The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller (31 page)

What about your other shrink? You know, the one you’ve made dinner
for, talked to for hours, and kissed?

What would he tell her? That he was seeing ghosts and
/or losing his mind, so sorry, he had to run away now before he convinced himself that there weren’t any ghosts, only the broken shards of his sanity that continued to snag on reality? Yeah, that would go over well.

“She already knows we weren’t staying forever,”
he said to the quiet kitchen.

But the notion
had crossed your mind, hadn’t it?

Of course it had. Just the thought of her pretty face smiling at him in the sunshine the day he’d taken her and Shaun fishing
and of the way her lips had felt on his had almost cemented the notion of never leaving. It had been years since he’d experienced anything like the sensation of really being alive.

Evan cast the thoughts away and stood, his feet carrying him to his room
. He took out his suitcase and began to fill it with clothes.

Shaun
woke a half hour later, and Evan cooked him breakfast in the spotless kitchen. After they’d both eaten, he helped Shaun trace the alphabet and numbers to thirty, saying letters and numerals aloud as the dry-erase marker squeaked on the plastic pages. When the books were packed away, they did Shaun’s exercises, though Evan was careful not to push him too hard, for fear of bringing on another seizure. But Shaun looked strong and resilient, with no sign of giving up. Pride washed through Evan, and a smile that would’ve seemed impossible a few hours ago came to his lips. That was the power of children. Sometimes they were the sail that lifted the adults’ minds out of a free fall.

We’re always thinking that we take care of them
, and more often than not it’s the other way around.

Bolstered by how well Shaun did, Evan showed him the sunshine g
littering off the lake outside.

“Wanna go swimming, buddy?”

The boy looked at him, and then glanced out to the lake, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“
Swimming? Do you want to swim?”

“Swum?”

Evan smiled. “Okay, let’s go.”

The water gripped Evan’s ankles like cold hands when he stepped in
, and he hissed with the sensation, every inch of his skin tightening. The sun sat behind the island, and the massive trees threw long shadows on the lake, making its surface opaque and fathomless. The dark water pushed a blade of unease into him, and he walked down the beach, with Shaun in his arms, until he found a break in the trees where sunshine sprayed onto the water in a shimmering pool of light.

They eased in together, Shaun making a happy yet comical grimace as the water lapped higher and higher on his body. Evan whooped when it met his crotch
, and he dunked them both lower, knowing it was better to get it over with. He walked them out to deeper water and helped Shaun float.

“You remember this?” Evan asked
, as Shaun turned his head toward him. “You remember your therapy in the pool back home? Remember swimming?”

Shaun smiled and raised his eyebrows
, making his eyes so large Evan burst out laughing.

“You’re a ham.”

They swam until Shaun’s teeth chattered and his own fingertips tingled. Evan waded them to the shore, and then climbed the hill to the house. Once they were both dry and in comfortable clothes, he made Shaun a cup of hot cocoa and coffee for himself. They sat at the kitchen table and drank, the warmth of the beverages sinking into them. He watched Shaun suck happily on his straw, and thought that in this moment things almost seemed normal. The trip to the hospital the night before and the incident with the closet seemed far away, like an island in the distance that is visible but without detail. He could almost imagine them living here indefinitely if every day was like this.

Evan frowned. Had he just be
en contemplating staying? He shook his head, the disquiet he experienced earlier when looking at the dark water returning.

“More,” Shaun said, trying to push his empty mug
across the table.

Evan took it and
walked to the counter, his movements automatic, his eyes unfocused as the sun climbed higher.

24

Evan forgot about Selena coming over for dinner until the moment she knocked on the door.

He and Shaun had spent the rest of the day cleaning and tidying up th
e house, his decision to leave the next morning as resolute as one of the pines growing outside. When he opened the door—half dreading the conversation he knew they would have to have—his thoughts stumbled over one another at the sight of her standing there in the afternoon sun.

Selena’s hair was lustrous and curled, hanging in brown dangles that framed her face. She wore a formfitting
long-sleeved blouse that held tight to her flat stomach and a pair of capris that hugged her hips in curves that kept wanting to draw his eyes downward. A waft of cherry blossom crossed the distance between them, and he felt drugged, helpless but to look at her in the doorway.

She
smiled, tipping her right shoulder, which held the straps of a reusable grocery bag. “Are you going to let me in or just stare at me?”

“Stare at you
.”

Selena laughed. “Here.”

She handed him the grocery bag, and when he looked inside, he saw the makings of a salad, steaks, a small bag of red potatoes, and two bottles of wine.

“Whoa,”
he said, carrying the bag to the kitchen.

“Yeah, I got a little carried away, but I thought I’d bring dinner
, seeing as you guys have fed me so many times. Hi, Shaun.” Selena knelt next to Shaun’s chair and rubbed his shoulder, and then tickled his neck until he giggled.

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know, I wanted to. Now pour me a glass of wine and get out of my way, I need space to create a masterpiece.”

Evan shrugged
playfully and uncorked one of the bottles. Selena worked for the next hour, pausing only to take a small sip from her wineglass from time to time. Smells of cooking steak and boiling potatoes filled the kitchen, and soon Evan heard Shaun’s stomach rumble from the other side of the table.

“I think you’ve got a fan over here,”
Evan said, motioning to Shaun.

Selena laughed. “You know the old adage about f
inding a way to a man’s heart.”

“Through a wineglass?”

“No, quit it.”

Selena moved with an easy grace around the kitchen, flipping a steak here, chopping lettuce there. Evan could see her doing the same thing in their kitchen in the cities. Could he somehow make
it work if they left tomorrow?

“What’s got you down?” Selena asked, taking the potatoes
off the stove.

“Nothing.
Thinking again.”

“Looked like bad thoughts.”

“No, just cumbersome, like the song.”

“Which song?”

“‘Cumbersome,’ Seven Mary Three.”

“Which is t
he band and which is the song?”

Evan gave her an incredulous look. “You’ve ne
ver heard of Seven Mary Three?”

“Nope.”

“We shall have to remedy that, my dear.”

S
he smiled, and before she turned back to the stove, Evan thought he saw a hint of red on her cheeks.

~

They ate mostly in silence, not because they were uncomfortable but because the food was that good. Evan had never tasted steak like the one he devoured from his plate, its flavor oaky, with a hint of lime mixed in. The salad and potatoes were equally delicious, and before long all their plates were empty.

“Sorry I didn’t bring
dessert,” Selena said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

“This is
dessert enough for me,” Evan said, raising his wineglass.

“The way to a man’s heart.”

“Absolutely.”

Evan cleared the dishes away and began cleaning them in the sink while Selena talked about her day. She hadn’
t seen many clients, but the few she did have were challenging.

“The guy tried to spit on me when I tol
d him his wife might be right.”

“You’re kidding
.”

“Nope
. He gathered up some spit and hocked it at me, but I was far enough away and it landed on the table between us.”

“So what’d you do?”

“I told him, if that was the way he dealt with difference of opinion, then it was no wonder his wife wanted him to have counseling.”

Evan smiled. “Are you even supposed to be telling me these thi
ngs? Aren’t they confidential?”

Selena tipped her head from side to side. “As long as I don’t mention any details
, like names or anything, it’s kinda like a case study, and those get printed in magazines and books all the time.”

“With the client’s per
mission.”

“I’d say once he spit at me
, his permission was given.”

Evan laughed and glanced at Shaun
, whose head was almost touching the table, his eyes closing and opening with long blinks. Selena noticed at almost the same time.

“Oh, poor baby,” she said, putting a hand on Shaun’s shoulder.

Evan dried his hands off with a dishtowel and came to the table, unfastening Shaun from his seat.

“He’s exhausted
. I forgot he didn’t have his afternoon nap.”

“Didn’t he sleep good last night?
”

“No, we actually had to take
a nighttime cruise into town.”

“What? Y
ou’re kidding, what happened?”

Evan related the events of the night before, his throat trying to close up when he described Shaun’s seizure. He left
out the parts about seeing Becky and the toes in the closet, skimming over the rest of the day’s details quickly as he picked Shaun up and carried him to his room.

“Sounds like you guys did a lot of cleaning,” Selena said
, as he came back into the living room.

She handed him his glass of wine and sat on the sofa. Evan
considered the chair but then rested beside her, a little distance between them. The sun held above the tops of the trees across the lake, a forest fire in the sky.

“Yeah, quite a bit
.”

“You’re leaving soon
, aren’t you?”

Evan sighed, took a sip of his wine.

“Tomorrow.” He chanced a look at Selena and saw a resigned look on her face. “I’m sorry, it’s just not working out here.”

He regretted the words
as soon as they left his mouth.

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t, you don’t. You’re great,” he said, scooting closer to her, until their knees almost touched. “You’ve really brightened things up for us. It’s me—”

He floundered for a moment
, trying to think of how to explain. “I’m afraid.”

Selena looked up at him. “Afraid? Of what
?”

“Of this, o
f what’s happening between us.”

“Evan, I
—”

“No, you don’t have to say anything. It’s me, it’s the life I have. I worry, constantly
. I’m afraid all the time. I’m terrified that Shaun will have an accident or another seizure and I’ll be completely alone, and I couldn’t withstand losing him too. I’d break.”

Selena moved closer still
, as he lowered his head, her thigh touching his.

“But what does that have to do with us? With
...” She shrugged. “Being happy?”

Be happy.

“It’s everything.”

He
stood and paced across the living room, watching the sun fall slowly. His heart beat fast, faster, faster still. He could see his pulse in his vision.

Tell her everything
. Tell her about your plans for the clock. Tell her about what you’ve seen, what you think you’ve seen. Tell her about—

“When Elle got sick, I was hopeful. She was young and vibrant and strong, not the kind of person to ever even get a cold,” Evan said, facing away from the couch. “I thought, she’ll beat this and it will be a courageous story to tell our grandchildren someday. But she got sicker, and sicker, and none of the treatments worked.”

He paused. “Like I told you before, I took money from my work, stole it to try some experimental treatments that weren’t covered by insurance. The experimental stuff worked better than the traditional medicine did, but barely. It was like she got a toehold while sliding down a steep mountain. Then my confidence started to slip. I caught myself wondering what it would be like raising Shaun alone, and damn me for being selfish, but I was. I suppose we all are on some level, but I kept thinking, I can’t do this alone, I won’t be able to.”