Bones

“I guess it beats two tin cans and a wire,” Jack said.

I laughed, but Jason asked what we were talking about, so we explained a little something about the olden days.

“And that really works?” he asked.

“We’ll set up a demonstration a little later,” Jack said.

He picked at the grass, then without looking up, said, “Did you find out something more about my mom?”

“Oh — no, I’m sorry. That’s not why I stopped by to see you.”

“It’s not?”

“No. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh.”

When he didn’t say anything more, I added, “I also wanted to apologize for not coming by sooner.”

He shrugged, frowned down at the piece of grass he was pulling on. “Why should you? You never even knew her.”

“But I know your family.”

He leveled a flat, cynical gaze at me. “Do you?”

I thought of today’s revelations. “Not very well, perhaps — but enough to know that what happened to your mom has been hard on everyone in the family.”

He laughed. “Hard on everyone? No way. I’m the only one who really loved her.”

“I don’t think that’s true—”

“Who then? My dad? Oh, pul-eeeze. He was getting it on with old Suze. He probably thinks my mom’s murder was the best thing that could have happened.”

“Jason, I’ve seen—”

“His tears? He’s a phony. And you know who’s a bigger phony? Gilly. Learned it from him — only she’s even better at it than he is. She even fooled you. She hated my mom. Hated her.” He shook his head. “They hated each other.”

“When she first met me, Gillian admitted that she had trouble with your mom, that there were arguments.”

“Trouble? Arguments?” he said angrily. “You think it was all some teenage thing?”

It had seemed exactly that way to me, and to everyone I had talked to at the time Julia Sayre disappeared.

“So why did Gillian hate her?” Jack asked.

“How should I know?” he said, but with less hostility than he had shown me. “She’s cold. She doesn’t care about anybody or anything.”

“For four years,” I said, “Gillian has been the one to call me, to ask if there has been any news of your mother. In that time, other people have gone missing, but no one took the trouble your sister took to find the person she loved.”

“Don’t say ‘loved,’ ” he snapped. “She didn’t love my mother. She hated her. She was mean to me. She’s mean to everyone. She’s a user. She even used you, and now you’re talking to me like that was something good. She just wanted attention. You gave it to her.”

“When’s the last time you talked to her?” I asked.

“Years ago. She moved out a long time ago.”

“Do you miss her?”

“No.”

“She hasn’t been back to visit you since she moved out?”

“No. It doesn’t matter. She’s still weird. I see her every now and then — I mean, you know, see her when she’s hanging out in different places. I saw her here once,” he said, vaguely pointing toward another part of the park. “Didn’t even say hello to me. Which is fine,” he added quickly. “I don’t want her to come anywhere near me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t realize . . . I didn’t realize that you were so angry with her. Or with me.”

And everyone else on the planet, I thought. But he said, “I’m not mad at you. Gilly fools people all the time. So does my dad.” He sighed. “I wish I didn’t live in Las Piernas.”

“Why not?”

“Everybody knows what happened to my mom. Kids at school, it’s like, the only thing they know about me. They either want to ask me about it — like, if it’s true my mom’s finger was cut off, shit like that — or they’re all freaked out about it. I can’t just be a normal person.”

“They’ve acted like that for four years?” Jack asked.

“No,” he acknowledged. “Just when it first happened. And now.”

“So they might get over this?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”