Chapter 30
The next morning Travis shows up at seven sharp. I’ve checked in on Clementine multiple times already—she’s fine, said she isn’t scared anymore because she had a dream she opened the window in her bedroom, and all the moths flew out. “They wanted to be free, Mommy. They weren’t trying to hurt me.”
I’m grateful she’s doing okay, though I don’t understand how.
I am definitely not doing okay.
Shelby helps Clementine get ready for school and will take her so Wyatt can be home for the extermination. I brew an extra-large pot of coffee before Travis arrives.
“Count your blessings,” I murmur, anticipating the imminent hit of caffeine.
It’s something my grandmother used to say, and I smile at the memory of her.
My mother’s mother, who was warm in all the ways my mother wasn’t, regularly made salted-caramel popcorn balls and called them “dinner,” and unfortunately passed away from a stroke when I was only twelve.
“That smile’s a sight for sore eyes,” Wyatt says, kissing the side of my head. He’s joined me in the kitchen, has a mug at the ready. “One hell of a night, huh?”
I nod, holding the smile with effort. “You can say that again.”
Travis arrives then, Wyatt’s watch buzzing the notification. I’m glad when he leaves to answer the door and let my smile drop.
—
Shortly after Shelby and Clementine leave for school, Wyatt, Travis, and I head upstairs. Travis, who has taken the lead, asks if we’ve seen any other signs of the moths, prior to last night’s incident.
“None,” Wyatt says, then over his shoulder asks, “Tilly? Anything?”
“No. Nothing.” It’s then I realize I have no clue about signs of a moth infestation, aside from the obvious. “But what sort of signs?”
Travis starts up the second flight of stairs. “Caterpillars, for one. They’re real furry, like a teardrop-shaped hairpiece. Or eggs, but those are tiny. Pinhead size. Hard to spot.”
No, we haven’t seen any caterpillars, nor eggs.
“Okay, good. The puss caterpillars are super venomous. Glad you didn’t run into those.”
We’re at Clementine’s bedroom door now, and I’m breathing heavily. I’m not yet pregnant enough to experience real breathlessness, but the exertion of the stairs, plus fear of what we’ll find when we open the door, has made me short of breath. Like I said, I am not okay.
“In here?” Travis stands in front of the still-closed door.
I glance at the rolled-up towel. A wave of nausea moves through me and I put a shaky hand over my mouth.
Remembering how when I bit down on the moth, the dreamlike haze evaporated.
I became hyperaware of the crushed furry body in my mouth, the bitter taste of its slimy innards coating my tongue.
The panic that the moth was venomous and I had just poisoned myself and the baby.
I vomited into the sink, running the water in the hopes no one would hear.
Then brushed my teeth three times using Clementine’s cherry-flavored paste and an extra toothbrush from under the sink.
Furiously enough that my gums bled. Flossed, too, because I kept picturing bits of the moth’s body, a filament of its fine hair or a leg, caught in the crevasses of my teeth.
Then I used the towel to wipe my face before I rolled it up and stuck it under the bedroom door.
The worst part? I can’t explain what possessed me to let that moth crawl on my face, into my mouth.
There was the voice, or thought—again, I can’t be sure what it was.
“You know what you have to do.” I felt drunk, soft-minded, and yet the idea that I had to kill that moth—even though it was near death anyway—and in such a gruesome way, became like a blinking neon sign in my consciousness. I literally couldn’t turn away from it.
Am I losing my mind? I think of the tendril, wriggling out of the painting.
The swarming cockroaches. The half-dead moth, sticky between my teeth.
I set a hand against the wall, leaning into it, overcome by the horror of last night and the sickness in my stomach.
I regret the coffee, am afraid I’m going to throw up on the recently disinfected floor.
At least Wyatt and Travis are focused on the door and don’t see my semi-collapse.
“Yep, in here. Clementine’s bedroom,” Wyatt replies, though Travis and his family have been to our house before and so he knows this. Clementine and Travis’s son, Ford, are the same age and have played together many times.
Travis sets an ear against the shut door, listening carefully.
“I can’t hear anything,” he says. He raps on the door, five times and with force. I jump, my spine going rod straight with the adrenaline, but I’m still behind them so it goes unnoticed.
Still, nothing happens. Silence, except for my whooshing heartbeat, which is so loud to my ears I can’t believe Wyatt and Travis don’t hear it.
“I’m going to take a peek,” Travis says. Then he pauses, gestures away from the door. “Might want to give some space.”
Wyatt and I step backward, until he’s against the wall and I’m on the second-to-top stair, clutching the handrail whose installation I insisted on.
It’s not a lot of distance, but I’m glad to not have a front-row view of whatever’s happening behind that door.
Everything inside me feels ready to snap.
I picture Clementine covered in the insects, the desperate way she looked at me as they choked her.
I shudder from head to toe, and gag, though I try to hide it with a cough.
The jerky movement and sound catch Wyatt’s attention.
He reaches for my hand and squeezes. I swallow the sourness, then squeeze his hand back.
Travis turns the handle, slowly, then opens the door a crack. Still nothing. No sounds, no fluttering, no moths trying to escape the room.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, sticking his head right in. My muscles tighten up, preparing for an onslaught. My fingers tingle with the anticipatory fear of what’s coming. But then Travis swings the door fully open and I see why he’s unconcerned.
The floor of her bedroom is inches thick with moths, every last one of them dead.
—
Travis calls a team to come and dispose of the insects.
Wyatt takes his meetings via conference call, in our bedroom.
I stay downstairs, both to keep out of the way and to avoid watching the shovelfuls of moths tumbling into the disposal bags.
I’m queasy and unsettled, still unable to shake the sense that this moth infestation is more sinister than it appears.
At least we have a clue about where the moths originated—my fig plant.
Travis found evidence of caterpillar “activity” on a few of the leaves (they had been partially eaten), and some eggs as well.
Clementine had secretly taken the plant to her bedroom, wanting to nurse it back to health as a surprise for me.
I hadn’t noticed it was missing from the studio, single-mindedly focused on the Leclerc.
Wyatt’s annoyed with himself for not being more careful when he chose that fig for my birthday.
Not that he would have been able to tell, Travis reassures him, especially if there were only eggs present.
“Like I said, so tiny they’re nearly impossible to spot,” Travis says. “Also not unusual to see a bonus caterpillar hitch a ride on a house plant.”
But the sheer volume and the rarely seen type of moth remain a mystery.
“I can say this. It’s the worst I’ve seen in all the years I’ve been doing this,” Travis says. “How they replicated at this rate, and so fast, is beyond me.”
—
It’s after ten a.m. and I haven’t yet gone up to my studio. I want to get to work, but I’d rather not walk past Clementine’s room. I pour a second cup of coffee, then reconsider. I need to watch my caffeine intake and avoid dehydration.
“Good morning, Shelby. Are you ready for today’s Memento session?
” My mother-in-law’s suite door is open, and therapist Diane’s voice streams into the kitchen.
Shelby’s long back from dropping Clementine at school and walking Stanley.
I glance at the mug in my hand. Maybe Shelby could use an extra coffee for her session.
AI Diane is on the screen—a forty-something “woman” wearing a floral blouse with a silky necktie, seated on a cushy-looking upholstered chair. She’s wearing glasses, amber frames that match her eyes, and smiling. “So, tell me about the weather today.”
“Rain with a chance of rain,” my mother-in-law replies, and Diane laughs. Shelby has yet to put on her VR headset, so I’m able to catch her eyes. I raise the mug and my eyebrows, keeping the ask silent. Shelby smiles a thank-you. I set the coffee on her dressing table.
As I’m leaving her suite, I hear Diane ask about last evening, breezily, the way a friend who’s called to chitchat would. I pause briefly to listen, hidden by the door so she doesn’t know I’m still there. Shelby mentions the sleepover with Clementine but says nothing of the moths.
Back in the kitchen I stir an electrolyte packet—watermelon flavor, not my favorite—into water and wonder, with some concern, if the harrowing event has somehow slipped her mind.
Panic rises for a moment as I think about Shelby’s lucidity and how we let her take Clementine to school this morning.
But it’s silly to worry now. Drop-off went “splendidly” according to Shelby, and I’ve checked Clementine’s location—she’s in class, where she’s supposed to be.
I consider maybe Shelby left the moth fiasco out of her session preamble on purpose.
Even though Diane looks and sounds like a live person, she’s an avatar.
Anything Shelby shares is recorded and analyzed by both the Memento program and her doctors.
My mother-in-law is protective of our family’s privacy, and of Clementine in particular, which would easily explain the omission.
I choose to believe that’s it, reminding myself that simply because I’m feeling something doesn’t make it a fact.
Time to get to work. I’ve procrastinated long enough.
My breath hitches as I climb the stairs.
I can’t resist glancing into Clementine’s open door, seeing with relief the job is nearly done.
A man around my age and a younger woman are cleaning the room.
The woman, whose aqua-streaked hair is visible through the mask of her protective suit, looks up as I pause at the doorway.
She’s holding open a disposal bag for the man, who sweeps a pile of moths onto his shovel.
“Another ten minutes or so,” the woman says, her voice slightly muffled by the suit. “We’ll run the disposal unit after this to pick up dust and any remaining fragments.”
“Thanks so much,” I say. The man doesn’t look up, focused on the task of dumping the swept-up insects into the bag.
Though each moth must be featherlight, a pile of them carries enough weight to make a distinctive sound when dropped into the bag.
Another wave of nausea hits. My watch buzzes repeatedly.
Heart rate elevated, Tilly. Time for a rest?
My finger hovers over the ignore button.
It’s more important than ever to pay attention to your body’s cues.
Your watch will be your best friend, Tilly, Dr. Rice said on our call.
The subsequent literature that arrived about the home rest protocol also made it clear that if I ignore the notifications I risk the restrictions being escalated.
With a resolved sigh I touch OK, then sit on the top step, out of view of the young woman and man, and do my breathing exercises.
I repeat them until the watch stops buzzing.
A vibration pattern tickles my wrist, a gold star spinning on the screen.
Satisfied, I head up to my studio, eager for the distraction the Leclerc offers.
I enter the code on the door’s alarm pad. The light turns green, the lock disengaging. I take in another deep breath. My time is limited this morning, so I need to be focused and efficient. But I am not prepared for what I see—or don’t see, more specifically—when I open the door.