Here is a free sample of PANS for your reading pleasure!
Chapter 1
“Michael! Get your butt down here now!” Steven’s voice had a definite edge to it. His father was not happy with Michael keeping them waiting.
Michael turned off the water and dried his hands. He looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t even look like himself anymore. The dark eyes that stared back at him were hollow. His brown hair, previously just to his earlobes, was now long enough to screen his face. His hands were red and chapped. “I’m coming, I’m coming! I was just washing my hands,” he called back.
“You’ve been in the bathroom for ten minutes. It doesn’t take that long to wash your hands.”
Maybe it didn’t take Steven that long, but half the time he didn’t even wash his hands at all before eating. Which was disgusting. Michael counted the stairs as he went down. Three steps, turn, eight steps, turn, two steps. Thirteen. He wished that he didn’t live in a house with thirteen steps. Hadn’t the builders stopped to think about that? About thirteen being odd, prime, and unlucky? Who built a house with thirteen stairs? But he knew better than to suggest to his parents that they needed to get the staircase rebuilt or move to another, more suitable house. Maybe one with ten or twelve stairs. Either would be acceptable. Or to a house with no stairs at all. No counting, no trouble.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, there was an empty feeling in his stomach. Not right.
“You guys can start without me,” he pointed out. “You don’t have to wait for me to get to the table. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“What do you mean you’ll be here in a minute?” Steven demanded, scowling at Michael. “Sit down now.”
But Michael had already turned around to climb the stairs.
“I just forgot something. Just go ahead. You don’t have to wait.”
He counted them again as he went up. One two, turn, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, turn, eleven, twelve, thirteen. He took a deep breath, checked his stomach, and went down again.
Thirteen steps again. Twenty-six in total. Twenty-six was a much nicer, friendlier number. More open. Even. Divisible by two. He stopped at the bottom. Still not right.
Steven was sitting waiting impatiently at the table. Bryn, his mother, and Sarah, his younger sister, both with identical brown shoulder-length hair and heart-shaped faces, looked back at him, waiting more patiently but still with some irritation.
“Come on. Sit down. You know that we have family dinner together every night,” Steven insisted. “This is how we stay close together. We check in with each other every night. Have a nice dinner conversation. Spend some uninterrupted time with each other.”
“Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t start dishing up before I get to the table.”
Michael started up the stairs again. “I think I left the water on. Hang on a sec. Just start without me.”
He swiftly climbed the stairs again.
“Michael!” Sarah wailed.
Michael expected his father to tell him just to leave the tap and sit down with them, but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t want water left running in the house. Even a drip made him crazy.
When he reached the top of the stairs, Michael went into his bedroom instead of the bathroom and picked up his phone. He slid it into his pocket and returned to the stairs. Thirteen more. Thirty-nine.
He had known that would not be the right number. What kind of a number was Thirty-nine? Odd again. He couldn’t land on an odd number. And all of the threes. Three tens and three threes. Terrible. But he walked over to the table and took his seat. As he sat down with his family, he pulled out his phone and set it beside his plate to check his socials while he ate.
“No screens at the table,” Bryn chided. “This is family time.”
“I just wanted to check whether—”
“No screens at the table. You know the rules.”
Michael slid it back into his pocket.
“No,” Bryn told him. “Leave it in your bedroom.”
“But you wanted me to come to the table. You said you had to wait, and I was holding everyone up.”
She wasn’t the one who had gotten after him, but it had been in her eyes, and he was using “you” in the plural, and including her because the rule was also hers and she enforced it even if Steven was not there.
“Put it in your room. You know better than to bring it to the table.”
With a dramatic sigh, Michael arose and climbed the stairs again, put his phone back on his dresser, square with the edges, and walked down thirteen more stairs.
Fifty-two. Not quite as nice as fifty, but he couldn’t exactly skip two stairs. It felt better. He could live with fifty-two. He blew out his breath. Okay.
He sat back down at the table, and everyone immediately began to dish up, passing the bowls around family-style and filling their plates. Michael took a little bit from each dish and placed it on his plate, arranging them carefully clockwise and evenly spaced. Steven looked at his plate and nodded his approval as Michael took some of everything, even the peas, which his parents both knew he hated. Why did they even get peas for family dinners when they knew he didn’t like them? Why not offer a choice between peas and another vegetable, instead of forcing him to eat something he hated?
Michael poured himself a glass of milk as his mother launched into a narration about her day and how difficult life at the office was. She had a boss who expected too much of her, fellow employees who were rude or gossipy, and others who kept to themselves, so she never knew what they were thinking.
Michael drank a few swallows of milk and set the glass down. His angry, anxious, empty stomach was happy to have something in it. It had been too long since lunch. Michael pushed the peas around, hiding them under the potatoes. He mashed some potatoes until they were practically liquid and swallowed a bite.
It seemed to catch in his throat as it went down. He was afraid it was going to lodge there, and he would be unable to breathe. He would need the Heimlich maneuver. Did anyone in his family know how to do it properly? He knew Bryn had been trained in first aid, but was her certification up-to-date? Had she actually performed the Heimlich or just demonstrated that she knew how to do it in theory? What if it didn’t work and they had to take him to the hospital? What if they had to intubate him? Or make a hole in his windpipe?
He didn’t like hospitals. He didn’t want to have to go back there.
The swallow of potatoes reached his stomach safely without choking him. He took another swallow of milk just to be sure.
He had never liked milk. It had always been a big fight for Steven and Bryn to convince him to drink his three glasses a day. If they weren’t watching, sometimes he could get away with less. But now, with the fear of choking stuck in his brain, it was easier to drink milk than to eat all his food.
He pushed food around some more. Tried to hide the bits of chicken. Had a couple more swallows of liquefied potatoes. When everyone had finished using the salt and pepper, he sprinkled some on his food, then adjusted the shakers so they were directly in front of him, with the salt on the left and the pepper on the right.
“Eat up,” Bryn encouraged, looking at Michael’s plate. “Did you eat junk food before supper?”
“No.”
She frowned, not believing it. “If you are going to have a snack, it needs to be right after school so it doesn’t take away your appetite for supper. And it needs to be a healthy snack. Carrots, apples, something like that. Not chips or pop or fast food.”
“I didn’t have anything,” Michael snapped angrily. “I just told you!”
“I understand it is a long time between lunch and supper, and you’re a growing boy. You’re going to burn off a lot of calories, especially on gym days.”
“I didn’t have a snack,” Michael insisted, raising his voice.
Sarah looked at him wide-eyed, her little chin trembling, not liking his yelling at their mom.
“Then why can’t you finish your meal?” Steven challenged.
“Maybe I don’t like it,” Michael growled.
He didn’t say that he didn’t like it—that would have been rude. He just said maybe he didn’t like it. It was a reason. It could have been his reason. It wasn’t, but it could have been.
“You don’t like it?” Bryn demanded. “Since when don’t you like chicken and mashed potatoes?”
“I just don’t want it, okay?” Michael’s brain exploded, and he was on fire.
He jumped to his feet, seeing red, knocking things over. He didn’t care what he knocked down. He didn’t care if it was out of place. He didn’t care whether it was something that belonged to him or his parents or if it was precious and broke on the floor.
“Will you just leave me alone? Why is everything I do wrong? And everything I don’t do? I could be the perfect kid, and you would still find some way to criticize me! You don’t harass Sarah like that, and she isn’t perfect!”
“Michael!” Steven and Bryn both reprimanded at the same time.
“I don’t want this!” Michael flipped the edge of his plate, sending the food flying and the plate crashing to the floor. “I don’t want anything. Just leave me alone! Okay? Just lock me in my room and leave me alone!”
He stomped toward the stairs, prepared to push and kick anything that blocked his path.
“You go to your room,” Steven agreed in a snarl. “Think about the way you are behaving. There is no need for this drama. And you stay there until one of us comes up to talk to you.”
Sarah was crying. Michael felt bad about that in a distant way, but the anger that was coursing through his veins wouldn’t allow him to really feel anything else. The fire, the lightning in his brain, took over, and he couldn’t help that it all came pouring out, and the people he cared about the most were the ones to take the brunt of it.
Michael pounded up the stairs to his bedroom and slammed the door so hard that it rattled all the paintings on the walls and the china figurines in their nooks. He threw himself face down on his bed and screamed into his pillow. He pounded the pillow and mattress with his fists, trying to expel all of the rage storming through his brain without everyone else in the family hearing it.
Chapter 2
There was a stunned silence after Michael slammed his door, and they heard the bed bang into the wall as he dove into it. Bryn looked around the table, afraid to meet Sarah’s or Steven’s eyes. She wished it were possible just to turn off her concern over Michael’s behavior and continue with the dinner calmly as if nothing had happened. If he was going to have a teenage tantrum, let him. The rest of them would continue and have a pleasant meal and evening without him.
But she couldn’t. Her emotions were always wrapped up in her kids’ feelings. Steven seemed to find it much easier to pull back and view everything dispassionately. For Bryn, that was impossible. She couldn’t count the number of times her babies’ cries had brought her to tears. It did not happen as often now that they were older, but she still had such a tender heart, it was impossible to ignore their pain and frustration.
Problems over homework, bullying at school, disappointments in life, they all brought her to tears. She criticized herself for being so fragile—she was such a baby. How could she find her way through adult life if she broke down and cried every time one of her children was upset?
“It’s okay, Bryn,” Steven reassured, reaching out and touching Bryn’s hand tentatively. “He’s just being a teenager. You remember what it was like; all of those emotions.”
Remember? Bryn was still living it every time her hormones cycled and the dark specter of PMS grabbed her by the throat. Yes, she knew what it was like to be furious over nothing. A tiny mistake or slight from someone else felt like the end of the world. She knew what it was like to be a slave to her hormones and could empathize with Michael.
Sarah was sniffling, bravely trying to look like she wasn’t upset by the incident and to carry on. She poked at her potatoes, sniffling, a single tear running down her face.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Bryn stood and hugged her daughter comfortingly. “It’s okay. Dad’s right. Michael is just being a teenager. He doesn’t mean any of those things he says, and he doesn’t realize how much it upsets everyone when he has a tantrum like this. He’s just… letting his emotions get the better of him. It’s one of those things you have to learn as you get older. How to master your emotions.” She sniffled and gave a little smile. “Like I’ve learned to do, you know?”
They both laughed. Sarah wiped the tear from her cheek.
“It really scares me and hurts when he talks and behaves like that.”
“Yes, I know. I’m really sorry that he’s been so… disruptive lately.” Bryn dug a crumpled tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. She looked at Steven. “Do you think he’s fighting a virus or something like that? He’s always been so emotional when he’s about to come down with something.”
“Could be,” Steven grunted. He took a few bites of his meal, but clearly wasn’t enjoying it. He looked at the chaos Michael had left behind. “Let’s get this cleaned up. Maybe when it is all tidied away, we’ll feel better.”
They started to pick up the cutlery and crockery that Michael had dashed to the floor. Bryn went into the kitchen to get the broom and dustpan to clean up the food, then she would have to mop the floor to get the rest. When she returned to the dining table, Sarah was sniffling again—or still—and looking down at a smashed saltshaker in her hand. “This was my favorite,” she sobbed, “We had these ever since I was a baby!”
It was clearly beyond repair. Bryn sighed. “Put it in the garbage. You and I can go out and shop for something nice to replace it at the kitchen store. You love that place. Maybe we can find cats or cows or something like that.”
“Cows,” Sarah giggled and sniffled. “That would be funny.”
“We’ll see what we can find,” Bryn promised.
They tidied and cleaned the table and the floor until everything was spick-and-span. Bryn took a bite of potatoes before sitting down and found them cold.
“Do you want to warm yours up?” she asked Sarah and Steven. “It’s getting cold.”
“I don’t care.” Sarah sat back down and started in on her meal with more appetite this time.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Steven said.
Bryn took his plate and walked into the kitchen with them both. Steven followed her. As the microwave hummed and the turntable inside groaned, Bryn spoke.
“I don’t know what to do with him. This is getting out of control. I think it is more than just normal teenage angst. He needs some help, and I don’t think we can do it alone.”
“As you said, maybe he is coming down with something.”
“Maybe. Michael always did get super grumpy and ragey when he was little. Even just a cold would send him into a spiral where he would be tired and crying and hitting things in anger all at the same time.”
And sometimes the things he hit were not inanimate objects. Funny when he was a little tyke. Not so funny now when he had shot up and was growing stronger, more like an adult.
“You could take him to the clinic if it doesn’t blow over soon,” Steven said, as if taking a child to the doctor was solely her job, not something he needed to participate in.
“But it isn’t something that just came up in the last week,” Bryn pointed out, arguing against her own hypothesis. “It’s been developing over months, getting worse and worse. And sometimes it’s worse when you’re not here.”
“Worse than this?” He made a gesture that included both the dining room and Michael’s bedroom upstairs.
“Yeah. Sometimes. When he has to get ready for school in the morning?” She shook her head. “It is excruciating. Up and down the stairs. Forgetting everything. Trying to get him to choose an outfit… he has to try everything on, it all ends up on the floor. School is starting in five minutes, and he is still trying on his clothes. Forget getting showered and his hair combed in the morning. Sometimes I can get him to comb his hair and put on deodorant. He has to shower after school, because he just can’t get it together in the morning.”
“Well, that’s a good compromise,” Steven pointed out. “There’s no law that he has to shower in the morning. As long as he’s getting it done at some point.”
“I know. I just wish it weren’t so hard. I know the teenage years are hard. That’s what everyone says. But Michael was such a challenge as a kid, getting sick so often; I was kind of hoping that things would be easier when he grew up.”
“He’s not grown up yet. He would like to be, but he’s not.”
“Yeah.” The microwave beeped. Bryn took her meal out, now too hot to handle the plate, so she just slid it out onto the counter and replaced it with Steven’s. She started it heating and rubbed her eyes and forehead. “Why couldn’t it be easy?”
“You’re the one who wanted to have kids,” he joked.
Bryn was careful not to reply with anything that Sarah might overhear. She didn’t regret having kids. Not really. Raising them was just a really tough job, and she sometimes got discouraged.
They sat back down at the table and tried to carry on a normal conversation, asking Sarah about school and what she had done during the day. When they were finished eating, Sarah gave Bryn a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“I love you, Mommy,” Sarah told her.
“I love you too, sweetie. And I know Michael loves us, too. He’s just going through a hard time right now. He’ll get better.”
“I hope so. I don’t like it when he’s like this.”
“I know. You love him and look up to him and it’s hard to see him being so… unhappy and angry.”
“Yeah.”
“Well…” Bryn steeled herself. “I guess I’d better go have a talk with him.”
Steven gravitated toward the TV. “I just want to watch the news, and then I brought some work home with me that I need to tackle.”
“Do you have any homework, Sarah?” Bryn asked.
“No. Just reading my book.”
“Have a cuddle with Daddy, then, and he’ll help you with any hard parts.” She looked at Steven to make sure he heard this and would pay attention to Sarah, rather than shooing her off if she asked for help. Steven gave a sort of half-nod, half-shrug and fell into his easy chair. He reached for the remote. Sarah picked up her pink backpack from the bench next to the front door and got out her book. She climbed into his lap and opened the book. The TV turned on.
I hope you enjoyed this sample of
PANS, Medical Kidnap Files #8
By P.D. Workman
