Off the Deep End (74)

“Let me help you with that,” he whispered, giving me a knowing nod. He didn’t say anything else. Neither did I. Just squeezed through the small window and tumbled into the backyard.

The cold was an instant shock to my system. I grabbed Mark’s hands and pulled him through the window next. We ducked down and slunk slowly across our backyard. My feet had never been louder as they crunched against the frozen grass and snow. We reached the end of our backyard and the fence separating our property from the neighbors’. I hadn’t climbed a fence for years, but that didn’t stop me. Nothing could. I hurled myself over it after Mark and we hurried through our neighbors’ backyards, throwing ourselves over fences like two fugitives. We were over four blocks away before we felt safe enough to work our way onto the street. We took off at a dead sprint, partially to get here fast and the other part to stay warm. We wouldn’t stop until we reached Gabe’s memorial at Paradise Point.

We still hadn’t stopped, but our pace slowed as we wove our way along the deer path skirting the trees and brush surrounding the lake. Mark slipped on a patch of ice in front of me and barely caught himself. I reached down and gave him a hand up. The wind howled at our backs and bit into me. I forced myself not to think about the cold and pushed forward. We rounded the edge of the shoreline, and suddenly, there he was.

There was no mistaking it was him. His yellow puffer jacket was a dead giveaway even so far away. He stood shaking and shivering, but he wasn’t alone. Somebody else stood with him. Their back was facing me, but I didn’t need them to turn around to know it was Jules. The sight of her made me sick. A relationship with a child was about as low as you could go. I didn’t care what they’d been through.

I heard Mark’s sharp intake of breath next to me, but I wasn’t surprised. Somehow, I’d known this was exactly what we’d find when we left the house. All I wanted to do was stop whatever was supposed to happen next. Jules was waving her arms and motioning, very animated about whatever she was saying to him. Isaac had his head down.

We crept quietly toward them, trying to get as close to them as we could before they noticed us. If they saw us now, there was still a chance they could take off and run up the hill to the road. We were still too far away to catch them if they did, but it didn’t take long for us to get close enough to corner them. The lake was behind them with no way for them to go on their right and the only way back up the embankment and on to the road was through us.

We stepped around the pine trees and into the open. Our movement startled them both.

Jules whipped around. “Get out of here!”

I wanted to pummel her and tell her to get away from my son. How was she even here? How long had she been with him? Did she help him plan the shooting? What kind of a monster would do something like that? I forced myself to stay calm and focus on what was the most important.

“Isaac . . . Isaac . . . ,” I called out to him with the same voice I used to caution him with when he was a toddler and he’d climbed too high on one of the slides at the park and I was terrified he’d fall. It was the voice that said, Be careful. My voice that said, Come down. I was too far away to see if my words had fazed him the way that they used to back in the day.

“Go away!” he yelled back just like Jules had.

“Isaac, please, we love you,” Mark cried as we inched forward. Both of us had our hands raised in submission like we were the ones surrendering to arrest.

We never took our eyes off them as we moved. A few feet and then a few more. They kept looking back and forth at each other and scanning the perimeter for a way out. Did she have a car? Was it parked close by?

I took another step forward. I could see Isaac clearly now. His teeth were chattering nonstop like mine, even though he was in a jacket. His face was gaunt like he hadn’t eaten. Wherever he’d been, they hadn’t fed him well. I fought the urge to rush him and pull him into my arms.

“I’m warning you, Mom, get back,” he said as if he’d read my mind. His hiking backpack was strapped to his shoulders. His jeans were covered in mud and snow. Pine needles stuck to his tennis shoes. Blood splattered the front of his yellow jacket. Horror flushed through me, leaving me dizzy and weak.

“Isaac, please, we just want to talk to you. We love you,” Mark said pleadingly as he stood next to me.

“Stop talking! Don’t say that! Get away from me!” he screamed and raised his hand in the air. That’s when I saw it. The gun. Clenched in my son’s hand.

All this time, I’d held on to the hope that my suspicions weren’t true. That he wasn’t the one shooting at the school. That my baby hadn’t hurt innocent people. Even when I’d seen him next to the water with Jules by his side, I’d hoped. Hoped maybe he’d been a part of the plan but hadn’t been the one to carry it out. Maybe he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger. That it was one of the people from Dracho. Somehow the kids had gotten it wrong at the high school.

God, I wanted it not to be true.

But it was, and there he stood.

My son with a gun in his hand. A gun that he’d used to strike down his classmates.

“We’re not going anywhere,” I said, holding my ground even though I was shaking and terror clawed at my chest. How did he get a gun? How did he even know how to use it? We weren’t like other Midwest families. We weren’t gun people. How did this happen? I’d been watching him so carefully. My head spun so fast with questions; there was no time for answers.