I was 19 years old when he climbed in through the window. He must have climbed in, because I can’t imagine how he got in otherwise. I didn’t see it happen. It was like I blinked, and suddenly he was just...there. Standing there, smiling and handsome, the best-looking man I’d ever seen. For a long time afterwards I’d think I dreamt him. I’d always been a plain girl, nothing much to look at. I kept my head down, did well enough at school, listened to my parents. But there he was, and there I was, and it seemed so natural to let things unfold the way they did. It was the first time I let myself feel wild and untamed. It was the last time I let myself feel wild and untamed.
I was 20 years old when Danny was born. In the maternity ward of Miskatonic’s Clapham Memorial Hospital, mothers howled and babies cried their first tears. There was no crying in my room. At first, I’d thought something must be wrong - and the nurses thought so too, the way they clustered around Danny, brows furrowed with concern. I was alone. I don’t know what I would’ve done if something had gone wrong, and I’d been alone. My parents had decided against being present for the delivery, and to be honest, I preferred it that way. They’d made the last 9 months of my life a living hell, with their questions and their poking and their angry outbursts. I still wasn’t sure how it had happened - I don’t think I would ever fully understand it. The part of me that had learned anything from Sunday mass at St. Agatha’s would wonder if Danny’s father had been an angel of some kind. But I don’t think he was an angel. And as soon as I laid eyes on my son for the first time, I didn’t care.
Danny was perfect. I’m sure all mothers think so, but I mean it. There wasn’t anything wrong with him that the doctors could find, though his silence was a little strange. Still, they could find nothing wrong with his vocal cords, nothing to indicate that he COULDN’T cry - he just didn’t. At least not then. Taking him back to my family’s place was a mistake. The Cartwrights were old Arkham stock, and we’d owned the house on Chapel Hill for generations. I’d always thought that someday I’d fill it with my own family. But it quickly became apparent that my parents didn’t consider bastard children family, or daughters who gave birth to bastards, either. We lasted all of 6 months - 6 months of accusations, 6 months of being berated, called a liar, a whore -
But never mind that. The point is, staying in the Cartwright house wasn’t an option. It wasn’t any good for Danny. I was almost relieved the first time he started howling like an air raid siren when they started laying into me. It was like he was rescuing me, giving me an excuse to get away. And that’s what he did. 6 months after Danny was born, we moved into a rented room on Tupelo Street. I knew my parents didn’t expect much from me, knew they expected me to fail, just another loser unwed mother. But I wasn’t going to be slowed down. And I definitely wasn’t going to fail - I had to hang on, for Danny’s sake. So I went back to school as soon as I could. Miskatonic didn’t pull my tuition remission out from under me, though I’m sure my father tried for it, and the scholarships I’d earned at St. Agatha’s kept us afloat. We would’ve been fine, if not for Geraldine.
Geraldine owned the room we rented, and while she seemed like a nice old lady at first, it soon became obvious that she thought that meant she owned us. It started with simple requests - “Try not to keep the lights on past 9, sweetheart, I’d really appreciate it!” “Keep that baby nice and happy - his crying just hurts my ears!” I almost thought she liked Danny, in the beginning. She even offered to watch him for me whenever I needed her to. If we could’ve gotten by without her, I would’ve left sooner. If I could’ve found someone else to care for Danny, I would’ve. But I was trapped, just as trapped as I’d been at my parents’ place. I started noticing the marks after the first few times Geraldine looked after him. He was still a quiet boy, and when he looked up at me with his big dark eyes he looked so serious - nothing like the golden man who’d appeared in my room that night. He looked more like me, with his wispy dark hair and his chubby little thighs. That was where I noticed them - little red marks up and down his legs, sometimes in his arms. Then there were the bruises. They were small, almost easy to miss, but how could a mother miss something like that?
“He’s a clumsy little thing,” Geraldine said, sickly sweet, when I finally asked her about them. “Always bumping into things while he’s crawling around...it’s nothing to make a fuss about!”
Things started to get worse after that. Curfew - because it was a curfew - was pushed ahead to 8, and once when a study group ran late I found the door locked against me. I don’t know how long I pounded, calling for help, before a neighbor called the police. Of course, Geraldine insisted it was just a misunderstanding - “I couldn’t hear you, sweetheart! These ears aren’t what they used to be!” - but I knew better. We were trapped, again. How can I describe how overwhelming those days felt? Only a mother would understand. I loved my son, but how could I keep him safe? I felt like I’d done such a terrible job of it. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t kept him. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone through with the pregnancy, maybe I should have given him up for adoption. So many maybes. Some nights all I could do was cry, and hate myself for getting us into this situation. My early days as a mother should have been happy ones, but the truth is, they were just awful. I was starting to doubt they would ever get better. How could we live like this, I wondered?
I was the one who found Geraldine. Study group had run late again, and I’d been bouncing on my heels the whole bus ride back to Tupelo Street. I was working myself up into a panic. I’d been sure she would lock the door again. Would I have to call the cops myself? Would social services get involved? Would Danny be taken from me? As soon as the bus stopped I bolted, running for the house as fast as my legs could carry me. The door wasn’t locked - that was a relief. My whole body sagged as I let myself inside. Then I heard it. It was such a beautiful sound, one I hadn’t heard before that day - laughter. For the first time, my baby was laughing, and it was so magical. I can’t even begin to describe it. I followed the sound, starting to wonder if maybe I’d been wrong about Geraldine - if she could make Danny happy like that, surely she couldn’t be -
I screamed when I saw the body. Geraldine had slumped over just inside the hall, as if she’d been on her way to the door when it happened. The skin of her face was dark as a bruise, and her legs were splayed out like she’d tripped over something. And there was Danny, looking up at me and just laughing. Like he thought it was just a game, like she’d get up any moment and walk it off. I had to step over her to pick him up. I’ll never forget how my skin crawled. I could hardly stand to look at her. But the important thing, I reminded myself as I called an ambulance, was that Danny was safe.
I managed to graduate from Miskatonic with honors, but money was tighter than ever. There was no way I could stay for grad school, and I knew I wasn’t ready to give up on the education I’d always wanted. My parents had instilled that much in me, at least. I applied to a few MFA programs around the US, and to my surprise, it was my dark horse candidate that offered me the best package - Alexandria University.
I let myself believe that we’d left all our troubles behind. Life would be normal, finally. It would just be me and my son, ordinary as could be. I’d watch him grow up into a smart, healthy kid, and I’d be able to provide for us as much as we needed. And maybe things would have been that simple, if it hadn’t been for that damn mutt. The dog was my neighbors’, inasmuch as it lived outside their house. They hardly paid any attention to it, or seemed to care that it delighted in terrorizing everyone in the neighborhood. Anyone who dared ask them to keep their dog under control found the door slammed in their face. They just didn’t care. So it wasn’t any real surprise the day the damn thing bit me.
I’d been taking Danny home from daycare, and I’d just gotten out of the car. I managed to stuff him back inside when I saw the dog come running. I’ll never forget how he wailed as the dog latched onto my leg. The poor thing had already been through so much, and at the age of 3 I thought he was finally old enough to remember the bad things. I tried to keep him distracted even as the doctors stitched me up, but the corners of his little mouth tugged down deep, and his eyes were almost stormy. He must’ve been so scared.
A police report was filed, but nothing much came of it. The city forced the neighbors to fix their gate, which they did grudgingly, glaring at me all the while. So the dog was trapped with them, at least. That was something. But it didn’t do anything to stop the monster’s unholy howling at night. It was as if it was taking the enforcement of its barriers personally and had a vendetta against everyone who’d dared speak against it. It kept everyone in the neighborhood up at night, but still they didn’t bother to lift a damn finger to get that thing under control.
This time, I wasn’t the one who found them. That dubious honor went to the mailman, who noticed that it had been days since the mailbox had been emptied. I managed to miss the smell - I guess it was just downwind of me, but the folks on the other side of the yard had begun to wonder about it. Together, they decided to investigate. I could’ve told them that was a mistake. The dog was already bloody when it bit the mailman, latching on so hard it tore through the muscles of his leg. The folks next door had to beat the damn thing off of him. Later, the police would tell us that it had likely happened a couple days earlier. I’m not sure how the dog even got into the house - they’d never taken him in before. Maybe their negligence had extended to regular feeding. It’s hard to say exactly what they did wrong, but their mistakes had finally backfired. The city carted the bodies away and had the dog put down, too little, too late.
A lot of people felt like Danny was a strange child, but I knew better. He was just thoughtful, almost a little calculating. He was so smart! He was a late-talker, but his vocabulary grew so fast. By the time he was 5 we could hold little conversations. He loved to read, loved to draw, loved to see and experience new things. He was like a sponge, absorbing everything around him. I thought his teachers would love him, and most of them did. He was a great student, did his work neatly and carefully. It was his 3rd grade teacher who proved to be kind of a problem. Mrs. Hooper’s son Andy was a student in Danny’s class, and I don’t think he liked Danny much. He was a bit of a bully, picking on the smaller kids and throwing his weight around as much as a 9-year-old could. I think he knew his mother would never lift a finger against him.
Of course, I went through all the proper channels. I was a young mom, but not a stupid one. When Danny came home with dirt on his clothes and scuffed knees because Andy had tripped him in the schoolyard, I contacted the principal right away. Of course, Mrs. Hooper insisted it had been an accident, but I made sure it was documented for future reference. I don’t understand why the other mothers didn’t do the same! The boy was a terror. He pulled girls’ hair, stole toys, dumped a bucket of sand all over the boy in the wheelchair. Somebody had to do something about him. But he got what he had coming to him, I guess. Mrs. Hooper never believed that it was an accident - she had the gall to suggest what happened was Danny’s fault! As if Danny told that boy to run around with scissors! It figured he would trip over something. Now, I’m not a coldhearted person - I don’t think that boy deserved to get hurt, of course. He was still just a child. But they say karma is a bitch. And a bully is hard to take seriously when he’s missing half his nose.
It wasn’t until Chris that I started to suspect Danny might really be a little...different. I met Chris at a seminar my second to last semester of grad school. We hit it off right away. The truth is, he reminded me a little of Danny’s father. He was all handsome and golden, a real charmer. Only Danny never really warmed up to him, exactly. He was polite, of course - I taught him to be! He listened very intently when Chris spoke to him, gave short, precise answers.
“He’s kind of like a little old man, isn’t he?” Chris asked me. His tone was joking, but he looked a little puzzled. “He’s so serious! Do you think he doesn’t like me?”
Of course, I assured him that Danny did like him - why wouldn’t he?
“He’s not a nice man,” Danny said, when I asked him about it that night. We were having dinner in the kitchen, just the two of us, and he’d been almost somber up until then.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “He’s been very nice to us!”
Danny looked at me. There wasn’t any anger or judgment in his eyes. He just...looked at me. But something about it made me uncomfortable. That was when I started to worry, I think.
I kept Chris away from the apartment after that, thought of all manner of excuses to keep the two of them apart. I don’t think Chris minded, but Danny took to asking about him every so often. “How’s Chris? Have you seen him lately? What is he doing at school?”
He’d never really taken an interest in anyone before that. It bothered me, a little. I didn’t think he was asking questions about Chris because he missed him. By then I was starting to think about all of it - Geraldine, the dog, Andy. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that I thought Danny was the antichrist, or anything like that! But it was curious how the people who troubled him seemed to just...go away.
I hadn’t meant to take Chris home with me that night. We were supposed to part ways outside the Student Union. Only it was raining, and my car was in the shop, and we were halfway through an argument that wasn’t letting up anytime soon.
“...don’t see why I shouldn’t be friendly to her! She’s my coworker - ”
“Your coworker who texts you at midnight? You must be blind! She obviously has a thing for you - ”
“Oh, so now you think I’m cheating on you?”
“I never said that! I said she has a thing for you, and it’s cruel not to nip it in the bud!”
I hardly even noticed that he got out of the car after me. I was already storming up the steps to the apartment when I realized he was following me, rain soaking the hem of his slacks.
“I’m not in the mood right now, Chris.”
“So that’s it? You just want to walk away from this?” Chris snapped. I turned my back on him and he grabbed my by the arm. His grip hurt.
“Let go!” I said, and he did. But the anger in his eyes didn’t let up. And he was still following me. “Seriously, you need to just get out of here - Danny’s home, and I need to make dinner. I do not have time for this.”
Okay, Bad Mom confession - Danny was a latchkey kid, by then. But he was so responsible, and the bus dropped him off right outside the building! And Alexandria felt so safe. It really is a great town. There was no sign of him when I stepped into the apartment. I meant to shut the door after me, only Chris was right behind me. He snapped the door shut behind him.
“I’m not done talking to you,” he said. I was at my breaking point. I couldn’t believe he’d had the gall to follow me after I told him to back off, to barge into my home when I’d been so careful to keep negativity away from my son -
Chris grabbed my arm again. I tried to jerk it free, but he didn’t let go.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. He opened his mouth. It stayed open, but no sound came out. His eyes fixed on something over my shoulder. His throat worked, trying to gulp down air. “Chris?” I said, worried. “Chris!”
Chris dropped like a rock. I screamed. Then I screamed again, and I felt someone at my side. Danny stood beside me, looking down at Chris where he lay stock-still on the carpet.
“Oh, my God! Danny, go call an ambulance!” I ordered. But Danny didn’t move. He just looked up at me, frowning a bit.
“Why? It’s too late to bother.”
In the end, I had to call the ambulance. Again. Danny seemed to forget that Chris was there. He wandered around the living room for a moment before heading back to his bedroom, and a moment later, I heard the sound of his TV switch on. He stayed in there as the paramedics wheeled Chris’s body out. I managed to keep it together until they were gone. Then I stormed into Danny’s room.
“What the hell was that about?” I asked. It was the first time I’d ever talked to him like that, and his eyes widened in surprise. “I told you to call an ambulance, Danny! You wasted precious time! How could you be so cold?”
I was crying. Danny was still staring up at me, and for the first time in his life he looked a little chastised. “I didn’t know you would be so upset,” he said, and I threw my hands up in frustration.
“Danny! Chris is dead! Oh, God! He died right here in our house!”
Danny eyed me levelly. “He was going to hurt you.”
“What?”
“He grabbed your arm. He was going to hurt you. I saw him.”
He said it so confidently. Like he’d done the right thing. Like he’d...done something.
“I told you he was a bad man,” Danny continued. “Now he can’t hurt anyone else. It’s better that way, right?”
I couldn’t argue with him. I was too...gone. What could I even say?
“You’re grounded,” I said, finally. Danny tilted his head at me.
“What does that mean?”
Wordlessly, I unplugged his TV and took the cable out with me. I went into my room and crawled into bed, stuffing the cable under my pillow. I didn’t bother to change, or to brush my teeth. I was totally spent. Down the hall, I heard Danny sigh, then the quiet sounds of him going about his nightly routine like nothing had changed.
The worst part about the whole thing was that he was right about Chris. The things I found out about him over the next few days forced me to realize that the Golden Boy act had been just that...an act. He’d told me he’d been an actor in his undergrad years. What he hadn’t told me was that he’d been kicked out of his acting troupe for preying on teenage girls. He hadn’t mentioned that charges had been dropped when he’d slapped his senior year girlfriend, or that he’d slept his way through the department before we’d started dating. Oh, and his coworker? Yeah, he was sleeping with her, too. I found that out at the funeral. She was pregnant. I wished her the best of luck, and I meant it - who knew what that kid would turn out like, with a father like that? Maybe it was better that he didn’t know him.
“Does it bother you, that you don’t know who your dad was?” I asked Danny, after all was said and done. I’d given him back the cable to his TV, and we were sitting together on his bed watching Stranger Things. Danny shrugged, his eyes trained on the screen.
“Not really. I know the important stuff.”
I looked down at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Danny finally turned to me, a rare smile on his face. “He chose you.”
Then he hugged me, and we went back to watching the show.
Danny might not be your average kid. But he’s my kid. Maybe my parents didn’t love me enough to keep me around when things didn’t turn out the way they wanted, but nothing could make me stop loving my son. I don’t know what Chris saw in him when he spotted him over my shoulder, and honestly, I don’t want to know. I think I’m better off for it. I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing all along - try to be the best mom I can be.
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