Alex (16 page)
The boy winced.
"Just... look, you are a smart boy.
The smartest boy I know.
And you know how to read, and write.
You can show me."
Ian pointed at the board.
"I'll ask you, and you can tell me.
Plainly.
Okay?
And if you don't know the words, or how to spell them, just..."
He floundered, his palm up in front of him, grasping for ideas.
"You know, just..."
He tapped his head.
"Read me.
Can you do that?
And I'll help you."
Three years old again, eyes heavy with remorse.
"It's not a toy," he whispered, and was gone.
Ian ground his jaw, opened and clenched his fists, fought the urge to scream.
Then he grabbed the planchette and slapped it onto the board, somewhere in the middle, where there were no markings.
"Alex, this is your dad," he said in his best, no-nonsense Dad voice.
"Are you here to try to tell me something?"
He waited, eyes glued to the planchette, fighting the ridiculous urge to move it to
Yes
himself.
That's not how it was supposed to work.
"Alex, I know you can hear me.
Answer me, now.
Are you here to try to tell me something?"
Nothing.
Of course, nothing.
This was idiocy.
He waited, counted to thirty, and another question occurred to him.
"Are you just here to hurt me?
To make me sad?"
He stared at the board again, cold dread curling in his chest, certain that this time his son would respond.
"Are you just mad that Daddy let this happen to you?"
Nothing.
He'd read something on the internet once about the power of true names, so he threw that out.
"Alexander Isaiah Colmes, you need to answer me.
I won't even be upset.
I just need to
know.
"
The wind gusted outside, rattling the window and throwing the chimes on the front porch into a frenzy of mad jangles.
The planchette didn't move.
"
God dammit!
"
He hurled it; it ricocheted to the carpet in a splash of busted drywall.
"
Fuck!"
He lurched to his feet, leveled a kick at the board, missed, snatched it up, whipped it like a frisbee.
It struck a giant gouge in the wall and tottered there for a second before slipping loose to the floor.
Ian stalked across the floor, grabbed it again, and slammed it into a box over and over, screaming, "
What am I supposed to do?
What the fuck am I supposed to do?"
Chunks of cardboard exploded like confetti.
Then he lost his grip on the board and it flew backwards to glance off the ceiling.
Popcorn ceiling bits rained down.
His head roared with pain as he panted; something in his elbow had popped and now throbbed dully.
"God damn
it," he whined.
"Just
tell
me."
No answer.
He stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
He got to the junior high before Alina, for once.
He waited in the parking lot, staring at the front doors through a haze of exhaustion, wishing the ibuprofen he'd taken would do something for his headache, or his sprained elbow, or his dead son.
At ten to eight he went inside and took his seat.
He was the first one there, except for Shauna, of course.
"Hi Ian," she said brightly.
He nodded, wished he had brought a book.
"You're here early tonight!"
"Yeah," he said.
"Find a new route?"
He blinked.
"What?"
"Did you find a faster route here?"
"I - no.
No, I just left the house early."
"Oh, okay."
She smiled.
He spread his hands, annoyed.
"Is that okay?
Should I leave?"
What the fuck do you want from me?
"Oh, no, no, of course not.
The Nguyens usually get here a bit early too, they should be coming in any minute."
She continued smiling at him, and he bristled.
Finally, she said, "Well, I'd better finish setting up."
The others filtered in in pairs.
He and Alina were the only ones that ever arrived separately.
"Sorry," Alina called as she came in to the gym.
She was the last one there.
"No, no," Shauna answered.
"It's all right, you're right on time."
His wife bustled to her seat; as she took her coat off, she gave him a little smile.
On some level, he understood how important that was.
But it was buried beneath so many suffocating layers of fatigue and despair that he couldn't grasp it.
Her brief display of affection played out like a movie scene behind a thick wall of plastic wrap.
He was still trying to figure out what it meant when Shauna said, "Tonight I'd like to talk about guilt."
Ian peered at her.
"All of us feel it sometimes, and especially in these kinds of circumstances, when we've lost a dear child, it's easy to feel responsible.
We wonder if there was something else we could have done, something we could have said.
Harvey
, you're nodding.
Is there something you'd like to share?"
Harvey
shrugged, but started talking.
"Lana.
She was working late as a waitress.
I didn't like how late she was working, you know?
A couple times I even thought..."
He looked at his wife.
"I even thought, 'I don't want her out driving at that time of night.'
But I didn't say anything.
I should've.
But I didn't."
"Do you think it would have made a difference if you had?" Shauna asked.
"I don't know.
Maybe?
If she listened to me, and changed her hours, maybe she wouldn't have been at that red light at two in the morning.
And that asshole..."
In the silence, Ian's eyes slipped effortlessly closed.
When
Harvey
spoke again, they flicked back open.
"That asshole could've crashed into a fucking tree."
Shauna worked him over, trying to get him to talk about how much or how little that regret ate at him.
When she was done, she turned her attention to the Bensons, but Alina said, "We know something about that, too."
Shauna nodded, and Alina went on.
"It was Alex's first day walking home alone.
Neither one of us was there with him.
We'd shown him the way before, walked it together as a family before, but it was his first time - you know, walking it by himself.
It was really hard for us."
"She means it was really hard for me," Ian said.
He was hardly aware he had spoken.
"Ian?" Shauna said.
"What do you mean by that?"
Alina was looking at him, but he didn't look back.
"I mean that we're really just here for me.
I'm the one that can't just put this behind me and move on with my life like I'm supposed to.
I'm the one that's always wondering how far he was from the house when he got grabbed, or why we had to make him walk it
that day
,
that fucking day
of all days, when that crazy...
fucker
was driving around.
I'm the one.
We're here for me."
That buried part of him was surprised at what he'd said; was sending up alarms.
He ignored it and jerked his thumb toward Alina.
"She was good to go the day after we heard he was dead."
The Bensons recoiled from his words; the Nguyens' faces remained carefully neutral.
Alina whispered something, but Shauna spoke over her.
"I doubt that, Ian.
I think it would be best if we each speak only for ourselves."
He nodded -
Fine, sure, yeah -
and lifted his hands in surrender, but then he said, "Okay, speaking for myself,
I
wouldn't have let him walk home alone yet.
I
didn't think he was ready.
I
was scared shitless."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Alina's face flicker between something like a smirk and a grimace.
"He would've been going to Kindergarten in September, Ian," she hissed.
"He had to learn how to walk home by himself, we
talked
about that, we
both
decided -"
"I would've picked him up every day at school for the rest of my life if it would've kept him safe," Ian snarled.
"Every.
Fucking.
Day."
"All right," Shauna said.
"Let's all just take a quick break."
"And you think I wouldn't?" Alina lashed back.
"You think I... what, that I
planned
this?
You think I
wanted
this to happen?"
"You knew I wasn't comfortable with it!"
Ian snapped.
A long, tearing pain started behind his left eye and wormed slowly toward the nape of his neck.
His eyelid spasmed uncontrollably.
"You did it anyway!
You didn't care what I -"
"If you thought it was so goddamned important -"
"- thought, because
you
knew better, you always -"
"- why the hell didn't you just take matters into your own hands -"
"Ian, Alina, please -"
"- know better than me, how the fuck can I know anything, I didn't even have a dad -"
"- and
save
him, since you knew what would happen!"
"- so why fucking listen to Ian?
Why fucking listen to anything I say?
Just a dumb piece of shit -"
"
Please,
both of you, this isn't helping!"
Alina leapt to her feet, her face burning.
Her coat slid to the floor and he suddenly realized why she had been sitting with it on her lap at these meetings.
She was trying to hide her stomach.
Oh god.
His mouth slapped shut.
His eyes searched her livid face like he could find the words there and take them back.
Her mouth worked in silence; her whole body seemed to quiver with wounded rage.
But finally she snatched up her purse and her coat and stalked out, in silence.
"Alina!"
He bounded out of his chair, caught up to her in the hallway and grabbed her arm.
"I'm sorry, I'm not -"
"
Get off me!
" she screamed.
He stumbled backward, and she banged through the door and into the night.
He called her four times in the car on the way home.
Each time, when the voicemail picked up, he disconnected and tried again.
At the house he stalked from the living room into the dining room and back again, a tiger pacing its cage.
God, why couldn't he shut up?
She didn't deserve anything he'd said to her.
Why couldn't he just
shut up
?
He tried again to call her.
This time, he left a message.
"Alina, I'm so sorry.
I didn't mean anything I said.
I know I really screwed up.
I just... I'm... I haven't slept well in days, I can't sleep, and I just wasn't thinking.
I wasn't thinking at all.
Please call me.
Please.
I love you."
