Scar Tissue

by William G. Tapply

  The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee lured me to the kitchen. I poured myself a mugful and sat at the table.

  Little gangs of titmice and chickadees and nuthatches were taking polite turns plucking sunflower seeds from the bird feeder that hung over the back deck. I watched them eat while the shadows lengthened in the Golds’ backyard, and I sipped my coffee and waited for Sharon to wake up.

  TEN

  When I first came downstairs from Brian’s room, I was eager to ask Sharon about the ripped-up money I’d found in the trunk. But the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to mention it to her. She’d insist on knowing what I suspected, how it explained Brian’s accident, what it had to do with Jake’s sudden departure, how it could be connected to Ed Sprague’s murder.

  I had no answers for her. It would only upset her and she’d start imagining terrible scenarios. She didn’t need that.

  I decided not to leave Sharon alone while she was still sleeping. I thought it would be better if someone was there when she woke up. Afternoon naps—especially those induced from drinking too much white wine on an empty stomach—can be disorienting and depressing in the best of times. But crawling up out of some vivid nightmare late on a Friday afternoon and finding yourself alone in a dark, silent, empty house when your only child has been killed and your husband has disappeared and the police are looking for him, suspecting him of murder, and with a long lonely weekend facing you … I couldn’t let that happen to Sharon.

  I figured it would be better if I was there with a mug of coffee and a smile for her when she woke up.

  I kept going into the living room to check on her. This was no fitful nap. This was deep, sound sleep. Aside from the soft burble of her slow breathing and the faint rise and fall of her chest under the afghan, she wasn’t moving. I figured she hadn’t been getting much sleep lately.

  At quarter of five she’d been asleep for nearly two hours and was showing no signs of waking up. I used the kitchen phone to call Evie’s office.

  “Glad I caught you,” I said when she answered.

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “Long story,” I said. “Wanted you to know that I’m tied up here and don’t know when I’ll be able to make it.”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Reddington.”

  “Snooping, huh?”

  “Sort of. Things have been happening. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

  “Okay. Thanks for calling.”

  “I’ll come over when I’m done here.”

  “No,” she said, “that’s all right. I’m totally wiped. Long day, long week, you know?”

  “Honey—”

  “All I want to do is go home, soak in a bubble bath, and go to bed. You do what you’ve gotta do.”

  “I’ll probably be done here in an hour or two.”

  “Why don’t you call me tomorrow?”

  “Well, okay.” I hesitated. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I mean—”

  “Brady, really,” she said, “I’m very busy, and I just wanna get out of here. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

  “Right,” I said. “Have a nice evening, then.”

  “I expect I will. You, too.”

  When I was an adolescent, I had no problem understanding women. My friends and I firmly believed that girls’ moods were entirely explained by their menstrual cycles. If a girl was grouchy or teary or otherwise unfathomable, it was because it was her “time of the month.” The girls did nothing to disabuse us of this idea. They used funny euphemisms like “I got the curse,” or, “I fell off the roof.”

  Over the years, I’ve gradually learned that it’s far more complicated than that. Now the only thing I understand about women is that I do not, can not, and never will understand what makes them tick, and if it’s hormones, that’s no help whatsoever, so there’s no sense in trying.

  I suppose that’s progress.

  I sat there at Sharon’s kitchen table drinking coffee and trying not to decipher Evie’s mood while darkness seeped into the backyard and the birds went to bed. After a while I turned on some lights and got another pot of coffee brewing.

  It was close to seven o’clock when I heard Sharon mumble from the living room. I poured a mug of coffee and brought it in to her.

  She was sitting up on the sofa. The afghan was still wrapped around her.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She rubbed her face, then stretched. “Hi, yourself,” she said softly.

  “Here.” I handed her the coffee. “Careful. It’s hot.”

  She took the mug and held it in both hands. “Thank you.” She bent her head to it and took a sip. “What time is it?”

  “About seven.”

  “God,” she said. “I haven’t slept that well since …”

  “I guess you needed it.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I did.” She patted the sofa beside her. “Sit with me, Brady.”

  I sat beside her.

  She sat in the corner of the sofa wrapped in her afghan with her legs tucked under her. “I dreamed that I was lying here and Brian and Jake walked in,” she said. “They were coming home from soccer practice. In my dream, Jake was the coach, and he and Brian were laughing and punching each other on the shoulder, and I was feeling terribly guilty that I didn’t have any dinner ready for them, and …” She looked at me with big glittery eyes. “And I forget the rest of it. Maybe that was it. The entire dream. But I was thinking, ‘Oh, Brian’s still alive after all. The accident, it didn’t happen. And Jake’s back, too. They’re both here, and everything’s fine.’ It was such a—a relief, Brady. I was so happy in my dream. And just now, when I woke up, for a minute there I was still happy.”

  I just nodded. There was nothing to say.

  “It was better than the other dream I’ve been having,” she said.

  “Sharon—”

  “In that one, I’m standing outside some building. It’s like in a city, and there’s all this traffic wooshing past right behind me, and there’s a big plate-glass window, and Brian’s inside the building, and he’s pressed against the glass, clawing at it, trying to get out, and he’s got this scared look on his face and he’s yelling at me, except I can’t hear what he’s saying through the glass. And I start screaming at him, but no words come out of my mouth. And … and then I wake up.”

  I reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  “Will it ever go away?” she whispered.

  “Not entirely,” I said. “But you’ll learn to accept it. It’ll take a long time.”

  “It’s so strange,” she said. “I can’t tell what’s real anymore. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching myself from high up in the sky somewhere, like I’m two people, and I can study myself and analyze myself. It’s like I can look around corners and over hills, see what’s there waiting for me before I get there, as if I could yell down to myself, tell myself to watch out. And then that faraway me zooms down into my other self, and the two of us merge, and then it’s just me again, and I’m all alone.”

  “It might help to talk to somebody,” I said.

  She looked up at me and smiled. “I’ve got somebody,” she said.

  “Not me,” I said. “I mean a professional.”

  “I like talking to you. You’re my dear old friend. I trust you.”

  “Friends are important,” I said. “But for someone who’s been through what you’ve been through, professionals are important, too.”

  “Sure,” she said. “You’re probably right.” She bent her head and sipped her coffee. “I’m kind of hungry. Should’ve eaten my salad, I guess. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “I could make us some soup. Canned soup, I mean. Nothing fancy. I’ve got split pea, lentil, black bean, chicken …” She looked up at me and shook her head. “Geez, I’m sorry. You’ve probably got a date or something. It’s Friday night.”

  “No,” I said. “I do
n’t have a date. Soup sounds good.”

  Sharon poured some Old Grand-Dad on the rocks from one of Jake’s bottles for me and a glass of wine for herself. She dumped two cans of Progresso black bean soup into a pot and set it simmering on top of the stove. Then she sat down across from me at the kitchen table.

  “So what’d you think of Brian’s room?” she said.

  I shrugged. “Typical boy’s room, I guess.”

  “I always thought teenagers were supposed to be slobs,” she said.

  “Some are. I have two boys. One was a real slob and the other was just moderately slobbish.”

  “I only had one boy,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “So I’m no expert on teenagers, I guess.” She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her palms. “What did you see up there?”

  “Nothing. Just a neat room.”

  “Since he was a little boy, he always vacuumed and took care of his own clothes and made his bed himself. He didn’t like me and Jake going in there. He wanted to take care of it himself.”

  “Everybody likes privacy,” I said.

  “So you didn’t figure out why Jake went away?”

  I shook my head. “Like you said, he probably just decided he had to go away for a while.”

  “There doesn’t have to be some big dramatic reason for everything, I guess.”

  “No,” I said. “Some things just happen.”

  “They sure as hell do.”

  When the soup was hot, Sharon ladled it into bowls. She put a loaf of crusty French bread on a plate and sat down across from me.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes. Then I said, “Do you know a girl named Sandy?”

  She looked up at me and frowned. “Sandy who?”

  “I don’t know her last name. Heavy-set girl, black hair. I met her the day after the accident. She said she was a friend of Brian’s. I thought maybe he’d brought her around sometime, or she was on his soccer team or something.”

  “Brian didn’t bring his friends around much. He had a lot of friends, but he usually went to their houses. I don’t know why. I’d tell him, I’d say, ‘Why don’t you have some friends over? Order some pizza or something.’ He’d just shrug. ‘Maybe sometime,’ he’d say.” She frowned at me. “Why? What about Sandy?”

  I waved my spoon in the air. “Oh, nothing. I talked with her a little. She seemed bright.”

  Sharon put her elbows on the table and leaned toward me. “You think this Sandy knows something about Jake and what happened to Ed?”

  I smiled. “No, Sharon. That seems unlikely. I guess I was just making conversation.”

  We had finished eating and Sharon was loading the dirty dishes in the dishwasher when the phone rang. The kitchen phone sat on the counter, and she picked it up and said, “Hello?”

  Jake, I thought.

  Sharon glanced at me, rolled her eyes, and said, “Oh, hello, Mother.”

  The phone was on a long springy cord. Sharon tucked it into the crook of her neck and finished putting our dishes into the dishwasher. Then she dampened a sponge and began wiping off the counters and table. Now and then she said, “Yes, I know,” and, “He’s fine,” and, “Of course I’ll tell him,” and, “I don’t think so,” but mostly she just listened, and I couldn’t help wondering if it really wasn’t Jake, and Sharon was putting on an act for my benefit.

  She talked—listened, really—for about ten minutes. When she hung up, she flopped into the chair across the table from me. “My mother,” she said. “Calling from Wisconsin. She drives me nuts. She will not mention Brian. She’s called me every day since she left, and not once has she given any hint that she knows anything’s changed. She talks about her bridge games, her friends, her stupid cat, her television shows, asks after Jake as if she didn’t know he’d packed his suitcase and gone away, and she just goes on and on, and she gets upset when I don’t chatter right back at her.”

  “I was thinking it might be good if she’d come back to stay with you again,” I said.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “I’d end up killing her.”

  “It’s not good that you’re alone.”

  “Jake will be back.” She looked at me. “Won’t he?”

  There was no sense in reminding her of the fact that Jake was the prime suspect in a murder. “I’m sure he will,” I said. “But in the meantime …”

  “I can take a phone call from my mother now and then,” she said. “That’s about it. Anyway, I’ve got plenty of friends.”

  I nodded.

  “Well,” she said after a minute. “How about some tea or something? Or are you in a hurry?”

  “No,” I said. “Tea would be nice.”

  She brewed a pot of Lapsang souchong, and we took it into the living room to steep. Sharon fetched two bone china cup-and-saucer sets, poured the tea, and we sat beside each other on the sofa.

  There was a photo album on the coffee table. Sharon picked it up and put it on her lap. “Jake took this out a week ago,” she said. “Just left it here. He never said anything, but I know he was hoping I’d pick it up, look through it. It’s full of Brian. I think Jake figured it would—would help me feel better. I’ve been thinking it would just make me sad. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re already sad.”

  She looked up at me and nodded.

  “Why don’t you show it to me?” I said.

  She flipped it open. Brian had been a well-photographed child. There were pictures of Sharon lying in a hospital bed holding a tiny baby on her belly. She looked about sixteen in the picture. There was Brian crawling around in diapers, Brian pulling himself upright by holding on to somebody’s pantsleg, Brian on a tricycle …

  At first, Sharon just turned the pages silently, pointing to the pictures, smiling to herself. Gradually, she began telling me about them—the occasions when they’d been taken, what she remembered about those days, what Brian was like. He’d been a smart little boy, precocious, even. He began reading when he was four, and he could do subtraction before first grade. He’d always been a good student, very conscientious, well-organized. There was a photo of Brian pushing a lawn mower that was taller than he was, and Sharon said he’d started doing chores to earn an allowance when he was about six. He’d always been interested in making money. He was funny about it, so serious and frugal.

  “He saved his money?” I asked.

  “Oh, lord, yes,” she said. “This is the boy who made his own bed and vacuumed his room. A very organized, sensible boy. He squeezed every penny.” She laughed. “Just like Jake. Not like me, that’s for sure. When he started getting an allowance—it was a quarter a week, I think—Jake got him a piggy bank. But Brian said piggy banks were stupid. Real banks paid interest. He was in first grade, and he wanted to earn interest.”

  So why, I thought, would he rip several hundred dollars’ worth of bills into shreds and hide them in the bottom of a locked steamer trunk?

  I watched Brian get older as the album pages turned. Brian on a merry-go-round, Brian at the beach, Brian dressed up in his first suit, Brian and his soccer team with Ed Sprague—the same photos I’d seen on the wall at the police station. There was even a picture of seven- or eight-year-old Brian shooting hoops in the driveway with me and Jake.

  By the time Sharon turned the last page and closed the album on her lap, Brian had morphed from a bald-headed, toothless, red-faced newborn on his mother’s belly into a slender adolescent boy.

  Sharon leaned forward and carefully placed the album on the coffee table. Then she sat back on the sofa and sighed.

  “You okay?” I said to her.

  She turned her head, smiled at me, and nodded. “I like thinking about him. Jake’s right and my mother is wrong. I think I need to remember him.” She reached over and put her hand on my arm. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “Nothing to thank me for.”

  We sat there quietly for a few minutes, and then Sharon said, “Do you want more tea?�
��

  I glanced at my watch. “It’s late. I better get going.”

  I stood up, and she did too.

  She followed me to the front door and helped me with my coat. Then she put her hands on my shoulders, tiptoed up, and kissed my cheek. “I’m sorry for falling asleep like that,” she said. “It was incredibly rude.”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  Sharon had her hand on my wrist. She gave it a squeeze. “Thanks for everything, Brady. You’re a good friend.”

  “Please be well,” I said.

  She smiled. “I will. I’m tougher than you think. Don’t worry about me.”

  “You can call me anytime.”

  She smiled. “I know. I will.”

  I opened the door and had started to step outside when she said, “If you talk to Jake, you tell him I’m still here waiting for him, okay?”

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  I got into my car and aimed it for Boston. The back roads of Reddington were dark, and I was filled with sadness for Sharon. I remembered her dream—Brian pressed against the glass, beseeching her, and Sharon on the other side unable to do anything, unable even to speak.

  It was her vision of her boy under the ice, and at night, when her defenses were down, it was haunting her.

  It would haunt her for a long time.

  And I thought about my own boys, how far away they were and how I missed them, how I wanted to hug them and tell them I was glad they were alive.

  And I thought of Evie. When I got home I’d call her, and my mind flipped to the music she liked to put on the stereo when she was feeling romantic, Ella and Duke and Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan, and I found myself humming “How Important Can It Be” … and when I noticed the blue light flashing in my rearview mirror, I had no idea how long it had been there.

  ELEVEN

  I pulled to the side of the road, and the cruiser pulled in behind me. His high beams and the blue lights from his roof bar were flashing in my eyes.

  Normally he’d sit there running my plates through the cop computer to see if my car had been stolen or if I was wanted for violating the Mann Act or sticking up a liquor store, taking his time, enjoying the power of it, making me wait with those irritating lights reflecting in my eyes, fuming and rerunning old scenarios, remembering every damn speeding ticket I’d ever gotten, how officious and patronizing a patrolman could be, some smart-ass kid fresh out of cop school, and me an honorable attorney, for Christ’s sake, an officer of the court myself …