The Last Time She Saw Him (3 page)

“My client maintains his innocence and we hope the parole board will consider this, in addition to his exemplary behavior during his incarceration period,”
Cahill’s lawyer interjects.

“What we’re saying is . . .”
the lawyer starts.

“I was framed by the press,”
Cahill interrupts.

“That’s correct. And because of my absence, many of the good have fallen by the wayside. The former pure-of-hearts who heard God’s word through my voice have now scattered, and their faith has blown away like dry kernels of wheat tumbling through a barren field,”
Cahill preaches.
“God will only forgive when He sees true atonement from his true believers. When God sees sacrifice, when we take what is most precious, what we covet and adore, and give it all to him, only then will God see a change in our hearts and He will return to us. God’s Word tells us in Genesis 22:2: ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.’ Not all will make it into the gates of heaven, though, despite their sacrifices, the gays, the sexual deviants, the liberal media . . .”

“Asshole,” I mumble under my breath.

“What’s that, Mom?” Logan asks.

“Nothing,” I answer and quickly turn off the radio. “Just something on the news about a man I used to write about.”

I brush off my disgust over hearing Cahill’s voice and his hateful dribble again, and pull into the crowded parking lot of the big box store. Before I unlock the car doors, I make Logan recite the rules.

“Always stay in your sight. No talking to strangers. If anyone approaches me, I yell and run away as fast as I can,” Logan dutifully answers. “Do my friends have to do this with their moms?”

“I have no idea, but they should.”

Logan rolls his eyes and we head toward the giant cutout of a pencil that hovers over the back to school aisle.

“Can you pop a wheelie on the cart?” Logan asks.

“No wheelies. You could hurt yourself.”

“Could we go over to the toy aisle then?”

“Let’s get your supplies first, okay, kid?”

I scour the aisle for any supplies that haven’t already been snatched up and spot the last semi-decent backpack wedged far back on the highest shelf. I turn away from Logan and Will and stand on my tiptoes to try and reach it, but it is beyond my grasp. I test the cheap metal divider between the first and second shelves with my foot and take the chance it will support my tall and slender frame. I climb on top of the divider and crane my arm as far as it can reach until I pluck the vinyl backpack down from the shelf and let out a victory yelp as though I’ve scored the winning Super Bowl touchdown. Even small victories should be celebrated. I look back toward Logan to get his approval over my hard-won prize.

But he is gone.

A wave of panic surges through me. Orange T-shirt and shiny black hair. Those discerning features should set Logan apart in the crowded aisle that is now at least twenty people deep. I jump back up on the shelf divider to try and spot Logan, but he is nowhere in sight. It took me less than a minute to turn around and grab the stupid backpack. And in less than sixty seconds, my son disappeared.

“Logan!” I yell. “Help! Someone took my son!”

The sea of parents and their children parts around me, and I spot a forty-something, heavy-set man wearing faded blue jeans and an Eminem concert T-shirt. He bends down next to a little boy so they are eye-to-eye. Orange T-shirt and shiny black hair. The stranger has Logan.

Three seconds. That’s the amount of time I calculate it will take me to check the security strap around Will’s waist and slam the shopping cart into the back of the man trying to steal my son.

“Hi, Mom!”

Logan looks up at me, not terrified or desperately trying to ward off his attacker, and gives me a small wave. The man in the Eminem T-shirt ignores me and continues to race a remote control car between Logan and another little boy who looks somewhat familiar.

“Logan, get over here now.”

I lunge, grab Logan’s arm, and yank him behind the protection of my body.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shout.

The middle-aged man in the Eminem shirt drops the remote control down to his waist and pulls the other little boy in close as though I’m the one who is the threat.

“I’m Jonah’s dad,” he says in an accusatory tone. “Our kids go to the same school. I’m not sure what you think is going on here, but we’re leaving.”

The reality of my colossal screw-up comes crashing down.

“I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

* * *

I spend the entire painful ride home kicking myself for humiliating Logan. But even my most earnest mea culpas can’t repair the damage.

“Hey, buddy, will you talk to me, please? I messed up in the store. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I was really scared and maybe I overreacted just a bit. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have run off like that.”

“I didn’t run away! I was just playing with a friend and I could still see you,” Logan pouts. “If Jonah tells anyone at school, I’m dead.”

And then Logan serves up the worst kind of punishment, the silent treatment. I finally give up trying to find clever ways to win Logan’s forgiveness, and we both stew in our misery until the hellish car ride ends.

I pull into the driveway, where David waits for us on the front porch swing. I don’t want to be alone tonight, but David insisted he would pick up the boys and take them into the city to watch the Labor Day jazz festival along the banks of the Detroit River, a family tradition I used to be a part of.

David rubs his hands together with just an edge of nerves, like he does before he launches into his opening statements of a trial. He spots us and jogs effortlessly over to my SUV, still with the fluid grace of his Harvard lacrosse days.

Logan and Will tear over to David, and he picks both boys up in his arms.

“Hi, Daddy!” Logan says excitedly. “Mom bought me a pair of binoculars. I’m going to take them with us tonight so we can see the stage better. I tested them out at the lake and I think they’re going to work. You want to see?”

“Hey, buddy. Why don’t you give me just a minute? I need to talk to your mom.”

Logan easily acquiesces, peels his orange two-wheeler off the fence, and begins to execute perfect figure eights across the gravel driveway.

I look over at David, whose blond hair curls at his ears. With his end of summer tan, he looks more like a California surfer than a Detroit prosecutor. Ten years together and throw in a separation, David still gives me a thrill every time I see him.

“You look good,” I say, trying not to sound too desperate.

“So do you. The break from the paper has treated you well.”

Now done with the small talk, David looks away from me, his hallmark move when he has something to say that I probably don’t want to hear.

“I’m sorry, but I have to cancel on the boys tonight. Bernie Masten called right before I got here. I have to go into the city. Our case schedule got moved up, and I’m the first chair on this one so I have to be at the meeting. It’s the firm’s biggest client, and I can’t say no. I know you don’t want to be alone with the anniversary of Ben’s disappearance, so I figured it would be okay.”

I grab Will out of the car and breeze past David. I take a seat on the front porch swing, bury my nose into Will’s white blond hair, and contemplate taking a page from Logan and giving David the silent treatment. But the direct approach has always worked better for me.

“This isn’t about me. You can’t do this to Logan again. He misses you. So does Will. They both were really looking forward to spending time with you this weekend.”

David stands over me with his arms folded across his chest.

“I’m not trying to let anyone down here, but if I want to make partner, I have to put in the hours. I’ve worked hard for this. Two mortgages and two college funds keep me up at night. The money has to come from somewhere, and your paycheck can’t compare. I don’t know why you stay in a high-pressure job that doesn’t pay you what you’re worth. It would be an easy move over to corporate PR. There’s a lot more money in public relations and the hours are better.”

“I don’t want to be a flack,” I answer. “And I’m a damn good reporter.”

“The best,” David concedes and the crease between his brow softens just a bit.

The compliment is quickly forgotten when David’s phone beeps. I can tell from the look on his face that it’s another call from his firm.

“Can’t you say no for just this once? It’s been a tough day.”

David lets the call go to voice mail.

“Okay. What happened?” he asks.

“I made an ass out of myself at the store. I embarrassed Logan in front of a boy who goes to his school and the boy’s dad. Logan disappeared for a second and I thought someone took him. I swear, I’m still shaking.”

David’s jaw stiffens into a tight line. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You have to stop this. I called the psychiatrist. You only went to see him once. There’s no shame in seeing a shrink. You never want to talk about your brother.”

“You’re checking up on me?”

“You made me a promise,” David answers.

“And I kept it. What happened to my brother is my issue, not yours or anyone else’s.”

“Jesus Christ, Julia. You don’t get it. Your past isn’t just hurting you anymore. It’s a dark cloud hanging over our family and it’s starting to make us all miserable. You know what I finally realized? There is absolutely nothing I can do to make you happy.”

David’s last line shoots me through the heart.

“That’s not true. I never meant to make you feel that way.”

David pulls out an unexpected trick from his sometimes-difficult-life-with-Julia bag. He sits down next to me on the porch swing and puts his arm around my shoulder.

“We’ll keep working on things,” he whispers in my ear. “Let’s just get you back to see the psychiatrist one more time. Would you do that for me?”

“I’ll think about it. I just don’t like to talk to strangers about my brother.”

“I’m the only person around here who knows anything about Ben or what happened to you when you were a kid. What about the boys? Are you going to tell them one day?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

The moment is gone. David gets up quickly from the swing and stares back at me with a look of frustration and a hint of disdain.

I try to tell David I’ll change this time, but my well-intentioned promise gets lost somewhere in the back of my throat. I hold Will closer to my chest and wonder why couples whose relationships are about to end can’t go back to the time when they first fell in love, before things got messy, and rekindle what brought them together in the first place. An hour into my first date with David, I realized he was charming, stable, and driven. Our first overnight excursion was a weekend in Traverse City. The bill for the hotel and the five-star restaurants David chose was staggering and almost made me broke on my reporter’s salary, but I insisted on paying half. David finally relented to my demands and smiled as he told me he admired my fighting spirit. During that weekend, I discovered he came from a well-off family, but he still believed in standing up for the little guy and bucked his dad when David took a job out of college to work as a public defender in addition to doing pro bono work. I thought he was perfect.

David walks to the end of the porch, still with his back to me, and I realize any happy times between us will likely always be in memory.

“I don’t understand the secrets. And you need to give the kids room to breathe. Your overprotectiveness is stifling them,” David says.

“I’m not overprotective. I just don’t trust people.”

“You and the boys are safe here.”

“You know that’s not true. Nowhere is safe. Not here, not Detroit, not the suburbs. There’s no magical boundary that keeps the criminals out.”

“That’s why I bought you a home security alarm for this place. Ten thousand dollars and that’s not enough now?”

“Home security systems are a temporary stopgap. Criminals know how to work around them if they have to.”

David raps his knuckles down hard on the porch railing and lets out a long exhale.

“I give up. I can’t compete with your paranoia anymore.”

“I’m not paranoid. I just want to be sure our boys are okay.”

Logan senses the tension and props his bike against the garage. “Are you guys fighting again?”

“We aren’t fighting. We’re just having a discussion,” David answers.

“Same thing,” Logan responds.

“I’ll pick up the boys next weekend. I promise,” David says. “I still have an hour before I have to leave. I’ll take Logan and Will down to the lake before I go.”

David pulls Will from my arms, and he heads over to Logan to deliver the bad news.

“You can join us if you like,” David says halfheartedly over his shoulder.

“No, I’m going to stay here. I just want to be alone for a minute,” I say and make one more run at forgiveness from my oldest son. “Logan, I’m really sorry about earlier.”

“Okay, Mom,” Logan grunts as he fixes his attention on his father. I take solace in the fact that Logan took the time to utter three syllables to me.

I watch David from a distance, obviously telling Logan about tonight, and I see my little boy’s shoulders sag. My heart breaks for Logan, but I vow to try and make up the disappointment to him later. Logan musters a smile, as David grabs him by the hand, and the three slip out of sight on the way to the lake.