Lovers & Monsters, page 5
“How was that?”
“The doctor didn’t believe me. He thought it was all in my head or that I was making it up. Until the day I touched his hand and told him all about how he liked to wear his wife’s pantyhose when he was home alone. After that he told my parents there wasn’t much he could do to help me.”
They were quiet for a moment, and Isaac watched as Sidney absentmindedly plucked a mushroom from her piece of pizza and popped it into her mouth, still clearly lost in thought.
“Are your parents still around?”
“Oh yeah.” Isaac nodded and took a swig of his soda.
“Do you see them often?”
“Not as often as I probably should. And yeah, I suppose I do keep my distance on purpose.”
“You still have a contentious relationship.”
It wasn’t a question, but Isaac nodded anyway.
“You could say that. My mom has apologized for everything she put me through back then, and she and I are actually okay. But my dad and me?” He took in a deep breath and shook his head. “We’ll probably never have a close bond.”
“Do you speak?”
“Yeah. We speak. We’re civil for the most part. But it’s never gonna be what it once was. My dad was my hero, you know?” He smiled and silently wished for that simpler time in his life when his dad still loved him. “When I was little, I thought my dad was the greatest man I knew. He could do anything. He was like Superman to me.”
“I think most little boys feel that way about their dads.”
Isaac nodded. “Probably. But most little boys’ dads don’t turn on them during the scariest time of their lives.”
“Surely his intention wasn’t to turn on you, Ike.”
“Maybe not. But that’s the way it felt. And for the life of me, I just could never understand why. I still don’t. I mean, I’m the one who has to live with these monsters, you know? I’m the one people point at and whisper about, not him. And it’s not like I wanted this. But he was always so angry about it. Like I asked for this or something.”
He could hear the questioning tone of his own voice, like he still yearned for answers to his father’s puzzling behavior. Like he was still that scared and confused little boy who missed his dad’s affections.
“That’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you.” Isaac grinned and picked up another piece of pizza. “Tell me about your childhood, Sid.”
She smiled at him and wiped her hands with a napkin. “What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Anything. Tell me about your mom. What was her name?”
“Dawn. Dawn Fairchild.”
“That’s pretty. What was she like?”
Sidney took a sip of her water, and Isaac could see she was gathering her thoughts. Her hand went to the delicate gold chain at her throat and her fingers traced the dainty charm that hung there. Isaac remembered his lips running over it as he kissed her neck the night before — a tiny round disk with the imprint of a cross on it.
“She was smart and beautiful and funny. But she had this wicked determination about her too. This… drive to do better.”
“She sounds a lot like you.” Isaac smiled at her and motioned to the necklace. “Did she give you that?”
Sidney’s smile turned sad.
“Not exactly. It was hers. She used to wear it all the time. I haven’t taken it off since I put it on, the day before her funeral.”
Isaac nodded, but didn’t say anything. The memento obviously meant the world to her.
“Education was super important to her, and I know it played a huge part in me deciding to teach. She worked two jobs just to keep the three of us safe and fed. But she was determined to get this higher position at her main job so that she could make better money and maybe get rid of the other job altogether. So she was going to school online to finish her degree.”
“Wow!” Isaac didn’t bother hiding the fact that he was impressed. “Two teenagers, two jobs and college classes? She sounds like a warrior.”
She smiled and nodded. “She was. And she was always pushing Simon and me to do well in school. It was important to her that we understood the value of steering clear of gangs and getting a good education. Especially in our neighborhood.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Simon worked hard to get into the Air Force Academy right out of high school because he knew mom couldn’t afford to send either of us to college.”
“And you?”
Sidney sighed. “Well, I already told you I was a pretty big nerdy geek. I mean, you say you’re socially awkward, but I really was socially awkward growing up. Introverted and shy. Always hiding in a book or behind my laptop.”
She paused and took a breath, suddenly looking defeated.
“You know, it’s no mystery how Damien was able to isolate me. I’m sure I made it really easy for him.”
“That doesn’t excuse his abuse, Sid.”
“No, I know it doesn’t. And ultimately my mom is the reason I started fighting back. Because I could hear her voice in my head, urging me to be a strong woman who’s not afraid to stand up for herself. Someone who’s not afraid to fight for something better.”
Isaac smiled at her. “I think she’d be proud of the way you fought back and got away from him.”
“Yeah,” Sidney said softly.
Her mood had taken a melancholy turn and Isaac needed to rectify that.
“So where did you end up going to school?”
She brightened a little and looked up at him.
“University of Southern California. After the crash and my mom’s funeral, I went to live with my Aunt Bobbie. My mom’s sister. Simon was already at the Air Force Academy and I still had almost two years of high school left. I worked my ass off because I knew it’s what Mom would’ve wanted. Ended up getting a full academic scholarship to USC, where I majored in both English and Computer Science.”
“At the same time?”
“Mmm, hmm.”
“Get outta here.”
“The course load was completely insane, but I really wanted the dual majors.”
“That’s an amazing accomplishment, Sidney.”
“Thanks.”
She was quiet for a moment and then tossed a napkin aside.
“I look back at my time at USC as a mixed bag. I accomplished great things there and learned a lot about myself. But it’s also where I met Damien and allowed him to imprison me.”
Isaac shook his head. “You were duped by a slick talker, Sid. You’re not the first or the last. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“You know, I had finally just finished up my masters degree at USC when Damien sent me to the hospital. I had taken a few years off to focus on teaching at a local middle school. But I really wanted to move on to teaching high school English or maybe even at the junior college level, and I needed a masters degree to do that, so I’d gone back. Damien accused me of showing my graduate advisor a little too much attention at a pre-grad mixer we’d gone to earlier that day. That’s what the fight had been about.”
She rolled her eyes at the thought, but Isaac was suddenly stuck on something else she’d said.
“Wait. So you hold bachelors degrees in both English and Computer Science, and you have a masters degree?”
“Yep. In Education.”
Isaac’s eyebrows lifted high. “Wow. And I barely got my GED.”
Sidney frowned and gave him a surely-you-must-be-joking look.
“What? Really?”
“Really.”
“You’re putting me on.”
Her frown hovered somewhere between disbelief and astonishment, and Isaac smiled.
“I don’t believe you, Ike!”
“It’s the truth anyhow,” he shrugged.
Her mouth fell open into an O, and she shook her head.
“But you’re so intelligent and knowledgeable.”
“School of Hard Knocks, I guess.”
He tried to let it drop there, but he could see all the questions playing out on her face, and he could only imagine where her mind was going. He took a deep breath and repositioned in the chair, trying to get comfortable for this conversation.
“Because of these weird abilities and all the trauma it caused, I was a pretty screwed up teenager, Sid. Kids at school weren’t exactly shy about what they thought of my huge freakdom. Some of them took great pleasure in letting me know. Girls thought I was cute, but creepy as fuck. And the boys… They didn’t want anything to do with me either.” He forced a smile. “And popular older brothers can only do so much, you know?”
He looked away for a moment, licking his suddenly dry lips and trying to decide exactly how much to say. He wanted to tell her everything, even though his stomach felt raw at the thought. He wanted to push further and find out how deep their strange connection could really go.
He made a decision and took a breath.
“When I was fourteen, I was tasked with washing the dishes one night. It was after my parents had friends over for dinner, and on the table there was a nearly empty bottle of Tennessee whisky my dad’s friend had brought over. Well, alone in the kitchen, instead of dumping the alcohol that had been left in the glasses, I drank it. And I polished off the few swallows left in the bottle too. That was the first time I had ever taken a drink.”
He paused for a moment and licked his lips again. He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him.
“It tasted awful and it burned my throat like I had swallowed fire. But a few minutes later I decided I liked the way it seemed to gently numb everything, you know? Suddenly I didn’t care so much what the kids at school thought, or that my dad hated the sight of me.”
Sidney watched him with what seemed like great interest and concern, and Isaac knew she was trying to picture him as that sullen, troubled teenager.
“It wasn’t long before I was sneaking into my dad’s liquor cabinet for a quick gulp. And that led to swiping money from my mama’s purse to pay an older kid who I knew had a fake ID to buy a bottle of anything for me. Allowance money, lawn-mowing money, birthday money… It all went into scoring booze. By the time I was sixteen I was a full-blown alcoholic. I dropped out of school in the 11th grade. Just stopped going. You can imagine the good will that fostered between my dad and me.”
Isaac paused and thought back on those days.
“Got to where he was personally escorting me to the school every day. Then when he’d take off, so would I. Just couldn’t bear to be there.”
Sidney looked up at him with wide disbelieving eyes.
“I’m shocked,” she whispered.
Isaac smiled at her, but he didn’t respond.
“No Ike, I truly am. So how did you turn your life around and become a cop?”
Her voice was full of unbridled curiosity, and Isaac felt a bubble inflate inside his chest.
His lungs wouldn’t expand.
His palms were instantly sweaty.
Breathe, Isaac.
“I um…”
Just breathe.
His fists clenched and beads of moisture dotted his hairline.
He wanted to share this with her. For some reason it felt important.
He fought to inhale a deep breath around the bubble. Then he slowly blew it out and inhaled again.
“I finally hit bottom when I was 19,” he managed to mumble.
He wiped a clammy hand across his forehead and frowned.
He had to keep going. He wanted her to know.
“I tried to hang myself.”
“Isaac!”
Sidney’s astonished whisper tugged at something inside him, but he had to press on.
His chest was tight.
“Adam and our grandfather walked in just as I’d kicked the chair out from under me.”
His voice was quiet and strained. He swallowed before he spoke again.
“I remember struggling against Adam, trying to kick him away. I nailed him good a couple times, but he just kept coming. Finally he managed to grab both of my legs and hold me up while my grandad undid the rope. I fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes, gasping and coughing and angry as hell at still being alive.”
Sidney stared at him, mouth gaping open.
He looked away, sniffing, and then stared down at his hands, watching the thumb of his right hand draw small circles in his left palm.
“Adam begged me not to try anything like that ever again. Said he knew I had it hard, but that I couldn’t exit this world and leave him here alone. He said he needed me here. Can you believe that? Mr. Popularity needed me?”
Isaac ran a hand through his blond hair, pulling it off his face, and then wiped at his damp eyes. It took him a minute before he cleared his throat and spoke again.
“So I went into rehab after that. A 12-step program. Got sober, got my GED. Went into the Police Academy when I was 21.”
The room was deathly silent for a moment, and Isaac finally looked up from his hands and into Sidney’s eyes. The compassion he saw there almost did him in.
“Isaac, I had no idea.”
He gave her a sad smile. “How would you? It’s not something I like to talk about.”
Without warning, she reached out and grabbed his hand.
“I am so happy you’re still here! If you weren’t, I would be dead. You’ve saved my life repeatedly, Isaac. What would I have done without you? And I can’t imagine never having met the incredible man you’ve become.”
His chest swelled at her words, popping the bubble that had constricted his lungs, and Isaac took a savored deep breath and smiled at her. With his free hand he reached out and dried the tears on her cheek. Then he gave her hand a squeeze and brought it up to his lips for a kiss. They stared into one another’s eyes for a long moment.
“Can I ask you a question?” she quietly asked.
“You can always ask me anything.”
Sidney slowly stood and walked around the coffee table to the shelves on the opposite wall. She picked up the glass bowl where he kept his AA chips and turned to look at him.
“Why do these chips get to eight years and then start all over?”
Isaac stared at the bowl for a long time, speechless.
He didn’t much care that she’d found the chips. Hell, he kept them on the shelf so that he would see them and be reminded of how far he had come. But her question brought up memories of more things he didn’t like to remember. Things he unfortunately would never be able to forget.
He rubbed a hand back and forth over his stubble for a few beats before he met her gaze head on.
“This job. It gets hard sometimes. Especially when you can see things others can’t see.”
His voice was soft, almost hollow.
“It was a serial murder case. Young girls. Just babies really; none of them were over eight years old. They were all brutally misused before they were killed.”
He closed his eyes and turned away. He didn’t want to see the pictures inside his head.
“I don’t really care to talk about the details of it, Sid. I’m sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.” She pivoted and returned the bowl to its shelf. Then she turned just as quickly and knelt beside Isaac’s chair. “I didn’t mean to pry, Isaac. I’m sorry. I…”
“It’s okay. I just…” He let the sentence dangle for a moment and shook his head, breathing in deep. “I made a mistake during that case and it…”
He didn’t even try to say anything more. He simply shook his head again.
“It haunts you.”
“Something like that.” He looked into her eyes. “Staying sober can be a full-time job sometimes, and I uh… I failed once.”
Sidney reached out and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. Then she smiled and took a deep breath.
“Well, we should clean up here. Why don’t you take that last piece?”
She stood up and began gathering up plates and napkins and carrying them to the kitchen area.
Isaac popped the last piece into his mouth, chewing as he carried the empty pizza box over and placed it on the counter.
“I’ll put this in the garbage chute on my way out in the morning.”
Sidney took a dishcloth over to the living room area and wiped down the coffee table. On her way back to the sink she frowned and turned to Isaac.
“So what does your older brother think of your psychic abilities?”
Isaac couldn’t help the roll of his eyes. “I hate that term, Sid.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to call it.”
“Well, don’t call it that. I am not psychic.”
“You are psychic.” She put the dishcloth away and turned to stare at him, hands on her hips, giving him a sassy smile. “You may not want to be, but you are.”
“Psychics tell fortunes, Sidney. They see the future.”
The instant the words left his mouth, all the flashes he’d had whenever he touched Sidney’s skin came flooding back to him. Each of them had been a flash of something that hadn’t happened yet at the time. A flash of things to come.
“Psychics know things about people and situations that they couldn’t possibly know. Past, present, future. It doesn’t matter! Your mother was right in calling it a gift. It’s the gift of prophesy, Isaac.”
“The gift of prophesy?” Isaac repeated, trying out the word.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, and I guess next you’re going to be telling me that my gift came straight from God on high?”
“Well… yeah.” She shrugged her shoulder in a very how-stupid-could-you-be kind of way. “I mean, do you worship Satan and his dark forces?”
“No,” Isaac sighed, his tone a mixture of amusement and discombobulation. He felt another one of her wild tangents coming on, which he usually thoroughly enjoyed, but this one was centered on his stupid weird abilities and he didn’t want to go there.
“Do you use your abilities for evil or to carry out some nefarious, wicked, or immoral plan?”
“Of course not, Sid...”
“Of course not!”
She sounded beyond excited, and Isaac couldn’t help but smile.
“In fact, you try to use your abilities to help people. That right there means that your abilities are a gift from God, and He did not create you to be bad or evil or whatever else you once thought as a child. He gave you the gift of prophesy, Isaac. And I don’t think you should be afraid of it. I think you should try to learn all you can about it!”
