A Rock and Family Vacation

[7]

Brooke raised her arms in alarm as she searched the display, ducking, stretching, and crouching as much as her back would allow to see where it might be or where it could’ve fallen. Turning around, she started to say a word, but her eyes immediately spied sparkling on Blair‘s end of the couch. He was holding the damn rock in his hands!

“Don’t worry, mom. I have it.”

She wanted to screech and scream at her eldest son. How could he be so stupid?! Why on earth would he do this?! But all those flashing, heart-racing thoughts just came out as a single word, “Why?”

On the other end of the couch, Lacy perked up from her listless state to piece together what was going on. Her eyes widened with terror as her pouty lips tangled. Clare made a little O with her mouth and swallowed.

“You fart face numbskull! What are you doing, bro?!” At once, Lacy appeared both starkly mad and desperately heartbroken as though she might punch her brother while crying.

Out of everyone, even Eliot with numb shock on his face, Blair actually appeared the most serene. “Just figuring it out. It gave me a zap too. Sharper than rubbing woolen socks on shag carpet but not as bad as messing around with the wall socket. I’m gonna use my phone so we have proof for doctors and anyone else. That’s why. Plus, there is no freaking way I’m letting my little bros throw themselves pity parties. We’re in this together. Especially against those… folks grandpa hangs out with.”

Before getting up, Blair made sure he had the rock held far away from anyone else. He gave his mom and dad the widest berth of all. While he was gone, Lacy placed her hands around her forehead and looked lost and defeated. Clare leaned back and gave Lacy some space.

Brooke felt like she couldn’t breathe, even though she straightened and leaned back to get the most air. All of her kids. Every single one of them. In less than a freaking day. Part of her brain echoed the same words she told Clare. There’s nothing wrong with being a girl. There are lots of girls in the world. It’s perfectly normal. This was not a subtraction or a loss. But they were her boys!

Her children. Sure, Blair was a goofball when he was young who got into her clothes and had a dress party and then tried to use a plastic fork to open up the wall socket. He would also climb the furniture naked and sneak around with face paint pretending to be Rambo as he shut off all the lights for stealth. And he was amazing at the craziest mind puzzles. That included literally solving one of their business research project problems for makeup kit design by incorporating origami folding. He was amazing. And he was going to be someone else.

Brooke’s heart raced. She could bear what happened to Clare with the hope of uncertainty and dealing with it gradually. But the world was asking her to deal with all three of her sons as girls all at once. And what if this wasn’t the end? Her eyes sought Eliot. Desperately, begging, she made absolutely sure that he hadn’t touched the rock or grazed Blair while he was holding the rock. Her emotions couldn’t trust her eyes, she wanted to hear his assurance.

Nervously, Eliot took a deep breath as his eyes moved like a typewriter and he rewound his jumbled thoughts. “No. I saw him get up to look over there, but I didn’t realize he picked it up. Lacy wanted to watch something cool she said, and I figured it would be a nice distraction for everyone. I didn’t think anything of it. He sat down a little away from me, as you saw, and didn’t move. So…yeah. Wow.” After that reflection, Eliot eased back with his head almost facing the ceiling then tipped it forward to give Brooke a careful nod.

Despite all that, she still kept flicking her gaze toward her husband with the faint stabbing fear that she might lose him too in a sudden puff of breeze or an unguarded moment. But that was stupid. She hadn’t lost her children. They were here. And also hopefully returning very soon.

Brooke slipped over to Lacy’s side. Nimbly, she ensnared her in a sideways embrace, despite the fact stretching that way risked destroying her back. Since Clare was on the other side, Lacy was basically trapped without an easy way of pushing off. She still gave it an attempt, but her unfamiliarity with her new body doomed her to just rock forward and then dip back against the cushion.

“You’re both crushing me! L-leave me alone. Everything sucks and it’s just g-getting worse. Hugs don’t help.” Lacy fought to hold her resolve against the weakness in her voice. Brooke knew well Lacy’s animosity towards hugs.

When he was really young, he asked what his name meant. It confused him, but he thought that lacy things looked neat. Then came school.

The first few weeks were turbulent as the school knew about his name, but the teachers requested meetings. She couldn’t tell them anything and Lacy felt like he was being punished. In class, so many kids were painfully cruel. Like with the modeling fiasco, so many assumed he was just a girl because of his hair and face. They tried a couple different styles to help. But the worst part was Tyler.

He pretended to be Lacy‘s friend while snickering behind his hand. Brooke couldn’t imagine any other children she wanted to beat the crap out of harder. He tortured Lacy in so many small ways like breaking his little cars, sabotaging his drawings, and worst of all, turning hugs into pain.

Young Lacy actually really liked hugs, especially from friends. But Tyler would sneak in, grab him, and yell, “Got you, girlie!” No matter how much Lacy fought, it was practically impossible to wriggle away. Then he turned his nails in and started scratching. He squeezed until Lacy could barely breathe. But it was just a game, he claimed, always just a game. The best day of elementary school was when a bigger kid broke Tyler’s arm.

Brooke let Lacy go and urged Clare to give her space. “We just want you to know that your family is here for you. And everything‘s gonna be all right.” She wasn’t sure she believed that, but she had to say it for her children.

Lacy twisted in place. ”How can it be all right?! This is the worst trip ever.“

Blair made his way back into the room and responded, “You clearly don’t recall the upstate New York trip. Now that was a disaster.” He had his phone in one hand with video already recording. His other hand held the rock. Brooke felt quietly grateful that her eldest hadn’t passed out on the way back. He also didn’t appear any different yet.

Explaining why he took a while, Blair said, “I actually brought along my spare phone because it still charges fine. And I was thinking about using that instead but the storage, as always, isn’t that great. Unfortunately, I have all my offline YouTube stuff and that takes up like thirty gigs right now. I have twenty gigs free. Depending on how I record, it might run out.”

Brooke would’ve gladly given him her phone to use, but it had even less open storage. Ultimately, they decided to run through the videos on the television, broadcast from the phone, and then delete them when finished. Blair was in charge of managing that because, while Brooke had a respectable amount of tech-savvy, she knew he could do it better.

Before settling down to sit far away from everyone else and record his final moments as a boy, Blair presented the rock and tapped on the side of it, mentioning, “Oh, before I forget. I discovered something very interesting about our buddy. I assumed Clare didn’t really look at the rock much with everything that happened. And I especially assumed that Lacy didn’t notice anything either. But, this rock has something attached to it…” Blair tapped the top corner of the rock with his finger.

From this distance and with her 40-year-old eyes, Brooke couldn’t see what her son was talking about. It took dialing back the windows to let the noonday light through and vigorous wiggling. Part of the rock was loose, like a tar-and-rainbow-toned version of a baby tooth on its way out. If Blair managed to pull hard enough then she imagined it would come loose, like one of those gas station card skimmers they actually encountered several hundred miles back when filling up.

It was clearly not part of the rock that had been weathered by erosion. Despite his best efforts and the wedge motion of a thin knife from the kitchen to try to pry it off, the application wasn’t coming loose. Why on earth would this bizarre rock that had already transformed two of her children have a fake portion of stone attached to it? She thought of artificial stones used in a zoo but didn’t like where that tangent might lead when it came to potential sources from beyond the planet.

Blair didn’t have any answers for what it could be. Even with Eliot‘s vigorous imagination, he appeared to be nervously landing in the same vicinity as Brooke but didn’t wanna label it more than “a mysterious artifact”. Lacy‘s idea was to find something hard, like the cement steps leading to the side cellar, and bash it over them until it gave up its secrets. That actually sounded like the best and worst idea to Brooke.

She had no idea what might happen if they started attacking the rock, even though she felt it would be rather cathartic. Maybe it would grow legs and start attacking them or send a message back home or retaliate by doing something worse to her children. Meanwhile, Blair found the tallest spot on the entertainment system and shoved the rock all the way in the back. He did note that depending on how he turned up, he probably wouldn’t be able to retrieve it again without a ladder. Fortunately, there was a small one in the side closet.

Still, there didn’t seem to be any apparent signs of him changing. This led Brooke towards the frail, fruitless pursuit of optimism. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe he would be fine.

Easing over towards her husband, Brooke left plenty of space for Blair to sit beside his siblings. Lacy scowled and told him that he better not try to hug her.

Blair laughed. “Nah, man. I’m just gonna make you pee yourself.” Deftly, he got his fingers around Lacy’s slender side, over by her neck, and in all the other exposed spaces while avoiding the soft spot he’d accidentally grazed before. Unable to escape, Lacy squealed and squirmed and even stretched toward her little sister for salvation.

The following roughhousing, normal between brothers, appeared so weird between her eldest and this young girl. But she didn’t speak up, except to urge Blair to be careful, otherwise Lacy might have to change her clothes. This immediately alarmed their middle child, “No! This hides things best! I don’t want to see all that again!” The tussling and tickling soon eased with Lacy sprawled across the seats. She tried to unleash a fart but lamented that “this girl” didn’t have “any ammo”.

Blair good-naturedly helped her up, but she clung to his arms, wrapping them around her tiny tummy. Lacy kept her head down and quietly said, “I’m scared.”

It desperately hurt Brooke deep in her soul to hear her child say that. She wanted to be the one holding and comforting Lacy, like when he was so young that his brother‘s name came out as “BEAR!” and always brought on giggles. Blair still looked so cool and confident.

“Don’t worry. I’ll try not to trounce you too badly with my majestic, heart-stopping beauty.” Lacy rolled her eyes and gave her brother a half-hearted poke with her elbow. They fussed and argued like any old day with Lacy making boisterous points while Blair comfortably pondered.

It was getting on well into lunchtime, but no one wanted to move, order lunch, or make it. Eliot noticed the absence and announced that he would go order some pizza from the boardwalk pizzeria. The timing wasn’t the best, but it seemed unlikely they would ever find that. Clare jumped in eagerly with the hope to tagalong and pick up the pizza together. Eliot gladly welcomed his daughter’s company.

Brooke felt her head swimming even though she was sitting still. Considering it was comfortably over an hour between them leaving Lacy and what happened to her, Brooke could tell they still had some time. But she didn’t want to be alone with just Lacy and Blair. What if something came up and she couldn’t help them? Not that Eliot would be able to fix such an occurrence. But at least he would be here.

Before the kids decided on one of those YouTuber, multi-million dollar challenges to watch, Lacy had one request, “Mom? Could you cut my hair? Afterward, I mean. After… lunch.” That was something Brooke could readily agree to. She hadn’t cut any of their hair in many years but what Lacy was asking for just called for a rough hack. And fortunately, their travel shears seemed like they would be up to the task.

Blair started blinking with increasing regularity as he yawned and stretched back against the couch. “You better get going, dad.” Eliot took that with all the urgency implied and saved everyone’s pizza requests to his phone. He and Clare were ready to go in about a minute. Once it was nervously just the three of them together, Blair roused himself from tiredness just enough to express, “Mom, it’s just a hunch and I wasn’t sure how to say it… But looking at all the stuff with that rock, I think someone, or something, placed it there intentionally, for us to find.” 

[I have a question at the end of the chapter again to help with suggestions for where the story should go. I'm a couple chapters ahead but I love seeding ideas from people as much as possible. Feel free to add an idea which doesn't show up in the options. Thank you for reading!]

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