Knitting Under the Influence

feels more like the real thing. If we left the door open, it wouldn't feel the same, you know?” She realized she was blithering on, over-explaining because she didn't want him to think she was closing the door to be alone with him. She made herself stop talking and pointed to the desk in the corner of the room. “There's a phone over there. Dial nine to get out.”

“Thanks.” He went over and dialed and said, “Hi. It's Jason. Denise isn't there, is she? You're kidding. Put her on, will you?” He waited a little while, tapping one foot impatiently on the floor. Then, “Yeah, hi. It's me. What the hell are you doing still there? I’m at the Halloween thing at the clinic. Where you were supposed to be an hour ago.” He listened for a moment. “So why didn't you call? I’ve been-” Another moment. “Yeah, the battery's out, but you could have left a message here or something.” More listening. “So who's with Zack?” Then, “Do you really trust her to watch him?” After a response: “All I know is that you were supposed to have him for two hours. Just two little hours, which were supposed to include bringing him here to trick-or-treat. And you couldn't even manage that. And you better not be expecting me to go get him over there, because I’m not about to make that trip again. Do you know what the traffic is like on Halloween night? It took me over an hour to get back to this side of the hill.” He looked at his watch as he listened to something else. “Since six? He'll be up all night now.” He grimaced. “Fine, then. Bring him home whenever you want. It's not like he'll be asleep before midnight, anyway.” He listened for a moment. “Shit, Denise, can't you even spend half an hour in a car with him? So who is going to be driving him?” A pause. “Terrific. What is she, sixteen? Does she even have a license?” Then, “Yeah, I know, I know. You really went out of your way to give him a fun time tonight, didn't you? Way to help your son celebrate Halloween.” He slammed the phone back down into its base.

Sari had been studying the table as if the fake wood grain fascinated her, but now she looked up. “Everything okay?”

He shook his head. “She was supposed to take him out to dinner. For once. She said she wanted to, because it was Halloween and she hadn't seen him for days. And then she was supposed to bring him here and trick-or- treat with him and then I was going to meet them and take him home. She wouldn't even have had to spend the night with him.” He exhaled sharply. “I dropped him off at her office at five. They never left, haven't even had dinner. He's just been sitting there watching TV with some intern – or at least he was until he fell asleep an hour ago. She made him miss Halloween.”

“Maybe it's not too late,” Sari said. “I mean, it is for trick-or-treating here, but maybe they could still go to some houses-”

“There's no way-now she's claiming that there's an emergency at work she has to deal with. Which just means some actor's throwing a hissy fit or something. I’d run over and grab him, but he's all the way out in Burbank, and by the time I got there, it would be too late to take him anywhere. Anyway, I wanted him to do this.” He waved his hand at the room. “It would have been perfect. He got scared last year when I tried to take him out for some real trick-or-treating. I wanted him to do something for Halloween that would make him see it can be fun. And this would have been-” He stopped. “Perfect,” he said again. “That's all. And she ruined it.”

“I’m sorry,” Sari said. And realized she really was. For Zack, mostly, and a little bit for Jason. “Is there anything I can do to help? I could send some candy home.”

He looked at her and his face suddenly relaxed into a smile. “I don't suppose you'd be willing to kick Denise's ass? I mean, you look like you could, with those boots and all.”

Sari laughed. “I doubt it-you said she was a real athlete in college and I’m kind of out of shape.”

“She's got some height on you, too. In the interest of full disclosure. But you've got that whole tough leather thing going on. And you don't look like you're out of shape.” He leaned back, resting his hip against the desk. “I’m so bummed about this. Poor Zack. I should never have let her have him on a holiday.”

“Do you guys have a custody arrangement worked out?”

“Not really. But it's never been a problem. We both assume I’ll have him, except for those one-in-a-billion moments when she actually feels some kind of maternal pull. Like tonight. And we both saw how well that worked out.”

“So what happened last Halloween?” Sari said. “You said Zack got scared. Did you go around your neighborhood?”

He sat down with a thump on a chair. “We drove over to my parents’ house, actually. I thought I was being so smart-I figured he'd feel safe because he goes over there all the time.”

“So what happened?” Sari sat down, too, across the table from him.

“Well, he started off already a little freaked out just because it was dark out and he didn't like the jack-o’- lanterns on the front porch. But it would have probably been fine, except my father decided it would be hilarious to open the door wearing a gorilla mask.” He grimaced. “It was unbelievable. I mean, I had called ahead just to warn them not to pull any surprises on Zack and then he goes and does that.”

“Why?” Sari said. “If you specifically asked him not to?”

“I don't know. Maybe he thought it was funny. Or maybe just because I told him not to. He's a sick old bastard.”

Sari tried to remember Jason Smith's father from high school events. She had a vague sense of someone tall with thick gray hair but she wasn't sure she was thinking of the right guy. “That's kind of harsh, isn't, it?”

He shrugged and tipped his chair back. “We've never gotten along very well. I’m this huge disappointment to him. Which he manages to remind me of every chance he gets.” He let the chair fall back into place with a thud. “Actually, now that I think about it, I bet he scared Zack just so he could make him scream and then use that as an example of what a bad parent I am and how I can't control my own kid.”

“He knows Zack has autism, right?”

“I’ve told him, but he doesn't believe it.”

“You're kidding.”

He shook his head. “He thinks all of Zack's problems come from having a mother who's the wage-earner. It screws a kid up if his dad doesn't wear the pants in the family, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “If that's really the way he sees things-”

He waved his hand dismissively. “I’m used to it. I’ve been a disappointment to the guy since I was born. Why should that change now that I really am the biggest loser in town?”

“What makes you such a big loser?”

“Don't make me give you a list, Sari, please,” he said. “It's bad enough having to live with myself, but if you make me tell the one person I-” He stopped. “Not that you won't figure it out soon enough.”

She didn't say anything. She heard a door slam down the hall and thought, I should get up and say good night and leave this room. But she didn't move.

“I’m sorry,” he said when a moment had gone by and she still hadn't spoken. “I probably sound like a whiny brat. My father doesn't love me and all that. I’m sorry.”

“No, it's okay,” she said. “I wasn't thinking that. It's just… I’m a little confused. You were so different in high school. You were kind of on top of the world back then.”

He gave a short unpleasant laugh. “I so wasn't. Maybe it looked that way from a distance, but all I remember about those days was how my parents were always screaming at me because I had done badly on a test or the coach hadn't played me or I had forgotten to take out the garbage or something like that. I was always being grounded and threatened with military school.”

“But when you were actually at school-” Sari said. “I mean, you owned the place.”

“Hardly.”

There was the sound of a child either laughing or crying coming from another part of the clinic. Sari looked toward the door and said, “I should probably go help Ellen.”

“Don't go yet,” Jason said. “Please.”

“There's always a big mess to clean up.”

“I bet. How'd you end up working here anyway?”

“I went to college here and then graduate school and it just made sense-”

“But I mean, why an autism clinic? Do you have a relative with autism or something?”

He really didn't know? “My brother,” she said.

“You're kidding.”

She just shook her head.