Babysitter by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2022-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

Vigil

And now, the vigil.

A day, a night, another day and another night, no further news of the missing child.

Each of the seven previous abductions attributed to Babysitter has ended in death. Limp child bodies, naked, on their backs displayed in public places in a way to evoke nineteenth-century photographs of dead children in their beauty and serenity.

The shortest interim between the abduction and the discovery of the body has been three days. The longest, eleven.

Hannah tries not to be aware. Hannah tries not to think.

On the brink of sleep, Hannah tries not to dream.

What would it be, to be the mother of the missing child.

What would it be, to be the missing child.

Another morning, another interminable day. So long as the body is not discovered the missing child is still alive.

What would it be, to have hope.

Hannah can think only of her children: She must shield them from knowing. Since it’s summer and school isn’t in session it isn’t difficult to keep the children in quarantine, make excuses for not driving them to see their friends, or allowing their friends to visit them; not so difficult since other parents are keeping their children in quarantine as well.

Hannah dreads their knowing: Something terrible has happened to a child who lives not far away from them, a child like them, who attends their school.

Yes but he’s older. Fifth grade in September.

As soon as Wes comes home in the early evening he turns on local TV news, then again at eleven more news, Hannah keeps away, out of earshot in another room or in bed early steeling herself for a profane outcry of Wes’s from downstairs which would signal that the body of the missing boy has been found.

Waking from a gnarled sleep to hear muted voices, discovering Wes gone from the bed, downstairs in his office listening to a radio, volume low.

Outside the windows, darkness. Not the dark that precedes dawn but a pitch-dark. Hannah is astonished, it’s three-forty.

Not like Wes, to care so much for “news.” To care so much for the lives of strangers.

He is afraid, too. Babysitter, so close.

And—For the first time, Babysitter has taken one of ours.

Upstairs in their bedroom before returning to bed Wes lifts a hand to claim Hannah’s attention: “Hannah.”

“Yes?”

“See here.”

Gravely Wes removes a key from the drawer of his bedside table, lifting the key so that Hannah can see it clearly, leading her then to the mahogany cabinet against a wall of the bedroom where he unlocks one of the cabinet doors and removes the gun, which Hannah hasn’t seen since Wes purchased it some months ago.

This time Hannah is more attentive to what Wes has to show her: a Smith & Wesson revolver, .44 Magnum. Blue-black finish, short barrel. Always kept loaded, safety lock on. Wes demonstrates how the gun is held in the hand, how the safety lock is switched off.

“Y’see? Ready to fire.”

Hannah feels a shiver of dread, light-headedness, seeming to see, in her own shaky hand, the weapon ready to fire.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.