Delusion Road (10 page)

“No worries,” he’d told the EA as he sat beside his brother on the resource room’s carpeted floor. “Do you know what set him off?”

The young woman had shaken her head. “Not really. His teacher was introducing a geography unit, and she’d just started showing the class a video about different kinds of landforms.”

Keegan tried to keep his voice nonchalant. “Was there a volcano on the video?”

“Yes,” Tomlinson had replied. “A clip of one erupting in Iceland. Are volcanoes one of his triggers?”

“Isaac’s always had a thing about them,” Keegan had told her, glad she didn’t know him well enough to recognize he was lying.

Although Isaac seemed better, Keegan had decided to sign him out and take him home anyway so his brother could have time to decompress. And, truth be told, because Keegan was feeling guilty. He knew that Isaac could sense the tension between him and his dad, knew it was stressing him out and setting him up for meltdowns like this one. And the boy didn’t need the additional stress of attending the after-school program that was now part of his day until Keegan or their dad collected him.

They’d spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon playing the various games Isaac had created over the years, some of which involved Keegan doing little more than sitting in the same room while his brother lined up objects on the floor or a table. But he enjoyed trying to figure out what Isaac was doing, appreciated the window it gave him into his brother’s mind. And he loved what happened when he finally saw the pattern that Isaac was creating, loved the look on his brother’s face when Keegan, too, was finally able to add a shape or a colour that continued it.
Isaac never smiled, but it was in those moments that the muscles of his face formed something that at least resembled a smile.

Sure, there was a time when he’d resented his brother, begrudged the constant patience that he required, but it was impossible not to love him. Especially now, after everything they’d been through together.

They’d moved into their new house—the one the bank had eventually taken—at the beginning of Keegan’s freshman year, which put him in a different school district, so he’d had to make new friends. He was never sure how people would react when they met Isaac for the first time, but they’d all been great with him. Of course, he’d expected that acceptance from Curtis and Lamont, who knew better than anyone what it felt like to be outsiders, but Hamad and Joaquin and Jermaine and the others had been just as accepting, always trying—as much as they could, anyway—to make Isaac feel like part of the gang when they dropped by.

So had Talia.

Watching Isaac eat his peas now, Keegan forced that last memory away, jammed it deep where it wouldn’t hurt as much if—when—he stumbled over it again.

Through the open window, he could hear footsteps padding along the driveway toward the back door. It probably seemed weird to others that his dad worked at a car dealership and didn’t have a vehicle, but Keegan understood the reason. And not having one wasn’t much of a problem anyway. The dealership, both schools, and the grocery store were all within walking distance of their house. Where else did they have to go?

The door opened and Evan entered carrying his suit jacket,
his face glistening from the heat that had hung on into the late afternoon. Nodding to Keegan, he moved to the table and leaned down, pressing his face against his younger son’s forehead. At times like this, Keegan almost didn’t recognize his dad. They’d been at loggerheads for so long that seeing him display such tenderness always came as something of a surprise.

Isaac, of course, squirmed out from under the contact and ate the last pea on his plate, the single group of one in his numerical arrangement. Then he slipped off his chair and headed toward the living room, where Keegan knew he’d create more patterns with the objects they’d left on the floor.

“Thanks for taking care of him today,” Evan said. “My meeting with—”

“No problem,” Keegan interrupted. Standing up, he reached for his and Isaac’s dishes and carried them to the sink. “Your dinner’s in the oven.”

“Think I’ll change out of these clothes first, maybe grab a shower before I eat.”

Keegan nodded and, hearing his father move down the hallway leading to the stairs, he put a plug in the sink and turned on the hot water. Squirting liquid detergent under the faucet, he set the plates and glasses in the rising suds and, like every time he stood at the sink, fought his last memory of his mother, forcing himself to think of something else, anything else. Gazing out the window above the sink, he tried to imagine the house’s former tenants and pictured a young couple in their first home. The kitchen lacked a dishwasher, so they probably did the dishes together every evening, one washing and the other drying as they chatted about their day. He could see one of them playfully splash
the other as a mock battle erupted, the room suddenly splattered with soap and echoing with startled yelps turning to laughter.

And then, of course, he was thinking of Talia, the part of him where he’d just buried her far shallower than he’d realized. They’d been eating ice cream at Waldowski’s Diner and, without knowing it, she’d gotten a dab of strawberry on the end of her nose. Sitting across from him, she’d looked so beautiful that he couldn’t bear to tell her, but then a woman at the next table caught her eye and motioned to her face. Glancing at her reflection in her phone, Talia had been mortified, wiping her nose with a napkin as she got up to leave. Once outside, though, she’d retaliated by jabbing at
his
nose with her cone and, within minutes, their faces were covered with his chocolate and her strawberry, the two of them laughing like idiots on the sidewalk. He remembered everything about that moment—Talia’s laughter, the feel of her body against his, the way she tasted as they kissed, ice cream sliding down their faces and dripping off their chins.

Lost in that heartache, Keegan felt sudden heat at his groin and looked down to see the first fingers of soapy water reaching over the sink. “Shit!” he muttered, turning off the tap and grabbing a towel to dam the waterfall, all the while remembering the last words Forbes had offered them:
It does you no good to look back.

His hair still wet, Evan came into the kitchen and reached for a pot holder to take his plate from the oven. “Smells good,” he said as he sat down to eat.

Keegan shrugged. It didn’t take skill to Shake ‘n Bake chicken breasts and boil potatoes and frozen peas, but the way things were between him and his dad, he was grateful for the compliment. For
Isaac’s sake, Keegan decided to risk conversation. “How’s the job going?”

“Busy,” his father replied. “The guy whose position I took left the books in a mess.” Cutting up his chicken, he added, “I finally had a face-to-face with the owner. He was on vacation last week.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s a force to be reckoned with.”

“Sounds like you don’t care for him.”

Evan spoke around a mouthful. “He knows what he wants and isn’t two seconds telling you. But I’d rather work for a guy like that than somebody I’m second-guessing all the time. What you see is what you get.”

Keegan groaned involuntarily.

“Something wrong?” his father asked.

Keegan pulled up a chair and sat down. “His daughter’s in a couple of my classes.”

“That’s great. Something he and I can talk about besides work.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why?”

“She hates me.”

His father’s face darkened. “Cripes, Keegan, you only started school yesterday. What’d you
do
?”

And that was it. Just like with Isaac and the soccer ball:
What the hell do you think you were doing?
As always,
he
was automatically in the wrong. Keegan glanced down the hallway toward the living room, not wanting to get into another shouting match, especially after what Isaac had been through already that day. But that didn’t mean he had to take it on the chin every single time. “His daughter’s a pain in the ass,” he said simply.

Evan put down his fork and knife. “I thought we’d gone over this,” he said.

Keegan looked away. Took a breath. Let it out.

“So you just
ignored
Forbes. And me.”

“Look,” Keegan said, feeling his irritation swell into something more, “I didn’t ignore either of you, okay? I just wasn’t going to put up with any of their bullshit.”

“
Their
bullshit?
Please
tell me you didn’t piss off somebody
else.
”

Keegan looked down at the table, a chrome-and-composite thing posing as retro when it wasn’t screaming bargain basement.

“So you
did
,” said his father.

Keegan looked up. “Her boyfriend’s a prick.”

“The
d’Entremont
boy?”

“How do
you
know him?”

“Laird d’Entremont was one of the people at the meeting today. When Jaffrey introduced him to me, he said d’Entremont’s son was going with Jaffrey’s daughter.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus,” he moaned. “You pissed off both of them. A slam dunk.”

“What’s the big deal?”

Evan pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “D’Entremont’s the
mayor.
” He took two steps toward the sink and stood looking out the window.

“I still don’t see what—”

“Of
course
you don’t,” interrupted Evan, turning to face him. “You
never
do. You’re always so busy thinking about
yourself
and how the world doesn’t turn to suit you.” He ran a hand through his hair again. “Forbes and I asked you to do one thing. But
could
you? No!” He paused momentarily as if building momentum. “For once in your life—”

“Spare me that speech,” breathed Keegan, struggling to keep his voice down. “I
have
no life, remember?
You
made sure of that.”

Ignoring the last comment, Evan pulled his phone from his pocket. “I know you don’t care for the life we have here, Keegan, but it’s all we’ve got, remember?”

“What are you doing?”

“Damage control,” said Evan, scrolling for a number.

“
What
damage?”

“What do you
think
? Antagonizing my boss’s daughter and the mayor’s son.”

Keegan’s desire to keep Isaac from hearing them argue wavered, and he had to swallow hard before speaking. “I didn’t antagonize
either
of them. The girl’s a grade A bitch!”

Evan stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head. “I used to admire how you always saw the best in people. Like Curtis and Lamont. I’d think about all the crap they took off narrow-minded jerks and I was so proud of how you always stood up for them. And Jermaine, when he got arrested for boosting that car, you swore to me that he hadn’t done it, that the police targeted him because he was a black kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you were right.” He shook his head again. “That person I admired so much, where did he go?”

“He got shipped off to East Cowlick, Canada,” snapped Keegan. “Look, you just said I try to see the best in people. Why am I the bad guy here all of a sudden?”

Evan sighed. “Whether you are or not is beside the point. We have to fix this.”

“How?”

“The Rotary Club is holding a fundraiser tonight, and Jaffrey and d’Entremont are members. I was supposed to be there and I was counting on you staying with Isaac, but I’ll make my excuses to Jaffrey, tell him Isaac isn’t feeling well or something.”

“Why?”

“Both his daughter and the d’Entremont boy are helping out, and you’re going to lend them a hand.”

“No,” said Keegan.

Evan pulled up the number he was looking for. “I’m calling Jaffrey now,” he said. “I’m pretty sure he’ll have something for you to do there.”

“
No
,” repeated Keegan, his voice stronger.

Evan shook his head. “This is
your
doing, Keegan, not mine. I’m just cleaning up your mess.”

“Don’t you
dare
talk about messes,” Keegan seethed.

He could see his comment had hit home, his father’s face creasing momentarily. But, recovering, Evan pressed on. “You’ll do as I say, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I’m not a kid that you can just order around! I’m seventeen!”

A deep sadness replaced the guilt in his father’s eyes. “And you think that makes a
difference
? That it
protects
you somehow?” He looked down the hallway toward the living room, his voice suddenly flat. “It isn’t just yourself you have to think of, you know.”

Keegan felt his fingernails dig into his thighs. “I’m not helping out at any goddamn fundraiser!” he shouted, pushing out of his chair and heading toward the back door.

“You don’t have a choice,” said his father as Keegan burst
through the door and slammed it behind him, the glass rattling in its frame.

His feet pounding down the steps, Keegan was barely conscious of the thick clouds that had gathered overhead. He was aware of only one thing—his father’s parting comment echoing in his head.

Evan Fraser had been wrong about of lot of things during the past few months, but he was right about that. Choice was a luxury none of them had. Not anymore.

His hands making useless fists, Keegan stood in the backyard and raised his face to the sky, feeling the first drops of rain. In moments, the wind began to pick up and the rain increased, the drops falling faster, stinging his cheeks, forcing him to shut his eyes. But he welcomed them, longed for them to douse his rage and wash away the grief that lived inside him like an unborn twin.

W
illa couldn’t help smirking as she saw him pass through the entrance of the community college her father had booked for the fundraiser. Walking with his head down, he was obviously uncomfortable wearing what was likely his father’s suit, the dark blue anchoring him among the brightly dressed early birds waiting inside the door out of the rain. She watched as he spoke to Ed Benjamin, one of the dealership’s salespeople her father had put in charge of collecting tickets, then saw Ed nod and wave him through. It was that moment she was enjoying now—the look on the new guy’s face as he turned to see her waiting for him, the moment like the final seconds of a MasterCard commercial. Priceless.