“AA?” Susan said.
“A while back, after . . . I was in a bad place, and I was drinking way too much.”
“But not now?”
“I imposed this rule on myself, to see if I could do it without help, and it worked. That, and better meds.”
She glanced at me like she wasn’t sure if I was joking.
“I suffer from depression. It’s . . . it’s fine. It’s under control.”
“You can’t control everything,” Susan said.
“Right. Funny. I . . .” Tears I couldn’t explain sprang to my eyes, bringing with them a sense of panic. Unexplained tears were always how the depression started, and what made it so scary. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. It’s this stupid book deadline, I think.”
“When’s it due?”
“Eight months from now.”
“That seems like a long time.”
“I know, right?”
It was a long time. Only I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, day in and day out. I wrote my words—I had almost 40,000 of them. I advanced the players down the outline I’d written so many months before, in the heady days of The Book’s success, when my publishers would have bought anything, my agent assured me—but make it good, anyway.
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, I’d taken to calling what I was doing on a daily basis. About as effective as playing the violin while it sank.
Susan patted me on the back with a practiced hand. Not too firm, not too soft. Just right.
“I thought this walk was about cheering each other up?” she asked.
“It was. It really was.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“So let’s go do something, then? What about one of those spiced-pumpkin thingies?”
“With whipped cream?” I said hopefully.
“I am definitely pro whipped cream.”
We went to the Bow Tie Cafe. They let us bring Sandy in, and we unwrapped ourselves in the brightly lit space. The windows were steamed up from the nighttime crowd. Spiced pumpkin was, unfortunately, out of season, so we indulged in caramel macchiatos, and the tears were forgotten. Sometimes comfort food really does comfort.
On the way back home, Sandy ran at her favorite tree again, only this time, she took a long, decidedly human-looking poop. I sighed as I reached into my pocket for a plastic bag.
“Shit.”
“That she did,” Susan said.
“I forgot my poop bags.”
“I can wait here while you go get one.” She eyed Sandy. “Or maybe you could . . .”
“Right, I probably should—” I stopped and motioned for Susan to be quiet. Something had caught my attention and set my heart sprinting. We weren’t alone. I put my hand above my eyes to shade out the street lamp and scanned the night. There. A white flash of something was hovering near Cindy’s basement window.
“Sandy!” I said in my best command voice. “Attack!”
I let go of the leash, and Sandy bounded over the low snowbank toward what I was now certain was a man crouching by the window.
“Hey! Oww! Hey!”
A light flashed on in the basement, illuminating Sandy pawing at a man lying on the ground, his jacket in her teeth. His hands flailed, trying to push himself up and away.
The front porch light turned on, and out came Cindy’s husband, Paul. He was wearing pajama bottoms, his feet stuffed into his running shoes. It was 9:45 p.m.
“What the hell?”
The man on the ground stopped struggling, lying still while Sandy half stood on his chest, growling.
“There’s a man,” I said, pointing. “He was trying to get into your basement through the window.”
Paul came out onto the stoop, squinting.
“Did you call the police?”
“I did,” Susan said, waving her phone in her hand.
“It’s just Chris!”
Cindy and Paul’s daughter, Ashley, streaked out of the house in jeans and a T-shirt.
“Chris! Are you okay?”
She stopped a few feet away from him as Sandy bared her teeth.
“I can’t get up! He bit me.”
“Call him off!” Ashley said to me.
I didn’t bother correcting her pronoun. “Sandy! Release. Come.”
Sandy looked at me like she wasn’t sure I was serious.
“Release, Sandy. Release.”
She reluctantly let go of Chris’s coat. Down feathers flew through the air like snow. Ashley ran to him, dropping to her knees, trying to cradle his head in her lap.
“Chris. Are you okay?”
He sat up. There was a long, deep scratch across the left side of his face. Blood was seeping out of it onto his jacket. Now that he wasn’t crouching like a thief, he looked young, vulnerable, scared.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding!”
“Ashley, you get back here this minute!”
Cindy appeared in the doorway, a bathrobe tied tightly around her waist.
Chris brought his hand up to his face. He pulled it away and looked at the blood as if it was an alien substance.
I handed Sandy’s leash to Susan and moved toward him.
“Stop,” Cindy said. “Stop right there.”
I froze in my tracks. “I want to make sure he’s all right.”
“I’ll do that,” Cindy said, pushing past me. “I think you’ve done enough damage here tonight.”
New Rules
John
Eight months ago
Hanna was waiting for me when I got back from my run, the morning after Julie’s dog attacked Chris.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked as I kicked off my sodden shoes.
Big, sticky flakes were falling thickly outside. But for the company, I wouldn’t have made it out at all. I pulled off my Windbreaker and wiped my face with the inside of my fleece.
“What’s going on? Chris okay?”
I’d checked on him before I left. He was sleeping on his back, his arms sprawled out above his head. The bandage across his cheek was white against his red face.
“I think he’s going to have a permanent scar. Don’t you care about that at all?”
Hanna gave me one of her persecution stares, as I always called them.
“Of course I do. Why would you even ask that?”
“Because you were running with her.”
She pointed toward the door. Directly through it and across the street was Julie’s house.
“We ran into each other. No pun intended.”
“Ha. Right. Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot.”
I felt nervous, although I hadn’t been doing anything wrong. So Julie and I had taken to running together most mornings. I was sure I’d mentioned it to Hanna. At least once. I might’ve picked my moment. A moment when she was absorbed in the morning paper. But I had told her.
“I’m not,” I said. “I mean, yeah, we run together sometimes. I told you that. Our schedules are similar. What’s the big deal?”
“Whatever.”
I hate it when she says that. Which she knows. An affectation she picked up from the kids years ago.
“Hanna, come on.” I stepped toward her. I was wet to the core, but I took her in my arms anyway.
She squirmed. “You’re ruining my suit.”
“Forget the suit. What’s going on?”
“I don’t like you hanging out with her. And that dog of hers . . .”
“That was an accident. Chris shouldn’t have been sneaking out of a window in the dead of night.”
When Chris was frog-marched up the street by Cindy the night before, Hanna’s anger had been directed at Chris. Once she’d made sure he was okay. Sneaking out of the house was not allowed. If he wanted to hang out with Ashley, it didn’t have to be a secret. And if her parents didn’t want them to be together, then we could talk about that. Maybe we could have a sit-down with Cindy and Paul and discuss it.
&n
bsp; “No, Mom. No way,” Chris had said, looking horrified. He was holding a damp cloth to his face. There was blood flecked across his shirt. Several spots the size of dimes marred his jeans. Hanna had the first-aid kit out, readying the Bactine and bandages.
“Well, we’re probably going to have to have a conversation with them, anyway, given what happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Why were you sneaking out, then?”
“We were studying and we fell asleep on the couch. Her parents go to bed early, and I was supposed to have left at nine. They put the alarm on.”
“So you sneaked out through a window?”
She pulled his hand aside and applied some Bactine to the cut. He winced.
“The sensor doesn’t work on that window.”
“And you know this, how?”
“Aw, Mom, come on. Stop cross-examining me.”
Hanna softened. She always worried that she was too hard on the kids. Chris knew how to push her buttons.
She pressed a white bandage over the cut, affixing it with tape. We’d taken a first-aid class together when she was pregnant with Chris. CPR. What to do if your child was choking. Minor cuts and abrasions. We’d both come away terrified, but were happy to have the information when Chris turned out to be allergic to peanuts.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“It’s only a scratch.”
“We should have the doctor take a look at it,” Hanna said. “It’s pretty deep.”
“Can we do that tomorrow?” Chris said. “I’m tired.”
Hanna acquiesced. She told Chris we’d discuss his punishment and let him know what it would be in the morning. Hanna encouraged him to find a replacement for his paper route, but he said he could do it. He and I had made a deal when he turned fourteen that if he saved up enough, we’d get him a car when he turned sixteen. Every day of tossing papers was a step toward his freedom.
When we’d climbed into bed, Hanna rolled toward me and said, “Do you think they were having sex?”
“Probably.”
She punched me in the arm. “I’m being serious here.”
“So am I. They’re fifteen. They’ve been dating for . . . how long now?”
“Since summer.”
I peered at her over the rim of my reading glasses. “Summer. I see. So, seven, eight months now, including breakups? Yes. They are definitely having sex.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Becky getting kissed by some boy in Mexico was no big deal, but our son having sex is?”
“He’s our baby.”
“He’s as tall as I am.”
“And your first time was at . . .” She scrunched up her nose as if she couldn’t remember.
“You know how old I was.”
Fifteen and a half. Stupid in lust with Sara Henderson. Who’d go on to break my heart two months later. Even now, on the rare occasions when I ran into her, my stomach lurched. Back then, Sara was into mind games and manipulation. At fifteen years old, I was easy prey.
“I know how old you were, too,” I added, teasing.
“I was sixteen.”
“Which Chris will be before we know it.”
“I know, I know. God, I felt so grown up back then. Like I knew exactly what I was doing and why I was doing it. Chris doesn’t even know how to do his own laundry, and thinks milk magically appears in the fridge.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Both of ours, I think.”
“You’re right. How about, first thing tomorrow, we introduce him to the washer/dryer, and then send him out for groceries?”
“That sounds like a sensible plan.”
She snuggled up against my side.
“Chris is a good boy,” I said. “We’ve told him enough times to be responsible, and I think he will be. But I can talk to him if you want.”
“Give him some pointers, maybe?” she said.
“Now that’s probably going too far.”
“Chris was trying not to wake Cindy and Paul,” Hanna said to me the next morning, in response to my comment that Chris had gotten himself into this mess.
I released her, shivering in my running things. “So we’re believing that story now?”
“Maybe, but you should see his face. It looks bad. I’m taking him to the doctor. And if he needs surgery . . .”
“What?”
“Well, you know people are responsible for the actions of their dogs, right? Legally responsible. It’s called the one-bite rule, and—”
“You want to sue her?”
“Not her, exactly. Her insurance company.”
“What’s the difference?”
“She won’t be out of pocket. If she’s properly insured, this should be covered. Though, maybe not because it didn’t happen on her property. Or if this wasn’t the first time her dog has done something like this. I bet it isn’t. We should look into that.”
Hanna had this faraway look in her eyes. One I’d seen before when she was caught up in figuring out an angle she should take on a case. Or with me.
“Isn’t it going to be covered by our insurance?”
“That’s not the point. If Chris is permanently disfigured—”
“Hanna, come on. Permanently disfigured? It was a scratch. Are you seriously telling me that if a dog jumps on you when you’re acting like a prowler, it’s the owner’s fault?”
“Well, yes, actually. That’s what strict liability is all about. You’re responsible regardless of whether you did anything wrong. But she did do something wrong. She told the dog to attack. Chris told me.”
I felt a moment of unease. Julie hadn’t mentioned that on our run. She’d felt bad, though, asking twice how Chris was. If I thought he’d need stitches. He was a handsome boy, she said. And she felt sick about it.
“Attack? She used that word?”
“You can ask Susan if you don’t believe him. She was there, remember?”
“Of course I believe him. Let me process this for a minute.”
I peeled my shirt from my body. I tossed it in the empty laundry bin that was sitting at the base of the stairs.
“You give Chris his laundry lesson?” I said.
“What?” Hanna said. She’d pulled her smartphone out and was scanning through her e-mails.
“Forget it.”
I pulled a towel out of the linen closet and rubbed my hair. It was 7:20, and this day was already turning into a shit show. Whatever peace I’d gathered on my run was dripping away like the water I was trailing across the floor.
“Where’s Chris? Is he back from his paper route yet?”
“Upstairs.”
I went to find him. He was in his room, already locked into his laptop. I studied him from the doorway. He’d taken off the bandage Hanna placed over his cut. It did look worse than the night before, red and angry.
“You okay, Chris?”
“Yeah.”
“Your mom’s pretty worried about your face.”
“It’s fine.”
I sat on the edge of his bed. His room had a faint musky smell to it. I couldn’t help wondering if he and Ashley really had had sex. Maybe right there in his bed.
“Chris, can you turn around?”
His fingers dropped from the keyboard as he faced me.
“What is it?”
“What’s going on with you and Ashley?”
“Nothing, Dad, I told you. I fell asleep.”
“You’re being careful, right?”
“Oh, man.”
“I have to ask these things, kiddo. You know that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Me, either, to be honest. But when you’re a grown-up, you often have to talk about things you don’t want to.”
Chris rubbed at his eyes, like sleep was still caught there. “Her parents are never going to let me see her again.”
“Probably. Especially once we tell them you’re sleeping togethe
r.”
“What? I . . . what?”
“Relax, kid, relax. I’m just messing with you.”
“Not funny.”
“Probably not.”
“You’re not going to say anything to her parents, right? Please, Dad. Promise me.”
“Don’t worry.”
His shoulders fell in relief.
“Everything will be okay,” I said. “Let me get changed and we’ll go to the doctor.”
“Am I going to need stitches?”
He’d always hated needles. When he said things like that, he reverted back to little-boy status right before my eyes. Like an optical illusion.
“Hopefully not.”
I patted him on the head and went to our bedroom. Hanna was there, still looking at her phone. She did this sometimes. Came upstairs for something, then got distracted by that goddamn device.
“I’ll take Chris to the doctor,” I said.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“You don’t want him to go?”
“It’s not that; it’s this.”
She handed me her phone. There was an e-mail from the neighborhood association, i.e. Cindy.
“New Rules,” it was called. And as I read it, I was filled with disbelief.
Today
John
11:00 a.m.
There’s a certain level of disorientation that comes with being thrust into someone else’s world. I’m thinking about that now as I follow Brad back into the building, the illicit flask back in place, almost empty. There’s nothing remarkable about the building; we could be in any number of government buildings, the state seal on the wall. Yet, everyone but me seems to know where to go. Where to sit. How to stand. What they can and will say.
But no matter how many times I rehearse it in my mind, I can’t seem to make the pieces fit together. There’s always something missing. Some part of the puzzle just out of view.
I’d first experienced this feeling when I was sitting in Alicia’s office a week after the accident.
We’d already been through the first rounds of questioning on the day of, and the day after, the accident. Two homicide detectives, one of them very young, clearly on his first case. They went house to house like they were canvassing for the Mormon Church. Dark suits, dark ties, white shirts. Little notebooks that soaked up our words. Well-placed questions that encouraged us to speak openly. To hold nothing back.
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