Page 96 of Call Off the Dark

“I feel that way too.”

Helen looked over in surprise as Isaac continued. “I was curious, did you always feel that way? Or just since your first husband died?”

“Oh. No, I didn’t always feel that way,” she said softly. “Just since he died.”

Isaac nodded slowly. “I think I’ve always been that way. There’s a part of all this”—he gestured widely, as if to indicate everything—“that just feels like a game, you know?”

“Life, you mean?”

Isaac shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

This was a dangerous conversation. Helen could read between the lines. He was telling her he didn’t play by the rules, and she didn’t have to either.

She stood. “I’d better check on Wade.”

Inside their bedroom, Helen asked Wade what had happened, and he told her that Isaac had started threatening him on the drive home.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just that, Helen. I’ve been trying to be a nice guy. What choice do I have? But he’s just fucking with me. On the way home, he asked me if I want to find out what it feels like to die at the hands of my own brother. Just like he did.”

She gave him a look. That wasn’t the conversation the brothers had been having in the yard. “It sounded like you guys were arguing about your parents.”

Wade threw his hands up, exasperated. “We were! Yeah, by the time we got back here, we were. Because I told him he should go on to the light, or the tunnel, or whatever or wherever it is. Heaven! Go be with our parents. And he said he hates our dad, and once he’s done here, he won’t be going where Ma is anyway.”

Whether he was lying to her or not, Wade was very agitated. That much was obvious. Helen just didn’t have the energy for it though. So after a moment, she simply sighed and said, “Should I make us something for dinner?”

With a harsh exhale, he sank onto the bed, dirty clothes and all, and said, “I want my food in here. I’m not in the mood to have dinner with a ghost tonight.”

Wade lay back against the pillows and folded his arms tightly across his chest. Helen couldn’t tell if she was witnessing a brilliant act or if he believed his own words.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Helen and Wade ate their meals in the bedroom, perched on chairs she’d carried in from the kitchen, plates in their laps. She’d apologized as she’d left Isaac alone at the table, but he’d said he understood; he didn’t feel like eating with his brother tonight either.

This was the third evening she’d held her breath as she’d watched Wade eat dinner, afraid that he would notice the bitterness of the antipsychotic powder. Tonight it hadn’t been as easy to disguise the taste since they’d only had Brussels sprouts and carrots sprinkled with parmesan to eat, and there was barely any parmesan left to mix with the meds.

Wade finished his vegetables quickly, though, his chomping filling the silence.

Putting his empty plate on the floor with a loud clatter, he said, “We’re apparently running out of food,” as if he’d just come to some important realization that Helen hadn’t already pointed out.

She pressed her lips into a thin line, and he left the room. A minute later, she heard the water in the pipes. He was running his own bath again.

Ever since Isaac had suggested that Wade was lying to her, Helen was seeing things differently. Wade could have all sorts of past lives of which she knew nothing. The first time they’d met, he’d said he was “small town,” as if that equaled honesty and integrity, and she’d taken his word for it. Now she didn’t know what to believe, but she knew that ever since Wade had claimed his brother was dead, her own mind had been pulling tricks on her. She couldn’t think straight anymore, and it was Wade’s fault.

Dirty plates in hand, she went back to the kitchen to ask Isaac if he had a cell phone. She desperately wanted to call her mother—just to hear the voice of someone who loved her unconditionally—but Isaac didn’t have a phone.

He asked, “Why doesn’t Wade take you to town?”

She replied, “I don’t want to go anywhere with him.”

At that, Isaac smiled faintly. Or maybe she just imagined it.

Hours later, Helen lay awake in bed next to Wade’s snoring form. Running everything through her head, yet again, was draining her. She may as well get up and read poetry.

She sat up and tossed the covers from her body, this time not bothering to be careful with the blankets. Wade didn’t stir though.

The chilly air touched her skin. She was behind on laundry—she was behind on everything—so tonight she was wearing a sleeveless summer nightgown, silken and almost sheer.