The Whisper Man

I tried to coax the information out of him on the way home, gently at first, but after being met by repeated stony silences, I lost my temper a little. I knew it was wrong even as I did, because the truth was that I wasn’t really angry with him. It was just the situation. Irritation that things hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped. Disappointment that his imaginary friend had returned. Concern about what the other children would think and how they would treat him. Eventually I fell into a silence of my own, and we walked alongside each other like strangers.

Back home, I went through his book bag. His Packet of Special Things was still there, at least. There was also some reading to do, which I thought looked a little basic for him.

“I mess everything up, don’t I?” Jake said quietly.

I put the papers down. He was standing by the couch, head bowed, looking smaller than ever.

“No,” I said. “Of course you don’t.”

“That’s what you think.”

“I don’t think that, Jake. I’m actually very proud of you.”

“I’m not. I hate myself.”

Hearing him say that was like being stabbed.

“Don’t say that,” I said quickly, then knelt down and tried to hug him. But he was completely unresponsive. “You mustn’t ever say that.”

“Can I do some drawing?” he asked blankly.

I took a deep breath, moving away slightly. I was desperate to get through to him, but it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen right now. We could talk about it later, though. We would talk.

“All right.”

I went through to my office, and touched the trackpad so that I could look back over the day’s work. I hate myself. I’d told him off for that, but if I was honest, they were words I’d thought about myself quite a lot over the last year. I felt them again now. Why was I such a failure? How could I be so incapable of saying and doing the right thing? Rebecca had always told me that Jake and I were very much alike, and so perhaps the same thoughts were going through his head right now. While it might be true that we still loved each other when we argued, it didn’t mean that we loved ourselves.

Why had he said such an awful thing at school? He’d been talking to himself—but, of course, that wasn’t really the case. I had no doubt at all that it was the little girl he’d been speaking with—that she’d finally found us—and I had no idea what to do about that. If he couldn’t make real friends, he would always have to rely on imaginary ones. And if they caused him to behave the way he had today, surely that meant he needed help?

“Play with me.”

I looked up from the screen.

A moment of silence followed in which my heart began beating harder.

The voice had come from the living room, but it hadn’t sounded like Jake at all. It had been croaky and vile.

“I don’t want to.”

That was Jake.

I stepped closer to the doorway, listening intently.

“Play with me, I said.”

“No.”

Although both voices had to belong to my son, they seemed so distinct that it was easy to believe there really was another child there with him. Except it didn’t sound like a child at all. The voice was too old and throaty for that. I glanced at the front door beside me. I hadn’t locked it when we got back home and the chain wasn’t hooked. Was it possible someone else had come in? No—I had only been in the next room. I would have heard that, if so.

“Yes. You’re going to play with me.”

The voice sounded like it was relishing the prospect.

“You’re scaring me,” Jake said.

“I want to scare you.”

And at that, I finally moved into the living room, walking quickly. Jake was kneeling on the floor next to his drawings, staring at me with wide, frightened eyes.

He was totally alone, but that did nothing for my heart rate. As had happened before in the house, there was a sense of presence in the room, as though someone or something had darted out of sight just before I arrived.

“Jake?” I said quietly.

He swallowed hard, looking like he was going to cry.

“Jake, who were you talking to?”

“Nobody.”

“I heard you talking. You were pretending to be someone else. Someone who wanted to play with you.”

“No, I wasn’t!” Suddenly he seemed less frightened than angry, as though I’d let him down somehow. “You always say that, and it isn’t fair!”

I blinked in surprise, and then stood there helplessly as he began stuffing papers into his Packet of Special Things. I didn’t always say that, did I? He must have known I didn’t like him talking to himself—that it bothered me—but it wasn’t as though I’d ever actually told him off for it.

I walked across and sat down on the couch near him.

“Jake—”

“I’m going to my room!”

“Please don’t. I’m worried about you.”

“No, you’re not. You don’t care about me at all.”

“That’s not true.”

But he was already past me and heading for the living room door. My instinct told me to let him go for now—to allow things to cool down and then talk later—but I also wanted to reassure him. I struggled for the right words.

“I thought you liked the little girl,” I said. “I thought you wanted to see her again.”

“It wasn’t her!”

“Who was it, then?”

“It was the boy in the floor.”

And then he was out of sight in the hallway.

I sat there for a moment, unable to think of what to say. The boy in the floor. I remembered the raspy voice that Jake had been talking to himself with. And, of course, that was the only explanation for what I’d heard. But even so, I felt a chill run through me. It hadn’t sounded like him at all.

I want to scare you.

And then I looked down. While Jake had gathered most of his things together, a single sheet of paper remained there, a few crayons lying abandoned around it. Yellow, green, and purple.

I stared at the picture. Jake had been drawing butterflies. They were childishly imprecise, but still clearly recognizable as the ones I’d seen in the garage this morning. But that was impossible, because he’d never been in the garage. I was about to pick the sheet up and examine it more closely when I heard him burst into tears.

I stood up and ran out into the hallway, just as he emerged, sobbing, from my office, pushing past me and running up the stairs.

“Jake—”

“Leave me alone! I hate you!”

I watched him go, feeling helpless, unable to keep up with what was happening, not understanding.

His bedroom door slammed.

I walked numbly into my office.

And then I saw the awful things I’d written to Rebecca there on the screen. Words about how hard everything was without her, and how a part of me blamed her for leaving me to deal with all this. Words my son must have just read. And I closed my eyes as I understood only too well.

Nineteen

Pete was sitting at his dinner table when the call came through. He should have been cooking or watching television, but the kitchen behind him remained dark and cold, and the living room was silent. Instead, he was staring at the bottle and the photograph.