Intended for Harm

by C. S. Lakin

  I remember the things that we used to do

  A kiss in the rain till the sun shines through

  I tried to deny it, but I’m still in love with you

  I miss you like crazy, I miss you like crazy

  Ever since you went away, every hour of every day

  I miss you like crazy, I miss you like crazy

  No matter what I say or do

  There’s just no getting over you

  —Natalie Cole

  The bus hit a bump and Simon’s eyes jerked open. He shook his head, making himself wake and pay attention, glanced at the folded map in his lap. With the heater too high streaming from the vents and the afternoon sun baking his cheek as he rested it against the window, it was all Simon could do to stay awake, after three days, switching buses, having to listen to crazy drunk women and squalling babies at all hours of the night. He’d been tempted to take Rachel’s car—doubted his dad, in his sorry state, would have even noticed—but he hadn’t wanted to chance it, driving with just a learner’s permit and way too few hours behind the wheel. It was enough he’d run away—although he doubted his dad had bothered to call the cops. No doubt figured he’d come wandering in at some point. Huh, probably hadn’t even noticed he was gone. Surely didn’t care.

  At least this bus wasn’t all that full. Most of the way through Oregon he’d had to cram in with a smelly bum, squishing his body against the side of the bus to get away from the stench, closing his eyes most of the way to keep from having to answer the idiot’s annoying questions. Thankfully, Simon had been able to drown out most of the jabbering and other noise by blasting his tapes, keeping his headphones on his ears the whole time. But now he had a killer headache. No doubt all the coffee he’d been pounding down added to the lack of sleep.

  But it would be worth it—all of it. Meaning not just the bus ride but the last few years of waiting, plotting, picking the right time to do this, although he wished he’d done this years ago. He refused to believe his effort would be in vain. He’d kept that spark of hope alive for ten years now—ten rotten, miserable years. He’d blown on that spark, tended to it like a smoldering ember, swearing a promise to himself, knowing everything his dad said was a lie and a cop-out. Maybe his mom had been afraid of trying to contact him, knowing how angry his dad was and how it would set him off.

  Simon just knew his mom was aching to see him, get him back. She’d promised she would come back, that she wouldn’t be gone long. She wouldn’t have lied—not to him. Something must’ve happened to keep her away. Something his dad said or did. Yeah, and marrying Rachel might have been that something. He didn’t allow himself to think the worst—that his mom had been hurt or maybe even died and that’s why he’d never heard from her. Just the thought soured his gut.

  But now he’d learn the truth—whatever it was. He was ready to face it. He just had to know and he couldn’t go through his whole life, not even one more day, never knowing.

  He checked the map again, looked out the window at the street signs as the bus rumbled through the city, up the steep hills of Seattle, Simon never imagining it looking like this, but what did he know? He only had an address, and he’d found the house on the map, knew he didn’t dare call the number Information gave him. It hadn’t been hard to find his grandparents. Simon had checked every year, just to make sure they hadn’t moved, that their phone number hadn’t changed. Did his dad think he was that stupid—that Simon wouldn’t think to contact his grandparents, ask about his mom?

  He was getting close. He put away his tape deck and headphones, pulled his jacket on. He could tell a breeze was blowing outside, and people were wearing coats and sweaters, even though it was May. The trees lining the streets were packed with pink blossoms and the sidewalks were filled with people going shopping or working. He tugged on the cable running along the bank of windows and the bell dinged. As the bus pulled to the curb and the doors sighed open, Simon stumbled out, stretched his stiff legs, pulled a comb from his pocket and tried to neaten his hair. He checked his map one last time, memorizing his route, then hoofed up the street three blocks, turned right, slowed as he passed ornate brick homes, large and impressive, with fancy flower gardens within their gates, their neat presentation and riot of color reminding him of Rachel and her garden.

  He clamped down on the unwanted feelings trying to claw at him. He would not feel guilty—or sorry. He’d told himself over and over: it was her fault, she got what she deserved, her karma had caught up to her. She knew she wasn’t supposed to get pregnant. The doctor had warned her, hadn’t he? But she wanted another perfect little baby to create her own perfect little family.

  Simon gritted his teeth and faced down the steamroll of judgment heading his way. Sure, he felt bad for ruining her garden. But he and Levi had been punished for it, although he never did get his guitar back. Who knew what his dad did with it after Rachel died—and no way was Simon going to ask, not with his dad so distraught, burying himself in his work, not even speaking to any of them. Simon had checked his dad’s truck, even went to Builder’s and asked some of his dad’s buddies if they’d seen the guitar, but all they could do was mouth polite remarks and say how sorry they were, as if somehow they were responsible for Rachel’s death.

  Everyone was sorry, sorry for his sorry excuse for a family. He couldn’t take all the people coming in his house and petting him on the head like he was some dog, and his annoying Aunt Abby now there all the time taking care of Ben, glaring at him with such hatred Simon couldn’t take another minute in his own home.

  But now things would be different. He’d find his mother, and she’d be so overjoyed to see him, and she’d take him in her arms and give him a huge hug and tears would stream down her face. He could just hear her saying his name over and over. “Oh Simon, my Simon, how I’ve missed you and waited for this day!” He was almost sixteen, but he knew she would recognize him right away. He looked just like her, exactly like her. It wouldn’t take much to convince her or his grandparents. Maybe, he thought, as he checked the numbers on the houses he passed, he’d live with his mom here, in this neighborhood. He knew his grandparents were some high-powered rich lawyers. That would suit him just fine. They would help his mom get custody of him, shower him with money and all the stuff he wanted and never got to have. He knew his mom was an only child. It’d be like he was the only grandchild, and they’d spoil and pamper him. He wouldn’t have to steal or deal drugs anymore. Why, he’d even clean up, quit smoking, drinking, if that’s what it took. He’d be whatever his mom wanted him to be, just so he could finally be with her again.

  Reuben had caught him heading out with his duffle bag. Even when Simon had told him where he was going, thinking Reuben would try to stop him, talk him out of it, Reuben had only nodded. His older brother was so messed up over Rachel’s death, blaming himself like he always did for everything, he didn’t even say a thing. He had to be the strong one, the rock, hold the family together, help Dad through yet another crisis. What did he care that his brother was leaving home? Not even a good-bye. So what? Reuben had been all gung-ho to have Rachel as his new replacement mother. Never wanted to talk about Leah, never seemed to miss her. Simon would try to talk about her and Reuben would just tell him to shut up and forget her. Forget her!

  Simon snorted. No wonder his mom had wanted to leave. No one in his family had loved her—no one but her Simon. And as much as she must have wanted to take him along, Simon knew his dad would have sicced the law on her, tracked her down to get him back. She’d had no choice but to leave her beloved son behind.

  He stopped in front of an elegant two-story brick home surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. Simon eased the gate open and walked the long brick walkway to the front door. He let out a breath and set down his bag. He wished his hands would stop shaking.

  Not long after he rang the doorbell, he heard footsteps approach, and the closer they came, the harder his heart pounded. A young Mexican lady wearing a black dress with a short apron
answered and Simon pushed out the words.

  “I’m . . . looking for Leah. Leah . . . Abrams. Or Sacks.” Simon shook his head. He wasn’t sure what name she would go by. Or maybe she had remarried and changed her name. Maybe she didn’t even live here with her parents, probably didn’t, and Simon knew that could be the case. But he figured his grandparents would tell him where she was, and he hoped it would be close by.

  “One moment.” The maid or housekeeper or whatever she was closed the door and left Simon waiting there, the cool breeze drying the sweat on his forehead as he tapped his foot, feeling suddenly queasy. He had counted on his grandparents being home. It was Saturday. He planned it so he’d arrive on the weekend, figuring they probably worked in some posh downtown office during the week.

  After a torturous, interminable wait, the door reopened, and a woman with shoulder-length silver hair studied him. She wasn’t very tall, but Simon could see the resemblance to his mom, to himself, in her eyes and shape of her face. He’d thought she would be taller, remembered his mother being tall, yet it hit him he’d only been six when she’d left him watching from the window as that VW bus pulled away from the curb. Maybe his mother wasn’t all that tall after all; she was probably now shorter than he was, now that he’d just had another growth spurt and was topping six feet. His mom would be so amazed, seeing him this old. No doubt it would blow her mind.

  “Yes? What do you want?” the woman asked, and Simon could see a glint of recognition, sensed she was figuring out who he was. But he told her anyway.

  “I’m Simon. Your grandson. I’m here to see my mom.”

  “My grandson.”

  Simon gulped at her statement. She wasn’t asking a question, didn’t seem at all surprised or overjoyed or shocked. He couldn’t read her eyes. An unexpected feeling of desperation swept through him and he fumbled for words.

  “Leah’s my mom. She did tell you about me, about us, I mean? Is she here? Where can I find her?” He cringed when his voice cracked, the way it seemed to do a lot these days. Tears tried to fill up in his eyes but he swallowed and forced them down. This was not the reaction he’d expected. Was it possible his grandmother didn’t know about him?

  “Young man.” She pulled herself straight, set her chin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s best you left. Now.”

  Simon opened his mouth to protest. He knew this was the right house; she was obviously his grandmother. Even her voice sounded like his mom’s the way he remembered, and the way she stood: tall, graceful. Why was she saying these things?

  “Please,” he begged, “I’ve come a long way. Can I just come in—”

  She started to close the door and Simon’s horror turned to anger. He stuck his foot in, forced the door back open.

  “Where is she? Where is Leah? Why won’t you tell me where my mom is—”

  The woman glared at him, her green eyes cold, both hands gripping the edge of the door as if readying for a fight. Simon read it all in that one look.

  She knew exactly who he was. Maybe had been expecting him to show up on her doorstep for years. Already forewarned and forearmed for that day, should it ever come, and now here it was and he was certainly no surprise. Just as his dad had predicted way back when.

  His jaw dropped; air rushed out of his mouth. A fury of curse words fomented and spewed out like lava, his gut like a volcano that could no longer hold back from exploding and annihilating all in its path. The door slammed and when Simon heard the deadbolt latch, he smashed the door with his fist, then kicked with his booted foot, the door so thick and solid it only made a quiet thud and Simon attacked it with all he had, letting his hurt and frustration and shock beat on the wood until he couldn’t tell if the tears running down his face were from the pain in his heart or the pain in his bloodied hands.

  He screamed and screamed, looked for something loose, something big that he could hurl against this outrageous barricade, but there was nothing so he took his duffle and smacked it against the door, then ran to the nearest window and threw it against the glass, hoping it would shatter but it only cracked, and Simon screamed more.

  He pummeled his body against the bricks again and again, and when the siren squealed and the police car screeched to a stop, he was spent and fell in a heap on the perfectly mowed lawn, a lawn he would never sit on with his mother, sharing a nice clean blanket spread with a picnic lunch. As the two policemen grabbed him and stuffed him into their cruiser, he kept telling himself it wasn’t her fault—his mom’s. Maybe she had never gone home after leaving him; maybe she even hated her parents—who wouldn’t? He had been all wrong figuring that’s where she’d ended up when she was probably living halfway around the world keeping as far away from them as she could. Well, that wouldn’t stop him. He’d keep looking, put ads in the papers, try another investigator.

  As the police car pulled away from the curb, Simon stared at the house, and why he glanced up at one of the windows, he didn’t know. It was like something was summoning him, some magnet drawing his attention, like his heart heard or felt a synchronous beat in rhythm with his own, a sympathetic vibration.

  At first he thought the woman staring at him from the second floor was his horrid grandmother, and he lifted his hand to flip her off, then stopped.

  Even this far away, he recognized her—across the endless expanse of time, the years of painful separation that lay compressed in the small space that held them both behind windows only mere yards apart, glass they could see through but somehow created a more impenetrable barrier than brick and mortar and hurt. She was so close, so close. But he knew, in that instant, that she was farther away than she’d ever been.

  In that microsecond of time, Simon’s eyes met with his mother’s in mutual recognition. He drew in a long breath, and by the time he released it, she’d pulled down the blind and shut him out, like she’d pulled a sheet over his face, like he was dead.

  He wrenched his gaze from the window as the car drove down the street, no doubt the police taking him down to the station, where they’d call his dad and send him back home.

  Something like a moan escaped his lips. He may as well be dead.

  Levi knocked again. Finally, he thought he heard a mumble and he took it for an invitation to come in. He cracked the door just a little, wished he could think of something to say, but he just walked in and, seeing that Dinah was on her bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, he went over to the other bed—the one he used to sleep in years ago—and sat on the edge of the coverlet, the room a swirl of pink, once so neat and everything in its place, now almost as messy as the room he and Simon shared.

  It broke his heart seeing her like this. He’d never meant to hurt Dinah and hadn’t thought it would, hadn’t thought about her at all, when he and Simon had trashed their mom’s garden. The weight of his guilt crushed him. A huge iron anvil sat on his shoulders, pushed him into the ground everywhere he went. He never realized how much he loved his mom, not really, until that day he came home from school and saw Dinah crying her eyes out, just wailing in such agony he thought she’d been hurt herself, and when she saw him she screamed at him and pounded her fists on his chest, saying it was his fault, that he murdered her, and now she was dead.

  The sick feeling that had spread through him like a plague still lingered. Even now, three months later, Dinah hid in her room, rarely came out, skipped meals. On her birthday, their dad tried to cheer her up, planned to take her to see some ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, but she refused to go. She’d even stopped dancing, and that showed Levi just how seriously depressed she was. For Dinah, giving up dancing was like someone choosing to stop breathing. He’d apologized to her over and over but his words were like bubbles that popped the moment they left his mouth. He wished he had magic words he could say, to make it all better, to take it all back, all the hurtful things he said and did to their mom, but it was too late. He knew Dinah would never forgive him, and he would never forgive himself. It was all just so
messed up.

  Dinah lifted her head, stared at him with empty eyes. She looked so frail, so skinny. Her cheeks were drawn and her arms and legs looked like sticks.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “You’re s-still n-not eating.”

  “So what?”

  “Di-di-nah, you’re g-g-gonna starve to d-d-death. And you ne-ever get outside; y-y-you look so p-p-pale.”

  She shrugged and stared at the wall.

  “It’s s-s-summer, nice and ho-hot outside. We c-c-could . . . b-b-bike over to the p-pool, go get some bur-burgers—”

  “Levi—”

  “—and si-sit under the tr-tr-trees at the park, like we used to—”

  “Levi! Cut it out.”

  Levi sucked in a long breath, let it out. “I just want you to s-stop hating me.”

  Dinah’s tight face loosened. “I don’t hate you.”

  Levi let the words hang between them, just to be sure she really did say them.

  “I’m s-sorry. I re-re-really am,” he said.

  “I know.”

  He looked at her, to see if he could tell he’d been forgiven, but it wasn’t there in her face and he didn’t deserve forgiveness anyway. He was just glad she didn’t hate him anymore. That was a start, at least.

  His father was another source of pain. He couldn’t bear his father’s condemning looks. When their mom had died, their dad had come back from the hospital and he didn’t scream or throw a fit, but the way he looked at all of them, especially Simon, showed such scathing disgust and judgment, Levi thought he’d wither and die right then. He could tell his father wanted to throttle them all, lash out. Levi understood, didn’t blame him at all. But even after these months of Levi trying to make amends, doing all the chores and mowing and even trying to plant some flowers in the garden, his dad acted the same. Didn’t his dad even care how hard he was trying to make it up to him? Did he even notice?