Felix dug his fingers into his hair and was shocked to discover its softness. He must have forgotten to use gel. He never forgot the gel. “Our son is a brilliant teenager who needs to learn independence. You baby—”
“He’s a remarkable person who should be full of insecurity but isn’t—partly because I work hard to bolster him, to praise him, to show him what an incredible person he is, to reinforce that his challenges give him strength, not weakness. I never stop, Felix.”
“I know. You’re a remarkable parent.”
“I need you to be one, too.”
Her mobile dinged again. Felix waited two seconds. “Ella, your phone—”
She dismissed him with a limp wave, but how could he ignore a message? Look at me, look at me, it seemed to scream, until he reached over and grabbed the phone.
Harry. How did he get access to his mobile during school hours? “Harry’s sending you a virtual hug.”
“Send him back the heart sign.”
Felix stared at the keyboard. “There’s no heart sign.”
“Type the less-than sign followed by the number three.”
Felix typed and squinted. “That doesn’t look like a heart sign.”
“I can assure you it does to Harry’s generation.”
He hit “Send”; Harry replied immediately with the same sign. Overhead, helicopter blades thumped through the air; voices moved down the corridor.
“Do you know how messed up most teenagers are,” Ella said, “even without a slew of diagnoses?”
“Harry isn’t messed up.”
“Exactly. But take away his anchor, and it could undo everything. All the years of therapy, of learning coping skills, of—” She hesitated and her monitor continued to bleep. “I’m his go-to person twenty-four seven, and I can’t be that person right now. I can’t even pee by myself.” She stopped to breathe. “He’s blessed to have devoted friends, and thank God for Max, but Harry’s going to need you like he’s never needed you before. You have to take over, Felix—provide the infrastructure that lets Harry be Harry.” She closed her eyes briefly. “You have to promise to apply all that focus you direct toward fixing up the house to becoming Harry’s emotional rock.” She sucked in a breath. “When I’m on my deathbed, I want my final thought to be ‘Harry will be okay.’”
“But you’re not on your deathbed.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“Did Dr. America tell you something he didn’t tell me? I don’t trust that man. I need to get you moved to Duke or Memorial. We can get you the best, we can—”
“Felix, I’m not moving. The end. I won’t consider anything that slows down my recovery time and delays my return home. I just need you to promise me—”
“You’re asking me to attempt something doomed to fail.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Look, can we just be practical for a minute? What about the fact that I live in my car, transporting our nondriving teen to school, music lessons, parties, the child psychologist, the psychiatrist, the neurologist . . .” She shook her head. “It could be weeks before I can drive.”
“How can I become you, Ella?”
“You don’t have to become me. You just have to try and . . .” Her eyelids fluttered. “I’m tired, Felix. Exhausted.”
“Sleep.” He took her hand. “I’ll sit with you.”
“Tell me a story. Talk to me about how we met, about how you saved me.”
“I didn’t save you, Ella.”
“Yes,” she said. “You did. I was so lost after Mom died. And then all I wanted was a family of my own . . .”
Ella drifted back to sleep, and Felix held her hand. What else could he do?
Felix sat in the hospital car park, shaking an empty Pepto-Bismol bottle. Ella had slept, woken up, and slept some more. Katherine had arrived a little after eleven, and Ella suggested he leave—try to work until school pickup. But he could hardly go to the office in jeans. Besides, Nora Mae, the office administrator, would mace him with concern. He could, however, call his assistant.
He briefed Curt on the upcoming meeting for Life Plan, the hundred-million-dollar deal that would allow their client to buy a Research Triangle Park company on the cutting edge of medical device invention: 3-D organ printing. Would computers one day be able to create digital hearts? Curt’s final comment, “I’ve got your back, Felix,” was not reassuring. When he’d hired Curt, he’d been attracted to the young man’s ability to schmooze. Felix hated that word and everything it implied, but Curt’s social charm kept people calm during deals. It had worked well for both of them: Felix handled the numbers; Curt handled the people. But an industry filled with money and greed generated its own healthy supply of sniveling weasels, and Felix didn’t trust anyone—including Curt.
Should he go into work and keep an eye on his overly ambitious assistant? Should he go home and fold laundry? Do a food shop? How did one fill a Monday stripped of routine? He had been yanked out of his world and dumped into one with alien vocabulary: MIs, stents, fatherhood.
He pulled onto the road and headed toward the interstate, his mind circling two questions: What was Ella hiding? And why had Dr. Beaubridge been in her room half an hour ahead of schedule?
A signpost sped past and Felix cursed himself out loud. What a twit—he was on I-40 going east, not west. Above, clouds drifted like icebergs floating away from the shore. He was floating away from the shore, without a lifeboat. Without his wife, he couldn’t even find his way home.
Of course. Felix thumped the steering wheel. He would do what he and Tom always did when they needed to escape: drive until the land ran out. Brighton Beach was a straight shot from London; Wrightsville Beach was at the end of I-40 east. No more than two hours away. If he found the ocean, maybe he would find Tom’s wisdom.
“Come on, baby brother,” Tom used to say. “We’re going to drive until we hit the sea. Then it’ll all make sense.”
Life had been so easy for Tom—until the end.
As he drove southeast, Felix left behind the urban sprawl, and the speed limit switched to seventy. Forest stretched out on either side of the empty, straight highway. Tom would have loved this road. He would have played their escape song, “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie. Tom had songs for everything—a soundtrack for life. Felix lived without melody.
The Mini zoomed past a dead hawk on the verge. One wing was raised, and its tawny feathers ruffled in his backdraft. Briefly, Felix imagined the bird taking flight like a phoenix.
For the next hour, his speed didn’t vary while his mind tumbled through disjointed thoughts. Did Ella want to be cremated or buried near her mother? Someone should rewrite the marriage service, elaborate on till death do us part, because a husband should know his wife’s thoughts about death and the hereafter. He should have asked Ella to explain her final wishes years ago. Why hadn’t he? Was this another failure as a husband? And why was he thinking about death? His wife wasn’t dying. But what she was asking of him was a serious threat to his life. She might as well have said, “Stand still while I practice being a knife thrower.”
The sun cast jagged peaks of shade across the empty lanes. No one was heading to the beach on a blustery January day. Turkey vultures circled random splatters of road kill—unidentifiable chunks of raw meat. And still Felix drove.
When Harry was finally diagnosed, Ella had handed out a pass from fatherhood, and Felix had snatched it up. He had chosen to walk. After all, if you had no hope of doing something well, of being the best, why would you even enter the race? And who could argue with his reasoning? Harry was an expensive child; Felix needed to be an above-average breadwinner. Caught in a web of thoughts, Felix tried to imagine the smell of salt air, tried to rewind his memories to find Tom.
One night, as they had sprawled on the pebbly beach at Brighton, watching stars, Tom handed him a small green bottle of Gordon’s gin. Felix got drunk for the first time—hammered at fifteen. Tom, howev
er, stayed vigilant and sober. Whatever their parents thought, Tom had always been the responsible sort. He’d just hidden it really well.
How different would this current situation with Ella be if Tom had survived? Tom would have jumped on a plane, would have taken charge, would have made Harry laugh. Tom would have been a natural father.
The interstate petered out into a road that bumped over a metal drawbridge and crossed the Intracoastal Waterway. Clouds consumed the Carolina-blue sky, and the world turned gray. He had reached the end.
Felix parked in an empty lot and, tugging up the collar of his donkey jacket, headed toward the roar of the Atlantic Ocean. If Tom were alive, he would applaud.
The beach and pier were deserted but for a handful of spindly-legged birds skittering in and out of the ocean. His Dr. Martens sank into waterlogged sand, and he became a blip—a tiny, colorless ant in a world without horizons. Monstrous gray waves reared up, crashed apart, and re-formed to barrel forward with the force of a marauding army. The sun appeared for a moment and cast his shadow across the sand, creating a distorted Felix with grotesquely long legs. Next to his left foot, the water had regurgitated the rotting carcass of a pelican.
Wind rustled the sea oats with a tinkling like chimes, but the moment he turned and walked away from the pier, it battered his eardrums and stole his breath. His eyes stung as if pelted by Lilliputian spears. Felix trudged across sand the color of wet concrete. With each step, he could have been dragging chains.
He zigzagged onto a thick layer of shells that crunched and splintered under his boots. Walking became easier, and he marched across the flat grayness as if he were the last soldier on a battlefield.
Mad dogs and Englishmen.
Except not even a stray dog was crazy enough to walk on the beach in this weather. There was no one around, just the mad Englishman. He laughed, actually laughed. But there was nothing funny about the sound. His hands tingled with cold, and he shoved them deep into his pockets. Maybe he should walk into the ocean and disappear. Would that be so hard? If he removed himself from the picture, maybe Ella would come back to her senses and be the Ella who would never do something as desperate as hand over care of Harry to him.
That was the truth she was hiding, and the reason she had met with Dr. Beaubridge alone. Rightly or wrongly, she believed her life was in danger. Which left Felix facing the real ghoul under the bed—his true self. If he did what Ella was asking of him, would he discover the cause of the anger that bubbled constantly under his skin? Would he discover he was indeed his father’s son?
Colors leaped up from the compacted sand. Warm colors of amber and mauve, tan and russet. Felix stopped, bent down, and reached for a shell streaked with tones of caramel, vanilla gelato, and iced coffee with whipped cream—colors from another season. Brushing off the sand revealed not a whole shell but a fragment. The elements had turned the edges smooth like a river stone or a piece of sea glass. When he closed his fingers over it, the shell that wasn’t a shell fit snugly into his palm.
More colors called to him from the sand. Soon his palm was filled with four, five, six shell pieces—each different in size, shape, and pattern. They chinked together like loose change in a trouser pocket, and he started walking again. These broken remnants made no sense. They weren’t perfect, they weren’t symmetrical, and yet, as he rubbed them, they became as warm and as comforting as his wife’s wedding ring.
Ella might never heal, but maybe time would smooth out her broken edges, make her even more beautiful. Because the heart attack could never alter the truth: she was Ella Bella. Mrs. Felix Fitzwilliam. The only woman he had ever loved.
Eyes watering heavily, Felix planted his feet wide apart and turned to confront the Atlantic Ocean. The crash of waves obliterated the thunder of the wind. Of the two titans, the sea was stronger, an unharnessed force of nature that could rise up and annihilate him on a whim. And yet. Even the strongest wave was powerless to do anything but sigh and retreat when it reached the shore. He could do that; he could roar and retreat. Wasn’t that what Pater always did? But he wasn’t Pater.
His wife was critically ill; his son would never be classified as normal. But this damaged family was his family. Mine. He shuffled the smooth shell pieces until he had three in each palm. Coins from the ocean. Currency to buy back a life.
“Mine.”
The wind took his word and carried it into the ocean, maybe all the way back to England. Back to Pater’s grave, to his bones.
I will never be you. I will do better.
He pulled out his phone. It was one thirty already. He should get some lunch before driving back to Durham. He turned, and with the wind at his back other sounds broke through the din of the waves: a seagull crying, a distant car horn. Even the waves were less ferocious. He had two phone calls to make: the first one to the school secretary, to explain that Harry would need to stay for after-school care; the second to Robert. To tell him that he was taking the rest of the week off and would not be joining him for the client meetings in Charlotte on Friday night and all day Saturday. Curt would have to take over the Life Plan meeting, too, but Felix could finish hashing out the details from home. Curt would merely have to present his boss’s work with confidence. Confidence was never a problem for Curt. But first, he stopped and typed with one finger:
I promise to make my life all about Harry.
Then he hit “Send.” He’d done it. There was no going back. His word, once given, was a titanium seal. Ella replied immediately with the symbol Felix now recognized as a heart. A shape that had new meaning.
Felix slipped his mobile into his back pocket. If he was going to do this, if he was going to prove to Ella that he could raise their child single-handedly, he needed to reassess his role in the family, step out from behind the desk job, and sign up for the frontlines of active father duty. If he was going to master the nitty-gritty of being an at-home parent, he needed a battle plan. A bloody good one.
Starting tomorrow? There would be no more after-school.
SEVEN
Harry was freeing his calculus textbook from the disaster that was his locker when the spitball thwacked him upside the head. He hadn’t been targeted since second grade, but it was a feeling he’d never forgotten. Little kids could be unconscionably cruel. But there were no little kids around. Hardly any kids, period. Just after-schoolers, and none of them were meant to be up here except to get stuff from their lockers. One of those rules that made no sense, considering the upstairs hall was a huge room crammed with everything that didn’t fit in the rest of the school. Kids and teachers were in and out constantly.
He bobbed his locker disco ball with his index finger, twice, and turned to corner his attacker with well-armed Tourette’s facts. But there, on the other side of the big table that doubled as the art room, was Sammie. Wearing those skinny jeans that were tight enough to make him want to roll out his tongue and pant. She was also grinning at him like he was special. And not special in a challenged way. Which she might think if he did pant. With good reason.
Harry, you dork. Just say hello.
Harry grinned back, and for one whole glorious moment, his body did exactly what he wanted it to do. Nothing.
Then she gave a shy wave and skipped off toward one of the classrooms.
Shit, she was even hotter than she’d been in his dream. If that was possible. Why hadn’t he said hello? That wasn’t so hard. One word: H, E, double L, O. Guys had been saying it to girls for generations. No big deal.
His head jerked in the crazy-ass sideways nod, the new tic from the airport, and his neck cracked. Vagina, vagina. The word threatened to spew out like a hazmat spill. Vagina, vagina. He cleared his throat, made some weird gagging noise, swallowed the word.
The door crashed open, bringing a wave of cold from the stairwell. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
Harry shrugged at Max. “Not much. Getting my stuff.”
Max adjusted the messenger bag slung low across his torso, then plopped
down in one of the wheelie chairs lined up around the table and slid back and forth, like he was about to start a bobsled race. And Dad thought he never sat still. Harry dumped himself into another chair.
“Any more news from your dad?”
“Just that he drove to the beach to clear his head, which is why I have to go to after-school.”
“Your dad’s a weirdo. You know this, right?”
Harry nearly replied with “Your dad is creepily normal.” Which was bizarre. Never wandered into a pissing match over dads before. Max’s parents were joined at the hip—always touching each other, which was gross. And Max’s dad, Pete, was everything Dad wasn’t: spontaneous, fun-loving, wanted to be friends in a slightly annoying, hey-I’m-the-cool-dad, have-a-beer kind of way. A parent should be a parent, not a friend.
“You’re ticcing worse than a howler monkey on meth,” Max said. “What’s going on? I mean, other than your mom being in the hospital and your dad being MIA at the beach.”
“Dad says she’s going to need a long recovery time even after she gets home. What if Dad loses his job because he has to look after Mom, and I have to go back to public school? I can’t go back to public school. I mean, this shit-hole is falling down around us, but it’s home, you know? Like being part of the von Trapp family.”
One hundred kids, kindergarten through twelfth grade, in a haunted, historic house in downtown Durham. Needed a complete renovation job, but what was not to love about their school? Best of all, the teachers totally got how Mom could fuss. After the parent-teacher conference when Mom had insisted on giving everyone the full update on how spectacularly he had flunked drivers ed, Ms. Lillian had taken him aside and said, “She just wants to keep us all in the loop, so we can be part of team Harry.” But hadn’t he outgrown team Harry?
“C’mon, dude,” Max said. “Your dad probably has a whole to-do list of backup plans. Besides, hasn’t he already paid next year’s school fees to get that price break? I remember my dad bitching about it, and then being all excited because it meant they were down to one set of school fees. If my parents have done it, your dad has.”
The Perfect Son Page 7