The phone quivers in its cradle. Its tinny ring permeates the house, calling for Laurie's footfalls to pound down the stairs.
Laurie marches to the living room and plucks up the handset to her ear. Her finger wraps around the cord— every loop tightens, cuts off the blood, turns the skin into a darker shade.
"Hello?"
There's a cough on the other side— the raspy breath of an old man. A pause.
"Is this the Myers household?" The voice asks with a British hint.
"Yes. Can I ask who's calling?"
"Is he there?"
Laurie frowns. "Can I ask who's calling?" She repeats firmly.
"Please tell me he isn't there. Michael...Is he?"
The quiver in his voice gives way at her brother's name and from hearing she sees fear, a blossom in her mind. Laurie assumes that the man had called the right house. She'd much rather give the phone to her father but he was at work and her mother had taken Michael to Smith's Grove for a monthly evaluation. She doesn't like the idea of giving away the fact that she's alone right now, even if it's daytime and she'd made sure to lock the front door after her mother left.
"I don't know who you are, but I'm going to hang up now." Laurie pulls the speaker from her ear.
"Wait!" he cries.
Laurie freezes.
Another cough resounds from the receiver.
"Forgive me for being so elusive," he says, "I tried not to be so forward, but I suppose you're a busy girl. I'm Dr. Loomis — Michael was my patient for most of his childhood. I'm assuming you're alone. Mommy and Daddy are not around?"
Laurie purses her lips and refuses him an answer to which he chuckles dryly.
"Of course." He adopts a less desperate tone, and it eases her somewhat. "Cautious, you are. Smart too. You're Laurie, aren't you?"
"Y-yes."
She assumes now that she's confirmed her identity, the man will speak to her as though a child. And she was right.
"Ah, yes, that's very good," he praises her, a bit forced. She knows teachers to sound like this with the slowest student in her class and finds it insulting that he uses this tone with her. "Typically I'd call for your father, but since he's not here, I'll let you go—"
"I said I can leave a message," Laurie offers.
"That's kind of you dear, but I'm afraid the information I have is somewhat confidential. A private matter, if you will."
"Is it about my brother? Is that why you asked if he's here?"
Dr. Loomis hums in disapproval. "It would be helpful if you didn't mention this to your father, or anyone in your house for that matter."
"Why?"
"Because, Laurie," he says slowly. "Otherwise Michael will know and he mustn't. Good day—"
"Wait!"
"Yes?"
The cord unravels from her swollen finger. Two hands now hold the handset as she brings the microphone closer to her mouth. She wants to ask him why he called, what about Michael is so secret, why would he only want to speak to her father. But her tongue is cotton inhibiting her speech. There is a chill which crawls up her spine and she does her best to not think of the time she was in Smith's Grove, behind thick walls which could not hold prayer or plea. Only secrets. Only misery. There, her brother had once dwelled. There, she thinks, his mind still belongs.
"Y-you're...afraid of him too," she says.
"Yes," Dr. Loomis replies immediately.
"Why?"
"It didn't end with your sister. Be careful."
"Dr. Loomis, I don't understand—" Laurie spots the Ford Fiesta pull up to the driveway through the main living room window. Her mother's smiling face is not what grabs her attention— it is the fact that her brother's stare targets her from the passenger seat.
"I—"
"What is it?"
"My brother is back."
"Quickly," he urges. "Do you have a pen?"
"Hold on."
She sets the phone down and sprints to the kitchen table where her mother keeps her notepad. Written on it, is a set of tasks meant for Laurie to complete. She snatches the pen atop it and returns to the living room.
And freezes.
The phone slams into the cradle, and Laurie stands aghast in the entryway of the living room as her brother then turns to her, his eyes coals of smolder and he stalks closer. Her hand is a fist around the pen and Michael may have seen this for he stopped his advance a foot in front of her.
Be careful, Dr. Loomis said.
"How was the trip, Michael?" Laurie asks, and curses herself for not having the power to banish the quiver from her voice. Damn her for not being able to summon quick confidence. Damn her mother for disciplining her to cower in the shadow of a bogeyman. Never to stand up for herself. Like mother like daughter.
It is why her father will always leave her mother for another woman.
But, for Laurie it could never come to that — for as long as she was alive to stop it.
Hesitantly, she brushes past Michael and makes way for her room.
"Oh it was so easy!" Her mother says from the front entrance. "Dr. Wynn was very satisfied to see Michael thriving since he left."
"What does "thriving" mean?" Laurie asks.
Her mother shrugs. "Oh, you know."
No. Laurie didn't know. Laurie didn't know that mute meant one was thriving. Didn't know a grown man without a job at his age was even socially acceptable. Nothing about Michael's situation was particularly admirable and yet her mother sucks it all in from a quack in a madhouse.
"What about you? Have you finished your chores?" Her mother asks.
Laurie shrugs.
"Oh," she marches up the stairs and raises her chin. "You know."