The Hole in the Floor - Part V
In Part IV, Michael’s nowhere to be found. Paul and Michael’s parole officer, Fiona, check in. When Fiona says she’s going to follow up with the judge, Paul asks if he can check in on him first.
A few minutes after Paul got off the call with Fiona, he left the office, got in the car, and drove down Broad St. into Bloomfield where Michael had been living for the past six months—before he left, he grabbed Michael’s address from the file Fiona had given them at the start of their work together. On the drive, he arranged for Dana to spend the afternoon with a friend of hers. He felt guilty about loading her off on someone so last minute, but this couldn’t wait.
A Bloomfield boy himself, Paul was familiar with the roads that brought him to Michael’s building: a three-story row house with a small patch of grass in front and a wind chime hanging over the steps that led to the apartment on the second floor. Michael’s was the garden unit. Paul parked right outside, went down the steps to the unit, and rapped loudly on the door.
“Michael?”
There was a moment’s silence, but then Paul heard some shuffling from behind the door. Soon, it stopped.
“Michael, it’s Paul.”
The shuffling returned, but, again, it stopped.
“C’mon, Michael.” Paul rapped on the door. “Let me in. I know you’re there.”
Finally, the shuffling returned and then the door opened. Standing there was Michael in jeans and a Jets sweatshirt.
“What do you want?” Michael asked.
“Can I come in?”
“We can talk here.”
“I don’t want anyone seeing me. C’mon.”
Before Michael could protest, Paul walked past him into the apartment. It had a thick smell of unwashed sheets and burnt eggs. In a corner of the studio, Michael had a full-size mattress pushed against the wall, and in the nearer corner was a small couch positioned in front of a TV. There were photos of a little boy pinned to the fridge—Anthony, he figured.
“What do you want?” Michael repeated, once he closed the door.
“Where have you been? I’ve called you five times.”
“I’ve been out.”
“And you don’t pick up your phone?”
“What do you want me to say? I turned it off.”
Paul sniffed for liquor on Michael’s breath but didn’t smell any.
“Did you go see Anthony?”
“No, I’ve just been out.”
“You’re lying to me, Michael.”
“I’m not.”
“Two days? Two days you’re just out?”
“I swear—”
Michael was interrupted by the sound of the faucet running through the bathroom door. Both he and Paul remained quiet, frozen, until the faucet shut off, as if whatever was making the sound might attack them.
“Who’s here?” Paul asked.
Michael looked at him dumbly, like he didn't know, either.
“Come on out,” Paul called in the direction of the bathroom.
A second later, the door opened and a young boy who looked just like the one in the photo on the fridge stepped out.
“Jesus,” Paul said, “what is he doing here?”
“Anthony, go back into the bathroom,” Michael said. “Dad needs to talk to his friend in private.”
The boy, who, of course, looked so much like Michael—the same dark hair, the same broad forehead that tapered down to a pointed chin—said, “Okay,” and without another word, went back into the bathroom.
“Michael,” Paul said, once the bathroom door was closed. “Does Kaitlyn know he’s here?”
“She knows,” he said, although his voice got a bit softer as he said it.
“Does she?”
“She will.”
Paul sighed in exasperation. “Michael, what happened in Pennsylvania?”
“I went to go visit yesterday. Took the day off.”
“You didn’t call your boss to tell him you were taking the day off.”
“How do you know that?”
Paul didn't want to tell him that Fiona was looking for him yet. He thought that letting that out would put Michael even further on edge, might make him do something rash.
“I called to check. It doesn’t matter. Tell me what happened in Pennsylvania.”
“It wasn't anything,” he said. “I get there yesterday afternoon to go see Anthony and Kaitlyn answers the door. Right away, she’s in a shit mood. She starts yelling at me, says I shouldn’t have come. I tell her he’s my son just as much as hers, that I should be able to see him, too. Anthony is right there, standing behind her. You could see just how bad he wanted to see me. It’s been months since the last time we got together. She doesn’t change her tune, though. I ask if I could just stay for dinner, maybe we could eat together as a family. It might be good for him, I tell her, but that doesn’t matter to her. She tells me she’s going to call my PO if I don’t leave. That’s what got me to go. I waved to Anthony and told him daddy had to go.”
“Then how does he end up here?”
“I go spend the night in a motel not too far from her place and I think about what I’m going to do. When I’d called Kaitlyn earlier in the week, she said I couldn’t see Anthony, even two weeks from now when I got my pass. I told her again I'd take her to court, have her hold up her end of the custody agreement—I’m supposed to get him every other weekend—but that takes time, too, and I don't know how a judge would react to me being on probation. Maybe he’d take her side and I then really wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
“So the next morning, I go to Anthony’s school. I tell them that Dad is taking him out of school for a day. He’s only been at that place for a few months, but I made Kaitlyn put my name on the list of people who can take Anthony home. I get Anthony and tell him we’re spending a day together and he’s all onboard. I drive him the two hours here and we’ve been to the park and now we’re back for lunch. He’s just going to be here for the day.”
That last sentence, voiced with such simplicity, as if the whole thing was of no consequence, set Paul off.
“Did you think about what this would be like for Anthony? What does he think is happening?”
“Nothing,” Michael said. “I’m taking him back tonight. He knows that.”
“What’s Kaitlyn going to do when she finds out Anthony’s been gone?”
“Her aunt typically gets Anthony from aftercare—I’ll have him back by then. She won’t even know he was gone.”
“But what if—what if you don’t get him back on time?”
“I will.”
Paul couldn’t stomach any more of this argument. All he could think about now, looking at Michael’s reddening face, was the hole in his kitchen. It wasn’t going to be patched, that much was clear to him. Michael had lost track of his responsibilities, of the rules he had to follow, and it was all Paul’s fault. Michael had been doing good—two months and all negative tests! Two months and never missed a session!—and Paul pulled him from treatment, brought him to work at his house on the down-low. What did he expect would happen? And, more importantly, how could he have put his and Dana’s financial security in jeopardy like he had by risking his job, his license? And how could he, as a therapist, as someone who’d spent his career trying to help others, have been so selfish?
“You know what?” Paul said. He held his hands up in deference. “You have to bring him back now. I’m not kidding. I’m going to call Fiona and she’ll send the cops down here in a minute.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Michael said. “You know what that would be like for Anthony. You have a kid.”
“If I don’t call, Kaitlyn will. Trust me, she’ll know that Anthony is gone.”
“How?”
“She’ll find out.”
“How?”
“I don't know!”
Paul caught himself—he didn’t want Anthony to hear him yelling.
“I’m sorry.” Paul softened. “But—listen, Fiona already knows you didn’t show up for work today. She called your boss, and she’s called you a few times. She’s ready to throw you to the judge. I told her that I’d get you to talk to me and that you’d be able to explain everything. She’s waiting for me to call. She said that if I’m not able to get a hold of you, she’s going to come check your house.”
“Tell her you found me and that I’ll call her in the morning.”
“No, I’ve lied enough as is.”
“You owe me,” Michael said. “I left treatment and started fixing your house because you asked me to. I didn’t come to you. You came to me. You’re in this just as much as I am.”
This, in part, was true. Once Paul took Michael out of treatment and made a deal to work with him, he became complicit in what might happen to Michael afterwards. That was his responsibility that he’d lost track of, and the knowledge of that tore him up inside.
“You’re right,” Paul conceded. “I shouldn’t’ve taken you out of treatment and had you work for me. But I can’t be a part of this anymore. Bring Anthony back before Fiona or Kaitlyn find out, and then on Monday, you’re coming back into treatment. I’m putting you back in group and you’ll do individuals with someone else.”
“Yeah? And what about your floor?”
Paul didn’t know, but he was done here. He started to walk towards the door. Over his shoulder, he called out, “I’ll fix it myself.”
*****
Later that night, Michael was arrested for violating his probation. Kaitlyn’s aunt had gone to Anthony’s school earlier than usual and discovered that Anthony was missing. She found out Michael was the one who took him and called Kaitlyn, who promptly notified Fiona. Local authorities detained him at the school when he arrived to drop Anthony off.
“Idiot,” Fiona said. It was almost six o’clock, the same night. She’d called Paul as soon as she’d heard. “You’d think he’d have more sense than to steal his kid.”
Paul was in the kitchen. Before him was a pile of sub-flooring, sawed-off planks of wood, a giant saw, and a toolbox. The small barrier Michael had erected around the hole was pushed off to the side in a clump. And of course, there was the hole: still open, the crumbled planks of wood and sub-flooring still staring up at him from the basement.
“I thought he was doing better,” Paul said.
“You can’t always know what’s going on with people. That’s the hard part of the job.”
Looking at the mess in his basement, Paul thought about Michael sitting in the back of a police cruiser, with Anthony standing just outside it, watching his father bend forward with his wrists cuffed behind his back. He thought of how that moment might imprint on Anthony’s psyche, how that might be one of the first memories of his father. And he thought that he deserved a spot in that cruiser, too.
“Yeah,” Paul said, “I guess you’re right.”
Benjamin Selesnick is a psychotherapist in New Jersey. His writing has appeared in Barely South Review, Lunch Ticket, Split Lip Magazine, The Tel Aviv Review of Books, and other publications. He holds an MFA in fiction from Rutgers University-Newark, and he writes book reviews for the Jewish Book Council and Cleaver Magazine.
Read more of his work here.