Beneath the Dust by Karl Lykken
The first thing my father ever gave me was the privilege of clearing out his house after he died. If he was still alive, I’d tell him to give the mailman the honor. After all, dear old Dad was probably closer with him than with me.
I’d just neglect the duty anyway if it wouldn’t bother my sister. Lauren always loved him, even though he never reciprocated. Hell, I think she kinda wishes he’d named her executor of his estate instead of me, just so she’d be able to do him one last favor. Or maybe I’m just justifying letting her do so much of my work for me.
I look over at her as I pull my car up by the curb outside Dad’s house. “You ready for this?”
“Yeah, I’m ready,” she lies, managing a smile. I give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before we get out of the car and walk up the leaf-covered path to the front porch. It’s gotten pretty chilly outside, and I know it will be about the same in the house. Dad always kept it unreasonably cold, even though it plainly bothered him. But hey, it must have been worth it to make the rest of us suffer.
We arrive at the front door and I fish the key out of my pocket. I unlock the door and push it open, revealing the dusty entryway. I flip on the light but it does little to alleviate the gloom. In the wake of my father’s death the house has an empty, dismal feeling about it, which is to say it’s exactly like it’s always been.
“It doesn’t feel like home anymore without Dad,” Lauren says, her voice alerting me to the tears forming behind her eyes.
“Would it help if I yelled at you for no reason and then just ignored you for the remainder of the day?” I ask.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m sorry.” I really am. I may hate my late father, but I hate hurting Lauren more. And it’s a lot harder to claim I’m protecting her by cutting away at her adoration for him now that he’s dead. I pull her in for a one-armed hug and kiss the top of her head. “That’s the last of those remarks. I promise.”
She looks up at me and sees I mean it. “Thanks. Family is important, Tom, even if they’re not perfect.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I think she knows I don’t mean it, but she lets it drop.
“Where should we start?” Lauren asks.
With burning the place down? Honestly, the insurance might be worth more than we could sell the place for, given its almost tangible aura of misery. Not that that matters for us, though, seeing as how Dad requested the proceeds of the house go to providing milk to underprivileged kids. Which would be fine if I could imagine any reason why he chose that specific charity other than to remind me that my lactose intolerance makes me an inferior being, as though the memories of him making me guzzle it down until it came back up weren’t doing the job adequately.
“Let’s make this an easy day,” I say. The quicker we get out of here, the less likely I am to go off on another rant and make Lauren break down. “Let’s just round up any valuables that people might wanna steal once they realize the house is vacant. Then I’ll let you take me out to lunch so you can show off your big time teacher salary.”
She lets out a little laugh. “Yes, well, we can’t all be Wall Street sellouts who contribute nothing useful to society, Tom.”
“I know. It takes a special person to do what I do.”
Her smile switches from mirth to affection. “I love you, Bro.”
“Love you, too.” And apparently so does the large, gray moth that lands in her hair. She brushes it off, visibly disgusted, but it keeps circling her head. I manage to catch it in a clap, and it explodes into dust. “How many decades did Dad own this damn house, and he never could find half an hour to get an exterminator out here to get rid of those things?”
“You promised not to badmouth Dad, Tom,” Lauren says, but her voice doesn’t have much conviction in it. She’s always hated the moths as much as I have. Filthy things, and with an uncanny ability to ruin a good moment. But Dad always just accepted them, resigned to their uninvited presence. He wouldn’t even swat them away when they landed on him. Not Mom, though. They used to drive her mad before she died.
“Alright, no more badmouthing. I am gonna call an exterminator, though. This house will never sell whi–” I gag. The damned thing flew down my throat! I cough it up and it comes out as a flurry of wet dust. Not helping your comrades’ cause there, Mothy.
“You alright?” Lauren asks, reflexively bringing her hands up in front of her mouth.
“Yeah. Let’s just make this quick. I’ll have the exterminator meet us out here the next time we come.”
“Cool. So, what all do we need to grab?” Lauren asks, her hands still shielding her mouth.
“I think he kept some cash stashed in his dresser, so we’ll have to look for that. Otherwise, we just need to box up the fine china and get his pistol.”
Lauren finally lowers her hands. “Alright, easy enough. But do you think we should check out the upstairs closet, too?”
“Why?” Not that I don’t know. I’m just hoping she’ll take the chance to reconsider, so I can avoid going into the closet without wussing out in front of my little sister.
“Dad went in there every single day and never let us go in once. There must be a reason, and I think it’d be best if we’re the ones who figure out what that reason is.” She seems resolute. Damn.
“Alright. I’ll check it out,” I say, doing my best to sound blasé about it. “You look for the cash in his dresser.”
She isn’t fooled. “You want me to come with you?”
Yes. “No, it’s fine.”
“I’ll come with you.” She gives my shoulder a squeeze.
I look her in the eye, but all I can see is Dad’s eyes when he’d come out from the closet: hopeless, terrified voids that sucked in what little comfort the rest of us had and left us with nothing. When I was little, I wanted to know what was in there. I even tried to pick the lock a few times, despite knowing full well what would happen when Dad caught me. But I never got in. And now that I’m grown, I really don’t want to. I don’t care what’s in there. I don’t care why my Dad was the way he was. But I do care about Lauren, and I never want to look into her eyes and see Dad’s again. “Thanks, Lauren, but really, I don’t want you to go in there. I’ll do this alone.”
Lauren stands tall and speaks with the same stern voice that keeps her classroom in order. “I wasn’t offering to go with you. I was telling you that I am. I wanna protect you just as much as you do me, Tom, and you’re just gonna have to deal with that.”
“Alright, if I don’t have a choice, let’s get this over with.”
“Let’s.” She steps around me and leads the way up the stairs. She’ll be fine. She’s a tough girl. After all, she survived our childhood, surely she’ll survive whatever is in the closet. I mean, honestly, how bad could it be? Right?
We reach the top of the stairs and approach the closet door. I still don’t know where my Dad hid the key to it, but he stopped bothering to lock it once me and Lauren moved out. Lauren steps aside and lets me open the door. I’m sure I’d be grateful for that if I wasn’t so focused on my terror.
The door creaks loudly as it opens, naturally. I grope the wall, searching for a light switch, but there doesn’t seem to be one. I take a step inside so I can reach further along the wall when I feel something brush lightly against me head. I jump backwards and feel a sharp thud against the back of my skull as it smacks the top of the door frame.
“What happened?” Lauren cries.
“Something… Something…” My hand finds the rising lump on the back of my head as my eyes find the swinging light cord. I’m such a wuss. “Nothing. The light cord brushed my head and startled me.”
“You’re such a wuss,” Lauren says, though there’s more fear than conviction in her voice. I use my free hand to pull down the cord, casting a dim light on the dust-coated boxes filling the room.
Well, mostly dust-coated boxes. There’s one dead ahead with few dust-free handprints. I point it out to Lauren. “I’m guessing this is what all the fuss was about.”
She takes a few moments before responding. “Well, let’s open it.”
We walk over and crouch down in front of the box. I move back the top flaps, releasing a half dozen moths that head straight for our faces. We swat them and smash them in our hands, crushing them into more of the dust that coats the room. God, how I hate those moths.
I return to the box. I fold down the top flaps and look inside to see… “A present?”
It’s just a common gift box covered with average blue wrapping paper with a gold ribbon on top, but in the closet of our father, it may as well have been a leprechaun. We never got gifts. We didn’t celebrate Christmas, or our birthdays, or at all. I didn’t know gifts were a thing until I started attending school. So why in the hell is there a wrapped present sitting in Dad’s closet, with a card addressed to…
“Who’s Billy?” Lauren asks.
“No idea.” I slide the little card out from under the bow and open it, then use it to bat away a few more moths. There’s a ton of them in here, but then I suppose that’s to be expected. The card is hard to read in the dim lighting, so I hold it close to my eyes and read aloud. “Happy birthday Billy! Another year has passed and many things have changed, but one thing never will: you are the center of our lives and the person we love most. Everything we have and do is all for you. Love, Dad and Mom.”
It’s hard to say how long exactly I stare blankly at the letter before Lauren breaks the silence. “Mom and Dad had another son before you?”
“Sounds like.” I don’t know why I’m so shocked. It’s not like they ever confided in me. Hell, on some level it even makes a lot of sense. Having lost a child could go a long way toward explaining how Dad was with us. Well, that and being an unbelievable asshole.
Lauren reaches into the big cardboard box that we’d found the present in and pulls out an old photograph of a small boy sitting with Mom and Dad on the sofa. “I guess this was our brother,” she says.
I look at the photo. His resemblance to me is unmistakable, as is the difference between the way my father is looking at him and the way he’d look at me. I guess they weren’t lying, Billy. You were still the only one they loved.
“What do you think the present is?” Lauren asks, looking up from the photo.
“I dunno. Let’s find out.” I untie the bow, then pause to crush a few more moths. My hands are filthy with their dusty remains, but I’m too curious to go wash them before opening the present. I tear off the wrapping paper and drop it on the floor. I lift off the top of the gift box.
Moths. Moths! Thousands of them. They explode out from the box, far more than could possibly have fit inside of it. I cover my face and hear Lauren scream. I turn to her, and the corner of my eye catches sight of the door as a wave of moths forces it shut. Oh, God. How can this be happening?
I put one arm around Lauren and try in vain to shield my face with the other. I look up just in time to see the moths come together in a perfect portrait of Billy’s face before they blot out the last of the light.
—
