J.J. Alo
CH. 13 - AMY
Amy poured herself a third glass of wine as she sat in front of an empty dinner plate at the kitchen table; she had an oven-stuffer roasting before Curtis decided to leave.
Until recently, there had been a bottomless box of wine handy on the kitchen counter wedged between the microwave and an over-filled, wooden bread bin. One box would contain three bottles worth of wine, and she had found herself going through one at least twice a week. The problem—well, she hadn’t seen it as much of a problem—was that with a box of wine, she could never discern precisely how much was actually being consumed. Her preference was a crisp, New Zealand sauvignon blanc, but as it was tough to store boxed wine in the fridge, she switched to pinot noir, which was just as light and didn’t need to be chilled.
The unopened box of Corbett Canyon, which had been sitting for months next to a stale loaf of Wonder bread, stared at her longingly when she returned to the kitchen table, crying. She stared back.
Tree limbs, barely visible through the downpour, were swaying, stretched back and forth by loud, tenacious winds. She watched the rain come down in buckets, whipping the windows and sliding door; the intensity would come and go in waves. The sound reminded her of a jar of marbles endlessly spilling onto glass. Strangely soothing. It was starting to get late, as she repeatedly looked back to the digital stove clock and her cell phone, now concerned Curtis hadn’t returned with the weather taking a turn for the worse.
The TV was on in the living room with the volume low. Hartford’s local news was airing, discussing every facet of the current weather development: inches of downfall, property damage, power outages, storm projections. Amy would glance over but kept losing focus, with the alcohol taking its proper effect. Last she knew, there was a flood warning for most of the state, with the shoreline in a flash flood watch. The screen, slightly blurred from her perspective, had since flashed some new, much more pertinent information. What was initially branded as a tropical storm had been remarkably upgraded…
“A fucking category-three hurricane?” her jaw dropped.
Amy, a ninth and tenth-grade math teacher, had recently returned to full-time employment at the start of the school year in New London County. It happened to be the only district hiring during her twelve-month search with her specific certification, and with a manageable commute, she jumped at the opportunity. Within a matter of weeks, all hopes and dreams had been stifled. She regretted her decision, having fallen into a perpetual state of fear and loathing. It was the worst school district in the state, and she spent each anxiety-fueled day babysitting class after class of the formidable and the underprivileged.
To make matters worse, she was surrounded by a group of her incompetent peers, many of whom lacked certification, much less a graduate degree. They dressed like vagrants, some in sweatpants, others in graphic tees, while many maintained their classrooms comparable to Frat houses, accumulating trash on the floor with desks covered with an overflow of paperwork and junk. While walking the halls, she often found it challenging to distinguish between the faculty and the students. It made her uneasy, to say the least.
A fourth glass.
Amy had taken an overextended break after she and several other faculty were laid off in the Hartford Public School system due to massive cutbacks one year from tenure. This was about the same time Wes was noticeably exhibiting behavioral concerns, which supported her decision to stay home and closely monitor the situation as it progressed. A couple of tough years passed before she could regain enough footing to get back out there, as she fought severe dejection with her failing career, her boy’s complicated disability, and her husband’s exhausting employment battle, not knowing where he’d have a job from one month to the next. She would rack her brain nightly, dwelling on the past, examining her decisions; she was never one to live in regret but sometimes wondered where she’d be if she hadn’t left her fiancé. She couldn’t understand what she did to deserve this dramatic shift in her otherwise virtuous life. Self-medicating with wine was her only escape.
As the alcohol absorbed and began to distort Amy’s perception of reality, her mind raced uncontrollably. She could no longer concentrate on school work as she kept reading the same blurred equations on one student’s quiz over and over. All she could think about was how she couldn’t take much more of Curtis—his blatant disregard for her feelings, his status quo mentality. Maybe it was finally time to reach out for help. But hell, who? The only people she knew to turn to were her parents, and she was not going to inflate their egos, proving them right, showing up with her tail between her legs.
The hard part of wanting to leave Curtis was considering Wes. There were too many moving parts, and making a decision such as this that would tentatively alter their lives for better or worse wasn’t something she could do despite her husband, but she couldn’t stop thinking of the possibilities. Her parents had a lot of money, which was appealing, and she knew her looks; moreover, her personality could land her a good man—a man who’d love her and appreciate her the way she deserved. But, the critical question was, could she do that to Wes? What would that erratic change do to him—make things worse? Could they even be worse? What mainly troubled her—and she hated that this thought was even a thought—was if she’d find another man that would support her and a son with special needs. Who would welcome that burden?
In her drunken state, she recalled the night she gave birth, and at that moment, discerning she could never love anything in this world more. Named after Curtis’s father, Wes was born three weeks early at six pounds, ten ounces, with curly, light blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He was a perfect baby—never cried, always slept through the night without issue. They were lucky—or so they thought. Then Amy’s mind drifted toward the negative. There was a bit of concern when Wes wasn’t forming vocabulary after nine months; twelve to eighteen months, there were a couple words here and there, but clearly, he was developing slowly compared to other children his age. By the time he started mastering puzzles, his vocabulary was limited to around thirty words.
Amy noticed a degree of detachment while he was attending kindergarten when he almost stopped talking altogether. Initially, she thought maybe he was just a shy boy, hoping it was a phase he’d soon grow out. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, as reported by the school psychologist halfway through the school year, and Amy found herself—by herself—searching for answers. Curtis had just left for a three-month job in Boston, leaving her the leg work. Although Wes was knowledgeable, exceeding all intellectual and standardized testing with high marks, he was socially apprehensive, and his reticence forced him into special needs programs, most of which was spent in occupational and speech therapy. The out-of-pocket expense to treat Wes had surmounted what was covered by Amy’s insurance, and Curtis didn’t have coverage with his present employment situation.
As Amy’s eyes grew heavy, the exhaustion from being up since five a.m., dealing with unbridled chaos at school, four glasses of wine began to take its toll. She wondered where Wes was and turned to an empty living room. For a moment, she considered going to check his room, but everything felt spatially heavy as if a lead weight had anchored her down. Unable to keep her eyes open any longer, she passed out at the kitchen table on a pile of papers.
Wes, lost in his own element, played in the basement, which was a common nightly occurrence. He would spend hours down there in the dim lighting engrossed in make-believe. For an eight-year-old, he had quite the collection of action figures; and if he didn’t have one in his hand, it was a controller for a video game console or an implement for drawing or coloring. However, nothing made him happier or more focused than completing puzzles or—his absolute favorite thing to do—building with Lego bricks. An entire universe existed in Wes’s bedroom, consisting of Harry Potter and Star Wars sets. Surrounding the movie-themed scenes was an entire city block with a police station, firehouse, theater, bank, hotel, and an assembly square. It was another reason for the frequency of which he hung out in the basement; his bedroom had little space to walk, let alone play. However, he would create an amalgamation of fantasy storylines when he did, bringing every character into one giant, blended universe. Having Godzilla stomp through downtown Lego City, swallowing up little brick men while an army brigade of GI Joe men rolled in to save the day with the help of the Spider-man and the X-Men was a popular one.
On this particular evening, Wes had decided that he would build a fortress large enough to support himself and his action figure universe, and the best way to do this was to be in a highly secluded, wide-open space. He brought blankets, building blocks, and cardboard boxes downstairs to the basement. The boxes were cut and carved to replicate housing and building structures. It was a pretty elaborate setup, and he was quite proud of it.
He enjoyed playing in this particular spot because it was the farthest part of the room, and the floor sloped several inches. Over the years, even before the Reynolds purchased the Cape, the foundation had been slowly sinking. The slab was cracked in a few places, which was of no concern to Curtis, but he did fail to notice a more recent split when he was down installing the pump—covered mainly by a small area rug—causing the floor to slump.
The basement was quite spacious with high ceilings—though dingy—wall-to-wall concrete, and not very well lit. Like Frank’s place, it housed the washer & dryer unit, a workbench, and myriad storage boxes filled with years’ worth of junk. High-end mahogany furniture belonging to Amy’s parents was stored on one side of the room: Sumner round dining room table, Benchwright buffet hutch with wall unit, Gleneagle grandfather clock. Curtis’s sofa from his days as a bachelor sat under a layer of dusty sheets on another side. In one corner, the sump pump was sitting in its sinkhole under the floor in the lowest part of the room, hooked to PVC pipe leading up the side of the foundation, through the wall, out to the yard. He installed and hardwired it into the electrical system upon moving in as a precautionary measure living so close to the river. It was designed to activate with any accumulation of water, which did happen from time to time, mostly from heavy downpour.
It kicked on.
The rain was fierce, continuing to fall in buckets. A stream of water permeated Forrest Street, flowing down, pooling in front of the Reynolds’ house—the storm drains overflowing. The basin of the Yantic was rising, ingesting the mainland foot by foot. The wind gusts were seventy miles an hour, hitting the houses with such force as if to rip them from their distressed foundations.
The river, finally reaching the house, began flooding the basement. Wes wasn’t at all concerned; in fact, he was even more than excited to include the growing puddle in his game with action figures now sea-bound. Superheroes took to underwater battles with sinking ships full of Lego men who suffered unmerciful deaths by drowning. The perfect environment for Godzilla to emerge with furious vengeance, setting down on Lego City, swallowing up GI men on a path of destruction. The limitless ocean expansion allowed intersecting storylines between various characters, creating an integrated macrocosm for them to live.
Pure bliss.
The sump pump, now submerged, had stalled out, and the rising water level accelerated. The back basement wall was heavily perspiring, thin streams gliding down from the bottom of the window frame. Wes’s multiverse fortress happened to be erected in the very spot where the unleveled floor sloped and unrelenting water pooled.
A faint scratching noise beyond the wall caused Wes to briefly take notice, but it was primarily indiscernible with the knocking and rattling sounds of the rain and wailing of heavily shifting winds. It would start, and he’d look up; It would stop, and he’d continue his game. It gradually increased until it became loud enough to deflect his attention, piquing his curiosity. He dropped his toy, which disappeared under the swell, and sloshed through the water toward the wall. A coin-sized piece of concrete chipped off, falling into the water, followed by a few more, splashing—plop—plop—plop, as they landed.
Then, it cracked. Wes backed up slowly, watching the wall; the four-foot, horizontal fracture spider-webbed down to the floor and up to the window frame before shattering, spewing clods of rock and silt in every direction. The breach in the foundation caused the boy to trip over himself, moving out of the way. He fell back into the rapidly accumulating flood pool.
A surge of pressure came forth, releasing from behind the aperture, mud, and concrete spilling out. Wes lay, almost submerged, water rushing past, staring, fearing that the entire side of the house was giving in. Unfortunately, it was much worse and more terrifying than he could have ever expected. What emerged from the slushy deposit froze him in his place.
A muddy muzzle, followed by a head with large, white ovals, rose from the murky deluge. Wes stared in horror as clouded eyes stared back. The snout was broad—almost round, loaded with long, translucent whiskers; its front teeth protruded from its mouth, long, tapering down past the jawline. It opened up wide, letting out a vociferous squeal, which in turn, Wes reciprocated, each resonating through the house.