What Happened to the Bennetts(42)

I nudged Ethan. “Hear that? It’s like Triassic Park.”

“Dad, it’s Jurassic Park.”

“I know, I was joking.”

“It’s even older than that,” Wiki continued, his tone vaguely professorial. “The Triassic is before the Jurassic, about two hundred and fifty million years ago. All the landmasses were joined together. It was called Pangea. Did you ever hear of that?”

“Remind us,” I answered for us both.

Ethan was still watching Moonie.

“During the Triassic, there was a mass extinction of marine and land species, and when life returned, it was all about the land animals. Dinosaurs were beginning to evolve.” Wiki pointed to the fossil. “Ethan, where do you think its mouth is? Take a guess.”

Ethan shrugged.

“Here, at the front, where it’s wide. It had eyes and ten arms with suckers.”

“Moonie’s chewing something.” Ethan ran off abruptly. “Moonie, no!”

I sighed inwardly. “Sorry. He’s not himself.”

“Not a problem.”

I watched Ethan pet the dog, surprised that his arm was so thin, popping out of his T-shirt like a matchstick.

“So how are you doing, Jason?”

“Okay,” I answered, but I found myself scanning my son. His knees seemed more prominent than usual, and his scapula stuck out. He always had a wiry build, but he’d never been skinny.

“Thanks for running with Dom. He’s so fast, I can’t keep up.”

“Neither can I.” I managed a smile, preoccupied. Ethan had lost weight, a lot, and we hadn’t even been here a week.

“He’s hyperactive. He’s gotta run to burn it off.”

“Right.” I knew Wiki was trying to make conversation, but I was thinking about Ethan. He was missing meals, since our mealtimes were all over the lot.

“He said you grew up in Hershey. We used to go there on field trips, too. It’s pretty there.”

“Yes.” I was trying to remember what I’d seen Ethan eat in the past few days. Sometimes he ate with Lucinda, and there was snacking. The breakdown in our routine made it hard to tell.

“I loved that ride through the factory, even though it was fake. The smell was great. The gift shop was the big thing. I ate so many Reese’s Pieces I threw up on the bus home.”

“Yikes.” I only half-listened.

“He told me you were at Gitmo, too. That must’ve been cool. Dom said you had to be the ‘best of the best’ to be chosen. What did you do there? Were you in court?”

“The 806 hearings? No.” I watched Ethan, wondering if Lucinda had noticed how thin he had gotten.

“What’s that mean, 806?”

“It’s what they called the detainee hearings. The court reporters weren’t in the proceedings.” I flashed on the hearings, which were about alleged abuses that took place during detainee interrogations, in the wake of 9/11. The litigation took so long, most of the pretrial proceedings were ongoing, even today.

“Where did you work, if you weren’t in the courtroom?”

“We had our own housing unit. They gave us the audio recordings, and we made a same-day transcript.”

“You know what I don’t get? Why do they need a court stenographer, if they have audiotape? Like, can’t they use dictation software?”

I got this question so often I could answer on autopilot. “Audio can’t distinguish when different speakers interrupt each other or cross talk, and at Gitmo, there were accents to deal with.”

“The beaches must’ve been nice.”

“We didn’t get much R & R, but Glass Beach was.” I noticed Ethan running across the lawn, and his legs looked positively spindly. “I didn’t swim. They got brown sharks.”

Wiki snorted. “How about boating? My dad has a boat we take down the Chesapeake.”

“Only once. We cruised the river until we got to the sign that says if you go farther, they shoot you.”

Wiki laughed, and I seized the moment to go.

“You know, I should get Ethan inside.”

“Right.” Wiki held out the fossil. “He can have this.”

“Thanks.” I smiled, touched. Wiki didn’t have Dom’s ease with people, but I liked him, too. “It’s nice of you to give it up.”

“Not a problem. I still have my collection from fifth grade.”

I laughed, but I wasn’t sure he was kidding.





Chapter Twenty-Two



I set the fossil on the table just as Lucinda came into the kitchen in a white T-shirt and shorts, her hair wrapped in a towel. Her eyes looked puffy, so I knew she had been crying in the shower. I stepped toward her and kissed her on the cheek. “Hey, babe.”

“Hi.” Lucinda met my eye in a tacit thank-you, then sat down. “What’s that, a shell?”

“No, a fossil Wiki found.”

“He gave it to me.” Ethan picked it up, examining it.

“Nice, right?” I ruffled the top of his head. “Buddy, why don’t you go take a shower, too?”

“Okay.” Ethan left the room with Moonie trotting after him, and I sat down across from Lucinda, patting her hand across the table.