Fiction from Stephen Tuttle

Ransom

We paid because what choice did we have? Mom signed the papers on the mortgage and emptied the savings account and collected what she could from family. At the credit union, they turned all that money into a wire transfer and then, zip, it was nothing more than a thin receipt. After that, we waited two long weeks before news came that Dad was on his way home. Everyone in town chipped in to make things nice for him. They hung banners on Main Street and tied ribbons to every mailbox. As we drove home, Dad now with us, people waved from their freshly swept sidewalks and newly mown lawns. In the days that followed, no one said anything about how frail Dad looked or how he hobbled. At home, he limped around on a single crutch, tilting his head at things like a dog to unknown noises. He spent hours in front of the curio cabinet, marveling at porcelain figurines and collectible spoons. He pulled books from the shelf and admired their spines. He took cups and plates from the kitchen, stacking and unstacking them like they held some sort of magic. More than once, we found him lying face down in the living room, his arms and legs splayed wide, his fingers grasping the decades-old carpet. For weeks after, if something caught his attention, he made a clicking sound with his tongue. But a car horn or a slammed door could make him cower, and he shook for fear when anyone raised their voice. We weren’t about to complain at the way things had changed: the way he cried all the time, the way he ate with his hands. We were just so glad to have him home. If he had changed, if he seemed to see the world as a place of dangerous wonder, he also watched us in a way that felt new and important. Like he really saw us. We felt now that when we had his attention, we had all of it.
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Stephen Tuttle‘s fiction and prose poetry have appeared in The Nation, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.