Strangewood (8 page)

"Look," she said, "I don't want you to think
I don't want you here, or that you're somehow second best, but I have to think
of Nathan first. Always."

Joe nodded. "I know that," he said. "And I
know you're probably nervous and it would make you a whole lot more comfortable
if I just go now. So I will. Go, I mean. I just hate being hidden like I'm
something to be ashamed of."

"That's not it and you know it!" Emily said, hurt.

"I do know it, Em," he said. "I do. But us
fragile male egos need to be reassured sometimes too, okay?"

He went to her, touched her shoulder, and she turned into
his touch and took him into a full embrace.

"Okay," she said, holding herself against him, her
head on his broad chest. "Okay."

Then she pushed him away, a smile on her face, and drawled,
"Now get out of here before I throw you out on your ass. I've got dinner
to cook and I don't need you hanging all over me while I do it."

"I think you do," Joe said, also smiling,
"but I won't argue about it."

He kissed her, and a moment later, the door closed behind
him. Joe left Emily with a smile on her face, but in her heart, she was
terribly anxious. She knew it was important, for all of them, that she tell
Thomas she was seeing someone. Emily suspected that somewhere inside him,
Thomas didn't really believe it was over, that he held out some fantasy of
their reconciliation.

It wasn't going to happen. Her dating again might be the
best thing for Thomas, in the long run. For them both, as far as moving on with
their lives was concerned.

How it would impact Nathan was something else entirely. Emily
didn't plan to let Nathan know about Joe right away, not until she was fairly confident
he would be around a while. But she had to tell Thomas. The last few years had
been difficult for them, but she still cared for her ex-husband deeply. He
deserved to hear it from her before someone else told him they'd seen her out
with another man.

Yeah, she had to tell him.

But thinking about that conversation was starting to give
her a splitting headache.

"Why didn't you tell me all this when you first got
here?" Emily asked in an accusatory tone that was all too familiar to both
of them.

"Geez, Emily, I don't know," he said with a
sarcasm he couldn't control, another symptom of the relationship disease that
had led to their divorce. "Maybe it was because we had to do all the fun
awkward stuff first."

Thomas glanced over at Nathan, who was teaching himself
architecture using green beans and mashed potatoes, then back at his ex-wife. She
got the point.

"Nathan, why don't you go get ready for bed, okay? Daddy
and I will come in and kiss you good night in a few minutes," she
promised.

The boy brightened at her words, so familiar. Thomas winced.
Daddy and I
, it was almost unfair to make it sound so much like a real
family, he thought. To all of them. But that was going to be life from now on. He
wondered if he would ever get used to it, or if he ever should.

"Sure, Mommy," Nathan said with a smile.

He pushed off his chair, grinned at them both, and said,
"Daddy, water my garden okay?"

Thomas was already agreeing before he realized that Nathan
was talking about his bean and potato construction. It wasn't architecture at
all, but a bean orchard or something.

"Sure, buddy," he said, and poked Nathan in the
belly. "Now go on, pajamas and brush your teeth."

He looked over at Nathan's dish again and smiled to himself.
Imagination was an extraordinary thing. It was impossible to know what children
were thinking, and almost always amazing when they told you.

"I'm worried, Thomas," Emily said when Nathan was
gone. "I'm not going to overreact or anything, but please keep me up to
date. Maybe you should take Nathan away next weekend or something?"

Thomas thought about it. He didn't like the idea of running
away from whoever was harassing him, but giving his stalker — or whatever
— a week off might disappoint them enough to spoil their fun.

"I'll think about it," he answered. "Play it
by ear."

They were silent again, together. And Thomas had a moment to
remember a time when silence between them never felt as though it were pushing
them apart. Quite the opposite in fact. But silence now was heavy with the weight
of pain and mistrust.

It was always that way between them now. Whenever they saw
one another, particularly when he brought Nathan home on Sundays, there was the
awkwardness of their greeting, the guarded quality of their inquiries into each
other's welfare. It had been getting better, but Thomas suspected it would
never completely disappear. Still, tonight the tension was worse than usual. There
was something on Emily's mind. He wished she would just tell him what it was
and relieve them both of the anxiety it created.

Of course, there was something on his mind as well, even
more than the maybe-stalker.

"Sounds like you had a nice weekend, all things
considered," she said finally.

"Well, besides being spied on by the Peanut Butter
General," he said with a laugh, "yeah, not a bad weekend at all. We
had fun. But . . . look, Emily, obviously you've got something to say, and I
want to hear it," he added, tired of the silence. "But there's
something I want to talk to you about as well."

He told her about what Sister Margaret had said, about
Nathan acting strangely, and that he thought it might have to do with their
divorce. He told her about Crabapple, and Nathan's nightmare, and finally, that
he thought they should put their little boy, their only child, back in
counseling.

Emily looked at Thomas, and he could see it coming the way
he'd always been able to. She began to cry. Not loud sobbing heaves, but a
gentle, sorrowful weeping.

Thomas held his ex-wife, whom he still loved dearly and
imagined he always would. After a moment or two, she sniffled a bit, pulled
away, and studied him as if she were verifying that he was, indeed, Thomas
Randall, a man she'd loved once and whose son she had borne. She was searching
for something. Maybe the past, Thomas thought.

"I hate that we've done this to him," she said
finally.

"We can't turn back the clock, Emily," Thomas
said. “The only thing we can do is love him the best we can, and work together
to see that he always knows it."

"So, counseling?" she asked.

"Dr. Morrissey, again, I think," Thomas replied.
“She already knows the situation, so . . .”

Emily nodded.

"There's more to this conversation, though, isn't
there?" Thomas asked. "You had something on your mind."

"Oh, Thomas, I don't know if . . .” Emily began, but he
cut her off.

"We don't have to play games with each other,
Emily," Thomas told her. "We've got too much at stake to do that. What
is it? You seeing someone?"

Emily blanched, wide-eyed, and looked at him a moment before
looking away.

So there it was. His wife . . . ex-wife had herself a new
boyfriend. Thomas wanted to say,
Good for you, Emily. Have a life. Start
again. Be happy.
He really did.

But he couldn't.

"Well, I guess we're sending Nathan back to counseling
at just the right time, then, aren't we?" Thomas said before he could stop
himself. "I'm sure that's just what he needs, his mother running around
with some guy."

She glared at him.

"Jesus, Emily, the corpse isn't even cool yet. And the
boy's only five years old, for God's sake, give him a break!" Thomas said,
wishing he could just shut up but overwhelmed by the pressure on his temples,
the shortness of breath, the ice cube in his gut.

He loved her. And he could see in her eyes that he'd hurt
her. Again. They'd hurt each other a lot, and saving Nathan from that was the
whole point of the divorce.

"You done?" she growled.

Thomas looked away and sighed, ashamed of himself, but
unwilling to let go of the pain.

"Nathan doesn't know I'm seeing anyone, and he won't
until I think the time is right. I'd give my life for that kid, just like I
know you would. But I have to build a future for myself, too. You should be
doing the same," Emily said sternly. "Now, if you
are
done,
why don't you fuck off home and see if you can't find the asshole who smeared
peanut butter on your window," she added.

Emily rose from her chair and went to the sink to angrily
bang pots and dishes around. Thomas waited for the sound of a dish breaking,
but none did. It always amazed him, when she did that, that the dishes didn't
shatter.

"Why don't you go kiss your son good night?" she
said gruffly, without turning. "Tell him I'll be right in."

Thomas slid his chair back and rose slowly. He walked over
to where Emily stood, still with her back to him. He kissed her on the top of
the head and whispered an apology, which she ignored. Thomas knew she felt
guilty, and he'd used her guilt and her love for Nathan against her. His
apology was genuine.

Leaving her to the dishes, he walked down the hallway of the
large raised ranch home and into his son's bedroom.

"Okay, buster, time for kisses from Daddy!" he
announced as he crossed the threshold.

Nathan wasn't there. Thomas raised an eyebrow. Faintly, in
the back of his mind, he recalled his alarm in the backyard that morning. But
the thought was gone as soon as it came. They were at home now. Nathan had
nothing to fear here, especially with both his parents right down the hall.

Must be in the bathroom, Thomas thought. As he stepped into
the hall, he heard the water running in the sink. Thomas smiled. Nathan was a
good kid. Brushed his teeth all by himself, morning and night. Sure, he could
be bratty and selfish and cranky, but all kids were those things once in a
while. In so many other ways, the important ways, Nathan was every parent's
dream child.

"Okay, buddy, I've got to go," he said as he
pushed open the bathroom door.

Nathan wore mismatched pajamas, Mickey Mouse on top and
airplanes on the bottoms. He stood on a small stool Thomas had bought for him
when he was three, and Nathan held his toothpaste-foamed toothbrush to his
front teeth, lips curled back in a bizarre rictus. Toothpaste dripped down his
chin. Water ran in the sink.

But Nathan wasn't brushing.

The boy stared into the mirror, unblinking, tooth-brushing
hand frozen in place.

"Nathan?" Thomas asked weakly.

His son didn't turn, didn't respond — his eyes didn't
even flicker over to glance at Thomas. Shock became horror. Curiosity became
desperate fear, triphammer-slamming into his chest.

Thomas moved quickly to his son and grabbed Nathan by the
shoulders, shaking him, gently at first. Any other day, he might have waited to
see what the joke was. But he knew there was no fakery involved just by looking
at the boy.

"Nathan!" he shouted and turned his son's body so
he could stare into Nathan's eyes, get his attention.

He could hear, dimly, somewhere in another world, the voice
of his ex-wife, Nathan's mother, shouting to him, asking what was wrong. He
could hear her running down the hall toward the bathroom. But Thomas wasn't
really registering those things. All he could focus on in that moment was the
saliva and toothpaste running down his son's chin in a greenish white rivulet
of foamy drool.

"Jesus!" Emily cried behind him. "What's
wrong with him?"

She cried her son's name and went to him; pulled him from
his father's grasp. Emily called to Nathan again and again, each plaintive
query more helpless than the last. After a few moments, she noticed Thomas
again, and turned to roar at him in blind panic.

"What the fuck's the matter with you?" she cried. "Call
an ambulance for God's sake! He's gone into shock or something!"

As he sprinted to the phone, Thomas felt numb, as if it had
been he who had gone into some kind of shock.

After he'd hung up the phone, he could barely recall having
spoken to someone at 911. He hoped he'd said the right things, but couldn't
really remember. He couldn't get Nathan's eyes out of his mind. The look in his
eyes. Or, more accurately, the lack of any discernible consciousness there. His
eyes had looked . . . vacant. The lights were on; nobody home.

Somehow, his son was gone.

* * * * *

Nathan drifted for a long time. Floated along, as though
he were lying on a raft on a gently rolling river. Several times, he heard
sounds, grunts and labored breathing and the chirping of birds. There was a
smell, too. Like smoke.

His eyelids began to flutter.

Nathan woke up in the dark, thrashing against rough cloth
that had been tied around his wrists and ankles. He screamed for his parents,
Mommy and Daddy both, because even though they weren't together, they'd been
together when he went in to brush his teeth. Before . . .

Before this.

"Mommmmaaaaaaaa!" he screamed, and tears sprang to
his eyes, sliding down his cheeks quickly to make room for more.

He struggled against his bonds and banged his head with a
clang against the metal whatever-it-was that he was laying in. Metal, smooth
and cool. He sniffled, looked up at the dark sky where huge orange stars
glittered, at tall trees, brown and withered, stooped as if to look at him
passing beneath. They looked like they were in pain, those trees.

Somewhere, Nathan smelled a fire burning.

He screamed for his mother again.

"Ssssshut up, you little brat," a low voice
growled.

Nathan craned his neck to look behind the metal container
inside of which he was being sped along under the stars. In the dark, green
eyes twinkled. Cat eyes. Orange starlight gleamed off long, razor sharp tusks.