Darlene was home when he returned. Still in her nurse’s uniform, she was marching through the kitchen, putting away groceries from two heaping cloth bags. Seven years his senior, she’d lost her youthful slimness but remained an attractive brunette. At least when she wasn’t scowling.
She gestured to the trash bag. “My new toaster, huh?”
“Sorry. I’ll buy you another one.”
“I hope Leah didn’t see it happen?”
“No. We’re good.”
“We’re not good, Aiden. We’re barely OK.”
He figured her mood wasn’t likely to improve so he went for broke. He told her about Leah’s latest nightmare and his concern that his niece might be carrying the same weird genes that afflicted Aiden.
Darlene shook her head. “Not possible.”
“Why not? Just because you don’t make chunkies doesn’t mean your daughter won’t someday get the curse? If it’s genetic, something carried by Mom or Dad, it could have skipped over you and gone straight to the next generation.”
“She’ll be fine. You’re worried over nothing.”
“There’s no way for you to know that.” He paused, took a deep breath and plunged into the heart of the matter. “I’d like to take Leah to see Dr Jarek. He might be able to run some tests.”
She stopped stacking canned goods in a cabinet. Her lips twisted into a scowl. “Not a chance.”
“C’mon, sis. Let’s at least talk about it without losing your cool.”
“I am not losing my cool,” she said, slamming a can of soup onto the countertop. Realizing what she’d done, she forced calm.
“Look, Aiden, I appreciate having you around to babysit when I have to work. But you can’t hold a job. You drink too much. The women you bring home throw up in my house.”
“Gimme a break. That was one time.”
“No, two times. She threw up again on the porch as she was leaving.”
“She had a stomach bug.”
“What she had was too many tequila shots.” Darlene sighed. “Look, I get it. You’re a great-looking guy and most women think you’re hot. But you’re also smarter than you give yourself credit for, smart enough to know that these endless one-nighters won’t ever bring you real satisfaction.”
“And you know goddamn well why they’re one-nighters!” Aiden wasn’t about to risk a woman he’d just had sex with waking up covered in chunkie crap. “Besides, every woman I hook up with can’t be as picture-perfect as Darlene Manchester.”
“Screw you!”
They glared at one another. Darlene shook her head in exasperation. When the battle recommenced, she tried keeping her tone civil.
“Look, I know this chunkie business has always been a pain in the butt. But you’ll be thirty years old in two months. At some point you have to realistically focus on making something out of your life. You have to accept the chunkies as a mild handicap and move on.”
Mild handicap? Aiden had to restrain himself from launching another attack.
“Start looking at things on the bright side,” his sister continued. “It’s not happening nearly as often, right?”
She was right about the frequency of the manifestations. They’d lessened considerably over the years. These days they only occurred about once a month. As a teen, Aiden had suffered a chunkie nearly every night. Back then, fear that he’d manifest one in his sleep had kept him from the kind of regular activities that his school friends enjoyed, such as sleepovers and overnight camping trips.
Despite his parents’ and sister’s attempts to convince him that the manifestations weren’t that big a deal, the reality felt different. He’d always been deeply embarrassed by them. The shame was probably akin to what a chronic bedwetter experienced. Although considering the composition of chunkies, an analogy to another bodily function was more apt.
Darlene droned on. “You can’t stay unfocused forever, aimlessly wandering through life.”
“Guess I’m just a screw-up and a loser,” he countered, smothering the words in sarcasm. Chunkies had trapped him in a lifelong prison of sorts. Maybe that was the true meaning of being behind bars in the green dream.
He tried to repress his bitterness and get the conversation back on track. “Just stop fixating on me for a moment, OK? Think about what might be best for Leah.”
“Fine. But I’ve never liked this Dr Jarek.”
“You’ve never met him.”
“Maybe so, but I think it’s a waste of your time getting involved with weird psychic research, or whatever the hell he does. Besides, he’s not a pediatrician.”
“The Doc has legit medical credentials. Maybe he’ll have some ideas that could help Leah or at least recommend someone who could.”
“Her nightmares are nothing to worry about. A lot of kids have them. It’s only been a little over a year since Tony passed. She still misses him.”
A shadow touched Darlene’s face at the mention of her husband. Tony, an Army staff sergeant, had been killed in Afghanistan.
“Anyway, it’s not a big deal. It’s just a stage Leah’s going through.”
“But what if it becomes a big deal later on? I know you don’t like to think about this, but what if Leah starts having chunkies? And what if it’s something that can be caught and corrected at a young age, maybe with medication.”
“My daughter is not going on any weird medications.”
Aiden shook his head in frustration. “You’re not being objective about this.”
“Trust me, Leah won’t inherit your problem.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
Darlene hesitated. She seemed about to say something when the phone rang.
It was the landline. Aiden thought paying for hardwired phone service when you owned a cell phone was a waste of money. But Darlene believed it was important to have a backup in case the cell network went down. The woman was prepared for everything short of Armageddon.
He was nearest the receiver and picked up.
“Hello, Manchester residence.”
“Aiden Manchester?”
The caller was male. He didn’t recognize the voice.
“Speaking.”
“Mr Manchester, I don’t know if you remember me. My name is George Dorminy.”
The name didn’t register. He waited for the man to continue.
“My wife and I bought your place up in Exeter.”
The memory returned. Aiden had met the couple more than fifteen years ago, in those harrowing weeks following the tragedy. After burying their parents, Darlene had sold the New Hampshire farmhouse where they’d grown up to the Dorminys, who’d been nearing retirement age. His sister, his legal guardian until he came of age, had moved them to Pennsylvania so she could attend nursing school.
“George and Irene, right,” Aiden said.
“Yes. How have you been getting along?”
“Fine. Living with my sister temporarily.” He glanced at Darlene. She was watching him closely, intrigued by the conversation.
“Darlene is here. Would you like to talk to her?”
“Actually, it’s you I was trying to reach. We’ve been remodeling the back part of the cellar in your old house. Making more room for my train layout, which, for better or worse, is growing larger than government debt.”