Off the Deep End (62)

5:55 p.m. had been our special time to talk ever since my stay at Falcon Lake Hospital. My dinnertime on the unit coincided with the time Amber made him walk Duke every night, so it was perfect. She had him on a very structured schedule, and she was diligent about making him follow it even though he was a teenager. She and I definitely had different parenting styles. I was a much more laid-back parent.

Isaac was so excited that night. I loved nothing better than when he was happy, and it’d been a while since I’d seen him smile. It’d been a while since I’d seen him period. He’d been in such a depressed funk again, and he could be so difficult when he was in those moods. That was the hard part of being involved with someone so young. It required continual adjustments in my expectations and my patience. But when he was happy? Those moments were golden. They erased every single other bad day.

“Hi, honey,” I said the moment his face filled the screen. Well, it wasn’t exactly his face. More like his forehead and the top of his eyebrows. He was terrible about putting his entire face on the screen.

“What’s the point of FaceTiming if you’re not going to look at each other? Why wouldn’t we just have a regular call then?” I’d asked him so many times over the past months.

And every time I asked, his response was always the same. He’d laugh without saying anything, and I’d beam. Because he was finally laughing again. So was I. It’d taken over a month, and his first real outburst of laughter had given birth to mine. It was just one of the many ways we helped each other.

I could hear the smile in his voice that night, and I would’ve made him show me his face if I’d had any idea it’d be the last time I’d see him, but I didn’t. Instead, I talked to his forehead and the night sky as it bounced around, making me dizzy if I stared at it too long.

“You excited for tomorrow?” I asked after he finished telling me about the squirrel Duke had just chased up the tree.

“Absolutely,” he said, and I could hear the eagerness in his voice. I was so proud of him. He’d been working so hard. “I’ve been counting down the days.”

He’d been really overwhelmed when he was first given the assignment in his CAD course, and I could understand why. Creating a 3D-printed design of the entire school was an intense project. His partner wasn’t really pulling his own weight, so he’d asked for my help, and I’d jumped at the opportunity since he’d been ditching me to work on the project. The first thing I did was create a calendar with him so we could keep everything straight. There were lots of moving parts, and it was difficult to juggle, but it gave me something to do besides therapy, so I really didn’t mind at all. And besides, it gave me more opportunities to spend time with him again, which was all I cared about anyway.

The door opens behind me and yanks me from the memory.

“Sorry, that took much longer than I thought it would,” Dr. Stephens says as he hurries around the table and grabs his chair. His face is flushed. He’s unbuttoned his collar. He’d never done that.

“Everything okay?” I ask. I can’t help myself. I’m a natural caretaker even when I don’t want to be.

“I just wasn’t expecting that this morning, that’s all.” He wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve and slowly takes his seat.

“What happened?” Normally, he’s dying for me to ask him questions about what he knows, but he’s not doing that. Something’s different. Something’s off.

A few beats pass, and my question hangs unanswered. He’s still trying to decide whether he wants to share the information with me. I can tell by the way he’s gazing off to the side of my face and he has his brow wrinkled.

“Was that Detective Hawkins?” I ask, trying to help him along.

“Yes.” He nods. “Yes, it was.”

I don’t give him any other time to think and quickly pounce. “Do you want to talk about it?” I surprise myself with how well I still sound like a therapist. I haven’t lost the voice. I guess it’s like they say—once a therapist, always a therapist.

He clears his throat. He always clears his throat when he’s nervous. It’s a telltale sign that someone is nervous or lying, the oldest one in the book.

“That was Detective Hawkins,” he explains like we haven’t already established that, “and he was calling to tell me that our investigation has basically been flipped upside down overnight.” His voice grows more confident as he speaks, like he’s finally made up his mind that it’s okay to tell me. “Billy’s mom came down to the police station with Billy this morning, and he told police that he made up his entire story about the Dog Snatcher.”

“What? Are you serious?”

He nods. His eyes are still wide with disbelief too. “Yeah, I am. Apparently, he made it all up. He wanted attention from his mom and, I assume, probably all the attention he’d get from the media too.”

“Well, if that was the reason, then it definitely worked because it made him a hero,” I say, but I don’t need to tell him that. The whole world knew Billy. I’m shocked by the news too. I never thought a kid would lie like that for so long, especially to the police. But even though I’m shocked, it doesn’t really bother me. Not like it seems to bother him. “You look like this is really disturbing news to you.”