We Now Return to Regular Life

by Martin Wilson

  “Here, come in.” He stands aside and I walk in the room, which has two queen-size beds. It’s sort of a mess. Clothes strewn on the floor. A few empty beer bottles resting on the bedside table. And on one of the beds are all these papers. Newspaper clippings, magazine pages, some spilling out of envelopes, some resting on top of folders. I walk over and get a closer look.

  Right away, I see pictures of Sam. And of him. Russell Hunnicutt. That mug shot. I look over at Dad, and he eyes me sheepishly, like I’ve caught him at something.

  “What’s all this?” I say, even though it’s obvious. I remember Bud Walker telling Mom that he would save all the press, but Mom said she never wanted to see any of it. I’m shocked about how public our lives have become these past few weeks.

  “Just stuff about the case. About Sam. I know it looks obsessive, but I had to keep track of everything. I wanted to know. . . . I thought knowing everything might help me understand. But it hasn’t really.”

  I walk to the other bed and sit on its hard mattress.

  He takes a chair from the little round table by the window, pulls it closer to the bed. He smiles at me, and his dimples are like Sam’s, and I almost want to reach out and hold his hands, but I don’t.

  “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday,” I say.

  Dad shakes his head. “You don’t owe me an apology. I owe you one. For . . . for being a terrible father.”

  It feels good to hear him admit this, but also sad. “Aunt Shelley told me you always asked about us. About me.”

  “It’s true.”

  “But why,” I say, my voice catching. I swallow. Be strong. “But why didn’t you come see me?”

  He looks away, tearing up.

  “These past three years, it’s just been . . . It’s been hard. Mom was . . . sometimes she just wasn’t there.” I’d never admitted this to anyone, but on some days, I wanted to shake her, wanted to shake her so she’d look at me and see that she still had a daughter right there in front of her.

  Dad’s full-on crying now, the tears shining in his beard. “Your mother is a good woman, Beth. A good mother.”

  Not while Sam was gone, I want to say. But my flash of anger softens, and I know he’s right.

  “Some people aren’t really cut out to be parents,” Dad continues. “But she is. And she did all the hard work. The saying no. The discipline. I just wanted to be the good guy. The fun dad.”

  We don’t talk for a few minutes, but I can tell he has more to say. When he gets the tears under control, he sniffles, then says, “I’m a little afraid of you. Of her. Because when I look at you both, I see what a failure I am. I see you, and you’re a smart, strong young woman, and none of that comes from me.” He takes a deep breath. “And it hurts me. I may be an adult, but I have my pride. Sometimes I . . . can’t face the truth about myself.” He looks up again, wiping his eyes.

  Something spills open inside me. Like that day, years ago, when I thought Sam was never coming back. But this feeling is different. It’s like a warmth spreading around.

  “Dad . . . Is Sam going to be okay?” I ask.

  He stares at me for a few seconds, like he’s searching his brain for the right answer. “I hope so, honey. But I know one thing. He needs you. He needs his big sister. Maybe more than anyone.”

  This is what Shelley said, what Mom says. But I still don’t know how I can help him. I’m just trying to get through each day. Whatever happened to Sam—there’s no how-to guide for us to consult.

  My cell phone pings a message, and I know it’s probably Mom, awake now, wondering where we are. “I better get going,” I say.

  “Oh, okay,” he says, and I can hear the disappointment in his voice. “But can I . . . Can I hug you first?”

  Yes, I think. Of course. To touch him, to smell him even, would feel so good, I know. But I make him wait a few seconds before I actually say “Yes.”

  We both stand and he embraces me, gently, and yes, it feels so good. Something I wish I had from him every day for the rest of my life. After a few seconds I pull away. “I’m still mad,” I say, though inside all I feel is warmth.

  “Okay,” he says, nodding, wiping his eyes with his hand.

  “But I didn’t . . . I wanted to see you. I’m not sure when I’ll see you again.”

  “Can I . . . can I call you?”

  “Yes,” I say, breathing deeply. I want another hug, but I have to leave. “Have a safe trip back.” I walk past the bed covered with all those horrible clippings. I open the door.

  He says, “I love you.”

  I pause. I look back at him, standing in that room, waiting. “I love you, too,” I say, and then I’m gone.

  While waiting for the elevator, a door opens down the hall and two old people come out. They smile at me as they approach.

  “You have a nice Thanksgiving?” the man asks.

  “It was okay,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t crack.

  “Where you visiting from?” the lady asks.

  “Oh,” I say. “I’m here seeing my mom. My dad and I—we live in Ohio.”

  “How nice,” she says.

  “Family should be together over the holidays,” the man says.

  The elevator arrives and we ride down in silence. Once we get to the ground floor, I get out and the man says to me, “Have fun with your momma.”

  “Thanks, I will,” I say, and it’s nice, I think, these brief few moments when I was a different person, a different Beth, who had a whole different life.

  But when I get outside, when I get in the car, when Aunt Shelley starts driving, I know I belong in this life. With Mom and Earl and Shelley. With my father. With my friends. With Sam.

  “Well, we can’t come home empty handed because your mom just texted me asking where in the hell we were.” So Shelley drives us to Krispy Kreme doughnuts and we load up. “Just what we need after yesterday’s meal,” she says, shaking her head.

  Before we go in the house, I hand her the doughnuts. “Can you carry these?” She nods and I go to the trash bin. I know this is gross and crazy but I dig around and find the bag I dumped in there yesterday.

  “What on earth?” Shelley says, eyebrows raised at me like I’m disturbed.

  “Don’t ask.”

  Everyone’s still in their rooms when we go inside. Shelley sets the doughnuts on the counter. “I’ll make some more coffee,” she says.

  Back in my room, I dump it all out on the floor—the cards and stuffed animals, a candle, slips of paper. Even just glancing at the messages, I know they’re from the heart. I sit down by my bed and just look at it all. That warmth from earlier—I feel it spread through me again. I close my eyes but the tears still pour out and I cover my mouth with my hands because I don’t want Mom or Shelley or anyone to hear me. Because they won’t understand that this feeling overwhelming me right now isn’t sadness, but something else. Something I can’t even define, but which feels a little like relief. Relief that I’m returning to myself. Like I know who I am again.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Most Awful Story in the World

  Josh

  Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, Sam calls and asks if I want to see a matinee, and then maybe hang out at his house after. All I’ve been doing is homework, so I say yes. Mom drives me to the mall, which is mobbed with shoppers.

  “Is Nick coming?” she asks.

  “No, he was busy.”

  I can see her take this in, scrunching her forehead, like she’s confused, or worried. Before she can say anything, I get out of the car. “See you later!”

  The movie theater’s pretty crowded. When we find our seats, I just focus on the dumb ads on the screen. A few times, I sneak looks around, but from what I can tell no one from school is here. Good. Since playing tennis that time, Sam and I have hung out a bit. We played tennis once more, watched a
movie at his house one Friday night. Nothing Nick or Raj or any of those guys need to know about. Finally, the lights go down and the previews begin.

  The movie ends earlier than we thought, so we have half an hour to kill before Sam’s mom picks us up. We get coffees and walk around the mall. We round a corner where the pet store is, and I see this guy and girl, around our age, holding hands, walking toward us. My heart jumps a little, thinking it’s Nick and Sarah, or someone else from Central. But when they get closer and walk past us I realize I don’t know them at all.

  “I had a girlfriend,” Sam says, like seeing the couple jogged his memory.

  “What?” I ask, not sure if he said had or has and feeling confused either way.

  “Her name was Kaylee.”

  After that day at the courts, Sam hadn’t told me any more things about Anniston. I kind of thought that might be the last of it, like maybe it was a one-time thing. Now I feel a mix of nervousness and pride. Nervousness because does he have other awful things to tell me? But pride because, well, he’s choosing me. For some reason, he trusts me.

  “I met her at the mall with my friend Tony.”

  Tony? Who’s Tony?

  “Tony and his mom would go to the mall each Saturday and sometimes Rusty would let me go.”

  A girlfriend. A friend. Trips to the mall. In some of the articles I read, it sounded like he had some freedom. But all I can think about is that man hitting him in the nose. The man who pulled a gun on him. How did he get from that place to this other place?

  Sam continues, like this is just a normal thing to talk about. “Rusty gave me money for food and art supplies or whatever. And that’s where I met Kaylee, at this supply shop. She was buying paints. She had this dyed red hair and all these piercings. I thought she was really pretty. Tony thought she was too goth, but I thought she was perfect.”

  I look over at him and he has this peaceful grin on his face. “She gave me this funny look when she saw me in the shop. I looked lame to her, she told me later. I had on these khakis, I guess they were baggy and dorky. And this cap I always wore. That Rusty made me wear when I went out. Anyway, she came right up to me. She was bold—I liked that. She asked me what I drew, and I told her I wasn’t very good yet, and she said she was taking an art class at the community college and I should take it. Rusty wouldn’t let me, I knew. But I got her number.”

  “Back up a second. Who’s Tony?” I ask, even though I’m still trying to process Kaylee.

  “Tony was my friend. He lived upstairs in the same complex, with his mom. They moved there a year after . . . after I got there.”

  “Are you . . . I mean, do you talk to them? To Tony? Kaylee?”

  “Mom doesn’t want me to have any contact.” Sam gets all solemn-looking then. He sits down on a bench and kind of stares off. I sit down next to him. “I asked Mom if I could have a cell phone, but she says not yet—that’s why I always have to call you from the landline. She thinks I’ll try and get in touch with them. But I never got to explain anything. I never got to say good-bye.”

  “Wow,” I say, wondering what they felt when they learned the truth about Sam. Shock, I’m sure. Maybe some guilt. All this time they’d known a kidnapped kid. I want to ask him why he didn’t tell them anything. Why he didn’t ask for their help. Sam’s dumping out pieces from a puzzle box and I’m scrambling to pick them up and put them together.

  “I bet my mom’s here,” Sam says. “We should get going.”

  When we round a corner, I see the GameTime store. The place we were riding our bikes to that day. I hadn’t made that connection till now. But Sam keeps walking.

  ===

  Once we get to Sam’s house, I think we’re going to play video games or something, but Sam says, “I thought I’d try and draw you today. Is that okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, thinking that sounds kind of boring. And also kind of weird. Why does he want to draw me?

  Sam grabs his sketch pad from his room and, since it’s not that cold today, we go outside to the backyard.

  “So I just sit here?” I ask.

  “Basically,” he says. “Look off to the side a little. But we can talk. I can talk and draw at the same time. I’m talented like that,” he says, winking, then looking back down at the sketch pad.

  I sit there as he starts using his charcoal pencil to go to work. It makes me feel kind of awkward the way he stares at me so much. I know he has to, to look at my features and all, but still, it feels invasive. To break the silence, I say, “You never told me how your dad’s visit went.”

  He doesn’t respond at first, but he furrows his brow. “It was fine. No big deal.”

  He continues sketching, and I sit there, watching him watch me. If he gets to look at me so closely, then I figure I can do the same. Even though we’re the same age, I notice that Sam looks older. He doesn’t show it off, but I can tell he has strong arms. And he has bits of stubble sprouting on his chin. If I shaved now it would only cut away peach fuzz. I notice, too, little nicks in his face—one on his lip, one on his eyebrow. Where those piercings were. Gone now.

  He stops drawing, stares over at me, then looks away, toward the shrubs that line the back of the yard. I worry that I did something to upset him—did he notice me studying him? When he starts drawing again, I’m relieved. “I learned to draw from the TV,” he says. “When Rusty left for work each day, he’d turn the channel to PBS. ‘This is educational. Watch it. Don’t change the channel, or I’ll know,’” Sam says, deepening his voice to imitate Rusty. “I was so dumb. There was no way he’d know if I flipped the channel. But by then I believed everything he told me.”

  By then. How much time had passed by then? What had happened to Sam by then?

  “There was always some drawing show on later in the day, after Sesame Street. This guy with curly hair and a mustache would stand in front of an easel and draw and show you how to do it, step-by-step. He was no Picasso. But I got hooked. The idea that you could create something out of nothing. Just take a blank piece of paper and do anything. When Rusty got home that night, I was nervous but I asked him anyway, I asked for paper. To draw, I told him. I told him about the show. I think he was a little suspicious at first. But he gave me a pencil and a few sheets of notebook paper, and that’s what started it all. I mean, it was a way to fill time. A way to stop thinking about . . .” But he stops. “My hand’s getting a little tired. You mind if we go inside?” he asks.

  Inside, Mrs. Manderson has made cookies, and we start wolfing these down. Sam’s aunt is there, too, and she makes a big production out of meeting me. “I’m so glad Sam has such a nice friend,” she says, embarrassing both of us, I guess, because we don’t look at each other.

  “Can we watch TV, Mom?”

  “Okay, but not too loud. Earl is napping.”

  We sit on the couch and flip channels—past football, past infomercials, shows about fixing up houses, cooking shows, till we get to a movie.

  “Oh, I love this,” Sam says.

  On screen I see that tall actress with the funny name. She’s with some guys dressed like soldiers and carrying big machine guns, walking down through a dark and abandoned-looking base.

  “What is it?”

  “Aliens. It’s awesome. And the first one, Alien, is great, too. We’ll have to watch that sometime.”

  The movie is intense but I like it. At one point, the little girl that they rescue says something about how her mother always told her there were no monsters, no real ones. “But there are.” I look over at Sam, and he’s just staring at the screen.

  After the movie ends, I call Mom to come get me because Sam and his family are going out to dinner with their aunt for her last night in town. As we sit and wait, Sam asks, “Can I keep drawing you? It may take me a few rounds. Is that okay?” He says this so eagerly, like he’s afraid I’ll say no.

  “Sure,�
�� I say. I’m still not sure why he wants to waste his time on drawing me, but I’m glad he does.

  On the way home, Mom says, “It feels so funny to me, driving back over here.” She means this side of town, our old neighborhood. We left almost a year after Sam had been gone. Mom had gotten her job at the firm, and she worked downtown, so she said the move was to be closer to work. But I knew she wanted to live in a nicer neighborhood. And maybe get away from the sadness and drama that seemed to hover over Pine Forest. When we drive across the river, she seems relieved and gives me a pat on the knee, like we just escaped from something.

  ===

  Central’s football team is in the play-offs. That’s all anyone talks about at school on Monday, the Big Game. It will be on Saturday, in Montgomery. Some people are organizing overnight trips. At lunch on Monday, Nick and the guys talk about going. “My dad said he’d get us a hotel room and drive us down,” Nick says.

  “I’ll have to ask my parents,” I say.

  But that night, at home, while we’re eating dinner in front of the TV, I don’t ask them. I don’t even mention the trip. Because I don’t want to go. I know I’m being kind of stupid about it, because to most people it would seem like a blast. But Nick would just talk about Sarah all the time. Or worse, maybe Sarah would go, too, with a group of her friends. And Madison J would be there, too, then. I just don’t want to deal with it. Plus, I have so much homework.

  On Tuesday, I say, “Yeah, my mom says I can’t go.”

  “That sucks,” Nick says. “You want my mom to call her?”

  “Nah, it’s no use,” I say, and he looks at me for a moment, like he’s suspicious of something. But he doesn’t press me about it anymore.

  Friday afternoon there’s a pep rally. Sixth period is canceled. We all pile in the big smelly gym, climb up the bleachers. I sit with Nick and the guys, and then Sarah and Madison and a few other girls worm their way to our section.

  The rally starts. I used to love these, but today the noise and the cheerleaders jumping around and all the shouting grate on me. All of the stuff from my school life seems off to me, for some reason—less enjoyable, somehow inconsequential. It might have something to do with Sam, but I’m not sure why.