Underwater(54)

There’s a scratchy sound followed by a bang, like she’s muffling the phone with her hand. “I, um, I have a Mr. Richard Grant here to pick up Ben,” she says. “He claims to be Ben’s dad, but I don’t have his name on the emergency release form. It says we can release Ben to you or Carol or his after-school program. Does Richard Grant have permission to take Ben?”

Everything stops long enough to feel like forever. And when the seconds start again, they’re revved up like race cars.

“No. Don’t let Ben go. He can’t go with him.” I say these things, panicked and petrified.

“He’s, um, rather insistent,” she says.

“I’m coming,” I say. “I’m coming right now.”

I turn off the phone and toss it onto the desk, then race down the hall to my room. I pull sweats on over my damp suit, run back through the apartment, and grab my car keys from the hook in the kitchen. Everything is automatic at first. Slapping through the screen door and tearing down the stairs and through the courtyard doesn’t even faze me. But when I run out to the back of the building, I stop still at the line of marked parking spots. What I’m doing hits me full-force. I look at my car covered in the navy blue tarp. I can’t move forward. I’m frozen, gripping my key ring in my hand. I grip it so tightly that the teeth of my house key dig into my palm enough to make an indentation.

And then I pace. I walk back and forth, from parking spaces 200 to 215. Counting up. Counting down. I can’t do this. How can I do this? I sink to my knees, trying to catch my breath. My stomach churns. I lurch forward like a cat. I retch. Nothing comes up. I pant in place until the warm pavement soaks through the knees of my sweatpants and scrapes the palms of my hands. What good am I?

And then I think of Ben. I think of the googly eyes on his frog costume and the way he pronounces the word paleontologist incorrectly when he talks about dinosaurs. I think of the way he squeezes my cheeks between his hands so I can’t say “I love you” coherently before he kisses me. I think of the way he sleeps and runs and jumps and dreams. I think of all that he doesn’t know and all that he shouldn’t have to know. Not yet. And because of that, I stand up and yank the tarp off my car, leaving it in a crumpled mess on the ground.

I get inside and shove the key into the ignition. The engine growls in protest from so many months of not being driven while the exhaust pipe coughs up black smoke into the alley.

I sit for a moment.

My seat rumbles underneath me.

I grip the steering wheel.

I look over my shoulder.

I back my car out.

I go.

When I round the corner and merge into traffic, there are lights and bikes and people and things that make me jerk in my seat. I continually start and stop my car with a jolt, trying to avoid everyone and everything. Even though I’m alone, all I can see is Aaron Tiratore sitting next to me clutching a backpack full of secrets. I dry-heave at a stoplight and quickly roll down all the windows in case I puke for real.

He’s not here. He only exists if I let him.

*

It’s just before ten a.m. when I peel into the lower lot of Ben’s school. I don’t even check to make sure I’m parked between the lines. It seems like it should be time for recess, like kids should be hanging upside down from monkey bars or slurping up tubes of yogurt and juice boxes. But the campus is quiet and empty, and I worry that it’s because of my dad. Especially since there’s also a police car parked in front of the school. I know it’s bad. Not Aaron Tiratore bad, but still bad.

I run up the concrete steps, past the handmade posters advertising Ben’s play four days from now, and through the front door of the office. I must be loud, because everyone turns to look at me at once—two police officers, one principal, one secretary, and both of my parents.

I zero in until my mom and dad are all I see.

My mom is frazzled and furious, her eyebrows and fists knitted tight as she shifts from foot to foot. My dad is slumped over and slender in a chair by the window, his wrists handcuffed behind his back. I haven’t seen him in over a year and a half, but the way he looks now is beyond anything I expected. He’s gaunt. He’s dirty. He has a ratty beard with food crumbs stuck in it. I can smell the stench of alcohol and filth on him from ten feet away. Seeing him makes my heart hurt for so many reasons.

My mom turns to me, her eyes filling up with tears. “You came.”

I well up. I can’t help it. Her words mean everything.

“Where is he? Is he okay?” My eyes are everywhere, but I don’t see my brother, and all I can think is that something happened to him.

“He’s in class,” my mom says. “He doesn’t even know.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why are the police here?”

“Because your dad wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“I just want to see my son,” my dad says. It seems like a simple enough request from a father, but nobody in his right mind would consider sending a kid off with someone who looks like my dad right now.

“You want to see Ben?” I ask him. My words are loud. “You actually want to see him? Since when have you had any interest in seeing any of us?” The noise of my voice carries through the tiny office, over the desk and through the slats of the ceiling fan, making the principal and my mom jump. “Christmas, birthdays, swim meets, awards ceremonies…” I tick them off until my voice quiets to a whisper. “And when all those kids at my school died, I could’ve died, too. But you come now. Why now?”