His mother’s son.
James saw Ione coming around the side of the house and he wished for a moment, wished so hard that his fists clenched, that she was his mother. Even though it was physically impossible, James and Ione were close to the same age. And in the end, there was no wishing. There was no other mother for James than the one he had, the one who still flowed through his veins and was responsible for each beat of his heart.
James had to kill his mother. Even though she was already dead. He had to kill her from the inside out.
Ione walked in and set her bag of cleaning supplies on the table. Even when James bought them himself, stocked them in his own cupboards, she insisted on bringing her own. Hers, she said, were graced with her own special touch, her flavor, though she wouldn’t tell James what it was. He’d given up trying to convince her to stay home, to clean her own little knick-knack clock store. He gave up because she was stubborn and there seemed to be no getting rid of her. And though he would never tell her, never say it out loud, James gave up because he liked her company.
“Did you have breakfast?” she asked, the first thing she said every morning.
James nodded, then poured another cup of coffee.
“Something other than doughnuts?” she said, waving the bag.
James sat at the table. He knew there was no fighting the eggs and bacon that would be ready in a moment.
While he waited, he pretended to read the paper. Ione prattled away and James thought about his mother, how breakfast was always silent in her house. Most of the time, she wasn’t even awake while James got ready for school. He learned to eat things that made no noise, that involved the least amount of opening and closing of cupboards. No cereal, because that meant getting out the cereal, the bowl, opening a drawer for a spoon, taking the lid off the sugar bowl, opening the fridge for milk. He learned to open only one cupboard without a sound, taking out one thing, usually the packaged doughnuts his mother bought at the supermarket. He skipped milk or juice or even old Kool-Aid so that he wouldn’t have to open the fridge, slice the kitchen with the interior light. By the time James reached junior high, he’d learned to leave the house early, while it was still dark, and walk into town, rather than waiting for the school bus. He had breakfast at a diner there, or sometimes the bakery.
But that was only on days that James wasn’t tethered in the cellar. If he was there, he had to wait for her to release him. Those days, she usually forgot and he ended up not going to school at all.
Ione slid the plate under the newspaper. A mound of scrambled eggs, light, yellow, sprinkled just enough with salt so that James could see the shiny diamond flecks. Four strips of bacon. An English muffin, buttered and fully jellied. So much better than day-old doughnuts, than silent breakfasts, than sitting alone in a diner, the only kid among adults. James set the paper aside. “Thank you, Ione,” he said and he felt like a fool when his voice caught.
She looked at him. “You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?” she asked.
James shrugged and patted his ears. “Still a bit on the blink,” he lied.
She smacked his shoulder. “I saw Cooley on her way to school, James,” she said. “When were you going to tell me you can hear completely again?”
He grinned at her and she sighed, then hugged him. “See?” she said. “It’s all over. Everything’s back to normal. You’re okay.” She turned away, filling her bucket with her cleaning fluid.
James ate his breakfast and listened to her hum. He wondered if he was okay. He wondered exactly what normal was.
After breakfast, James left Ione scrubbing the floor and went upstairs to his room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he studied the two clocks on his bedside table. His mother’s anniversary clock, the dancers a golden blur in the morning light coming through the window. Diana’s miniature mantel, her soul newly risen and warm, the curve of wood so soft and distinctly feminine, the grain shot through with red and orange.
He thought of his mother sitting next to her clock, long before it ever took up residence in James’ room. Before he took it, she used to spend her mornings with the clock, sitting on her bed like James did now, watching the dancers spin left, then right, then left again, their feet pushing time steadily forward. She hummed as she watched, a song James never could name, but it was the clock’s own song, its signature chime, and he could hear it still, the endless one-two-three of a waltz. When the time came that she stopped humming and spent most of her time going from one sunny spot in the house to the next, James took the clock, placed it on his desk, and admired it as it deserved whenever he was allowed in his room.
The longest time she ever forgot James down in the cellar was when he was ten years old and he had no idea how many days went by. There was no way to tell the passing of time, no windows to show the sun going up, becoming a flat golden quarter on the roof of the sky, then curling back down into the earth again. There were only the cellar doors with just a little bit of light shining through the crack between them. The collar on James’ neck grew loose and he pulled as far as he could to the end of the tether to get to a corner to relieve himself, something he knew he’d be punished for later and so he cried. After a while, he didn’t go to the corner. He didn’t have to. There was no food and once his water bowl was empty, there was nothing to drink. His tongue grew heavy and thick and his arms and legs were stiff. James began to hear things, voices, his father. He thought he saw his father, the shadow tall and wide against the cellar doors, but when James ran toward him, the tether caught and he fell to the floor. James heard his teacher, calling his name. He thought he heard his mother, laughing.
James wasn’t sure what made him finally remove the collar. He remembered the feel of it under his fingers, the cold metal of the buckle, the thickness of the leather as he tried to push the flap through, poke out the stem, and the cool breeze when the collar finally fell away. He made his way to the steps and he pushed the doors open. They weren’t bolted. She must have forgotten. Just like she forgot James.
It was early morning and as he blinked in the rosy light, James wondered if he’d maybe only been down there one night. If he’d been sick, had a fever, something that made the night seem to stretch on for days. His eyes hurt and he could barely move his tongue. He stumbled into the house and stuck his face under the kitchen faucet. Water spilled over his cheeks and chin as he tried to take it all in. He choked as much as he swallowed. Then he went looking for his mother.
She was sitting in her room, looking at her clock. She saw James and she frowned, as if she didn’t recognize him right away. Then her eyes narrowed. “Where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve been looking for you.”
James’ voice seemed stuck in his chest. He had to force a whisper. “In the cellar,” he said. “You forgot to come get me. What day is it?”
“You should always come when you’re called!” She stood up. “I’ve trained you that way. You know better! I called until my voice was hoarse!”
When she began to come toward him, James tried to run, but his body was still asleep, still hungry and thirsty. So he dropped to the floor. His stomach growled over the beating, which he barely felt. He just waited for it to be over. He heard her humming the clock’s song as she stepped over him and walked away. James knew she was in search of the sun. It wouldn’t be in the kitchen at that time of the morning, so he felt safe when he rolled himself back to his feet and went in search of food. He was too hungry to worry about the noise. He just ate. He glanced once into the living room. His mother was curled up on the rug like a cat. Her eyes were closed and in sleep, she was beautiful. Her hair was long and blonde and it fell over her shoulders and spread onto the floor. James thought of Rapunzel and he wondered if he could use her hair, climb it, get himself out of the root cellar. Though her eyes were closed, James knew they were the blue of swimming pools in the summertime. She was thin; her arms curled around her body and her elbows stuck out like chicken wings. For a moment, as he ate, James thought about running to her room, grabbing a blanket, tucking it around her. But that might wake her up and then all the beauty would fall away.
After eating all he could, James felt sick. He went to the bathroom and tried not to throw up, but he did anyway. He debated between flushing the toilet, taking a chance on waking her, or leaving the mess for her to find later. He flushed. She didn’t move. He went to his room and shut the door.
With the radio on low, James learned it was Saturday. He’d been in the root cellar since Sunday night. He missed an entire week of school.
James still remembered lying on that bed, crying with dry eyes. There were no tears, he must have still been dehydrated. He stayed in his room the rest of the weekend, slipping out for food and drink only when he knew his mother was asleep. On Monday, when he returned to school, his teacher said she was glad he was better, that she’d called his mother mid-week and learned he had the flu. She let James stay in at recess for three days to catch up on his work.
Sitting on his bed now, James felt his mother beside him. He could feel her weight on the mattress. She was a beautiful woman and he remembered the way his father looked at her. Like she could break. Like she could shatter into a million golden pieces that he could never put together. But James knew she wasn’t that fragile. Despite the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the body slim as a twig, her blows were heavy.
James had to kill her. He had to get her out of his life. She was within him, and he had to be purged.
The anniversary clock chimed then, ten o’clock. Then it began to sing and he heard the waltz, heard his mother’s voice as she hummed, her head dipping in rhythm. James waited until the song was over, then grabbed the anniversary clock and tucked it under his arm. “Ione!” he called as he ran down the stairs.
She poked her head out of the kitchen.
“I’m going to be gone for a while, probably the rest of the day. Can you watch this place until Cooley gets home?”
“Sure,” she said. “Where are you going?”
But James just waved as he hurried to his car, the anniversary clock cradled tightly to his chest.
H
is mother’s house was a couple hours away. He didn’t grab a box or newspaper before he left and so for the first few miles, he drove with one hand on the anniversary clock beside him on the passenger seat. He protected it from potholes, from lane changes and bumps, sudden stops and accelerations. But as he drove and the scenery turned into a blur of Iowa’s golden cornfields and flowing green oceans of grass, his mind fogged and James began to see impossible photographs. His life, in black and white, never recorded, never preserved on film, but still there, stuck in the folds of his brain, suddenly unfolded and flashed before him like an old-fashioned slide show. Someone showing their vacation pictures. Or family memories.
A bedwetting incident, his mother shaking him, her face a bizarre twirl of cartoon fast motion as his head ricocheted on his neck. The feel of the wall as she threw him and he hit, and suddenly the room stopped spinning and she was there, tall, her mouth wide, words falling out like lit dynamite. His father rushing in then, cradling James, his mother flying out, never to return. Again. James and his father changing the sheets, his father dressing James in jeans and a t-shirt, telling him he had to stay dry, he had to stay clean, then Mommy would come back and James did and she did.
In the root cellar, James’ face pressed against the bars of the cage, his fingers no longer small enough to curl in between. He couldn’t stand, he could barely sit, the best thing to do was lay on his stomach. Watching her leave, climb the steps, then the slow lowering of the doors. The light growing dim, then dark, just the strip of light between the two doors where they didn’t quite meet, then the slide and thunk of the bolt. Closing his eyes. Completing the darkness.
The collar that changed over time. Soft leather of a puppy collar, a bright red, a little bell that rang whenever James moved. It was a sound and he liked it and so he shook his head, reached up with his hands, swatted the bell to light up the dark with the chime. Then it was too tight and she took it away, replacing it with a blue collar, decorated with white bones, no bell, no sound, thicker and stiffer, made his neck sweat. And finally in high school, a black collar with pointed studs like metallic teeth, a fighting dog collar, a pit bull, though James never fought. If he grabbed at the collar, tried to scratch, the studs caught and cut his fingers. James thought about taking it off, daring sometimes, but the fear of her coming down and catching him collarless was too great. The cage, unused, pushed in a corner, James was too big, so the addition of a tether, the steel spoke spiraled into the dirt of the root cellar floor, the chain heavy and easily twisted. It made a sound, there was a sound again, and James ran in circles in the dark, to hear it jingle.
The rolled-up newspaper, the brush, the belt. The belt a special kind, she said, bought especially for James, thin and metallic like a watchband, stretchy, its links pinching as they stung. Yet she bought it for him and when she wasn’t there, when she left him in the dark, he would feel for it, find it in its spot on the wall, and he would caress it, feel the coolness against his skin, not stinging, but just there and firm and real.
James’ father leaving, his face dim that early morning. His voice so soft, a whisper, a promise to come back, to save. Then gone in the fog.
James’ mother telling him of his father’s death. James’ hand drawing back and then connecting with her face, the elation of fist to cheek, the crunch of bone and the pain shooting up his arm, but in her face too. James saw the pain, watched it bloom in the O of her mouth, the deeper flush of her skin under the newly born bruise, the sound, a soft puppy-whimper from the back of her throat. The joy of the rage that sped through his body, that let James know that he could inflict pain too, that he could make her cry out, stumble back, fall down. The raw power as he stood over her, her angular body crumpled on the grass, her hair streaked with the blood from her nose, and tears that he knew she didn’t want to shed on her cheeks. Her pulling herself together enough to stretch out one thin arm, her finger pointed, and she threw the tears away and got her voice to bellow, “In the cellar!” one last time before James brought his foot down hard and fast on her wrist, heard the bone snap, heard the bellow fall away, simmer back to the whimper of a pup.