We Now Return to Regular Life

by Martin Wilson

  We both walk to our respective tables, the places where we belong.

  “Any space for me?” I ask when I get to mine.

  Chita nods, and scoots down and clears a spot on the end of the table. I’m relieved she doesn’t make a comment about me talking with Grace.

  “Is your head okay?” Darla asks.

  “I’ll live, no thanks to her,” I say. Chita elbows me.

  Donal hasn’t yet looked up from his food. He probably hates me. I unwrap the sandwich I brought and start eating, and eventually everyone starts talking about whatever it was they were talking about before I intruded. It’s fine just to be there, sitting at the table, a part of them.

  The bell rings and Chita says, “See you at practice.”

  She walks off, the table clears, and it’s just me and Donal, who’s still finishing his lunch. I get up to leave, but I stop.

  “It wasn’t a mistake,” I say.

  He looks up, and he knows what I mean. He’s chewing something still, and kind of has a dumb look on his face, but it’s cute, too—like he’s trying not to break into a big grin and chew and talk, all at once. I grab my stuff and bolt before he can say anything and I make it to my next class just as the second bell rings.

  ===

  Saturday turns out to be a windy, cold gray day. I regret suggesting the park as a meeting place, but I’ll make do. I wear a sweater, my heavy coat. I tell Mom I’m going shopping, which is believable only because Christmas isn’t too far away.

  On the drive over I try to imagine what Tony looks like. But he’s a blank. Like most everything about Sam’s time in Anniston.

  I park in the little lot and sit in the car. No one else is here, due to the cold. Perfect. The trees are mostly bare, except for the tall skinny pines, which line the edges and provide a kind of barricade against Fifteenth Street. The shrubs that shield the park from the back of Central’s football field are bare, too, so I can see the school in the distance. It’s a little depressing.

  Soon a white Honda drives up, a woman at the wheel, a shadow of another person in the passenger seat.

  I get out of my car.

  “Hello,” the woman says as she steps out of her car. She’s African American, wearing a tan overcoat and high-heeled boots. “Lorraine Johnson,” she announces, walking over and extending her hand.

  “Beth Walsh,” I say, shaking her hand.

  “This is Tony,” Lorraine says, and the boy shuffles forward awkwardly. He’s lighter-skinned than his mother, with close-cropped dark hair, and sort of bulgy and intense-looking brown eyes.

  “Hi,” I finally say.

  “Hi,” he says.

  His mom looks around at the park, puts her hands in her coat pockets. “You kids going to get cold out here?”

  “We should be okay. And we can always sit in my car,” I say.

  She eyes me suspiciously. “Thanks for meeting with him,” she says finally, forcing a smile and pulling him next to her. He’s staring at me with those eyes and it makes me a little uncomfortable, so I focus on Lorraine. “We felt horrible about everything, you know,” she says. “We had no idea. It’s just . . .” she continues, trailing off. “How is he? How is Sam?”

  Now that I’m face-to-face with these people, that anger I felt a few days ago feels misplaced. “He’s okay,” I say, which seems true enough.

  “That’s good,” she says, forcing that smile again. “That’s really good. Right, honey?” she says.

  “Yeah,” he says, staring at me like he’s in awe or something.

  She looks down at him like she’s sad for him, like she doesn’t want to let go. “Well, anyway,” she says. “I’ll pick you up at two? That way we can get back to Aunt Gisele’s place to dress.” She turns her attention back to me. “My sister’s getting married tonight. Her second marriage, but still.” She hugs Tony, and I can tell they’re close, that she’s a good mom. All that goodness, I think, near so much evil. It doesn’t make sense. She says, “You two have a good visit.”

  We watch as she drives off, till her car vanishes around a corner gas station. Then Tony looks back at me with those sharp, big eyes. He has on a green jacket that doesn’t seem warm enough for this chill. I take in the park. “Let’s find a bench?” I say. We walk to the nearest one, right in front of a rickety swing set and slide, and sit. Tony keeps fidgeting. I smile over at him. I want to tell him to relax.

  “So,” I prompt. “Sam was your friend.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Sam Hunnicutt. That’s what he said his name was.”

  “Oh,” I say. My belly clenches, but I know this is just the beginning. I want the blanks filled in, but I’m afraid to read the sentences once they’re complete.

  “We became friends pretty quick. He was the only other kid my age in the complex when we moved in. I guess by the time we met he’d been there for a year.”

  “You didn’t . . . You didn’t suspect anything was wrong?” I ask.

  He looks down at his hands. His nails are bitten. “No,” he says. “Sam was quiet, but just, like, a normal kid. And Mr. Hunnicutt—Rusty. I mean, he was kind of grumpy and overprotective. But he seemed okay. He seemed normal.”

  “But he wasn’t,” I say, more sharply than I mean to. I’m here to listen, I remind myself. Listen, and try to—try to what? What am I here to find out?

  “Yeah. We’d play video games and he always said Rusty didn’t allow it and he always felt bad when we did, and finally we stopped doing that because I think he got in trouble once when Rusty found out. Rusty thought video games rotted your brain or something.”

  “So, everyone thought Sam was . . . his son?” Saying this makes me want to vomit.

  “No, his nephew,” he says, sounding sad. “Sam called him Rusty. Or sometimes he called him Uncle. When he called him that, you could tell it felt weird to him.” His big eyes look desperate. “You gotta believe me. It seemed normal. I mean, Rusty was really strict. I’d hear him yelling at Sam sometimes. But otherwise, they got along really good. I’d see them laugh together. Make fun of each other, but in a . . . you know, like friends do. It just seemed like nothing was wrong.”

  Surely Tony’s memories are messed up. There’s no way this can be right. Sam was a captive. A prisoner. I inhale a deep breath of cold air. Tony must realize I’m upset because he doesn’t say anything else. He starts nibbling his nails.

  Off in the distance, I take in Central High. Seeing it grounds me for a moment. I spent so many days there, while Sam spent his in that apartment, with that man. But now that man is in prison, locked away, and Sam’s with us. We have him back. I feel some of the knots loosening inside me.

  “Sam didn’t go to school,” I say at last. “What did he do all day?”

  Tony quickly pulls his hands away from his mouth. “He told me he was homeschooled. I guess that was weird because Rusty worked all the time, so when was he ever there to homeschool him? But I didn’t think much of it. Sam had these textbooks, he’d show me, but we didn’t talk about school and stuff. I just thought he was lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  Tony shrugs, starts biting his nails again before he catches himself. “Yeah. I hated school. I mean, it’s better now. But people would call me Obama. No one was really that mean, but I was sort of . . . Well, you get it. But Sam never made me feel weird. Plus, we both had one parent, sort of, so we bonded that way.”

  My belly kind of lurches when I realize he views that “one parent” as Russell Hunnicutt—not Mom.

  “What did he say about his mother? His parents?” I ask.

  “Uh,” he says, sounding hesitant.

  “It’s okay,” I say. Breathe, I think, so that the queasy feeling I have won’t make me want to roll into a ball on the ground. “Go on.”

  He won’t look at me, and I can tell he doesn’t want to say anything, and I almost wish he
wouldn’t. “He said they died in a car wreck when he was a baby. When they lived in Ohio,” he says, his voice quiet.

  “Died,” I say, like this is a new word I’m just learning.

  “He talked about his aunt a lot, though, and his cousin. His cousin Beth. You.”

  Cousin. Cousin Beth.

  “A lot makes sense now. He talked about you all the time. I mean, I like my cousins okay, but we’ve never been that close, you know? Once I found Sam sitting at the picnic table in the courtyard, crying. I asked him why and he told me it was because he missed his aunt and cousin.”

  It’s so much to take in. Cousin Beth. These fake worlds he had to create.

  “These reporters all came to our complex, after the truth came out. After they took Rusty away,” he says. “They wondered how we couldn’t know that we had a kidnapped kid there. They made us feel like . . . like we were criminals.”

  I picture the cameras, the reporters, invading their territory like they did with us.

  “Those days, after it all happened, Mom and I just sat on the couch with the TV on, pretending like none of it was true. And one day she just finally started crying like crazy, and I did, too. Because we just felt . . . We should have known. We should have . . . saved him.” His voice trails off and he stands up, suddenly. He walks around for a little bit, and I think he might be crying, but I stay frozen to my seat. Finally, he walks back and settles back onto the bench, beside me.

  “I really miss Sam,” he says.

  I do too, I realize. I miss my brother—who he was. Because the Sam at home, I don’t really know him.

  But I want to.

  “What was he like?” I ask. “I mean, as a friend?”

  Tony’s quiet for a bit, like he’s surprised at the question. “He was nice,” Tony says, his voice brightening. “He was funny. I mean, I guess he could be quiet. And a little nervous sometimes when it came to Rusty.” He shakes his head. “He was so different from the guys at my school. They’re so loud and annoying, and Sam wasn’t that way.”

  He could have been, I think. But that part of his personality had been snuffed out. He wasn’t allowed to become a normal teenage boy.

  “I miss him,” Tony says again.

  “I know,” I say, hoping I sound comforting. It’s dawning on me that Sam’s return has affected so many people besides just me and my family. “Maybe one day you can come visit.”

  He lights up when I say this, and for the first time that day he smiles. And I picture him and Sam, together, and I feel grateful toward this kid. For maybe being the one bit of brightness in this horrible life Sam had with that horrible man.

  Mrs. Johnson drives up right then. Has it really been an hour? Tony sees her, too, and his smile vanishes. She steps out of the car and waves at us. Together, we walk to the parking lot. Before she says anything, Tony says, “Beth says maybe I can visit one day, and see Sam.”

  She gives me a kind, sad smile, like she knows this probably won’t happen but appreciates me saying it anyway. “Thanks again for speaking with Tony. With us.”

  Tony steps toward me and I’m surprised when he hugs me. At first I don’t know how to respond, but I hug him back. I feel a lump in my throat as I pat him on the shoulder. I pull back from him, not wanting him to see me upset, so I wave and start walking across the parking lot. When I’m almost to my car, I hear Tony shout, “Wait!” I look over as he opens the door to the backseat of his mom’s car and digs around until he pulls out a manila folder. He jogs over to me. “Here.”

  “What is this?” I say. When I open it I see it’s full of drawings. Drawings of me, of Mom. Of Dad. Even Earl. Drawings of our house. Drawings of Sam, all of us together. Some are just pencil, but some are in color. They’re really good. And there are so many of them. Sam must have spent hours on these. I feel an ache in my chest, thinking of him in that awful place, finding these moments to draw—to draw us. His family.

  “Sam gave me these to hold on to. He told me that Rusty didn’t like him drawing pictures of his aunt and cousin and stuff. I guess it makes sense now.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Ho nods, gives me another smile. “Bye for now,” he says.

  After they drive off, I get into the warmth of the car. I look through the drawings again, more closely. Happy scenes of family life—all of us posed in front of the house. Mom and Sam under the oak tree in the backyard. Then there are these solo portraits. I come to a picture of me, from the waist up, and I can tell this is Sam’s attempt to imagine me older. Didn’t he tell me he tried to do this, but he threw them away, that they were no good? In the picture, my hair is shorter, like I wore it back then, but the color is so precise—I’m amazed he could do this with color pencils. My eyes look a little off—maybe too round, and my lips seem too full and perfect. But I can recognize myself in it. Cousin Beth.

  When I get home, I tuck the drawings under my jacket and walk to my bedroom, where I stuff them in the bottom drawer of my desk. I’ll think of a better spot later. After that, I realize the house is dead quiet. I walk around and through the kitchen window I spot Mom out on the patio, in her coat. I go outside and join her.

  “Oh, you’re back early,” she says, sounding a little flustered, quickly stamping out a cigarette. There are already three butts in the ashtray.

  “I know,” she says. “It’s horrible. Please, promise me you won’t ever smoke.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, sitting down on one of the cold chairs.

  I finally get a good look at her eyes, and from the redness it’s clear she’s been crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. For weeks Mom has been so calm, so cheery, so focused on moving forward with life.

  She smiles over at me. “Nothing,” she says.

  Obviously I don’t believe her. I want to show her Sam’s beautiful drawings. The way he kept us alive. But that would mean telling her about Tony. And I know that’s a bad idea.

  “All I ever wanted was for Sam to come back,” Mom says. She leans back in her chair. “I never thought about what would happen if he did. Some days, I look at him and I know it’s Sam. But it’s not Sam. Our little rascal. And I just need to get over that. That Sam is never coming back.” Her voice catches, like she’s about to cry, but she fights through it. “But the alternative—of him never coming back? Well, I’ll take this any day. Right?”

  “Yes,” I say, feeling my throat tighten. Superman, I think. He’s Superman. For surviving. For making it back home.

  She starts crying for real then, little sobs that cause her chest to lurch. I reach for her hand, and she grabs mine, then takes a deep breath and straightens her back, refusing to break down further. Sitting here, I think about all the times Earl and I held on to her as she sobbed and moaned, her sadness so intense it was like she was in physical pain.

  It’s weird, that I’ve been so annoyed with Mom lately. For being home so much. For cooking dinners and baking cookies. My clean clothes stacked on my bed when I come home from school. Because Sam is back, and so is my mom. I can see that now.

  “It’s cold,” she says, like she’s snapping awake. She wipes her eyes. “Let’s go inside and order a pizza. I’m too tired to cook tonight.” She smiles, her puffy red eyes the only trace of the past few minutes.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Mom orders the pizza, and right when she hangs up the phone Earl comes home from some renovation north of the river. Mom stands and they hug, because I think Earl can tell she’s been crying. He pulls back and brushes her hair from her face, kisses her. That stuff used to gross me out, but today I’m grateful for it. We’re not falling apart, are we? We’re going to be okay, like Mom says.

  When the pizza comes, Earl cracks open a beer, Mom too, and they go to the den with plates and napkins.

  Sam walks in and grabs some slices and plops them on a plate. “You want a Coke?” I
ask. I’m at the fridge, letting cold air escape, and he comes and takes it from me, then walks away.

  I shut the fridge and stand there. I want to call him back and say, I met your friend. He misses you. And I saw your drawings. I have them in my room. I love them.

  And I think again about how amazing Sam is, that he carved out some happiness somehow, even in that place.

  CHAPTER 10

  Alien

  Josh

  “Can’t I see it?” I ask.

  “Nope,” Sam says. “Not till it’s finished.”

  It’s Friday afternoon. I had Dad drop me here after school because Sam needed to make touchups to the portrait. It’s been a busy time at school, so I haven’t been able to come over. We’re in the living room, and it’s quiet. It’s too cold today to even think about doing this outside. Sam’s sitting across from me on a plush upholstered chair. I’m on the couch, which is kind of hard and uncomfortable.

  The same couch where I sat while that policewoman interviewed me years ago on that day in July. Where I didn’t say a word about the truck. I chew on my lips and look away, feeling my face getting warm.

  Sam says, “You okay?”

  “Huh?” I say, turning to him.

  “Your face is a little red.”

  “It is?”

  He smiles. From then on he goes back and forth from me to the sketch pad. I still feel a little ridiculous posing this way. But Sam said he wants to give it to me as a Christmas gift, which is just weeks away.

  I try to think of things other than the last time I sat on this couch. Like next week at school, when we have midterms—three half days, two exams each day—and then we go on break until the new year. I’ll need to study all weekend. Or maybe not all weekend. I mean, I’m doing great in all my classes. Plus, I’ve always aced my exams. Surely I can have some fun. Nick is probably hanging with Sarah. And Raj with Madison. I could ask Max and Ty to go to a movie. I look over at Sam, still deep in concentration. An improbable idea comes to me, but I give it a shot. “Hey, you want to come over tomorrow night?”