Toddler Twin Bed Boy — Shermanscreek.Org

I think most people are surprised when they learn one of my hobbies is taxidermy.
I know what you probably expect when you hear that- some shady looking Ed Gein kinda guy. I’m gonna clear this up off the bat. Not everyone that practices taxidermy looks like a serial killer, all empty eyes and unsettling grins. I’d like to say I’m pretty normal, as far as your average human being goes. I’m close to my parents, I have a good job, I even have a dog named Hamlet. But I also really do enjoy taxidermy.
I picked up the hobby almost… god, has to be like ten to twelve years now. At the time, I thought the same as probably most of you, that taxidermy was for people like Norman Bates or Leatherface. That changed during a highschool project where I had to shadow someone at their workplace. Since I was sick the day all the popular choices were taken, I got stuck working at McConnell Taxidermy with the stern looking Walter McConnell. Although I originally expected to be either bored or grossed out, it was actually a lot of fun. For the most part Walter and I just kicked back and watched TV and enjoyed his husband Bernard’s home cooking.
For the actual taxidermy though, I actually found it fascinating. It’s not all blood and guts, some of it is real artistry. I had a lot of fun learning about it, seeing what incredible focus Walter had while sewing together a squirrel, and I was surprised to learn which of the fish on the wall were real and which were incredibly accurate recreations. Walter loved animals, he had at least three rescued dogs and I lost count of the amount of cats that weaved between my ankles as we drunk root beers and sat on his front porch.
Anyway, after that week shadowing him, I ended up going back again and again. I admitted I didn’t really have the patience for hunting, which is where most of Walter’s business comes from, but he let me know that if I found a mostly whole, fresh piece of roadkill, he could see what we could do. After a month of searching, I came across a raccoon that was just what Walter said would work. With him teaching me, I mounted my first animal. I still have it, even though I can point out like a half a dozen flaws.
All I’m trying to say it that no, I’m not the next freak that’ll make headlines for skinning the neighbor’s cat… and the neighbor with it. I can, however, say that some of those said freaks do have that wrong idea about us. And one of them was Clarence Warner.
I first met Clarence when he quite literally ran into me I’d gotten some new taxidermy books and I planned on kicking back at the shop while I read them. I was reaching for the door when it suddenly burst open, smacking the books out of my hand and sending them crashing to the ground.
“Oh! Oh, oh no, I’m s-so sorry!”
The man hurriedly exiting the shop was a scrawny looking fellow, below average in height with extra large glasses that magnified his watery eyes with the bags underneath so dark it looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. The rumpled state of his sweater and slacks didn’t help the impression.
Before I could even tell him it was fine the man was on the ground, carefully smoothing the cover of each of my books, even the hardcover ones. “N-none look to be damaged!” With a nervous smile, like he expected me to suddenly clock him in the face, he carefully handed the books back to me. “I’m so s-sorry, do they look okay? Nothing r-ripped or damaged, I hope?”
I gave the books a once over. “You’re fine, they can take a fall. You in a hurry?”
“Yeah, uh, yup,” The man nervously bobbed his head up and down, “The shop owner, he uh…” he chuckled nervously, “he’s a bit frightening. I decided to m-make myself scarce. I’m Clarence. Clarence Warner.” He stuck out a hand that had nails bitten down so far his fingertips were all red and sore. I sort of just looked at my books before Clarence slowly lowered his hand, his ears turning pink along with his cheeks. “Right. It’s a b-bit hard to shake hands when they’re full.”
“Yeah…” I glanced in the shop, “Everything’s cool man, have a good day.” I side stepped around the clearly socially awkward Clarence and managed to get the door open with my foot, eager to end this bizarre confrontation.
“Wait!”
Clarence’s piercing yelp nearly caused me to drop my books again. I turned my head back around and Clarence looked rightfully embarrassed.
“What’s your name?” He asked while staring at his feet, sounding like more like a shy first grader than a grown man.
“… Everyone calls me Bobby,” I bowed my head, “Have a good day, man.”
“Good day for you too!”
Clarence skittered off down the street, beelining for the nearest bus stop. I just shook my head, got the door the rest of the way open, and made my way into the shop. The classic rock station was playing, the room smelled of sandalwood incense thanks to Bernard, and other than me and Walter the place was empty. It seemed normal, but Walter’s usually unbothered, apathetic expression was replaced with an unnatural hostility that I’d rarely seen from him before.
“You okay, Walter?” I asked, setting my books on the counter before taking a seat on the bench.
Walter was quiet for a moment, watching the door like a hawk. “You spoke with the man leaving the shop?” He asked, his gruff voice quieter than usual.
“Just for a second, he accidentally knocked the books out of my hands,” I nodded to them, “Seemed a bit weird but that was it. What did he do?”
Walter’s mouth pressed into a firm line as he glowered in the direction Clarence had walked off in. “Asked questions I don’t like answering. Keep your distance. Want tea or beer?” Before I responded the man had ambled off to the back, coming back with two beers and setting one in front of me. I accepted, because I’m not the kind of person to turn down free beer, and I didn’t press the matter further. I figured I wouldn’t see Clarence any time soon anyway.
I actually ran into him again that night, while Hamlet and I were on a run. We were on the loop back home when I heard someone shouting my name. I skidded to a stop and pulled one of my headphones out, craning my neck around and seeing a shorter guy dashing on up to me.
When he was close enough, I finally realized that this was Clarence, and he was not looking so good. When he skidded to a stop his knees buckled, the poor guy nearly falling to the ground as he gasped for air. Not exactly a man in the best of shape.
I waited until he’d started to catch his breath before speaking. “Yeah? You want something?”
Clarence swallowed and stood back up straight, wiping the sweat off his pallid forehead. “So so sorry… to b-bother you,” he wheezed and for a second I thought he might pass out, “But you live around here too?”
At first I was tempted not to give him any information about where I lived. I mean, he weirded out Walter, and it’s hard getting under that guy’s skin. But I lowered my guard as I saw him struggling to get his breathing under control. “On this street, yeah. You going to be okay?”
Clarence bobbed his head up and down. “I have… Mild asthma. You’re… really fast,” He swallowed again and finally seemed to get his breathing under control. “I was just thinking about this being a s-strange coincidence, but we’re actually neighbors!” He pointed to the house on the corner. I did remember that the for sale sign had vanished, but I figured whoever bought it was going to plow it over, that place was not in the greatest of shape. “I was sitting on my front porch and saw you run by, I had to be s-sure it was you, Bobby.”
“Yeah,” I tightened my grip on Hamlet’s leash. I did not want my German mix accidentally knocking him over. “Why though?”
Clarence smiled. “Well, you were very nice to me today! I figured you’d be a good person to get to know if you lived around here.”
“What’d you say to Walter earlier?” I asked. “He seemed pretty upset when I entered the shop.”
“Walter- oh! The scary, elderly gentleman that runs the taxidermy place, right,” Clarence looked a bit sheepish, “I’m afraid I’m a bit poor at phrasing my questions. All I wanted to know was more of the process of taxidermy. It’s a s-science I’d like to know more about. That’s all.”
That actually relieved me. I’d been afraid that Walter was on the receiving end of some homophobic bullshit, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I lowered my guard and stopped gripping the leash so tight. “Yeah, no offense, you don’t seem to be the most… eloquent,” I said, deciding that maybe being subtle with this guy wasn’t going to work.
Thankfully Clarence didn’t take offense. “Everyone says that, I’m not really good with people,” He chuckled, jamming his hands into his pockets, “But I hope I can get along well enough in this place. Is everyone nice around here?”
We chatted for a few minutes. I learned he’d been recently divorced from his wife and lost his job, so this was going to be a fresh start. Any of my earlier apprehension quickly dissolved, this was just a lonely guy who just wanted to make a friend. Hamlet didn’t seem to mind him either, although he strangely enough didn’t jump up and try to lick his face- Hamlet thinks face kisses are the best to give to strangers.
When we parted, Clarence looked to be on cloud nine. “Thank you for n-not being upset with me,” He bowed his head in my direction, “I hope we see each other again soon!” With that, my bizarre new neighbor trotted down the street.
I glanced down at Hamlet. “Guess we should be nice to him,” I decided, giving my dog a pat on the head. Hamlet wuffed quietly before he started pulling on his leash to head back to the house. I didn’t double check to see if Clarence saw me head into my home, but I guess he had to have- the next morning there was a package of home made cookies on my doorstep, along with a note with yet another apology about the books.
Damn good cookies, even if they were oatmeal raisin.
Hindsight being 20/20, I really did drop my guard around Clarence too quickly. But it was hard to be freaked out by a guy who got winded running half a block and apologized for breathing the same air as you. I dunno, I just didn’t think he was very threatening. Even when things started to get strange. And by strange, I mean actually fucking horrifying.
We have a lot of pets in our neighborhood, and warning, this is gonna get gruesome, so turn away if you’re sensitive to this kind of thing. It was a week to the day that I first met Clarence that the eldest Waid boy, Brian, came to my front door.
I opened up to see the twelve year old staring at his untied shoes, nervously chewing on his thumbnail. When he first spoke it was so quiet I had to ask him to repeat himself.
“… Have you seen Cooper?”
Cooper was the Waid’s obese chocolate Labrador retriever. Good dog though, even if he was always begging at the summer barbecues and drooling like a monster. I shook my head, not even recalling the last time I saw the dog. “What’s up buddy, is he missing?” I asked.
Brian nodded, chomping down on another finger nail.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Cooper. Tell you what, I’m about to take Hamlet for a run. I’ll keep an eye open for Cooper while I’m out, okay?”
That seemed to relieve the kid at least, I got a half smile out of him before he bolted from my porch and headed to the next house. I felt for the kid, I wasn’t particularly closed to the Waids but I knew Brian had some social issues. It had to be hard for him to go door to door like that. I went looking for Hamlet’s leash, figuring there was no way Cooper could get far. I’d seen him dozing on his owner’s front lawn without any supervision nearly every warm day in the summer. It would’ve taken a lot to get him to leave his comfort spot.
I figured it would be easy anyway, if the dog had just wandered off. But I combed through the neighborhood, even bringing Hamlet’s gourmet treat bag to try and lure out the greedy pup. I headed out again at lunchtime, and I even told Walter not to expect me at the shop that afternoon because I was looking for a lost dog.
It didn’t cross my mind until it was dark out that perhaps Cooper had not just ‘wandered off’. I mean, he was a good dog. I checked in with the Waids at dinner, all of the poor kids a wreck and the parents having not a clue where Cooper could’ve gone off to.
“After all, we just let him out a few minutes before we looked out the window and saw he was gone. I don’t understand how he could’ve gotten out of the yard and out of sight so fast,” Mrs. Waid said, although the way she fidgeted clued me in that she didn’t believe Cooper ran away. Of course she couldn’t say that around the forlorn Brian, telling the boy someone stole his dog would’ve probably broken him, but I could read between the lines. And it was the only possible scenario that made sense, although why someone would steal Cooper was beyond me.
The next morning when I was going to take Hamlet for his morning walk, I saw the Romero kids stuffing my mailbox with something. At first I was worried it was one of their pranks, but I opened up the mailbox to see a flier.
It wasn’t just Cooper that had gone missing the day before. Rocky, the Romero’s rottweiler, had also went missing around the same time.
Two dogs, one day. It was too spine chilling to be a simple coincidence.
I mean, the cops didn’t take it seriously. Two dogs missing but no one seen ushering either away or lurking around the properties, so clearly both just ran away. Just bad timing. Yeah right. No one in the neighborhood bought that, and by that night everyone was keeping a tight grip on their pet’s leashes.
That grip grew even tighter when their bodies turned up.
I just left the house with Hamlet for his morning walk when my dog suddenly barked and pulled his leash free from my hand, dashing down the street. He bolted right towards a dark shape next to the Waid’s dumpsters that I initially thought was a trash bag. It wasn’t until I got closer that I saw the pool of stagnant blood and realized the ‘trash bag’ was the lower half of a brown dog’s body. Someone had cut it in half, right about where the ribs ended.
I skidded to a stop. I stared for an agonizing amount of time, watching Hamlet growl while buzzing flies crawled between the viscera spilling out of the mutilated corpse.
Then I ran for the Waid’s front door and pounded on it. It was only about six AM, but no way… no way I was going to let Brian leave the house and see that.
This time when the police were called, it was taken far more seriously. It’s one thing to have a missing dog. It’s another thing entirely for the missing dog’s corpse, or well, half the dog’s corpse to be dumped practically on the doorstep. And although the perpetrator may have wanted it to seem like it was a hit and run, there was just no sign of the dog’s other half. Even if by some weird circumstance Cooper was torn in half after being hit by oncoming traffic, which is highly unlikely, we’d have to find some sign of the head and shoulders.
Brian was understandably a wreck, but his mom pulled me aside to thank me. It had been Brian’s morning to take in the garbage. If he’d seen that… god, I don’t even want to think about it. They didn’t give him all the details, but when the remains of Rocky were found later that day, dumped in a similar manner, I imagine he did get an inkling about the condition of his beloved family pet.
I knew one of the cops personally, he’s another of my neighbors, Tim Grove. We met when he moved here a few years back with his heavily pregnant wife Florence. She couldn’t really help with furniture, so I tagged in. Although my first impression of Tim was to be a bit intimidated by the big guy, we’ve ended up becoming pretty good friends. I’m actually go to babysitter for their son Harry. That night after the initial panic had died down, Tim came over to chill at my front porch.
“You know what dead animals mean?” Tim asked me as we watched the sun set in this previously simple neighborhood.
I just raised an eyebrow and waited for Tim to remember my hobby. “Not like what you do,” He rolled his eyes and punched me in the shoulder. “Like what happened today.”
I unfortunately had to nod. “Fucked up person. Really fucked up person,” I said.
Tim nodded, dragging his hands down his face. “Damn it. I don’t ever want to see another dead dog in my entire life,” He groaned.
I got the man a beer, not at all envious of the task that was in front of him. By the time I returned, I internally groaned when I saw Clarence with yet another gift for me, a wrapped up fruitcake. He looked about ready to wet his pants at the sight of Tim.
Clarence sighed with relief when he saw me. “I just came by with this!” He handed me his newest baked offering. “Um, I’m s-sorry, I didn’t know you had someone over already, I didn’t want to be a hassle, I just made too much m-m-mixture and-”
“Clarence, you’re fine,” I interrupted. “This is Tim, he’s my neighbor to the right. His bark is worse than his bite.”
Tim quietly laughed. “Hope you end up liking it around here, Clarence. Moved here little over three years ago myself, and well, other than what happened today, it’s usually pretty quiet.”
Clarence cocked his head to the side. “What happened today?” he asked. Tim grimaced and looked to me to handle this.
“Someone killed a dog. Two dogs, actually. Pretty messed up,” I said.
Clarence looked sympathetic. “Which families? Would they appreciate some baked goods?” He asked.
“Maybe give them a few days. But that’s a nice thought,” I said.
Clarence nodded and nudged his glasses up with a finger. “Goodbye then, I’ll speak with you tomorrow if we run into each other!” With that, he skittered off back to his house on the corner.
Tim waited until he was out of earshot before he turned to me. “That’s the guy that just moved in?” He asked, sounding carefully nonchalant.
“Yeah. He’s all right.” I unwrapped the fruit cake and sat down. “Bit bad at making friends, but he’s all right.”
Tim didn’t say anything, only twisting his mouth before eyeing that cake. “Sooo, is he a good baker?” He asked.
“He’s good at baking cookies at least. I’ll cut us some slices and you’ll find out if he’s good at cake too.”
Answer: yes, he was good at cake too. We quickly changed the subject away from Clarence, really we stopped talking about the events of the day entirely, we needed to decompress.
I imagine some of you are wondering why Clarence wasn’t top of the suspect list, since the mangled dogs showed up right after he arrived in town. And I think it’s because not many people even realized Clarence was there. He was just that invisible of a person. Hell, I wouldn’t have noticed if Clarence hadn’t made it a point to keep showing the fuck up wherever I was. Even then, I didn’t chalk that up to stalking or anything creepy. That’s how nonthreatening he came off as, even if he was bizarre.
Some people are just good at that I guess.
People of course took precautions. Never leave your dog alone in the yard, don’t let them out late, just keep an eye out for anyone who looked off.
It didn’t stop though. That’s the whole chilling part about it, the fact the pet killer saw people had their guards up and it didn’t stop him. More pets vanished, both cats and dogs of all breeds and sizes. In and out the thief would slip into yards, take their beloved pets, and within the week their butchered remains would show up near their home. Only parts and never the whole. I never let Hamlet off his leash when we were outside, which made him miserable, but the very idea of losing my best four legged friend was enough to break me. I’m sure any and all pet owners can empathize with that.
I never considered Clarence a danger until an afternoon I was watching Harry for Tim, a ‘work emergency’ that he didn’t want to go into too much detail about but odds are was another dead pet. That day I’d taken Harry to the park because he ‘wants swings time!’ I couldn’t say no to that lil face, it’s too cute. Besides, I’m not his dad. I don’t have to say no.
Harry was begging me to swing him higher when I heard someone softly clear their throat behind me. I turned my head around and saw a surprised looking Clarence.
“I d-didn’t know you had a son,” Clarence said, nudging his glasses up as he stared at Harry.
“He’s not mine, he’s the Grove’s,” I scooped Harry off the swing, the kid squealing as I set him on the ground, “This is Harry. I’m just watching him for now.”
Harry grinned and did that cheeky wave of his that made him seem shy, but it was all an act. Kid can and would make friends with anyone that gave him even a little attention.
I didn’t expect Clarence’s response, which was to immediately turn his head away and shudder. It was such a visceral reaction that I was, for the first time, truly put off from Clarence.
“Are you okay?” I asked, picking Harry up and letting him cling to my side like a little monkey.
Clarence kept facing away, but I saw his face going red and his eyes looking a bit wet. “It’s nothing,” He squeaked out, his voice barely above a whisper. He finally turned to face me, plucking his glasses off to clean them on his shirt and smiling at the little guy. “H-Hello, Harry. You remind me of my Trudy, you know?”
Harry beamed and waved again. “Hello! Hello!” He chanted, reaching to try and take Clarence’s glasses. Clarence chuckled and mock put the glasses on his face, but he couldn’t hide the genuine pain on his face when he took them back.
“Hello, and… a-another time, then,” With that, Clarence sped out of the park, not even stopping to give a more official goodbye. Harry didn’t pick up on anything being strange, but toddlers usually don’t pick up on social strangeness, he just wanted more time on the swings.
I did though. And I brought it up that night when I was chilling with Tim, both of us cracking open a few beers.
Tim was clearly exhausted, the last few weeks of animal thefts and deaths were wearing him down. He needed the guy’s time on the porch. It was after Harry was put down for sleep when I brought up Clarence’s bizarre behavior at the park.
“Why was he even there?” was Tim’s first question.
“Guy sticks to me like a burr to a sock,” I responded, throwing my emptied beer can into the trash, “I think he’s just… clingy. You know anything about him?”
Tim shrugged. “I ran a background check on him after he gave us fruitcake. Just to see if anything popped up, relax. Guy doesn’t even have a parking ticket, he’s clean as they come.”
“What about Trudy? Did he have a child?”
Tim sighed and reached for another beer. “Did. He did have a child,” He said. “That’s the one thing that really popped out at me, I kinda feel bad for the guy.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“She died. About a year ago.” Tim shook his head. “Clarence was driving home from work, got t-boned in the center of the intersection. He lost his left leg from the knee down and his daughter Gertrude didn’t make it. She was four. Life seemed to just fall apart for him after that. Divorced his wife right after he got out of the hospital, lost his job shortly after that. I didn’t want to give him a hard time, so I left him alone after I ran the check. Just had to make sure he wasn’t some kind of wanted serial killer. They tend to do that, you know- start with animals, work their way up to more… human prey.”
I sat there, completely stunned. No wonder he’d reacted like that around Harry, if he was still grieving the loss of his own kid that was around that age. As I headed back home, I resolved to try to reach out to Clarence more often, starting the next day.
I never did. That night me and the rest of the neighbors woke up to Florence’s bloodcurdling screams.
I ran over without even putting my shoes on. I didn’t even try to make sure Hamlet stayed indoors, so he ended up running outside with me. I just about ran into their door when Tim whipped it open, his face white as a sheet.
He only got out the word ‘Harry’ before he collapsed in my arms, nearly sending us both toppling over- Tim’s a big fucking dude. I helped him to the bench in the front porch before I burst into the house, unsure of what I would find.
I found Florence, still screaming in her child’s bedroom. The window was open, letting in a cool breeze, and Harry’s bed was empty.
I couldn’t get a lick of sense out of the hysterical Florence, so I stumbled back out to Tim, who was still white and was now trembling. I quietly sat down next to him and asked, “What happened?”
“… We put him down around seven. Florence only wanted to take a quick look at him when she was up and he was… gone. He’s not in the house. Where’s my boy?”
I didn’t even consciously think about it. I just remembered Clarence’s face in the park earlier that day, the look of tragic loss, and how it was now plastered across the face of my friend.
I still didn’t stop to get my shoes on. I bolted across lawns and down the street, Hamlet galloping after me as I ran to that quiet house on the corner. Clarence’s house. It looked somehow even more uninhabited than ever, the lights all dark and the lawn unkempt. Sometime since he’d arrived the front window had been broken and all he’d done was tape some cardboard over it.
Tragedy can make a man do some really messed up things, and I found that out the moment I entered the house.
Hamlet started snarling the moment I forced open the door. Hamlet rarely growls, he’s a pretty laid back dog. But he could pick up the wrong before I did. I heard the jangling of a dog’s tags down the hall and I turned on my phone’s light as I stepped further into the house. The place was still filled with unpacked boxes, nothing in any sort of order.
I almost reached the kitchen when out poked the head of a chocolate lab. A chocolate lab I only knew too well.
I froze. Cooper stopped only for a second, his head lolling to one side before he looked up at me. I panned my light over the rest of him, my hands shaking as I saw he was cleanly split down the middle, the back end of him taller than his front end and with short black fur contrasting with Cooper’s soft brown coat.
I dropped my phone, I heard the screen smash on the way down but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Hamlet barked, the hair on the back of his neck standing straight as his hackles raised. Cooper didn’t really respond, just meandered his way back into the kitchen and plopping down by the sink, next to a cat… a Frankenstein’s monster of a cat. I picked up my phone and panned the light over to see there was no less than four different cats sewn together to be one single feline, its glazed blue eye looking at me while its just as milky amber twin was permanently tilted towards the ceiling. Cooper, well, half Cooper and half Rocky just huffed while the Frankenstein’s cat groomed his ears.
I was shaking so bad as I made my way back to the living room. I collapsed on the couch, Hamlet whining and pressing his nose into my hand as I continued to tremble. It looked so wrong in a way I can’t even put my finger on, but I guess the closest feeling would be to compare it to uncanny valley- it was still a cat and still a dog, but at the same time it wasn’t.
Another cold nose, this one dry, rubbed against my ankle and I hauled my foot up to see another cat… well, half a cat.
I didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or scream and cry at the sight of the two headed animal at my feet. One head was of an orange tabby with ripped up ears and the other head was a bichon frise that I recognized from a missing poster that was plastered on the corkboard at the grocery across town. The heads and shoulders were sewn together clumsily to the body of another animal that wasn’t dog or cat- the best I could guess from the bushy orange tail it was a fox.
That disturbing chimera stared at me with all four eyes before he clumsily clambered back into an empty box.
I forced myself to get up, fearing even more for Harry. I was leaving the living room with full intent to go get Tim and the rest of the goddamn police force… but that’s when I quite literally bumped into Clarence leaving his basement.
I just froze, staring back at the nonplussed Clarence. My new neighbor eyed the growling Hamlet, then looked back at me. Nudging up his glasses, he smiled. “I didn’t know you wanted to come over, Bobby. But I thought I heard you up here. Are you here for Harry?” He asked.
I nodded.
“Come, follow me. He’s downstairs.”
I don’t know why I followed Clarence when I should’ve bashed his head in against the wall and made a run for it, but I did. I told Hamlet to sit and stay, and for once the dog listened to me as I followed Clarence into the basement. The basement reeked, smelling so metallic I could almost taste it, and Clarence turned on the light to a horror show.
Blood and gore caked the area around a worktable in the center of the room, bloody needles and thread stacked up next to it along with a bin full of innards and bits of hide. Beside it, the front half of a raccoon attached to the back end of a dachshund was leisurely chewing on a piece of intestine. A murky tank of water was up against the far wall, its surface occasionally disturbed by whatever was inside. I nearly collapsed with relief when I saw Harry, unharmed, sitting on a couch and clutching a stuffed rabbit I knew wasn’t his.
“Rogue taxidermy. Have you heard of it?”
I nodded while Clarence took a seat next to Harry, patting the boy’s hair while Harry’s bottom lip quivered. “Like jackalopes. Not really my thing. Clarence, why is Harry here?”
“First things first.” Clarence nodded to the murky tank. “Take a look at my newest creation. Not every one worked out, but I feel this one looks the best.”
Deciding that just going along with what the potentially crazy and murderous guy wanted was the best course of action, I headed over to the tank. I nearly set my fingers on the side when Clarence cleared his throat. “Uh, maybe don’t… do that. Just wait a moment.”
So I did. In a moment, the water stirred and out popped the head of a goat. I jumped backwards with probably quite the yell, much to Clarence’s amusement as I heard him quietly chuckle.
The goat glowered at me before it flicked its tail above the water… its fish tail. As it swum circles around the tank, its lips twitched to show its flat molars had been replaced with what I could only assume were the teeth of various dogs, all janky and twisted.
“I spent a long time getting all the fish I needed for its tail. I needed them fresh, you see, so I couldn’t just go to any fish market and expect the freshness required.”
I turned back around, hiding my shaking hands behind my back. “What the actual fuck, Clarence?” I said, my jaw clenched so tight it was borderline painful.
Clarence tutted his tongue and covered Harry’s ears. “Small ears listen, Bobby,” He gently scolded.
“Not apologizing. What is that?!” I asked, gesturing to the goat monstrosity swimming in its tank. “What is… what is all of this?!”
Clarence got to his feet, putting himself between me and Harry, who was still cuddling the rabbit and clearly struggling not to cry. “You get a lot from a family, you know. Inherit so many things.” In this basement that stunk of death, Clarence had gone from the shaky nerdy fellow to a man confident and dare I say it, proud of his work. “I’ve inherited my talents, and of course the instructions, to fake life.” He nodded towards the dog-raccoon combo. “It’s not really alive, or it doesn’t have its soul from before. It’s running off muscle memory, which probably is why that goat is so poorly behaved.”
Before I could get it out, Clarence answered it for me. “And as for why, well, my ancestors have been playing with the dead for almost seven generations.” He nodded towards the work bench. “Go on, take a look.”
It took me a second to realize he was gesturing to a book, thicker than most dictionaries and bound with old, cracked leather. Still trying to keep Clarence at the corner of my vision, I picked up the book and flipped it open. The writing near the beginning was faded and written in such old English I could barely understand it, but as I flipped through the pages the words became darker and the language began to modernize. At the end of each section was a signature.
“My mother was the most recent author. I was her only child. Luckily for me, I lived long enough to inherit the book.” Clarence’s jaw clenched so tight it looked painful. “But I’ve not been so lucky.
“Trudy?” I asked.
Clarence took a deep shuddering breath before he nodded. “It was all my fault, you know,” A tear slipped out of the corner of his eye, “I’d been working far too hard. My wife, bless her, told me I needed to take it easy, but I wanted to- I guess I just wanted to make a mark somewhere other than the book, which would only be seen by family. I fell asleep at the wheel of my car when Tr… Trudy was sleeping in the backseat. We were heading home from a father daughter date, because I f-finally promised to take the time to spend time with her. I thought I’d have a hundred more nights like that, never even thought for a moment how it’d be the final time.”
He looked at Harry, eyes filled with grief. “No, he doesn’t look like Trudy. Not a bit. Trudy… my Trudy looked like her mother. Ginger hair and hazel eyes, had a beautiful smile. But this boy, it’s his soul that reminds me of Trudy. Good. Just… just so good. I promise, no animal in here suffered. I managed to procure some pentobarbital to help them go easy and quietly. Except for the goat, unfortunately that one had to be fought with a bit more. Quite an ornery creature, but I wanted to see if I could pull off making a seagoat. And I did, didn’t I? No one else in that book has succeeded in making separate parts work as a whole. It’s been tried of course, Mary Shelley was quite an inspiring woman, but I was the one to figure it out. I have to pass it on to someone, don’t I?”
The conviction he spoke with during his speech, I almost understood him. Almost.
I set the book back down and carefully approached Clarence. “But you can’t pass it onto Harry. You know he’s not your son. We can make this better, Clarence. You don’t want to hurt Harry, right?” I said, trying to speak in a calm voice and not with the fury I felt for the sake of this little guy.
Clarence’s face contorted in horror. “Of course I wouldn’t!” He said.
“Can’t you see how scared he is then?” I gestured to the little boy. “Was that Trudy’s bunny? He seems to like it.”
Clarence swallowed audibly. “She named it Rosie,” He said.
“You don’t want to hurt Harry, but his dad? He’s in agony right now. Just like you were when you lost Trudy.” I took another careful step towards Harry, trying to gesture for the little boy to come to me but he seemed about glued to his seat. “You don’t want to hurt someone like you were hurt. You didn’t even want to hurt these animals, you just wanted to create something new, and you did. It’s… it’s beautiful, Clarence. You’ve really done something incredible.” My stomach turned at the lie, but I was just trying to calm this guy down as I inched closer to Harry. “Let’s go to Tim and return Harry. We can get you some help. I’ll be with you every step of the way. It’s not too late to make things right.” I was now right up next to Clarence, who was staring at his hands. “We can make this right?” I asked. He didn’t respond, just staying still. I took that as a sign of acceptance, so I reached for Harry.
My first mistake was assuming Clarence’s stillness was a sign of surrender. My second mistake was assuming that Clarence wasn’t as wimpy as he looked.
He moved like lightning, one second I was reaching for Harry and the next I was flat on my ass with stars exploding in front of my eyes and my head screaming in pain.
Clarence stood, his face a careful mask as he patted Harry’s head. “I’m sorry, Bobby. But I know there’s no returning from what I’ve done.” He leaned down to look at me, smiling that friendly smile that now made my skin crawl. “I won’t kill you. You can tell Tim and Florence I’ll take great care of Harry. He won’t even miss them, with all the things he’ll be able to learn from me.”
With not many options, I did probably one of the lowest things I could’ve done.
I smacked Clarence’s left leg out from under him. It hurt like hell to whack his prosthetic, but it had the desired effect. Clarence immediately lost his balance and he tumbled to the ground. My head still swimming with pain, I scrambled to get up and scooped Harry up, who finally began to wail as I held him in my arms. I tried to head for the stairs, but by then Clarence had gotten back up and limped his way in front of me, cutting off my mistake. He was still so calm, not at all mad about my retaliatory attack.
“You’re not leaving with Harry,” Clarence said. “I won’t kill you, I promised and I don’t break promises, but I will hurt you if it means I’ll have him.”
I backed away, now not at all sure of what Clarence was capable of now. Sure, he said he wouldn’t kill me, but would him killing me count if he could just bring me back right after?
I kept stepping backwards until I nearly bumped into the tank. I heard the gnashing of the seagoat’s teeth behind me and it occurred to me that not all of Clarence’s creations were happy to just chill and eat their own guts.
I bolted behind the tank and with one strong kick, I knocked that tank over.
The tank’s water spilled across the floor and the seagoat flopped about, trying to find balance with only two legs and a fish tail. Its strange yellow eyes rolled back towards me for a second and I briefly panicked, thinking it might be come for me, but it thankfully its murderous gaze focused back on Clarence.
With a watery bleat, the seagoat lunged at Clarence, who screamed as he was tackled to the floor. While Clarence tried to hold that thing back and prevent it from biting his nose off, I bolted for those stairs.
Hamlet was still waiting upstairs, thank god, and we ran out of that house while Harry bawled and held onto my neck so tightly I couldn’t breathe. I ran back down the street where the cop cars had now surrounded Tim’s place.
Even if my head was absolutely killing me and the horrors of that house were still making my stomach churn, it was all worth it when I burst into the house with Harry in my arms and seeing both Tim and Florence’s expressions of despair turn to pure joy.
People are still calling me a hero, which I will admit feels pretty nice. Walter says I get free use of his taxidermy space for the rest of his life, which would sound pretty neat but he never charged me before, so it’s mostly a joke. I don’t think Tim has let a day go by without thanking me, and Harry is still my little buddy. He’s bounced back pretty well, a doctor’s visit confirmed he was perfectly unharmed and he was always a pretty happy go lucky tyke.
Of course, people called for Clarence to be drawn and quartered, but the bastard got the last laugh. It wasn’t even an hour until the cops were breaking down his door, and although they did find a few sewn together animal corpses, Clarence was nowhere to be found… and neither was his book or the damn seagoat.

So it's a dry-ass winter where I am. Despite the quantity of humidifiers, it is persistently dry. So when 4 yo asks for water before bed, I give it to him. Hell, I want to drink his water. My folly was believing him when he said he didn't have to pee afterwards. "I'm good," he said. I shoulda made him go anyways.
Because I woke up at about midnight to a very upset little kid definitely covered in a lot of pee. Poor guy. Luckily, his toddler mattress is waterproof. So I stripped, flipped, and recovered the mattress, grabbed his piss covered sheets blankets and pillows, and cleaned up my boy. No prob, right?
Wrong. He is still very, very upset. Understandable. But he is scream crying and it wakes up his 20mo sister, who is a nightmare to get to sleep. She's woken out of a dead sleep and is terrified. So I pick her up and try to soothe her. Meanwhile, 4 yo is still scream crying. I figure out that it's because he wants his regular blankets, not the spare blankets. You can't have those, kiddo, they're wet. Cue some more hysterical crying. Hey want to sleep in mommy's bed? No? Fine I didn't really want you there anyways. Okay, let's all go to to your sister's bed.
20 mo sleeps in a twin extra long. It's not favoritism, she still boobs to bed (yeah I know judge me, she's literally a nightmare to get down at night.) So it's 4 yo on one side of me, and 20 mo on the other. 4 yo gets really snotty so I give him my shirt to blow his nose on because I'm not about to fumble about in the dark to find a Kleenex now. Eventually he falls asleep. Success? No. 20 mo is awake and pissed and determined to chew my nipple off until she falls asleep.
I let her. Fine. Whatever. But whenever I think she's finally dead asleep she wakes up, flops around and stares at me accusingly. Finally I escape after another 20ish minutes. I curl up on my bed when I hear her crying again. Damnit. I go back to soothe her, this time not getting in bed but curling an arm around her. She uses it as a pillow and falls asleep. I s l o w l y pull my arm away, only for her to wake up, cry, and glare at me. Fine. FINE. She takes my arm hostage. I sit naked next to her bed, one arm under an angry toddler. What feels like an eternity time later, I escape and get back into my bed.
I decide to tell my BroMos, bc now I'm fully awake. The demon child wakes up one last time. This time I pull her into my lap, onto a mattress pad on the floor. She chews my nipple while I type this up. This time, this time by the time I'm done typing she is fully, actually, asleep
And where is my SO throughout all this? Well we had a petty fight about dishes this morning and we've been passive aggressively avoiding each other since. He fell asleep on the couch watching The Mandolorian. TBH, he does that on most nights. But because we're fighting I'm not gonna get him. Stay on the couch, you ass.

I put together this extremely long list of tips, stuff we do/don't like, etc. for my best friend recently. It's kind of a lot and may not all be relevant to everyone's needs, but hopefully some of it will be useful to some of you. I found these types of posts super helpful when I was pregnant and planning, so I figure since I've done the work of putting it together, I might as well share the love with you all, dear internet strangers <3 As with anything pregnancy/birth/baby related, YMMV, these are just my opinions and observations so far.
We had our son River in March. We had planned on an unmedicated birth with a doula, laboring at home before delivering at a hospital, but that wasn't in the cards for us. River was breech, and ended up being born unexpectedly via emergency c-section and spending time in the NICU. (Birth story here if you're interested.) Some of what I've included is specific to that type of birth.
Most of the stuff we got was hand me downs, and new stuff came mostly as gifts from Amazon. I've tried to link to non-Amazon sources for things because fuck Jeff Bezos, but know that they are available there if that's what works better for you.
BOOKS
Like a Mother - really enjoyed this one
Expecting Better - really useful info. helped a lot with decision making
Cribsheet - can be read later on since it's mostly post-birth stuff, same author as Expecting Better
The Birth Partner - this would be for a partner to read, if it fits with your birth plan/philosophy
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth - didn't finish it, mostly read the birth stories, liked it
Happiest Baby On The Block - not worth buying, got it from library, but nice to skim
Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue - about raising kids without gender stereotypes - enjoying so far, except that sometimes the author conflates sex and gender which is a big pet peeve for me
Boys: What It Means To Become A Man - bought this, haven’t read any of it. I think it’s about addressing toxic masculinity in parenting
No Bad Kids - I didn’t finish reading it (library) but I might try it again
Babywise - didn't care for this one so much, just seemed stress inducing so I didn't finish it or follow its guidelines. Friends really liked it. It's basically advice on getting your baby on a sleep schedule super early on
Go Diaper-Free - just got this this week - it's about elimination communication (EC). I'm going to try out some of the techniques soon with River but it has advice on reducing the reliance on diapers from birth. Everyone I know who's done EC with their kids swears by it.
WHILE PREGNANT
Pregnancy pillow: made sleeping so much more comfortable. Also was sort of like a straight jacket that kept me from moving in my sleep (I’m not a natural side sleeper) and made a giant pillow wall between me and Mike (husband), but so comfy. I felt like style and shape is a personal preference. I had a “C” shaped one. I think I started using it around 14 weeks or so.
Support belt: I got this one in the event one of my ECVs worked to hold the baby in place, but none were successful. Some people use it just for comfort but because River was breech I didn’t use it because I didn’t want to hold him in the wrong position, plus I was never very uncomfortable.
Clothes: shop the holiday weekend sales on Old Navy online. They don’t carry a lot of maternity items in stores, and they’re pretty decent and the sales make them cheap. Beware that almost no pregnancy jeans have front pockets. But some (not all) Old Navy ones do. Motherhood Maternity is overpriced for the quality, though I did get a few office appropriate dresses from there that were also nursing dresses, so they look good when you’re not pregnant later. I had two pairs of pregnancy leggings (over the bump) that were handed down that I wore a ton towards the end.
I had wanted an unmedicated birth, which meant I also wanted to test negative for group b strep (you get tested around 35 weeks I think) so that I wouldn’t need antibiotics. I took a specific probiotic and swallowed raw garlic daily starting around 32 weeks, which can help kill the bacteria if you have it. It didn’t work for me, but I would do it again and start sooner (maybe around 25 weeks) next time.
For the last month and a half, I went to a Webster trained chiropractor and an acupuncturist who specialized in pregnancy. Both were amazing. I was going to them to try and flip River head down, but I think if I were to be pregnant again with a non-breech baby, I’d do both again anyway. Super relaxing, helped with being more comfortable and mobile. I also went a few times for Mayan abdominal massage, which was also supposed to help with flipping. It was lovely, but of the three treatments, is probably the one I could see foregoing in the future.
Also prenatal yoga and stretching were actually super helpful. My back and hips would sometimes hurt in the night and so I would do pigeon pose and some butterfly stretches when I got up to pee. Helped a lot. And walking a lot especially towards the end. I think staying mobile helped my back while I was pregnant and made me recover from surgery faster. I also did guided meditation and breathing exercises that were hypnobirthing based.
LABOR
FridaMom gown: so I didn’t labor, but this was nice to have at the hospital for sleeping in and it is breastfeeding friendly. I use it as pajamas now.
FridaMom c-section underwear: if you end up needing a planned cesarean, these undies are so much more comfortable than the hospital ones they give you. Those are a wedgie waiting to happen. I ordered these from Target.
FridaMom makes a bunch of other recovery specific to vaginal delivery, but I didn’t try any of it.
Definitely take everything (pads, undies, peribottle, diapers, wipes, etc) from the hospital and don’t be shy asking for extras. The nurses don’t care.
Stuff for you to bring to the hospital:

• Your own pillow and a pillow for partner
  
• Cozy socks
  
• Water bottle(s) ideally with straw or squeeze top
  
• Toiletries (soap shampoo toothpaste deodorant etc)
  
• Chap stick
  
• Hair ties
  
• SNACKS: we brought snack bars, jerky, and trail mix. I had packed these way in advance which I highly recommend doing so you can just grab and go. Honestly I think the snacks were the most important thing we brought to the hospital.
  
• Change(s) of clothes for your partner - easy to forget but they're (most likely) sleeping over too!
  
• Comfy pants - I ordered some c-section friendly stuff from target in advance (2 pairs of these, 2 pairs of these, 1 pair of these that was either high waisted or had a drawstring that could make it high waisted. These would work for vaginal delivery too. I still wear these pants most days
  
• 2-3 breastfeeding shirts (I got bunch of clothes from this brand - the short sleeved version of this shirt, and a few dresses) and bras (links below)
  
• Extra long phone charger cables and plugs
  
• I liked having crocs as my shoes there. Easy on and off, could be worn in the shower. I also packed slippers but crocs with cozy socks were enough
  
• A robe if you’re a robe person. Helps make you feel more cozy afterwards.
  
• Breastfeeding pillow if you’re going to be using one
  
• Nipple cream
  
• Breast pads (I didn’t bring these but wish I had for leaks -see below for more info)
  
• Lactation cookies
  

Take whatever drugs they give you for recovery, and take them on time (i.e. if you can re-dose every 6 hours, do it every 6 hours (not every 7 or 8 or 9)). I was prescribed extra strength Tylenol and Advil, as well as oxy for pain. I took all of them on schedule the whole 4 days I was in the hospital, and then when I got home, I didn’t need the oxy any more but I took the Tylenol and Advil religiously for a full week. I set alarms around the clock. It helped me to remind myself that they don’t give out medals for making it through pain or discomfort without taking drugs, so I should just take them. It’s easy to forget or to think you’ll just be fine. It's also so much easier to prevent the pain before it bothers you than to try and reduce it after it starts. I think this applies regardless if it’s an incision or your vagina that’s hurting.
BREASTFEEDING
My Brest Friend pillow: super comfy and easy to position the baby on.
Boppy pillow: no fucking clue how this is supposed to help breastfeeding. Apparently once the baby can sit up you can use it to prop them, but it is not helpful to us yet.
Motherlove nipple cream: doesn’t have to be washed off before baby eats, has no lanolin, and is really nice to put on before pumping if you have to do any of that. I got like 4 of these so I could have one by the bed, one next to the pump, one in the NICU, etc. I love it. When I remember to, I put it on after showering and before bed too.
Lanolin nipple cream: kind of hard to put on, and sticky and weird. Stains clothes. Dislike.
Bamboobies washable breast pads: soft, comfy pads for leaks - very necessary especially at the beginning. They seemed expensive when I bought them but I am now very glad I did.
Haaka pump: I’ve used it a couple times and am just about to introduce it more regularly to my routine. Everyone who has one loves it intensely, so I’m assuming that once I start using it more often, I’ll have a more concrete positive opinion. It’s definitely easier than a pump-pump. The Haaka I got also had a lid.
Nursing bras: I wear nursing bras 100% of the time now. I sleep in them, I wear them all day. Boobs are bigger when they're full of milk, and they leak, and having a bra on keeps them more comfortable and allows me to wear pads. Before I gave birth, I had stopped wearing nice bras (for like, the last 2 years or so) that were actually sized correctly to fit me, and was only wearing wire free stretchy ones that I got at Target. Technically the ones that I had been getting had straps that would work for breastfeeding, but my boobs grew so they don't fit right now.
So for nursing I got these, which are comfy and easy. They're nice for sleep. Only thing is that bigger boobs can kind of fall out of them, and sometimes I find that my nipple has slipped out from behind the bra part, which isn't really an issue unless there's friction or I'm leaking.
I also got these ones, which are my favorite. Comfortable enough to sleep in, and they do a better job of keeping things all up in there.
LACTATION COOKIES
Do these work? I'm not totally sure. I started eating them while we were still in the hospital, and had no trouble with supply (which seems kind of amazing to me considering I didn't start pumping until 2 days after birth, had no skin to skin with River for his first 4 days of life, and couldn't even try breastfeeding directly until he was about a week old). Did the cookies make that happen? I don't know. Is it nice to have a bag full of cookies that are all mine and not having to feel guilty about not sharing? Absolutely. For that reason, I suggest getting a few. If nothing else, they're a nice snack.
Booby boons in caramel crunch: always seem a little stale but very tasty
Mommy knows best in oatmeal chocolate rainbow cookie: a little weird but tasty and big. This brand also sells mixes to make cookies or brownies. I also made their brownie mix and they were delicious. Also the best part honestly was not having to share :)
Nourisher lactation bars in chocolate banana: actually gross. Weird texture and banana tastes chemical-y even though it’s all natural. Yuck
OTHER BOOB STUFF
My nipples definitely hurt the first few weeks but it gets better and goes away. I liked these Booby Tubes which can be microwaved or frozen for relief. I also tried these gel pads. They didn’t seem to make much of a difference but it was nice at the time to have some protection against friction. I got these too but haven't needed them yet.
Definitely ask to meet with a lactation consultant at the hospital. They can evaluate your baby's latch, help you with positioning, and give you tips for a feeding or pumping schedule once you're home. Also remember and remind yourself that it can be hard, and that's ok, and it doesn't work for everyone or every baby and that's ok too!
BOTTLE FEEDING
We supplemented with pumped milk (i.e. I'd breastfeed him, then we'd have a bottle of prepared breastmilk ready that I had pumped earlier to make sure he was getting enough) when River first came home so we had some bottle stuff ready to go. It seems like some babies develop a preference for a specific bottle while other will drink from anything. River was more the latter, though we thought that maybe the Lansinoh bottles seemed better? Not really sure any more why.
Lansinoh bottles: easy to clean, didn’t seem to cause a ton of spit up
Comotomo bottles: hard to unscrew because the bottom is silicone, but otherwise good
Dr. Browns bottles: entirely too many pieces to wash and assemble. This is what they used in our NICU
Mam anti-colic bottles: we got one free as a sample. These also have too many parts so they’re annoying to clean and assemble
Pump: Because River was unable to feed directly from the breast right away, I qualified for a rental of a hospital grade pump. They gave me a Medela Symphony. At the hospital, I was using an Ameda pump that was huge, attached to a rolling stand. I liked that the Ameda one showed elapsed time, but that was really the only thing I liked better about it. It might be worth asking your doctor or your insurance plan if you'd qualify for a hospital grade rental pump if pumping is something you're interested in.
Sanitizer:
Avent: doesn’t dry. Got this as a hand-me-down. We thought this was fine but it wasn’t. We needed drying.
Papablic: dries. Takes longer but much better.
DIAPERING
Butt paddle: so nice! No creams all over your hands!!
SkipHop changing mat: we use this on top of our changing pad and cover because it’s waterproof and more easily wiped down. It’s great for travel. Even when travel just means the living room floor instead of the changing pad.
If you have a boy, their pee goes everywhere, it is insane. The penis needs to be covered at all times, which is tricky. We keep a stack of shop rags from Costco (which is also what we use for burp cloths - HIGHLY RECOMMEND) on hand, fold them to fit between his legs, and wedge them there while we wipe and put cream on. He goes through a million of them. He will pee, then a minute later pee again. You’re never safe. There is always pee waiting to go everywhere. Like in his eye! Or mouth! I’m sure girls have lots of pee too, but it doesn’t travel in the same way.
Diaper cream: River got a rash that was really hard to get rid of so we literally panic-ordered $80 worth of creams online to try and figure out the best one. We got:
Sensicare: what they used in the NICU. Effective, but very hard to clean off and expensive. You go through a tube quite quickly.
Desitin: kind of whatever. Didn’t do the trick for us.
Bordeaux’s butt paste: smells weird.
Triple paste: expensive, but worked best for us ultimately
Triderma: too thin in consistency, like a lotion.
Aquaphor baby diaper paste: fine, but didn’t make it disappear. Annoying to get out of the tube.
When he doesn’t have a rash we use Aquaphor baby ointment (basically Vaseline). We also use this to moisturize his skin. If/when his diaper rash flares up, we use the triple paste until it’s gone.
BABY CLOTHES
FUCK SNAPS!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously fuck snaps. Any full body outfit that snaps all the way down or around the legs is garbage. Do you want to try to line up 25 snaps at 3am in the dark when you haven’t slept more than an hour and a half consecutively for a week? No, you don’t. All zippers, all the time.
Also, pro tip: if you are a paranoid person (a.k.a. a parent) and sometimes need to confirm that they are in fact ok by watching them breathe in their sleep, it's way easier to see their chest/belly rise and fall in the dark if they're wearing a patterned pajama than is it with a solid colored one.
Zutano slippers: these are the only things that stay on baby feet. They seem expensive, but you just need 1 pair per size (just start with the 0-3month ones and if you like them you could get bigger ones later), and literally zero baby socks. Don’t bother with the socks, they fall off every 10 minutes. They’re adorable but pointless. There's also knock off versions on Amazon
No clothing sizes are consistent, not even within the same brand. It is very confusing. River was simultaneously wearing size newborn and 6-9month Gerber onesies at one point. Like, they shouldn’t both fit.
Swaddles: we got these, but he busts out of them easily because they’re just a touch too big. We also had a few hand me down Halo swaddles that didn't quite fit right so we didn't use them. Someone gave us a used “Ziggy Baby” one and we used it every night. It's definitely nice to have more than one of whatever works for you because they will barf on it overnight and get the neck all wet :)
Sleep sack: At about 12 weeks, River started busting out of the Ziggy Baby swaddle velcro and woke up with the whole thing bunched around his neck one morning, so we immediately ditched it. Now he sleeps in a Woolino sleep sack that a friend highly recommended to us. It fits them from 2 months to 2 years, which helps make the cost more palatable. Definitely a good registry item. It's heavy enough to kind of weigh him down in place but breathable enough that I don't worry about him overheating. So far we really like it. We're also lucky that we didn't have to do any kind of transitioning out of the swaddle, we just cold-turkey stopped and it only made him wake up maybe 1 extra time per night (2-3x instead of 1-2x) for a few nights before he adjusted.
BABY CARRIERS
Baby Bjorn carrier: a friend loaned us one. Easy to wear and comfortable. I like that it does a good job of keeping him straight upright. I'm not sure if this is the exact one because I think the one we're using is a bit older, but it looks most like this one.
Boba wrap: half the time, River screams when I try putting him in this. When he isn’t screaming, he slumps over fairly easily. I haven’t given up on it, but it’s not my top choice It’s hard to know when you’re wrapping it around yourself if you’re doing it right enough before the baby goes in, and then once they’re in it’s kind of hard/too late to tighten so you have to take them all the way out and readjust and then put them back in. If I used it regularly that might not be a problem. Once he has more core strength and can face outwards I think this might be better.
Baby K-tan: also got as a hand me down. I can’t figure this one out despite watching all the how to videos. River definitely hates this one the most. We’ve never successfully gotten into it.
Ergo Omni360: We just ordered this because it was on sale and are waiting for it to arrive. I am psyched about the ability to carry River on my back because when I wear him in the Baby Bjorn around the house to do stuff, I can't really bend forward without also having to support his head from flopping back, which means I can't do any forward-leaning things that require 2 hands (not something I had ever previously considered).
BATHROOM STUFF
Get a Squatty Potty if you don't already have one. Makes pooping more comfortable, decreases risk of hemorrhoids. Also useful for laboring at home, according to my doula.
I also highly recommend a bidet attachment for your toilet. We got one with a heated seat. It feels luxurious, you use less toilet paper, and also I would imagine that after a vaginal birth, it would take the place of using a peri bottle and the water is warm. So so so so so nice. Expensive, yes, but treat yo self.
OTHER BABY ACCESSORIES
Leachco pillow: nice thing to plop them on as a holding pen when they’re small. I think Boppy also makes a pillow like this.
Pack n play: we got this one because we thought we’d absolutely need the nappechanging attachment. We have used the attachment zero times. Also, babies puke a ton and there’s no removable cover for the pad so it gets kinda gross. We’re gonna use this as our crib once he’s out of the bassinet and then probably go straight to a bed. It is nice right now to have a second safe sleep location that can be in another room though so a pack n play in general is nice to have.
Bassinet: we’re using this one. It can attach to the bed so it’s more of a cosleeper, but then I’m not sure how I’d get out of bed, so we leave it unattached. Still like it even if we aren’t using the cosleep feature. It has wheels which is nice.
My last recommendation is that you take all the free stuff people want to give you. Even if you think you don’t need it or you already got one or you won’t use it, take it. I got two baby bouncers and it’s so nice to have one upstairs and one down even though at first I thought it was overkill. All 3 baby carriers I’ve tried were hand me downs and I’m glad we didn’t have to do a trial and error to find the one that works for us. You will go through 100,000 clothes so take them all (unless they have FUCKING SNAPS!!!!! AHHH!!!! (although actually, even then, take them. Just don't buy new clothes with snaps)) because it just allows you to go longer without doing laundry. I had two friends give me stuff (one had twins so it was kind of like getting extra haha), plus a woman at work. We were even walking around the block with River one day and someone was outside their house, saw us, and was like, “do you want baby clothes? I will leave them out on my porch for you,” and we took them and they are great. Take it all!!
BABY SKIN STUFF
River has dry, sensitive skin. I'm copy/pasting the advice and products our pediatric dermatologist sent to us (sorry, no links in this section, mama is tired). Basically, we don't use soap, and we slather him with Aquaphor baby ointment 2x/day. Here's the doctor's list:
GENTLE SKIN CARE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BABIES
Bathing:

• Frequency is up to you. I'm okay with daily or every other day.
  
• Keep it short: 5-10 minutes.
  
• Temperature: medium warm.
  
• It's okay to use no soap.
  
• If dirty wash only dirty areas like the folds of the skin and the diaper area
  
• If you think soap is needed then use an unscented soap designed for eczema or sensitive skin like: CeraVe baby wash and shampoo
  

Aveeno baby cleansing therapy moisturizing wash
Cetaphil baby eczema calming wash
CeraVe Eczema Soothing Body Wash
Vanicream gentle body wash
Burt's Bees baby bee wash and shampoo (make sure it is the fragrance free one)

• Pat (don't rub) the skin dry with a soft towel.

Medicines:

• If using medicines apply them to active areas right after bathing onto damp skin.

Moisturizer:

• Thicker is better.
  
• Look for moisturizer that comes in a tube or a tub. If there is a pump on the bottle it is probably not thick enough
  
• Apply to the skin after medicines at least 2 times per day. More often is okay.
  
• Recommended products:
  

Vaseline (but avoid Baby Vaseline because it has fragrance)
CeraVe healing ointment
Aquaphor (baby or regular is okay)
Aveeno baby eczema therapy cream
Aveeno baby eczema therapy balm
Eucerin eczema relief body cream
Eucerin baby cream
Eucerin original healing cream
CeraVe cream
CeraVe heal and protect balm
Laundry:

• Use fragrance free, mild laundry detergents such as Arm and Hammer, All Free liquid, Kirkland fragrance free liquid, Cheer Free liquid, Seventh Generation, Dreft (check to be sure it says Fragrance Free)
  
• Avoid fabric softener or sheets in the dryer.
  

The Upcoming ALDI Finds Ad for 07/29/20 - 08/04/20 is now available. The ad actually starts three days earlier in some stores. A list of items in each category is included below.
Bold denotes items that are new since the corresponding Aldi Finds Sneak Peek ad was published.

• Made for imagination
  • Huntington Home Reversible Comforter - $14.99 (each)
    • Dinosaurs, Unicorns, Camouflage or Rainbow
  • Huntington Home Twin, Twin XL or Full Sheet Set - $9.99 (each)
  • Huntington Home 4' x 6' Rug - $19.99 (each)
  • Huntington Home Kids' Canvas Tote - $6.99 (each)
  • Huntington Home Metallic Light-Blocking Window Panel - $7.99 (each)
    • Gray, White or Pink
  • Huntington Home LED Novelty Lamp - $6.99 (each)
    • Cactus, Pineapple or Unicorn
  • Huntington Home Bed Canopy - $14.99 (each)
    • Dinosaur, Rocket Ship, Unicorn or Pom Pom
  • Huntington Home Hooded Plush Throw - $8.99 (each)
  • Huntington Home Character Backrest - $14.99 (each)
  • Huntington Home Cooling Weighted Blanket - $24.99 (each)
  • SOHL Furniture Saucer Chair - $29.99 (each)
  • SOHL Furniture Kid's Indoor Tent - $39.99 (each)
    • Black/White Rugby Stripe, Gray Clouds or Triangles
  • SOHL Furniture Club Chair - $39.99 (each)
  • Easy Home Collapsible Laundry Basket - $9.99 (each)
• Learning playlist
  • Bee Happy Foam Blocks - $12.99 (each)
  • Hinkler My Big Book of Stickers - $3.99 (each)
  • Little Journey Foldable Playmat - $14.99 (each)
    • Elephant, Under the Sea or Farm Animals Jumbo
  • Smithsonian Education Rug - $18.99 (each)
  • The Learning Journey Lift & Learn Puzzle - $4.99 (each)
    • ABC, 123, Color Web, Colors & Shapes or USA Map
  • Bee Happy Kids' Backpack Keychain Plush - 99¢ (each)
    • Pandacorn, Rainbow Llama, Unicorn, Shark, Monster, Lion, Candy, Cupcake, Ice Cream Sandwich, Football, Soccer Ball, Basketball, Baseball, Narwhal, Cat, Dinosaur or Pug
  • Adventuridge Premium Kids' Backpack - $19.99 (each)
• Step up lunchbox prep
  • Adventuridge Insulated Lunch Bag - $9.99 (each)
  • Ambiano Portable Countertop Ice Maker - $89.99 (each)
  • Ambiano 4-Slice Toaster - $24.99 (each)
  • Crane Reusable Snack or Sandwich Bags - $4.99 (each)
  • Crofton Microwave Assortment - $4.99 (each)
    • 4-Pack Bowls, 4-Pack Plates, Steamer or Omelet Maker
  • Crofton 13.5-oz. Vacuum-Insulated Food Container - $4.99 (each)
  • Crofton Mini Fry Pan - $4.99 (1 ea.)
  • Crofton Fruit or Veggie Storers - $2.99 (each)
    • Onion, Lemon, Garlic, Avocado or Banana Pod
  • Crofton 14-oz. Hydration Bottle Set - $9.99 (each)
    • 2-Pack Stars and Unicorns or Camo and Dino
  • Crofton Snack Container Assortment - $2.99 (each)
  • Crofton One-Cup Microwave Bakeware - $3.99 (each 2-pack)
    • Swirl or Flower design
    • Mint or Navy
  • Crofton Flexible Cutting Boards - $4.99 (each)
  • Zak! 3-Section Bento Box - $5.99 (each)
• Apparel
  • Girls' Accessories - $4.99 (each)
  • Serra Ladies' 2-Pack Reversible Tank Top - $8.99 (each)
  • Serra Ladies' Casual Pants - $7.99 (each)
  • Boys' 8 pk or Girls' 10 pk Underwear - $9.99 (each)
  • Toddlers Boys' 8 pk or Girls' 10 pk Underwear - $9.99 (each)
  • Lily & Dan Boys' 10-Pair Socks - $6.79 (each)
  • Lily & Dan Girls' 10-Pair Socks - $6.79 (each)
  • Lily & Dan Children's Light-Up Athletic Shoes - $11.99 (each)
• Plants / Flowers
  • Aloe Vera Plant - see price in store
• Weekly Fresh Meat Specials
  • Morton's of Omaha Fresh USDA Choice Salt & Pepper or Texas BBQ Beef Brisket - $4.99 (per lb)
  • Fresh Atlantic Salmon with Greek Herbs - $8.99 (per lb)
• Alcohol
  • Pomegranate Mimosa - see price in store
  • Corte Bella Black - see price in store
• Cooler
  • Chobani Flip Cookie Dough Greek Yogurt - 99¢ (5.3 oz.)
  • Crystal Farms Marble Jack or Mozzarella Nibblers Cheese Snacks - $3.49 (6 oz.)
  • Emporium Selection Imported Greek Feta and Halloumi - $3.49 (7 oz.)
  • Mama Cozzi's Pizza Kitchen 12" Buffalo Chicken Deli Pizza - $4.99 (18 oz.)
  • Park Street Deli Hummus Assorted Varieties - $1.95 (8 oz.)
    • Lemon Dill, Mediterranean Style or Sundried Tomato
  • Park Street Deli Olive Pouch - $2.99 (4.9 oz.)
    • Sweet Sicilian or Giant Green Olives
  • Parkview Uncured Polska Kielbasa - $3.89 (14 oz.)
  • VitaLife Cold Pressed Juices - $2.79 (11 oz.)
    • Beet Red or Watermelon
• Freezer
  • Bremer Pesto Pasta Shells or 4 Cheese Fettuccini - $4.99 (32.0 oz.)
  • Bremer Gyros Kit - $7.49 (38 oz.)
  • Fusia Teriyaki or Ginger Chicken Skillet - $4.99 (21 oz.)
  • Journey To... Greece Spanakopita - $3.95 (12 oz.)
  • M&M's Ice Cream Cones - $3.99 (21 oz.)
  • Mama Cozzi's Pizza Kitchen Cuban Style or Gyro Pizza - $3.99 (15.7–16.2 oz.)
  • Season's Choice Mini Hash Browns - $1.99 (20 oz.)
  • Season's Choice Frozen Avocados - $2.99 (10 oz.)
  • Snickers Ice Cream Bars - $2.89 (12 oz.)
• Pantry
  • Journey To... Mediterranean Dressing Assorted varieties - $1.99 (12 oz.)
    • Black Garlic & Fig Balsamic Vinaigrette, Greek Feta or Tzatziki
  • Journey To... Greece Rosemary and Feta Krinkle Cut Kettle Chips - $1.89 (8 oz.)
  • GoGo Squeez Apple Apple Squeezies - $2.14 (12.8 oz)
  • GoGo Squeez Apple Cinnamon Squeezies - $2.14 (12.8 oz)
  • PopCorners Flex Protein Crisps Barbecue or Buffalo - $2.99 (5 oz.)

Corresponding Sneak Peek Ad post: (US) Aldi Finds Sneak Peek for 7/26/20 (7/29/20 in some stores)
Previous Aldi Finds ad: (US) Upcoming ALDI Finds for 7/22/20 (7/19/20 in some stores)
Archived Aldi Ad

I don’t know how long I had been driving down the dark two-lane highway when the neon lights of the hotel’s sign finally broke through the endless fog. The digital display in my rusted-out Honda had been out for 8 months, and my phone’s battery had died about 100 miles back. I hadn’t bothered to pack my car charger in my haste to leave home.
I pulled off the highway onto the winding gravel drive. There were only a handful of other cars in the cracked, crumbling parking lot. I squinted up through the smeared bug guts on my windshield at the sign: Hotel Non Dormiunt. Vacancy.
The Hotel Non Dormiunt looked like it usually had a lot of vacancies; it wasn’t exactly the type of place you would seek out as a vacation destination. Tucked back off a remote highway in the depths of the Missouri wilderness, it was three sprawling stories of dirty stucco and cloudy windows set into a heavily wooded hillside, capped with weatherworn shaker shingles and a tattered, threadbare awning that fluttered weakly in the damp breeze.
After spending hours in my rattling, piece-of-shit car, it looked like a fucking sanctuary.
My joints were stiff, popping and creaking like a dying campfire when I climbed out into the frigid, misty night air. It took me a few tries to open the trunk to get my things. The lock stuck fast thanks to the cold and a years-old dent just below the keyhole that my husband and I had never gotten around to fixing.
A bell jangled discordantly above my head when I entered the hotel. I got as far as the welcome mat before I froze.
From the looks of the exterior, I'd been expecting something on par with a Best Western, all outdated, bargain-bin furnishings and mass-produced pastel wall art.
You know what they say about judging a book by its cover.
The hotel’s decor spoke of old-world luxury in tones of dark, gleaming wood and black damask wallpaper. Right across from the front door stood a long, mahogany welcome desk, polished to a high sheen and flanked by two winding staircases that led to a second floor landing. In front of the desk, a group of plush, burgundy chaise lounges and wingback chairs were arranged in a cozy seating area. To my right stood a set of double doors labeled “Bar & Lounge,” to my left, glass doors leading to a pool and sauna. A glittering crystal chandelier the size of my car hung from the 2-story ceiling in the center of the room.
I looked down at my outfit for the first time in hours, self-conscious. I was wearing flannel pajama bottoms, frayed badly at the hem, and an old, stained hooded sweatshirt from my high school cheer team. I hadn’t bothered putting on a bra, and my once-white Keds were now a dirty beige thanks to years of use. I clutched reflexively at the wallet in my hoodie pocket. Surely I could afford just one night.
I approached the front desk. The lobby was eerily quiet. A call bell sat on the counter next to a sign written in barely legible cursive: “Back in 8 minutes.” How long had I been standing there, gaping? Unsure, I tapped the call bell and waited.
And waited.
I checked my watch again.
“Hello?”
My voice croaked after several hours of disuse, echoing in the expansive lobby. No response.
I leaned over the counter to see if there were any clues about the absentee reception clerk. The overwhelming smell of damp wood invaded my nostrils, followed by an acrid stench that reminded me of deviled eggs left out to rot in the sun. I reared back, gagging...
...and stumbled straight into a small, stout figure behind me. I screamed, whirling around to face a boy who could have been no older than 14. He was wearing an old-fashioned bell-boy uniform. His round face flushed scarlet and he jumped back.
“Fuc- shit- I mean.” I laughed breathlessly. “Sorry, kid. You just scared me.”
The bell-boy quirked a small, closed-mouth smile. He pointed to the backpack slung over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow, one hand reached out expectantly.
“Oh, um, thanks!” I smiled apologetically and waved at the front desk. “But I still need to check in.”
He squinted at the sign on the counter and rolled his eyes. He turned to me and held up a single index finger in the universal gesture for “one moment.” He stepped through the gate into the reception area and ducked behind a heavy oak door behind the desk, presumably leading to an office or break room. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it before; it was heavy oak, stained a glossy black, with a bright gold handle. A minute or so later, he emerged in a rush, scowling over his shoulder into a room that appeared, to me, unlit and unoccupied. When he turned to face me, his frown had melted into a charming customer service smile. He held up a brass key with a grand flourish. His movements were fluid and exaggerated, like a mime. It suddenly struck me that he hadn't spoken to me this entire time, and I wondered, guiltily, if he would have been more comfortable if I had paid attention during the one sign language class I took in college.
He broke my reverie by plunking a large, leather-bound ledger down on the counter in front of me. He opened it to the most recent page of the hotel’s registry and nudged a fountain pen toward me that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
“O-kay. Right.” I scanned the page, not sure what I was looking for. I’d never been to a hotel that used one of these. “So, where do I sign?” Before he could answer, another thought occured to me. “Oh! And how much for the night?”
He rolled his eyes and pointed to the next available blank line in the registry: Room 999. To the right, in the margins, “$99/night.”
That...didn’t make any sense.
“Doesn’t this place only have three floors?”
The bell-boy tilted his head at me quizzically. He tapped the same line in the ledger very slowly and emphatically, as if I were very, very dumb. With his other hand, he gestured over his shoulder at an elevator next to the bar entrance that I would swear was not there 10 minutes before. The semicircle of numbered floor lights above the metal doors went all the way to 20.
How…
I blinked once, hard. I really needed a good night’s sleep.
“Right, been a long day.” Not wanting to waste any more of the kid’s time, I signed my name on the line for Room 999.
***
Room 999 was modest for a hotel of the Non Dormiunt’s caliber, but it was way nicer than any place I’d ever stayed before. A large king bed took up most of the room, covered in a mountain of pillows and a deep red duvet. There was no overhead lighting, just a floor lamp in the corner, and the heavy curtains were drawn. The air was oddly humid; it smelled damp and earthy. The overall impression was dark and claustrophobic. Ominous.
I shook the feeling off. I was on edge, that was all. I hadn’t been lying to the bell-boy: it had been a long day.
I plugged in my phone. After getting a few seconds of juice, my lock screen lit up. I bit back a sob. God, I was so sick of crying.
It was a picture of Abigail and Beth, grinning up at me with twin looks of adoration. My little girls.
The feeling had hit me the previous evening while I was washing Abby’s hair, soft, brown curls slipping smoothly through my fingers. Beth was crying, baby fists clenched and face scrunched and red, because Abby had thrown a toy Fisher Price boat at her head.
“Please, Abby, be nice to your sister.”
God, had I always sounded so goddamn tired?
“I don’ wanna share a bath anymore! Sharing is for babies!” Abby folded her arms across her thin chest, her frown the spitting image of her father’s. “I’m five.”
Beth burbled an angry, unhappy wail and thumped Abby in the chest with both fists, indignant in a way only a 14-month-old can manage.
Awesome. Now they were both crying.
I could feel the tears building behind my own eyes. The bruise that circled my upper arm, a perfect, black-and-purple negative of Peter’s handprint, pulsed angrily.
And the feeling hit me like a freight train: I couldn’t do this anymore.
I finished their bath on autopilot. I tucked both girls in - Abby in her tiny princess bed on one side of the room, Beth in her pastel pink crib on the other - and I kissed them each on the forehead. I pressed my nose to their hair and inhaled deeply, committing the scent of baby shampoo and the feel of their warm, soft skin to my memory.
Then I ran. I got the hell out of that house and didn’t look back, before my bastard husband could wake up and drag me back to hell by my ponytail.
Sitting in room 999, I let the guilt crash over me in waves. I had told myself that I was worthless to them. That they would be better off without me. Peter would be happier, and he would treat them well, and they would get along just fine. But the lies were less convincing their little faces smiling up at me from my phone. I buried my face in my hands and fought the urge to scream.
I took several long, deep breaths and waited for my heart rate to slow. Dwelling on the past was pointless. I had made the decision to leave, and now I had to decide what happened next. No, I got to decide what happened next, for the first time in years.
I came up with a plan. I couldn’t go back - completely out of the question - but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find a way to keep them safe. That night, I would pop a Xanax and get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, I would call my best friend, Callie, the girls' godmother. Best friends was a horrible understatement for the two of us, but I had always been too afraid to call us what we were. That’s how I'd ended up married to Peter in the first place. Callie and I had been on again, off again since high school, sometimes "on" even after Peter and I were married. I didn’t deserve her, but she somehow cared about me anyway. I already had a series of texts from her, furious and despondent. Peter must have called her looking for me. I only read the first one: Fucking Christ, Brooke, what the fuck did you do?!
She was right to be mad at me, of course. I was mad at me. But I knew she loved the girls. I would ask her to check on them while I was gone. She would make sure they were safe.
Some of the weight on my chest lifted. Things could still turn out okay. I would drive until I found a nice, small town. I’d settle down there, find a job, and get my head right. When I had the money, I would file for a divorce and a restraining order, and I could bring the girls out to live with me. I could be the mother they had always deserved. Callie could come too, and I would become the woman she deserved as well.
But that was all business for the morning. One step at a time, I told myself.
First step: a shower.
***
The bathroom was more modern than the rest of the hotel. A large walk-in shower, tiled in black marble, took up one whole wall. I turned the water just this side of scalding and stepped under the rainfall showerhead. I zoned out under the warm spray and watched the water slowly spiral down the drain, carrying the worries of the day with it. For the first time that night, I was warm, and I felt like things would be alright.
Bit by bit, a sound reached me over the gentle patter of the water falling against the tile. At first I dismissed it as senseless background noise: the sound of a neighboring TV, or chatter from one of the bathrooms above or below me. Slowly, it coalesced into something familiar. It was someone crying.
No, not just someone. A baby.
Once I realized what it was, it seemed to get louder. My heart clenched in my chest. These weren't the normal cries of a baby needing a bottle or a diaper change or her mama’s attention; this child was in distress, a hitching, panicked cadence. What really sent chills up my spine, though, was the complete lack of response. From what I could hear, no adult attempted to soothe the infant or address the source of their suffering. I focused, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.
It was coming up through the drain.
It felt silly to yell at a crying baby through a shower floor, but I wasn’t sure what else to do.
"Hello, are you okay?"
There was no response. The baby continued to shriek in despair, thin voice cracking around the force of its cries. I crouched down on the shower floor and positioned my mouth directly over the drain.
"Is everything okay? Does somebody down there need help?"
The crying stopped abruptly. I strained, ear tilted downward. The water was starting to run cold, and I shivered on the wet tile. A timid voice broke the silence.
"Hello?" A sniffle. A new voice that clearly belonged to a very young child, barely out of toddler-hood. It reminded me of my Abigail. "You can hear us?"
The child's voice was wavering and thick with unshed tears. Motherly concern swelled in my chest. I swallowed around a lump in my throat, determined to keep my voice even and calm.
“I can hear you. I’m here. Do you need help?”
Another sniffle. The baby moaned pitifully.
“I don’...I don’ know. I don’ know where we are.” The voice broke off with a hitch. “Can you find our mom?”
“Okay, I’ll find you. It’s going to be okay.” I didn’t know if that was true, but even if I couldn’t find their mom, surely somebody here would be able to help them. At least they could call the authorities. I switched off the shower and fumbled a towel off the rack before leaning back over the drain. “Do you know which room you’re staying in?”
“Room? There’s no...no room.”
I paused. “You’re not in a hotel room?”
“I don’ th-think so? I never been to a hotel. Last I ‘member we was taking a bath.” The child hiccuped. The baby let out a thready, high-pitched wail, and the child shushed them gently. “An' now it’s dark, an’ wet, an-an’ cold, an’ we’re all alone.”
Their voices were so clear, I had assumed they were just in the room below me on the 8th floor. But that description sounded nothing like the bathroom I was in with its clean, white walls and fluorescent overhead lights. It didn’t sound like they even remembered arriving at the Hotel Non Dormiunt at all. Maybe somebody had kidnapped them? Stashed them in the hotel somewhere? It was out of the way, off a remote highway - a perfect pit stop for human traffickers. A thought occurred to me, then.
“What about a basement? Does it look like a basement?”
The sound could be traveling up the drain pipes from the main stack.
“I gu-guess so. I don’ like the basement. 'S scary.” The child started crying again. “Are you going to find us? ‘S so cold.”
“I will, I’ll find you,” I promised. “I’m walking away now so I can go get help, but I am looking for you, and you’ll be okay.”
“K.” Another sniffle and a warbled wail from the infant. “Please hurry.”
I toweled off and dressed as quickly as I could. I planned to call down to the front desk for help, maybe see if they could gather a search party. When I lifted the room phone off the receiver, though, the line was dead.
Fucking figures.
I grabbed my cell phone and made a beeline for the rickety old elevator, hopping on one foot while I tried to cram the other into my shoe. I jammed my finger on the button for the lobby repeatedly, as if that would make the elevator move faster. I unlocked my phone, ready to call the cops if the front desk clerk was still AWOL.
No service.
Okay, don’t panic. You’re in the elevator. Try again in the lobby.
After what felt like years, the metal doors finally slid open on the first floor. The lobby was still completely dead, and that stupid sign still sat on the front desk. Eight minutes my ass. The bell-boy was nowhere in sight, and somehow I still had no service on my piece of shit phone.
"Sonofabitch."
I pushed a hand through my wet, tangled hair and tried to think. I could start pounding on doors, but the night was still pitch-dark, and I didn't think that would go over well with the other road-weary patrons. Besides, if the kids had been snatched, I didn't want to alert the assholes who did it that somebody was onto them. I stepped back into the elevator, resolving to check out the basement level myself, but the lowest number was the “L” for the lobby.
I was beginning to grow frantic, pacing the first floor corridors looking for a service elevator or set of stairs. There was nothing but guest rooms. Giving up on my earlier reticence, I started pounding on doors, yelling for help. I was sure that at least one person would respond to my desperate pleas and join in the search, or at least let me use their phone. But nobody made a peep. Nobody answered the door, nobody yelled back at me, even if it was just to complain about all the noise. My panic began to morph into a grave sense of unease.
Surely this whole place couldn’t be empty, as huge as it was. Where was everyone?
I eventually circled back to the lobby, out of breath and hoarse from screaming. My eyes landed on that imposing, black door behind the reception counter. Nobody had come out to investigate all the noise that I was making, but that didn’t mean nobody was in there. The gate leading back into the reception area was unlocked, wide open.
I remembered the musty, thick odor that had assaulted my senses earlier. My limbs resisted as I started to move toward the door, some deep instinct screaming at me that I really, really didn’t want to know what lived back there. Another far more powerful instinct, however, remembered those pitiful cries from the drain. I straightened, steeled myself, pinched my nose shut, and marched past the gate right up to the door. I pounded on it, hard.
“Hello? There are some kids who need our help.”
Still nothing. I banged on the door with both hands until my palms were stinging.
“Listen, fuckos. I’m sorry to make you do your goddamn job, but I think they’re in danger.”
Oppressive, heavy silence. I reached down to rattle the doorknob, expecting it to be locked.
“Don’t ignore-”
The doorknob turned, and the door swung open, revealing a concrete staircase leading down into darkness. A single, bare lightbulb swung back and forth at the bottom. I stood at the top for a long moment, just staring.
“Don’t make me come down there!”
My voice wavered and echoed off the cement walls. When I still got no response, I started to cautiously pick my way down the stairs, every nerve on high alert. I was almost to the bottom when a figure stepped directly into the swinging circle of light. I jumped back a step and nearly fell on my ass.
“Heavens, dearie, what’s the meaning of all of this noise?”
She was a maid, or so I assumed, given her traditional black dress and white pinafore and the cartoonishly large feather duster in her hand. Her age was hard to place - older than the bell-boy but younger than me, for sure - and she might have been pretty were her face not twisted in sour disapproval. I gaped at her, words failing me.
She sighed and fluttered the feather duster at me in a shooing motion. “Pop back to your room, now. Everything is fine down here.”
Anger sparked behind my sternum, and the fire gave me back my voice.
“Everything is not fucking fine. There are children in danger!”
The maid tutted at me - “Such language!” - and reached out to grasp my shoulders in a deceptively strong grip, preparing to steer me back up the stairs. I wrenched away and shoved past her, long past caring about manners. My life was terrible, and this place was terrible, and I was not going to fail these kids like I’d failed my own.
“I’m not leaving until I find them!”
The maid’s expression turned hard. “Now, now, dearie. Don’t make me go get Management.”
A chill rolled over me at that; the air had gone thick, and her voice seemed to drop an octave on that last word. My feigned bravado was quickly fizzling. I opened my mouth to try a softer, more polite approach when a familiar sound caught my ears.
“Mommy? Mommy please come find us!”
“I hear you!” I shouted. I gave the maid a smug, defiant look and, ignoring her yelp of protest, turned to jog toward the small voice. “I’m here!”
The basement was nothing but one long concrete corridor, broken up intermittently by open doorways. I glanced into a few as I ran past, looking for the source of the voice. There was a maid in each one, folding sheets or ironing laundry or preparing room service trays. They each turned to look as I passed, scowling. There was something off about them, but I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time. There was no time to puzzle it out. I was getting close, I could feel it.
Several yards down the corridor I stumbled across a large boiler room where the voices were the loudest. I looked at the ceiling and noticed that all of the plumbing stacks seemed to converge there. It had to be the place.
I started winding my way around ductwork and machinery, keeping an eye out for small figures in chains or cages. “Keep talking, I think I’m almost there!”
“Yes! Mommy, we see you! You found us!”
I stopped dead. Mommy? It couldn’t be.
“A..Abigail?”
The child choked out a half-laugh, half-sob. “Of course, Mommy! I knew you’d find us!”
My heart pounded against my sternum. This wasn’t possible. How could my children have gotten here? Unless...had Peter somehow found me already? Caught up to me, even all the way out here? I swallowed convulsively, throat clicking.
“I don’t...I don’t see you, baby. Where are you?”
“Down here, Mommy!”
Abigail giggled. Beth - the baby must be Beth - had stopped crying, and she cooed sweetly. My eyes darted around the floor, searching. And then I saw it.
Thin, dirty fingers poking up through the grate covering a floor drain. A child’s fingers.
I fell to my knees and scrambled over to the drain in a crawl. It was complete, utter nonsense, but looking down, I could see my children plain as day. Abigail stood there in her oversized Care Bear t-shirt holding her baby sister on her hip with a wide grin. They were both covered in mud and a viscous, slimy substance. Abigail’s wet hair was plastered to her forehead. Her eyes and teeth gleamed in the dark.
Hand trembling, I touched my fingertips to hers. “How did you get down there, sweetheart?” I cast about for something I could use to pry off the grate, but it was screwed into the floor. “I’ll get you out!”
Abigail jutted her lower lip out and withdrew her hand. “You put us here, Mommy.”
I stopped in my search for a crowbar or screwdriver. “I...what? No, baby, I didn’t do this.”
Beth was pouting now too, and they were both looking at me with dark, accusing eyes. “You did, though, Mommy. You left us in the bath, and we fell down here.”
My memory flashed to the girls screaming and hitting each other in the tub. I remembered the exhaustion that had washed over me. The despair.
My stomach turned to ice.
“I...I would never leave you,” I lied. “I’m gonna get you out, okay? You’re going to be okay.”
I started scrabbling at the drain with my bare hands, fingernails splintering against the rusted metal.
“But Mommy, you did leave us.” Abigail’s tinkling giggle went deep, distorted at the end. “You left us for good, remember?”
It was like a fog lifted from my brain. I had a sudden memory, clear as day, of the previous night’s bathtime. Of dunking first Abby, then Beth, to rinse the shampoo from their hair. Of holding their little heads under the water until they were blessedly, finally quiet. Tucking their damp little bodies into bed. They looked so peaceful; the first time in ages they had gone down for me so easily.
Then I remembered the weight of a revolver in my hand. I was standing in front of my worthless husband, asleep in his La-Z-Boy with a PBR clutched loosely in the limp circle of his fist, knuckles scabbed over from where he’d broken them across my jaw the day before.
Bang.
I remembered walking out to the garage, starting the car, and driving to the lake outside of town. My palm was growing sweaty around the revolver’s wooden grip. I sat there for hours and watched the sun start to rise over the placid water, until the sky was lilac and bruised with the first light of dawn. I pressed the barrel to my temple.
Bang.
Fucking Christ, Brooke, what the fuck did you do?!
No. No no nonono.
That’s not what happened.
I finished the girls’ bath. I remember that. I put them to bed. My husband was drunk and passed out on the recliner, but I snuck past him. I got in the car and left. I hit the highway and didn’t look back.
I didn’t kill them. I couldn’t have. I couldn’t be here, in this hotel, if I killed them.
If I killed myself.
I pressed the pads of two fingers to my temple. It felt wet, and the skin seemed to pulse under my fingers, a headache throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I couldn’t breathe.
A warm hand closed over my shoulder. Through teary eyes, I looked up into the solemn face of the bell-boy. He was smiling at me, eyes soft, sad but kind. Those eyes looked ancient in his baby face. He helped me to my feet and handed me a checkered, red handkerchief to dry my eyes.
My children were still crying beneath the grate on the concrete floor. I couldn’t bring myself to look at them again. Were they even real? Had I gone crazy? The bell-boy didn’t seem to notice them. He grasped my elbow gently and pulled me back into the hall. I let him lead me away.
The maids stood in every doorway between the utility room and the elevator, identical faces turning to watch us pass. That’s what had unnerved me before, but I barely noticed it now. Unlike the bell-boy, their collective gaze was furious, faces twisted in murderous disgust. Their mouths were moving in unison, chanting, but I couldn’t make out the words. My children’s cries were deafening.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy, come back! Don’t you dare leave us again!”
They echoed through the corridor behind us. I could still hear them even as the elevator doors closed.
The bell-boy pressed a button marked “out-of-order.” Floor 17.
It’s quiet on Floor 17, a warbly, inhuman voice slithered in my ear. Management. It was a mechanical, rattling voice, croaking along with the rusty elevator gears, barely audible beneath the shrill cries of my girls. You’ll like it there.
I felt something drip down the side of my face, a steady stream from my hairline, thick and warm.
We arrived at our destination. The bell-boy steered me out of the elevator into the unlit maw of the 17th floor, black as the abyss. He had to use a flashlight to guide us. He produced a key and let me into room 1705. He ran a bath for me, even though I didn’t ask him to. I explored the room, fingertips running over the warped, moldy wallpaper in the dark. The smell of damp earth was stronger in here. The windows were covered in dark shades. Underneath, the glass was painted over with thick, black tar. No light can enter this place.
When the water shut off, I silently undressed in the low light from the bell-boy’s flashlight, glowing softly from under the bathroom door. He helped me into the tub, eyes averted respectfully. When I opened my eyes, it was dark once more, and he was gone.
That’s where I am now. The 17th floor is quiet. No muffled voices come from the floors above or below. There are no birds chirping outside, no car noise from the highway. I can’t hear anything at all.
All of the bulbs are burnt out, and I can barely make out the shape of my hand in front of my face. The dark is heavy, but comforting. Like a weighted blanket. Or the soft, loose sod over a fresh grave.
The tub is still warm even though I must have been here for hours. Every once in a while, I slide completely under the water, just so I don’t even have to hear myself breathe. It’s peaceful at the bottom. No voices from the drain.
I think I’ll stay awhile.

This is my follow on and conclusion from my story posted yesterday. I am finally finished getting it all out.
Here is the link to the original post:
https://www.reddit.com/JUSTNOFAMILY/comments/djyvb7/why_we_went_nocontact_part_1/f4cq77z/?context=3
​
So we notice pretty early on that there is something different about DS1. As a baby he didn’t play with toys, doesn’t talk, doesn’t wave or point. While growing we google a lot, cry a lot and of course see his doctor. Doctor won’t do anything until he’s 2. At 2 we start the usual tests etc. My parents are in denial all the time. Constantly saying that he’s fine, nothing different about him. Or the best, it’s because of our parenting, he just needs a good whack. At 3 we eventually get a diagnosis of severe autism spectrum disorder, severe speech delay and moderate developmental delay. My parents fight me on this completely. I mean I don’t understand. DS1 was completely non-verbal, very routine based (would freak out if I parked in a different spot), and didn’t understand what was being spoken to him at all.
DS1 is now 6 years old. He attends a special needs unit in a school. He can talk now, however almost all of his speech is repeating things that he hears but doesn’t understand (like constantly quoting TV shows). He has however done so well. He loves learning and loves his school. He is very happy and getting a lot of awards. He’s also super chill at the moment. While my mum will admit that she knows there’s something different about DS1 my dad won’t. Still constantly saying there is nothing wrong. When hearing about DS1s class, ‘are there any mongoloids in the class or are they normal like DS1.’ I just couldn’t. I tried to explain that that word is not nice and not used these days, they just flew for me going off that they don’t know all our fancy terms. They commonly used the slurs subby (short for subhuman), mongoloid, n***er, p****er, just horrible terms for people of all background. They also use these in front of all grandkids. I lied to my parents and said that grandparents aren’t allowed at school functions because the school is so large, yup no grandparents day for them. This unaccepting attitude of DS1s special needs is one reason they can never be trusted to babysit, another reason is that they don’t believe in doctors or medicine.
An example of this attitude was when DS1 was 4 years old. He was still pretty much non-verbal and very routine based. For example if he suddenly made a noise passing a certain intersection, he would continue to do this every time you drove there. A new playground opened up at the mall. Children climb up some platforms into what looks like a giant bird cage. DS1 climbs up but becomes afraid of the slide and stays up there. He doesn’t understand us trying to coax him down and so one of us goes up and he slides down. This unfortunately becomes the routine and he wont go down until someone comes up (trust me we tried EVERYTHING to get him down). Out with my parents and he does it. I start getting ready to go up and my dad just starts yelling at him to get down (DS1 doesn’t even acknowledge him). I explain the history and my dad is like ‘that’s bullshit he understands everything we say, he’s just being naughty.’ I argue back and go up and get him. He literally thinks my nonverbal kid is doing it on purpose. Even at 6, DS1 doesn’t understand a lot of what’s said to him.
Back to hospital and doctors, Nephew (1 year old at the time) was in the hospital for bronchiolitis. He was on oxygen for several days. Nephew was released but parents were told to administer Ventolin so many times a day. Any time my dad would see my brother giving Ventolin to him, he would stand over him and say I don’t like you doing that, you’re drugging him etc etc. who cares that he just got out of hospital?? He would never help my brother hold struggling baby and give Ventolin, he would stand over him and argue with him about it. They also will not give painkillers to anyone. Doesn’t matter if one of the babies has a 40 degree fever, they will not give any pain relief. They consider it drugging the kids. DS2 has been diagnosed with asthma. I cannot count the number of times that we’ve had to take him to hospital. Now that he has a reliever and Ventolin, he is doing 1000x times better and hasn’t needed hospital. With their attitude we cannot trust that they will give DS2 his medicine (either his preventer or his Ventolin if he needs it).
This year (2019) DS1 starts school in a special needs unit. Up until this point I had been going out with my parents once a week on a day out (park, mall, shopping whatever). Suddenly when DS1 went to school, my parents said that they no longer wanted to go out. They didn’t want to see DS2 without DS1 because they had a special bond with DS1 because they looked after him sometimes when he was a baby. They then said instead that they would have both boys overnight once a fortnight. I kindly informed them that this was not happening, they would not dictate rules to us and we would not allow them to favour one grandchild. Communication temporarily ceased. My parents then came back that they would come to my house in the morning, see DS1, drive us to school and then go out with DS2 (my parents have this weird obsession with driving me and the kids around like I’m still a kid). I inform that I won’t be doing this. I honestly don’t want my parents anywhere near DS1s School. I also inform them that I won’t be driven around by them anymore. I tell them that it’s because I’m an adult and don’t need looking after. I can meet them somewhere. The real reasons why I’m tired of driving with them are:
- They always take this opportunity to insult me. Talk about how new generation parents are really crap and don’t know anything. They will call me stupid. If I try and sit silently they will start a fight asking why I’m not talking or if I’m ignoring them
- Their carseats are not secure at all. I had the seats in my dad’s car professionally installed. He didn’t like it, took out the safety buckle and the seats are now held in by a knot that he tied
- My dad is honestly a terrible driver and he has serious road rage. I’ve been pregnant in the car, with also toddler DS1 and he’s taken off after a car driving like a maniac because of an injustice.
They try my rules but it was ridiculous. All because I drove DS2 and myself, they won’t walk near us. They walk about 5 metres behind us at all times, my dad will go to extreme lengths not to sit near us (he sat on the complete opposite side of the playground), at one stage DS2 walks up to him and he pushes DS2 away. It was stupid. They didn’t ask for anymore outings, they actually inform me that they are selling their car, I’m like okay.. (lol they still have it) and we cease all communication for a while.
I feel really stupid writing all of this out. Absolutely stupid. Why did I allow them to disrespect us for so long? The second my dad pushed DS2 away from him we should’ve been no contact. Instead I kept trying, always trying to fulfil an impossible dream of loving parents/grandparents. I know that I also felt so much pity for them. They have zero friends and zero hobbies. They would constantly guilt me with threats of suicide, even my mum saying she should just drive into oncoming traffic. They were 100% successful in breaking up my brother’s relationship with his fiancée so he now lives with them as he is paying child support for twin niece and nephew. My parents have shifted their focus onto the twins now and so I don’t feel as much pity for them.
Unfortunately the communication cease doesn’t last long before my mum starts messaging me. Here are just a couple quotes from her messages (only names are changed):
- “There is no reason why dad and I can't look after DS1 and DS2
- “words were put the wrong way and it was too late once it came out”
- “Dad just asked to see how DS1 was compared to the rest of the class, he was starting to show an interest and you jumped on him for a poor choice of words. We are older generation and unfortunately we are not up to date on the right words to use,that is a problem with our generation you could say to us this is the word we use these days and not get so angry.” (This was in reference to my dad asking if there were any mongoloids in his class. Note I did try to tell him that word wasn’t appropriate and he was just ‘they’re mongoloids I will use whatever word I want, don’t have time for all the goodie goodie terms’
- “We don't understand younger generation, maybe if you rang we could start and learn from each other.” (Up to the drama, I was ringing them every single day).
- We have to forget the past and move on from here and understand each others faults and weakness.Grudges makes misery and nothing good can come from it.”
This has been a recurring theme. That holding grudges is bad. I don’t think it’s a grudge, but rather not letting people continually mistreat me and sweep it under the rug. There has been zero acknowledgment or apology for ANYTHING that they’ve done. It’s always our fault and we need to just accept it. If I ask them to stop insulting me, I get ‘we aren’t the loving type, we are who we are and you just need to accept that.’
Here are some quotes from replies that I sent back:
- “All you want to do is complain and demand that I hand the kids over. You think I want to hand the kids over when dad is so angry that he can’t look at me?? If you want to actually work through this, then the relationship must be worked over. I won’t just be handing them over.”
- “You laugh at me for using premium fuel, you laugh at me saying how good your generation is and how hopeless mine is, dad calls me names like know-it-all and all you do is sweep it under the rug and demand that I hand my kids over.”
- “Any time I tried to talk about DS1’s diagnosis dad would ROLL HIS EYES, or say things like ‘I'm going to make him subby with all these appointments.’"
I did suggest ways to restore the relationship which was basically small outings/meals and to take things slowly. Someone we managed to go okay. I still didn’t really go out with them at all, but regular phone calls helped. Theeeeeen I got pregnant again (currently 21 weeks). I tried to make more of an effort with them. I even went to their house for an okay visit. I went out with them and suddenly I was the best kid lol. I made a lot of effort. My dad’s response to my pregnancy announcement? I guess now you can’t on a holiday with us next year. All he cared about what was the holiday that wasn’t planned at all.
My parents suddenly decide that a holiday would be okay in early pregnancy. They call and invite us to the Gold Coast (9 hour drive). They demand an answer within the next 2 hours?? Because they just saw a good deal. Poor hubby was going to have an anxiety attack. I tell them that we can’t just decide things that quickly, kids have therapies, I’m sick, and DS1 has school (they refused to go during school break as it was more expensive). We answer them 4 days later and say okay, but August is the only month we can go (they originally said August or October). They instantly get a smart mouth that they are probably sold out now and deal is gone, honestly they even make planning a holiday stressful. Guess what, deal still on and plenty of availability.
About a week before the holiday I get sick.. really sick. I am in and out of hospital. I am vomiting non-stop, constantly asleep and nauseous, and my liver function is high. We still intend to go but another complication the morning of holiday, I prolapse badly and go back to hospital. I am told to go on bed rest. My dad rings and asks if we are coming, hubby says no I’m too sick. Dad admits that niece and nephew have gastro and so they are also at the hospital. Dad tells us to just come tomorrow, that things will be fine. Hubby tries to say no, its too dangerous driving 9 hours with me at the moment, he gets blown off.
The next day I make the decision that we will go, the trip was paid for and I felt so guilty. Hubby is not happy but we manage to get and go. Of course… during the trip I start bleeding (currently 12 weeks). Have to ring the nurse and they say to just rest and wait it out, if I’m going to miscarry then there’s nothing that can prevent it. About an hour from our destination we get a call asking if we left. We are also then informed that my younger brother (father of the twins) is in hospital at the destination with gastro. Cue many eye rolls. What I had was NOT gastro, for me to get gastro now would be devastating but no point turning back now.
On seeing us, my mum instantly goes to cuddle/kiss DS1, hubby stops her with an ‘you’ve been around all these people with gastro, no cuddles/kisses we don’t want them sick.’ She seems to understand. At dinner, any time brother leaves the table, my dad will whack 2 year old nephew with no warning and for silly things like playing with his jelly (he doesn’t do it in front of my brother). Apart from that dinner is okay, hubby and I later agree that this reaffirmed our decision for them not to watch our boys, we are very anti-smack especially with 2 special needs children. It has been a lot of hard work but DS1 especially is very chill. No melt downs or tantrums, we have worked hard on helping him control his anger. Physical discipline would destroy this, he can escalate if you escalate.
I have to point out something that happened at dinner that I did not see. My mum waited until I was away from the table to ask hubby how I was and if we were excited to be there. My hubby, who was extremely anxious about my medical issues (we were honestly told to prepare for miscarriage), my hubby was short with her. He said that he wasn’t happy to be here, I was too sick but we were guilted into it. Hubby didn’t raise his voice but he certainly didn’t hold back.
First day of holiday we go to SeaWorld. Our boys are so good! They loved watching the animals and patiently waited for rides. We get carried away on the last ride, it looked like a short line but it took us 40 minutes to get through (for those worried about me, I did not go on any rides or even do much walking, I was constantly sitting wherever I could and generally just enjoying watching the boys). After the ride it was 12:30! Lunch time! Actually a bit later than lunch time which is normally 11:30-12:00 so we immediately go to food area. This is where my dad informs that the twins have had zero to eat all day, no breakfast or snacks. Geez I felt horrible about a late lunch, but they hadn’t even fed the toddlers! There is a huge lineup for food and the prices were horrible. My dad informs me that he wasn’t paying that and was just going to buy a plate of chips for him, my mum, my brother and the twins to share? Anyway we actually go elsewhere for lunch as the hubby tells me the seagulls are too vicious attacking people outside. We go to the closest fastfood we can find and the boys get lunch just before 1pm. The poor twins don’t get fed until later because they have to find a specific restaurant to eat at. I can’t stand fasting for the GTT, let alone 2 year old toddlers not getting any food until 1:30pm.
My parents then ask, pressure us to try and visit my aunt that afternoon. Aunt lives 2 hours north. I decline. Aunt has never bothered to visit me when she’s in town, and we were EXHAUSTED after a morning at the themepark, no way were we going to visit. They take the twins and go and we enjoy a relaxing afternoon poolside. Dinner that night my brother was absent (still suffering gastro) so unfortunately nephew got hit about 10 times? They never tried to stop the behaviour (ie removing any items that he’s misbehaving with) it was just whack whack whack. If you’re wondering why I don’t talk to my brother, I’d heard him threaten nephew with a smack and honestly he didn’t fall far from the tree. I doubt he would do anything.
Day 2, last day of holiday goes okay. Morning at themepark, afternoon poolside, this time parents were there. Hubby has fun playing with kids while I watch (hubby is a big kid let’s be honest). While walking back, hubby and I are in front with DS2, DS1 is behind us (not close) holding my dad’s hand, near the room hubby calls for DS1 who comes running and we go inside, thinking nothing of it. That night dinner was the worst. My dad had to go to a fancy restaurant this time. I knew it was a mistake but at least it was close.
The kids all get colouring sheets and crayons, nephew immediately grabs a handful of crayons - whack, nephew protests – whack, nephew starts crying and my dad loses it he reaches over and shoves nephew (I can’t be sure if he hits his head or shoulder) but nephew’s head nearly hits the windowsill and he immediately puts his head down and cries. The look of hatred my dad gave that toddler is just what he used to give my brothers. I almost have an anxiety attack and immediately flash back to scared 3 year old girl and my throat tightens (I am not exaggerating at all). I calm down and become crayon master. With encouragement and praise, all the kids are so well behaved and do a lot of colouring with no more crying or whacks. When nephew starts to get bored, as kids do, my dad calls him stupid to his face. I have seriously never heard him say anything nice about nephew ever.
For those wondering, hubby and I were absolutely horrified with what happened. We did let the twins’ mother know what occurred for her to deal with. Why didn’t we step in? My brother wasn’t there so my dad was acting parent. We had zero way to transport twins, and honestly if we said anything my dad’s anger would have become 1000x times worse and the twins would have suffered worse. We didn’t call the police because this wasn’t a clear case of abuse. It would be abuse if my dad had touched his head, but I couldn’t be sure as niece was in the way, so police would have done nothing but of course only set my dad off worse.
We leave the next day uneventfully. I get admitted into hospital that night with another complication. They fix my prolapse but my liver is worse and so they do a lot of tests. It comes back that I have Epstein Barr virus! EBV doesn’t usually cause too many problems but sometimes it attacks the liver and this is exactly what was happening. It took me weeks before I felt normal again. I leave hospital feeling much better.
I catch up with my parents a week later and we go out, I even let them drive. For most of it they are on their best behaviour, until groceries. Groceries are on sale, my dad walks around and grabs a bigger packet (of course they aren’t still the cheap price). He tries to buy them at the checkout, it scans higher and he starts cursing. I explain that he didn’t grab one of the smaller cheaper ones, these ones are more expensive. I ask if he would like me to go grab one of the ones that are on sale. He’s like sure. So I go, even pick out a nice looking one quickly and head back. My dad sees it, it scans cheaper and he says okay, but I don’t want the ones YOU picked out. He walks them back and picks out his own?? Mind you he is blocking the register and holding everyone up! It was just so ridiculous and mean. Despite this, I call it a mostly success.
One week after the shopping trip it is Father’s day and DS1’s birthday (turning 6). I tell my parents that with my health problems are money we’re only doing small family parties. We offer to come over Sunday for Father’s Day and his birthday (who wants to have to see them more than once? :P ) Note this was DS1s only real party. In-laws do a monthly dinner out at a restaurant for all the people with birthdays that month.
It was WEIRD when we arrived. I could hear my dad in the kitchen and went to say hi, I asked why he was cooking already, he said he had to start (lol no he definitely didn’t). My mum hands me DS1s present and then walks away to be with my dad. She doesn’t watch him open it at all. I’m weirded out but not yet realising something was wrong. The boys wanted to go outside so we go out and they play. Normally my parents would come out too but no one does and we are there by ourselves. Hubby comes up to me and says that he said Hi to my dad and he turned and walked away from him. He wants to just leave. I stupidly say ‘maybe its just the normal depression he gets around holidays’ and decide to see how this plays out. Lunch is okay, my dad talks to me a lot, I don’t realise it at the time but not a word is said to hubby. We go outside after lunch and my dad does the dishes?? Literally the dishes hadn’t been done in the WEEK before this gathering but suddenly has to be done now, after he gets on his computer. This is when I realise that hubby and the kids are definitely being ignored. We tell my mum we’re leaving. My dad awkwardly stands there, I ask DS1 to cuddle pop, he goes up and my dad awkwardly pats him on the head and nudges him away, DS2 gets nothing. We walk out. I stop hubby from going back and yelling at my dad, honestly my dad’s temper is too great, I’m scared for hubby but also know that it won’t change anything. I confront my mum at the car about what his problem is. She tries to deny it and I counter with ‘he ignored the kids and DH, don’t lie” She hints the DH did something and says she’ll tell me later?? No contact after this at all. We decide no contact. It’s not fair on the kids to get the silent treatment because you’re angry.
I did eventually find out what was wrong later. Three weeks after event my mum calls me crying that DH is a horrible person. She says he yelled at her during the holiday (referring to time at restaurant when he was short with her), implying that he is a terrible human being. Apparently my dad was angry because DH called out to DS1 when we were walking back to the pool. She exaggerates here and says that DH was jealous of my dad holding his hand, DH called him 8 times, DS1 didn’t want to leave his poppy but he eventually did. All of this utter crap as I was right there. Yup the kids got the silent treatment because DH called DS1 closer to go into the hotel room. The entire phone call was her sobbing saying that we needed to treat them better and let them watch the kids. A huge woe is me attitude. Didn’t ask how I was (remember high high risk pregnancy), didn’t ask how the boys are (actually DS2 has had a lot of asthma attacks and they found a malformation in his heart), nope just on and on about themselves.
That has been the only communication with them now in six weeks! It has been peaceful. After the way hubby and the kids were treated, it would be completely wrong of me to ever take DH or the boys over there again. So our Christmas just became a lot quieter and cheaper! We are done! It’s clear that they don’t care about us, just care about having control.

My aunt Trish was my best friend. She was ten years older than me, and was the perfect mix between a second mother and a cool big sister. When I was little, she would spend the weekends at my house to babysit me while my mom went out to bars and clubs with her friends all night long. Despite being eight years younger than her, Trish was much more mature and much more nurturing than my mother could have ever dreamed to be. No matter what, she was always there for me. She was the first person I would go to if I had a problem. Feeling sad? Call Aunt Trish. Failing a class in school? Call Aunt Trish. Boy broke my heart? You guessed it - Aunt Trish to the rescue.
When she had twins at age 24, everyone in my family was ecstatic. We all knew she'd raise two beautiful, smart, kind children who would have so much to give to the world. And she did. By the time they turned three, Katie and Andrew were already forming coherent sentences and going to the bathroom all by themselves. They caught on quickly to the concepts of caring and sharing, and made an abundance of fast friends when they started preschool.
Trish, Uncle Tom, and the kids all made a perfect little family. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous - I was sad that I was no longer the center of my auntie's universe. But my cousins loved me, and I loved them back. I was happy for them - they would grow up with good parents, not an irresponsible mother who parties and an absent father like I had. Most of all, I was happy for my aunt and uncle. They were both the type of people who wanted nothing more in life than a happy family, and their dream was coming true. "Don't think we're going to forget about you," Tom said one day, not long after the kids were born, when he caught me gazing sadly at my aunt as she tended to her babies. "You're still like a daughter to us. We just have a couple new additions to the family. You've always wanted siblings, no?" I grinned and nodded, and he smiled back at me. "It'll be just like having a little brother and sister. Don't worry." Life went on, and I watched the twins grow from sweet, tiny toddlers into lively and ambitious adolescents.
In the summer of '06, Katie, Andrew, Tom, and Trish all took a family trip to Vermont. By then, the kids were eleven. I went over to their house for dinner a few nights before they left, and the kids chattered on about all the things they were going to do while they were away. "We're going to drive all the way up to the top of a mountain," Katie said excitedly. "You are? That's amazing!," I smiled, trying to match her spirit. "You should come!," she exclaimed. "Mom, Dad, can Anna come with us?"
"I don't see why not," said Trish. "Would you like to join us?," she asked, turning her attention to me. "I wish. I have to work, and I can't ask for time off on such short notice," I explained. The last thing I wanted to do on a Saturday night was stand behind a counter and sell movie tickets, but I needed the money. I was in my first year of college at that point - I had started school kind of late, and was living on my own in a cheap, shitty apartment, so I didn't have much of a choice but to work long hours at a movie theater when I wasn't doing school work. "Oh, well," Tom said. "Maybe next time." "For sure," I agreed, smiling politely. We finished dinner, watched a movie, and when the clock struck eleven it was time for me to go home. "Have fun on your trip! Send me lots of pictures," I told them as they walked me to my car. I gave all of them a hug, then hopped into the driver's seat of my Camry and drove away. On Saturday, at 12 P.M., they all took off to make the long drive from Massachusetts to their chosen destination in Vermont.
That same night, my phone buzzed. Trish's name popped up, along with the contact photo I'd chosen for her - a selfie of us at a rock concert a couple years prior. "Hey!," I said as I pressed the green 'answer' button. "How is everything? Are you having fun?" I was met with silence. "Hello?," I said, furrowing my eyebrows. More silence. "Did you butt-dial me?," I laughed. More silence. I assumed that she had, in fact, called me on accident. Right when I was about to hang up, I heard her speak softly. "Where are you?," she asked.
I paused, confused. "...I'm at home. Where are you?," I asked in return. Silence, again. "Hello?," I said cautiously, and again, I received no answer. I was getting worried. "Are you okay? You're acting really weird." There was a long pause, and I sucked my bottom lip in between my teeth, biting down on it a bit too hard - something that I've always done as a nervous habit. I heard Aunt Trish take a breath, then say, "I love you a lot, you know." For a moment, I stayed silent. The whole situation just felt... off. The tone of her voice, the fact that she was ignoring all of my questions. "Trish. What's wrong?," I asked, though it sounded more like an order than a question. Then, I heard a beep. She had hung up on me.
A heavy sense of dread fell over me. I tried to call her back once, twice, three times, but each time it went straight to voicemail. I called my mother, whose phone just kept ringing. I figured she was passed out drunk. I almost considered calling the police, but ultimately decided that I was overreacting. Maybe Trish was drunk, too. She never drank, so it seemed unlikely, but they were on vacation. It was a special occasion. I reasoned that her phone had probably died as well, which would explain why it wasn't ringing. Once I was able to fully convince myself that everything was okay, I popped a couple of over-the-counter sleeping pills and went to bed.
That night, I had a very disturbing dream. I was at Trish and Tom's house, sitting on the front porch with Trish while we chatted and shared a cigarette. Katie, Andrew, and Tom were all inside, watching T.V. Trish took the last drag of the cigarette, then tossed it into the ash tray. "I love you a lot, you know," she said as I watched a car pass by on the street ahead of us. Her voice sounded far away, like she was at the bottom of a well. I looked over at her and gasped. Tom, Katie, and Andrew were now all on the porch with Trish and I. All of them had blue lips and pale, gray skin. Their eyes were glazed over, unfocused. I heard several blood-curdling screams, followed by a loud bang, and my head quickly whipped back to the street. The car had seemingly crashed, but not into anything - it was just sitting in the middle of the road, demolished. I heard Trish speak once more. "I love you a lot."
I opened my eyes and shot out of bed, immediately running across the room to my phone where it lay on my dresser. Twenty-three missed calls from my mom, complete with a tearful voicemail begging me to call her as soon as I got her message. My heart started pounding. I knew something was very wrong. I dialed my mother's phone number and sat on my bed, gripping my sheets tightly as I anxiously waited for her to pick up. She answered with a somber, "Hi."
"What's wrong?!," I demanded. My mother burst into tears. "Trish... Tom... Your cousins. They're - they're gone," she managed to utter between sobs. My hands began to shake, and it suddenly felt as if I'd been punched in the chest. "What?," I croaked. "It's true," my mother said. Her voice sounded small, like a child's. "Yesterday afternoon, they lost control of their car and drove off a cliff. Died on impact," she explained, sniffling. I sat there silently, listening to her cry. I didn't know what to say... I couldn't believe it. "But... But I... I talked to Trish last night. She was fine," I said frantically.
"You what?," asked my mom. "Trish called me last night. I talked to her. I did," I insisted. "What?," she replied, her tone a mixture of confusion and annoyance. "I'm not going to say it again," I said, getting frustrated. My mother huffed angrily. "Quit it, Anna. I don't have time for this. It was probably a dream," she said. "I have more calls to make. Come by the house later." She hung up without saying goodbye.
A week later, I attended their funeral. The service was tragically beautiful, and they were all buried next to each other in an old cemetery not far from their house. Everyone left something at each of their gravestones - flowers, stuffed animals, handwritten notes. So many people loved them.
Later that day, I sat in my room, lighting cigarette after cigarette as I tried my best to cope with my losses. I walked over to the window and stared out at the setting sun, listening to a flock of birds tweeting as they sat perched on a telephone line. I took one last drag and crushed the cigarette into my ashtray, when a butterfly flew in and landed on my hand. I examined it, noticing the blue, heart-shaped spots on each of its wings.
I think my Aunt Trish sent it to tell me she was okay. As sad as I was, I couldn't help but smile.
I know she loved me a lot.

TL;DR: Over the course of several years I experienced strange occurrences that became more frequent while remodeling my home and during moments of negativity in my marriage. These occurrences include: clothes flying through the air and hitting me, dogs barking at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night, cold fog outside my daughter’s room, my daughter seeing a man in her bathroom, waking up to a dark figure hovering over my husband, and a doppelgänger of me interacting with my husband when I was not home.
When my husband and I first married, we lived towns apart due to work. We also had a toddler. We decided to move in together as quickly as possible and went house hunting. I have always enjoyed stories of supernatural or paranormal occurrences and joked about how much I would love a haunted house. I was later told by a clairvoyant that the universe delivers. We finally settled on a house that was in our price range. It was built in the 80’s so no concern of lead paint nor historic value.
Everything went smoothly for the most part. Our toddler would awaken in the middle of the night and explain that her stuffed animals would move or fly. We figured she just wanted to sleep with us. Moving was a big transition for such a youngster. We got pregnant with another kiddo quickly and he went out of country for about a year for work. Things were normal for the most part. The baby (6-12 month age range) would sometimes stare at the front door and cry or point behind me when I was doing dishes. Nothing too weird.
My husband returned and I eventually decided to remodel the house. It had not been updated since being built. It was a major undertaking. My youngest was probably 2 years old at this point and the oldest was 6. I became convinced that our house was haunted at this point and continued to be convinced for about 2 years. It is hard to remember the time frames for everything but I will describe the activities that occurred during this 2-3 year period.
I had a dog who required medication twice daily. It would frequently go missing. I would find it later in the same spot I always kept it. One of my daughters would talk about the little boy that lived in the closet and that she was afraid of him so we moved the two girls into the same room because we felt they were lonely. This gave my husband a room to dedicate to his man-cave and online PC gaming. My husband would talk about seeing a shadow dart back and forth in the hallway. I had a dream that when we took down the sheet rock, we found a secret room with dead twins who warned us to get out. All of this stuff seemed like normal occurrences that happen in life.
But then I finally became convinced that the house was haunted. My children and husband were all in bed. I had clean laundry waiting to be folded on the chaise but decided to sprawl out on the couch and watch The Breakfast Club instead. Alone time was rare. All of a sudden, a shirt flew from the chaise and hit me in the face. I ran to the bedroom and my husband was asleep. I woke him up and he voiced that he didn’t believe me but I know better because he got anxious and couldn’t sleep. The next big event occurred when my youngest told me there was a man in her bathroom. We had a security alarm so I knew it couldn’t be true. I had her take me to the bathroom and show me. She described him as black and pointed then stated, “he is right there. He is behind you.” I told her we would just leave him alone and go about our day.
We had other things happen that we just explained away. I woke up to a shadow figure hovering over my husband. My dogs would wake up in the middle of the night and bark at the foot of the bed. I would hear noises coming from the kids’ room and get a terrible feeling when I would check on them. I sometimes had to walk through a cold mist to get to their room. My dogs also would sometimes bark in the hallway.
I finally called someone to intervene when my husband met me at our door freaking out. I worked weekends and would always come home and tell him about my day while he played on his computer. The kids would be in bed by this time. I would then go shower and go to sleep. This night my husband said I had already been home and talked to him about my day. I then said I was going to go shower, so when he heard the garage door open and the car pull in, he immediately panicked. I was frightened to hear this as well. An entity taking my identity made me feel helpless. A co-worker got me in contact with her friend with special abilities.
Her friend came over with another medium. They smudged our home and put quart crystals in the corner. It was all free. They told me that the limestone behind us held in energy which attracts transient spirts and entities. Some are good and some are not. The shadow man stayed because of my husband’s PTSD and was attracted to the negativity. They also said domestic abuse had previously occurred in the man cave at some point and that was a big focus of negative energy. They taught me to smudge and told me I have ancestors by my side keeping me safe.
Things would still happen on occasion after this. We spoke to our Muslim friends about it and they thought it sounded like a Jinn. These creatures are mischievous and can be good or bad. They gave us a religious artifact from their hometown that had a prayer in Arabic carved in it. We kept it on our mantle and never had trouble after that. They would always laugh at Christmas time when we had our Christmas mantle decorations and our Muslim artifact. We have since moved but did spend a decade in that home.

My life was rather dull. I would go to my college classes only to appease my parents, but I didn’t have any real direction of my own. Every day was the same: wake up, go to class, go home and then melt my eyes with my phone or laptop until I would fall asleep. But, after one painfully long night, my life became a whole lot more interesting.
​
How to Make Your Life More Interesting
It was a Friday. I had already gone to class and I was in my bedroom, blissfully alone, when a rapping at the door interrupted my favorite anime. I sighed, closed my laptop and stood up from my bed. I crossed the room only to stop at the door and stare at it. I wasn’t ready to surrender my alone time just yet, but the door opened itself anyway.
My younger sister burst into my room with her shoulders slouched and head down, dragging her pink backpack on the ground behind her like it was filled with bricks. She passed right by me without even a glance then collapsed face first onto my bed.
“You… okay?” I asked, secretly annoyed, and re-shut the door.
My sister sighed exaggeratedly into my sheets.
“It’s about boys.” she said, her voice muffled by my bedding, “You wouldn’t understand. Your life is too boring.”
I should have been offended, but I listened to my sister moan on about her alien problems anyway. Each time I tried to cut in with some advice she would bark back with a remark about how unhelpful I am. It didn’t take long for me to learn to be silent. Eventually, when she had finished telling me everything that happened to her at school that day, she got up to leave for her own room. As she exited I gave a final comment, but one that was completely vacuous.
“It’ll work out…”
I shut the door behind her and then slumped back onto my bed. I retrieved my laptop, rested it on my legs and reopened it, but I wasn’t interested in finishing my show anymore. I used the trackpad to close the window then opened up Chrome. In the search bar I typed in: How do I make my life more interesting?
Then I hit enter.
After scanning the first page of unhelpful looking articles written haphazardly by freelance writers, I skipped ahead five pages and Google gave me a new set of results. I scrolled a short ways before I found one that looked promising. I clicked the link and the screen changed to white text on a black background like a hoax site about cryptids and I started reading.
​
How to Make Your Life More Interesting
By: R.
Has your life gotten dull? Do you crave the novelty that life had, but has diminished now that you’re older? Do you ever wish that something insane would happen just to make your life more interesting? Well, then you have come to the right place, because I have the solution and I’m not going to tease you of it any longer. The solution is this: eat your fingers.
​
I blinked with surprise and reread that last sentence several times. Eat my fingers? Was this some kind of sick joke? I kept reading anyway.
​
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m insane for suggesting something so sensational, so outlandish and bold. But you’re wrong, at least your opinion of me is, because I’m not insane. I had a normal, sane person job just like you do. I had a good life before. But, deep down, I knew that a good life isn’t always an interesting one.
My neighbor’s dog ran away a few months ago. We spent whole days looking for her and, just when we were going to give up hope, she found us. She, quite skillfully, hobbled up to us on three legs, with a happy smile and her tail wagging, and only a bloody stub where her back right leg had been before she had gotten lost. No, the pup wasn’t attacked by a mountain lion. She was simply caught on a twisted limb of a fallen tree and, instead of backing out of the trap, she chewed her own leg off to free herself. Most animals (and some humans) are able to realise in these sorts of situations that their survival is more important than the extremity that has confined them. Now, you just need to realise that, like survival, your newly novel life will be more important than those posable tools on your hands.
Some say that biting off a finger is as easy as chomping a carrot. Others say that we don’t actually have enough strength in our bite to be able to do it. Neither of these claims, however, are true. It won’t be as simple as eating a carrot, but you can indeed gnaw off a finger, it will just take some real dedication. In the end, I can assure you, your appreciation for your changed life will have made the effort worthwhile.
Can you imagine how different your life will be with just two useless pancake meat flaps at the ends of your arms? Everything will be different: from driving, writing, even brushing your teeth will be a whole new experience! Every day you will need to find new ways to do tasks that were once menial and tedious and that is novelty, that is interesting*.*
​
When I finished reading I closed my laptop and let out a defeated sigh. I leaned the computer against the frame of my bed on the floor, curled into a fetal position and cried quietly until I fell asleep.
I woke to more knocks.
“Dinner’s ready.” my mother’s voice called, sounding vexed.
I sat up, rubbed my eyes and responded groggily.
“I’m coming.”
A pause.
“Are you?”
I didn’t respond. I threw my legs over the side of my bed, knocking my laptop over, and pushed my palms into my eyes until I saw colors. I opened my jaw and exhaled hard into a silent scream. Then, my hands fell from my face and onto my lap and my eyes blinked as they readjusted.
That simple question that she asked was enough to reawaken the lingering shame just below the surface. I was the family disappointment. Never leaving the house. Never doing anything at all. My life was nothing like my sister’s because mine was nonexistent. In one quick motion, without any thought, I stuck my right pinky in my mouth and bit it hard with my incisors.
Hot pain. My whole hand spasmed, but I kept it in my mouth anyway. Blood spewed from out of the bite and sat on my tongue like a shot of warm, metal flavoured syrup. I did it once more, again mindlessly, and found the tendon inside. The tough, white tissue felt like a tight rubber band and I was able to cut through it with my canines until it snapped. Then I pushed the pinky to the back of my mouth and began gnawing through the bone with my molars, which hurt my teeth, but soon I heard a loud crack and I was able to clasp the finger in my mouth and yank my hand away until it tore free.
My injured hand fell limply onto my lap, splashing the pool of blood that had collected there. I blinked as I slowly realised that my pinky was still resting in my lips like a fleshy cigarette and I spat it out onto the floor. I jumped up to my feet and panickedly crossed the room to peer into a small mirror on my desk. My entire front was stained with drying red paste like a car sick toddler after eating a slice of cherry pie.
I looked out the blinds of my window and found that it was now dark, late, the middle of the night. I left to the bathroom across the hall, careful to be quiet and not wake anyone, washed my face and changed clothes. I then held my shaky, bloody hand under icy cold water until it went numb. Using some cotton balls and gauze tape, I was able to wrap the wound up and stop the bleeding somewhat. I took the ruined sheets off of my bed and hid them in my closet, covered the carpet with dirty clothes and shut the rapidly cooling finger in a shoebox and slid it under my bed like a secret treasure.
I left the house quietly without even saying goodbye. I got in my car and went straight to the only place I could think of: Hannon Mental Health Center. It wasn’t far. I drove past the building every day on my way to school, so I knew exactly where it was.
I parked in the nearly empty parking lot, went into the lobby and found a half asleep receptionist pretending to work on her computer. When I walked up to her desk she perked up and forced a smile.
“I would like to admit myself.” I winced at the desperation and hysteria that came through in my voice, “I… just need some help.”
“There aren’t any therapists or psychologists in at the moment.” she smiled at me in an inauthentic way, attached a form to a clipboard and held it out to me, “But we will do what we can to keep you comfortable and safe until tomorrow when you can be screened by a therapist.”
That was fine. I didn’t need a psych evaluation immediately, I just didn’t want to be alone with myself anymore. So, I nodded and took the clipboard from her hands. As I reached, however, I revealed my improvised bandages and she noticed, I know she did, but she pretended to not be concerned, she never lost her false smile when she looked at me.
I filled out the form as best I could. I didn’t know any of my parent’s insurance information, so I told the beaming receptionist and she reassured me that they could call my house in the morning and exchange information with my parents. After that I was taken into a small room that mimicked a pediatrician’s checkup room complete with dinosaur wallpaper and a very short, paper covered plastic bed. I sat on my hand, which hurt, but I didn’t want them to see it, even though I knew that it would be inevitable.
A nurse entered the room and, like the receptionist, grinned at me.
“Hi!” she said like she was speaking to a puppy through a glass window at the petstore, “I’m nurse Palik, but if you’d rather you can call me Deb.”
I nodded slightly, still refusing to buy into their friendly game.
Nurse Palik proceeded to examine me like a routine checkup. She took my heart rate, shined a light in my eyes and ears and felt the lymph nodes on my neck. When she was done she sighed, stepped back and looked at me, no longer smiling.
“Now, let’s have a look at that hand.”
I was shocked. I thought I had done a fairly good job of hiding it. Regardless, I pulled my hand out from under my thigh and held it out to show her.
“I happened yesterday.” I lied, “I was helping my father cut wood and it got caught on the saw.”
“‘Did you visit the hospital?”
“Yes.” I continued to build the false story, “They said that it couldn’t be reattached because of the way that it was severed.”
“I see.” she pursed her lips and thought for a moment, “It’s not so bad to lose a finger, especially one as useless as a pinky. Most people won’t even notice. My husband lost most of his thumb when he was a boy and his older brother accidentally shut it in the car door, but I didn’t even know until he pointed it out to me on our fifth date.”
I didn’t respond.
Thanks to my story, Nurse Palik didn’t examine my wound, but she ordered me to keep it clean. She then made me change into a pair of ugly pink slippers, citing that shoelaces were not allowed in the ‘back’, then she felt me up like a police officer would a drug dealer and, after confirming my pockets were empty, led me out of the room, down a hall to a metal barred door. She opened it with a key and brought me to my room.
Far down a silent and lightless hallway we stopped before one of many closed doors and the nurse knocked on it softly. When there was no response she pushed it open. Inside was as black as space, but she continued into the dark anyway like an acclimated blind person navigating their own home.
I tentatively joined her inside the blackness. Following the soft sounds of her padding footsteps in front of me, I was able to cross the room and my hands found the cold metal of a bed’s footboard, marking the end of our journey. I sat down on the bed and I could hear the nurse fold her arms.
“There’s a bathroom down the hall that you can use to prepare for bed.” she told me in a hush, “Make sure to wash that hand.”
“Sure.” I whispered back, “Thank you.”
“Goodnight, love.”
“Night.”
I listened as her footsteps drew further away from me until she reached the door, then I heard it shut again and I was alone, or at least I thought I was. I fell backward, plopping onto the firm bed, and stared upward at the dark. I was ruminating over how my parents would react when I heard heavy, peaceful breathing not far from me. Someone else was in the room, asleep.
His name was Ryland. He introduced himself to me in the morning when I woke and, remembering the disembodied breathing, glanced aside to find the young man sitting on a second, twin sized bed reading a book that was propped on his bent legs. At first I didn’t think he was real. His skin was pale, but, really, a slight gray color like a dolphin. His black hair was a mess and appeared to not have been washed in a long time as it was matted and stuck out in all directions. He was balding a little on his crown and made him look like a very youthful mad scientist. His body and forearms were covered by the blue sheets that matched mine, but I could still tell that he was as thin as a skeleton.
When he noticed I had awoken he turned his head to me and smiled warmly.
“Rise and shine!” he said, mocking the effervescent tone of the staff.
I knew then that we would get along just fine.
Ryland told me all about his situation first when, after he asked about me, I was unable to come up with anything to say. He explained that he had only been at Hannon for three days, this being the third, and that he was forcibly admitted by his family. Despite his disheveled appearance, he was really very pleasant. He was calm and never broke eye contact as he lay there, seeming eager to try to be my friend, and succeeding.
“So, what about you, then?” he asked me again, “What are you doing here?”
I looked ashamedly down at my hands, my injured one in plain view.
“I just can’t be alone… I don’t feel safe with myself.”
Ryland nodded solemnly and thought for a moment before he replied.
“It’s the scariest thing to be alone with yourself, but it’s the only way to get to know each other.”
He looked away and scoffed.
“This place is a stop sign at a T intersection.”
“Huh?” I quizzed.
“You and I… We’re on a minor roadway, but the road is coming to an end. We can go left or right. That’s it. There’s no staying on this road anymore and that’s a good thing. That road was poorly maintained- covered in bumps and potholes, but now that we’re at the end, at the stop sign sign, we can look both ways and choose where to go next.”
I wasn’t sure what to say; his optimism wasn’t getting through to me. Our conversation died down as a result and Ryland went back to his reading and, instead of using his hand, leaned forward and turned the page with his nose. I laughed at him and he laughed too, but he continued to do that as he read, never using his hands that were tucked under his blanket, only the tip of his somewhat large nose, even long after it stopped being funny.
Later, when Ryland had fallen asleep and I was sitting on my bed, picking at the stained bandages on my hand, a soft knock sounded at the door. Nurse Palik peeked inside and, thinking I was going to be called for my meeting, I started to rise, but she didn’t look at me. Instead, she entered the room holding a tray with a pair of scissors, a bottle of antiseptic and fresh roll of gauze. She stopped before Ryland’s bed.
“Rise and shine.” she said with a soft, fake grin, “Time to change your bandages.”
Ryland woke, squirmed under his covers and pulled his arms out like an emerging butterfly, revealing both of his hands that were thickly wrapped into two giant mittens of gauze. He winced as the nurse unraveled his left hand. Beneath all of the tape was a squarish palm and uneven, scabbing and sewn together stumps where his fingers should have been.
Shortly after they finished I was brought in to meet with the therapist. He was a lean man and old with very kind, warm eyes. He greeted me as I entered his small office and took the leather sofa chair across from him.
“I apologize for the long wait.” he told me, his voice raspy but lulling, “I hope you slept okay.”
I stared at him unblinkingly, determined to convince him.
“I’m ready to go.”
He exhaled through his nostrils and sat back in his chair. He wasn’t surprised.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” I said, “Much better now.”
“Do you have plans for the future?”
I nodded, perhaps a little too eagerly.
“I do.” I told him with the sincerity of a promise, “Very big plans. I didn’t before, but I do now. Coming here has helped me realise that I need to change myself. I can’t go on like I have been.”
After answering a few more questions I was released from the small hospital that same afternoon. I drove myself home from the building under the warmth of the setting sun and couldn’t help but smile a little with relief.
After enduring another long night, I’m happy to tell you that my life is a lot better. I feel lighter and more bubbly. I have a direction now, I think, and I strive to improve myself every day instead of just wallowing. I’ve never been very attractive, as my sister could attest, but now I get plenty of attention from both genders, old and young. Lots of staring, but not at my figure.
Every day now brings new challenges and, therefore, new experiences. Like, for example, I had to write this using a software for speech to text.