Photo by Taras Zaluzhnyi on Unsplash
Lewis Horvath was a lumpish mouth-breather but the MacCleans, to their amazement, were trusting him with their daughter’s life. The daughter, Melodie, was best friends with little Lilly Horvath and they had both just started kindergarten at a public school-of-choice two towns over. It wasn’t a convenient commute for either Brandon or Maude MacClean--in the opposite direction of their jobs, on a cutthroat and notorious freeway--and Stella Horvath was a nurse whose shifts started well before sunrise. So they all agreed it would make sense for Horvath to take the girls, as he didn’t work, and wasn’t in school, and, as far as the MacClean’s could tell, didn’t do much of anything with his days, his years, his life. Horvath agreed to the arrangement in the way he agreed to everything, with a rapid blink of his tiny eyes and a “Sure, why not?” shrug. Then he bent forward to his bare feet and picked something curious from a yellowed toenail.
“Is it really worth it?” asked Maude. They were driving home from the Horvath’s, Melodie playing on an iPad in her carseat. “Maybe I could talk to my boss and see if I can rearrange my schedule, or--”
“I mean, he’s got nothing else to do,” said Brandon, snorting, scrolling through Twitter.
“I know, but is he even present? Is he even aware of what a responsibility it is?” Maude honked at a car ahead of her, and then forgot why.
“He’s taking Lilly too,” said Brandon, furiously Tweeting. “Stella trusts him. Right?”
And that was the rub: Stella was wonderful. Perfect. An engaged and generous mother, a hard-working nurse, a terrific host--all the things the MacClean’s wanted in a friend, and more: a vegan Buddhist with over five thousand Instagram followers who taught yoga, if sparingly. Maude had targeted her as an important friend to make two years ago, when the girls attended the same Montessori school. In fact, the MacCleans chose Melodie’s school, with its radical curriculum of knitting and cooking and other differences which they didn’t quite understand, or agree with, like its anti-television messaging, because it was Stella’s first choice. It was very important to Stella that Lilly have this education--it had been a major theme of her Instagram account in the spring--and so Maude trusted its quality. Stella had impeccable taste--until it came to Horvath. He was fat and sloppy and sipped his drinks noisily. He had stains on his rumpled shirts, always t-shirts, always with some kind of video game or beer logo. But when he talked, in that quiet, stumbling way of his, my god, how she laughed! Everything he said was just a hoot to her, and this was the only clue they’d ever gotten about the meaning or quality of their relationship. Otherwise Horvath was a non-entity, looking at his phone or arranging miniature knights and monsters on a painted piece of plywood in his garage. He called it “The Armies of Fanghorn” and it had something to do with a game, or a story, something Horvath was working on with friends (was that the word he used?) and the details were circuitous and confusing and which Brandon, who had spent a disappointing amount of time in that garage with the fat man, could never remember. That Horvath and Stella were a couple seemed to defy all reason.
“Maybe Stella doesn’t really see him though,” said Maude as they pulled into their driveway. “Like, she’s blinded by love, or whatever it is.”
“Maybe he’s got a huge dick,” said Brandon, refreshing his feed to see if he got any more likes.
“That’s disgusting.”
“It is,” agreed Brandon. “But there’s got to be something to him, right?”
“Melodie, sweetie, time to turn off the tablet, we’re home,” said Maude in a practiced, non-threatening sing-song voice.
It didn’t help, and the child threw a tantrum, and it was another hour before she was resting quietly in bed. Exhausted, the MacCleans put on Netflix but couldn’t find anything to watch.
Maude didn't think there was more to Horvath than met the eye. Brandon could let it slide, because he’d wanted Melodie to go to their neighborhood school anyway, and he was thrilled to not have to drive an extra forty minutes every morning in the thick of traffic. Brandon was always excited to get out of something. But Maude couldn’t help imagining Horvath on his phone, zooming in and out of lanes without checking his mirrors, the girls screaming in the backseat, the terror, the screeching, the crashing. But how to bring this up without somehow hurting Stella’s feelings?
She texted Brandon her fears (he liked to get to work early, drink his coffee in the empty office, and get involved with the East Coast trending topics). It was the first morning that Horvath would drive the girls and Maude could barely breathe. Brandon's advice was: he couldn't do anything about it; she would have to talk to Horvath directly. This was something she had never intentionally done before. She trusted Brandon, of course, and so she approached Horvath directly--or, perhaps, sideways.
“So, what time do you think you need to leave so you don’t have to rush?” she said, plopping down Melodie’s backpack and lunchbox and sweater and water bottle.
Horvath was standing in the hallway, just standing there like a blob. He looked up from his phone and blinked. “Ahhh, I don’t know,” he said. “Guess I’ll check.” And he went back to his phone, clicking rapidly through apps. “In ten minutes,” he said, smiling.
“Good luck,” said Maude. He was looking at his phone again. “Don’t you think you should get going? The girls are just going to start playing and then, I don’t know. I’d hate for you to have a couple of tantrums on your hands, all by yourself...”
“They’ll be fine,” he said without looking up.
“Can I double check the car seats?” Maude said. “I know Brandon put ours in, but--”
“Yeah go ahead,” he said, pointing to where his car keys were hanging on a hook near the door.
She crawled into the back of Horvath’s car, which smelled like licorice and was littered with crumpled up receipts. Melodie’s seat was snug and secure, safe and ready. Good, reliable Brandon. She checked Lilly’s seat as well, assuming it would be loose and dangerous, but it, too, was immovable. Stella must have put it in.
“Well,” she said, returning the keys. “I guess you’d better get going, huh? I’d hate for you to have to speed on your way there with all the traffic...”
Horvath swiped down on his phone to reveal the time. “Yeesh,” he said. “Okay kiddoes!” he shouted. “Vamanos!”
Maude left with the girls still running and screaming around Horvath, who had misplaced his wallet. Her heart was racing. When she got to work, a few minutes late, she called the school and asked for confirmation that Melodie MacClean was in her class.
“Didn’t you make sure your kindergartner got here safely, ma’am?” snapped the harried receptionist.
Maude flushed. “Well, yes, I think so, I’m pretty sure, but--”
“But you still want me to get up and cross campus and interrupt the class to see if your daughter is there?”
“If you don’t mind,” said Maude, steady but clipped.
The receptionist sighed. “I know it's hard, ma’am. I went through it myself. It’s a tough transition for everybody. But I assure you, this is a safe school and your daughter is just fine.”
“Yes, but Lewis, you see, Lewis is--” But the line was dead.
Maude stared at the phone in her hand, the dial tone audible. “Excuse me?” she said to the phone. “Um, excuse me?” She looked around. She was alone in her cubicle. “Sally?” she said. “You there?”
“Yeah, hon’,” said Sally, on the other side of the cubicle wall.
“Have you ever been hung up on by your kids’ school?”
“Oh, hell no,” said Sally. “That is unacceptable.” Suddenly there was Sally, standing just inside Maude’s cubicle, her eyes lit up by the chance to gossip, her favorite use of company time. “Tell me: what happened?”
“Well, you know that guy I told you about, who's driving Melodie to school?”
“Oh yeah, the disgusting creep with the hot wife, right?”
“Yeah, so,” and she told Sally all about the chaos of the morning and the school receptionist refusing to check on Melodie for her. Sally shook her head the whole time. She couldn’t wait to say something, so Maude told her story quickly.
“You should call back and talk to the principal. Like, directly. That’s what I did, when Junior found the porn stashed away near the school.” And she proceeded to tell the story, which seemed to get longer and more convoluted the more Maude heard it told. But she did take Sally’s advice, and when she was alone again--twenty, thirty minutes later--she called the school back and demanded to speak to the principal.
“She’s very busy right now, unfortunately,” said the receptionist--a different person than before. “I can take a message if you’d like?”
Maude thought about it. What she needed to say needed to be said, not written. So all she said was, “Yes, tell her that I’m very concerned about safety.”
“Got it,” said the receptionist.
“VERY,” Maude repeated.
It was hours until the principal called back. Maude could not concentrate on her databases or her spreadsheets and she took no notes during an impromptu meeting about projections and progress and how neither were good enough. It didn’t matter. She was certain something had happened to Melodie. She felt it in her chest, the feeling you get when you drive through a dip too fast. Falling, alight. It made her sick but it also made her feel energized, rushed with adrenaline and ready to face it, the terrible thing, whatever it might be. It was coming. It had already happened. She wasn’t ready, not really, and she knew it, but the feeling, the lie, hummed inside of her. She could face it (she couldn’t).
When her phone finally rang, she nearly threw up.
“Mrs. MacClean?”
“Yes. Yes?”
“Mrs. MacClean, this is Principal Shockley. Mrs. MacClean?”
“Yes, yes its me--I’m here!”
“Mrs. MacClean, there’s been an accident.”
They were singing “There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea.”
There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea
There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea
There’s a hole, there’s a hole
There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea
And then theres a log in the hole. There's a log in the hole in the bottom of the sea. There's a log, there's a log. And on the log there’s a bump, and on the bump there’s a frog, and on the frog there’s a fly. And each verse gets longer and longer as the hole is filled, with increasing absurdity, until you can forget the hole is there at all.A silly song.There’s a hole, there’s a hole. And then Horvath added more: there’s a butt on the fly. There’s a butt, there’s a butt. There’s a fart on the butt. There’s a fart, there’s a fart. The girls were hooting with laughter. There’s a fart on the butt on the fly on the frog on the bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.
There’s a hole, there’s a hole.
Horvath looked over his right shoulder and signaled and changed lanes. The other car came from his right, zooming around a truck two lanes over and swerving into the lane Horvath was just entering. A black Honda Accord on two spare tires. They nearly collided, but Horvath saw him coming and braked and went back to his original lane. But the Honda kept coming. The other driver was looking over his right shoulder as he veered left into Horvath’s lane. He didn’t see Horvath until it was too late, and he panicked. Slammed on the gas instead of the brake, yanked his wheel, spun out of control and crashed violently into a tow truck a few lengths in front of Horvath, his car flipping up sideways, sparks shooting out from under it.
Horvath kept his cool. He hit his brake, felt the car fishtail, steered into it, let off the brake, downshifted, braked, corrected, kept his mirrors in sight as he drifted left into a clear lane, braked, corrected, and came to a gentle stop on the shoulder, just outside of the crash zone, where an empty schoolbus had piled up into the screeching mass of metal and glass.
The girls were too shocked to scream at first. Somewhere back there, on the freeway, in the microseconds past, their selves had spun away. They had spun out through possibilities, shedding different fates one by one every time Horvath gently steered or calmly braked. When the car stopped they were still catching up to themselves. They were finding this future. And when they did, when they found themselves safe and still and whole, Melodie finally screamed, Lilly barfed, and they both cried huge, ragged sobs while Horvath pulled them free of the car and held them, on the clear shoulder, held them close with his great arms.
Though her supervisor made a disapproving “tsk-ing” sound when she asked, Maude rushed immediately to the hospital. Horvath and the girls had been taken there purely as a precaution, she was assured. By the time she arrived all three had been cleared and were waiting in the lobby. Melodie came running to her and leaped into her arms. “We were in a crash!” she said with a big smile, and then burst into tears.
“Oh, oh sweetie!” said Maude, who was crying, too.
Horvath was holding Lilly, sitting down and staring off into nothing.
“Lewis,” said Maude. “My god, what happened?”
“Ah,” said Horvath, starting as if he just woke up. “Crazy dude wasn’t paying attention,” he said, shaking his head. “He was racing somebody, they think. I don’t know. He almost hit us but he didn’t.”
“How? I mean, how did you do it? How did you keep them safe?”
“Oh,” he said, laying a sleeping Lilly down across the chairs. “I used to play a lot of driving sims,” he said.
Maude sobbed and laughed at the same time.“ Driving sims? My god, Lewis! Who even are you?”
He sighed like a horse and shrugged his shoulders.
Here came Stella, radiant, running. Her scrubs were forest green and her long black hair hung over her shoulder in a braid.
“Stella! Oh, Stella, can you believe it!?” Maude called out.
But Stella ran straight to Horvath, falling into his arms and squeezing him tightly. Then she scooped up Lilly and he held them both. “I’m so glad you were there,” she said to Horvath.
“I can’t believe it, Stella! I knew something was going to happen! I felt it!” said Maude.
And now came Brandon, also running, a scowl on his face. Maude had texted him but not the details, and she realized, as she saw him floating in on rage, that this had been a mistake.
“Brandon, honey,” said Maude.
“What the fuck, bro?” shouted Brandon.
Horvath blinked slowly. “Me?” he said.
“Brandon--”
“Yeah, you,” Brandon poked him in the chest. “You fat slob. What did you do to my kid?”
“What the hell Brandon?” said Stella, disgust all over her face, moving away from the men with a waking Lilly.
“It’s okay, honey,” said Maude. “It’s okay, I was wrong. I was wrong!”
“We’ve all had a rough day,” said Horvath. “Let’s just cool it, okay dude?”
“Fuck you!” said Brandon, and he swung, a big arching punch that landed right on Horvath’s nose, which broke.
In the end, the MacCleans enrolled Melodie in their neighborhood school. They could walk her there in the mornings, and home again in the evenings, and eventually these moments with her parents, walking with them hand in hand through the changing seasons, seeing them standing and waiting for her at the end of the day, would become treasured memories of a childhood she would occasionally describe to friends as idyllic.
As for Brandon and Maude, they were fine, overall. Their lives changed, if subtly, but they didn’t end. Of course they weren’t invited to the Horvath’s anymore, though Lilly and Melodie still played together occasionally--until second grade, when the girls finally did drift apart. Brandon and Maude’s drift was less clear, or sudden, or certain, and while on many days Maude felt that it was the natural progression of a life together--how else to survive, after so many years sharing such intimate space, but in silence and solitude?--other days she would catch herself looking out the window at her still slim, if bald and grey, husband as he grilled veggie burgers, or mowed the lawn, or helped their grandchildren onto their bikes, and she would wonder, in a panic, who it was, who was this man, and what was he doing here?
Dustin Heron's work has appeared recently in Gravel, Bending Genres, Conclave, The Normal School, Fictive Dream, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His first book, Paradise Stories, was published by Small Desk Press.