Finding Jake Page 8

  I waited, but Jake said nothing. The car rolled forward while I stole a glance in the mirror. I couldn’t take it for long.

  “How was the party?” I asked.

  “Great.” He kept reading (or at least looking at the pictures).

  I paused, knowing I shouldn’t pry. If I pried, I’d end up making something out of nothing. At the same time, the exchange with the doctor made it impossible to control myself.

  “Who else was there?”

  Jake’s voice sounded matter-of-fact. “His parents, his cousin, his grandma.”

  My skull tingled. “Any other kids?”

  “Nope.”

  “Wasn’t it a birthday party?” I asked.

  “I guess. This kid, Jeremiah, was supposed to be there but his parents canceled.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We just played, mostly in his room.”

  “Played what?”

  “I dunno. With some of these old-fashioned army men. They were his dad’s, I guess. We started to build a fort in the woods behind his house, too. It’s a pretty cool place to play guns.”

  Nothing added up. My grip on the steering wheel tightened and I took a deep breath.

  “What were you doing just now, in the grass?”

  Jake put the book down and found my eyes in the mirror. He looked guilty.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me, please.”

  “Nothing, Dad.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “You’ll be mad.”

  I sighed. “I won’t, just tell me.”

  “Can I have an amnesty moment?”

  I’d instituted “amnesty moments” when Jake was very young. Wanting him to always feel comfortable communicating with me, I said he could ask for one, tell me something, and I would not react. I would not get mad, nor would I ask any questions. At the time, I just wanted to make sure my kids felt comfortable telling me anything, even things that they knew might upset their parents.

  “Definitely. Go ahead.”

  “Doug stepped on a toad. It was an accident.”

  My footing crumbled. In moments like that, I tried to think about what Rachel would do or say if she were in my shoes.

  “Gross,” Laney screamed from her car seat.

  “I got his guts on my finger.” Jake waggled it at his sister, who squealed. The sound ignited a deep, throbbing headache. I rubbed at an eye.

  “Accident?” I asked, even though I was not supposed to.

  “Stop,” Laney screamed.

  Jake laughed and pretended he was going to touch his sister.

  “Stop,” I snapped, harsher than I’d meant. Both Jake and Laney froze, the car becoming jarringly silent. “Accident?” I repeated.

  Jake picked his book up. “That’s what Doug said.”

  “Huh?”

  “What, you don’t believe me?” Jake asked. “I asked for an amnesty moment!”

  I took a deep breath. “I totally believe you, buddy. You never lie.”

  “He lied about my Barbie,” Laney said.

  “Okay, sweetie.”

  I tried not to ask any more questions as we drove home. Pulling onto our street, I immediately heard the sound of kids playing, even through the closed windows of the car. About half a dozen kids were crammed into Karen’s front yard. They played football with the abandon of those unafraid of tearing an ACL or straining a tired old back.

  As we passed, I watched them. That familiar feeling of unease cropped up, filling me with a restless anxiety.

  “Bo and the other kids are playing football. Why don’t you head over? You’ve got nothing until dinnertime.”

  “Nah,” Jake said.

  “He promised to play knights with me, Daddy,” Laney protested.

  “Why not?” I asked. “You love football. You play every day at school.”

  “With my friends, yeah.”

  “What’s wrong with Bo and Chase and them?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I just don’t want to play. Unless you want me to.”

  “It’s up to you, buddy,” was what I said. I didn’t want him to, per se. I wanted him to want to. There was a big difference.

  On Tuesday of that week, I took Jake and Laney to a park in town. The night before, it had rained. As we drove past the rolling hills surrounding our neighborhood, the greens shined with an unnatural brightness. The humidity broke with the storm and the air had a dry yet crisp touch. The perfect day to be outside in nature.

  When we first arrived, the place was ours. Jake and Laney raced out onto the mulched playground, hitting everything in a quick circuit. While they climbed on a giant turtle, the late-morning sun dappling their laughing faces, I got the rare urge to take a picture. I knew that our family photo album suffered with me being the one home, but for that day at least, we would have a lasting memory.

  “Guys, look over here,” I said.

  They turned and noticed my camera phone. Both made funny faces and I snapped the picture, laughing. It came out pretty good, so I decided to send it to Rachel’s new phone. Something about looking at the picture, seeing the moment encapsulated in time, caused me to realize something. My kids’ lives would be built on a foundation of moments just like that one. Although it could be tough being home with them, maybe even more so because of my gender, I realized a simple truth. I would miss very few moments of their childhood.

  By the time I looked up again, three groups of kids had arrived, spreading out among the various slides and jungle gyms. Laney immediately cozied up to two girls about her age. Laughing, they played house under one of the wooden structures, selling mulch to the other children as they raced past.

  For a moment, I couldn’t find Jake. Finally, I saw him on a swing. He rocked slowly back and forth, watching everyone else play, a smile on his face. I could plainly see he was not bothered. For some reason, I was. I meandered over and sat on a swing beside him.

  “What’s up, buddy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You having fun?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  Shaking my head, I laughed. “Better than the playdate, right?”

  It came out before I thought about it. When it did, it sounded way too familiar, too grown up to be saying to my son at his age. He laughed, though.

  We sat next to each other for a little while. At one point, Laney came racing over.

  “Is today Tuesday?” she asked, out of breath.

  “Yes.”

  “I want to go to the playdate.”

  “Maybe next week.”

  She paused, looking me in the eyes. I could tell she considered arguing. Then one of her new friends called out and she raced back to her mulch store, content as always.

  A minute later, my phone buzzed. Rachel replied to my text.

  Looks like fun. Wish I could be there.

  “Can we get going soon?” Jake asked.

  “Sure, buddy,” I said, still looking at my phone.

  That night, after the kids went to bed, I still had the text on my mind. Finally, I brought it up as Rachel brushed her teeth.

  “Should I not have sent you that picture today?”

  “What?” she asked, spitting into the sink.

  “The picture. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent it to you at work.”

  She turned to look at me, her head tilted to the side. “Why not?”

  “I know that it’s hard sometimes for you. You know, being at work.”

  She shook her head. “Most people don’t notice things like you do. I . . . I guess I was just a little jealous. I wished I was there at the park with you guys.”

  Although my mind slipped into a familiar rut, the one where I decided Rachel was regretting her decision to hold the full-time job and I failed to support my family, I push it back, knowing that avenue would lead to one heck of a fight.

  “Should I not send you pictures then?”

  “Simon! Of course I want pictures,” she said. “What mother wouldn’t?”

/>   “Okay,” I said.

  I brushed my teeth. I wanted to talk more, to ask Rachel about her day, but my mind moved on to the next day’s schedule. I ticked through the minutiae, which clothes the kids would wear, what we would do for lunch. At some point, Rachel must have climbed into bed. She was asleep by the time I got there.

  CHAPTER 10

  DAY ONE

  Rachel slips from the adjoining hotel room while I am still staring at my phone. I have received fifty texts in the past three hours. All are either from family members or people in the media. Each feels like a shard of glass piercing my heart because not one is from Jake. Another text comes in as I put my phone back in my pocket. Paper crinkles as I jam it in and I remember the note.

  “Oh shit,” I whisper.

  “What?” Rachel says.

  I pull the notebook page out and show it to her. “I found it this morning and grabbed it while we were in the house. It’s from Jake’s book.”

  Rachel does not move. She looks pale. I open the paper and read. In the top margin above the normal classroom notes, I see a few lines written large enough for someone sitting next to Jake in class to read:

  THAT’S MESSED UP! YOU NEED TO STOP. I JUST WANT ALL THIS CRAP TO GO AWAY. AND GET RID OF THAT THING. IF YOU LEAVE IT THERE, THAT’S IT. I’LL NEVER TALK TO YOU AGAIN.

  Rachel reads it as I do. When I look up, she seems guarded.

  “What is he talking about?” I say.

  She appears afraid to speak, as if any hope gleaned from this information might alight and fly away.

  “It could mean anything,” I whisper.

  She holds out a hand. In it I see her car keys.

  “Go look for him,” she says.

  I nod. Finally.

  Once out of the hotel, I cross the parking lot to the car, Rachel’s Audi. The key feels funny in my hand, shaped very differently from my Ford’s. I pop it into the ignition and hit the gas. Her car wants to drive fast. The engine lives, breathing fire and raring to do zero to sixty in some absurd fraction of time. I let it, racing away from the hotel. The torrent of thoughts in my head silences. I am in motion, where I belong.

  I know where to look first. No matter how small, a scenario existed that kept Jake not only uninvolved in the shooting, but unscathed. Maybe he cut school. It would not be the first time. He and his friend Max had just served detention for going to McDonald’s for lunch one day last week.

  I latch on to that idea like a crocodile. That’s a bad analogy, actually. After a crocodile latches on to something, it dives into the murk, spinning its victim, breaking bones and drowning its prey. This latching on might be the opposite. I hold tight and let the idea lift me out of the murk, into the light. It is all I have left.

  Some of the hope vanishes when I check the time. Somehow, it is 3:45. Where could he be?

  First, I call Max’s house. No one answers, so I leave a message asking them to call me back. Next, as I drive, I sift through the countless memories, files I’d built over the years of being with Jake and Laney near enough to 24/7. I decide that if Jake cut by himself (no one else is missing), he must have been upset about something. Girl trouble, maybe, although he never mentioned girls to me. I vowed to check with Laney when I got back, even though the thought felt absurd once I spawned it.

  If Jake was struggling, where would he go? I had an idea. The three of us used to walk in the woods off a park by the house. Deep in the foliage, we’d come across an old church. We felt like we’d found something lost to history. When we came across old gravestones, most from the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War, the experience touched Jake. I could see a little explorer born. Laney got creeped out, so we didn’t stay long that first time. Jake and I, however, had returned many times after. In fact, while leaning against the remaining stones of the chimney, I once asked him if it had been weird having a dad who stayed home.

  Jake laughed. “No, it’s just weird having you as a dad.”

  “Funny guy,” I said, putting him in a gentle headlock. I let go. “But seriously, did anyone ever say anything to you about it?”

  “Sometimes. I remember one or two teachers reacting kind of funny.”

  “Really, like how?” I said.

  “Nothing big. Just like it was different. But the kids always thought you were pretty cool. Max said I was lucky. He thought you were pretty laid-back. I mean, you let us eat cake for breakfast sometimes.”

  I laughed. “Laid-back? That’s funny.”

  “Why?” Jake asked.

  I didn’t answer him. For days after that, I’d felt really good. That seems so long ago now.

  I park the car off the road and get out. The path runs between a local handyman’s house and a big colonial with perpetually shaded windows. My body feels as if someone else sits behind the wheel. I move, with purpose, yet a haze falls over reality and I meander through it. If I stop and think about the fact that I am visiting an ancient, uncanny graveyard hidden deep in the woods, then I might consider how others might view the fact that my son felt a connection to this place.

  I walk among the high, straight trunks of oaks, my pace chopped and rapid. My movement among the underbrush creates a kaleidoscope view as I scan, searching, praying that Jake will appear out of this awful dream, blissfully unaware of the tragedy engulfing our lives.

  The closer I get to the spot, my destination, the slower I walk. Dread and I become magnets, opposing poles, pushing against each other. I need to get there and find Jake; yet, in getting there, another shard of hope might peel away, falling into the pit that I dare not even consider.

  The path before me narrows. Briars and grasping branches pull at my clothing as I push past. A few feet ahead, it opens. I take my first step into the clearing that once held a house of worship. The ghosts of the past hover over the place, blanketing the mossy ruins and the sinking stones scattered around the hilltop like old bones.

  “Jake,” I call out.

  The call of a red-tailed hawk answers, its screech far in the distance. I look up for the briefest of moments, trying to find it. I don’t know why I do that.

  “Jake,” I whisper.

  I search the ruins. I jog among the long dead, as if I might find him hiding behind a bush, smiling, waiting to jump out and surprise his old man so that I might clutch my chest and laugh. I know Jake is not there, but I look frantically nonetheless.

  One corner of the old church still stands. It rises up, block upon block, to where I assume the roof once rose. I slow, placing a hand on the cold mortar and stone and bend around, looking into what once was the interior of the church. My heart misses a beat.

  A doll hangs in the air, dangling from a frayed green cord of twine. The noose around its neck is perfectly tied. I stare at the weathered face of the doll, one eye gouged out, the other eyelid drooping closed, the red-painted lips stretched and smeared by rain, the once-blond hair jagged and jutting out in matted, dirty clumps. I fall to my knees, the tears exploding from me with violent pulses. I cannot breathe. I cannot think. I sob, coughing and sputtering, and I am not sure I will ever stop. For the first time, I truly doubt my son.

  Darkness lifts me out of darkness. The sun sets behind the skeletal tree trunks. Icy pain radiates from my knees, whether from the age-related pain of kneeling for too long or the frigid wetness seeping up from the ground into my bones, I am not sure. All I realize is that I have knelt in the remains of the old church for too long. Time I could have spent looking for Jake is now lost. I must get hold of myself. What kind of father am I? Yet the doll haunts me. At first, I cannot touch it. What it hints at cripples me. The fact that it hints at anything makes me feel the betrayer. Worse, it makes me feel like a stranger.

  I have to support myself as I stand, the circulation grudgingly returning to my jellylike legs. The doll, with its insane eyes and tattered and mildewed clothes that look more like melting skin, overwhelms my vision. It is all I see, but I can’t let anyone else see this abomination. Stagg
ering, I lunge for it, trying to tear it from the rusted support rod to which it is tied. The weathered twine catches and I notice the intricate knot securing it to the rod. I tug again but it does not budge.

  I have a small Swiss Army knife attached to my key chain. Rachel, who travels all the time, tells me this is crazy, that I’ll never get through airport security. I never travel, so I have left it there for years. Now, I fish it from my pocket and pry open the thin, small blade. Reaching up close to the rod, I slice through the twine. The doll tumbles to the decaying leaves below. Snatching it up and tucking the rancid thing under my arm, I head to the car.

  “It’s Doug’s.” I laugh to myself. “Jake would never touch a doll.”

  Once the last word leaves my lips, I convince myself. I look around, afraid someone might hear me. I press the doll deeper under my arm, blocking it from view. It dawns on me that I am breaking a law, a very serious law. Rachel would say I am obstructing justice. It might be the second time that day.

  When I reach the car, a warning flag waves in my head, telling me I should rethink taking the doll from the scene. At the same time, I think about the other evidence I have removed, the note. I pull it out and reread it. Could this doll be what Jake was talking about? If so . . .

  “A crime scene,” I say, shaking my head.

  I know what I am doing is wrong, but what would the police think if they found that thing hanging there? It would be bad enough if they found out Jake liked to hang out at some old cemetery. It would paint a false picture of him, one they would use to accuse him of this shooting. I can’t let that happen. It would ruin his life.

  Taking a deep breath, I open the door to my wife’s car, throwing the doll into the backseat. I almost toss the note there as well, but stuff it back in my pocket instead. Getting in, I try to think, to decide where else Jake might be. The batting cages? He went there sometimes. I decide to head to the open space where Jake and his friends play football every Sunday afternoon. Maybe he’s there. Or maybe Max is. I could ask him. He would know where to find Jake.