Brony, 555-727-1397 (2 recipients)
Brony: Hey sibs, visited mom today.
Me: How’s she doing?
My brother, Brodie, (A.K.A. Brony, because he hates that nickname) sends a photo of our mom in her retirement home, a smile on her face, but a vacancy in her eyes. Looks about the same since I last saw her, but perhaps with minor improvement in her arthritis since she has no problem gripping the handle of her coffee cup.
Me: She looks goo
Brony: She ain’t that old yet.
Me: Good*
Brony: She was sorta lucid. Kept calling me Jack.
Me: Can’t imagine that made you happy.
Brony: Confusing me with the brother who hasn’t seen
her one time and can’t be bothered to reply in
our group chat? No. Not annoying in the least.
(Just kidding, Jack…kinda)
555-727-1397: I’m sorry that happened. I’ve been
meaning to visit.
555-727-1397: What’s mom’s room number, sis or bro?
Brony: 22
I send a text to Brodie on the side of our sibling group chat. Brony
Me: Jack bet his phone in an “unlosable” poker hand? Brony: Something like that. Me: His new number came with a new personality? Brony: Apparently. All hail New Jack. The brother that learned how to say sorry. Me: And means to visit mom? And calls me sis? And doesn’t just reply two weeks too late with a thumbs up or middle finger emoji? Brony: It’s strange, yeah. Me: I’m going to try something. Don’t reply.
Brony, 555-727-1397 (2 recipients)
Me: Hey Jack, send us a pic of the kids.
555-727-1397: Can’t. All pics are on the old phone.
Me: Then take a picture of them right now and send it.
I want to see my niece and nephew.
555-727-1397: They’re asleep. I’ll send one tomorrow.
Me: How’s Claire?
555-727-1397: Claire’s stable.
Me: Claire’s dead, asshole.
555-727-1397: Yeah. Stable. lol
Me: WOW.
Me: What are your kid’s names?
A long delay. 555-727-1397: You know I’m not good with names. Me: Who is this? 555-727-1397: I don’t like being called asshole. Me: Maybe try not being an asshole then.
I give Brodie a call and he answers immediately. “Dude, what’s this punk’s problem?”
Brodie laughs, finding it amusing.
“This isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny, c’mon. I just sent an email to Jack and called him an idiot for giving me the wrong number.”
“This makes me uncomfortable. It’s a violation.”
“It’s some moron teen, laughing with his buddies. He actually had me going for a second.”
“Jack can’t even be bothered to send us the right phone number? Why do we even include him on our group texts?”
“He made a mistake. Yeah, see. He just emailed me back. Last number should be an eight, not a seven. He also said stop bugging him about mom. He’ll get there when he gets there.”
“Mom shouldn’t have pushed her luck and just stopped at two kids.”
“Jeez. Uncalled for.”
“Called for.” Brodie says nothing, knowing me well enough to wait for the guilt to hit. “Alright. Yeah. Uncalled for. I take it back.”
My phone vibrates in my hand, rattling more than just my bones.
555-727-1397: DON’T CALL ME ASSHOLE.
555-727-1397: DON’T CALL ME ASSHOLE.
555-727-1397: DON’T CALL ME ASSHOLE.
“You see what this guy just sent us?”
“I don’t like this anymore.”
“What do we do?”
“Block him.”
I put my phone on my desk, switch to speaker, but before I can block the number, a new barrage of texts come in:
555-727-1397: APOLOGIZE.
555-727-1397: APOLOGIZE.
555-727-1397: APOLOGIZE.
“This guy, dude! What the hell?” I say, losing my patience. Anger and fear duking it out in my head for supremacy.
555-727-1397: OR ELSE.
555-727-1397: OR ELSE.
555-727-1397: OR ELSE.
“Don’t say anything,” Brodie says. “Just block him.”
Anger wins out and I text back:
Me: Sorry…
Me: …Asshole.
“What are you doing? People kill people over stupid shit like this these days.” Anger wins out in Brodie, too.
My whole desk shakes with the vibration of another text.
555-727-1397: I’m going to visit mom tonight.
“You see? You see what you did?”
“It doesn’t matter. This loser doesn’t know where mom is.”
As if the intruder on our group chat could hear me, another text:
555-727-1397: Room 22.
Me: Uh oh. I’m shaking in my boots. Just put “Room 22”
into Google Maps and I’m sure you’ll get the right
directions.
“Seriously,” Brodie says, voice stern, chastising. “That’s enough. I’m going to get pissed if you reply again.”
Another vibration. Another text. This time though, it’s a picture. The same picture Brodie sent of our mom, but it’s zoomed in and cropped. It’s of my mom’s coffee mug, emblazoned on it is a logo of a sun and words underneath it: SUNNY ACRES RETIREMENT HOME.
555-727-1397: 11784 Sunny Dr. Havenmill, CA
A gut punch and a stab to the heart hit me at the same time. Fear pulls off a last second comeback victory.
“Damn it! What have you done?”
“It’s a bluff,” I say more to myself than to my brother. Hoping I’m right. But my trembling hands are moving of their own accord, grabbing my purse, finding my car keys. “Are you home?”
“Yeah.”
“That means I’m closer.”
“Not much closer.”
“I’m driving to mom’s now. Call Sunny Acres. Get them to move mom to a different room. After that, call the police.”
“You don’t actually think he’s going to do something, do you?” A quiver in my brother’s voice.
“I don’t know,” I say, sprinting down the stairs, yanking the door open, letting it slam the wall.
“What am I supposed to tell the police? There’s a guy threatening to visit my mom?”
“Figure it out, Brodie!”
I’m in my car, backing out into the street when I see my front door open. No time. I stomp on the gas pedal. Fifteen minutes away, but at this speed I can get there in ten.
I’m lucky it’s late. Traffic’s light. Wherever the chat intruder is, it’s hard to imagine he lives closer than I do.
I run a red on Euclid.
And Cedar.
And Highland.
Five minutes away.
Never seen the speedometer pass 90 before.
In my pocket, my phone vibrates. Again. And again. And again. But I can’t read it. Hands so sweaty I doubt I could even grip my phone. I need to focus. I’m driving too fast.
Two minutes away.
One.
My tires screech as I turn into the lot. I stop in front of the entrance in a parking space I invent for myself.
As I stride to the doors, I check my messages.
555-727-1397: I’m going to bring mom a gift, too.
555-727-1397: She doesn’t have one of these, right?
A picture message of a gloved hand holding a knife.
I didn’t think I could possibly pick up my pace, but I do. I sprint through the doors and see the receptionist’s desk unmanned, phone ringing. Beyond the desk, I see the receptionist in the back room, not working on anything except a French dip.
“You don’t answer the phones here?” I say, sounding like a bitch. Don’t care. Not right now.
I pick up the receptionist’s phone and hear Brodie say, “Hello?” In the background, I hear honking.
“I’m here.”
“I’m on my way. The cops wouldn’t do anything.”
The receptionist wipes au jus off her face and approaches. “We’re short-staffed. I have a right to a lunch break.”
“Did anybody pass through here in the last ten, fifteen minutes?”
“Just you,” she says.
For the first time since this stupid text exchange started, I feel like I can breathe.
“I’m going to go say hi to my mother,” I say, with no improvement in my tone.
I catch my breath as I walk down the hall, keeping my eyes on one side of the hall, passing room 16, room 18, room 20.
I open the door to my mother’s room. The lights are off. Dark except for the light coming from the hallway. My shadow casts over my mother in her wheelchair.
She stares out her open window. Very still.
“Mom?”
No reply.
No movement.
I step closer.
Into a puddle.
I turn her wheelchair, making her face me.
But there’s not much left of her face.
The door closes behind me.
I’m not alone.
A hooded figure stands in the darkness, staring at me.
Cellphone in my hand, I turn on the flashlight and shine it on the man. On his knife.
I didn’t know he was this desperate.
“Jack?”
“Maybe I am an asshole,” my brother says.
My blood’s splattered on the floor before I can scream. I drop to my knees and hold my throat. I try to stand back up, but my feet slip in the blood.
Jack says, “You see how it’s perfect, right?”
Down the hall, I hear Brodie yelling my name. His voice coming closer.
Jack moves back into the shadows.
That ending!!!