When the Black-Eyed Children Knock & Other Stories

Chapter 3 - Three Nights Before I Disappear

How long should I expect this insomnia bullshit to last?

Those aren't my words. They're Nicole's, uttered right before she fell asleep. She barely made it out of bed today according to the in-laws, but I wouldn't know. I was at work all day getting yelled at for the same things. My boss and Nicole share similar feelings about how the bags under my eyes seem to weigh down every other part of me, too.

At least my boss didn't ask me for my cell phone like Nicole did. She's convinced I'm texting with an old girlfriend at night, plotting an escape. "Why else would you skip sleep?" she said. Can't say I blame her for thinking that way, but she's still a ways off. I don't need another woman in my life, especially now.

Awake again at 3 a.m., this time so tired I'm tingling, I poke at the bags with a pair of index fingers. My face seems to sag they're so heavy. Even so, there's a greater pull leading me to my car keys. To the back door. To the detached garage with the side door latched with that shitty lock. To the glow-in-the-dark button that opens the main garage door. To the compact commuter with the busted radio. To the driver's seat. To the ignition. To freedom.

They say driving while exhausted is as bad as getting behind the wheel drunk. That might be true, but not tonight. Tonight I feel a surge of energy suck in those bags under my eyes, replace the radio with a live concert in my head and push down on the gas. It's not like anyone is around at this hour anyway. The police are off waiting for dumb teenagers to break curfew after a fuck and a smoke in the park by the schools. They won't watch for someone like me snaking through the residential neighborhood under the speed limit. I'll just tell them I work third shift if they pull me over.

But the police don't pull me over as I circle the block again and again. I count the streetlights, watching them go on and off as I pass by. Some people say it's a sign of...something. They don't know, probably because it's bullshit. Streetlights can flicker on and off by themselves like anything else. Doesn't mean there's some higher purpose to it.

The fall breeze skirting in through the windows, on the other hand, feels downright supernatural. There's an electricity to the dry air that shocks my spirit awake, like Dr. Frankenstein jolting his grotesque creation to life. I'm every bit that monster and I know it, but in this moment I don't care. The sweetness of night is too alluring to think of anything but another lap around the block.

I flick the headlights off as I pull into the driveway, telling myself it's for the sake of not disturbing Nicole and the baby asleep in the bedroom. But in the brief second the car illuminates the side of the house, my eyes catch a glimpse of something standing outside the bedroom window.

Something small. Two legs. Tip toes.

In a fleeting moment, I convince myself I'm imagining things. Must be the same sort of sleep-deprived hallucinations that registered a knock at the door the other night. But then again...

I stop the car halfway down the driveway and put it in reverse. I repeat my entrance, except this time I leave the headlights on.

Nothing.

Even more likely than my imagination are trash or raccoons. Both have a habit of blowing in at night. Don't worry much about crime. It's so low here that I'd bet half my neighborhood doesn't lock the doors for the night. We lock ours, though, and I find someone waiting for me after turning the key and stepping inside.

"Where've you been?" Nicole says from the bedroom over the top of the baby's erratic crying. A rush of drowsiness sinks into me as I hear her words. "Get in here."

I hesitate at first, then follow the light into the bedroom. Nicole sits up with her back against the wall, our distressed son cradled in her arms. Her face is as red as his, her cheeks as hot, her eyes as wet.

"Where did you go?" Nicole says.

"What are you talking about?" I say in the worst lie I've ever told. The car keys are still in my hand.

"Don't play dumb. I heard you pull into the driveway and then stop and back out again like you weren't sure you wanted to come back here," Nicole says.

"No, it wasn't like that," I say, stammering.

"So you didn't just come in through the back door? I imagined all of that?" Nicole says and tries in vain to rock the baby in her arms back to sleep.

"No, I mean, I did leave for a little bit in the car, but I backed out because of something else," I say.

"What? That old girlfriend texted you to say goodnight?" Nicole says. "You were with her again, weren't you?"

"Just clearing my head," I say as my mouth goes dry. Is this really the person I am now? I'd always joked about deadbeat dads in Nicole's family, using them as a benchmark for what I'd never do. It was so easy to act righteous back then, before the birth of our son. But now? I'm closer to those shitheads than not.

"Why can't you clear your head in here, next to me, asleep. All you do is bitch about how you can't sleep, but then you go out for a joy ride in the middle of the night?" Nicole says. "I don't get you anymore."

I don't, either.

"I just...I needed time to...myself," I say, struggling to come up with each word.

Nicole's not satisfied, but I can't blame her. She says, "You're not the most important person in your life now. Your child needs you. I need you. He needed a change and a bottle just now. You weren't there for him. What kind of father is that? I can't even count on you to stay in one spot. At the very least can you do that for me? For him?"

"Yeah, I'm just, I want to help. I really do," I say and make an attempt to pick the baby up from Nicole. She jerks him away from me.

"You already blew your chance to help tonight," Nicole says and wipes a streak of tears from her cheek, taking a moment to catch her breath. She looks me straight in the eyes. "You want to be a father, you need to let him inside your heart first, and I don't think you have."

I can't offer a reply. There's no way to excuse away what she's saying. I look out into the living room at the couch and head toward it.

"Where are you going now?" Nicole says.

"The couch. I earned it," I say.

Nicole just about explodes. "You don't get it," she says.

"You're angry. You don't want me sleeping in here, do you?"

"Just go," Nicole says. "I can't stand looking at you anymore."

The couch isn't built for sleeping, but I make an unsuccessful attempt anyway. I stare at the blank ceiling, listening to Nicole and the baby drift back to sleep. I swear there's a tapping on the bedroom window, but I write it off as bugs or leaves blowing against the glass. Wouldn't want to risk waking them up to check it out.