Adam’s Alibi
Jennifer M. Seco
For mother’s sake the child was dear,
and dearer was the mother for the child. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Shannon Greene sits on her bedroom floor with her back against the door. She sits much like her son’s marionette thrown on the floor haphazardly awaiting animation by his hands. It is only when she finally lifts her hands to her face, one would notice there are no strings attached, but the movement seems to shock Shannon herself. Her hands touch her face as though she is amazed she is not made of wood, but in fact alive and capable of human emotions. She lowers her hands and lays them across her pounding heart and clutches her chest. She slowly unlocks the necklace that bears a cross from around her neck and surrenders it to the floor in defeat. She hears the water from the shower begin to beat against the tile wall in the room next door. The sound seems to hypnotize her.
As her eyes slowly close and her head lowers, she begins to whisper, “When was it? Where? “Her head darts up believing she has found the smoking gun. She gets up and starts rummaging through her bedroom closet to retrieve a box on the top shelf.
“It’s here.” She smiles behind falling tears only to wipe them away quickly. Shannon slowly opens the box to reveal a collection of old photo albums. She opens the pale blue colored leather one with her son’s name engraved on the cover. She lifts the old book to her nose and deeply breathes in the smell of old memories. Shannon has always loved the smell of leather, especially old leather. She slowly opens the book and finds a series of old birthday photos. She quickly flips to the back to see the last birthday pictures taken: Adam’s 16th birthday. Adam is smiling and holding the keys to his mother’s old Buick. Adam was in the tenth grade and in the honors program. He never really played a lot of sports. Adam was never really athletic, but inherited his mother’s small frame. Adam quickly began lifting weights after this birthday and transformed his body. Adam looks grown up in this picture, but still innocent. His eyes hold secrets, and his chin is nicked by his first shaving attempts, but still so pure.
Shannon turns another page towards the front cover. Adam’s 13th birthday: he is sitting in front of his birthday present, his first computer. He is staring at the screen pretending to pound on the keys like Beethoven’s 5th symphony is being orchestrated. Adam was always into computers and technology. This is the birthday he becomes a teenager; this is the year he begins to keep secrets from his mother. This is the year he will be making his own memories apart from her. Coaxing it to tell her his secrets, Shannon slowly caresses the page as she repeats, “When was it... Where?” She turns another page.
Adam’s 10th birthday was celebrated among neighborhood kids. James Stanfield and Luke Wells are pictured on each side of Adam as he blows out the candles on his cake. James and Luke were his two closest friends, but stopped coming around shortly after this day. Luke moved to Ohio and James grew angry at Adam. Even though Adam never tells his mother why; Shannon believes she knows. Shannon is right, but fails to see it in this picture and moved on to the next.
Adam’s 7th birthday was celebrated with his cousins from Dallas. This was one of the few times the whole family got together and one of the last. Adam’s birthday was a cops and robbers theme complete with toy cap guns and fake handcuffs. In one of the pictures, Adam bears a mischievous grin because he has the sheriff handcuffed to a chair with a cap gun to his head. Adam was always the robber, and he never got caught.
Adam’s 5th birthday was a neighborhood friends and family barbeque. The smell of burgers still lingers on this page. One of the only pictures of Adam’s father is taken on this day next to the grill. Adam’s father left with the blonde hair, blue-eyed woman standing next to him in the photograph. She was Adam’s babysitter until he was 6 and his father’s future wife. She will bear his father three new children, two girls and one boy to replace the one he left behind. Adam is standing between the two holding a spatula and wearing a kiss the cook apron. He has a smile that Shannon hasn’t seen since this photo was taken. His smile is so large that one could carry a lifetime of boyhood mischief on one end. He looks completely happy, even though his perfect smile is missing his first baby tooth. Adam will be visited by the tooth fairy later that evening.
Adams 1st birthday wasn’t much. The only picture is of Adam crying, angry for having to wear a hideous birthday hat. The hat has a rubber band that lies beneath Adam’s chin. Adam clearly does not like it. His first cake is smashed in his angry fists, and red icing is smeared across the table and his face. The party ended shortly after this shot. Shannon has reached the first page of the album.
“Here it is.” Shannon whispers, “This is it.” Adam’s birthday: July 4th, 1980. Shannon is holding Adam against her chest, as they both let out their first cry together, and let in their first breaths. Adam was two months premature and has been fighting to keep up ever since. He barely weighs 5 pounds. The other picture taken on this day is of the nurse taking Adam back to the NICU. This is the first time Adam was taken from his mother. “This is it,” she repeats. Shannon believes she has found the picture that holds all the answers. Where and when did she go wrong and this was it. She should have fought harder for Adam. She should have held him a little longer and maybe…
“Mom, are you awake?” Shannon was awaken from her hypnosis and realized that the water was no longer beating on the tile wall next door and heard that Adam was now at her door. She put the picture of her and the nurse in her pocket and decided to hide this revelation from Adam. He needn’t know, she thought. She opened the door, and put on the smile that Adam had grown to find comfort in, “Yes, Adam, my son?”
“Say I’m really hungry.”
“What would you like?”
“I would love some of your meatloaf.”
“Then meatloaf it shall be”
She looked down at Adam’s hands and back up to his face. When Adam first arrived at her door today his hands were smeared red like his first birthday and his eyes held more secrets than his 16th. He just looked at his mother with the same mischievous grin of his 7th and sternly spoke, “Mom, if anyone asks, when they ask, I’ve been here since 5 p.m. yesterday. We had dinner and I fell asleep in the guest room.” He proceeds to enter the shower and leave Shannon to pick up the pieces. Shannon pretends not to know what it all means. Shannon was never really good at puzzles. She still looks at Adam as the robber who never gets caught and not like the boy that made James Stanfield angry. Shannon will ignore the news reports of a missing blonde hair, blue-eyed college student found murdered at a park. Just like she ignored James’s “lost cat” signs that she saw after she discovered a slaughtered cat in her backyard three days after Adam’s 10th birthday.
Shannon begins to mix the recipe for her famous meatloaf and smiles to herself. This time she will fight harder for Adam. This time no one will separate a mother from her son. She taps the pocket that contains the smoking gun photo. And when “they” come to ask, whoever “they” shall be, Shannon will say, “I am Adam’s mother. I am Adam’s alibi.”