The Perfect Son

by Barbara Claypole White

  “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you use the f-bomb.”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever share my lunch with you.” He pushed the plate toward her; she shook her head.

  “Yes, Felix. I’ll talk to Eudora and we’ll figure out a schedule. And I’ll help as much as you need after that. Caregivers burn out quickly, and I have no dependents, not even a goldfish. Use me as backup for whatever.” Katherine raised her cup to her lips and then put it back down. “And the depression? What does Dr. Beaubridge say about that?”

  “You’ve noticed it, too?” He helped himself to a forkful of something that looked like deviled ham.

  “I’m familiar with the symptoms.”

  If they were friends, he would have asked for an explanation. Then again, if they were friends, she would have offered it unsolicited.

  “She tells me everything is fine and she’s anxious to get home.” Felix glanced at the empty plate. How had he eaten everything so quickly? “Is that what she’s telling you?”

  “Yes, but she needs to talk to Dr. Beaubridge about an antidepressant.”

  “Katherine—” Felix tossed down his napkin. “She won’t take any more drugs. Listen, I should head back to the office.”

  “Wait.” Katherine reached for his arm. “If I order a piece of chocolate chess pie, would you share it with me?”

  “I don’t eat dessert, Katherine.”

  “Please? I need to talk to someone who might understand.”

  Felix nodded, and she left to order the pie.

  She returned moments later with two forks and fresh napkins. Liz followed with a huge slice of dark chocolate pie. Katherine took the first bite.

  “Oh God.” She brushed a piecrust crumb from her bottom lip. “This is delicious.”

  Felix hesitated, then scooped up thick chocolate with the side of his fork and couldn’t help but agree. It was heavy but light, sweet but slightly bitter. Katherine said nothing else, so he continued until he had eaten what he deemed to be his portion. He put down his fork with a satisfied groan. Her green eyes watched him.

  “Did I miss something?” he said.

  “I thought you didn’t do dessert.”

  He shrugged and tried not to visualize Pater’s bulge.

  “I appreciate your not rushing me,” she said.

  “My new pastime is waiting for Harry to finish sentences.”

  Katherine smiled briefly. “My ex hated delayed confidences. He would have left the café by now. Mind you, marry an asshole and what do you expect?”

  Felix wasn’t sure how to respond, so he didn’t.

  “I wouldn’t have survived my divorce without Ella,” Katherine continued. “My husband fell in love with another woman and was gone. Fait accompli. Cataclysmic betrayal from a person who was meant to love me no matter what. I fell apart, couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.” She stared down at the lacquered tabletop. “Part of me believed it was my fault, that I wasn’t good enough.”

  “I understand better than you might think,” he said.

  She looked up and something fell into place between them. She was no longer the she-devil; maybe he was no longer the antihero.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to divulge . . .” She ruffled her hair. “What happened back then is irrelevant. The point is that Ella gave me the strength to pick up and go on. She turned me into a fighter. And now it’s time to repay the debt and . . . I don’t know what to do, how to be when I’m around her. I’m terrified that I can’t make it better. I’m terrified that no one can. Most of all, I’m terrified she’s giving up. And how can I be strong for Ella if I believe—”

  “I know,” Felix said. “Trust me, I know.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  A bat swooped from the black line of ivy-wrapped tree trunks, and Ella shivered. Barely six o’clock, and the world was shrouded in night. The landscape lights, set on a timer, glowed like underwater orbs, but the house remained silent and dark. Had Harry not thought to welcome them home with lights?

  Waiting with the passenger door open, Ella huddled in the jacket Felix had brought for the journey home. The jacket belonged to another life, her London life. For the last few years, it had been packed away in the back of the closet with cedar blocks to fend off moths. Felix must have dug through everything to find it—a romantic gesture only she would appreciate.

  He crouched down and took her hands, rubbing them between his. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think to bring gloves.”

  “It’s fine. I’m just happy to be home.” Anxiety crawled up her spine. Would it ever release her?

  She wrapped her arms around Felix’s neck and buried her face in his warmth. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing and carried her over the bridge. The wheelchair stayed in the car.

  “You can put me down,” she said when they reached the front door.

  “And miss carrying you over the threshold, my bride?”

  Such exhaustion.

  An unexpected smell of cinnamon welcomed them inside. Felix eased the door shut with his foot and carried her to his orange Jetson chair.

  “Wait here while I unload the car,” he said. “Harry! We’re home.” Then he disappeared back into the night.

  Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn’t been this unlit echo of her former life. None of the lights were on except for the light under the range hood, which she never used. This house needed lights all the time, unless it was mid-morning with the sun filtering through the trees into their bedroom. Duke Forest kept the rooms cool and shady, kept corners dark. And Felix had chosen rich woodland paint colors for the walls—deep reds and Robin Hood greens. Ella had wanted white. She’d wanted skylights; she’d wanted huge, funky light fixtures that screamed for attention. She had wanted to open up the house; Felix had wanted to close it in and create his very own fortress.

  Subtle changes—laundry piled on the sofa, papers and files spilled across the dining room table—had erased her presence. The dining room was now Felix’s work space. It was one of his many contradictions: he demanded impossible levels of order in the hall, in the living room, in their bedroom, and yet his office looked like a set from a reality TV show on hoarding. Every scrap of paper had to be saved.

  In the four weeks she’d been gone, the personality of the house had adapted to accommodate her absence. Everything was familiar; yet nothing was the same. The present and the past scrambled together, and suddenly she was the too-tall, uncoordinated girl praying not to be the last one chosen when teams were picked on the playground.

  “Mooom!”

  She wobbled up to a standing position as Harry threw himself into her arms with a gush of sound and energy.

  “Sorry—I was on the phone with Sammie. You’re home, Mom. You’re home!” He gripped her so tightly that she could hardly breathe. But what did she care? She would never let go.

  They clung to each other, and for the first time since he had been born, she had nothing to say to him. Then Harry began to jerk. Not a serious tic, but bad enough to break the hug. Ella pulled back, sniffed, and smiled. Harry sniffed too. He touched her right cheek softly, then her left. He was finding his balance.

  “You look—” he said.

  “Like three-month-old roadkill?”

  “No! I was going to say a helluva lot better than when I saw you in the hospital.”

  The contrast between them must be horrific. Photos never captured Harry’s beauty: those huge hazel eyes; those sculpted cheekbones; those full lips; those white teeth that had never needed braces; that thick mop of hair, naturally streaked, that was neither too curly nor too straight. Michelangelo could not have constructed a more perfect man-child. Genetics had been so kind—and so cruel.

  Harry grimaced and blinked, grimaced and blinked. “I’m making dinner tonight. Dad said I could.”

  “Let me guess—french toast?”

  “Mooom.” Harry’s shoulders slumped dramatically. “How did you know?”

  “You’ve been practicing. I can smell i
t.” She breathed through a wave of nausea.

  “Yeah, I wanted to get it right, so I did a practice run. But I can do omelets if you’d like, with cheese and peppers and onions.”

  “I’m impressed.” She wobbled again, and suddenly Felix was there, his arm around her waist.

  “You’ve overdone it,” he said, his voice weary. “Harry, let your mother lie down. Don’t bombard her.”

  Harry’s huge smile twitched from side to side.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. I just don’t have my energy back. Not yet, not—” She couldn’t disguise the hitch in her voice.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” Harry glanced to Felix and back again, and started cracking his knuckles. She’d forgotten how the sound grated. She tried not to flinch, but Harry never missed a trick.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled again.

  Now it was her turn to touch his face, but she held it firmly with both hands, keeping her gaze level as he grimaced and blinked, grimaced and blinked. “French toast would be divine, my amazing son.”

  “I love you, Mom. I’m so glad you’re home.”

  “Love you too.” She wanted to say more, but words wouldn’t form. Then she kissed his cheek, and with Felix guiding her, shuffled toward their bedroom.

  She was asleep the moment she lay down.

  Ella awoke sharply, heart pounding, chased by the edges of a dream she couldn’t quite remember. Every waking moment, she was anxious; every sleeping moment, she was afraid. Afraid to live, afraid to die.

  Where was she? In the hospital room? No, there was no artificial light glaring at her, and the cloud of pillows and bedding was too soft. She was home in her own bed. This—she tugged the duvet up to her chin—this she had missed.

  Banging came from the kitchen, and light suddenly filtered under the door. Someone had turned on the hall lights. Harry started singing, his voice angelic enough to impress even Felix. Ella had no idea where this talent came from—certainly not from his unmusical father. Maybe it was divine compensation.

  “Hey, Dad. Did you hear how long I held that note?”

  “Indeed.”

  Ella screwed up her eyes. Don’t criticize, Felix. Don’t criticize.

  “But let’s keep it down so we don’t disturb your mother.”

  “How long will she sleep?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can I go see if she’s awake?”

  No. Please don’t. What was wrong with her? What the hell was wrong with her? How could she not want to see Harry? Her heart rate picked up. She lay still, on high alert. Had she overdone it? Should she call Felix? Did she need to go back to the hospital?

  “No, Harry,” Felix said. “Leave her be until supper is ready.”

  Gently, slowly, Ella spread her arms and waited for the panic to pass. Lying in semidarkness, she eavesdropped on her family. This was a new experience—being on the outside, no longer being the single parent with a high-maintenance child.

  Every twist and turn of Harry’s life had filtered through hers without a break and without a support system. Friends had been sympathetic, but none of them had really understood. How could they? If you didn’t have a kid with a soup of issues, you had no point of reference. Another first-grade mother, who had two boringly docile kids, had once accused her of being a helicopter parent. But how could normal parenting apply to a child who kicked holes in walls during rage attacks and had tics as violent and dangerous as seizures? The tics had improved with puberty, but she had been forever locked into a cycle of concern for Harry’s emotional and mental well-being. Since she’d been forced to step aside, to unplug from the minutiae of Harry’s daily life, she’d had the opposite fear: Could she slot back into that world now that she’d become her own worst nightmare—a person lost in self-absorption?

  Right after New Year’s, when she had left to see her father, she’d been a healthy person in charge of her family. She had returned as someone else. What if she didn’t belong here in this life anymore? What if she couldn’t pick up where she left off? What if she were evaporating into the stranger in the mirror?

  Everything was meant to be different when she got home. Coming home was meant to be the cure—instant and miraculous.

  The quiet, contained knock on the door said Felix. It was not the musical rap-rap Harry would have been responsible for. She struggled to raise herself up out of the pillows, when all she wanted to do was sink back under the duvet and let it swallow her whole.

  “Ella?” Felix opened the door, and the french toast smell wafted into the room. He put the light on, but it was dimmer than it should have been. He had reset the switch to the lowest setting. What else had he changed?

  He frowned. “Ella Bella?”

  “I’m fine, just woke up. Bit disoriented.”

  He moved inside and sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you feel up to eating in the kitchen?” He stroked back her hair. “Or should I bring you supper on a tray?”

  “You’re suggesting I eat maple syrup in our bed?” She put all her effort, as much effort as lifting a barbell, into a smile.

  “I was suggesting you exert as little energy as possible. And eat over a tray carefully.” He paused. “Maybe skip the maple syrup?”

  “Felix,” she whispered, “I’m not up for french toast.”

  “He’s worked really hard,” Felix whispered back.

  “I know. But the thought of french toast . . .” The nausea never left. She had forced herself to eat in the hospital so they would let her come home, but nothing tasted right.

  “Could you try?”

  She nodded. “Could you sneak in a few crackers?”

  Felix kissed her nose. “Our secret.”

  Our secret. Such rich, comforting words filled with promise. Felix slipping back into his original role as her guardian, her gatekeeper; Felix saving her as he’d done when she had been drowning in grief, and he’d helped her find her way home.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Shift change! Katherine was giving Dad the Mom update in the kitchen, which meant Mom was actually alone. A rare event these days. Whenever Harry tried to talk with her, Dad always appeared and gave the you’re-not-to-tire-Mom-out lecture. It was freaky—like Dad had developed ESP.

  Harry ran down the hall and knocked on the bedroom door. Dad used to be the closed-door person in the house, but now everything was up for grabs. How weird was that—having to relearn his parents at seventeen?

  “Mom!” he whispered through the door. “Mom!”

  “Come in, sweetheart.”

  Mom was in the big chair, legs tucked up, with a book on her lap. But she hadn’t been reading; she’d been staring off into the forest. Never fake a faker.

  “How are you feeling, Mom?”

  “Good.”

  Total lie. One look at her, and you’d think she was going through chemo. Everything about Mom had slowed to fragile, even her speech. She was in far worse shape than Sammie’s dad. He was doing pretty well. Had even picked up some freelance work. Sammie wasn’t sure how she felt about that—said it gave the family false hope.

  “How was school today?”

  “Usual. Tons of homework.” Harry stopped mid–knuckle crack. Dad had been on his case about how annoying it was. Harry was trying to stop; honest, he was. It was just—well, half the time he didn’t realize he was doing it.

  Mom tried to pull herself up in the chair.

  “Wait!” Harry grabbed a pillow, puffed it up, and stuffed it behind her back.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. Something on your mind?”

  “Can we talk?”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing.” A flash of Mom humor. Most excellent. Unlike the Owen family, the Fitzwilliams had hope. Hope by the truckload!

  Harry threw himself down on the bed. “Does Dad ever get mad at you?”

  “Only when he thinks I’m wearing a path in the carpet from our bed to the bathroom door.” She raised her eyebrows. “Why? Did you guys have a fight?”

  “No
pe.” That sounded so lame, but he and Dad had agreed to keep everything stress-free for Mom. No way must she know about their bust-up. He and Dad were sort of okay, but it was hard to shake the specter of Dad hunched over his laptop reading Sammie’s love notes.

  Harry’s elbow flapped. Lying to Mom was the worst. “We have a date to talk about college and, you know, I was hoping you could tell me what the magic is for dealing with Dad.”

  “Ah.” She smiled, but it looked phony. “There is no magic, Harry.”

  “But there must be. You found it.”

  “I accept that Dad has certain ways of handling life. He’s a deeply compassionate man who needs everything to be a certain way.”

  “Don’t you think it’s darker than that, Mom—like levels of craziness?” Harry started rubbing his palms back and forth along the duvet. Back and forth.

  “Your father isn’t crazy. He has control issues, but that’s a small part of who he is. Look at the whole, Harry, otherwise you miss the good stuff.”

  Harry sprang up onto the balls of his feet. Either Mom had seen God in the ER or they were giving her too many pills. Where was the person who used to mutter about Dad being self-centered when he was a no-show for dinner because another deadline had preempted family time?

  “Dad comes from a deeply dysfunctional family—you know this. What you don’t know is that your grandfather was abusive. Even I’m not familiar with the details, but your father has scars. Physical as well as emotional.”

  “I know. I mean, I don’t, not really, but I kinda guessed . . .”

  Oh no, was she going to cry? He couldn’t make her cry. Mom never cried. Except for that day he’d visited her in the hospital. And he’d been crying, so it had been monkey see, monkey do. Harry grabbed the tissue box off her nightstand, jumped up, and handed it to her. She waved it away.

  “You don’t expect people to judge you by your attention issues, Harry. You can’t judge Dad by his control issues.”

  Harry turned one way, then the other. “Has he talked to you about the college tour?”