It was around 1 o'clock in the afternoon when his phone rang from the pocket of his work pants. He looked to see an unknown number calling, and thought for a moment before deciding to pickup.
"Hey," a familiar voice, but alien in tone, chimed in his ears, "Make sure he's okay. Take good care of him. I'm making the call, now, while there is still time. Goodbye, brother, and good luck."
The phone disconnected the call from the other end and he rocked there, frozen to the spot where he stood in the checkout lane. His heart was pounding in his chest, up into his throat, threatening to strangle him, or burst altogether. He dropped his basket of items and they clattered to the ground loudly. He ignored staff and customers alike as they gave him their full attention, looking flustered as he pushed himself past the line and out the front doors. He inhaled swiftly, and the phone reemerged from his pocket. He dialed frantically.
"Hello?" A customer-service-tone answers, unbothered and calm.
"Are you at work??" He sputtered, then began pacing wildly on the sidewalk near his car, determining whether speeding anywhere would be fast enough, "Never mind! It doesn't matter! You have to warn them, they aren't safe! She's coming to kill you guys!! Please-"
"James?" The voice was more aware now, less contented, and that was good, "James, is that really you?"
"Yes! Yes, fine, it's me!! Please, she's already on her way, she just called me! Are you home or not??"
"Well, no, I'm- James, what is going on? Are you okay? Should I... call someone?" The voice has reentered customer-calm and that's a bad sign. There's no time for calm.
Fuck, he swore to himself, and disconnected the call. He went into his contacts and unblocked a number. He dialed, hesitated, sent the call through, and held his breath.
One ring. Shit. Two rings. Fuck, come on, answer. He felt delirious as he charged into his car and sped out of the parking lot, nearly wrecking into a pole that was slightly bent already from some other long forgotten emergency. He wondered if that person had had any luck in their desperation, or if he was just as doomed as anyone. He had never felt so much panic as he did driving toward his mother's house now.
On the third ring, a pause, then, "Hey." That alien voice, that strange familiarity, that sickening calm.
"Stop this. Francis, please. We can work this out, they can change, please just don't-"
A very loud noise. He was sure a gun was fired. His heart was about to make good on it's threat to end him when another noise happened. A small voice was talking, a shaking voice, a crying voice. He nearly didn't recognize it with its edges tinted with age.
"Sweetheart, please, don't-" The small voice was pleading, kindly, and quietly.
"I have to make it stop," Francis' voice now, determined and full of an ancient rage, ", I have to make YOU stop. Forever. For all of them. I couldn't protect them then, I was just little, but I can now. I HAVE TO now!"
Another loud noise, and he's on the highway, but he can't possibly make it in time. There's no time. Crying and pleading followed the noise and a feral sounding screaming that could only be Francis emanated. He put the phone on speaker, and tried frantically to speak over the noise.
"FRANCIS, I KNOW YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THIS! YOU CAN STOP NOW! THIS ISN'T YOU! SHE CAN'T MAKE YOU DO THIS ANYMORE!"
"SHE'S IN MY HEAD!!!" Francis shrieks, sounding less and less human, "I'M NOTHING! I'M NOTHING! I'M NOTHING!"
The screaming continued as he drove madly, weaving between cars and trucks, being honked at or flipped off at every turn. It didn't matter. There was no time. If he could just keep her talking, maybe she would see reason. Or he could at least get there in time. He prayed that his father had called the police. He begged them to show up while he was still on the phone, bust down the doors, day saved.
Tears, hot and hectic, flooded his cheeks as he whimpered miserably, "Franny, please" his voice was the alien one to him now, and he felt like a thirteen-year-old again, "Please keep trying. Please don't give up. I need you to be okay."
Silence underscored his whimpering and made it feel louder than his own thoughts. He choked out sputtering cries and sobs as he sped into his old hometown, so close now.
"Because it wasn't you who should've protected me! I should have been there for you, Franny. I'm sorry! I was scared! I know you were, too! I'm sorry, Franny! Please, just put down the gun! Just stop this right now, please." He felt useless, feeble, tiny. It felt like the car was moving on its own and he was back standing in the checkout line, previously oblivious to this... this... disaster.
More silence. He willed his heart to continue beating in the moments of quiet, trying to hear anything. A noise, a whimper, anything. Then, finally, movement. Feet shuffling about, probably near the phone, then more quiet. He could hear breathing. Someone had picked up the phone and sounded to be walking with it.
"Hello?" He almost couldn't get the word out, "Are... Is anyone still there??"
"No talk!" A young man's voice, sounding perturbed.
"Jim!" He gasped the name and reeled, "Jim, what's happening?"
Fuck, James thought to himself, with some cruelty. How exactly was Jim meant to respond?
"Hey, buddy," He tried for a softer tone, a calm tone, "You okay? Where's mom and Fran, bud?"
He was trying not to ask too much all at once, but he was almost to their road and panicking. He forced himself to wait a few seconds to see if Jim would say anything. No response, no such luck, but still the persistent breathing noise. That was enough for James, that was plenty.
His truck barreled over the drive's curb and he was sure he'd bent his axle. None of it mattered. Outside the home, he saw Jim standing alone with the dogs, one hand holding the phone, the other holding a revolver. James felt the breath escape his lungs and before he could even turn the keys of his truck, he'd launched himself out of the driver's side door and was rushing over to Jim.
Big Jim, they used to call him. He was the youngest but he still stood a head and shoulders above everyone else. He even stood taller than James when he stooped, as he was doing now. Jim looked concerned, but no more than usual. Jim didn't like getting visitors, and it had been years since James had made the trip. He suddenly wished it were under better circumstances.
"Can I have that?" James pointed to the gun in Jim's hand, which eclipsed the weapon in size.
Jim regarded it with some curiosity before reluctantly handing it to James, then going back to picking up and throwing the ball for his dogs. James decided now would be a good time to check that the authorities had been informed of the situation, not just because he was afraid to go into the house alone, though that definitely held sway. When he went to dial, a police siren had began wailing down the street, and before he could complete the call, they were there at the house.
Everything felt blurry from there for James. He watched armed officers charge the door to the house down and enter with their weapons drawn. He felt the police officer relieving him of the revolver and loading it into an evidence bag. He was aware that the officer was asking him questions. He couldn't feel his toes and he felt like he was underwater, watching everything happen slowly around him. A social worker eventually showed up and began discussing care.
"You'll have to discuss that with my father," He said dazed, and felt himself sort of floating outside of his body.
The officers glanced to each other. One looked visibly uncomfortable and the other took on a very serious look, and stepped forward, as if confiding in James.
"I'm sorry, but, your father had apparently decided to drive here after he called us, though we advised him not to become involved. From what we can tell, he was the first victim. I'm very sorry, sir-"
James was sure the officer had continued talking but it was like his ears had filled with ocean water. Everything was coming through jumbled and muted. That didn't make sense. He had just spoken to his father, and he didn't seem concerned at all. He thought for a moment. Tried to remember. Remember the call he made earlier. Had his father even picked up? Had James hallucinated that?
A vision entered his mind of a gun to the back of his father's head as he calmly answered his cell phone, and James tried to shake it away. He couldn't, though, and he was convinced his father died trying to save James from the same fate. Had he known that James wouldn't be there in time? Could James have saved him had he just stayed talking to him? Did he seal his father's fate when he hung up that call?
In the weeks that followed, James' whole life changed significantly. In order to care for his younger brother full time, he quit his job as a landscaper, as the hours and hard labor left him too exhausted to attend to Jim. His wife took on a part time job and made up a room for Jim to stay while they looked into appropriate housing and care programs. She seemed happy to fill the room where they had planned to keep a child, but had never been able to conceive. She delighted in his care, and James felt like he saw Jim coming out of his shell more than ever before.
James visited the graves of his parents often, sometimes seeing them more frequently than he had in their living years. Somehow it was much easier to talk to them now that they didn't respond. He'd take pictures and show them, sometimes leaving behind tokens of Jim's outings or adventures. Sometimes he would simply weep at their headstones until he felt too tired to continue. He couldn't, however, bring himself to visit his sister, Francis.
In her attempt to end her own life, after taking those of each of her parents, Francis ultimately failed. She lived, though not the same as she had before. Her bright eyes were dulled by medications galore, her jaw often slack and drooling from the heavy dosages. The hospital where she permanently lived without possibility of release was a depressing place with too little help and too many patients, and the one time he went to visit, they said after hours of waiting that she was having a bad day, and it wouldn't be possible to see her.
He had decided after that not to attempt another visit. He realized that Franny was really gone, the bright spirit that had kept him motivated to live was burnt out like an old candle, sitting on a shelf and collecting dust. The things he loved about his sister were forever gone from her after decades of abuse had corrupted her. Sometimes he would wonder aloud if he had been somehow stronger than her, or if she'd had it worse than any of them. He remembered in the darkest nights of winter, when he was alone, the words she would whisper to him in their shared room some nights when she thought he was already asleep.
One in particular seemed to want to be felt more than others, wanted to be remembered and ruminated on endlessly. It was a night where they'd been sent to bed early with no dinner, and mom had been particularly hard on Franny. At the time, this seemed commonplace to James, who saw that mom was a little harder on Francis for whatever reasons. He assumed it was fair, because, why would a mother be unfair? That night, he recalled, she said something quite strange once she was sure nobody would hear her. Though, he certainly had.
"One day this won't matter. Because I'll be dead. And they'll be dead. And this won't even matter."
Did she think they had to be dead, so it wouldn't hurt? He had heard their mother chiding her for overeating again, and even at that age felt it was a harsh way to talk about it. He had been chubby around that age, too, and they had sort of mentioned it to him, but not like this. They always assured him he would grow out of it, not to worry and to be happy with himself. When they would talk to Francis, though, it wasn't the same story. Franny wasn't supposed to like herself or her body how it was, and was supposed to always be trying to look good for others. Mom would dress her in uncomfortable hosiery and dressings that made her squirm and fuss and itch. The same clothes she bought for him, Franny would get in trouble for wearing.
These thoughts wouldn't leave him. He'd stay up late at night turning the pieces of his past over in his head, trying to understand how they fit together. Why did Francis lose her mind, and why didn't James or Jim? Yes, James had certainly had his fair share of rows with his parents, and they even became estranged. He knew they'd never had a perfect relationship, but he chalked it up to generational differences and moved on. It felt like Francis was incapable of such things as moving on. She held grudges like they were a horse's reigns, desperate not to fall off and forget why she was mad.
This wasn't unlike how their own mother had behaved, however, as she often brought up past strife even if things were going well. She didn't like to let people forget their slights toward her, regardless of how much time had passed. Franny was inevitably and inextricably the same, in that she couldn't let things go. She'd hold onto it, name it, give it a place to live in her mind rent-free, and never evict it. She kept them like people keep tchotchkes on their mantles, lovingly preserved for all time.
So, maybe that was why, but it left James unsettled even so. And that unsettling could have quite possibly become his undoing if he had ruminated on it in the same way. He was sufficiently convinced, and perhaps needed to be, that letting this go would allow him to live again.
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