remember that Jesus knew what was going to happen. He knew he would be betrayed. He knew he would suffer for a whole day on that cross. He knew all that pain was coming and he accepted it and endured it because he knew what waited for him beyond the misery. Look beyond the pain and misery. Salvation is waiting for you.”

“Didn’t Jesus cry to God on the cross? Didn’t he ask why he had been forsaken?”

“In the Book of John, Jesus embraces his role and before dying on the cross, says, ‘It is finished.’ Let your suffering be over, Anthony. Let God take you in His arms and soothe your pain. It is time to say, ‘It is finished.’ ”

Anthony didn’t know if that was true or not what Jesus said but he hoped it was. Those three words strung together made one of the sweetest sounding phrases he could ever imagine. It is finished. Oh, how desperately he wanted all of this to be finished. The pain. The pity. The anger. The helplessness.

“What should I do?”

“Go home,” Ellis said. “Go to your family and rescue them.”

Anthony started to say something and then Ellis told him to keep God in his heart and hung up.

Anthony got back on the highway. He drove until he needed gas and then he pulled off, found a gas station, filled up, and kept driving. His mind was a blank page but all the words screaming to mark the page pushed and prodded from the other side. When those words finally broke through and he realized he did have to go home, he did have to rescue his family, he was an hour outside of Philadelphia. He parked at a rest stop and slept until dawn.

In the morning, everything was clearer.

6

Brendan was in his room adding a chapter to his tale of the Darkman (Detective Bo Blast had faced off with the Darkman in the corner of an alley only to have the villain escape in a delivery truck the driver had left idling behind a deli) when Tyler burst into his room and said he needed Brendan’s help.

“I thought you didn’t want it.” They had spoken in the kitchen nearly an hour ago.

“A small favor.”

“What happened to your hand? Sasha do that?”

Tyler hid his hand in his jeans again. “You have some imagination, know that?”

“Just like a puzzle.” That was Bo Blast’s catch-phrase. A gorgeous blonde would say how impressed she was that he’d solved the case and he’d smile and say, “Just like a puzzle.”

“Who? What?”

“Never mind.”

“I need you to distract Dr. Carroll.”

“Why?” The doc was still in with Mom and Aunt Stephanie. Mom’s crying had died off but the vibrations of voices murmured through the wall. Brendan had tried to decode it early and gave up. It was easier to write more of his story than strain to make out words through a wall.

“Knock on the door, get him to come out and talk for a minute. Tell him you’ve been having headaches or something, something requires medicine. He’ll bring that black bag with him. Then you’ve got to do some real imaginative work.”

“What?”

“Get sick.”

“As in … ?”

“Vomit.”

“I can’t make myself vomit.”

“You won’t have to. Just say you’ve been having stomach pains too and then have one, a pain so bad you have to run to the bathroom. The good doc will follow you in, leaving his bag behind.”

“If you want any drugs, he’ll write you a prescription.”

“No time. I need them now.”

“Why don’t you take Mom’s? She’s got a ton and she won’t notice.”

“I need something strong, real strong.”

Brendan didn’t bother to ask how he knew Dr. Carroll carried anything real strong with him because they had both seen the doc open that black bag a few months ago and remove a slew of prescription bottles, placing them in a line up on the kitchen table in front of Dad. The doc gave Dad the choice of whatever “line of treatment” he felt comfortable with Mom following. Dad took Dr. Carroll’s recommendation and ever since Mom had been like the barely walking dead. There was strong stuff in that black bag, one prescription so potent that Dad smirked at the bottle and asked if Dr. Carroll wanted to help her or kill her.

Brendan asked if the latter was Tyler’s intention as well.

Something passed over Tyler’s face again, not quite the cloud as before but something similar, something suggesting Brendan was right. “I’m not going to kill her. I’m trying to help her.”

It was pointless to once again offer his own services (and Dwayne’s), so Brendan didn’t say anything. He would do what Tyler wanted because Tyler was his brother and because Brendan needed him to think everything was on the up and up, that Brendan wasn’t hiding anything. Dwayne said this mission required secrecy. Brendan had tried to offer his help openly to Tyler because he knew that though Dwayne said the mission was “hush-hush,” he would applaud Tyler’s conversion to accept help because that would bring him one step closer to accepting God.

“You’ll do it?” Tyler asked.

Brendan said he would as long as he didn’t have to pretend to vomit in the bathroom for very long. There was something weird about Dr. Carroll and Brendan didn’t like the idea of having him so close in such a confined space.

“Yeah,” Tyler said, “he is sort of a creeper.”

* * *

The plan worked much better than expected and the doc ended up much creepier than feared.

* * *

Brendan knocked on the door, waited for Dr. Carroll to open it—he didn’t, Aunt Stephanie did—and asked if he could talk to the doc. Aunt Steph (that nickname made her sound like a teenager) said the doctor was busy helping mommy. Brendan went all-in, saying he felt sick and might have to throw up. Aunt Steph, never a mother herself, backed off immediately and called the doc away from the crying woman on the bed. That’s my Mom, Brendan thought with a strange sort of detachment. Not that that means much anymore.

Brendan got the doc into his bedroom, started telling him about these headaches he’d been having and, while he was saying this, a headache started to take root in his head. Dr. Carroll placed a thin hand on Brendan’s shoulder; it was the hand of someone who didn’t go out much, just stayed in a basement away from the sun. Like a vampire.

“I can give you something for the pain,” he said in that nasally voice. “Would you like that?”

Tyler stood in the doorway playing The Concerned Brother. He offered a slight nod of encouragement.

“My stomach is sick, too.”

The doc bent down, more eye level with Brendan. The black in his beard might have been pieces of dirt. Brendan imagined the doctor on all fours crawling around in a garden somewhere eating weeds. The image was not funny; it left Brendan cold and actually sort of ill.

“I have to … have to go,” Brendan said, rushing the last few words to really sell the urgency.

He ran to the bathroom and the doctor followed. Brendan lifted the toilet lid and seat and stood hunched over the bowl. Dr. Carroll gently shut the bathroom door and then stood before it, appreciating Brendan. Goosebumps sprouted along Brendan’s arms. He felt naked, trapped. He was only a few feet away from Tyler and Aunt Steph but here in the bathroom, Brendan might as well have been in a different house entirely. The good doc could do whatever he wanted.