Then I saw my mother’s car parked in our driveway.
8
I normally wasn’t a very fast runner, but I could have qualified for the Olympics with how quickly I sprinted to my house. What the hell was my mom doing home? She never came home like this! If I were the kind of son to throw massive parties as soon as his parents left—which, alas, I was not—I’d never have been caught because my parents never surprised me with an early arrival like this. Never.
Had she forgotten something? Was she sick? Had she been fired? Why was her car there?
Okay, maybe this wasn’t so bad. Maybe she hadn’t looked on the dining room table yet. If she’d forgotten something, she might have just gone straight to retrieve it without a side trip to the dining room. If she was sick, maybe she’d gone right up to bed. If she’d been fired, maybe her vision was too blurry from crying to see the note I’d left on the table. Yes, I’d have to make up a story about why I hadn’t been home, but I could handle that, I’d think of something in the next few moments, this might be all right, it might be fine, it might be okay, shit, shit, shit!
I ran up to the front door. It wouldn’t be smart for me to fling open the door and burst inside the house, gasping for breath, so I decided to waste a few valuable moments just standing there, regaining my composure. I wiped the sweat off my face as best I could, then opened the door.
“Curtis?” my mom called out.
“Yeah, it’s me!” I said.
I walked through the foyer into the living room. My mom was seated on the couch, holding the phone receiver to her ear. My note was on her lap.
“Never mind,” she said to whomever she was speaking to. “He just came home. Yes, thank you for your help. Goodbye.”
She hung up the phone, not quite slamming it down, but also not gently placing the receiver back in its cradle. She held up the note and waved it at me. “What the hell is this?”
“Hell” was the strongest curse word in my mother’s vocabulary, and she used it sparingly, for maximum impact. My dad swore all the time, though he didn’t go further than the s-word. I’d never heard him utter the f-word or any of the truly crass terms, as if he were obligated to report to the Standards & Practices department of a basic cable station.
That question, “What the hell is this?” conveyed an emotional combination that was seventy-five percent anger, twenty percent concern, and five percent relief. In the seconds after I said, “Yeah, it’s me!” she was probably at one hundred percent relief, but upon seeing that I was home and safe, relief quickly slid down the scale and anger took its place.
Now I had to figure out what to say.
I was going to lie. That much was certain. Should I pretend it was a joke? She’d never believe that. I was a smart-ass but mean-spirited pranks weren’t my thing. There was only one credible way to explain this.
“It’s a note,” I said.
That was not my plan. That was a delaying tactic while I tried to figure out how best to phrase what I needed to say.
Mom stood up. I was taller than her now, but it sure didn’t feel like it at the moment. She had long brown hair that was completely straight—not a hint of a curl or frizz to be found. She was somebody who ate right, exercised regularly, but fourteen years later had never quite been able to reclaim her pre-Curtis body. Though it had been a long time since she’d been a physical threat to me, having her angrily get up off the couch was an intimidating sight…and I’d just spent some time with a serial killer.
She read the note out loud. “Dear Mom & Dad. As you know, I am absolutely positive that Gerald Martin is guilty, and I have gone to his house to confront him. If you found this note, it means that I did not come back. Call the police and tell them everything. I love you. Curtis.”
“Yeah,” I said. I’m not sure what “yeah” was meant to convey.
“Did you go?”
I shook my head. “I was walking over there, but the second I saw his house I changed my mind. It was a stupid idea.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“So I came back home. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again.”
Mom gaped at me as if she’d come home to a burning house and my reaction had been, “Sorry about the inferno; I’ll never play with matches again.”
“This is a big deal, Curtis,” she said. “You’re positive that he abducted Todd, so you went over there, alone? How would an idea like that even cross your mind? What did you think you were going to accomplish? How did you think it was going to turn out?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t shrug at me. You’re not six. Answer my question. How did you think it was going to turn out?’
“I said I don’t know what I was thinking! I don’t know how I thought it would turn out! It was a huge mistake, and I realized it as soon as I got there, so I turned around and came right back home. I messed up. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You’re sorry.” A dubious statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
“You could have been killed.”
“I know.”
“I get that you’re angry about what happened. I completely understand. I’m angry too. But you left us a note because you thought you might never come back. Do you get how insane that is?”
“Let me explain that part,” I said. “I didn’t leave that note because I thought I was never coming back. I left it so that I could tell him that I left it, so that he’d have
