Gillian Flynn - Dark Places

She heard a shot of laughter coming from behind his door, and it unnerved her. Ben wasn’t a laugher, not even as a kid. At age eight he’d looked at one of his sisters coolly and announced, “Michelle has a case of the giggles,” as if it was something to be fixed. Patty described him as stoic, but his self-containment went beyond that. His dad certainly didn’t know what to do with him, alternating between roughhousing (Ben stiff and unresponsive as Runner crocodile-rolled him on the floor) and recrimination (Runner complaining loudly that the kid was no fun, weird, girlish). Patty hadn’t fared much better. She’d recently bought a book about mothering a teenage boy, which she’d hidden under her bed like pornography. The author said to be brave, ask questions, demand answers from your child, but Patty couldn’t. Much more than a graze of a question pissed Ben off these days, triggered that unbearably loud silence from him. The more she tried to figure him out, the more he hid. In his room. Talking to people she didn’t know.

Her three daughters were already awake too, had been for hours. A farm, even their pathetic, overleveraged, undervalued one, demanded early rising, and the routine stuck through the winter. They were now fluffing around in the snow. She’d shooed them out like a pack of puppies so they wouldn’t wake up Ben, then got annoyed when she heard his voice on the phone, realized he was already up. She knew that was the reason she was fixing pancakes, the girls’ favorite. Even the score. Ben and the girls were always accusing her of taking sides—Ben forever being asked to have patience with the small, ribboned creatures, the girls forever being begged to hush now, don’t bother your brother. Michelle, at ten, was the oldest daughter, Debby was nine, and Libby seven. (“Jesus, Mom, it’s like you dropped a litter,” she could hear Ben admonish.) She peeked out a filmy curtain to view the girls in their natural animal state: Michelle and Debby, boss and assistant, constructing a snow fort from plans they hadn’t bothered to share with Libby; Libby trying to nose into the side of the action, offering snowballs and rocks and a long, waggly stick, each rejected with barely a glance. Finally Libby bent at the legs for a good scream, then kicked the whole thing down. Patty turned away—fists and tears were next, and she wasn’t in the mood.

Ben’s door creaked open, and his heavy thumps at the end of the hall told her he was wearing those big black boots she hated. Don’t even look at them, she told herself. She said the same thing whenever he wore his camo pants. (“Dad wore camo pants,” he sulked when she’d complained. “Hunting, he wore them hunting,” she’d corrected.) She missed the kid who used to demand unflashy clothes, who wore only jeans and plaid button-downs. The boy with dark red curls and an obsession with airplanes. Here he came now, in black denim jacket, black jeans, and a thermal hat pulled down low. He mumbled something and aimed for the door.

“Not before breakfast,” she called. He checked, turned only his profile to her.

“I gotta get a few things done.”

“That’s fine, have some breakfast with us.”

“I hate pancakes. You know that.” Dammit.

“I’ll make you something else. Sit.” He wouldn’t defy a direct order, would he? They stared each other down, Patty about to give in, when Ben sighed pointedly, then slumped onto a chair. He started fiddling with the salt shaker, pouring the granules on the table and plowing them into a pile. She almost told him not to do it, but stopped. It was enough for now that he was at the table.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked, pouring him some orange juice she knew he’d leave untouched to spite her.

“Just some people.”

“People, plural?”

He only raised his eyebrows.

The screen door scissored open, then the front door banged against the wall, and she could hear a series of boots tumbling onto the floor mat—well-trained, untracking daughters that they were. The fight must have been settled quickly. Michelle and Debby were already bickering about some cartoon on TV. Libby just marched right in and hurled herself on a chair next to Ben, shook some ice off her hair. Of Patty’s three daughters, only Libby knew how to disarm Ben: She smiled up at him, gave a quick wave, and then stared straight ahead.

“Hey, Libby,” he said, still sifting salt.

“Hey, Ben. I like your salt mountain.”

“Thanks.”

Patty could see Ben visibly re-shell himself when the other two entered the kitchen, their bright, harsh voices splattering the corners of the room.

“Mom, Ben’s making a mess,” Michelle called out.

“It’s fine, sweetie, pancakes are almost ready. Ben, eggs?”

“Why does Ben get eggs?” Michelle whined.

“Ben, eggs?”

“Yeah.”

“I want eggs,” Debby said.

“You don’t even like eggs,” Libby snapped. She could always be depended on to side with her brother. “Ben needs eggs cause he’s a boy. A man.”

That made Ben smile the slightest bit, which made Patty select the most perfectly round pancake for Libby. She piled the cakes onto plates while the eggs spat at her, the fine calibrations of breakfast for five going surprisingly well. It was the last of the decent food, left over from Christmas, but she wouldn’t worry right now. After breakfast, she’d worry.

“Mom, Debby has her elbows on the table.” Michelle, in her bossy mode.

“Mom, Libby didn’t wash her hands.” Michelle again.

“Neither did you.” Debby.

“Nobody did.” Libby laughing.

“Dirty bugger,” Ben said, and poked her in her side. It was some old joke with them, that phrase. Patty didn’t know how it had started. Libby tilted her head back and laughed harder, a stage laugh designed to please Ben.

“Mother hugger,” Libby giggled wetly, some sort of response.

Patty soaped up a rag and passed it around to each so they could all stay seated at the table. Ben bothering to tease one of his sisters was a rare event, and it seemed like she could hold on to the good mood if everyone just stayed in their place. She needed the good mood, the way you need sleep after an all-nighter, the way you daydream of throwing yourself into bed. Every day she woke up and swore she wouldn’t let the farm weigh her down, wouldn’t let the ruination of it (three years she was behind in the loan, three years and no way out) turn her into the kind of woman she hated: mirthless, pinched, unable to enjoy anything. Every morning she’d crick herself down onto the flimsy rug by her bed and pray, but it was actually a promise: Today I won’t yell, I won’t cry, I won’t clench up into a ball like I am waiting for a blow to level me. I will enjoy today . She might make it to lunch before she went sour.

They were all set now, everyone washed, a quick prayer, and all was fine until Michelle spouted up.

“Ben needs to take off his hat.”

The Day family had always had a no-hat rule at the table, it was such a non-negotiable regulation that Patty was surprised to even have to address it.

“Ben does need to take off his hat,” Patty said, her voice a gentle prod.

Ben tilted his head toward her and she felt a pinch of worry. Something was wrong. His eyebrows, normally thin rusty lines, were black, the skin beneath stained a dark purple.

“Ben?”

He took off his hat, and on his head was a jet-black crown of hair, ruffed like an old Labrador. It was such a shock, like swallowing ice water too quickly, her red-headed boy, Ben’s defining characteristic, gone. He looked older. Mean. As if this kid in front of her had bullied the Ben she knew into oblivion.

Michelle screamed, Debby burst into tears.

“Ben, sweetheart, why?” Patty said. She was telling herself not to overreact, but that was just what she was doing. This stupid teenage act—that’s all it was—made her entire relationship with her son feel suddenly hopeless. As Ben stared down at the table, smirking, force-fielding himself from their female commotion, Patty worked up an excuse for him. He’d hated his red hair as a kid, been teased for it. Maybe he still was. Maybe this was an act of assertion. A positive thing. Then again, it was Patty who’d given Ben her red hair, which he’d just obliterated. How was that not a rejection? Libby, her only other redhead, clearly thought so. She sat holding a piece of her hair between two skinny fingers, staring at it morosely.

“All right,” Ben said, slurping an egg and standing up. “Enough drama. It’s just stupid hair.”

“Your hair was so handsome, though.”

He paused at that, as if he was really considering it. Then shook his head—at her comment, at the whole morning, she didn’t know— and stomped toward the door.

“Just calm down,” he called without turning around. “I’ll be back later.”

She was guessing he’d slam the door, but instead he shut it quietly, and that seemed worse. Patty blew at her bangs and glanced around the table at all the wide blue eyes, watching her to see how to react. She smiled and gave a weak laugh.

“Well, that was weird,” she offered. The girls perked up a bit, visibly sitting higher in their chairs.

“He’s so weird,” Michelle added.

“His hair matches his clothes now,” Debby said, wiping her tears on the back of her hand, and forking some pancake into her mouth.

Libby just looked at her plate, shoulders caved in toward the table. It was a look of dejection only a kid could pull off.

“It’s OK, Lib,” Patty said, and tried to pat her casually without getting the other girls going again.

“No it’s not,” she said. “He hates us.”

Libby Day NOW

Five nights after my beer with Lyle, I drove down the bluff from my house, and then down some more, into the trough of Kansas City’s West Bottoms. The neighborhood had thrived back in the stockyard era and then spent many decades the-opposite-of-thriving. Now it was all tall, quiet brick buildings, bearing names of companies that no longer existed: Raftery Cold Storage, London Beef, Dannhauser Cattle Trust. A few reclaimed structures had been converted into professional haunted houses that lit up for the Halloween season: five-story slides and vampire castles and drunk teenagers hiding beers inside letter jackets.

In early March, the place was just lonesome. As I drove through the still streets, I’d occasionally spot someone entering or leaving a building, but I had no idea what for. Near the Missouri River the area turned from semi-empty to ominously vacant, an upright ruin.

I felt a bulb of unease as I parked in front of a four-story building labeled Tallman Corporation. This was one of those moments where I wished I had more friends. Or, friends. I should have someone with me. Barring that, I should have someone who’d be waiting to hear from me. As it was, I’d left a note on the stairs inside my house, explaining where I was, with Lyle’s letter attached. If I disappeared, the cops would have a place to start. Of course, if I had a friend, maybe the friend would tell me, No way am I letting you do that, sweetie, the way women always said things, in that protective voice.

Or maybe not. The murders had left me permanently off-kilter in these kinds of judgment calls. I assumed everything bad in the world could happen, because everything bad in the world already did happen. But, then, weren’t the chances minuscule that I, Libby Day, would meet harm on top of it? Wasn’t I safe by default? A shiny, indestructible statistic. I can’t decide, so I veer between drastic overcaution (sleeping with the lights on at all times, my mom’s old Colt Peacemaker on my bedside table) to ridiculous incaution (venturing by myself to a Kill Club in a vacant building).