Sam W. Anderson

"He’s scaring me, Chuck," Trina said. She hid in the yellowed curtains of the trailer’s sliding glass door. Outside, she saw her son, Ian, at play. "Maybe it’s all been too much. Maybe he snapped."

Her husband slugged back another gulp of his lukewarm beer and flipped to the Pirates’ game. From his recliner, Trina appeared a desperate voyeur peering into their son’s fragile psyche.

"That little man has been through a rough couple of weeks, Sweetie. If he didn’t act strange, then I’d worry." The Pirates trailed by four in the bottom of the eighth, so he punched the remote. The "Cops" rerun appeared again on the television. "Kids are tougher than we give them credit for. He’ll work it out if you give him the time and the space. Just let him be."

"But don’t you think this obsession with the sandbox is a little much? He’s fixated on it."

"Sweetie, you nagged me to build that damn thing for years. Now that he plays in it, you think it’s weird?"

Trina bunched the curtains tightly in her hands and chewed on her bottom lip. Her heart ached as she stood so helpless, unable to slay the demons tormenting her son. She watched him methodically dig sand into the bucket and then filter it through the neon-green, plastic sifter toy. He repeated the activity with an obsessive precision. From corner to corner to corner to corner he moved, until he reached the center of the box.

There, he sifted another bucketful of sand with a determination an eight-year-old should display only on Christmas morning. Please let this time be okay, God. She held her breath as the sand slipped through the toy. When the last grain fell, Ian jumped in exuberance. He danced with one arm rotating over his blond locks as the other pumped behind his back. The innocent, happy child she knew two weeks before displayed his happy countenance again for a brief, beautiful moment.

Thank you. Thank you so much. "Chuck?" she asked in a quiet voice. "Don’t you wonder… I mean… Do you think it was strange how he hung to your mom on that last day?"

Chuck shot her a sideways scowl that both belittled and admonished her at one time.

"He was close to Mom. After what happened to his little friend, I think he just needed to be a little clingy." He finished off the majority of his beer in a single swallow. "A boy has a right to love his Grammy without there being some reason, you know."

If only you knew, Trina thought. Out of town for a job interview, Chuck missed seeing his mother’s corpse before the cremation of her remains. But Trina discovered the body. She found it in the exact recliner her husband now sat in. The moment burned itself into her memory: the ghastly white complexion; the unnaturally white hair flung about in a disheveled heap upon her mother-in-law’s head; the expression of terror burned upon the face. Trina stood frozen, unable even to call the authorities. She remained there for an indeterminable period. She kept reliving a snippet of the previous day when Ian asked Grammy to say ‘hi’ to his friend, Alex, -- in heaven.

"I will," Grammy replied, "but I hope that’s a long time off, Honey."

When finally able to move, Trina’s instincts forced her to the back door. Outside, her son engaged in his ritual. She pulled back the door, knocking it off its tracks, and ran to him. She heard his shrieks, high pitched and clogged with phlegm, sounding like a wounded animal baying at the moon. When she reached him, she found his face encrusted with sand, tear paths creating muddy canals on his cheeks. He continued sifting the sand staring through his mother.

"There’s more in here, Mommy," he said. "So many more."

He hadn’t spoken since that day the week before.

And now, again – corner to corner. Side to side. The boxed circle decreased and the sand slid through the toys without incident. Her son again filled the pail, his body shaking despite the September heat. His face wracked with concentration upon each obsessive turn of the bucket that tormented him so.

"Do you think he needs some counseling?" she asked.

"He don’t need no damn shrink. And even if he did, where would we get the money for that?" Chuck threw back the empty beer bottle, tasting nothing but air and the remnants of foam. "Get me another, Sweetie, would ya?"

Outside, Ian stopped digging. His expression, distinguished by its concentration, melted into one of pain. His body shook with the cries as he removed an object from the toy sifter.

"No," Trina said under her breath. She fumbled with the sliding-glass door, but it remained off its track. "NO!" She grabbed the handle and shook hard on the bottom side of the dislodged door, but it refused to budge. In the sandbox, she saw her son’s face riddled with grief. Frantic, she shook the door, her arms spread across its weight as she tried to balance it on the tracks.

"What is it?" Chuck asked, finally putting the footrest of the recliner down.

Trina kicked at the bottom of the door. "Let me out, you piece of shit," she cried. "Let me to him!"

Chuck rose from his seat.

"Sweetie, what is it?"

"It’s happened again." Outside, she saw her son climb from the sandbox and begin attacking the soil between the sandbox and fence with a plastic, toy garden trowel. She threw her shoulder into the door and yanked with all her strength.

The door slid open.

She heard the screams of her boy. They sounded unnatural, like a psychotic symphony playing in a cave. She burst into a full sprint towards Ian. Chuck remained at the door, empty bottle in hand, adorned in boxers and a dirty undershirt.

"I’m coming baby," Trina said.

When she reached her child, she found him removing objects from the soil he’d been digging up. He handed them to her and then went to the sifter still in the sandbox. They were two stones, worn smooth and shaped like stereotypical headstones. She felt the bumps on the chiseled pieces of granite. Through her tears, she saw the bumps were actually carvings that formed words.

"Alex Quintonez. April 199_ - August 200_," said the first.

Trina’s knees buckled. Alex, her son’s school chum, died two weeks prior. In August. Nobody ever actually spoke of how an eight-year-old died suddenly of natural causes.

She fumbled with the second stone, smearing clear the remaining grime. The stone felt unnaturally cold despite the September sun.

"Amanda Henson. January 195_ - September 200_."

Her son squeezed tightly to her leg and held up the sifting toy. A cold sweat fell off her in cool sheets. Her tongue, dry as sandpaper, swelled in her mouth.

"Sweetie?" Chuck called from the trailer.

Another stone rested inside the toy sifter. Her hands trembled as she dusted the sand from it.

"Oh, Mommy," Ian said. He buried his face in her thigh. "Mommy, no."

"Trina Cortez-Henson. July 197_ - September 200_"

Trina looked down to the son that grasped her leg. She felt dizzy as the epiphany overwhelmed her.

"Mom, I’m sorry," Ian said. She ran her hand through his hair and began crying in unison with him. "But, please take care of Grammy. And, if you can, say ‘hi’ to Alex."

END