Family Bed

                                       by Kit Reed

—We have to go!

Like a mouse with the cat crouched outside waiting, my sister burrows deeper. There is cocoa on her
breath. —Why, when it's so nice?

—I mean it, Beth. I jab her fat flank. We are too old to be in here. Frankly, there are crumbs.

—Niiice. Bethany, who Mother named after something I don't know about, drops into sleep like a stone
into a pond.

Oh, sure it's nice in here. Too nice. Soft and warm and seductive. —Mom, other kids don't go to bed at
…

—Shh, Sarah. Can a person thunder in a whisper? Mother can. —We're the Dermotts. This is who we
are.

The six of us are, like, trapped inside an idea she had. We used to be seven, but Darryl went out one
night and that's all I know. Father says Darryl is fighting for our country in Lebanon.

—Sarah? My one remaining brother mutters, —Cover for me, dude.

My heart lurches. —Bill, you're not …

He claps his hand over my mouth.

The word comes out in a little puff anyway, —leaving.

But he is. Bill bundles pillows into a guy-shaped heap as Mother shuts the book and turns off the light
with that hateful snap, like she is shutting the lid on us. During the ritual night-nights, he slithers out like a
ferret; outside a car waits— five cute guys giggling and whispering; they are heading for the mall. I grab
his hand. —Don't go.

—Children! Mom's hiss breaks the connection between us. Am I the only one who hears him snaking
across the rug? Outside the car starts up and my heart goes after it. There are kids at the mall, cute guys
and loud music. I poke Bethany. —We can't go on like this.

But we do. You see us on TV, you see us in the magazines, the happy Dermotts, smiling, smiling, smiling,
and you think, how wonderful: sweet family, together here in the dark, what closer bond?

Well, listen.

Here in the dark.

Get it?
Lights out after bedtime cocoa, that means, whether or not you are sleepy. No music at bedtime, no
I-Pod, no whispering; no squirming and no humming please, you know it gets on my nerves. No
Gameboy, children, and no TV, especially not now, and definitely no talking after the half hour officially
designated for sharing in which we each have to say something embarrassing to make it stop, and as for
cell calls or instant messaging, forget it. You get grounded, or worse.

—Mom, it's only nine p.m.!

—Finish your cocoa. It's nine o'clock, she says in Channel Five news tones. Grimly, she adds what I
know by heart. —and I know where my children are. Night-night, children. Kisses, everybody. Mmm,
now you. Mmmmm. And you. And you— is she counting? —Sleep tight.

Mother, I'm sixteen years old!

Nice, you think, but only because our mother has you brainwashed. We have the perfect mother.
Everybody says so on TV. We are a media phenom: magazines, supermarket rags. How perfect, you
think when she gets all gooshy about family stuff, which she does on every talk show between here and
East Wherever, I wish we were close like that. Snug as bunnies in the nest.

Do you hear yourselves?

—Family bonding, Mother says with that smug, perfect smile, while Daddy nods gravely into whichever
camera, yaaas, yaaas. —This is our private, special time.

Mom, everybody I care about is down at the mall!

But I am jabbed by knees and elbows and sandpaper heels on the special big bed Daddy built for us
when we outgrew the super King, six Dermotts locked down for the night. Together. Again. Well, all but
one, and this is what they are all ignoring, like: under cover of darkness, my one remaining big brother has
fled.

I still miss Darryl. I love Billy and I'm scared for him, well, a little bit. But I am also pissed. Why should
he have all the fun? He's malling with slutty Jacie Peterson, for all I know they are going to have sex, and
me? I love Tommy, why can't I … It's for his own good, I think, but I am lying to myself. —Mom.

—Shhhshh, Sarah, night-night.

—Mo-om!

She probably already knows. She'll blow it off just like everything else that doesn't fit her glowing picture,
like, pretend it isn't happening. When I grab her toe she says, —Howard …

Dad plants one foot on my shoulder. —Sarah, that's enough.

—But Dad! Bill is … God only knows what he's doing and it is killing me. —Mother, he's gone!

—Honey, he probably had to … Embarrassed pause. —You know.

—Pee? That's crap and you know it, he's …

—Language!

I go on anyway. —down at the mall.

So she has to face the fact. —Not for long. Howard!
He yawns. —Don't worry, honey, he'll be back. Sleep tight.

—I said, Howard! When she gets that tone, it scares me shit.

—Mom, I was only kidding! Billy, what have I done to you?

Dad lunges up in a plume of bedcovers like Moby Dick spouting. —Okay, okay!

The minute it's done I feel bad. It's after Lights Out so we don't see our father dress. We don't see what
he slides out of the drawer and snaps on his belt and we don't really know what he'll do when he catches
Bill; we only know that it's happened before and Bill comes back to bed shaken but not changed. It
happens and we never speak of it. We never speak of anything bad. It would wreck the show. Dad
settles into his boots: thump.

I jump out of bed.—Daddy, I'll come with. Save him somehow.

Mother hauls me back by the hair. —It's a jungle out there.

—But I have to help!

—It isn't safe.

—Mom! I want to hit or yell bullshit, but we don't hit or yell in our family. We aren't allowed to whine.
—All the other kids …

—Lie down. I'll read another chapter as an extra treat.

Last month it was Pilgrim's Progress and Moby-Dick, she has a great reading voice but the quizzes
after are hard. Tonight it's Don Quixote, after which she reprises the night-nights and kills the light, after
which we are expected to lie still until sleep rescues us, at least for now.

Like a person could sleep with Bill gone and Daddy out there, armed with God knows what. Plus. Beth's
elbow is digging into my left boob and Dad's toenail scraped my neck when he left. Mom changes the
sheets every day so there are never cocoa stains, but there are still crumbs. Probably this bed thing was
cute when we were babies, but, Mom! Plus you and Daddy hog the pillows with Baby Ronnie jammed
between you; God only knows when you had sex.

For the sake of our mother, we sleep in the belly of the beast, and in exchange for our freedom? We're
famous on TV.

Tomorrow Vandella LeSpire is shooting the Inside Everything show from our very own bed. Mother's
face is creamed to East Judas in preparation, and her hair is tweaked into cornrows on which, let me tell
you, the beads and things look pretty lame. I mean, you can see the scalp and her hair is scrunty dyed
blond. Cornrows are supposed to show that what we are doing is very next, like: nothing retro about
Family Bed. Mother wants people to see us on TV and go, "how wonderful." What a good mother she
is, to do this for her kids. See how safe and happy they are, bonding in the Family Bed.

Did I mention that's what she calls it? Family Bed.

Also known as Sleep Sharing. Anything to euphemize this fluffy jail. And you are wondering how a
tenth-grader like me knows big, long, arcane words like arcane and euphemize? Tomorrow you'll hear
Mother expatiating (another, and another!), earnestly facing the camera with her cornrows yanked back
in a mini-lift that's supposed to make her look young. —The Family Bed is a great vocabulary builder,
she'll say, count on it. —Plus the sense of security. My children never doubt that they are loved. Then
she'll quote the Bible. I've stared at this St. Luke guy and I still don't get it:

Then the one inside answers, "Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are
with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything."

Sounds pretty mingy to me.

Mother will tell you we Dermotts owe our warm hearts and fantastic vocabularies to our execrable,
life-changing private time in this paragon, my prison: the Family Bed.

Have I mentioned the farting and scratching, the nervosity that comes when you're tucked in with your
dad and your brothers and one disappears; where is Darryl, anyway? To say nothing of the crumbs. It
may sound superficial to you, but holy Cremora, when the earth's last picture is painted, there are the
crumbs.

Later. Dad heaves Bill onto the bed. I hear compressed sobs. I touch his shoulder and he flinches. Is that
blood drying? I wait until they are asleep. Then I murmur, —Billy, I'm sorry.

—Do you know what you did to me? His voice is a dry rasp.

—Oh God, Bill, I didn't know he was going to …

Then he scares me. —You know, Darryl wasn't the first.

—What?

—You were too little to remember Howie, he says. —Howard Junior. Don't go thinking he was the first.

—The first what, Billy. The first what?

But Mother is stirring and he covers my mouth. —Tonight I got the ultimatum, he says in normal tones
because he is beyond caring what comes down. Then Dad clears his throat and instead of finishing, Bill
rolls over with a little groan; his back is to me and that's the end of that. But he says, like he wants them
to hear him, —They're just keeping me here for the show.

So weird, sitting here in my jammies, drinking cocoa in the middle of the day.

—It began, Mother is telling Vandella LeSpire, —when Billy here was eentsy. Isn't Vandella surprised to
find us all packed in bed in the middle of the day just to tape this show? Doesn't the woman see the
weird in Mother's smile? —I love babies, they're so little and helpless and I love having them near.
Mother's voice is soft and cosy, like it's bedtime already. —Billy's my oldest, you know.

Wait a minute. What about Darryl? On TV we kids are not allowed to speak. There's stuff I haven't told
you about, like why they won't let us go near the cellar, which to tell the truth I am not exactly clear on,
or the welts I saw on Billy's back when it got light.

—He'll always be my baby, Mother says while next to me, Bill's teeth grind until his molars crack.
—Aren't we all helpless babies in this world? My eentsy sweet Billy, all alone in a big, dark crib, of
course he cried, wouldn't you? Mother's voice is full, fat and soft. —I brought him into the bed with us
and it was beautiful. So you see, that was the beginning. Four lovely children, we all sleep together, and
that's what keeps us close.

I mutter, —What about Darryl, Mom, but … Worse: Billy is growling, —What about Howie and
them?
Mother mashes us down. Then she gives Vandella that gooshy, luminous mother's smile. —I love my
babies so much!

Vandella thinks to ask, —What happens when they grow up, Mrs. Dermott?

Mother is like a lighthouse, beaming radiant love. —They'll always be my babies, no matter what. She
tickles Bill's cheek. It is obscene. —So little and helpless and sweet.

Shuttered in performance quality mascara, Vandella's eyes mist over at the thought. All you poor women
with babies are looking at my mother and feeling inadequate, and us? Don't ask.

—This is our crucial bonding time, Mother tells Vandella in that sweet, level tone that means buy this or
you die, —Bad mothers don't care what happens to their children as long as they're quiet. Good
mommies keep their babies in the Family Bed.

Freaks. She has turned us into freaks.

At school the day after one of these shows there is the ritual shunning. For Bethy and Ronnie (did I
mention "baby" Ronnie is in first grade?) there is also ritual name-calling followed by the ritual sticking of
gum into their hair. Moms may fall for this crap because motherhood makes women feel anxious and
inadequate, but, kids … kids see the dark circles under our eyes and they know. They recognize the
cowed look and the pallor of frustration from time served in Family Bed where there's no argument and
nobody gets a night off. —If Father and I have to be here every night, Mother says to us, and I feel the
sharp edge of her resentment, —the least you can do is be here and be glad!

But none of this is conveyed to Vandella, who can't see past the forced smiles on our shining faces, and
none of this filters into the pink fog that occludes the minds of new moms who are so anxious to do
everything right that they will do anything, even something this heinously wrong.

When I am old enough to have a psychiatrist I will have one thing to thank Mother for— enough words
to express what she's done to us. That is, if I live long enough to get a psychiatrist.

Then my brother Bill rises up on his elbows, grimacing to get Vandella's attention. Dad already has an
elbow yoked around his neck so only I hear what comes out: —Ask her about the others. And faster
than I can tell you, Bill disappears. Pretending they are in a father-son bear hug, Dad yanks him back
under the giant duvet that covers us all. Vandella is extremely gracious. She promises to edit it out of the
tape before this airs, but I have my suspicions. Don't these people lie, sometimes, to get the story that
they want? Vandella thanks us and says she will be back Thursday to finish up live on her early morning
show, interviewing the happy Dermotts as they spill out of the house. Mother has already picked out our
wardrobes for the show.




                                                   ·····


Billy is gone. When we woke up he wasn't here. My sisters and I had to wear hotwired E bracelets to
school today, with angora socks pulled up to hide the bulge: make one wrong step and the screech of
pain will rend the ears of a stone lion. When we came to bed tonight nobody took them off. Billy is gone
and Mother is pregnant again. Or she's thinking about it. I heard them talking in the night. When I got up
to pee I hit something sharp.
—Arghhh!
—Sarah, what's the matter?

—I was only going to the bathroom! Razor wire rings the bed.

—Father will take you, Mother says. She uses her special voice, the one that rots stainless steel.
—Howard!

—First Bill and now razor wire. Where is Billy anyway?

Mother gasps as if I've asked where are the space aliens. —Who?

I let Dad lead me through the gap in the wire and see me to the bathroom. I exchange extra night-nights
to prove I have returned to the Family Bed, but I am thinking. I am thinking hard.

Billy is in the house somewhere, I know it. I found one of his Hyperbolic space shoes under the bed this
morning when I got up, and I'm not so sure about Mother or Dad but I do know my one remaining big
brother. Without his Hyperbolic space shoes, Billy doesn't leave the house. A message for me, I think,
when I find it. This is a message for me. Inside there is a scrap of paper. Block letters in Bill's yellow
highlighter. DON'T DRINK IT.

I am scared, but I am excited. Billy may be gone from the Family Bed, but I know he's somewhere in the
house. They've put him in Solitary or something, and all I have to do is find out where. I'll break him out
and together he and I will run away.

As it turns out, this kid Tommy at school that I'm in love with? Tommy loves me back. Where I am in
Arts he is on the Vocational track, which means he is an electronic genius. Disarms my e-bracelet via his
PDA. I am still wearing it so when I check in at the Family Bed promptly tonight at 8:30, nobody knows
it no longer works. I feint for the phone and then give Mother a gratifying squeal to prove she's put me in
my place. Finesse the cocoa and try not to fall asleep during Don Quixote. Snuggle with Beth and
Ronnie, who's been moved down to the foot of the bed to make room for the new baby to come.

—Night-night. Mother is rosier than a grotto full of Madonnas: pregnant already? She is sweet, sweeter
than ever. -Now, sleep tight; I want you to look your best tomorrow. Remember, Vandella's going to
have us on her show.

She is going to interview the six-er, five of us happy Dermotts in bright sunshine, although I already know
that we kids never get to talk, and Billy? He is fighting for our country in Iran.

I love them best when they're still babies, Mother says, so little and helpless and sweet.

It's going to be a long night.

Before Dad falls asleep I make him lead me to the bathroom again. I've seen the gap in the razor wire by
daylight, but I need to know how to navigate it in the dark. I don't really have to pee. Instead I stick my
head under the basin. Ever so quietly, I tap the bathroom pipes. Clinkety clink. I hold my breath. Then I
know. All I have to do is follow the plumbing down to the basement. That's Bill answering from
somewhere deep under the house: clinkety clink.

I let Dad lead me back to bed. Then I wait. There is some shifting under the covers: Mother. There is
some complaining: Dad. She must be hot to get herself that nice new baby.

Uggg. She wants him to Do It with her right here.

—Not tonight, Dad says. Then he uses his motivational voice. —You want to be pretty for the audience
tomorrow, right? Just think: Inside Everything. Us, live, on global TV.

Ugly, what she says to him next. I stuff Kleenex in my ears and wait for the parents to drop off. It isn't
hard to get out of bed, really, once you set your mind to it; that isn't the problem. What I have to do next
is very hard.

I have to break into the cellar. It's clear that's where they have him, because it's the one part of the house
outside the living room (did I mention the white wall-to-wall carpet or the clear plastic slipcovers on the
white furniture?) where we kids are forbidden to go.

The kitchen by night is a spooky place. Shafts of moonlight polishing Mother's spotless floor. Naturally I
assume the door to the basement will be locked, but, surprise, it isn't seriously locked, it's only
trip-it-with-your-credit-card locked. I do it with Dad's discarded Discover card. When she decided we
were spending too much, Mom took it away from him and I happened to see where it went. I pull it out
from under the Rubbermaid sheet in the kitchen silver drawer, which is also where Mother keeps her
Maglite. Good thing. When I slide the Discover card down the door and it falls open, I expect the cellar
to smell bad, don't know why, just the vibe I guess, all that: Don't go down there, children, or else.

Instead the air smells like flowers. Flowers and, as it turns out, my brother's sweat. I flick the Maglite
around; it's bigger down there than I thought. At the bottom of the steps I whisper, —Bill?

I locate him by the sound. It's the sound you make when they've duct taped your mouth.

—My God, Billy, what have they done to you?

I find him at the entrance to the chamber under our living room, they have duct taped him to a post. He's
taped to a post, and in the basement room behind him there is a bed that looks a lot like ours and the
glow from my Maglite is dim but I make out figures in the bed and they are smiling, smiling, they look like
wax replicas of Darryl—Darryl!—and two people I don't recognize.

—Billy, what happened?

He grimaces. I pull the tape off his mouth and he gasps. —I thought you'd never come.

Quick as I can manage, I start unwinding, walking around and around him as the tape peels off his neck,
his shoulders. When his arms are free, I stop. —What's going on? What's that? I am looking at the bed.

—Oh, that. He gives me this strange smile. —They look perfect, right?

—What is it? Why are you here?

Bill smiles that warm Billy smile: —They haven't gotten to me yet.

—But you look terrible.

—When they do, he says, and this terrifies me, —I'll look like them.

I glance at the trio of statues or whatever they are. So pretty lying in the bed, so still. —What, Bill.
What?

—I told you, they haven't gotten to me yet.

Come to think of it the figures in the bed don't look like statues, they look more like Grandma in the
coffin. Perfect. Shiny. Clean. I bite my wrist. —Oh my God, what are we going to do?
—Don't worry, my brother Bill says: brave Billy. —I knew this was coming. I have a plan.

Elsewhere in the house I hear noises, or I think I do. I imagine Mother feeling around for me with those
horny feet, I imagine her right foot making a swath over the empty sheet in my sector of the bed: I could
swear I hear her growling —Howard— I wait for the terrifying thump as Dad lands in his boots. I
imagine he is crossing the bedroom now, pulling the stun gun out of the dresser, I think I hear him
pounding down the stairs, and when he finds me, what will happen next? My face drains white all the way
down to the knuckles; you bet I am freaking. —What are we going to do?

—Chill, he says. Bill's arms are free, and he continues unwinding, but he can't bend over far enough to
free his legs and feet. —First you have to get me down.

In spite of the fact that I am scared shit we will be discovered, I do as he says. I turn on the overhead,
and, as instructed, I unwind the duct tape. As instructed, I start at the feet. They must have used a gallon
of it. It is taking forever to unwind, and every time I go behind the post I have to look at the bed and the
three whatever they are lying there in perfect peace, and I am so frightened that my whisper sounds more
like a wheeze. —They're coming, I know it, they're going to catch us and when they do they'll put us in
that bed with poor Darryl and … who are the other two?

—Howie, I think. We have been whispering, but all of a sudden Bill is talking in normal tones. —And
Duane. Did we know we had another big brother?

—Shh, they'll hear you!

Too loud. He is talking too loud. —I think the third one's Duane.

I am jittering, frantic. —Billy, shut up, they'll hear us. Hurry, they're coming!

But with that smile my brother just keeps on unwinding the tape. —No, he says. —No they aren't.

—How do you know?

The smile melts into an amazing, joyful grin. —You didn't drink the cocoa, right?

Smart Bill. My brother the genius. —How …

—I told you I knew this was coming. I doctored the cocoa mix yesterday, before they got up.

—Billy, you didn't kill them or anything.

—Who, me? My big brother is grinning, grinning; he can't stop. —Hell no, they're family. They're
sleeping like baby bunnies, or mice in their sweet little nest. Now hurry, he says. —We've got lots to do
before Vandella's crew gets here to set up for the shoot.




                                                    ·····


So we have lots to do, but thanks to Mother's 9 p.m. bedtime we have plenty of time to do it in. By the
time Bill and I come up into the kitchen it's barely midnight. It's just that time passes so mortal slowly
when you're lying awake in the dark. The first thing we do is pour the rest of the dry cocoa into the
Dispos-al and turn on every light in the house—well, except in the bedroom, where the four happy
Dermotts are in a profound, drugged sleep. In the morning we have to drag our sleeping family
downstairs and out through the French doors in the living room and next we'll move what I guess is all
that remains of our three big brothers—Duane, we hardly knew ye!—up from the basement and lay them
out next to the others on the grass, but before we do that we will pull all the bedding off Father's
super-king that he had specially built for us because the mattress is way too heavy for us to move. We'll
lay out the bedding on our front lawn to make a simulacrum—gotta love that vocabulary!—of the bed.
This is where the TV crew will find Mother and her they'll always be my babies, all of them sweet and
clean and sleeping snugly under the duvet with their heads on the fluffy down pillows out in broad daylight
right in front of the house. When she comes for the live telecast, Vandella LeSpire will have so many
questions to ask Mother about the three big brothers, or what's left of them, she'll have so many
questions about what Mother and Dad did to Howie and Darryl and Duane, and how they processed
them to keep them sleeping like babies, that she won't notice that two living Dermott children are missing.
See, once we're done setting up, Bill and I are running away on Dad's Discover card.
We're getting out of this paragon, our prison, this great American institution that mothers everywhere fear
and admire and will—in the course of one broadcast—come to excoriate. They won't come looking for
Billy and me. Not after they see this ostensibly wonderful mothering tool exposed for what it is. Mother
laid out with Dad and her babies in broad daylight, just exactly how she wants them. Inert.

Safe and obedient. Snuggled down in the Family Bed.


                                                 The End