Free Fiction: “Abide With Me”

It was Charles’s across-the-street neighbors who told him what happened to his parents.

In lieu of updates this month, I’d like to dip my toe in the self-publishing waters and share with you one of my favorite stories, “Abide With Me.” This crime story (my first ever) follows Charles after his across-the-street neighbors tell him his parents have died, and assure him they will take care of him until his grandparents arrive. Only they aren’t quite who they say they are. It is inspired by my love for roadtrips, those stranger-danger drills my parents made me do as a kid, and wanting to do some fiction that wasn’t speculative.

If you enjoy, please share!

Abide With Me

It was Charles’s across-the-street neighbors who told him what happened to his parents.

The school bus dropped him off three blocks from home at 3:28 PM. As soon as its doors hissed open, he leapt onto the pavement and ran.

Except for a few parked cars in driveways or on curbs, the street was empty. Old brick homes, snoozing in the hot afternoon, blinked lazy sunlight at him from their windows as he bolted past. Arthur started in two minutes, so Charles sprinted as fast as his backpack would allow. Just his normal speed, his mom always said, his default.

He only made it one block.

He rounded a corner and Tom and Linda were there; standing on the sidewalk, holding hands and smiling. Not moving.

Charles’s dash faded to a creep. A lawn without a fence to Tom and Linda's left offered a decent detour. And to their right, a strip of grass no one seemed to mow. Even better. Dandelions with heads as yellow and unruly as his own covered both, the only obstacle their spiky leaves.

But he took neither option. Something about Tom and Linda's grins kept his Nikes hugging the concrete. The way Tom’s lips pulled back into a pink line, maybe, or how Linda’s eyebrows rose too high on her forehead, leaving hills between her eyebrows and hair.

They weren’t real smiles.

“Honey, darling. Oh, sweetie,” said Linda. She squatted and motioned for him to bridge the half-block gap between them and come hug her.

Charles didn’t move. In the year since Linda and Tom moved in across the street, they’d come over a lot, Linda mostly to drink wine and laugh with Mom after Charles was supposed to be in bed. Sometimes their laughter would get really loud. Now and then Linda would follow Mom upstairs when she came to check on him, give him a glass of water, or put the multiplication tables homework he’d purposely forgot on the kitchen table in his bag. Linda would lean against the doorjamb, her long blonde hair glowing in the dark, and stare. Charles thought she was pretty, in the lady-in-the-shampoo-commercials kind of way. In the dark he could only see her eyes -- big and blue and lingering.

“You need to come with us, sweetheart,” Linda said. “I’m so sorry.”

Charles said nothing. Tom stepped forward.

He liked Tom a bit more than Linda. Tom came over most Sundays to watch the game with Dad in the basement. He looked like the football men running around the grass on TV – big shoulders, wide neck, lopsided grin. Only difference was his thin mustache he was always smoothing down. The fuzzy lip warmer, Dad called it when Tom wasn’t around.

Tom and Dad yelled things when they were together like, ‘C’mon, ref!’ and ‘That was way outta bounds!’ Dad would let Charles sit on the floor at their feet holding the bowl of pretzels. Charles would nibble and try to follow what was going on, but he never stayed long because the TV would show the same throw over and over and he’d get bored. But he didn’t mind Tom. Tom didn’t stare at him like Linda did.

“It’s your parents, champ,” Tom said. “Something happened. Do you know what an ‘accident’ is?” He said ‘accident’ real slow as if it were hard to say.

Charles nodded. He had accidents all the time.

“It’s when you do something you don’t mean.”

“Oh, yes, honey, that’s right. But, oh, darling, do you know what ‘passed away’ is?” Linda scooted closer; arms still wide.

He didn’t so they had to explain.

Charles didn’t start crying until they got him buckled up into the backseat of their car. Linda sat with him, holding him while Tom drove.

# # #

It took a while for his chest to stop heaving. When it finally did he had a headache and boogers caked his upper lip. He turned toward the window so Linda wouldn’t see him wipe the snot away with the back of his hand.

Trees whizzed by. The car lurched as it took the long, looping ramp to the highway. Then billboards replaced green. Why’d they come this way? Tom and Linda lived just across the street and they shouldn’t have much trouble figuring out how to get to his house.

“I wanna go home,” Charles said.

Tom shifted in his seat, the leather seats squeaking under his butt.

“Well, champ, it’s probably best if you don’t right now. Your mom and dad aren’t there anymore.”

Charles started to point out that his bed was at his house. So were his clothes. What was he supposed to do if he couldn’t sleep or change? But he stopped himself. He wasn’t sure what to do in a house without grownups. He’d seen Home Alone and it looked hard.

And lonely.

A big-rig truck rumbled by in the next lane. A few seconds later diesel fumes filled the car. It looked like one of his toy trucks, the ones Grandma gave him when he turned six.

“I wanna go to Grandma’s,” he said. Grandma and Grandpa lived in Toledo. It seemed a long way from Virginia, but maybe Tom would know the way.

“Honey,” Linda said. “We called your grandparents, and they’re coming. So you’ll see them soon, okay?” Linda grinned again. Her teeth sat in an even row, all white and glimmering. Not like Mom's. She had a crooked front tooth that she tried to hide by not parting her lips when she smiled, unless she was really laughing. Then she didn’t care who saw.

A sob began to bubble up in Charles’s throat so he clamped down hard on his tongue. If he cried twice in an hour Tom might call him a crybaby.

“But for now, you’ll stay with us.” Linda’s voice went all soft and slow, like Mom’s did when she was reading a story. “A long time ago your parents told us that if anything ever happens to them, they wanted us to take care of you. So we are.”

 “So I’m staying at your house?”

This still didn’t answer why they were driving the wrong way.

“Sort of,” Tom said.

Linda squeezed Charles’s knee. “We thought that since we live so close to you, it might not be fun to look out the window and see your house all the time. We don’t want to make it sad for you. So, we’re going to a hotel.” Linda squealed and hugged him again. “There’ll be a pool, we’ll go get some ice cream, watch a movie maybe. I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Charles shrugged and went back to looking out the window. If he squinted real hard, Linda’s reflection started to look like Mom.

# # # 

The hotel had two big beds with sheets so white they hurt his eyes. Everything smelled of soap and the carpet was flat and hard. But Tom and Linda let him watch the movie channels and eat chips from the vending machine until he drifted off.

“Don’t worry about school,” Linda told him. “Just keep your mind off things, okay? Here, have a Sprite.”

On the second day in the hotel, Charles asked when his grandparents would pick him up.

Linda said, “They’re on their way, promise, it’s just hard for them. They’re really sad.” When he asked again on the third day, Linda said they should go swimming.

Linda and Tom had bought him a new pair of swimming trunks – blue, with sharks on it – at a gas station. They’d been to the pool at least once every day, but he didn’t mind so much. The water was warm and he was getting real good at holding his breath. He was also bored with reruns of Pee Wee’s Playhouse and the old Western’s where the voices didn’t match the actor’s mouths, so he said okay.

They changed and went outside. Linda helped him count how long he could stay underwater and threw quarters to the deep end for him to dive for. Every time he came up with one, Linda cheered.

After coming up with his fifth quarter, Linda spun him around, her wet blonde hair flying out in ropes.

“She didn’t take you swimming like this, I bet. Right? This is way more fun than being home!”

Charles bit his lower lip to stop the tears suddenly pressing against his eyes. Linda’s smile fluttered, then she splashed him and tickled him and hugged him. Charles wiggled away.

“I gotta pee,” he said. His bladder was empty, but the bathroom was the one place she wouldn’t follow; the one place he could bury his head in a towel and cry without them knowing or hearing or trying to make him forget.

“Oh. Okay.” Linda sat down on the steps, hugging herself as she watched him leave. Maybe she was cold.

Or maybe she didn’t like being alone, either.

Charles ran back to the room, not even caring that the sharks on his swim trunks were deformed as the fabric clung to his legs, a hammerhead looking like a crusty gray worm. When he got to the room, the door was open. Tom stood over a bed holding a black jacket, matching pants, and a white shirt.

“Hey, champ.” Tom showed him the clothes. There were two sets — one big for Tom and one small for Charles. Tom called them suits.

“Got this from your house,” Tom said.

Charles didn’t remember ever seeing it before. His dad had things like that, mostly in blue. But Mom had some of Charles’s clothes that she only brought out for special occasions; Easter and the start of school, so maybe this had been with those. Somewhere in the attic or under a bed.

“C’mon,” Tom said. “Put these on and I’ll help with the tie.”

“Why?”

“Ties look nice.”

“No, why do I need to wear a suit?”

“We’re going somewhere special. Do you know what a ‘funeral’ is?”

Charles grabbed the clothes and headed to the bathroom to change.

“Yeah, I know.”

# # #

They skipped the church.

He'd only been to one funeral before; Grandpa Louis’s, Dad’s dad, back when Charles was five. At a church in Maine, Charles had sat on the hard pews while a pastor talked. Then Dad spoke, then Uncle Greg. Grandpa Louis, eyes closed and skin waxy, lay in a big box Mom called a ‘gasket.’ Or basket? Something like that. After all the talking, they’d shut the gasket, carried it to a car, then driven to a cemetery. From there they walked to a hole in the ground. More people talked, they lowered the gasket down, then they went to a restaurant. Uncle Greg cried a lot while his cousins threw chicken tenders at each other.

But Tom didn’t drive to a church. They’d parked inside a cemetery. Charles worried that he’d missed something important. He didn’t care about the talking so much; he wanted to see his cousins and aunts and uncles. More than that, Grandma and Grandpa – Mom's mom and dad.

Charles struggled not to run ahead. Grandma was around here, somewhere. She didn’t visit much, except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. After every time she left, Mom would rub her head and mutter to herself, then be quiet for a long time. But he liked Grandma. She always sent him birthday cards with ten one-dollar bills folded together so they looked like a little shirt with a bow tie.

Grandpa would be standing next to her, smelling like flannel and cinnamon gum. He didn’t talk much, but that would be okay. Charles’s didn’t feel like talking much, anyway.

He looked down the path but all he found was grass, trees, and low, flat stones everywhere. Flowers decorated some. He wondered why there were no people out. It seemed like a nice place to play, if you were careful not to trip on the stones.

“Where is everyone,” Charles asked. He reached up to itch where the shirt’s collar scratched his neck.

“Almost there, sweetheart,” Linda said. “Look.”

She pointed as a crowd of people emerged behind a fat pine tree. A dozen maybe, all seated except for a pastor holding a book. He stood beside a raised box covered with a green cloth. A silver vase with a lid rested on top of it, gleaming. The pastor was talking but was too far away for Charles to make out the words. Before they got close enough to hear, Tom and Linda stopped.

“Hold on, honey,” she said. “He’s reading the Bible. It’s rude to interrupt.”

Charles strained forward but she snatched his hand and held it. He looked to the crowd, waiting for one of them to notice and come over.

Then his stomach summersaulted.

Grandma and Grandpa weren’t there. Neither were any aunts or uncles or cousins.

All the people were old. White hair, if they even had hair. Wrinkled cheeks and distant, blank eyes. No one he recognized.  

“Where’s Grandma and Grandpa?” Charles couldn’t keep a tremble out of his voice.

Linda leaned down and smiled that not-happy smile again. “Oh, sweetie, they called us just this morning. This has been really, really hard on them. They didn’t think they could come. They’re so sorry. But we’ll see them soon, okay?”

The pastor closed the bible. The old people shuffled to their feet, most of them leaning on canes or walkers with bright green tennis balls on the legs. Then they started singing in voices high-pitched and warbled and slow. Charles caught some of the words but didn’t recognize the song.

“Abide with me; ’tis eventide,

And lone will be the night”

As they sang, the pastor picked up the vase. He knelt and lowered it into a hole in the ground. The silver gleamed, then was gone. In the distance a lawn mower coughed to life.

Charles tugged Linda’s hand.

“Where’s the gasket?”

“The — oh, sweetie.” Linda laughed. “Casket. And that’s an urn. It has your mom and dad’s ashes.”

 Earn? Earn what? And who were these old people? Charles opened his mouth to ask, then decided Linda would think he was stupid for not knowing so much about funerals and words.

So he kept silent, staring at the crowd, hoping one of the old people would turn out to be Grandma or Grandpa after all.

 The singing melted into coughs and wheezes and confused stares. The pastor stood as the crowd broke apart. Some people turned to one another, chatting. Others pushed their walkers to nearby cars. One was a van with Shady Oaks Nursing Home printed on the side.

“C’mon, sweetie,” Linda said. “Time to go.”

Charles looked back to the hole in the ground. They’d have to get closer to see the vase down there, and he leaned forward to nudge Linda in that direction. But the pastor stood in front of it, eyeing them.

No, not us, Charles thought. Me.

But then Linda was leading him back down the way they’d come.

“Are we going home now?” Charles asked.

Linda and Tom glanced at each other. Their eyes moved quickly, mouths twitching, like Mom and Dad’s did when they were trying to say something without talking. Tom reached down and took Charles’s other hand. He squeezed it and smiled.

“Not yet, bud.”

# # #

Charles was dreaming of Grandpa wearing a shirt made of one-dollar bills when Linda shook him awake.

"Honey? C’mon, get dressed,” she said.

Charles sat up in the hotel bed, rubbing his eyes. The curtains glowed blue then white, blue then white. Linda moved to the other bed, tossing shirts, pants, and Charles’s shark swim trunks into a suitcase.

“You need to pee? Go now if you have to.”

“Wha?”

Tom came over with Charles’s shoes and shoved the left one on his right foot and the right one on his left.

“It’s fine,” Tom said. His hair was spiky from sleep and he whispered when he spoke. “This hotel is yucky is all. We're going to a new one.”

“What are those lights?”

“Nothing. Now go get your toothbrush.”

Charles did. By the time he came back, limping because the wrong-way shoes squeezed his toes, Tom and Linda stood by the door with the suitcases. Linda grabbed Charles’s arm and Tom tugged him into the hallway. When they reached the elevators, Tom kept going.

“Stairs,” he whispered. 

Their footsteps echoed against concrete cinderblocks as they went down in square spirals. A green door opened to the parking lot. As Linda pulled Charles along, he looked to the front of the hotel. A police car flashed blue and white lights near the lobby.

“Why is a cop here?”

Tom and Linda said nothing, just kept pulling him to the car parked at the back of the lot. Linda strapped Charles in while Tom threw the suitcases in the trunk.

“This is fun, right?” Linda said as she buckled herself into the next seat. “A little adventure?”

Charles thought she didn’t look like she was having fun. More like sick, with her forehead covered in sweat and her fingers trembling when she squeezed his arm.

Tom took the back way out and kept the headlights off until someone honked at him.

Charles didn’t know how long they drove. Hours, probably. He'd drift asleep then be jolted awake when Tom would brake suddenly at a red light or hit a bump that made the car bounce. He woke again when the car engine rattled to a stop. A gray haze hung in the sky, making it bright enough to see the walls of another hotel, but this one had the rooms facing the open air instead of a hallway.

Tom got out and was back a minute later. He smiled at Charles, but his eyelids were puffy and purple.

“We got lucky. They’re going to give us a special room until everything opens up.”

They went up to the second floor and into the new room. Charles hesitated going in. It was yuckier than their last place. The wallpaper was ripped in a few places, dark splotches covered the carpet, and the bed hadn’t been made. The air reeked of cigarettes and skunks.

But Linda nudged him in. She helped him take off his shoes while Tom got the suitcases. She flopped on the bed then pulled Charles to her. Then she curled up to him, his back to her chest. He lay still a moment, enjoying the warmth of her breath on his neck. 

“Linda?”

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t you have any kids?”

Linda stiffened. A minute passed. Then two. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep and hadn't heard.

But when Charles rolled over, Linda was staring at him, tears dripping from her blue eyes.

“Hush, now,” she said. “Sleep.”

# # #

Daylight came, slicing yellow ribbons at the gaps in the curtains. They changed and went to a diner down the street. People filled every seat, clicking utensils on plates and sipping at white coffee mugs. Bacon grease hazed the air. Charles’s stomach grumbled. After a long wait, a hostess led them to a booth. Charles ran ahead of her to grab a seat.

Tom eased in next to him. His shoulders were so wide Charles had to lean forward so he wouldn’t be bumped. Linda sat opposite, flicking her hair behind her shoulders.

“I’ll have the farm omelet,” Linda told the waitress. “And a coffee in the largest cup you have. My son —” Linda reached over to ruffle his hair. “Go on, honey, tell her what you want.”

Charles blinked at Linda. Son? Maybe he hadn’t heard her right. Or maybe ‘my neighbor’s son, but they’re dead, so we’re taking care of him,' took too long to say, so she fibbed.

“C’mon, sweetie. Anything at all, go ahead.”

“Anything?”

“Sure.”

Charles turned the the waitress. “I want steak.”

The waitress’s pen hesitated over her pad. Linda blinked.

Tom laughed. “Steak? For breakfast?”

“She said anything.” Charles’s lips pulled into a grin he tried to keep down. Linda laughed. The waitress chuckled.

Tom put his elbow on the table and flexed. His bicep jerked and pressed against his T-shirt.

“Gotta get your protein so you can do this, right? Go on.”

Charles giggled and pushed a finger into Tom’s arm. The muscle didn’t budge. The waitress scribbled in a notepad while Linda clapped and laughed.

“Gotta grow up big and strong, just like your dad.”

Tom beamed. “Yeah, big muscles. Right, Chuck?”

Charles shrank back into the booth. Steak no longer sounded good. Neither did bacon or waffles or syrup or anything.  

Because only Dad called him Chuck. Not Mom, not Grandma or Grandpa, not even his best friends at school.

Dad.

When the steak came Charles didn’t eat.

# # #

Charles pretended his car window was a TV. He’d blink to click it on then watch cities shrink down to suburbs. Click. Suburbs thinned into small towns. Click. Fields with a few cows. They passed through forests, wound up mountains, and drove over deserts with dirt as red as cherry candy. Click. The whole thing again, but in reverse. 

Wherever they went, they arrived late and left just before the sun rose.  A hotel with green carpet was first. It had a pool that was empty except for a few inches of brown water. Then they stayed at one that had pink wallpaper and a TV sitting on a microwave. Neither would turn on. After that, one that was so close to the highway the floor vibrated when semi-trucks drove by. There were blue motels, white motels, brown motels, ones with names that ended in ‘Inn’ or ‘Sleep’ or just had numbers on the signs.

Sometimes they didn’t stop at motels at all. Once they slept in the car at a Walmart parking lot. Another night, after a tire blew and Tom couldn’t get the spare on, Linda walked Charles to a field where they curled up under an elm tree until morning, their skin covered in dew. 

After the sun came up, Tom flagged down a car and asked for a ride to an auto-body shop. Charles asked Linda, “Can’t we stay?”

There were fences in the distance, and a big gray barn; all not moving now they weren’t in the car. It was nice, to really see them before they bounced away.

“That’s no fun,” Linda said. “Too much to see.”

See what? They never stopped anywhere advertised on the big billboards. Zoos? Never. Waterparks? Too crowded. Even a ginormous gas station with a beaver mascot, advertised for miles, was a ‘nope.’ Too noisy, Linda said, as they drove on.

Maybe Linda just wanted to see the other cars. Whenever they stopped at red lights or were in slow traffic, Linda would turn to stare at the people around them, then whisper to Tom, “All good, not them.”

Tom came back with a tow truck who helped put on a new tire. Linda and Charles watched until the truck left and Tom waved them over.

Linda buckled Charles back into his seat. She sat alongside him and ran her fingers through his hair.

“I just love how blonde it is,” she said. She wrinkled her nose and giggled. “Just like mine when I was your age.”

Charles ducked his head away. He looked up at her and asked, “Are we going to Grandma’s today?”

“Soon, honey, soon,” she said. “They’re just not ready for you yet.” 

“Tomorrow?”

Linda leaned over the seat to turn on the car radio as Tom eased the car back onto the road.

# # #

That night — if it was a Monday or a Thursday or a Sunday, he had no idea which — he blinked to change the window-channel and a billboard appeared. Big white letters against green read, ‘WELCOME TO OHIO.’

He almost pointed to it. Almost asked if they were going to Toledo. But as he opened his mouth, he bit his lip hard. He’d ask and the answer would be ‘soon.’

He was done with soon.

They stopped at a brown and white motel, ate at another diner (he had a club sandwich), then went to bed. There was only one in this room so Charles and Linda took it while Tom curled on the couch. Charles lay awake, trying to keep his breathing slow and even like Linda’s.

Hours passed. Tom farted once. Linda turned over.

Charles wormed his way out of the covers, then waited. Nothing. He stepped to the door, inching his feet along the ground. Tom kicked a leg but that was all.

Charles grabbed the doorknob and twisted, slowly, slowly, until it clicked. He waited. A car revved its engine in the parking lot. A bit of dust tickled his nose. His heart thudded against his ribs.

Tom and Linda slept on.

Charles opened the door, slipped out, and eased the doorknob back into place. Then he was running down the hall, taking the stairs in bounds, bare feet slapping against concrete as he dashed to the front lobby. He raced in, the door chiming behind him.

A clerk — a girl with pink hair, a gold stud in her nose, and worry lines between her eyebrows — looked up from a computer.

“Can I – call – someone?” Charles gasped between words, his lungs still catching up with the rest of him.

“Sure, hun,” the clerk said. She pushed a plastic phone with a cord across the counter. “Just dial the room number then pound.”

“No. My grandma. I — I don’t know the number.”

A sob swam in his throat again. He bit his tongue again until the pain took over.

The clerk smiled like Mom did when he fell and hurt himself. “Hey, that’s okay. Maybe I can look it up for ya.” She turned to her computer and squinted at the screen. “Now, what’s your grandma’s name?”

“Janice Lindberg,” he said. “She lives in Toledo.”

The clerk nodded and started typing.

“Is that far?” he asked. If it was close the clerk might even drive him. She seemed nice enough. Or he could walk. After so much driving that didn’t seem too bad.

The clerk stopped typing.

“Yeah, it’s a bit far, I’m afraid.” She looked at him again, eyes narrow. “You okay, hun?”

Before he could answer the door chimed.

“Oh, sweetie, there you are! I was so worried.” Linda swept him into a hug, smothering his cheeks with kisses. She turned to the clerk, laughed. “He’s always doing this, ever since he was a baby. Such an explorer. Now c’mon, darling. Bedtime, let the nice lady work.”

Linda yanked him out of the lobby. Charles glanced back as the clerk half rose, her forehead lines deepening.

Linda marched him down the hallway. Charles kept his eyes on his feet. Black grime and lint coated the spaces between his toes. He wondered if he would have gotten farther if he had put on socks. Linda shoved him inside the room. Charles stumbled forward, skinning his knee on the carpet. The door slammed shut.

“You can’t do that!” Linda glared down, eyes popping and irises electric blue. They looked like lightning, or sparks jumping out of wires, dangerous and hot. Her hair, still mussed from sleep, billowed in the air conditioning.

But her scream was worse. Like metal sliding over metal.

“You can’t just wander off! Don’t you know what it’s like out there? Someone could have taken you. Someone could have hurt you. They – they –”

She swooped at him. Charles winced, preparing himself for a slap, a kick, for pain. But her lips met his cheeks.

“Oh, darling, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Oh my sweet baby boy.”

Her tears, salty and warm, splattered his lips.

“Need to go,” Tom said. He peeled back the curtain to stare out the window. “Now.”

“Gotta pee,” Charles said.

He pulled himself away from Linda, darted to the bathroom, then locked the door. He didn’t have to go bad but he peed to give him a second to breathe.

Maybe he could try again. Wherever they went next. If they stayed in Ohio long enough they might even get closer to Toledo.

But what if Linda heard him talking about Grandma? Or saw the phone? She’d tell Tom and they’d drive the other way. Maybe they wouldn’t even stay at motels anymore. They’d sleep in places where he couldn’t find a phone, like under the elm tree.

He washed his hands. As he turned off the sink, Linda and Tom’s voices came from the other side of the door. They talked fast and low, but not quiet enough that he couldn’t hear them if he pressed his ear to the gap at the floor.

 “If she calls? They’ll find us,” Tom said.

“You know where we need to go,” Linda said.

“We — It’s too risky.”

 “He has to know.”

 “What if... What if he won’t...”

“He’s ours. I’ll die without him, Tom. I swear to God, I’ll die.”

The bathroom doorknob rattled.

“Honey,” Linda called in a singsong. “Open up we need to get going, okay?”

“I want my grandma.” The words pushed themselves out before Charles could stop them.

The knob jerked again. The door thumped.

“Open the door.”

“No!” Tears were coming. “I w-want G-G-Grandma. Y-you p-promised.”

Silence. Then Tom and Linda’s voices, low, talking fast.

The door thundered. Charles scrambled backward. Again, the wood splintering and cracking at the jamb. Once more. The door swung inward and Tom’s massive shoulders burst into the bathroom, followed by the rest of him. His face was blank and hard, jaw set.

Charles scrambled for the tub. Tom wrapped his arm around Charles’s waist and lifted him like a pillow. Tom grabbed their single suitcase — they only used one now, faster, Tom had said, for when they were in a hurry — off the bed with his other hand and walked to the door. Charles beat his fists on Tom’s arms and chest and neck and face but he was too small and Tom too solid.

Charles opened his mouth to scream but Linda rushed to him. She smothered his lips with her fingers. He clamped down into the soft flesh of her palm with his teeth. Hard, harder. She grunted and hot iron saltiness filled his mouth but she didn’t let go, didn’t stop. Neither did Tom.

Then they arrived at the car. Tom set Charles down and fumbled for his keys in his pocket.

Charles found his balance and his legs tensed to run. Linda snatched his hand and squeezed his until he was sure his knucklebones were grinding together. He whimpered. Tom opened the back doors and shoved Charles in. Linda threw herself on top him. She no longer smelled of clean laundry and flowers. Her clothes were musty with the many washings they’d done in hotel sinks with the little bottles of shampoo for detergent. Her hair smelled the same, so did her skin. So did Tom. So did he.

“I’m sorry, baby, we have to go,” she yelled. “We have to go.”

She kissed the top of Charles’s head as Tom eased the car out of the parking lot.

As they passed a sign that read, ‘OHIO — COME BACK SOON,’ he gave up crying.

# # #

They drove all day, then all night, stopping only for gas. They ate chips and granola bars, drank water made sour by the plastic it had been bottled in.

They never let Charles be alone.

Linda sat sometimes in the back seat, sometimes in the front. Every few minutes she’d lean over or twist around to pat his knee.

“It’ll be okay, darling, it’ll be okay,” she’d say. “I promise. Maybe we’ll stop at Disney World? You’d like that, right? Just a few more days.”

Charles remembered the map that hung over Ms. Galeski's desk in homeroom. He knew his states, and the road signs weren’t going south.

NOW ENTERING PENNSYLVANIA

NEW YORK – THE EMPIRE STATE

WELCOME TO VERMONT – THE GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE

A commercial on the car’s radio jingled. He thought of the phone and the clerk. Janice Lindberg, he’d told her. In Toledo. But would Grandma know how to follow, when he didn’t even know where they were going?

 His eyelids drooped more with each mile. Then the rattle of the car’s engine dying jerked him awake. He yawned. When had he nodded off? He glanced out the window. Stars, the tops of pine trees, a moon curved like a discarded fingernail. Nothing more.

The car’s interior lights clicked on as a door opened. Linda unbuckled him.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Home.”

Linda pointed to a field. A street lamp cast a cone of yellow light illuminating clumps of weeds, a trash bag trapped on a fallen tree branch, a cardboard box smashed down and curled up on itself.

No, not a field. Because as he got out and stood, he could make a concrete rectangle. A sidewalk, cracked and uneven, led up to it. At it’s end, a few steps of a porch, like a little stairs to nowhere. Bits of lumber and broken glass littered the foundation of what had been a house.

“There’s something we need to show you.”

Linda and Tom grabbed his hands. He tried to dig his shoes into the asphalt, then lock his knees, but they lifted him. His feet dangled in the air as they carried him into the weeds. They set him down on a concrete slab.

Linda walked to a corner, sliced her hands in the air like a mime touching an invisible wall.

“This was your bedroom,” Linda said, her voice flat and dull. She moved a few feet farther down, gesturing out a square around her feet. “Ours was right next to you, so we could hear you when you cried.”

“But I live in Virginia,” was all he could think to say.

“Another couple,” said Tom, his voice rough like he’d just woken up. “Travelers. Just passing through. Baby came early. Same night as you. A boy. He died.”

“I could hear her crying, all night,” Linda said. “I felt sorry for her. But I was so happy to have you.”

Charles looked up as headlights appeared on the road in the distance. They caught Linda’s eyes a moment and they glowed neon blue.

“But I was so tired,” she said. “I thought, if I slept, just a minute, I…I…” Her mouth moved but no words came out.

Tom took her hand. “We woke up and you were gone. They’d switched you, with the one they lost.”

The car kept coming down the road, slowly, the headlights switching to brights.

“The doctors said you’d just slipped away,” Linda said. “An accident. Couldn’t be helped.” She snorted. “They were too afraid to admit it and let people know a baby could be stolen under their noses. What a mess that would make. Everyone wondering if their kid was really their kid. But I knew. I felt the baby oil on the ID bands, saw the scrapes on the dead boy’s wrists from where she slipped it off so she could switch it with yours. I knew you were out there. Somewhere.”

“It took a long time,” Tom said. “We gave up everything. Hired people when the police wouldn’t believe us. It took all our savings. Our home” He nodded at the foundation. “But we found them. You.”

The car stopped alongside Tom and Linda’s. Idling. The headlights were too bright for him to make out what kind or what color.

“You have your dad’s eyes,” Linda said. “My chin, I think. Ears, too. Hair.”

She reached down and stroked his hair. Longer now in the weeks that they’d been in the car. But lots of people that had blond hair like him and Linda. And brown eyes like him and Tom. Mom had… green. Dad?

He couldn’t remember.

The car’s doors opened, slam shut.

Two figures emerged. One held a flashlight. It sent wild beams over Tom, Linda, rested on Charles. It stabbed his eyes and green spots blinded him. He didn’t care.

The clerk had called. Maybe she’d seen the car they were driving, or the license plate. She told Grandma, and Grandma had come. She'd take him home.

No, not home. Home was gone. But somewhere not here.

“Grandma,” Charles yelled. “Grandpa!” He lunged forward.

 Linda grabbed him and held her face in her hands.

“We found you, my darling. That’s what I want you to remember. We never stopped looking.”

“Get off him,” a voice said. “Chuck, come here.”

Charles’s knees wobbled. “Dad?”

Dad crashed through the weeds and trash. In one hand a flashlight, in the other a gun. His hair was slicked back and damp. He wore a dress shirt and no pants, just boxers, no shoes. His eyes were sharp and hard and drilling into Tom.

Mom appeared. All of her was a blur except for her fingers, pale and hooked, reaching for Linda. Both women howled as Mom shoved Linda while pulling Charles to her chest. He breathed in her sweat, the coffee on her breath, the gasoline fumes in her hair. All of it sweet and spicy and warm.

“Car,” Dad shouted. Tom yelled, Linda screamed, and Dad shot the gun. The roar ripped through Charles’s eardrums, the muzzle flash freezing everything into his eyeballs as ghosts that melted into the dark.  

Tom and Linda went quiet.

Or maybe they were crying. He couldn't tell on account of the ringing in his ears.

Mom lifted him, cradling him as she darted away from the foundation slab — all that was left of Tom and Linda’s home.

She carried him to the car — their car, a black Kia Soul. Still holding him tight, Mom hid behind the wheels and curled around him.

“Put your hands over your ears,” she said. “And hum. Loud as you can.”

Charles did, but not loud enough. One bang, then a second. Silence a moment, then two more.

Mom relaxed. She pulled Charles’s hands down and they sat together on the road. Her black hair was frazzled – a word she’d taught him – it meant worried and out of place. In the yellow glow of the streetlamp her hazel eyes shone orange, her skin dull, cheeks sunken even more than Dad’s.

“They said you died in a car accident,” Charles said. “That someone hit you on the way to work. A drinking driver.”

“Drunk driver,” Mom said.

“She said she’s my real mom.”

“She’s crazy.”

“She said you stole me. Your baby died and you took me instead.”

Before Mom could speak Dad stumbled around the trunk of the Kia. He crumbled to his knees next to them, breathing hard.

Charles stared at the gun in Dad’s hand. It was black, barely visible in the dark, all square edges and smelling of fireworks.

“I thought we'd lost you,” Dad said. “All over again.”

Charles glanced up, but Dad only looked at the gun.

# # #

Grandma was on TV.

Charles sat close to the set in their living room, craning his neck. The TV showed Grandma and Grandpa in their home in Toledo. They were all dressed up. Grandma’s hair was puffy and she had green makeup on her eyelids.  Grandpa wore a white shirt with a bolo tie. It dangled from his neck like shoestrings.

Charles had never seen anyone he knew on the news before, even though his picture came up a lot. MISSING BOY FOUND SAFE; it would say under last year’s school picture.

Grandma sat on the green couch in their living room facing a newswoman, a pretty woman with short, black hair and red suit coat. The woman leaned in toward Grandma and Grandpa, her expression serious as she said, “What was your first thought, when you found out?”

Grandma glanced at the camera and back to the newswoman. “I — I just thought, oh Jesus, my poor baby. Martha, I mean, my daughter. To have this happen to your only child.”

Grandma sniffed and put her hand to her mouth. Grandpa squeezed her knee and stared at the floor.

“And your daughter and son-in-law, what did they do?”

“Never gave up, I can tell you that. The police told them to just sit tight, but no, they’re not the kind of people to just wait. They got in that little Kia they got two years ago and they just drove. Followed every tip. North Carolina, Maryland, even made it out to Colorado, drove all day.”

The newswoman nodded and said, “And I understand it was a preacher who gave a tip that made the difference?”

Grandma blinked. “Catholic priest, and yes, one called, but the real lady, the real hero I mean, is that hotel clerk down in Marietta.”

Grandpa nodded.

Grandma sat up straighter on the couch. “She recognized Charles, saw him on the news and then he was at that motel she worked at. She called the police. They came too late, but Martha and Dan, they just dropped everything. They were in Maryland but they drove all night to get there. Found out those –” She shuddered. “– terrible people put Vermont on the registry. Fake address, but one they’d seen before. Dan remembered that awful man talking about growing up there or something for at time. So they knew. And they... They –”

Grandma sniffed again and turned away from the camera. Grandpa pulled her to his shoulder, patted her head, and glanced up at the newswoman.

“We’re just grateful Dan got there in time. Did what needed to be done.”

“And how’s your grandson? How’s the fam –”

The TV clicked off. Charles blinked at the sudden black. He glanced over his shoulder at Dad on a loveseat. Dad’s jaw worked, his face was pale, then he dropped the remote to the carpet. He stood and stomped out of the room.

Mom slid off the sofa and sat cross-legged next to Charles. She stroked his blond hair.

“Don’t worry about Dad. He’s just... He’ll be fine.”

Charles scooted away from her. He stared into her eyes, so different from his own.

“Are you my real mom?”

There was a long silence. Then she stood and offered Charles her hand.

“If you want me to be.”

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story — I sure enjoyed writing it. If you’d like more, I’m happy to announce that you can now access the audiobook recording of my Writers of the Future story, “Son, Spirit, Snake,” here, or on my website at jacknashstories.com