Finding Jake Read online

  CHAPTER 3

  JAKE: AGE SEVENTEEN MONTHS, FIVE DAYS

  I was a male lion. Scratching at my neck, I expected to run my hands through a silken mane, long and luxurious. When I yawned, I imagined the world could see my impressive canines. I would roar, call out across the Serengeti, exclaim my dominance, but it might wake Jake up.

  That was how I felt being a stay-at-home dad of a seventeen-month-old. From the day at Blue Coast when I agreed to shift my career and take care of a baby, my baby, that is, I lost myself. At first, I reveled in the idea of never having to wear a suit again. That joy, however, was surprisingly fleeting. I never realized how much I’d miss seeing the cast of characters that make up an office. I also did not realize how much I identified with my job, or how much my job identified me. I had started to pick up small writing assignments, but it was not the same. That may sound dramatic, but a stay-at-home dad can trend toward sounding that way.

  At the same time, I had missed nothing of my son’s life. I sat on the floor with him when he first sat up. I remembered that day so well, watching his little muscles tense and that now-familiar expression of stubborn intent cross his perfect little face. Even better, that bright smile of accomplishment that radiated once he made it up. When Rachel came home, I never told her about it. Instead, when he sat up an hour later, she got so excited.

  “Simon,” she had squealed. “Jakey just sat up for the first time.”

  I entered the room and made a big show of it.

  “Oh my God,” I had said. “Are you sure? Did you help him? That’s amazing.”

  I did, technically speaking, lie to my wife, but it made her so happy thinking she’d been there for the big moment. Plus, it wasn’t like Jake was old enough to catch me yet.

  Shaking the memory out of my head, I decided to check on Jake. He slept in his car seat in the living room. Shoeless, I padded across the kitchen and onto the hardwood of the foyer. A hand on the wall, I peeked around the corner. He was exactly where I’d left him, still snugly buckled in after our short drive. He fell asleep only in the car. At least that is what I had decided. So I drove him for about five minutes at nap time. Once asleep, I headed home, easing the seat out of its frame and gingerly carrying him inside. He had been asleep for about half an hour, although those minutes passed like seconds.

  He stirred, his little hands jolting up like a maestro conducting an orchestra. That used to freak me out so I asked the doctor about it. He said it was some kind of startle reflex all kids have. That was good enough for me.

  I stared for a moment longer. Although each minute Jake slept floated like a little island oasis, I lingered, smiling. He had his mom’s hair, straight, wispy, and streaked with subtle auburns and haystack yellows. Luckily, he had her eyes, too. When awake and open, they shined with such a unique blue that I found myself locked on to them at times, lost in their tiny perfection. His coloring, though, was all his dad’s. I liked to call it black Irish.

  The moment passed and I backed out of the foyer. In the den, I left the television on but muted. Big Cat Diary was on. I’d seen the episode at least four times but I settled down, Indian style, on the earth-tone shag carpet and watched.

  The sound of Jake waking up, a soft warble usually accompanied by the most adorable scrunched-up expression, lifted me off the carpet. I have no idea how long I sat there transfixed by the screen. If nap time translated into pure gold, I would have wondered why I squandered it just sitting there, but I was too tired to really think about it. Instead, I answered to Jake’s soft call and freed him from his seat. He clung to my neck as I walked him back out to the den. I placed him down. He immediately toddled to the corner by the ragged olive green couch my wife and I had owned since our first apartment.

  “Ball,” he said.

  Jake picked up a tiny, soft football. He threw it at my head and squealed. When I picked it up, he raced (maybe “raced” is a bit strong, more like stumbled) at me, launching his tiny body, a perfect shoulder tackle. I fell back, exaggerating, and he screamed, then we laughed together until he got the hiccups. That never stopped Jake. He launched himself again and again, screaming and laughing and hiccupping louder each time. At one point, I swept him up in a huge hug. He squirmed out and went back to the game.

  This went on for about twenty minutes, each successive tackle less exaggerated. By the end, I’ll admit that I barely flinched when he landed in my lap. My eyes went up to the screen. Another episode of Big Cat Diary had started. I watched it, still muted, while Jake crawled all over me. Rolling onto my side, I felt exhausted, a yawn letting loose as I scratched my neck. Let the women hunt. Right?

  “What time will you be home?” I asked Rachel later that evening.

  I could hear her shuffling paper on the other end of the line. I reminisced. Shuffling paper had been so great. I missed it horribly.

  “Regular time,” she answered.

  It was about four o’clock. Slipping a light jacket on my son, I held his hand as we walked out into the garage. I stowed the stroller in the truck when not in use. As I fished it out, Jake wandered onto the wide area of the driveway. He toddled back and pulled a small basketball out of a bin in the corner while I yanked at the lever that supposedly opened the confounding stroller.

  “Don’t pick that up,” I called out when I saw that the ball had been replaced by a small rock. “Not in the mouth.”

  Jake smiled, as if my words gave him an excellent idea. He brought the pudgy little hand holding the rock up to his lips. His mouth stayed closed as he looked me in the eye.

  “No,” I said.

  Someone laughed, startling me. All of a sudden the woman from across the street and down two houses, Karen Brown, appeared in my driveway.

  “Jakey, that is going to taste awful, sweetie.”

  Jake lowered the rock. I glanced at him and then at the neighbor. I never would have dreamed of phrasing it that artfully. “Oh, hey.”

  “Hi,” she said.

  Karen Brown had sharp, birdlike features and wore her black, straight hair pulled back in a bedazzled hairband. Her clothes clashed with my running attire. She wore an expensive pair of perfectly fitting jeans and a warm-looking, tailored blue blazer. Her socks were thick and woolly. This was obvious because she wore Birkenstock sandals over them.

  “That’s a good boy.” I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Jake.

  Jake turned his attention to Bo, Karen’s boy, her first and what she openly admitted to being her last child. He was a year older than Jake. Regardless, when Jake stomped toward him, Bo backed away. Karen, ignoring her son’s obvious discomfort, walked over to me. I didn’t say anything as Jake chased Bo into the yard, but I didn’t take my eyes off my son, either.

  “How are you and Rachel settling in?” she asked.

  We had moved into the house about a month before, leaving behind our modernized twin in downtown Wilmington, the starter home we bought a year after getting married. With its exposed brick walls and impossibly narrow kitchen, it remained a beacon of our pre-kids life. I had to look away from Karen because my mind took me back to that time. I could almost see Rachel and I fixing a post-party-in-Philly snack, the mundane act of food preparation transforming into a sensuous dance, our bodies swaying smoothly in the tight space, the food left half finished and clothes left in a haphazard trail leading to wherever we felt like culminating the night.

  The spontaneity of such moments seemed so distant, replaced by the reality of child rearing. Although Rachel had thought it was an awful idea to move with a sixteen-month-old, I pushed it, unable to fathom raising kids in the city. We needed to live in a better school district. She had protested, saying something about Jake not starting public school for three years, but I locked on and would not let go. Jake had to go to a good school in a safe community. My tenacity somehow led to that moment, me standing in the driveway reminiscing about the torrid days of old while returning my gaze to the slightly confused eyes of a stay-at-home mom.

&n
bsp; “Pretty well,” I answered.

  “Great. Don’t you just love the neighborhood? Sue, who used to live in your house, did you meet her? Well, she misses it terribly.”

  “I met her at our closing. Didn’t she move down Route Five, closer to the high school?”

  ”Yeah,” Karen said. “But she’s really unhappy. Says the neighbors don’t even talk. We are so lucky.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I, for one, could go days (maybe weeks) without talking to the neighbors. Not that I disliked them. There were days I could go without talking to anyone, a new trait that expressed itself since I’d left the office. Conversations at work, whether about the job or not, had been simple. In the suburbs, though, the same exchanges left me either confused or apologetic. Rachel said it was due to the fact that I had no ability to talk about women’s issues. I figured the answer couldn’t be so simple, because talking to the men came no easier. She could still be right. The truth was that I didn’t walk either path anymore, not fully. I certainly was not a woman, yet sometimes I didn’t feel too much like a man, either.

  As expected, the other women did not seem to share this condition. They prattled on about this and that, much as I had in the office, without seeming to stumble. Their conversations hung like riddles, so obvious to the tellers yet so utterly befuddling to me.

  “I bet it’s nice being closer to the school, though,” I finally added, talking about Sue’s move.

  Karen looked over my head, as if my words hung floating in a little comic bubble. With a shrug, she made eye contact again. “Are you all unpacked?”

  Jake picked up a stick. He didn’t swing it at Bo, but Bo screamed and ran toward his mother. My son must have thought that was funny because he gave chase, again.

  “Jake.”

  I used my fatherly tone. Karen startled and Jake froze.

  “Whoa,” she said, laughing uncomfortably, Bo clinging to her leg.

  My brain hurt. I wondered if that whoa had been directed at Jake, at his stick, or at my fatherly tone.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “He’s a little feisty today.”

  “No problem. So, are you all done decorating?”

  Later on, after I went inside, I wondered if she wanted me to invite her in. I’m sure that’s what a normal mom would do. At the time, I felt oddly uneasy and just answered her.

  “Rachel is moving along. The house is a little country for her, but she’s trying to modern it up.”

  Karen chortled. “If you don’t like country, why’d you buy this house?”

  The house was a twenty-seven-year-old colonial with light green siding and black shutters. Rooms blocked off the layout, unlike the open areas common in newer houses. Her question, however, seemed pointless to me.

  “The schools,” I said.

  “Oh,” she answered, once again staring at that comic bubble over my head.

  Rachel arrived home at six fifteen that night. Jake and I stood in the den, dressed and ready to go to Rachel’s sister’s for dinner.

  “Getting home early, huh?”

  I didn’t mean to sound snide, but her tardiness left me stressed. Really, it wasn’t that she was late. I just wanted her to call and let me know. I had used up all my ideas for how to entertain Jake. I could have put a show on but I didn’t want Rachel to come home and see him plopped in front of the tube.

  “Sorry. I got caught by someone as I was walking out. I just couldn’t get them to shut up.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “You could have called.”

  “I said sorry, Simon. I mean it. I feel awful.”

  I remembered how that kind of stuff happened all the time at the office. Unfortunately, it had been a long day and I was tired. We packed up the car and drove to her sister’s house mostly in silence. I decided I should tell her about Jake’s day. That eased the mood and by the time we arrived, everything flowed again.

  Once there, Rachel slipped into the kitchen with her sister and I sat down on the couch next to Uncle Marky. His youngest, eight-year-old Connor, looked like Gulliver next to my Jake’s Lilliputian. I slipped to the edge of my seat, sure every move Connor made would crush my son’s skull or break his arm. I thought Mark sensed my discomfort. He smiled.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  “I mean, staying home. It’s tough, huh?”

  I looked at him, debating. I sensed his desire to connect with me on a common ground. At the same time, I hesitated. For some reason, I felt guarded. Sometimes, I just didn’t want to admit it was tough.

  “No, it’s good,” I said. “I was teaching Jake how to crossover today.”

  Mark laughed. “A regular Allen Iverson.”

  “You got that right.”

  I could see Mark wanted more. For an instant, I actually thought about opening up. This man had endured my life already. Mark could be an invaluable resource. At that moment, I simply was not up for it.

  “Dude,” he said, “I get it. When the kids were little, I never wanted to talk about it, either. People would come up to me and say, Hey, so-and-so is a stay-at-home dad, too. You two should hang out. I never took them up on the offer.”

  “Why not?” I asked, some of my guardedness fading.

  “I honestly have no idea.”

  Hearing him say that was so liberating. “I get it. Sometimes, when I talk, I feel like all that comes out is the tough stuff about staying home. But it’s not all bad. It’s just really different.”

  “Exactly.” With an effortless turn of the head, he called out to his son, Connor. “Don’t touch that.”

  I laughed. “Eyes in the back of the head.”

  He nodded.

  For a moment in time, I felt totally understood.

  On the ride home, I told Rachel about my exchange with Karen that morning.

  “Maybe Karen was offended by that school comment.”

  “Why?”

  She laughed, but not in a mocking way. “We don’t all think like you. Karen did not decide to live in her house, invest in her neighbors, buy into the village because of a simple, logical thought. To her, it’s bigger than that, but more ethereal. It is about community, and safety, and belonging. It’s about totally loving where she has decided to raise her children. By simplifying it like you do, it makes her think that none of the stuff that is so important to her matters even one bit to you.”

  “Huh?”

  She laughed. “I’m just trying to help.”

  When we got home, I carried Jake, fast asleep, up to his room. He stirred but did not wake when I laid him gently down among his warm blankets and plush toys. I stood there, watching him for a moment, taking in the amazing fact of his existence. Rachel appeared at my side and grabbed my hand. We stood there for so long, like we were afraid to let that perfect moment pass.

  Eventually, we tore ourselves away and padded to our bedroom. Rachel snuggled under the covers, the light on and a book on her raised knees. I got ready for bed, thinking about the night, about our conversation in the car, and finally the fight we’d had when Rachel got home from work. I decided I should apologize.

  “Hey, sorry about giving you the business this evening.”

  “Which time?” she said, winking.

  “When you got home from work.”

  I climbed into my side of the bed and she turned off her light. Neither of us moved. The silence seemed strange, not unpleasant, just not that common since we’d had Jake. I enjoyed it for a moment, then inched closer to my wife.

  “How was work today?” I whispered.

  She sighed. “Okay.”

  In a quiet tone, she told me a story about a secretary who couldn’t get along with one of the new lawyers. I listened, and responded, and as she spoke, I put my arm around her. She nudged closer to me and I marveled at how graceful she was.

  “How are you doing?
” she asked after her tale ended.

  “I’m okay. That is, when I’m not pissing off the neighbors.”

  She ran her hands through my hair. It felt good, reminiscent really.

  “You’re a great mom,” I said from out of nowhere. The comment had not been planned out. It just appeared in my mind when I pictured her carrying Jake around before dinner that evening. He smiled at her when she kissed his cheeks. It had been such a real moment, beautiful and warm.

  She moved again, this time her arms enfolding me. Her head rested on my chest. The warmth spread out from her, holding me tighter than her arms ever could. We kissed. Tentatively at first, as if it had been months. She whispered my name and I pulled her tighter to me, feeling her warmth spread even farther across my body as the stresses of life vanished.

  I slipped the T-shirt she wore over her head. Our bare skin touched in that wonderful way, that surging instant that settles too quickly but leaves you wanting it over and over again.

  “Mommydaddy.”

  Jake’s call poured over Rachel like a cold shower. She pulled away, one becoming two again.

  “Oh God,” she said, guilt behind her words.

  “I’ll get him,” I said.

  “No, I want to. I just . . .”

  Rachel got up and grabbed her T-shirt. I could see the flush of her cheeks receding as she covered herself and hurried out of the room. I leaned back, listening to her soothing voice as she comforted our son. To be honest, I felt torn. Part of me felt warm hearing just how great a mother Rachel was. Another part of me, a part I was not proud of, had a different thought. That part wished he hadn’t woken up.

  CHAPTER 4

  DAY ONE: TWENTY MINUTES AFTER THE SHOOTING

  Cars, all facing the same direction, jam the two-lane road leading to the school’s entrance. Drivers lurch out of doors left open and run between the eerily still vehicles toward a bank of flashing lights, painting panicked faces in vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges.