Dastardly Bastard(4)

“Lyle, what are you doing?”

“I turned off the ringer. I didn’t think you would—”

“What time is it?” She rubbed her eye, straining to make sense of why she was on the phone with her son.

“Four thirty.”

“Why’d you turn the ringer off? You know what? Never mind. Go back to sleep. Don’t mess with my phone anymore. What if someone important had called?”

“Sorry.”

Marsha hung up, but didn’t set the phone back on its base. She turned on the lamp at the end of the dresser and waited for her eyes to adjust. Looking over at her disturbed sheets, she saw her body’s imprint on the right and the flat, unused space to the left. Closing her eyes, not wanting to think about it, she fought resurfacing memories still too painful to revisit.

She squeezed the phone tightly, depressed buttons beeping in the process. Before she realized it, she was crying. The phone hit the mattress with a dull thwump.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted her son standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Lyle’s frame appeared small under the too-large pajamas. His yellow hair, so much like Paul’s, shined in the light of the lamp. His eyes were bloodshot, set above dark bags that looked deeper in the shadows on his face than they probably were.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to hear his voice. I didn’t mean to upset—”

“Come here.” Marsha’s heart shrank when he didn’t come to her. “Please?”

When he still didn’t move, she went over and wrapped her arms around him. Even though only twelve years old, he already came to her chin.

He kept his arms by his sides.

“You didn’t upset me.” She tousled his hair, letting him step back from her. “I’m still getting used to him not being here, Lyle. Just like you, it’s gonna take some time.”

He nodded and turned to leave.

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

He shrugged, his back to her. “Just wanted to make sure I didn’t piss you off.”

Lyle’s defenses were up. She’d get nothing else out of him. As he moved back down the hall to his room, a soft glow flashed in front of him. He had that cell phone out, playing some game. She didn’t know what to do with him. It had been two months, and nothing had changed.

Marsha wiped the leftover tears from her eyes and closed the door. Figuring her day had started—there was no going back to sleep after that—she decided to get dressed.

On the bed, the phone pulsed red. She had the thought to just let it go to voicemail, just let Lyle listen to his father’s voice play out over the message prompt, but things couldn’t keep going on as they were. She bent over the bed and snatched the handset, pressing TALK as she brought it to her ear.

“Please stop, Lyle.”

“Good morning to you, too, Marsha.”

“Bobbi?” She hadn’t expected to hear her mother-in-law’s throaty voice. “My God, it must be just after…” She quickly calculated the time difference between Ohio and California. “… one in the morning there. Is everything all right?”

“Here? Sure. Not so much where you are, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lyle’s been texting me all night. Not that I mind, Marsha, but the boy needs more than I can offer him from the other side of the country.”

“I’m trying, Bobbi.”

“I know you are. When Paul and I lost his father, things seemed to fall apart. My Randy wasn’t much different than Paul. Could say both men were cut from the same cloth.” Bobbi’s voice hitched on the last word. “Now, I have my own hang-ups about my son’s death, so I can’t just tell you to get over it, because I know that’s not entirely possible. But you must remember, you still have Lyle. He needs to be everything right now.”

“He won’t let me in.” Marsha didn’t like the whine in her voice.

“Is there anything you can do to take his mind off things for a while? Go see a movie? Play catch? I know that’s more of a father and son activity, but it’s worth a shot.”

“I can’t get him off that phone long enough to do anything. I want to just throw it away. Make him focus on his feelings. Focus on me. Something.” Marsha opened the top drawer of her dresser for some clean panties, but stopped when she realized she’d opened Paul’s side. His undershirts and boxers stared up at her.

“Throwing his phone away is just going to make him draw away from you even more. You need to keep him active. Paul used to take him hiking, right? What about that?”

“I’m not the nature type, Bobbi.” Marsha brought a T-shirt to her face and smelled it. She felt foolish, like a high school girl snuggling with her steady’s letterman jacket. Plus, the shirt smelled just like her own, of laundry detergent.

“This is not about you.”

“Right.” Marsha laid the shirt back down in the drawer and started sifting through the other garments.

“Is there anything he and Lyle were going to do before… Paul died?”

“He wanted to take Lyle out to that chasm thing down in Pointvilla. I thought it was too dangerous and talked him out of it. Maybe I should have let them go.”

“There you go. Are they open today?”