Like a Needle Stuck in the Groove

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

Helena Hiscock heard the hostility in her own voice and immediately wished she could suck the saucy retort from the ether and back into her mouth.

“No offense,” she added flatly, only daring to give her father half a glance.

Charlie, her father, shifted uncomfortably, sadly in his seat. His fingers curled and uncurled around the steering wheel.

They didn’t know how to talk to one another. The only reason Helena or Charlie Hiscock knew anything in regards to what was happening in the life of the other had been because of Valery; wife, mother, deceased.

Helena tilted her head into the window, the glass damp and cool against her flesh. She stared absentmindedly as the familiar scenery of the town she’d grown up in passed her by. How many times, she pondered, had the three of them driven this way home after a day of mirth at the beach.

Unbidden, the image of her mother’s ashes scattering into the crashing waves below suddenly flashed in Helena’s mind. Helena winced, then shuddered.

Would she ever be able to go to the old beach again and not see those ashes, blowing in the breeze? Would she ever, she wondered desperately, shake the image of this day, the one before, and all of those leading to her mother’s death from her mind’s eye? How she wished she could shake her head violently, slamming it against the dashboard until, like an etch-a-sketch, the images were nothing more than darkened grains of sand and despair inside her skull.

On some deep level Helena understood she could shake herself all she wanted. But it wouldn’t make a difference. Helena’s brain was too damned stubborn to ever shake the memory of the things she’d never unsee.

The car jolted over a pothole and startled Helena back to the present.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Charlie swore, looking into the rearview mirror as if to ensure they hadn’t left the motor in the street behind them.

Helena’s mother had always been her father’s eyes on the road.

She closed her eyes and pictured her mother smiling and pointing ahead; “Speed bump!” she’d exclaim.

Her mother had been beautiful.

“Drop dead, leave your frumpy-dumpy wife, gorgeous!” Charlie would often tease when he’d catch Valery catching sight pleasantly of her own reflection.

She’d laugh.

Charlie would laugh.

Helena laughed.

The laughter of their lives died one evening in April when the doctor called outside of office hours. When it went to voicemail, she called again.

“Shadows” on the scan that shouldn’t be there. “Tumors.”

These horrible words disemboweled the laughter and the joy, spilling the engorged entrails into the void.

From Helena’s peripheral vision she saw Charlie reach out his hand to fiddle with the radio. She wasn’t paying much attention when, without warning, the deafening roar of static from the speakers.

Helena’s hands shot up and slapped either side of her face to block the assault on her eardrums.

“Jesus H!” Charlie shouted, turning the volume way down. “I-I’m sorry about that, sweethear-.”

“It’s fine,” she interrupted curtly.

An uncomfortably loaded silence fell upon the pair. Soon Charlie returned to fiddling with the radio, the volume lower this time. It was just loud enough, however, for Helena to hear it.

“I wanna be loved by you,” the familiar feminine voice warbled, “just you, nobody else but you.”

In her mind’s eye she could see Valery, the Halloween prior to the cancer, pantomiming in her faux flapper getup.

“I wanna be loved by you...Alone.”

Helena leaned forward, intently listening now. Though the more she tried to listen the further out of earshot the voice seemed get.

“I wanna be kissed by you...Just you, and nobody else…but you.”

There was no doubt about it. It was as vivid as the image of her flapper mother prancing merrily in her mind’s eye. But it couldn’t be, could it?

“Mama?”

Just then the car jerked up and down with a bang that shook the whole vehicle.

“God damn it!” Charlie exclaimed angrily.

Another pothole? Helena thought. I don’t recall there being t-.

“I-I’m sorry about that, sweetheart.”

Helena looked at her father. An uneasiness crept up her spine and prickled the hair of the back of her neck.

“It’s-.”

She hesitated, then shook herself.

“It’s fine.”

Another long beat of silence seemed stretch on forever between them.

It was the silence that made the death of Valery Hiscock real for her husband and daughter. It wasn’t till she died that Helena realized just how wonderfully noisy her mother was.

Charlie reached out, his hand upon the radio knob again.

A burst of deafening, eardrum shattering static screamed bloody murder from the speakers.

“Jesus H. Chr-!”

“What the fu-?!” an infuriated Helena shouted, stopping herself short.

“I-I’m sorry about that, sweetheart.”

A feeling that landed somewhere between wanting to wretch and scream tightened like a mighty fist within Helena’s gut.

“It’s, umm...” She trailed off, turning to look out the window.

It took a few moments before the surreal realization sunk in.

I don’t know where I am.

A large sinkhole appeared all at once in the road before them. A massive and treacherous maw, it was as though the mouth of Hell was yawning in their path.

“Daddy!” Helena screeched.

The car swerved violently and Helena gripped her eyes tightly.

Behind clenched eyes her mother’s face, drawn and yellowed lay with her own sunken eyes closed in bed. Her chest rattled loudly as she began to suffocate on her own ending existence.

“Go in peace,” Helena had whispered, holding her mother’s hands, praying. “Go in peace, Mama.”

It was then her mother’s eyes met hers. In the past on her death bed and in the present behind clenched eyelids her mother’s eyes burned with untold terror.

“I’m. Not. Ready.”

The words came crackling like static in Helena’s ears. She opened her mouth to scream. She bid her eyes to open. But she could do nothing more than tremble, ice coursing through her veins.

“I’m. Not. Re-.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Charlie swore, looking into the rearview mirror as if to ensure they hadn’t left the motor in the street behind them.

Helena opened her eyes.

Something was wrong; terribly wrong.

Her breath hitched. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was. A faint ringing sat heavy in her ears, as if the universe had just snapped back into place. The air smelled wrong; not like damp pavement and salt from the sea, but something warmer and much older. It was like the stench of a house left closed up for too long.

Helena turned and stared out the window.

Didn’t we pass that gas station already?

It was the same flickering neon sign. 

The same car parked at the pump.

Wasn’t it?

“I-I’m sorry about that, sweetheart,” her father said again as he had said, how many times before? It was as if the needle on the record of his speech had somehow gotten stuck in the groove.

“It’s-.” Helena began, but stopped herself. And then she swallowed before continuing. “It’s not fine,” she said finally. “It’s not fine at all. And nothing ever will be again.”

Helena’s father turned to look at her briefly. Their gazes met, and something agonizing passed between them. For just a second, his lips parted as though he were going to say something. Then his mouth shut tight and he turned back to the road, hands gripping the wheel like he was bracing for impact. And for the first time Helena noticed something was not quite right with her father’s face. His hands were gripping the steering wheel too tight. His knuckles white. Like he was holding on for dear life.

“I know, sweetheart,” Charlie replied. “I know.”

Another traumatic jolt, this time forward, sent Helena’s skull bouncing off the dashboard. 

The mouth of Hell opened again, she thought, and swallowed us whole.

“I-I’m sorry about that, sweetheart.”

Helena sat back in her seat, groaning and stiff.

“We’re home,” Charlie said, a smile on his face.

Helena opened her mouth to say something, but the thought drifted from her mind as quickly as it had entered.

Shaking herself, she opened the car door and stepped out.

The air was wrong and horrendously thick as though the world were holding its breath. The leaves in the trees didn’t move. There was no wind, no crickets, no distant hum of traffic. Nothing. 

This silence was loud.

Charlie was already at the front door, fumbling with the keys. “What should we do about supper?” he asked.

Helena hesitated. She hadn’t seen him walk there. She hadn’t heard his footsteps on the pavement.

She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Helena’s skull ached like something inside her was pulling in two directions at once.

As Helena began to walk towards the old family home her head continued to tighten and pound. Her hands slapped the sides of her face once more and she collapsed to the ground, spasming, coming apart at the very seams as the static noise tore her in two.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the static was gone.

“I-I’m sorry about that, sweetheart,” Charlie said from the now open door. 

Helena exhaled.

She was standing.

Had she ever actually fallen?

They entered the house and made their way, hand in hand, to the living room where the old record player with Helen Kane blared brilliantly.

In the midst of the music flapped Valery in her faux flapper getup, pantomiming along to the record till she noticed them.

“Where did you two little birds flutter off to?” she asked, smiling playfully.

Helena’s breath caught.

Her mother’s smile was far too wide. At least for a fraction of a second.

Just as quickly, it was fine again. Nothing more or less than a glitch in a film, a flicker of something wrong that now stabilized.

“I’ve been waiting,” Valery said, swaying to the music, her voice blending seamlessly with the crackling of the record player.