The Boyfriend
by Annastaysia Savage
“Mom, thanks again for letting me move back in with you, I promise it won’t be a burden. It’s only until I get a job and get my feet on the ground. Then I’m outta here,” Nadia said to me as she held her hand up like she was taking an oath. Her smile beaming, she turned to go up to her room.
Even though she's my daughter and I’m biased, she is one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. At twenty-three, she has her whole life ahead of her and I admire that. I watched her as she jogged up the stairs, her ponytail swishing back and forth, and secretly hoped she would stay forever.
With the noises I’d heard the night before still fresh in my mind, I didn’t want to be alone in that big old house anymore. Nadia stopped in the middle of the staircase and turned to look at me, a questioning expression on her face. Fear washed over me in a prickly shower. Oh God, had she heard them too? What would I say to her?
The scraping noises coming from the attic had moved to the forefront of my hearing. These strange sounds had almost become normal background noise.
“Honey, did you hear that?” I asked quickly, almost too abruptly, and I knew my eyes were wide as saucers.
With her expression turning even more enigmatic, Nadia answered, “No, I didn’t hear anything, Mom. I was just going to say that J.P. is coming over for a while, after he gets off work. We’re just gonna watch a movie and order some pizza, his treat, you can join us if you like…or…I could tell him some other time if you don’t feel like having anyone over. It’s your house.” She shrugged and looked down as if in defeat.
Sighing long and bittersweet, I answered her. “Sure sweetie, that sounds good. I could use the company, and just because you live with Mom again doesn’t mean you can’t have a life.” I guessed I’d have to get used to her not being a child anymore.
“Thanks Mom, I love you.” She turned and ran the rest of the way up the stairs to her room. As she disappeared around the corner, I got a glimpse of a dark shape going the opposite direction. Must be her shadow, I told myself, but I knew that wasn’t it. With unsteady legs I sat down on the overstuffed ottoman to try and rationalize what was happening to me.
Was I going crazy? I know I heard those noises, I’d been hearing them all week. Now I was seeing things? Obviously Nadia didn’t hear or see anything, but what did that mean? It was more than just that old house settling.
I wouldn’t have thought so before, but after the night before I knew something was going on. Looking at my arm I saw that the scratches were still there, fresh, red, and swollen. Shivering, I tried to clear the bad feeling creeping into my mind. I thought maybe with Nadia there, things would be different, things would settle down. A low, slow scratching began to come from the dining room, shattering my moment’s peace and silence from the clamor my house had become. Every hair on my body rose to attention as I went to investigate.
As I walked down the hallway, I tried to convince myself it was just the cat playing around in the paint trays left from that day’s revamping. Knowing the past week’s events, I had a sinking feeling it was more than that. I approached the room with trepidation; my stomach began to feel nauseous and a shiver ran down my rigid spine. Cold sweat broke out all over my body, drenching my clothes as I held the wall to steady myself. A smell of putrid decaying flesh permeated the area, knocking me to the floor. I felt a heavy hand, a man’s hand, on my shoulder. My body paralyzed with fear, this hand slowly slid down my arm and came to rest on my thigh. My skirt began to slide up my leg, exposing more flesh, and I could see finger rakes appearing where the unseen hand had just been. The scratching became louder, and then the pocket doors slid shut with such force it made my heart feel like it was going to explode out of my heaving chest.
“Mom, are you okay? What happened?” asked Nadia as she ran down the hallway to my side. I hadn’t even heard her coming.
“Yes, I, uh…” I looked around. The smell was gone, the scratching had stopped, and everything seemed, well, normal. “Yes, I’m okay, I’m just so tired.” I tried to sound convincing but I wasn’t sure that Nadia believed me. From the look on her face, she seemed not only worried but also seriously afraid. I smoothed my skirt down and straightened my sweaty hair. I looked into my daughter’s eyes and saw fear.
“What is it, Nadia?”
“I’m just worried about you. I thought I heard you scream and then you slammed those old doors so loudly it made me jump. I thought something happened. You’ve been working so hard on fixing up the house that you haven’t really been taking care of yourself. I mean, for Pete’s sake, you tore down an entire wall by yourself. Not to mention, I know you, you probably haven’t slept in days.”
“Seriously, it’s okay, I’m okay. I’m just so tired from all this remodeling, and I couldn’t sleep last night so I kept working. You’re right though, I’ve been pushing myself too hard, but without your father around…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I was still so angry with Jake for leaving. And he had the nerve to leave before we’d finished the restorations. Now, if there were any chance of me selling that money pit, I had to go it alone. Nadia looked at me with pity in her eyes. She was just as angry with her father, but I think she understood the divorce had been long coming.
“Why don’t you go watch TV and wait for, what’s his name, J.P.? I’m going to wash the dishes from last night and then go to bed. Tell J.P. that I said thanks for the offer but I’ll have to take a rain check. I really am tired.” I smiled the best I could muster and patted her hand.
Nadia helped me up, gave me a hug and looked at me with curious eyes. I hugged her again and assured her I was okay. She went to the living room while I, somewhat shakily, made my way to the kitchen. I stood at the sink, lost in my thoughts and wondering if I should call a shrink. Screw the shrink, I thought, I should call a priest. I know what I heard. And that smell. I’ve never smelled anything so awful. It smelled worse than the time our dog Briar had dug up Nadia’s dead cat about two weeks after it died.
I looked once again at the scratches on my arm and then felt an odd burning sensation on my stomach. Lifting up my shirt to find the source, I was instantly sick. As the contents of my stomach emptied into the sink, my head swam with possibilities. Was I somehow doing this to myself? I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked again. Four bloody scratches traveled across my stomach and then up diagonally, disappearing under my bra. They burned like a cat scratch, and cold fear raced through my veins as I tried to imagine who, or more aptly what had made them. I told myself it must have happened when I slid down the wall, that I must have scratched myself on the exposed brick. But I knew I was lying to appease my troubled mind. I’d felt that hand caressing me, touching me like my husband used to. I know what I saw, I know what I heard, and I know what I smelled. A sudden realization came to me that I didn’t want to face. I’d had a dream the night before; I dreamt of my husband again, and we were in love like when we were young. He made love to me with such rough passion I had awoken with a start. Had it been just a dream? Is that how the scratches on my arm got there?
I decided to lose myself in the previous night’s dinner mess while trying to think of my options. While rinsing and filling the sink with hot soapy water I began some serious reasoning. A, I was experiencing something paranormal, something otherworldly and it was not a nice entity. B, I was imagining things. (I quickly checked the scratches, nope, still there; I wasn’t imagining everything.) Or C, I was just plain losing my mind. Option C was the most logical thought. If it were option A, option C would soon follow anyway, so I could skip the middleman.
As Nadia sat on the couch waiting for J.P., I watched her through the archway and across two rooms from my vantage point washing dishes. Opening up the floor plan really made the place feel better, at first. Nadia thought so, too. It was good to have her back. A nice distraction from my current emotional train wreck. We could spend time together. We had a chance to become the kind of friends that mothers and daughters sometimes do. We’d go shopping and have lunch. I smiled to myself and went to get some S.O.S. pads from the pantry.
The pads weren’t where I put them. I always put them on the third shelf with the rest of the cleaning supplies. As I rummaged around, I felt that familiar panic of possible dementia. Suddenly, there they were, practically right in front of my eyes. Pulling them from behind the extra large box of laundry soap, I shook my head, rubbed my tired eyes and took them back to the sink with me.
Out of the corner of my eye, once again, I saw a dark shape or form cross into the dining room. Not wanting another episode, I let this event go. It was probably the cat, plus, I didn’t think my heart could handle another run in with whatever was disturbing the peace.
Scrubbing lasagna from its dish, I looked up to see Nadia sitting on the couch with a very cute young man. I smiled. J.P. must have arrived while I was in the pantry. He looked just her type. Tall and lanky, he was a good-looking kid with shoulder length dark hair, almost black. He was dressed in a black suit (probably his work clothes) and didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off Nadia. I smiled to myself remembering young love and the rush of feelings it brought. I looked up again from the soapy water and this time his arm was draped around her. He still was looking at her though Nadia seemed much more interested in the television show. That’s just like her, I thought, playing hard to get.
I smiled to myself, glad for the distraction, rinsed the spatula and put it in the drainer. Still holding on to the brief moment of happiness that watching my daughter and her boyfriend brought, I glanced up again to witness once more the happy scene. J.P. was closer now and I saw him kiss her cheek. I wondered how long she had been with him. I didn’t think it could be very long, she’d only told me of him tonight.
A small amount of sadness crept over me realizing that she wasn’t my baby girl anymore. She didn’t have to report to me. And for all I know, she could have told me, but I’d been so wrapped up in the remodeling and strange events that I just didn’t hear her. I stopped what I was doing at the realization that for the first time in what seemed like ages, the house was quiet. All I could hear was the distant sound of the television. I looked up at Nadia and J.P. again. His tongue was in her ear and his hand was sliding up and inside her blouse. My first reaction was not my little girl! I gripped the sink’s edge and reminded myself that she was a grown woman and that I had to handle this with diplomacy, especially if I wanted our relationship to grow.
There was a loud rapping at the door. I jumped, dropped my dishtowel and had to stifle a scream. My god, one loud knock from the pizza delivery guy and I was ready to jump out of my skin. I decided I’d take a vacation after the remodeling was done.
“I got it mom!” Nadia yelled and I heard her padding across the floor to the front door. I sighed with relief that this noise was real.
Trying to calm myself, I smoothed my hair and adjusted my flustered self for the millionth time that day. I heard Nadia coming towards the kitchen and tried to get a hold on my breathing. I picked up a glass and pretended to be busy at work, concentrating on invisible stains instead of invisible hands.
“Mom, the is J.P..”
Putting on my widest smile, trying not to think of this boy groping my daughter’s chest, I rinsed the glass, began to dry it, and turned around. I had changed my mind. It would be good to have some pizza, spend time with my daughter, and just forget all the crap that had been going on. Even if things weren’t ordinary, I could go through with the actions of normalcy and hope that life would follow suit.
“Hello, I’ve been…” and the glass fell from my hand and shattered into a million pieces, just like my sanity, as I completed my turn.
“Jesus, Mom, what’s wrong with you today?” asked Nadia as she stooped to clean up the mess.
“I’m sorry, it, it just slipped,” I stammered while staring at the boy. I must have looked like the insane person that I felt like because the poor kid cleared his throat and backed up a little.
“Hi, Mrs. Thompson, I didn’t mean to startle you. Didn’t Nadia tell you I was coming over?” said the five-foot-nine blonde-haired boy wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
The last thing I remember is being put into the ambulance as they injected me with something that made me feel all warm and fuzzy. The neighbors had started to gather on the sidewalk around my house, like they do when there are police cars, ambulances, and rescue workers in the vicinity. I tried to get one of them to listen to me but I couldn’t speak. I knew I had to tell Nadia something…but couldn’t think what. I felt afraid for her to stay alone in the house, but couldn’t remember why. My world faded to black, all I could hear was muffled voices in the darkness.
“This be the second time someone done gone crazy in that house…”
“Nay man, more like the seventh…”
“Remember that lady that clawed her own eyes out…”
It all started with that family who ran a funeral parlor outta here…”
“Yeah, didn’t that kid of theirs rape and cut up all four of his sisters?”
“That’s what they say, before he disemboweled himself and bled to death…”
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