“Bob, we need to talk.”
“Sure, Mom. Go ahead.” His voice already sounded muffled.
“Because…” Because Paul doesn’t know anything about this, she thought in despair. Because I’m afraid what his reaction will be, finding this kid ensconced in his private space without warning. Because he always said he didn’t want kids at all.
“Because,” she started again, more firmly, “we have to find a better situation.”
“It isn’t the most comfortable bed in the world,” Bob said, “but it’s fine for now.”
“I didn’t know you were coming! I would have gotten a room ready.”
“I tried to call! You were never around!”
“What about my cell?”
“I always got your message center. I hate that. It’s too complicated for a message.”
“So what’s going on.”
“I wanted to come home.”
“So you did.” Home meaning… Mom?
“Right. They only charged me a hundred bucks to change my ticket, and I paid for it out of gifts I got from Uncle Matt, so that’s okay, right?”
“But, Bob…”
“It’s okay, Mom. I don’t care that this bed is hard. I could sleep out on the deck until the weekend, and never wake up.” His voice was drowsy. “There’s more. Tell you later.”
She couldn’t get another word out of him. His eyes rolled up and closed and that was that.
The duffel was full of dirty, stinking, in some cases damp, clothes. She took them into the laundry area off the hallway and started to sort, whites, darks, permanent press, unable to think about Paul coming home, what he would say. After she sorted his things, she decided to add the growing pile in the laundry basket in the main bathroom.
In the corner she saw the rolled-up pile of clothes Wish had left the night he appeared at their door.
“Ugh,” she said, pulling them out. They should have tossed these the day Wish got back. Holding the reeking ball at arm’s length, she marched to the kitchen, to the main trash can. Before she dumped the contents, she forced herself to pick through the pockets, changing her mind in the process. Let Wish decide what to do with his motley assortment.
Wish was a pack rat, like Bob. Bottle caps, crumpled paper, an old lollipop melted into its paper wrapping… he had an accumulation of goodies, some of which she couldn’t even recognize. Forcing herself to be diligent, she took it all, right down to the denim-colored lint, and stuffed it into a plastic bag. She set the contents on the kitchen counter to give to Wish later and, feeling productive, gathered up all the kitchen trash and carried a big load out to the Dumpster at the end of the buildings. She yawned. She was beat.
It was five o’clock, the adults’ witching hour, when the work stops and, if you’re lucky, the fun begins. Right on cue, she heard Paul’s Mustang muscling into the driveway.
He swept in, kicked his shoes off, and gathered her up into his cold arms. “Ah,” he said. “Alone at last.” His grin, so soon to be brutally erased, was one she knew well, and signified that he was feeling playful.
“Paul,” she said.
He put his finger over her lips. “Let’s have ourselves a TGIF nap. We are not going to discuss work. We are going to take our clothes off and frolic. I need a quick shower. Dinner after. I’ll take you out for barbecue.”
“No, Paul, wait…”
He covered her mouth with kisses, nudging her toward the bedroom. “I want you in bed, naked and ready in two minutes. Can you do that? I think you can.”
“Really, I need to tell you!”
He shut the door on her. “Shh. Save it.”
She heard him slam the door to the bathroom, and the shower going on. Might as well do what I can to mitigate the shock, he’ll find out soon enough, she thought. Hint to investigator: no hot water.
Meanwhile, she combed through her brown hair, sitting at the mirror. The woman in there was turning back into a mother right before her eyes.
He took a long time in the shower, cold water or no cold water. She crawled between the sheets to warm her cold feet. She pulled a fuzzy blue blanket up from the foot of the bed. She would just get warm… she could explain everything…
Paul wrapped the towel loosely around his waist and peeked into the bedroom. In the light of early evening through the deck doors, Nina lay on her side, pillow spread with her long soft hair, hands in prayer position under her head, knees bent. She was asleep, and he took a long moment, admiring her. What a beauty she was, and she was his now.
Humming, he decided to take a second to check his E-mail. He opened the door to his den. He stopped.
A form covered with blankets too heavy for summer lay on the sofabed. At its foot, Hitchcock lolled, eyes closed, lost in canine cogitation.
Who?
He moved in closer. Gingerly, he lifted the blanket from the face.
Bob.
Bob Reilly. Nina’s son. Home to roost.
Stepping back into the living area, gently closing the door behind him, he thought about it. He considered Nina’s preoccupation on several previous occasions. He thought he now understood the source of her anxiety.
He was feeling some anxiety himself.
He decided to pour himself a stiff one. In the kitchen, in the cabinet near the refrigerator, he located the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. However, a glass did not come as quickly to hand. No matter. He drank from the bottle.
Better, he thought, and drank some more. After a while, a pleasant, welcoming attitude warmed his heart. Good old Bob! He liked the boy, after all!
But Bob could not live here, no, no, no.
He looked again for a shot glass. This drinking from the bottle seemed suddenly rude. Finding a souvenir from Caesars Palace at Tahoe, he filled it and downed it.
But he was hungry. It was dinnertime. All is flux, people sleep at five in the afternoon, plans go aft agley…
He checked the microwave, in case some plate was in there, still warm. Empty. He checked the refrigerator. Also nothing. The uncooked fish filet in there looked disgusting.
On the counter, nothing but an ancient wrapped turkey sandwich and a sandwich bag full of pennies and acorns and loose, discolored peppermint Lifesavers and blackened scraps of paper. He discarded the sandwich, fiddling with the bag.
Various things fell from the baggie onto the counter. They appeared to be the property of Wish Whitefeather, student, or so it seemed according to the filthy student ID he found. Finding nothing of redeeming value in the stuff, he tossed most of Wish’s bits in the garbage below the sink.
But what was this?
He examined a plastic card of electronic material, no more than a few inches long, narrow. Familiar, he thought, squinting. Oh, yes, but why here?
He knew that he had drunk too much when he stumbled slightly leaving the kitchen. He would have some coffee, he promised himself, just as soon as he checked this out.
Opening a cupboard by the television, he pulled out his camera, opened a small compartment, and pushed the thing into place.
A memory card, perfect fit.
He clicked through twelve pictures, all orange-and-yellow, flames, underexposed because Wish must have been using the automatic functions of the camera, which would not be able properly to process the brightness of the nighttime scene. Three showed people, men. Two men.
He woke Nina up.
28
I N THE HARSH LIGHT OF THE fire, the whole forest around Wish was revealed, bit by bit, as he had spun around, twelve pictures in all. In nine of the pictures they saw nothing but creepy-looking bushes and trees, and whiteouts of smoke.
“
They now sat together on the couch in the living room, two cups of coffee steaming on the table, the warm body in the den behind the closed door nearby lurking between them like a monster under the bed. Nina had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Paul now wore shorts.
They were not touching.
Wish had taken one photo of Danny in his spinning, the very first shot on the memory card, and now they saw the man who had brought Wish up the mountain, Wish’s dead friend, at last. Danny’s hand was up, shielding his face from the light, and he was grimacing. He wore a dark T-shirt over black pants. He must have flung off the Army jacket. His face was handsome, planed, stark in the light, with a thick neck and shoulders.
He looked directly at the camera and his parted lips were arrested midword. He looked familiar to Nina, as though she had met him before, and she had indeed met his type before, strong young men who ought to be building families or serving in the military but instead drifted into purposelessness.
“Good-looking dude,” Paul said, keeping his voice low. He clicked to the third and fourth shots and manipulated them so that they were side by side on the screen, and Nina saw that Wish had done it, managing in spite of his terror to take two shots that linked Coyote forever to the fire.
In the third shot, they saw mostly Coyote’s lower body as he hid or stepped out from behind a bush. He wore a long white T-shirt and jeans, and his long dark face was somewhat shadowed.
“Nothing in his hands,” Paul said, disappointed. “A can of kerosene would have been good.”
“It’s incredible just to have the shot.”
In the fourth shot he had stepped fully out and was advancing toward Wish, holding his hands up and looking scared and angry. He was built like Danny, muscled, tall, dark, and young.
“Wish was lucky,” Nina said.
“To get these pictures?” Paul’s hand moved to her thigh. They had both leaned back to study the three shots, now side by side on the computer screen, their necks stiff with the effort, as if the shots were Picassos. Which they were, lawyers’ Picassos, strong, timeless, and irrefutable.
