On My Honor (7 page)

"Did you know Tony went down to the river, Joel?" Mr. Zabrinsky asked in the same lifeless voice he had used at first.

"No," Joel said. "I didn't know anything. I got tired, like I told you. I..." They were all looking at him, the police officers, Tony's parents, his father. Staring. Again Joel started to back away, and again his father's arm prevented him from doing so. The slight pressure of the arm along his back made him want to strike out, to break away and run. If he could get away, he could hide someplace where those terrible eyes couldn't follow. Why had he come back from Starved Rock? He couldn't seem to remember.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Tony said he was going to go swimming. I tried to stop him. I told him the river was dangerous."

"And did you see him go into the water?" one of the officers asked, stepping closer to Joel.

The other one moved in closer, too, asking, "Were you there?"

"No!" Joel cried. "No!"

"Nobody's blaming you, son," the first officer said. "But the more you can tell your friend's parents"—he indicated the Zabrinskys with one hand as though directing Joel's attention to a picture or a statue in the doorway there—"the easier it will be. It's the not—knowing that's the worst."

"Please," Mrs. Zabrinsky whispered. "If you know anything..."

Mr. Zabrinsky leaned against the doorframe, one massive fist pressed tightly against his mouth, weeping silently.

"Joel?" his father said. "You've got to tell us." And then he turned to the others and added, laying his arm heavily across Joel's shoulders, "Joel is an honorable boy. He'll tell you what he knows."

Honorable!
Joel staggered beneath the weight of his father's arm, then pulled away, teetering on the edge of the porch. The five faces bent toward him were like five pale moons, but it was his father's face that loomed the largest.

He took a deep breath. "Tony wanted to climb the bluffs at Starved Rock, and I was scared to do it. So when he changed his mind, when he decided to go swimming instead ... I thought ... I thought..." He was shaking all over as he spoke. "I looked for him. When he went under, I tried to find him. But I couldn't.... He just ... he just ... disappeared."

"Oh ... Joel!" The arm that had been holding him didn't reach out to touch him again. "Joel!" his father repeated.

Mr. Zabrinsky moaned and stepped backward into the shadowy hall. Tony's mother stood perfectly still. She didn't look at her husband. She stared only at Joel, her face twisted and ugly.

Everybody was looking at him, blaming him. He wanted to turn away, to run at last, but his feet refused to carry him in that direction. Instead, he stumbled toward his father, his hands raised and clenched into fists. "I hate you!" he cried, pounding at his father's chest. "It's all your fault. You never should have let me go!"

His father said nothing, did nothing to shield himself from Joel's fists. He simply stood there, absorbing the force of the blows until Joel could bear it no longer. He turned and leaped off the porch and bolted across the street.

But even as he slammed through the door and ran up the stairs to his room, he knew. It wasn't his father he hated. It wasn't his father at all.

He was the one.... Tony had died because of him.

Chapter Twelve

J
OEL LAY CURLED ON HIS SIDE, FACING HIS
bedroom door. That's where his father would appear when he came to punish him. He would have to do it this time. He wouldn't have any choice.

He would punish him for yelling at him ... for hitting him ... for daring Tony to swim out to the sandbar.

Joel had known from the beginning that it was his fault. From the moment Tony had disappeared, he had understood. Running away hadn't changed a thing, and coming back hadn't changed anything either.

Nothing could change what had happened ... ever.

A light summer breeze fanned across the bed, rustled the leaves on the maple tree outside his window. It was the tree Joel and Tony had been building a tree house in. The sound of leaves, the touch of cool air on his skin, was good. It was good to be able to feel such things, but Tony couldn't. Tony couldn't feel anything anymore.

Joel lifted his arm to his nose and sniffed. The smell was still there, so sharp that it made his eyes sting. He supposed it would be with him for the rest of his life.

Why had he been dumb enough to dare Tony, anyway? He knew what Tony was like. If somebody had dared him to walk through fire, he would have done that, too.

Joel pulled the pillow over his head, pushed it off again. His eyes were as dry and scratchy as sandpaper. He wished his father would come, get it over with.

The front door opened and closed again. Joel could hear his father fiddling with the lock. Didn't he understand yet? Bad wasn't something that could be locked out. Bad was something that came from inside you when you didn't even know it was there.

His father was moving up the stairs now, his footsteps heavy and slow, and he stopped outside Joel's door as he had earlier in the evening. Joel lay quietly, holding his muscles rigid, although he knew pretending to be asleep wouldn't work this time.

His father came in. He pulled a chair away from Joel's desk, set it next to the bed, very close, and sat down. At first he didn't say anything, and Joel thought,
He's going to sit there all night. That's his way to punish me. He's going to sit there so I can't run away, so I can't sleep, so I couldn't even cry if I wanted to.

Joel tried to keep his breathing steady and slow the way he had done before, but he felt as though he had been running for a long time and had to gasp for air. His skin was too tight. He was going to explode.

"I'm sorry," his father said finally.

"Sorry?" Joel blurted, astonishment rolling him over onto his back. "Why
sic you
sorry?"

His father didn't answer at first, and just when Joel was convinced he wasn't ever going to answer, he said, "I'm sorry I misjudged the situation. I'm sorry I gave you permission to go."

Joel didn't respond.

"And," his father added softly, "I'm sorry that I wasn't there to help you, that you had to be so frightened and so alone."

"It was my fault," Joel said dully. "The whole thing was my fault."

"Probably nobody could have found Tony in that water," his father replied, not understanding. "And if you had managed somehow, he might have pulled you under. He was bigger than you, heavier. He wouldn't have known what he was doing."

Joel thought of the swirling water closing over his head, pouring into his lungs, and his skin rippled into gooseflesh. But then he thought of Tony, Tony taking dibs on
his
bike, Tony dancing a jig on the bridge, Tony pretending to be a prehistoric monster. "It should have been me," he said.

Joel's father took hold of his arm, almost roughly. "Don't you say that," he said. "Don't you ever let me hear you say that."

Joel looked his father full in the face. "It's my fault," he repeated. "If I hadn't gone down to the river, Tony would have stayed out of the water."

"Maybe," his father said. "Maybe not. There's no way to know. You can't live your life by
maybe
s"

Joel's arm was beginning to hurt where his father gripped it, but that wasn't enough. Nothing his father said or did was enough. "Are you going to punish me?" he asked.

His father sighed, was silent again for a moment, his hand gently smoothing away the earlier pressure. "Is that what you want?"

"You said I was on my honor this morning. I wasn't supposed to go anywhere except the park."

His father merely asked, "What would it teach you, son ... more punishment?"

Since Joel had no answer for that, he said the only thing he could think of to say, said it harshly, as though it were an accusation. "Your hand is going to smell like it."

"Like what?" His father raised his hand to his face.

"Like the river. Don't you notice the stink?"

His father sniffed his hand again, bent over to bring his nose close to Joel's skin, then straightened. "I don't know what you mean, Joel. I can't smell anything."

"But
I
can smell it," Joel wailed. "It won't go away."

His father didn't say anything.

"Make it go away," Joel spoke in a whisper, as if they were discussing another person standing in the room, someone who could be forced to leave.

His father smoothed the hair back from Joel's face. "I can't," he said, very quietly.

The anger surged through Joel's veins. He wanted to push his father away, to pummel him again. What good was this man who couldn't protect him from bad things happening and wouldn't punish him to make things right? "You don't understand," he said through clenched teeth. "I dared Tony to swim out to the sandbar. I knew he couldn't swim all that well. I must have known. And I dared him."

Joel expected ... he didn't know what he expected, actually. Maybe he expected the world to fall in. At the very least he expected his father to rise up in rage. Instead there followed only another silence, the kind that made him want to scream. He held himself carefully rigid, though, and didn't move, only waited.

"It's going to be a hard thing to live with, for both of us," his father said at last. "But there is nothing else to be done."

Joel sat up. He was shouting now. 'What are you talking about ... we?
You
didn't do anything. You didn't even know you shouldn't have let me go!"

"But we all made choices today, Joel. You, me, Tony. Tony's the only one who doesn't have to live with his choice."

For a moment Joel could only stare, uncomprehending, at this man who wouldn't ... couldn't take away his pain. Tony was free, while he, he and his father, would have to live with this terrible day forever. And though Joel clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, it was no use. He began to sob.

"Ah," his father said, as if relieved, and he leaned forward, drawing Joel onto his lap. Joel felt awkward, oversized. Surely there was no longer room for him here. But his father wrapped his arms around him tightly, and Joel's cheek settled into the hollow between his chest and shoulder. The racking sobs flowed out of him like water.

His father held him for a long time, saying nothing, until Joel's tears came without sound and his breaths were quivering gasps. Even then, his father held him. After a while, Joel began to pattern his breathing to match the steady rising and falling of his father's chest.

"I'd like to go back to bed now," he said finally. His father, instead of simply releasing him, reached forward to strip back the covers, then stood and laid him gently in the bed. He pulled the sheet up and tucked it beneath Joel's chin.

He will leave me now,
Joel thought, but his father sat down in the chair once more.

Joel turned on his side, facing his father this time. He was tired, exhausted, but tinglingly awake. He was also empty, as though he had been hollowed out with a knife. He tried to think of something to say, if only to hear his father's voice.

"Do you believe in heaven?" he asked at last. "Do you believe Tony's gone there?"

His father bent toward him. "If there is a heaven, I'm sure Tony's gone there," he replied. "I can't imagine a heaven that could be closed to charming, reckless boys."

If!
Joel felt as if he were sinking through the bed. "What do you mean...
if
there's a heaven?"

"I don't suppose anybody knows," his father answered gently, "what happens after." He hesitated, and one hand came up, described a series of circles in the air, then settled into his lap again as though it had finished the statement for him. "I believe there's something about life that goes on. It seems too good to end in a river."

Joel let his father's words sift through him slowly. He had hoped for something firmer, more certain.
Yes, there is a heaven. Certainly Tony is there now
. He would have to settle, though, for what he got.

And what he got was a gentle summer night, a hollow place inside his gut that felt as though it might never be filled, and this man, his dad, who sat beside his bed.

"Will you stay?" he asked, reaching a hand out tentatively to touch his father's knee. "Will you sit with me until I fall asleep?"

"Of course," his father said.