Evan’s flight was two hours later than anticipated. With the nine-hour time-change to boot, he felt like a walking corpse. The only solace in an otherwise exhausting trip was the greeting he would soon receive as he exited the gate.
He made it past the tourists who took pictures of every inch of the airport as if they don’t all look the same, he pushed past the overweight couple with their American flag shirts paired with “Proud member of the NRA” hats who relied on the electric scooters to get around, he was even able to sneak in front of the class of thirty rambunctious kids on a school trip from Wyoming whose teacher sits there with an existential look on her face that says “God, please take me now.”
Evan knew the other side of those frosted sliding glass doors were the reason he got up every morning. As he approached, his heart began to race with excitement. Family was everything to Evan and he couldn’t wait to be back in their loving embrace.
When the sliding doors opened, Evan pulled his wheeled suitcase behind him scanning the onlookers for Heather and the kids. To no surprise, he saw Heather on Instagram live talking to her fans. Next to her was Stephenie holding a big pink bristol board that said “Welcome Home Daddy!”
His face lit up to see Stephenie. He thought Noah would be there too but given the time, it makes sense Noah stayed home. “He’s probably long asleep.” Evan thought to himself.
As he walked down the ramp towards Stephenie and Heather, Stephenie dropped the sign and ran up to him wrapping her arms around his leg. He lifted her with one arm and pulled his suitcase in the other. Heather didn’t notice. “I get so lonely when he’s gone. I appreciate you guys more than you know! Don’t forget to like and comment and share with your friends, okay? Love you guys! Kiss, kiss!” She kissed the camera with her swollen lips and turned it off. As soon as the recording ended her happy disposition slumped into annoyance.
“You’re two hours late.”
“We got stuck on the tarmac.”
Evan noticed her swollen lips. They looked like overstuffed pillows if pillows had sores leaking with pus.
“Your lip?”
Heather rolled her eyes.
“Chantel, that girl that runs the make-up company? She sent me a lip-filler.”
“Honey, It looks like an allergic reaction, have you spoken to Dr. Wayits about this?”
“It’s fine. It’s part of the process. When they heal they’ll look hot.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Only until the pus drains.”
“Sweetheart this isn’t normal.”
Heather looked around with embarrassment.
“Evan, please! You’re making a scene!”
It was late, after a twelve-hour flight, and he was tired.
“Did your mom drive down to watch Noah?” Evan asked.
Heather turned around. She didn’t need to say anything. Evan’s face became white, he dropped his bags and began screaming “Noah!”
Evan’s eyes scanned the area. People in every direction hugging, walking out with luggage, and taking pictures.
“Noah?!” Evan screamed.
“How could you take your eyes off him?”
“I was busy!” Heather retorted.
Stephenie began to cry. “Where’s Noah!”
Evan got down to one knee “Sweetheart. I need you to be strong for daddy okay? Stay with mommy. I’m gonna find Noah. Can you do that for me?”
She wiped the tears and snot from her red face with her stretched-out sleeve and nodded.
He ran outside and looked around. Taxis, shuttle cars, limos, people kissing their loved ones and walking to the airport parking lot but no sign of Noah. Evan noticed a tall man with shaggy blonde hair with a red vest on. He was a baggage handler helping a young Asian couple load their bags onto the cart. He ran up to the man.
“Security, where is it? I’ve lost my son.”
He screamed again “Noah? We’re not mad buddy. Just come to my voice.”
The baggage handler looked stoned and not phased by this. “What did he look like?”
“What does it fucking matter?” Evan turned around. “Noah!”
“I need to tell security what they’re looking for.” The Baggage handler said with a passive-aggressive tone.
“He looks like a kid, alone! Christ. He has short brown hair. I don’t know what he’s wearing.”
Evan ran past the Asian couple, past the large Indian family loading up a taxi van excited to begin their trip, and past the security with the dog in a vest labeled “DO NOT PET I’M WORKING”
“Noah!” Evan screamed. His skin was clammy as his heart raced inside his chest. His mind flooded with worst case scenarios. Chopped up remains of children was nothing more than a grotesque headline to shock you over your morning coffee. A horror story to talk about by the water cooler at work, at least it was before today.
The baggage handler spoke into his walkie-talkie. Evan overheard his voice come through the static on the dog handler’s walkie-talkie.
The Dog Handler spoke into the walkie-talkie confirming and pulled the dog’s leash indicating it was time to move. The dog obediently followed.
He ran back into the airport. Stephenie was sitting on the floor with her sign next to Heather who was live streaming again.
To her left was a row of carts used to place luggage. Inside the bottom front of the cart was Noah sitting quietly watching the sea of legs and luggage pass him by.
Evan ran over to him and scooped him up. “Daddy!” Noah said with excitement in his voice. Evan tried to sound stern but he was too choked up.
“Don’t you ever do that again! Never run away! Do you hear me?” With tears running down his five o’clock shadow he kissed Noah’s head and held him tightly. He carried Noah over to Stephenie and Heather.
Stephenie yelled out “Noah!”
Heather turned around with the camera still lifted above her head she said “Look who we found!”
The screen buzzed as hearts poured in with comments and likes “Glad he’s safe!”, “You look beautiful Heather!” “What’s wrong with her lips?”
Heather stood in front of the mirror applying a cream from a silver canister with Chinese writing that said: “experimental use only.” Behind her was Evan, eyes bloodshot and swollen. She paid little mind to him as she casually rubbed the cream into her cheeks. Lips swollen with pus she was careful not to touch them out of fear of opening the healing wounds.
He stood behind her looking at her through the mirror.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. It was an accident, he’s fine.”
“Have you lost your mind? Jesus, listen to yourself. It’s your son!”
She stopped for a moment to turn around and face him. Her lips let off the stench of infection as pus danced on the surface of her open wounds. The cream swirled on her cheeks like spirals of sulfur-smelling paste.
“You don’t think I feel like shit?” Heather asked.
“It’s not about you! Someone could have taken him!”
“But they didn’t, relax.” Heather turned around to finish rubbing in the cream. She turned back around to him.
“This was a gift from a new company. I’m testing out their products. It’s supposed to make my skin glow. Notice anything yet?”
Evan punched the door and walked out. The door smacked the wall behind it denting the wall with the door handle.
Heather screamed “Great, now you put a hole in the wall.”
The next morning Evan was sitting at the kitchen island sipping a fair-trade Colombian dark roast. The house was quiet. It was a Saturday and everyone was sleeping in. The swelling from his hand woke him up at 3:30 AM. The quietness was a rarity in this house. He tried to enjoy the serenity that was a quiet house but with every heartbeat, his hand pulsed with a sharp pain that shot up his arm like a jolt of electricity. His hand swelled to the size of a Mickey Mouse glove. His knuckles were bruised and swollen. A layer of skin was broken and bleeding, hurting every time he reached for his coffee.
He heard stirring upstairs. It sounded too loud to come from the kids bedroom. It had to be Heather. He was not ready to deal with her yet. He prayed she only got up to use the bathroom and went back to bed. To his disappointment, Heather crept down the stairs in a pink nightgown with fluffy faux fur around the trim. He was furious with her but didn’t have the energy to say anything other than a hollow “morning.”
“Good morning. Still grumpy?”
The question frustrated Evan but he was quickly distracted by Heather’s face. Her skin was peeling, leaving a raw layer of pink flesh. The dead skin hung from her cheeks like tissue paper swinging back and forth with every step. The burns looked like chemical burns scarring the skin.
He tried his best to be polite but all he could muster was “Jesus.”
“I know, but it’s part of the process. When it heals it will look amazing.”
“You need to see a doctor”
“It’s okay, the bleeding stopped, although we will need new sheets. I’m sorry.”
Heather went in to kiss Evan but he recoiled.
“You won’t kiss me?”
“You need to wipe the pus off your lips. We really need to take you to the hospital.”
“Nonsense, it’s the cost of beauty.”
“This isn’t a joke anymore. Get your clothes on, I’m calling the sitter.”
The hospital smelled of death and chemical sanitizers. The dull neon lighting brought forth every blemish, scar, and mark often hidden by makeup. Heather was not religious nor did she believe in hell but today that changed for she was in it.
The bed was paper thin and bars of the metal frame poked and prodded every soft part of her back. Unable to get comfortable she got no sleep, instead she sat and watched the same dull programs, faux reality shows where a man discovers he is not the father of his lover’s child, a sit-com where a grouchy old man tired to his way of living must conform to the accepting world and a show where a Doctor helps patients find a new lease on life by discovering the problems no one was able to solve. She wished the hospital experience could be wrapped in a tight thirty-minute package, sly dialogue and all. Instead, she sat and stared at the ceiling counting the tiles (there were 542) while she waited to be greeted by the nurse to poke her for the hundredth time to take blood or check her temperature and tell her again there is “no feva”.
Heather began to drift when she heard a faint voice just outside the hall. It sounded like Evan talking to someone. What they were saying was difficult to hear but she thought she heard “evaluation.” She leaned towards the door holding onto the guard rail used to keep her from falling out of bed. The hard bars underneath the paper-thin mattress poked her tailbone sending a sharp pain up her back. She bit her lip causing pus to escape into her mouth. The bitterness tickled her gag-reflex, trying her best she was able to remain quiet in hopes she might hear what was being said about her.
Evan stepped into the door holding two cups of coffee in his hand. Lifting the cup in his left hand he said “2 sugars and skim milk. Sorry, they didn’t have almond.”
Heather rolled her eyes “savages.”
Evan snorted and laughed. It was during moments like this that he remembered why he loved her. She made him laugh like no one else. Sure she was a handful, but she was his handful.
Evan’s face went from a smile to neutral. His tone became serious.
“Sweetheart,” he said with a serious tone. “I spoke to the doctor and he recommended one of his colleagues talk to you.”
Heather cut him off “I want to leave.”
“I know you want to leave. Speaking to Dr. Feildman will be the next step to leaving.”
Heather scoffed.
“If you can’t do this for me, will you do it for the kids?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Heather.”
Heather scowled at him.
Evan poked his head into the hallway and motioned. He leaned back into the room.
“Dr. Feildman will be here in a moment. Play nice and we can get out of here tonight.”
“I always play nice.”
Evan slept on the couch that night, not by choice. Other than reminding him to set the alarm code before going to bed Heather said not a word to him. His phone lit up with a notification that @Heatherpants is going live. He was not one to browse social media but after her last post and per the psychologist’s recommendation, it’s best to monitor her behavior with or without her permission. He slid right on the notification opening the app to her live video. To avoid being detected, He made a dummy account with the name Blastermaster5498. Evan could hear faint talking from upstairs and it took everything in him to not bust down that thick cherrywood tree of a door and put an end to this charade but he sat on the couch against his better judgment and watched the chaos unfold.
Heather was sobbing into the camera, lips swollen and oozing pus, skin splotchy and red, peeling and flaking like a reptile in the hot sun. Her eyes swollen almost completely shut from crying. Mascara racing down her face to see which side could make it to her peeling chin faster.
Hearts and comments of support filled the screen at a speed so quick he could barely make out the letters. The top right corner of the screen had a counter labeled “Views” this number accelerated fast enough that the numbers were illegible.
“Guys, I need your support more than ever,” She said between sobbing.
“I was forced to the hospital today by my abusive husband.”
Evan’s jaw clenched so hard it felt his teeth would shatter into a million pieces.
“I was forced into a psychiatric evaluation by some quack because they think I’m crazy.” She continued to sob.
The hearts came in at a faster rate filling the screen with little red hearts. The comments flooded at breakneck speed blurring as they came and left to be replaced by new comments. The view count was at twenty-five thousand and quickly rising.
“They don’t understand. I don’t know what to do.”
The comments flooded in saying “Leave him”, “Your kids deserve better.”, “We love you, Heather.”
Evan put his head in his hands and sobbed. Suddenly the sound of little pitterpadders caught his attention. It was Stephenie. She stood before him in her Scooby Doo pajamas. The look on her face was a mix of concern and confusion.
“What’s wrong daddy?”
Evan lifted his head, wiping his tears.
Stephenie opened her arms, he did the same, and she collapsed in his arms as he wrapped around her. It was moments like this that reminded Evan what life was all about. Stephenie whispered “I love you daddy, please don’t cry.”
A tear ran from his face down his cheek and he said “I love you too.”
Upstairs they could faintly hear the sound of screaming, while it was hard to decipher, the word “Psych ward” was easily discernible.
When Evan arrived at St Mikes Children’s Hospital the letters directing the wards meant nothing. He noticed a tiny black woman with braided hair and colorful scrubs sitting at the desk. The woman was watching something intently on her phone. Evan approached her without considering his tone and asked “Noah Liston!” He was panting. “Where can I find his room? I was told he was admitted here.”
The woman eyed him up and down seeing the sweat gather on his brow and panting. With a tone that almost indicated she was bothered to be interrupted from her phone she said “Sir, we can’t just give out room numbers.”
“I’m his father! Where is he!”
The woman looked at him then looked down at her phone. The phone was projecting a live stream of a woman lit by dull neon lighting. Mascara running down her peeling cheeks and pus-filled lips. The woman looked back up at Evan. “I need to see some I.D. before I can give out that information.”
Evan shaking fumbled for his wallet, dropped it on the floor and picked it back up. Shaking and clammy he pulled out his I.D. and handed it to her. She glanced at it, looked at him, looked back at the I.D., and handed it back to him. She typed away on the computer. While waiting, he looked at her phone sitting on the table. Hearts poured in with comments flooding the screen in a blur of indiscernible text. The camera panned to a young child with dirty blonde hair lying unconscious on the hospital bed on a ventilator.
The woman looked up at Evan who was still attached to the phone. She moved it into her lap and said “Floor 6 room 638”.
He rushed for the stairs and made his way to the sixth floor.
As Evan approached room 638 he could hear the sound of Heather’s voice. She was thanking her followers for their love and support. He took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his forehead and stepped in.
Heather turned around while holding the phone to the door and said “Finally.”
“Not now. Not this right now. Shut it off.”
She looked at the phone. “I need their support right now.”
Evan looked up at Noah in the bed. He was unconscious. Tubes ran from his mouth to a ventilator that hissed with the collapse of his chest.
He closed his eyes tightly hoping this was all some morbid dream and he would soon wake up at home to Noah and Stephenie jumping on his bed.
“How could you let this happen?” He asked with no emotion.
That was it. That was the straw that caused Heather to turn off her livestream. She placed the phone in her purse as she went from sobbing to anger.
“Me? where the hell were you?”
“Working! You’re supposed to watch the kids!”
“I was watching them!”
“Then how the fuck did this happen?!”
“I don’t know! Stop blaming me!”
Evan stopped. Took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway.
He noticed a doctor in colorful scrubs with a bandana covered in tropical fish. The man was walking swiftly in Evan’s direction. Call it intuition but he knew this was his son’s Doctor.
The man approached Evan standing outside Noah’s room and asked “Are you Mr. Liston?”
He nodded. “He’s gonna be okay, right?”
The doctor paused for a moment. The fluidity of his actions led Evan to believe he’s done this one too many times.
“He has a lot of fluid in his lungs, when he arrived he was unconscious which could lead to permanent brain damage.” Evan collapsed to the floor placing his head in his hands.
“No, Jesus.”
The doctor crouched down to his level and placed a hand on his arm. “I know this is difficult, we stabilized him and used a catheter to drain the fluid. We are waiting for the results of the MRI to see how severe the damage was. Once we get that, we’ll know more.”
Evan tried his best to speak between tears and said “thank you, thank you, Doctor.”
The Doctor nodded. “I have to do my rounds but I will be back when we get the results. Try to be strong for Noah. He could use your support right now.” Evan nodded.
Noah spent what felt like an eternity in the hospital. After forty-eight hours he began to move. Later that night they removed the ventilator. Evan sat by Noah’s side reading “The Giraffe That Could” Noah’s favorite story as a baby.
Heather brought a ring light from home to enhance the lighting for her camera. The light pierced through the thick hospital air illuminating her pus-filled lips and peeling skin. She was live for most of the day responding to comments, answering questions and thanking her fans for well wishes. Evan cared little for what went on now that Noah was doing better. Getting out of this hospital was all that mattered.
After a week they left the hospital. The night after the first day home Heather informed Evan she was leaving for a week to visit Rio. She was invited by a select group of influencers to stay at a hotel carved out of an ancient tree located in the jungle. Evan nodded and said little else.
When Heather arrived home tanned and full of stories about feeding monkeys and showing the native people her blog, she was greeted to an empty home. Boxes filled the hallway with most pictures and furniture gone and left in their place the markings embedded in the carpet from their weight. On the fridge was a note, the note read
“Heather, I can’t take it. I love you, or should I say, loved you.
I’m not sure where we got lost along the way. If you want to hurt me, call me names, accuse me, I can take it but I can’t watch the kids suffer. You will receive a letter in the mail in the upcoming weeks with divorce papers. You can have the house, whatever else you want. I don’t want to drag this out. I can’t keep doing this. I love you…or at least did love you before you became…whatever this is…I’m sorry.
I wish things were different. I will never forget what we had.”
Love,
Evan
Heather sat there a moment in shock then, without missing a beat she pulled out her phone, pressed the big red button and with mascara running down her cracked tanned skin she said: “You’ll never believe what just happened.”
THE END
Lorne Bronstein