The Bigfoot in the Room

Sensitive content: grief, mental health, mention of death

Rodney came racing out of the forest toward the cake that I’d just brought out of the house, and all I could think was, ‘Don’t you dare run into that cake,’ not ‘why are you running at us,’ but about the cake.

The damn cake was a special order that I’d commissioned four months ago for this damn birthday party. The cake was an entire racetrack with the most detailed little vehicles from the movie, Cars, placed all over the top. It was a sculpted masterpiece really; it would be a shame to eat it in a few minutes.

The children played and shouted and screeched, running around the yard. They hadn’t seen Rodney yet.

But Rodney was barreling toward us. The children unsuspecting, unworried.

“Annie, I swear to god!” He was screaming. “I saw him! I saw him!”

I sighed and forced a smile on to my face. “Sure you did, Rod.”

He was too far away to hear me, but the kids had definitely heard him and his screaming.

“Bigfoot!” Rodney’s arms and legs flailed as he close in on the birthday party full of ten-year-olds.

The children started screaming, hitting decibel levels that would definitely trigger a migraine later. Rodney hopped the chainlink fence into our backyard and kept running full-tilt. He was dangerously close to the cake.

He stopped directly in front of the table with the cake.

I stood on the other side of the table; my muscles slowly uncoiled, letting go of their readied stance. I watched him stand there, panting, pointing toward the woods, then looking around at the birthday party in full swing.

Upon catching his breath, his demeanor deflated. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m late.”

I nodded. “Liam and I got the party set up.”

He frowned. “Liam helped you get his own party set up?”

I raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “Who else was going to help me?”

Rodney opened and closed his mouth a few times before quietly nodding. “Right. Sorry.”

The children had calmed down once they saw the adults weren’t freaking out. They’d moved on from the Bigfoot scare to their game of chasing each other.

He bounced on the balls of his feet a little, licking his lips. “It was for a good reason.”

With a deep exhale, I went back into the house to grab the giant knife to cut the cake. I left it in the sheath and carried it back outside, where I found Rodney eyeballing the cake.

“Damn. It looks great.”

Liam was bouncing toward us. “Aunt Annie, is it time for cake yet?”

“Almost,” I said. “We’re about to sing you happy birthday, is that okay?”

“Can we skip that? It’s for little kids.” He looked worried and then glanced at the other kids. “I don’t want them to think I’m a baby.”

My brow furrowed. “Oh. Sure. If you don’t want to do that, then that’s okay.”

“Okay!” He hurried back to his friends.

At ten years old, he was absolutely still a baby, but maybe only by my standards. I sighed and looked at Rodney.

I stared at him for a moment. I could see him itching to tell me about his damn forest excursion. I pressed my lips together, swallowing the harsh words bubbling up. Instead, I said, “We’ll talk about whatever you think you saw after the party, okay?”

“Okay.” He nodded and looked around. “Um, is there anything I can do to help?”

“If you can get the kids rounded up and ready for cake, that would be good.” I was racking my brain for alternatives to singing happy birthday since Liam didn’t want that.

He nodded and clapped his hands, turning to the kids.

Once the kids were collected, I handed out cake, having figured out how to wish Liam a happy birthday without a song. Everyone shouted, ‘Happy birthday, Liam!’ As loud as they could. Ten times because he was ten years old. The children were in a fit of giggles by the end of it, ready for more sugar to keep things going.

While they ate their cake and ice cream, Rodney’s energy was palpable. He fidgeted on his phone, tapped the table, and kept glancing out at the woods. The kids were talking about amongst themselves, occupied by cake.

“Just tell me now,” I said, quietly.

He shook his head. “Nah, it can wait.”

His leg bounced up and down. He scanned the group of kids before us at the long, fold-out table we’d placed a checkered tablecloth over. “Don’t wanna scare anyone.”

I bit back a laugh. He’d been scaring me since his sister had died and we’d wound up with her kid, Liam, in our care. Ever since the accident, he’d been researching Bigfoot while I’d been doing paperwork, researching schools and childcare, and generally pursuing the internet for how to raise a kid. He knew what Bigfoot tracks looked like, and I knew that kids grew fast and we’d go through a lot of clothes in a short amount of time.

After the party, Liam was tired enough that he took a nap. With the rare shared downtime, I didn’t want to spend it arguing with Rodney about Bigfoot and Liam, but I was also fed up with feeling like I’d gotten stuck taking care of our nephew on my own so he could chase some nonexistent myth.

While I got Liam settled for his nap, Rodney had rolled out his Bigfoot sightings map on the kitchen table. He was adding a new sticker to it when I walked into the room.

He looked up, his eyes shining with excitement.

I sighed and rubbed my temples. “Look, we need to talk about this Bigfoot situation.”

“I know! I can’t believe I saw Bigfoot again! I can’t believe it.” He motioned to the map. “We’ve been really lucky since moving here. He’s really active in this area.”

“Rodney,” I said. My voice felt strangled. “That isn’t what I meant.”

He ignored me and continued looking at the map and checking it against something on his phone screen. “Look, this could be a real breakthrough for the community. I’ve been posting the pictures I’ve been able to get.”

He swiped through several photos from a camera he’d installed in the woods. The nighttime footage was in a fuzzy black and white. A person-shaped figure was wandering through the woods in the photos. The face wasn’t visible, they were wearing human clothes, and looked like very much like a person who was just wandering in the woods at night.

He pulled his phone away from my view. “I posted these in the Bigfoot forum. People are going nuts.”

He laughed and shook his head. “This is really thrilling.”

I looked at him looking at his phone and then at the map sprawled out on the kitchen table. I blinked several times and shook my head. “Let me know if Liam wakes up. I’m going to go lie down. I’ve got a migraine coming on.”

He nodded. “Okay, will do. Sorry your head hurts.”

I headed to the bedroom and settled into the bed. Once I was wrapped up in the blankets and sheets, I stared at the ceiling. My head didn’t hurt, but my heart did. Liam had lost his mother, Rodney had lost his sister, and I had to deal with both of them and their grief. None of us were okay.

Liam had to see a child psychologist over all of this. Maybe Rodney and I should be seeing therapists, too.

I stared at the bedroom door, willing Rodney to come lie down with me, to kiss me like he used to, before Liam and Bigfoot took up all of our time. I swallowed and tightened the blankets around me. I felt cold, but my insides were on fire with rage. I wanted to tell him Bigfoot wasn’t real, to scream at him, demand that he take care of Liam with me. I wanted to break things and yell, anything to snap him out of whatever this Bigfoot situation was, to scare him like he was scaring me.

I wasn’t equipped to tell Rodney Bigfoot wasn’t real, how could I possibly tell him we needed to seek therapy?

Maybe my head did hurt.

I rolled over and hoped for sleep.