No One's Home Read online

  Undaunted, Frannie bought Benny books on goldfish that he read voraciously whenever she would help him turn the pages. A new hope lit her tired eyes. Attachment. Focus. Interest. Maybe the fish will help Benny connect with the outside world. She stopped listening for the crash. She stopped waiting for the inevitable.

  On the twenty-third day of Darwin’s life in Benny’s room, it happened.

  Benny had spent the previous four days becoming more and more agitated. He wants out, a voice in the back of his head whispered. Worry lines etched his concerns over his forehead. He’s bored. The fish would race from one side of the tank to the other, studying the corners, flickering its fins along the edges, testing, hoping. That was when the terrible placement of the tank finally occurred to him.

  Darwin had no view. His tank abutted a blank wall, and Benny’s windows were over eight feet away. The world outside was beyond the fish’s reach.

  Benny set his chin on the desk next to the tank and turned his head this way and that, gauging how much and how far the fish could see. Walls, fireplace, closet door, light from the windows, and maybe the shadow of a tree, but nothing else. No cars. No people. No colors. No sunsets.

  He tried telling his mother. Poor Frannie stood there as he waved his arms and attempted the words. We need to move Darwin’s tank. Help me. “Wnnrr Daaaw!”

  “I don’t understand, honey. Are you worried about something? How can I help you?” She picked up lamps and crayons. She offered him food. “Is it the fish?”

  He nodded.

  “We already fed the fish, sweetie.”

  He shook his head. No. That’s not what I mean.

  “Yes, we did. Remember? It was after breakfast. I came in, and we even wrote it down.” She was becoming slightly panicked now, watching his body begin to curl in on itself. Muscles clenching. She pointed to the calendar on the wall and the note she’d made. “See? It says Fed Fish. We fed him. It’s okay, honey. I promise. The fish is okay. Why don’t you lie down? Alright?”

  She guided him to the bed and tried to roll him onto his side. He tried to let her. He tried to will his muscles to be still, but they were screaming in protest. MOVE HIS TANK! HE NEEDS TO SEE! HE’LL DIE LIKE THIS!

  One of his curled hands lashed out of his control and connected with the side of her face with a meaty thwap!

  “Benny!” she gasped, recoiling from him, letting his flailing body drop to the floor. She watched him helplessly thumping his limbs against the ground as she held the side of her face, tears streaming. “Hank!” she cried out. “I need help!”

  But Benny didn’t hear her. He didn’t feel the many hands pull him up off the ground or the cold stab of medication. All he could see was his fish, hiding behind the plastic kelp, gaping back at him. Trapped in his tiny prison.

  The next day, Frannie woke to find Darwin’s tank lying on its side beneath the window. A puddle of water and loose pebbles spread out over the floor. Benny lay on the ground next to the empty tank, frozen, staring, staring, staring.

  Flecks of gold glimmered between his clenched fists.

  10

  The Spielman Family

  July 27, 2018

  Hunter Spielman gazed out his bedroom window at Lee Road at the cars speeding past, wishing he were with them, going anywhere else but the creepy old mansion. It is so frigging boring here! he complained almost daily to his friends back home.

  His mother’s voice would cut through the house with its own grating mix of concern, guilt, and desperation.

  Good morning, sweetie! What do you want to do today? Want to go for a walk?

  Who left the light on up in the attic again?

  Have you seen any other kids in the neighborhood?

  Did someone get the mail today? I haven’t seen it.

  Who ate all of the cheese?

  Hunter, honey, please don’t leave the back door unlocked. Okay?

  How are you feeling today, sweetie? Are you alright? Do you want to talk?

  No, he didn’t.

  With every helpful suggestion, nagging comment, or worried glance, Hunter grew more distant. The harder she tried, the more time the boy spent cloistered in his room with his headphones on. It’s like she won’t leave me alone, he had complained to a friend on the phone. I don’t know. I wish she’d get a job or something.

  Margot tried to give her son space but couldn’t seem to make it a day without bothering the boy in some fashion. She paced the house. Four thousand square feet of room and only one other person to talk to, and he couldn’t be bothered. When Myron was home from work, even he seemed to be pulling away from her.

  “It’s like they don’t even want the money, Myron!” she said, pacing across the ungrouted kitchen floor after a week of no progress on the construction project. “It’s me, isn’t it? They just can’t face the fussy bitch from Boston, right?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, hon.” Myron sighed and kissed the top of her perfumed head. It was getting harder for him to act like everything was fine. “It will get done, okay? You going to the club this afternoon? I’ll meet you there.”

  Margot, standing there in her yoga pants and indoor booties, stamped her tiny foot in protest. “Don’t change the subject! When are they going to be finished?” She motioned to the boxes of unpacked custom cabinets that populated the old breakfast room and butler’s pantry she’d insisted be opened up to the kitchen with a cold steel beam shoved into the ceiling. “This place looks like a goddamned warehouse! It’s no wonder Hunter won’t even leave his room! I’m worried about him, Myron! He’s so unhappy here.”

  Hearing his name creep under his bedroom door, Hunter had stopped typing at his computer and listened a moment to their voices winding up the back stairs.

  “He’ll come around,” Myron said with a gentle brush of her cheek. “It just takes time. He misses his friends.”

  Tears pooled against her mascara. “You don’t think I know that? He’s done nothing but talk to them since we got here. They FaceTime. They Snapchat. God knows what else they do on their computers all day and night. He’s certainly not talking to me about it . . . I feel like coming here was a big mistake.”

  Myron dropped his hand from her cheek. “Let’s not overreact. He was on his computer all the time before anyway. This is what they’re all like now, right?” He stole a glance at the large clock over her shoulder. He was going to be late for work.

  Margot lowered her voice. “It’s just . . . we don’t know what he’s doing up there. I’ve been reading terrible things, Myron. These pedophiles get online and pretend to be kids. They groom lonely boys like him. They pretend to be their friend and then start to pry photographs and addresses out of them. How do we know he’s not talking to someone like that right now?”

  Upstairs, Hunter rolled his eyes in disgust. Pedophiles?

  “You’ve got to stop reading every paranoid article on Facebook, okay? He’s a smart kid. He’s not going to be lured into a van with some candy. Now listen, I’ve got to get going. I’ve got a meeting at ten a.m.”

  Pouting, she followed him to the mudroom door. “Are you going to call Max again, or do I have to do it?”

  “I’ll give him a call this afternoon, okay? I’ll let him know that if they don’t get it done in the next two weeks, we’ll void the contract and get someone else.”

  He’d said the same thing three days earlier. Even so, his firm voice seemed to smooth the worry around her eyes. “Thanks, honey. Call me later and tell me what he says.”

  “Okay. Gotta run. So will I see you at the club tonight?”

  “What else am I going to do?” Her voice had the light hint of a laugh, but it wasn’t funny to either of them. She hadn’t made any friends in their new neighborhood. No one had visited in the ten days since they’d moved in.

  “Why don’t you see what that Jenny DeMarco is up to this afternoon? Harold was just telling me she’s having a hell of a time finding an interior designer.”

  The idea soured Margot’s
face. “I don’t know that I’m Jenny’s type . . . Why don’t we see if the Zavodas will join us for drinks Friday night instead? I heard Emily collects art, and I need some advice. There are so many blank walls it feels like a prison in here. Hey! Why don’t we host them for a dinner party in a few weeks when the kitchen is done? It’ll give me an excuse to cook again.” Margot reached out and smoothed his silk tie. Her expression softened into something less tense. Less demanding. Almost girlish.

  Myron smirked at her, lulled by her hand stroking his tie, ignoring half of what she’d said. “When have you ever been inside a prison?”

  She arched a perfectly penciled brow. “Oh, you think you know everything about me?” Still strikingly beautiful even at fifty, she batted her lashes and cocked her chin. Almost a dare.

  The grin fell from his lips. He dropped his suitcase and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her against his expensive suit. The two mashed their lips together with the urgency of young lovers. His hands groping her tight curves. Hers grasping the sides of his face as soft mewing sounds escaped her throat. He pushed her back against one of the boxes, lifting her bottom up onto it, grinding against her.

  Margot kept her eye on the back stairwell, watching for Hunter, as she unzipped his trousers. “We shouldn’t do this here,” she whispered, her hand between his legs.

  Leaving his briefcase sprawled on its side, Myron carried his wife straddled around his middle into their den and shut the door.

  Ten minutes later, they emerged red-faced, embarrassed, and angry.

  Margot was sputtering placations. “No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have started something when you’re already running late. Really.”

  “No, don’t. You’re fine. You’re beautiful. It’s me. I’ve just got so much on my mind right now.” Myron planted a stiff kiss on her swollen lips and grabbed his briefcase up off the floor. “I’ll make it up to you later, gorgeous. Promise.”

  She nodded and gave her best attempt at a smile. At the mudroom door, she straightened his crooked tie as he finger combed his mussed hair. “Now, you are going to call Max, right?”

  Margot winced a little at herself for nagging him just then.

  Humiliated and off balance, Myron nodded his agreement. He hated her in that moment. His jaw tightened to keep from yelling. “I’ll do it from the car.”

  Once the garage door opened and closed and his car pulled away, her tiny frame sagged against the boxes. She wept silently into her hands so Hunter wouldn’t hear. After thirty seconds, she angrily cleared her throat and lifted her chin. No.

  She forced herself up and slowly walked the ground floor of the house to calm her nerves. The foyer gleamed like a jewelry box. Every brass fixture and carved wood surface had been oiled and polished to a high sheen. The leaded glass over the front door sparkled like cut diamonds in the morning sun. For a fleeting moment, she tried to convince herself it was her foyer, her house.

  A white cat sat curled on the stoop just outside her front door. She crouched down next to the window and tapped the glass. “Hey, you,” she whispered, remembering its startling white coat and unnerving blue eyes from the day they’d toured the house. The cat barely glanced at her.

  A strange feeling crept up Margot’s back that made her turn and look. One of the doors in the hall above her stood open just a crack. A shadow moved behind it.

  “Hunter?” she called up.

  There was no answer. Upstairs in his bedroom, Hunter had cranked his headphones so he wouldn’t have to listen to his parents bicker about what a social failure he’d become.

  Margot’s worry lines deepened as she glanced over to the glass doors to the den. What if he was watching us the whole time?

  11

  “So is your mom still a hot piece of ass?” Hunter’s friend smirked from his computer screen in Boston. “I watch her yoga feed sometimes, and dayum!”

  “Shut the fuck up, Caleb! Is your mom still a fat cow?”

  “Dude. Totally.” Caleb laughed. “Seriously. How’s life in the CLE?”

  “You know. Just slayin’ these bitches.” Hunter let out a defeated sigh. He hadn’t seen a girl his age since they’d moved in.

  “What’s the school like?”

  “It hasn’t started yet.” The pamphlet for Forest City Prep sat next to his bed. Hunter grabbed it and flashed the images of young men in uniforms at his web camera. “But I’m pretty sure it sucks.”

  “What’d you expect? Public school? Aren’t you supposed to go to Yale and shit?”

  “Fuck Yale.” Hunter sulked. Myron’s glittering Yale School of Medicine diploma hung in the den. “They didn’t even bother to ask me what I wanted. Public schools here are fine, and the people aren’t all . . . I dunno. They’re normal. They’re not all robots obsessed with getting into an Ivy League school.”

  “You mean there’s chicks.” Caleb grinned.

  “That’s not the only reason, but yeah.” Hunter threw the private school pamphlet into his trashcan. “Fucking sausage party, man!”

  Down the hall, Margot swung the door to her freshly painted yoga studio open and flipped on the light. She scanned the polished wood floor, the mats, the large balance balls, the free weights, and the docking station for her phone, where she played her favorite music. Her eyes stopped at her image in the enormous mirror hanging between the two bare windows. She studied her face for flaws. She turned sideways and checked the line of her buttocks, still high and firm in her tight black spandex.

  Not that it mattered. Her face reddened again at Myron’s flailing excuses as he zipped up his trousers. She drew in a deep breath and forced the thought from her mind. This was her space. This was her time.

  She closed the door behind her and adjusted the wireless cameras—one sitting on the windowsill, one on a shelf along a sidewall. The laptop on the floor had been left open. Odd. Frowning, she crouched next to it and tapped a button on the keyboard. The screen flickered to life.

  Once the ghostly glow lit her face, her brow knit itself into a deeper question. Her email account was open. A long list of emails scrolled past her eyes. “Unforgivable!” “Event Cancellation,” “You’re FIRED!” “Outpatient Follow-up.” The open message read:

  Since you’ve elected to discontinue treatment, we highly recommend you seek out a therapist with experience in posttraumatic stress disorder and clinical depression. We can provide a referral . . .

  Alarmed and exposed, Margot closed the browser window and checked her desktop for other open programs. She tilted the machine to see that she never removed the slip of paper taped to the underside with her login password and the new wireless internet passkey.

  She crumpled the paper in her hand and pressed it to her lips. Did I just leave it open? She really didn’t think so. “Son of a bitch,” she hissed to herself and fought off another round of tears. Hunter. Gathering herself, she stood up and marched down the hall.

  Knock. Knock.

  “Hunter?” she called through the wood.

  “I gotta go, man.” Hunter quickly clicked a button on the keyboard, and Caleb vanished from the computer screen. His video game flickered back to life. “Yeah?”

  “I’m coming in,” she announced and, a second later, pushed open the door.

  Hunter spun around in his office chair and pulled the headphones off his head.

  “Sorry to bother you, honey. But . . .” She drew in a breath to steady herself. Maybe he didn’t read all of it. “Were you messing around on my laptop?”

  “Huh?” His face was a confused scowl.

  “Were you snooping around on my laptop?” Say no, say no, say no, she silently prayed in the doorway.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He truly looked like he didn’t.

  Margot closed her eyes in relief, then opened them again. “Reading other people’s email is wrong. It’s a total invasion of privacy. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at her with teenage exasperation. I’m not dumb, Mo
m.

  She tried to keep her voice steady, motherly. “Just promise me you’ll stay out of my studio. Okay? My computer and my equipment are important for my work, and if you did see any of my emails, I need you to tell me right now.”

  “I swear I didn’t.” Hunter looked down at his hands to keep from rolling his eyes. Margot didn’t really work. She taught three yoga classes a day using her laptop and wireless cameras to broadcast to users around the world.

  She only has like ten followers. It’s not even like they pay. His online friend had laughed at this. Probably just perverts that want to see her bend over. Hunter hadn’t laughed back. Dude. Shut up.

  Margot paused before closing the door. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  Am I not okay enough for you? Am I ever okay enough? he fumed to himself, but what he said was, “I guess.”

  “I know this move has been hard on you. It’s been hard on all of us.”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t say more, but his sullen expression spoke volumes.

  She wanted desperately to pull him onto her lap like she’d done when he was younger, but she knew he’d hate that. “Once school starts, it’s going to be great. You’ll see.”

  “Sure, Mom. I just . . .” His face wrinkled with questions he wanted to ask, things he wanted to say. He turned away from her to stare at his two gerbils. They were still too traumatized from the move to explore the maze he’d set up for them. They lay huddled together in a corner.

  “You just what, sweetie?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do you have questions? I mean, about what happened? I know we talked to you about it a while ago, but is there anything you want to know?”

  Hunter raised his eyebrows and straightened up in his chair a bit. “Um . . . I don’t know.” Why did we move? What is wrong with you? What really happened in Boston? Hunter gauged her uncomfortable posture and decided it wasn’t worth upsetting her. “No. It’s okay, Mom. I’m sure everything will work out.”