Shattered Lives (21 page)

              Tim wasn’t sure.  Angry was one feeling.  Sad, because two of his friends had fought over him, was another.

              “Yeah,” Tim answered.

They finished the walk in silence.

              They reached the yard and stood on the lawn in the path of the oncoming self-propelled red Tecumseh, which Kaid pushed and ran behind to make the mowing go faster.  When he saw them, he cut the engine and stared at Tim.

              Kaid had the same curly black hair as Cal.  He stood almost as tall as Tim, and he looked physically bigger than Tim, but wasn’t nearly as filled out as his older brother.  He had softer features than Cal.  Cal had more of a cut-in-granite look, while Kaid’s was softer.  Maybe Kaid was just better looking, cuter.

              Cal watched the two of them stare at each other, lowered his eyes to the lawn, and then finally said, “Well, aren’t you two gonna say hello or something?”

              Without turning towards Cal, Tim smiled and said with a laugh, “Hello or something.”

              Kaid slowly walked forward and stood in front of Tim, blinking rapidly.

              “Hey, Bud.  I missed you,” Tim said with a smile.

              Kaid broke down and wept and Tim reached out and held him and let him cry into his shoulder, patting his back as he did so, and saying, “It’s okay, Kaid.  It’s okay.”

              He felt Kaiden nod, but Kaiden’s grip never loosened.

Finally, Tim took Kaiden by the shoulders and said, “It’s okay.”

              Kaiden wiped his eyes with his hands and then wiped his eyes with the bottom of his shirt.

He stopped weeping, smiled at Tim and said, “Kind of a baby, huh?”

              “Not really,” Tim said with a smile and then he reached out and hugged Kaiden again.

              “I missed you, Tim.”

              “I know.  Me, too.”  Then he let go and asked, “How much more lawn do you have to do?”

              “A little.  I’m almost done.”

              “Okay, it can wait.  Let’s go.”

              “Where?”

              “To Gavin’s house,” Tim said looking first at Kaiden and then at Cal. “We need to fix things.”

              Kaiden looked at Cal, but didn’t say anything.  Cal shrugged at him.

             
“I don’t think he’ll want to see me,” Kaiden said quietly.

              “We have to try,” Tim said quietly.  “You guys are my friends so we’re going to try to get back to normal, okay?”

              Reluctantly, Kaiden lowered his head and fell in step behind Tim who had already turned around to walk down the street away from the Mattenauer house, expecting the brothers to follow him. 

The short walk was solemn and silent.  They reached the Hemauer house and stood on the sidewalk, but the brothers hung back wanting to be anywhere else. 

“Come on.  We need to do this.”

              Tim moved forward with Cal a step behind.  When Kaiden didn’t move, Cal went back, took a gentle hold of his arm and led him forward.  Tim stood on the porch and rang the doorbell.  Cal and Kaid stood side by side on the sidewalk.  Both had their heads down.

              The door opened and Ellie Hemauer saw Tim.  She covered her mouth with one hand and reached out to hug Tim with the other.  Tears sprung to her eyes as she held and kissed him.

              “Oh my Lord!”

              “Hi, Mrs. Hemauer.”

              “Oh my God, Tim Pruett!  I’ve been praying for you.  Oh my God!”  Then she turned around and said, “Gavin! Gavin! Come see who’s here!”

              Then to Tim, she said, “Come in! Come in!”

              As she was shutting the door, Tim said, “Mrs. Hemauer, can Cal and Kaiden come in?  We have to talk to Gavin.”

              Ellie looked over Tim’s shoulder and saw the brothers.  She glanced at them without expression, staring mostly at Kaiden and then turned her attention to Tim.

              “I need to try to fix things,” Tim said quietly.  “Please?”

              Reluctantly, Ellie held the door open for Cal and Kaiden, who entered the home quietly, sliding in and away from her, afraid she would smack them.

              Ellie led them into the kitchen.  Cal and Kaiden lingered in the entry hallway, not quite in the kitchen with Kaiden hiding behind his older brother.  Ellie and Tim faced the back hallway waiting for Gavin to appear.

              Gavin came out of his room yawning, saw Tim and stopped in his tracks, mouth still open but not from the yawn.  He blinked and reached out to touch the wall to catch his balance.

              “Hey, Gav,” Tim said with a smile.

              Gavin stepped into the kitchen and stood in front of Tim.  Of the four boys, Gavin had always been the shortest, but now, he stood eye to eye with Tim.  He had brown hair, green eyes and a smattering of small freckles on his nose and under his eyes.  He was also the quietest.

As Cal would often say, “Gav, I don’t know if you’d say shit if your mouth was full of it.”

Gavin would smile and shrug.  Tim thought it was funny that whenever Gavin smiled, his eyes disappeared.  He wasn’t smiling now.

              “Hi,” Tim said.

              Gavin stared at him and when Tim reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, he flinched.  Tim felt sad.

              When Gavin spied Cal and then Kaid, he retreated two steps, glanced at his mother, at Tim and then back at Cal and Kaid.  He took another step backward.  The fear on his face was real, and Tim could feel the tension in the kitchen.  Ellie stood close to Gavin, but didn’t say anything.

              “Gavin,” Tim said softly, “I want to try to fix things . . . between you and Kaid and Cal.  We’re friends . . . or at least we were.  I want us to be friends again.”

              Gavin looked at Cal and Kaiden, then at Tim, then at his mom, and then back at Tim.  Tim suspected that Gavin was about to cry.

              “Cal and Kaiden, come in here.  I have something I want to say to all of you.”

              The two brothers took a step closer, but more or less stayed behind Tim.  They faced Mrs. Hemauer but didn’t dare look at her.  They glanced at Gavin every so often without sustaining any significant or prolonged eye contact.

              Sadly, Tim said, “Listen . . . please.”

The brothers looked up and stared at Tim, as did Gavin and Ellie.

              “Guys, I don’t know what happened, and I don’t care.  All I know is that the four of us are friends.”

              The three boys stared at him, glanced at each other, and then back at Tim.

              “I was gone over two years.  I was almost killed twice, and I lost a lot of friends.”  He wiped his eyes with his hands and continued.  “My friend Johnny died.  He was really sick, and maybe if we would have been rescued sooner, he would have lived.  But he didn’t.”

              Tim’s voice caught and the lump in his chest grew, making it hard for him to speak.  He wiped his eyes again.

              “The first couple days and nights after I was taken, I was really scared.  Johnny helped me.  He helped all of us, and I really miss him.”  He stopped, looked at the floor.  “There was this other guy, Ryan.  He was taken away the morning we were rescued.  They took him away in handcuffs, and they killed him.  There were other guys they took away and none of us knew who would be taken next.  We just knew that if they came to get us, we wouldn’t be seen again.  We’d be dead.”

              “My friend, Brett,” Tim wept silently.  “He got shot trying to save us, and his shoulder’s all screwed up.  He might never get to play football or basketball again, but he risked all of that to save us.”

              Ellie reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes.  Cal had started to weep, and he and Gavin wiped their eyes with their hands, while Kaid used the bottom of his t-shirt.

              “There’s this other guy, George.  His whole family was murdered.  His
whole family
.  He saved my life in the hospital when a man tried to take me.  George stood in his way and wouldn’t move.  He had a gun pointed right at his face, but he never moved.  He didn’t even flinch.  He did that for me and he didn’t even know me.”

              Tim wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeves.

              “I can’t worry about the four of us because I’m worried about Brett and George.  I’m worried about two other guys, Mike and Steve.  There are perverts out there trying to kill them.  They’re my
friends
!  I worry about
them
!  That’s who I have to worry about so I can’t worry about
us
.”

              The four boys were weeping pretty freely now. 

“Gavin, I was really stupid.  I was worried about Tim, and I lost my temper, and I should never have hit you.  I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t know how.” Kaiden had trouble getting it all out, but felt relieved that he did. “I called, but when you or your mom answered, I hung up.  I was afraid and I’m really sorry.  If you want to hit me, you can ‘cause I deserve it.”

              “No one’s hitting anyone,” Tim said sadly.  “Friends don’t hit friends.”

              “I said something stupid, but I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” Gavin pleaded.  He took a deep breath, stared at Tim and said, “I said that if men forced you to . . . you know . . .
do
stuff, then you might be gay. But that’s not what I meant to say.  I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I know that’s not what I meant,” Gavin said.  “Really.”

              “Kaid, you had no right to beat up Gavin,” Tim said staring at Kaiden.  “Friends don’t beat up friends.  You could have said something like, ‘That was stupid’ and then forget about it.  You don’t beat up friends.”

              “I know,” Kaiden said to his shoes.

              “There’s going to be a lot of stuff said about me, and you can’t beat someone up every time you hear somebody say something stupid.  Okay?”

Kaiden nodded, resting his chin on his chest.

Tim held out his arm to Kaiden and said, “Kaid, come here.”

              Kaiden stepped forward and Tim put his arm around his shoulders.

And then to Gavin, Tim said, “Gav, come here.”

              Gavin hesitated and glanced at Tim, who nodded at him.  He stepped next to Tim, who placed his other arm around Gavin’s shoulders.  He gave both boys a gentle hug.

              “Cal, come here.”

              Cal stepped forward and faced Tim, and like him, placed his arms around Kaiden’s and Gavin’s shoulders.

              Tim wept. 

“I want us to be friends.  We were friends before I was taken.  Please . . . I can’t worry about us.  I can’t.  I’ve got Brett and George and Stephen and Mike to worry about.  I worry about the next phone call,” Tim’s voice caught.  He could hardly breathe.  He struggled and stammered, “I worry that the next phone call I get will be someone telling me that one of them is dead.”  He wiped his eyes and in a small, quiet voice said, “I can’t worry about us.”

              It was a relief for him to talk about it, but at the same time, verbalizing his biggest fear brought it all into focus.  Perhaps this was what was causing him to feel out of place.  Perhaps this was what made him feel like he didn’t belong.  He needed to be with his friends.  With Brett, George, Mike and Stephen.  He knew he couldn’t, but he knew he needed to be with them. 

              “Are you okay?” Cal asked, eyeing him closely.

              He nodded and said, “My parents are having a party this afternoon.  I want you guys to come.  You too, Gavin.”

              Gavin glanced at his mother.  He stared at his shoes, then at Tim, then at Kaiden, but didn’t commit one way or the other.

              Ellie cleared her throat and said, “We’ll be there.”

              Tim nodded at her, smiled at Gavin, and gave his shoulder a squeeze.

              “I missed you.” He paused, looked down at his shoes, blinked back tears, and then looked at each boy. “When I was taken, I wondered if I’d ever see you again.  All that time, I wondered if you’d even remember me.  And then, when I was in the hospital, I was afraid to see you because I didn’t know what you thought of me.  I was afraid.”

              “Shit, Tim  . . . excuse my language, Mrs. Hemauer . . . shoot, Tim, why would we forget you?” Cal asked.

              “Well, you forgot you guys were friends, right?” Tim asked.

              The boys looked at one another and then down at their shoes.

              Kaiden reached across the small circle, put his hands on Gavin’s shoulders and said, “Gavin, I’m sorry.  Honest.  Please forgive me.”

              Tim watched Gavin flinch away, and he could see the hurt in Gavin’s eyes, in his body.

              “At school I know guys made fun of you.  I know you were by yourself a lot,” Cal said.  “I . . . shit, I don’t know.”