Man of the Year

by Caroline Louise Walker

  I look hard at my son, trying to see what Elizabeth could possibly see—and only now, yes, in this terrible lighting, maybe he could remind me of me, after all. I’ve always distrusted people who say he takes after his father, the same ones who called him my spitting image when he was a newborn. They say those things to be polite, but Jonah doesn’t think like me or see this world like I do, and these differences are by design. I raised him to have different architecture than mine. I raised him in a loving household, and when the love was lost, Vanessa and I aimed for two loving households. Jonah doesn’t have a clue what it feels like to lose a mother, or to have a father whose demands were impossible to satisfy. This ignorance is my gift to him.

  Now, though, as I study his face, I spot the resemblance I never noticed before. He does have my features: my dark brow, my strong chin, my hairline, no question. I say, “You and Elizabeth watched Nick fall to his death, and you let him rot out there for three days.”

  Jonah rocks the back of his head against the door. “This wasn’t easy for us, Dad. I kept saying we should do something, but she said we had to remove ourselves and let it unfold how it would’ve unfolded if we’d never been there. It’s like she thought if she ignored it, somehow the whole thing would never have happened.”

  I think back to that day. Jonah returning home with his duffle bag and a pickle jar and the news that Nick hadn’t been with him. Elizabeth suggested I get vases from the guesthouse. She asked me to go outside and lower the umbrella. And the next day, when I noticed the leak in the garage, she went rigid when I told her there was an emergency, but she relaxed when I told her it was a flood, like she’d been expecting worse. And when I finally did make the damn discovery, and she came outside, I shouted at her to get back into the house, and she obeyed without question or hesitation. “You wanted me to find him.”

  “I need your help, Dad.”

  “How dare you.”

  He whispers, “They’re about to find out.”

  “Who?”

  “That guy who keeps calling,” he tells me. “Mr. Walsh at the medical examiner’s office. If I go in there and spill my guts, what’s going to happen to our family?” He’s asking the right questions, even as he continues to manipulate by reminding me that if his story were to surface, we’d all be ruined. The police would know that my child lied about witnessing Nick’s death, that he lived for three days with that lie, never bothering to tell anyone, never bothered at all. They’d ask Jonah about whether he was alone, and eventually he’d say no. He’d say why. How long until the scandal leaks? Would they charge my son with some kind of involvement in Nick’s death? Was he involved in Nick’s death? Why should I believe my son didn’t throw his best friend off the roof? Because my son is a colossal disappointment, not a murderer. He’s a grown man crying baby tears over his disastrous attempt to swing his dick around my house.

  I’d come out looking a fool, too: a failed father who couldn’t control his own kid, an impotent husband incapable of satisfying his own wife, a clown for letting this happen right on and under my roof—the scene of two crimes. First the police station would laugh me out of town, then my whole community. I’d lose business and friends, and Elizabeth would be crucified. She’d be right back where she started when she left Stuart, which would confuse her into thinking I’m no better than him, which would be fine if I was ready to lose her.

  Jonah wants me to consider my fate—lost business, lost stature, an exiled son, and another ex-wife, leaving me alone in the place where the worst happened—but he hasn’t given enough thought to his own fate. I can cut him off, shut him out, make him lose his father. Hell, if I wanted to flex, the state might lock him up, shun him, institutionalize him for sociopathic sexual deviance. Maybe. And yet—his machinations, poorly executed though they may be, are not useless, because if Nick wasn’t right in the head, he alone would be to blame. The battalion in my prefrontal cortex aims to fire.

  “I need your help,” Jonah says.

  “If I help you,” I tell Jonah, “then you will do two things for me.”

  He nods.

  “Leave this house and don’t come back until you are invited, explicitly, by me and me alone. That day may never come, but if it does, I’ll make the call. Not you. In the meantime, don’t contact me, don’t show up at work, don’t trespass on my property, and don’t look at my wife.”

  He nods.

  “Number two: You will never tell a soul. Not one. Not a future best friend or spouse, not a therapist, and never, ever your mother. You’ll let Elizabeth live out the rest of her days without knowing we had this conversation. You won’t send her letters or emails or texts, and you won’t look at her funny, because you won’t look at her at all.”

  He says, “I swear.”

  “On your life,” I insist.

  “On my life.”

  “I can help.”

  “I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “Shut your mouth.” Still sitting on this bed, still gripping an empty foil wrapper in my sweaty fist, I say, “Listen to me. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  34.

  I’m here alone, sitting in my favorite chair with my feet up, drinking bourbon and staring at the sunlight dimming on my wall, when Elizabeth finally makes it home. It takes a minute for her to notice me watching her. When she does, she jumps. “Hey. I didn’t see you there. How are you feeling?” She hovers, combing her fingers through my hair.

  “Better,” I say. “Much better.”

  “I tried calling you. So did the pharmacist. We tried a few times. Did you get our messages?”

  I look up at her.

  “She couldn’t find your prescription in the system.”

  “No? Hm. Isn’t that strange? I wonder what happened.”

  “Got you some over-the-counter stuff. Acetaminophen with caffeine, I think. Not sure how that’s supposed to help a migraine, but it was the best I could find. Do you want to call and I’ll run back out?”

  “No,” I say. “That won’t be necessary.”

  There was no migraine, no prescription to fill. Borrowing a page from Elizabeth’s playbook proved useful nonetheless. It bought me time.

  “Okay.” She hesitates. Perhaps she recognizes the play. Perhaps she senses me gripped by something more disruptive than a headache. “I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well. How was your day otherwise?”

  I pause, even though I’ve already prepared this answer. “It was enlightening.”

  “Really? Sounds far more interesting than mine. What happened?”

  “Oh, let’s not talk about me. How are you?”

  She finds her place on the couch and says, “Okay.” But she leaves it at that. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. You’re acting funny.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Must be my head.”

  She waits for me to elaborate. I don’t. The sun won’t set for another hour, but its white light has shifted to rose gold. Cast in the glow, Elizabeth looks like a porcelain doll as she becomes aware of the quiet—aware of our isolation from every other living creature in the world.

  She asks, “Where’s Jonah?”

  There it is. Does she always look for him right away? Have I only now noticed? “He’s gone.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. I just decided it was time for him to go.”

  She tucks her chin into her neck. “You asked him to leave?”

  “Yes.”

  I observe every faint violation of her controlled stillness when she asks, “Is everything okay?” There is fear in her voice. There is uncertainty.

  “You know, Elizabeth, I think it will be.”

  There is desperation in her eyes. There is regret.

  I say, “We have been dealing with some pretty unusual circumstances around here.”

  She nods.

  “I think we all wish none of this had ever hap
pened.”

  Fear, uncertainty, desperation, and regret. “Robert—”

  “And I think Jonah will feel better if he gets away from the place where something so bad has happened. A thing like that can do long-term damage, you know. It can traumatize a person.”

  She shivers.

  “I think he’ll cope better if he isn’t sleeping below the site of that trauma, don’t you?”

  She nods slowly, assessing before offering, “It’s traumatic for us, too.”

  “Yes. Yes it is.” I take a sip of my drink. “You look very pretty in this light.”

  She blinks and blinks again so slowly I wonder if perhaps she’s fallen asleep, and maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe we could both close our eyes and start again tomorrow, letting this all be a bad dream. So I wait, but she is awake and alert when she says, “Sometimes I think I’m made for this life. Sometimes there’s no place else I’d rather be. And then sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  My knee-jerk defense is to ask, What is here? What is this life? But I know where here is. I know this life. My reflex subsides, and I’m left with the strangest sensation, both foreign and familiar, not unlike déjà vu, but much clearer. It washes over me, bringing with it the calm that comes from staring into a mirror and seeing my own face reflected back: visibility as proof of existence. I hear myself in her words, and in hearing them, I am heard. Through her, I am realized and made real, because I too understand what it feels like to work so hard with the singular purpose of getting someplace—to this life, this beautiful life—that upon arrival, having rendered the need for such work obsolete, having put down the struggle—a self-imposed struggle—I come to find myself hardly recognizable in my resting state.

  These things flicker through my head, and then, as with déjà vu, they are gone. What a tiresome trail we break. I say, “Me too.”

  The wall shifts from rose gold to something redder. Our house is silent.

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Hm?”

  I don’t know what. “We are a team.”

  She nods.

  “This life. It will change again.”

  She sits in this. We both do, until finally she says, “I think you’re right about it being time for Jonah to move on.”

  I nod.

  We absorb the space between us. “I’m ready to move on too.”

  I nod again. “So am I.”

  We sit here like this, soaking up our divide, as the sun goes down and the wall fades to ever darkening shades of dusk.

  35.

  I pull up to the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s complex at quarter of nine in the morning to find Jonah already parked in the lot where we’ve planned to meet. Well, look at that. For once in his life, he is early—early even with an hour drive from his mother’s house. I park next to him, and he moves from his driver’s seat to my passenger seat. No bouquets of flowering weeds from Vanessa this time. I wonder where Jonah told his mother he was going all cleaned up at this hour. He missed a spot shaving.

  When I called Simone to say I was running late, she asked why, and I said family emergency, which was honest, but still promised her we’d talk today. She said she sure hoped so. Then she threatened to call in sick tomorrow and every day from now until the talk happened. My first thought was to let her, so I could fire her with cause, but then I thought it through and realized how right she is about how screwed I’d be without her. She backed me into this corner, so she’ll get her way, and this whole day will be one of talks and negotiations. Beginning now.

  I take two ibuprofen from the bottle in my center console, shake two more into Jonah’s hand, and say, “It’ll all be over soon.”

  We rehearse our story one last time. Jonah doesn’t need to know that his meltdown was timed perfectly with mine. He only needs to think that I’m rescuing him despite everything he’s done to hurt me. In turn, he’s agreed to one proviso. If Walsh asks about the young man who was in my passenger seat when Officer Diaz pulled me over to complicate life with a speeding ticket, Jonah is to say that it was him. My son wanted context. I told him he has no right to ask questions, but if he must know, I’d given Nick a ride to the store that morning—Jonah had been sleeping—and forgot all about it. Changing the time line now would complicate everyone’s lives. When Jonah hesitated, I made it clear that my participation in his colossal cover-up was contingent upon his assistance in my white lie.

  Of course, my help is a crapshoot, and our plan won’t gild my image, but we picked the softest available sin. Yesterday, after Jonah spilled his guts, but before he packed his things for Vanessa’s, we brainstormed options and decided to blame the guy who’s not here to defend himself. Jonah researched the relevant details on his computer, not mine. We talked through a loose script, leaving enough truth in our fiction for it to feel real. Even having covered our bases, and even with the true parts anchoring my ethics, I still sweat on our way past the front desk once we enter the building. I hope to hell I won’t break out in hives on our way up the elevator, down the hall to Walsh’s office, and all the way to the receptionist who takes us to her boss like we’re very important people.

  Walsh greets us but does not comment on the weather. He doesn’t waste our time with idle drivel, either. He gestures for us to sit in the two folding chairs on the other side of his desk, and we do, and he waits. When the silence gets weird, he tells Jonah, “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Jonah thanks him, and looking down at his hands, says, “When you asked if I knew any reasons Nick might want to take his own life, I said no, and I meant that. It wasn’t a lie. There still aren’t any reasons good enough to do what he did. It still doesn’t make sense.”

  “What Jonah is trying to say,” I explain, “is that he can’t comprehend any excuse for Nick’s decision, which is why it didn’t occur to him to share with you the things he told me last night.”

  Walsh leans forward, rests his elbows on his desk, looks at my son, waits, listens, and so we tell our story.

  A work of pure fiction, our story goes like this: Nick had a drug problem. Sophomore year, he’d gotten hooked on pills acquired illegally on campus—benzos, stimulants, but mostly opioids—and Jonah, having grown wise, feared for his friend’s life and intervened. Jonah helped Nick kick, but in the end, no one could save Nick from his demons.

  My fabricated detail: that I’d assumed Elizabeth had been looking for envelopes or stamps or tax returns when I opened the desk drawers in my home office last week to find that their contents had been shuffled. Never in a million years did it dawn on me to suspect Nick of ransacking my desk, searching for my NPI and DEA numbers—which I don’t keep at home, obviously, for the record.

  Jonah roots my lie in yet another: just last week, Nick had been asking Jonah about my home office, and where I’d keep my prescriber numbers, or maybe samples of meds—which, again, for the record: not a chance—and Jonah, because he’s responsible, told Nick he’d crossed a red line, that he needed professional help, at which point Nick laughed and insisted he’d only been joking. How could we have known that Nick’s dark humor was malignant this time?

  Jonah adds false finishing touches: that he was used to hearing about Nick’s temptations and impulses, that this was part of the process—a process that worked, until it didn’t, because Nick had stayed clean that whole time, or so Jonah had thought. Upon sharing this information with me last night, I tell Walsh, I made the connection with the desk drawer and Nick’s covert search for contraband. He hadn’t been joking after all. And one more thing: there’d been a complaint filed with our HOA about Nick’s use of marijuana in our guesthouse. If Ben Walters had consulted me immediately, there might have been time to intervene, but alas, the gateway drug strikes again. I hang my head.

  And scene.

  Zebadiah Walsh scrapes his pen against a pad of paper. He’s thinking about the autopsy, whatever it revealed, knowing that if traces of opiates had been found in Nick’s blood—say, the lingeri
ng effects of Vicodin popped like vitamins in college dorms—it would have registered as an unspecified opioid, no different from heroin or morphine. The same would apply to a hair sample, if toxicology ran one, which isn’t likely.

  Noting two smiling children in a frame on his shelf, I ask Walsh, “Do you have kids?”

  Without looking up to confirm that I’m referencing the photo behind him, he says, “Niece and nephew.”

  Even better. “We build our whole lives around our children’s happiness. Nick’s aunt, Naomi? She was like a mother to Nick, and now she’s lost everything, which is why, if possible, we hope to keep her memories of Nick pure.”

  Walsh turns his notebook over, places the pen on top. He opens his computer, types, clicks his mouse, clicks again. Finally says, “Jonah, did you know your dad got a speeding ticket recently?”

  One second. Two. Everything I’ve done for him. I look at my son. He’s looking at Walsh, but my son is not afraid. He smiles and says, “I was in the car with him when he got pulled over. First and only time I’ve ever seen him make such a careless mistake.” To me, he says, “Never going to let you live it down.” My boy.