Alex (31 page)
He stopped mid-sentence, reread the paragraph, and grimaced.
Then he deleted it and started over.
Alina -
I've been having dreams about Leroy Eston.
He keeps telling Alex that he is going to kill his parents.
Then Alex tells me that only Mr. Tuskers can keep us safe. I know it sounds stupid, but I don't want you to be hurt.
I unpacked Mr. Tuskers and would like you to keep him close.
His nostrils were flaring as he finished the sentence.
Stupid.
Pure fucking stupid.
He deleted this paragraph too.
The old Crazy voice tried to tell him that there was no point in even doing this.
He had had an anxiety attack, nothing more or less, and digging out his son's old animal had helped to calm him down.
There had been more hallucinations too, of course.
But there was no need to get the toy to Alina.
There was no need to try to keep her safe, because all of this was in his head.
But Haunting said something else.
Haunting said that Eston had promised to kill
both
Alex's parents - and if Alex's protection was keeping Ian safe, then it left Alina vulnerable.
He stared at the screen, paralyzed.
The instants dripped past like sand grains in an hourglass.
Alina could be getting attacked right now.
Eston could be choking her, like he'd choked Ian.
Maybe her father was calling 911, if he was even home, or maybe she was lying on the floor, face slowly draining -
Ian couldn't take that chance.
But she wouldn't just accept the toy.
She would think it was just another sign of his craziness.
"Dammit," he hissed.
His fingertips quivered above the keyboard.
The situation was impossible.
If he hadn't been such an ass to her, if she still trusted him
- or had a willingness to humor him - like she used to....
But she didn't.
He had ruined it.
God damn it.
They should have been going through this
together.
His heart twisted, and he started writing.
Alina -
I'm so sorry I hurt you.
I didn't mean to.
I wish I could have been stronger about this.
You needed me as badly as I needed you, and while I leaned on you so hard you nearly broke, I gave you nothing back.
I see that now, and I want to change it.
I said terrible things that must have killed you to hear.
They weren't true.
They weren't fair.
I would take them back if I could, and I wish to god I could.
I'm not asking you to come back.
I know I can't.
I just wanted you to know that I understand, now.
If you do ever want to call, and talk about Alex, I think I can do that now.
We don't have to dance around it anymore.
You've dealt with it much better than I did, to your credit, but I know you are still hurting, at least as bad as I am.
I don't want you to have to go through it alone anymore.
I've done some things to try to come to terms.
I've been dreaming about Alex, a lot.
Good times, and bad times both.
Some dreams about how he might have been hurt.
But also dreams about reading books at night, or about playing hide and seek, or sitting on the couch watching Law And Order :)
They've helped.
Yeah, they make me miss him even harder.
But they also make me think that just maybe he doesn't hate me, wherever he is.
If he can forgive me maybe I can forgive myself.
I'm trying.
I've also set up some appointments with a doctor that Shauna recommended.
I'm going to be seeing him once a week.
And today I finally went through Alex's things.
I know we went through them together, but I wasn't ready then.
I was ready today.
It really hurt, but I went through all the boxes in his room.
I'm ready to get rid of most of it, but I saved two things: Mr. Tuskers and Mowsalot.
I was hoping you could take one, and I'd keep the other.
If by some miracle you are ever able to forgive me, maybe our next child could get them both.
If not, we will each have something to remember our family by.
I'm sorry to drop it off in the middle of the night like this.
I know it's weird.
I just felt like it was important to finish this task, and I don't want to leave it until the morning.
I've been putting it off too long.
I love you.
- Ian
He printed the letter, folded it up, and wrote her name on it.
He'd told a lot of lies in it.
But somehow, at the same time, it was the most honest of the tries he'd made.
Outside, the night sky was one of those endless winter slates: grey and featureless in the haze of the streetlamps.
His breath curled from his lips in short, fierce bursts.
Halfway down the sidewalk, he stopped.
It had sounded like Eston was killed in Alex's room, but his threats against Alina had been too pointed to ignore.
That was why Ian was bringing the toy to her father's house now.
But if he left Tuskers with Alina, what would keep Eston from coming after Ian again?
"Fuck," he muttered, chewing it over, trying to figure out a way to make it work.
Nothing came to him.
I could keep Tuskers, just until Alex is gone
, he thought.
But what if Eston went after Alina before that?
Or -
Oh god.
If Eston could make Ian have a heart attack, how easy would it be to kill their baby?
The thought left him pale and shaking.
No.
If it meant letting Eston kill him, so be it.
But he would rather that than risk any harm to his wife or his second child.
He would kill
himself
if he had to before he would allow Eston to hurt another of his children.
He finished his walk to the car.
As he grabbed at the door handle he thought of the other toy Alex had always slept with.
Mowsalot.
Not the guardian against monsters and bad animals - that had been Tuskers.
But still a powerful symbol, at least.
A well-loved companion.
Ian had used to give it a voice, in the dark when Alex couldn't see his mouth moving.
"Good night, Alex!
I love you!"
"Oh, Alex, I missed you today!
Will you give me a hug?"
He glanced down at Mr. Tuskers, whose beady eyes glinted righteousness in the lamplight.
The cat wouldn't be as good.
But shit, it was worth a shot.
He pulled out twenty minutes later, Mowsalot and Tuskers perched importantly in the passenger seat.
He drove carefully, watching the limit and the road, on guard for a sudden jerk of the wheel, or a slip of his foot, or an abrupt traffic light change that would put him in the path of an onrushing semi.
It didn't happen.
Ham
Lake
was nearly an hour's drive from
Hopkins
, especially driving cautiously as he was, but his vigilance and fear for his wife kept him awake.
He hadn't been to Alina's parents' place since her mother died last year, so he had to backtrack several times trying to find it.
Eventually he wound up rolling slowly through what he thought was the right area, brights on, peering through the window looking for landmarks.
When he finally found it, though, he knew he had the right place.
Alina's mother had been a lawn gnome lover, and the lawn was still festooned with them, shoveling, planting, waving, and of course, Alex's personal favorite: mooning.
He killed the lights and rolled up onto the shoulder.
The houselights were dark.
Feeling like a thief, or a peeping tom, he grabbed the two stuffed animals and stole up the long driveway toward the house.
A pair of brilliant garage lights flared to life, and he froze in place, thinking he must have been seen - but it was nearly midnight now, and after a second he remembered the lights were simply motion-activated.
Still, they made him feel exposed.
He trotted across the driveway and up on to the porch, expecting at any moment to see the front door open, and dropped Mr. Tuskers - letter taped to forehead - behind the screen door.
For a long, agonizing moment, he considered ringing the bell.
But the fact that he was here in the middle of the night was already weird enough - and besides, if he actually spoke to Alina he might say something desperate, something that would prompt her to reject his gift.
He had to hope that Tusker's position on the stoop would be close enough to keep her safe until morning.
He heard a dog bark inside, and fled.
On the way home his caution doubled.
He heard a train whistling, and even though the signals hadn't dropped yet, he stopped and waited it out.
As the train screamed past, he reached out to Mowsalot.
Its fur was nearly brittle with cold, despite the heat blasting from the vents, and the reflected crimson from the train signal lights burned deep in its eyes.
He tried to sleep, but there was a coiled spring of live wire in his mind, sparking and flexing when he closed his eyes.
He wanted to pace, to talk out loud, to check the mirror and make sure Eston wasn't behind him.
He wanted to open his document, to find all the tornado sirens in the state.
Alex was leaving soon.
He'd said as much.
Ian couldn't waste time sleeping.
The transition from thinking about these things to doing them was frighteningly smooth.
He didn't even remember making the choice to get up.
Part of him wondered if he was dreaming it.
He went over everything again - what he knew about Kelly, what he knew about Eston.
Every clue Alex had given him, whether Ian had deciphered it or not.
He hunted for tornado sirens and black hats, daycares or preschools with girls named Delilah; he read through
More More More, Said the Baby.
Alex slept on the couch behind him, curled like a kitten against a pillow, and Ian remembered covering him with a blanket on the nights he had fallen asleep watching his dad play computer.
He'd had the idea before of checking out Eston's employers, so he paid special attention to that - gathering as many details of the man's work history as he could.
A sea of empty pop cans grew on the desk as the hours passed, threatening to spill over the edge.
The sugar and caffeine helped him keep working, but forced him to the bathroom several times.
He went upstairs for these trips instead of using the basement toilet, because the upstairs bathroom was cleaner, the movement kept his legs awake, and he wanted to make sure Eston still wasn't there.
He brought Mowsalot with him.
The toy felt normal again, not like it had been sitting in the freezer as it had briefly in the car.
As he emerged from the bathroom on one of these trips, he saw the first dreamy glimmer of dawn leaking from the living room curtains.
His enthusiasm - running unbridled for hours - burned out.
It was the same old story.
A whole night spent investigating, and he was no closer to figuring anything out than he had been.
The clock said 6:41.
He had an hour and twenty minutes to get to work.
