He dropped the box and fell into one of the armchairs. He threw his head back against the cool leather and closed his eyes. He’d worked up quite a sweat. It was pleasant to sit back and take a well-earned rest.
“Jack?” Ariel’s voice barely carried the length of the hallway but it was enough to interrupt his short breathing space. “Jack, where did you put the box with the curtains for the living room?”
“How the hell should I know,” he grumbled to himself. “It probably looks just like all the rest.” But he pushed himself out of the chair and headed down the dark hallway. Might as well get this over with. “Coming,” he yelled. “Get me a cold one from the fridge, will ya?”
Yeah, moving sure was a bitch.
2
The first few months in Tamarind Valley went smoothly, like they always did just after a move.
The new job went like jobs went. Jack was good at what he did and no one ever complained about the results. Which was good, since it made work easy to find wherever they moved.
He took the money they had put away when they got rid of the place in Oregon and bought pretty much the same things he had sold up there. First a camper. Southern California summers were everything the travel brochures promised, and almost from the first the Merricks spent every weekend on the road, traveling to the ocean or the desert or the mountains. It was always good to get away from things, and anyway, the great outdoors was healthy for the kids, wasn’t it? They certainly enjoyed the freedom to wander around from dawn to dusk without having to be shepherded every moment.
They enjoyed the trips even more after Jack bought three off-road motor bikes, one full-sized for him, two used, cut-down models for the boys. Ariel didn’t like bikes, which was just as well. She preferred to spend the time in the camper, reading or napping. Just as well. Saved some money there.
Once Jack found out about Lake Cachuma, a couple of hours to the north, he decided that the family had to have a boat. Something small enough to haul behind the camper but big enough for fishing and water skiing. A week later a trim little craft was parked in half the driveway, safely sheltered by an electric blue tarp.
Yeah, the Merricks were a with-it, mobile family, all right. Jack liked it that way.
The boys settled into their school routines easily when fall came. Slick had pointed out the advantages of having schools near enough that the kids could walk there and back. Be good for them. Build them up. Build character.
There were the occasional rough spots, of course, but Ariel knew well enough how to handle them.
No one questioned Mark’s injured knee. Ariel write a bullshit note about him tumbling down some stairs and bruising it. It got him out of running in P.E., which was all the kid cared about. Ariel only had to drive him and pick him up a couple of days before he could limp his way to school.
Clark stayed home every now and then, but the school seemed to understand that kids that age sometimes just wore themselves out playing and needed an occasional day to recuperate.
And, on the whole, they performed well. Mark’s grades were just above average in most subjects. Clarks dipped below now and again but he always managed to pull them up. Both boys came home with report cards bearing teachers’ notes that indicated the boys were shy and perhaps a bit socially backward-but that came with moving so often, didn’t it? They both excelled in P. E, though, and that counted for something.
After the blazing heat of summer passed, Ariel was more comfortable, too. She had rarely left the house, not even to work in the yard, which was Jack’s self-proclaimed bailiwick. When she did, it was to drive the second-hand Kia Jack bought for her to go to the store and back. Stores were air-conditioned, so no one ever said anything about her long-sleeved shirts or full-length pants.
And everyone in Southern California wore shades in the summer.
On the whole, Jack was satisfied with life on Oleander Place. Since they were on the end of the street and, in spite of what he might tell Ariel, he only infrequently actually worked in the front yard-mowing and a bit of weeding now and then-they made few close friends among the neighbors.
That was all right. Jack liked his family to be self-sufficient.
3
By the beginning of June, 2009, however, Jack was getting a bit worried. He knew the signs well enough.
Then it happened.
For once, he was glad that what seemed like every kid in the neighborhood was hanging around their back yard. For some reason, a bunch of boys had tagged home with Mark after school on Friday, and Ariel had let them stay to play. She had whipped up some lemonade, even though she knew that Jack would disapprove. When Mark lost his handhold on one of the top branches in the disease-ravaged elm in the corner, and the branch beneath gave way under his weight, there must have been ten kids standing around.
Great.
Witnesses.
This time, when he took Mark into the ER at Oak Glen Hospital, none of those goddamn know-it-alls would look at him that way. This time, he had witnesses that would swear that he hadn’t laid a hand on the kid, that he wasn’t even in the yard when it happened.
He was, in fact, sitting in the recently converted garage that now served as a family room, watching a replay of a Lakers’ game on the tube, drinking a cool one and wondering if this was the summer that he would finally break down and get rid of the old thirty-six incher and go for broke and buy a window-sized flat screen. The Lakers were even ahead for a change when he heard Mark’s piercing shriek.
Shit, it would have to happen right now-whatever the hell was going on out there. Right in the middle of a game. And with Ariel out gallivanting somewhere, God knows where that woman gets to even though she always claimed it is only to Albertsons or Sav-on, so he would have to take care of whatever was wrong. Probably just a squabble among the brats and Mark had lost. Jack got up and hitched his pants to his waist and made his way through the kitchen-not too fast, don’t let the kid think he can control you, even if he is still screaming bloody murder.
But even Jack knew with one glance that there was more wrong here than just a backyard fight. The bone stuck maybe an inch through Mark’s forearm, white and gleaming and stained with red. The boy was on his feet, but wobbly and white and looking like shit warmed over.
Okay, hospital time.
By the time Jack had buckled in and cranked the ignition, Mark was seated on the passenger side. Jack had grabbed a towel in the kitchen as they rushed through and wrapped it around Mark’s arm, so there shouldn’t be any blood on the seat.
“Hang on, kid.”
Mark didn’t answer. Jack glanced over. The kid’s eyes were squeezed shut and he was sweating like a pig.
Jack floored the accelerator.
He knew the way to Oak Glen, so it wasn’t more than a few minutes before they screeched to a halt outside the ER. An attendant was right there with a wheelchair, and Mark disappeared into the urgent-care rooms before Jack had time to follow.
When he got to the admissions desk, the receptionist glanced up. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.
“Mr. Merrick?”
“Yeah, it’s my son.”
“Mark or Clark.”
“Mark. He fell out of a tree. Broke his arm.”
