Off the Deep End (26)
He doesn’t flinch or pick up his pen to make any kind of note. Maybe he missed the significance? I have a feeling he’s not paying attention to the right things.
“Was it hard for you to listen to him talk about what happened?” he asks next.
“At first it was, definitely it was at first. I used to get all sweaty and nauseous whenever he started talking, but it almost became this weird form of exposure therapy. The more he talked about it, the less impactful it was on me. I stopped sweating and shaking.” He did too. The only reason I sat through how uncomfortable and hard it was for me was because he had it much worse. Trying to articulate his internal state was so tough for Isaac and painfully slow. “Something shifted when I was listening to him talk about that night, and searching for ways to help him change the way he thought about himself and the accident made me start processing it differently for myself too. That pretty much happened by mistake.”
“That must’ve been really nice and helpful for both of you,” he says.
“It was magical. That’s what it was. Isaac was willing to talk about things that nobody else would, at least not back then. Nobody besides my psychologists and counselors wanted to talk about that night. But regular, normal people? They couldn’t handle horrific, totally unfair things happening to children. And the death of a child? The horrible way we all knew Gabe must’ve died—terrified and alone—that nobody dared mention? Those things shook you to the core. How couldn’t they?”
People live their lives under the illusion of a protective shield. I used to live the same way, but not anymore. Nobody is safe, and I remind people of that, which is why I make them uncomfortable. I remind them that we don’t live in a safe world. People slowly stopped coming around after the funeral. They didn’t stop sending food, though. I didn’t have to cook for months. They still sent text messages asking how I was or forwarded inspirational quotes and books that they thought might help me. But nobody knew how to talk to me in person or be around me. Looking me in the eye was too much. I reminded them of the thing we all feared the most.
Except Isaac. He was the only person who wasn’t uncomfortable around me. And I wasn’t uncomfortable around him. We were the perfect match.
SEVEN
AMBER GREER
The house was filled with nervous tension. It’d been that way all day. All of us just listening, waiting, and watching, but trying to pretend like we weren’t. Like there wasn’t an almost-audible clock ticking over our heads. There was nothing to do to stay busy, and it was driving me crazy.
Mark had taken up his usual post on the couch. I’d already heard him get sick in the bathroom twice. His face still looked pale and clammy. My dad showed up about an hour ago and took over answering the house phone. It was weird to hear it ring. Nobody ever called on the house phone. We only had it for emergencies, and most of the time, I forgot it was even there. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used it before this, but it’d been ringing off the hook. That was the only real sound interrupting the excruciating wait.
“We ask that you respect the family’s privacy at this time, and the Greers aren’t interested in any interviews or media appearances,” my dad said over and over again like he was a recorded message.
No media interviews was the one thing Mark and I agreed on in all this. We’d made the video with the police asking for the safe return of Isaac and anyone with information to come forward, but that was it. We weren’t going to put our family in the spotlight. Not any more than it already was.
I paced the lower level, treading circles throughout the house. I stopped frequently in the kitchen to fill coffee mugs and make new pots. Sometimes I drained what was left in the old pot and made a new one just to have something to do with my hands. Normally, when I was super stressed and worried, I cleaned the kitchen spotless. If I still wasn’t calm after that, then I set out organizing the cupboards, and if something was especially bad, I ended up tackling the refrigerator too. But I couldn’t do any of that with all the people in my kitchen, which only added to my anxiety.
I stepped upstairs to put away a load of laundry, and I could tell by the way the energy had shifted in the entire house when I came downstairs that something major had happened. The thing I’d secretly been holding my breath against.
Everyone tried to busy themselves as Detective Hawkins motioned for me to follow him into the family room so he could speak with Mark and me privately. Mark picked up on the change as soon as we entered the room, and he slowly rose to his feet, never taking his eyes off Detective Hawkins. Mark walked toward us like he was dreading each step because each one took him closer to hearing whatever awful thing was about to come out of Detective Hawkins’s mouth. Part of me wanted to scream at him to go sit back down on the couch. Like if he’d just sit down, Detective Hawkins wouldn’t be able to tell us the news, and if he didn’t tell us the news, then somehow that would make the news not true.
Mark stood next to me, and Detective Hawkins wasted no time getting down to business. “I just received a call from one of my patrol officers, and a sealed cardboard box was found at Plummer’s Park twenty minutes ago. The box looks identical to the ones left in the other cases.” He kept a straight face while he talked. No emotion while he plunged a knife into our guts. “The forensic team has been dispatched to the scene, and they’ll be combing the entire area within a two-mile radius for any evidence or clues. I’ll be leaving shortly to oversee the questioning of any potential witnesses we can find in the park. Our media-relations person will sit down with you while I’m gone to go over the statement we’ll be releasing to the media. She’ll work with you on creating your own. Much like we did when we gave the statement that the cell phone was found and when Isaac first went missing. You won’t be alone. She’ll walk you through all of it.” He was talking too fast. This was too much. He needed to slow down.