To become someone else. To sacrifice Sean and become Richard.
Therapists helped me rebuild my life, piecing it together like I was Humpty Dumpty. All the boy’s foster parents and all the boy’s therapists couldn’t put Sean back together again…
I’ve put Sean behind me. I consider his life a bad movie I watched years ago. Not something I remember, per se, but something I witnessed. When I think of my childhood, it begins with Tim and Nancy. This is my life. This is who I am.
Sean is dead.
I have to keep repeating it to myself. So…why is he back from the grave? What does he want from me now?
I’ve never lied to Tamara. She knows everything there is to know about Richard. But she doesn’t know about Sean.
“Tamara?” I say her name out loud just to see if she’s awake. Her body blends in with the dark. I can barely make out the contours of her body. Her arm rests on my stomach.
Still no sleep. I glance at the clock next to the bed. Three in the morning and I’m nowhere near drifting. There’s a dull throb in my joints. My bones ache if I stay in one position for too long. I keep turning in bed. The sheets itch against my skin. The temperature’s never quite right in our bedroom. The air is always stuffy. I notice a spot on the wall just above our bed. A shadow of mildew no larger than a quarter. Could be water damage from the roof. I’ve been staring at it for the last hour. It never blinks back. A master of the staring contest.
I count Tamara’s tattoos like I’m counting sheep.
There’s the thistle on her thigh.
A compass on her hip.
A star on her shoulder.
I remember the first time I saw Tamara undress. I gaped—gawped?—at the ink flowing across her body, just above the hemline of her summer dresses. I thought I knew everything about her—then, lo and behold, there was more. A secret self.
What’s this? I asked, pointing to the thistle on her thigh.
That’s milk thistle.
And why do you have a milk thistle tattooed on your leg?
It’s a secret.
Oh, come on…You’re really not going to tell me? That doesn’t seem very fair.
It’s supposed to break hexes. She leaned in to whisper, and makes you a better lover.
Once I made the mistake of murdering some metaphors in bed. Your body is a picture book that I want to flip through.
Did you just compare my body to a book? Tamara asked, sounding unimpressed. Let’s keep the de-personification out of our pillow talk, okay?
Why didn’t I tell her about Sean? There have been so many opportunities over the course of our relationship. There was our third date. You know the milestone: the confessional. This is the date where you begin to see—or don’t—the potential for something more. Something substantial. Time to air out all the dirty laundry. It’s a risk, definitely make-or-break, but you have to get everything off your chest before you can go any further. You have to confess.
That’s when Tamara first told me about Elijah. Everything I assumed about her was suddenly recontextualized. I saw her in a totally new light. She hadn’t even blinked, unafraid to reveal herself. She drew a line in the sand and waited for me to cross it. Daring me to.
I should have told her about Sean. That was my chance. So, uh…I also have a kid in my life that you don’t know about.
I could’ve told her on the fourth date.
The fifth.
Why didn’t I tell her leading up to our wedding? That final, prewedding confessional.
Speak now or forever hold your peace…
During the service, with all our friends and family—Tamara’s family—surrounding us, as our officiant (not Mr. Stitch after all) asked if there was anyone who could show just cause why we couldn’t lawfully be joined together, I swore I saw Mr. Woodhouse among our guests. I had to force myself to see that it wasn’t actually him. That he wasn’t really there.
Woodhouse is dead, I said to myself between vows. He hung himself because of what Sean said.
Now I’m too afraid to tell her. Afraid of what Tamara will think. Afraid that she’ll leave.
“Sean.”
I lift my head. Someone said my—
No, not my name.
His name.
The room is dark. Too dark to see clearly. Shadows within shadows within shadows—There. On the other side of the dresser. Someone crouched in the corner.
Their eyes. Even in the dark, I can see they’re staring right at me.
The gray boy.
He stands and slowly approaches our bed, his body swallowed in shadows. He himself is a shadow. The gray boy moves, suddenly standing over me. His hand reaches for my shoulder.
Take. Eat.
I can feel his cold fingers on my shoulder, feel the chill seep into my skin. I can hear the rasp from his throat as he leans in closer to whisper. This is my body.
I bring my arm up and in a single sweeping arc I swat the gray boy away. His body is so light, his limbs nothing but dry kindling. He makes the softest thud against the floor.
Crying.
The gray boy is crying. His voice lifts, wailing. The sound of it fills the room and wakes Tamara. As soon as she pulls herself out of her sleep, she turns on the nightstand lamp.
Light erupts throughout our bedroom. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust to
