The Sandbox

The prompt: “Take one of the simple settings below and write a page about it, trying to undermine the reader’s expectations. Try to lead the reader in a different direction by not revealing his desire up front, or by revealing a surprising motivation.”

The setting I chose: “A child raking a sandbox next to his nanny.”

THE SANDBOX

Samson sat in the sandbox piling sand into a pale blue bucket he’d found abandoned, presumably from another child’s playtime. Why anyone would leave such a prized possession behind was beyond him, and he wondered what magnificent toys the spoiled child must own to not miss a perfectly good bucket. He looked closely at the empty space where the sand had been and shook his head. More seemed to pour in from all sides, eager to fill the space.

His nanny, Margaret, sat absentmindedly beside him, perched at the edge of the sandbox. Every once in a while, she would run a hand through his curly brown hair. For some reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something important, and for a brief moment, she wondered if she’d left the stove on when she left her apartment that morning. It had happened once before and her roommate had called her while she was at this very park with the boys. She’d listened passively as the angry, booming voice yelled on about how she could’ve burned the whole apartment down, and then she hung up without saying a word, already tucking the conversation away in some deep corner of her mind.

Samson turned the bucket upside down and lifted it back up slowly, leaving a small, ill-shaped mound of sand in its place. It stood firm and whole for a couple of seconds before crumbling at the top. He’d never be able to recreate the sandcastles his older brother David once showed him how to make at the beach. He felt like he could cry if he wanted to – just surrender to this stray thought and let it all out.

He missed his brother dearly now. It was probably around this time of day – crisp, late afternoon, when old men sat quietly reading newspapers on benches – that he and Margaret would normally leave the park to go pick his brother up from school across town. On his favourite days, when evenings weren’t filled with David’s lessons, and when David wasn’t too tired, they would come back to the park, and David would tell Samson to cover his eyes while he buried some small thing in the sand – maybe a little candy, or a marble, or a perfectly round, beautiful stone. He would count to ten and then Samson would open his eyes and try to find the precious thing. If he succeeded, he got to keep the prize, and if he failed, it would stay buried wherever it was hidden for some other small child or animal to dig up later.

It was Samson’s favourite game, but even he knew in his little boy’s way that his brother was gone and would not be returning, and they would never be playing the game again. He’d seen it in his parents’ harrowed faces, he’d heard it in their sobs and cries. He’d watched from the staircase as they spoke in the living room, and though he couldn’t hear the policemen’s low, hushed voices, he’d seen the way his mother folded over and crumpled into his father’s shaking arms.

Margaret had been gone for a couple of months by then, banished from the house in a mess of tears and apologies and fiercely laid blame. His parents brought on someone new, but he didn’t like the new nanny nearly as much, and he knew David wouldn’t have liked her either. To her credit, she was efficient and precise, but she was also distant with no affection, and she was missing all of Margaret’s easy warmth – Margaret, who had loved them like the sons she’d always wanted but would never be able to have.

Now, Samson looked at her and smiled, grateful for her return. She was stroking his hair, staring off somewhere with a faraway look in her eyes, and things seemed almost normal. He wished his brother was hiding somewhere in the sand – that he might be able to find him with his shovel and his pail and bring him back home as the best prize of all.

“My goodness, what time is it!” Margaret cried, jerking beside him.

She was always getting lost and startling herself back into the present moment, a sudden sharpness of mind piercing through all that fog.

“Let’s get going so we’re not late for your brother.”

But when she reached out to get the boy ready, she saw the scrunched up look on his face where an excited smile should’ve been, and she slowly realized her mistake.

Everything came back in pieces – a late afternoon, just like this one, spilling over into evening as they sat in the park – Samson tugging at her skirt and saying he was cold – the sudden shock of time and place – the rush to the car and to the school – later than they’d ever been before – and when they arrived, David nowhere to be found. The frantic search around the neighbourhood, Margaret calling David’s name into the darkening sky – peeking into shops and doorways – Samson scared and tugged along, feet flying over pavement – and David gone gone gone.

A fruitless search, then piling back into the car and driving along the route he would’ve walked home – driving slowly, slowly so they couldn’t possibly miss him, eyes alert and hearts pounding over the old town roads. The sensation of falling until they got back to the house, and then hope beyond hope that they’d find him inside, even though he didn’t have a key. A thorough look through every room – in every closet, under every bed – his name echoing through the halls. A journey to the basement where he would never go – Samson crying at the settling realization that something was very wrong, and Margaret crying with him, sheer terror in her bones.

Later, a key in the lock, the front door opening, the sound of parents returning home to a missing son. They found Margaret dazed, sitting in an armchair in the living room with Samson dozing in her lap, his head pressed against her chest, a distant look in her eyes.

A gentle approach, hesitation before speaking.

“Margaret what’s wrong?” the father asked, coming closer.

“Margaret where’s David?” the mother asked, unnerved, taking Samson in her arms.

And Margaret, so lost and far away, turning to look up at them.

Uncertain fear in the eerie quiet, everyone so still it could’ve been a photograph. It was as if they’d all come to an unspoken agreement: maybe if none of them moved, what was coming next wouldn’t have to happen. Time seemed to stretch on before Margaret finally broke the spell, voice cracking:

“He wasn’t at the school.”

A slow, unwelcome realization, and then a dam breaking, a flood of new panic.

“Margaret, where’s David?” the mother asked a second time, unblinking.

The father was already walking through the rest of the house. He tried to stay calm and collected as he called, “David? David?”

There was no answer, only silence, between calls.

“Where is he!” the mother asked again, louder now.

“David? David?”

How many times had the name bounced off the walls?

“What did you do!” fear rising in her voice, Samson awake and crying softly.

“David?” the sound of feet moving quicker, up the stairs, “David?”

But David was gone, and Margaret was too. She sat frozen in the armchair, hands folded in her lap, and she watched the scene play out before her, detached, as if from the outside, from behind a glass wall. She looked at herself – at the poor, vacant woman – with an aching pity as the room seemed to grow smaller and smaller. There was nowhere to go and nowhere else to be.

She knew what would happen next, could sense it in the marrow of her bones, and she sank into a place where she could not be reached. She loved the boys with all her heart, had taken care of them since David was a baby, before Samson was even born, and now they would be ripped away from her. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t breathe.

She saw everything happening at half speed – the mother rushing to the phone in the front hall, the father racing to the car in the driveway – and she couldn’t seem to find the words to shape the strange thought ringing through her ears:

I didn’t lose him. It wasn’t me.

But she did, and now she had lost them both.

She seemed to wade half-conscious through the frenzy that followed, only barely aware of broken sentences that reached her through the ether. Somehow, with great effort, she gave her statement to the police. Somehow, through the haze, she answered every question. Somehow, in a daze, she faced every flashbulb and small-town reporter. And somehow, weeks later, she nodded helplessly in tears as the parents of the missing child threw her out of the house and told her never to return.

“Stay away from our family, you’ve done enough,” the mother hissed, and Margaret stood frozen on the steps as the door slammed shut behind her. In the kitchen, she’d seen a new, mean-looking woman holding Samson by her bosom, and something in her broke to see him in her arms. For a while, she pondered knocking on the door, begging and pleading – she couldn’t bear to lose Samson too – but in the end she decided to walk away.

Here was Samson now, tugging at her skirt, pulling her back into the present.

“Maggie, I’m cold,” he said, looking up at her.

The sky was a deep, darkening blue. Time folded in on itself. How had they gotten here? What day was it? What time? And where was David?

She needed to pick him up from school, she needed to take Samson home. But wait, not home, not back to the house with that vile woman - her replacement, she assumed - who had answered the door. That woman, that woman – now Margaret remembered. She looked down to find her blouse and skirt splattered in dirty red.

It came back to her in more pieces. She’d seen the story on the local news. They’d finally found the body, and some ferocious, deadly thing inside her suddenly woke up. She had to go get to Samson. She had to protect him – to save him – to keep him from harm. She made her way to the house in what felt like a dream. The parents weren’t home, and the mean-looking woman answered the door.

“I think you should leave,” the woman said, eyes narrowed in both contempt and disgust.

A struggle, a push, the woman falling as Margaret fought her way inside.

“Samson!” Margaret yelled, “Samson! Where are you!”

“You can’t be here!” the woman screamed, flustered, getting up.

Margaret dashing to the kitchen, the woman following behind, a tussle, a knife – the mean-looking woman seeing everything too late – a spray of quick, heavy stabs – the woman’s face drained of all meanness, her eyes wide open with new surprise – desperate clutching at her open wounds, stumbling back into the wall, then sliding down – blood all over the kitchen floor, and Margaret standing in the middle of it all, there but not there, seeing nothing but fog.

It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.

Then, light footsteps coming down the stairs and Samson calling out, “Maggie?” in his little boy’s voice.

The voice brought her back to the body in the kitchen. She threw the knife to the side and heard it clanging to the floor. She ran out and found Samson wandering in the hallway. His face lit up into a smile as she gathered him in her arms.

“My boy, my boy!” she said as she squeezed him, “Did you miss me, did you miss me?”

Samson nodded excitedly and laughed.

“I have an idea,” she said as she held him, “why don’t we go and play in the park?”

*

“Maggie, you’re hurting me,” Samson said now.

She looked down and realized she was clutching onto his wrist. He looked so cold, skin pale, and it almost made her cry.

“Can we go home now?” he asked, his hands shifting in the sand.

All the games were over now, but at least she still had her boy.

“Home?” she wondered, lifting him up into her lap. The moon cast shadows all over the empty park. She watched two birds take flight and disappear into the night sky, a familiar, faraway look in her eyes. “Yes, let’s go home.”

And as she held him close, she heard sirens in the distance.