The Unwilling(48)

* * *



Saying goodbye to Becky was not an easy thing to do. We were at the cars. She was standing close. “Why sophomore year?” I asked. “Why then? Why me?”

“You really don’t know?”

I shook my head.

“Math class, first day.” Her eyes twinkled as she spoke. “Mrs. Ziegler called me to the board to work a problem. You remember?”

“What I remember is how much you’d changed over the summer.”

“Yeah, you and every boy in school. The legs. The boobs. But that first day in math class, you were the only one who looked at my face. You watched my face and you nodded and you smiled.”

“I promise, I was no saint.” Becky blushed, and dug a toe into the grass. “You seemed confident, though. Very self-assured.”

“But I wasn’t at all. No boy had ever looked at me the way those other boys did. Standing at the board, I could barely think straight. I still don’t know how I finished the problem. I kept asking myself, Why did I wear a skirt this short, a shirt this tight?”

“And that’s the reason you wanted to kiss me?”

“Not the only reason. Your life seemed so tragic from the outside: your brothers and the war, what people said about your mother. I liked the way you carried that weight.” She lifted narrow shoulders, smiling. “Plus the way you look in those jeans.”

“These?” I asked.

“Those jeans.” She pressed into me. “Any jeans.”



* * *



On the drive home, I thought of the things Becky had said, of her toes in the grass, and the small, possessive smiles. I’d have to break it off, with Sara, no question. It would be hard, I knew. She’d just lost Tyra. I didn’t want to pile on the hurt.

But maybe she wouldn’t care.

Maybe I was the smallest of distractions.

At home, I found the kitchen cold and empty, my mother on the sofa, drinking vodka. I’d not seen that in a while. “Hey, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

“This time it’s okay.”

“Did you eat something?”

She held up the glass, then put it down. “Come sit.” She patted the cushion beside her. “How was your day?”

“It was fine. You know. Considering. Where’s Dad?”

“In his office, looking for lawyers, though what luck he expects on a Sunday night is for him alone to know.”

I studied my mother’s eyes. They were glazed. The vodka bottle was four inches down.

“How was your day?” she asked again.

“Mom, look at me.” She did it, but slowly. I thought, Pills, maybe, or maybe an earlier bottle. “What are you doing?” I asked.

She shook her head, but I knew the answer.

Hiding, I thought.

Like me.



* * *



At my father’s study, the door was closed, but I could hear him on the phone. “I don’t care what the fee is. His first appearance is tomorrow morning. I need you there.”

I felt guilty, but eavesdropping seemed a small sin, considering. When the call was over, I knocked on the door.

“Come.”

My father was unshaven and exhausted, with enough color in his face to hint at the frustration I’d heard in his voice. “Lawyers,” he said.

“Did you find one?”

“I believe so.”

“A good one?”

“An expensive one. Where have you been?”

“With a girl, actually.” I sat across the desk, which I’d only done once before in my life. Too much murder, he’d told me once, meaning files and photos and autopsy reports. “Will the lawyer help?”

“Who knows with lawyers?”

“He didn’t do it,” I said.

Across the desk, my father slumped more deeply into his chair. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Sure enough to promise me? To bet your life on it? To bet your mother’s life?”

“Why would you phrase the question like that?”

“Because it looks bad, son. It looks really, truly bad.”



* * *



I went to my bedroom, but that image of my father stayed with me.

The helplessness.

The heartbreak in his eyes.

I needed to know what he knew, and could think of only one way to get the information. It was late, but that didn’t stop me. Dad was in his office, Mom in the bottle.

I walked through the front door, keys in hand.

No one noticed or cared.



* * *



It took time to reach Ken Burklow’s house. He lived across the city line in a small house on a neat street.

“Gibby. What are you doing here?”

He filled the door, surprised to see me.

“May I come in?”

He stepped aside to let me pass, then studied the street with cop eyes like my father’s. “It’s late. Are you okay?”

I’d thought I was. Now I wasn’t sure.

“Sit down, son. Before you fall down.” He put me on the sofa, and came back with a glass. “Drink that.”

“What is it?”