Like watching a movie. Isn’t that how I always explained Sean’s life to myself?
But the story is all wrong. It’s not the “movie” I remember watching. This is a remake by another storyteller. Someone with his own truth. His own message to share.
Who?
DAMNED IF YOU DO
SEAN: 1983
Sean’s mother was having a difficult time reading the book. The words were barely there, slipping out half pronounced from her mouth. She lost her place on the page, her voice drifting away from the sentence. “Mom?” Sean gently nudged her with his elbow.
She blinked back to the bedroom, to the book between them. “Sorry…Where was I?”
But the story already lost its meaning. The words were just sounds. Before the trial, Mom didn’t need to read from a book to tell a great story. The words were simply in her. She was a living tome. She would make up tales of dinosaurs battling knights and winged bats the size of station wagons saving unicorns and princesses with green skin and fairy wings. Just as she reached a cliff-hanger, she would slyly kiss him on the forehead and wish him goodnight.
“Don’t stop there,” Sean would plead. “Just a little more, please?”
“You know the rules,” she’d say. “You’ll just have to tune in tomorrow…”
Sure enough, Mom could pick up the thread right where she’d left off the night before, spinning the tale in a completely new direction.
Sean loved his mother’s stories. Her capacity to create something out of nothing. Her imagination was always full of colors and textures and vivid sensations that seemed to manifest themselves right from the tip of her tongue. He wanted to live in his mother’s world of words. The bare walls of his bedroom would recede, taking on the contours of whatever tale she told. They had yet to decorate their new home, but with Mom’s stories, his room became a jungle or castle or spaceship blasting through the stratosphere. Sean could become anyone. His mother had granted him a potent form of magic, of casting spells with just the flick of his tongue. They were wizards and sorcerers, just like in Dungeons & Dragons, the game the older kids at school played. He wasn’t allowed to play that game because a local boy had jumped off a bridge. But Sean didn’t know that. He just knew that there was something evil about the game.
Sean didn’t need D&D. He had her. But Mom’s stories felt rotten lately. Her worlds shriveled, the words withering on her tongue, like berries dying on the vine. Had Mom lost her magic? Was she sick? That frightened Sean the most. Something was inside his mother, making her ill. Had his words somehow caused it? Had Sean made her ill?
For a moment, things had been better. The two of them were a team again. Sean’s story had given them a new game to play. Mom joined in on the fun. They fit in. They were embraced by the families of Greenfield. People comforted her. Complete strangers. We’re so sorry for what happened, they said. Finally, finally, people were nice to her. People were kind again.
This was her chance to breathe. Isn’t that what she wanted? To belong to the crowd rather than be its target? What was a little white lie if it meant being a part of this community?
Eventually, Mom gave up on conjuring her own stories. She brought a book to bed now, reading aloud to him instead. Prefabricated fairy tales. Stories everybody knew. They were never as thrilling as her tales. Now Mom’s mind seemed to wander when she read to him, never locking onto the words. Her attention drifted. Tonight, she just stopped reading altogether. She’d been in the middle of a sentence and then—nothing. It was as if her batteries ran out. Her mouth hung open slightly, her eyes locked onto some empty spot beyond the page. Out the bedroom window.
“Mommy?”
She closed the book, pressing it against her lap. “You know you can tell me anything? Whatever’s on your mind or—or something you’re feeling. No hiding from me, okay?”
“No hiding,” he echoed.
This was Sean’s chance. She had opened the door for him to tell her everything. The Truth. Take back the mean things he’d said about Mr. Woodhouse. He knew he had to do this, before it was too late. His stomach churned. The truth hurts, he remembered someone—an adult—saying. They were right. The truth was lodged in Sean’s throat, choking him.
“It’s okay, Sean,” Mom started. “Whatever it is, you can—”
The window exploded. Shards of glass scattered across his bed. Mom rolled onto Sean to form a protective shield with her arms. His screams echoed through the tangle of her limbs.
“Stay in bed,” she whispered fiercely to him. Mom’s feet hit the floor.
After a few moments, Sean looked up and noticed her holding something.
A brick. Someone had thrown it through the window. He noticed the glass still intact in the window frame, a mouth full of jagged teeth breathing a cold wind into the room.
“Mommy…”
She stepped closer to the window, glass crunching under her feet. Her bare feet.
“Mom…”
She peered outside. A force field had been disrupted. The protective barrier that kept the outside world from seeping into their home was gone. Anything could crawl in now. Anyone.
What horrors she must’ve seen in the dark. Sean could only imagine.
DAMNED IF YOU DON’T
RICHARD: 2013
Parent-teacher conferences are upon us. Moms and dads never demand a progress report from their art teacher, but Condrey insists we’re all in this together. I open up my classroom for what she calls walk-ins, just in case any parent wants to pop their head in and say howdy.
“All ready?” Condrey asks behind me, peering through the classroom door.
I try not to show how startled I am and smile back. “The doctor is in.”
This is enough of an invitation
