The Boy Who Drew Monsters

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  For Robert Andrew Larson

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  ii.

  iii.

  iv.

  v.

  vi

  vii.

  viii.

  Two

  ii.

  iii.

  iv.

  v.

  vi.

  Three

  ii.

  iii.

  iv.

  v.

  vi.

  Four

  ii.

  iii.

  iv.

  v.

  vi.

  Five

  ii.

  iii.

  iv.

  v.

  vi.

  vii.

  Also by Keith Donohue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  In the dream house, the boy listened for the monster under his bed. An awful presence in the dark had awakened him in the dead hours, and he waited for the telltale sound of breathing. Would there be breathing? Or would it arrive in silence, without warning? He would have no time to defend himself or save the treasures hidden in his old toy box. The possibility of such an attack unnerved him, but he dared not move. He did not dare lean his head over the side of his boat to check the space between the mattress and the wide blue sea of the braided sisal rug. He did not dare turn on the lamp and flood the room with light and risk spooking the monster from its hiding place. There was no breathing but his own, no sound at all but the thrum of his heart.

  Dream house, that’s what his mother and father used to call it, before the troubles began. “This is our dream house by the sea,” they would tell the summer visitors who would come to stay for long weekends. Or his Grandpa and Grandma Keenan who would come for the chance of a genuine white Christmas in Maine. “Welcome to the dream house.” The boy was not sure if it was a house in which dreams came true or if the house itself had been made out of dreams. Once upon a time, the name had made him happy, but on ice-cold nights like these, the dreams turned into nightmares, and monsters under the bed stirred in the bump of the night.

  He hefted the quilt over his head until he was completely engulfed. Heavy as a wave, the weight pressed upon him, and he remembered how the rough darkness of the sea, no bottom or top, swirled all around as both boys fought for air in the green-gray chaos. Suffocating and afraid, he threw off the blankets, monsters be damned, and sat up in the bed, panting, holding off the urge to call out to his mother to come rescue him. Save me! But he did not want to wake her at this late hour. She did not believe in monsters.

  Lately the monsters had been coming for him inside the dreams. They would softly lay a hand upon his shoulder. They would whisper in his ear as he slept. And he would rouse himself to find nothing, no one. In the mornings, he would wonder when and how sleep had ever arrived. He was so tired of the pictures in his head. From his bed, he could see through the top panes of the windows to the cold stars in the sky above the ocean. Moonlight cast a square upon the far wall, and he believed that if he concentrated long and hard, he could make the sun appear in that space and send the monsters away. He set his will against the night.

  One

  Dream boy. Holly watched her son sleep, just as she had done a thousand times before, wondering where he had gone in his dreams. Another minute will be no harm, she told herself, reluctant to disturb his peace. The birdcage of his chest rose and fell, and she found herself synchronizing her breathing to his, just as she had done a decade ago when he was a newborn. Jack clenched his hands into fists, one tucked against his cheek sure to leave a mark on his skin. Beneath his fluttering eyelids, his eyes rolled back and forth as he concentrated on a dreamscape only he could see, a film playing out in his subconscious mind. He seemed deeply under, a child like every other child, a normal son, an ordinary boy in his sleep. She held the moment in abeyance, allowing the illusion to linger.

  It had been three years since she had dared to stay so close to her son for so long. A summer day on the beach, her beamish boy broke free and raced across the sand and rocks into her arms, radiant heart jangling under his ribs. Fine soft hair matted onto his scalp, he smelled of salt and sand and soap, and as he kissed her again and again, he banged the top of his crown against the ridge of her cheekbone. He was in love, love, love with her, and she loved him in return with a fierceness that scared her often, she could eat him up. Her bright bold beautiful boy all of seven. He had squeezed her around the neck until she winced. Now but a memory. She watched him sleep, wishing him to come back to her. Back before it all began.

  In the middle of the night, Jack had cried out once, a screech that woke her with its animal intensity. She was too tired and too conditioned to abandon the warmth beneath the down comforter, so she waited, tense and alert for an echo. But the quiet returned swiftly as he stilled himself. For half an hour, she listened, fidgeting on her pillow, watching the slow sweep of the alarm clock. Tim had turned his back to her and was little more than a familiar contour, his body sloped like a faraway roll of hills. In the morning, she woke first, only to find him slumbering in the exact position, as though dead to all interruption.

  “It’s eight,” she told her husband. “You wanted to make your rounds this morning. Check the houses now the cold is here.”

  “Let me sleep.”

  “No rest for the wicked,” Holly said, throwing off the covers so that his back was exposed to the cooling morning, and then she went to fetch their son.

  She wanted to wake Jack gently, slowly. His long dark hair fell across his forehead in tangled strands like a forest of kelp, which accented his pale skin and soft features. Beautiful boy. Bending closer Holly reached to brush back his hair, and as soon as she touched him she realized her mistake.

  Quick as a snake, his arm sprang forward by reflex. His fist struck her just below the left eye socket, and a sharp pain radiated from the spot where bone smacked bone. The second blow glanced off the point of her chin and landed flush on her shoulder. She recoiled and saw his eyes wide with fear and anger.

  “Don’t touch me,” he screamed. “Get away, get away.” He launched himself at her again, a whirl of punches and sharp elbows, and she slid farther away, too shocked to defend herself. A feral savagery possessed him as he bounced on the mattress, flailing his limbs, as if he did not know his victim. She stood and backed off, looking for a means of protection without actually laying a hand against her son.

  “Stop, Jack, just stop it. What are you doing?”

  As suddenly as the attack began, he froze on all fours and raised his face toward her, a wave of recognition coming over him. Penitent as a hound, he bowed his head and slumped, collapsing on his chest.

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  Jack buried his face in the covers and began to cry. Since he was seven years old, he had not suffered easily any human touch. He would shrug off the arm around his shoulders or flinch at a hug or handshake, but he had never before come to blows with anyone. Not even when Tim would wrap him up and carry him to the car when they absolutely had to take him out of the house. Her heart pounded as she fought to calm her breathing, and she felt the contusions on her face and shoulder throb against the hot flush of her skin. Torn between the desire to comfo
rt her son and the urge to flee, Holly could not move one way or another. She braced her feet against the braided rug, anxious for the truce to begin.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said again, his voice now calm and muffled by the comforter.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” With her fingertips she pressed against a spot of pain on her face.

  She waited. At last the boy sat on his haunches and crossed his arms, muttering to himself, steadying his vibrating body. His eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere behind his mother, and she watched patiently for the switch in his brain to be thrown. A bubble of spit popped at the corner of his lips. The tight muscles on his neck unwound like bands.

  She hoped he had given her a black eye, some mark that would prove to her husband and the doctors what she had been saying for months. He was close to becoming out of control at times, too much to handle on her own. The blankness of the boy’s face refused to acknowledge her presence in the room. His porcelain skin reddened, and she stared at his eyes until he returned her gaze.

  “What was that all about, young man?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You better be.”

  He frowned and his eyes welled with tears.

  “You hurt me, Jack. Why did you hit me?”

  The ferocity drained from his body, and all at once be became a little boy again, confused by his own actions. His shoulders drooped, and he tucked his chin into his chest and hid behind the curtain of his bangs.

  “You can’t do that, you can’t hit Mommy.”

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I thought you were coming to get me.”

  “I was coming to get you, to wake you up.”

  “No, I thought there was a monster under the bed.”

  A quick smile split her face. A boy, a boy, just a little boy lost. She clenched her teeth and scowled at him, too late; he had seen her furtive grin. She cleared her throat. “You can’t go around hitting people, honey.”

  “I promise,” he said.

  So many broken promises, so many pledges to be good. Her head ached. “Get yourself dressed, then. And when you are ready, come down for breakfast, and we’ll see what you can do to make it up to me.”

  “Sorry,” he said for a third time, but she had already turned to leave.

  * * *

  Jack Peter dressed quickly and smoothed his quilt just like he had been taught, and then he tiptoed in his socks to the heating register nearest to the window. Lying on the floor, he put his ear close to the vent, a trick he had discovered one day by accident, as though the house itself had secret passageways for the words. If the blowers were not running, he could eavesdrop on conversations in other rooms, depending upon where he sat. In the kitchen downstairs, they were talking. He could imagine them huddled in the breakfast nook, two cups of coffee breathing their steam.

  “Just out of the blue?” his father asked. “Completely unprovoked?”

  “What would I do to provoke him? I barely touched him,” she said.

  “You’re going to have a shiner.”

  “It isn’t funny, Tim. He was like some wild animal. He’s stronger than he looks.”

  “You’ll have to be more careful.”

  “Careful?” Her voice rang through the heating duct like a struck gong, loud enough to be heard through the open door as well. “I have to be more careful?”

  “Holly, the walls have ears.”

  “I don’t care if he can hear me, maybe he should be listening to me. Maybe you should listen. Something has to be done.”

  His father dropped his voice, changed the tone, so Jack Peter had to creep closer to the register.

  “It was just the one time, Hol. Just the once. I’ll talk to him. We’ll work on him not hitting, but I don’t want to have him all doped up. Don’t want to increase his meds.”

  “Couldn’t you at least talk to the doctor?”

  He stubbornly refused to answer her. They would be sitting there, silent, staring away from each other, through the window, at the newspapers, eyes following the rising coffee steam. Jack Peter had seen it before, again and again.

  After some time, his father spoke calmly. “You shouldn’t have startled him. Something must have set him off for him to react so … violently.”

  “He said there was a monster under his bed.” She lifted her face toward the ceiling. “More like a monster in his bed.”

  “You shouldn’t have touched him.”

  “My own son.”

  “Our son,” he said. “He was just afraid and you set him off. Match to a fuse.”

  Jack Peter heard one of them rise from the table and cross the room, but he could no longer make out what his mother was saying, though he could hear the anger roll through her muffled voice.

  “No,” his father answered. “I think that would be impossible. A terrible idea. Look, I’ll work harder with him.”

  Stealing away as quickly and quietly as possible, Jack Peter left his spot and stationed himself at the top of the staircase, careful not to give himself away. He caught the tail end of his mother’s answer.

  “… if something happened to us, then we’d have to make those kind of arrangements.”

  “Please, Holly,” his father said. “I won’t send him away. He’d be miserable in one of those homes.”

  Send him away. Away, away, where would they send him?

  “You don’t know that,” his mother said. “Maybe he could be happier, maybe they would find a way to better control—”

  “I won’t do it,” his father shouted.

  “—his behavior. Get him outside. Conquer his fears.”

  His father said, “But he’s our son. I can’t believe you’d even suggest such a thing.”

  “I can’t have him hitting me, Tim. Hurting me, or hurting himself. I don’t want to send him away, but I’m at my wit’s end.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” his father said softly. “I’ll take him to see Wilson, make the necessary adjustments.”

  A prolonged silence filled the void, rising like the sea from the bottom till it engulfed the whole house. Wrapping his arms behind his head, Jack Peter waited for it to end, but he dared not leave his listening post. He would not go away, he would not go outside, he would make them stop, and they would see and they would keep everything as it was. He would show them. He would make them see.

  At last his father pushed away from the table. He would be walking to her for a hug. “And I’ll check under the bed,” he joked. “For monsters.”

  Freed, Jack Peter bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen, beaming for her, but she would not turn to face him. At the sink, doing dishes, she was not ready. Dressed in her jogging clothes, she looked ready to run away. His father flashed a greeting, waved his hand for the boy to join him and be still. A bowl of oatmeal with a crater lake of maple syrup in the middle had been put at his place at the table.

  “Tim,” she said at last. “I’ll be back from my run soon, and then you can make your rounds. Make sure to fetch Nicholas on your way home. He’s coming over to play with Jack this afternoon.”

  Jack Peter picked up his spoon and drew a line across the thick surface. The syrup ran and spread like blood. Work to be done, he told himself. Not away, not away, but here. Inside.

  ii.

  A pale yellow sun hung low in the salt sky. Winter had blown in overnight, and the cold gave an air of lonesomeness to the empty roads and deserted vacation homes. Tim loved the dying light of December and the absence of the people and set about his business with a kind of gleeful freedom. He had a dozen properties to take care of in the village and another dozen scattered on the eastern edge of the peninsula, and he had worked his way through three of the four homes on his list for the day with not a soul to bother him.

  The Rothmans’ summer place was the biggest and finest house in the village, fronting the crescent beach, ideally situated with a view of the lighthouse to the north and the unspoiled sand and rocks to the south.
Tim parked the Jeep around back and stood in the driveway, admiring how seamlessly the new mansion blended in with the grand old New England Victorians that dotted the coast. But it had been built less than ten years ago. His son was older than the house. The wind cut through his jacket, so he hooked the lapels against his throat and jogged to the door and fumbled for the keys.

  The house was colder inside than out, and he searched for the thermostat to turn up the heat and flipped on the lights in the pale noontime. In the kitchen, new and clean birch cabinets glowed like honey above smooth slate countertops and the spotless stove and refrigerator. A few tasteful prints lined the walls, and in the dining room, the chairs sat precisely three inches from the edge of the table, awaiting company. Alert for drafts, he wandered room to room, absentmindedly checking windows that he knew were closed. A layer of dust furred the shells and curios laid out carefully on the sideboard, and he drew a line with his fingertip along the edge of a mahogany credenza. Bound in frames, pictures of the Rothmans were everywhere: the father in his white dentist’s jacket, brandishing a tool of grave menace; the mother with the same practical smile in every photograph. Two children—a boy and a girl—progressively aging from toddlers to teenagers, perfect teeth glistening in the Maine summer sun. Even the dog was perfect, a Shiba Inu regal as a coiffed fox. In a gilded mirror, Tim saw himself prowling through their possessions like a thief, and he quickly turned away.

  Tim sat in Dr. Rothman’s easy chair and inspected the Persian rug between his feet, wondering if he had dragged any sand or mud inside. The room was simple and elegant. A Steinway upright took up one wall. More photographs of Mrs. Rothman in her best swimsuit. Arts and Crafts mirrors and lamps. White pine beams and finishing trim. The furniture, spare pieces, summer home, finer and newer than his own. A castle built crown by crown, bridge by bridge, tooth by tooth.

  Money. He dug into his front pocket and fished out a ten, the same crumpled bill he had tucked away three days ago. He knew without looking that his wallet was empty. Never enough money. The plan had been for him to go back to school, finish his degree, but when their son was born and later diagnosed, they decided after many long nights of argument that Tim would put ambition aside to care for the boy most of the time.