One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  “Yay!” Sofia claps as Elmo’s song ends. She skips around the coffee table, then pauses at her pink tricycle in the corner. “My bike! Let’s go to the park. Take my pink bike,” she says, flicking the pink and silver streamers on the handlebars.

  “We’ve already been there. Twice.” But then, there’s plenty of time to play when you wake up at six a.m. on a Saturday. Abby yawns over her open book. “I’m glad you like to step out, kiddo. Give me two minutes to finish with this plan and we’ll head out again.”

  “Two minutes.” Sofia holds up two fingers solemnly.

  Abby pushes through the report, then helps Sofia ease her arms into her quilted white coat. “It’s cold out there, so you need your hat again.”

  “Cold out there!” Sofia chimes as Abby ties the little pompom tassels under her chin. Under the puffy jacket, Sofia moves a bit like a penguin, and Abby has to stifle a laugh as she follows the little girl out the door. Abby lugs the pink bike over the front porch to the path, then they circle around the house and head toward the commons beyond the small backyard.

  The sky has clouded over and, without the sun, the air seems colder. Abby pulls her hands into her sleeves, vowing not to keep Sofia out for too long. A few of the neighbors are out jogging or strolling with their dogs. Pedaling steadily, Sofia travels to the play structure where she parks beside the wood chips and runs to the purple slide.

  Over on the lawn, a bunch of kids are playing football. When one of the kids breaks away and heads over, Abby realizes it’s her neighbor Peri Corbett, her hair tucked under a watch cap.

  “How are you, Abby? I saw you out with the little one earlier. Suz’s daughter, is it?”

  “Sofia. She loves the park.” Abby nods toward the football players. “I take it some of those players are your kids?”

  “They’re all mine for the night. My son’s ninth birthday.”

  “Tell him happy birthday for me.”

  They are joined by a couple, new neighbors—Cory and Jack—who are walking a red dog with floppy ears and a fluffy tail that beats the pavement when Sofia pets him.

  “Sweet doggy,” Sofia coos.

  “Abby!” a man calls.

  When Abby glances up at the smiling face of Charles Jump, her mouth goes dry. Defensive reflexes unwind like a mounting alarm: Protect Sofia. Tell everyone to run. Call the police…

  “Hey. I saw you out here earlier when I was jogging by. Thought I’d bring a peace offering.” He holds up a Thermos with two plastic cups on top. “Hot cider.”

  “Isn’t that nice,” Peri says, nodding approvingly. “Just the thing to take the edge off in this cold.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” she says. “I’m baby-sitting, and I’ve got a ton of work to finish off. I need to keep a clear head.”

  “It’s nonalcoholic, my grandma’s recipe for hot apple cider. I know it’s more traditional to break bread together, but I didn’t think I could get you out to dinner.”

  “You were right about that.”

  Jump sets the Thermos on a nearby picnic table and divides the steaming liquid between the two cups. “We had a fight,” he tells the others. “She’s still mad at me. Can you tell?”

  Abby turns away from him, infuriated, but she doesn’t miss the knowing smiles of the others, who think they’re about to see two people about to kiss and make up. Damn him! He’s got them charmed.

  Of course, because he’s a sociopath. A textbook case.

  Just a few minutes ago she had just been reading over the profile of a sociopath: a grandiose sense of self. A pathological liar who feels no shame or remorse. Manipulative and loaded with superficial charm—the charisma that was now tightening around her neighbors like a noose.

  “You have to be careful with the clove,” he tells the neighbors. “Too much clove and it will taste like soap.” He lifts the cups and holds one out to Abby. “I wish you all could taste it, but I only brought two cups.”

  “We’ll try it next time,” Cory says, politely. “Abby should have it.”

  “No, go ahead,” Abby says. “You take mine.”

  “It’s a peace offering,” Peri interjects. “It’s sort of a ceremonial thing, right? So you have to drink it.”

  “Fine.” Because everyone is watching her, Abby takes a cup and sniffs. The amber liquid smells of apples and cinnamon, and the cup is already warming the palm of her hand. “Smells good.”

  “Well, taste it already,” Peri says. “I love the smell of hot cider in the house. I use that mix at Christmastime.”

  Under the neighbors’ scrutiny, Abby takes a sip, allowing the cider’s warmth to penetrate. “Delicious.” She nods and extends the cup to Jump. “So we’re cool.” She sounds like a jerk, she knows that, but her neighbors don’t know the big picture.

  But Jump makes no move to accept the cup. “How is it? Too much clove?”

  She sips again to appease him. “Nope. It’s perfect.”

  He sits down at the picnic table and sets down the Thermos. “And who’s this urchin?”

  Sofia sits atop her tricycle, steering nowhere and mugging like a model for a car show.

  “You remember Sofia? Suz’s daughter.” Abby turns to Sofia, hoping the edge of distress isn’t obvious in her voice. “Honey, do you remember Dr. Jump?”

  “Dr. Jump!” As she says it, Sofia does a little hop off the seat, her feet remaining on the pedals.

  “Aren’t you a cutie,” Jump says.

  “She’s a doll,” Peri says. “Sofia is in preschool with my son Zach.”

  As Peri points out her kids among the football players across the way, Abby places her half-empty cup on the picnic table behind them and steals protectively toward Sofia. How is she going to get rid of Jump now? The neighbors think he’s her boyfriend.

  Kneeling beside Sofia, she studies the back of Jump’s hateful head. He would be furious once he found out the truth: that she and Suz are investigating him, checking out his background. Abby is convinced that they’ll find something unseemly—enough to get him dismissed from his position at the hospital. And she’s convinced that when they dig deeper, they’ll discover that he is John’s killer, that he’s the man who was either jealous enough or angry enough or craven enough to take another man’s life.

  The only answer is to leave…now. “We need to get going,” she says. “Say good-bye to everyone, Sofia.” A cold pain slices down the back of her neck, causing her to momentarily lose focus. Is she coming down with the flu? She should have worn a scarf. She pushes the tricycle with Sofia on it to the pavement, wishing she could huddle on the back and ride along. Maybe she and Sofia can take a nap together.

  Behind her, Jump is shouting: “Hold on! We didn’t get a chance to talk.”

  “Sorry. Gotta go,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck.

  “Wait up. I’ll walk you back.”

  She wants to shout back that she can make it on her own, but it takes all her energy just to focus on following the toddler on her tricycle. At the porch Sofia seems to move in slow motion, climbing off the tricycle, adjusting her hat, stepping up to the porch.

  “Come on, honey,” Abby sighs.

  The warmth of the house hits her along with a sudden wave of dizziness. Abby drops into a chair, grateful that she didn’t have far to walk.

  “Are you okay?” Suddenly Jump’s voice sounds like it’s echoing down a hall.

  “You have to go…”

  “Abby, you need help. You’re responsible for this child.” His tone flips from concern to anger. “What the hell have you been doing?”

  “Nothing.” The word peels from her throat as the upholstered arm of the chair comes up under her head. She collapses into its nook

  She wants to call 911. She wants to wrap Sofia in her arms and hold her there till this storm passes. She wants to run and ask Peri to watch Sofia for a while because the world is spinning out of control, making her so dizzy, her body so heavy.

  But she is unable to lif
t her head or move her lips.

  “You drunken whore.” His words stretch from a distance. “If you won’t take care of the kid, I’ll do it for you.” His voice streams over her, circling the warm cocoon around her.

  She wills herself to get out of the chair—get up and stop him!—but her body is a mass of stone. Don’t take her! Don’t you dare touch her! Stop, right now!

  “Come on, Sofia.” In her mind’s eye, malice curls the edges of his words like a parchment burning on the edges. Those flames burn in her head now, a fire raging out of control. “Dr. Jump will take care of you.”

  His footsteps are the last thing she hears.

  Chapter 63

  Fort Lewis

  Jim

  It’s not until later in the afternoon, just before sunset, while Jim Stanton is loping along his usual jogging path, that he recalls the dream.

  Some movement in the trees—a squirrel or a falling dead branch—brings the jungle imagery back to his mind, and suddenly it all comes back to him. The football game in the jungle, a tropical forest like Vietnam. Cut amid the trees and hillocks is a muddy football field, its grass surface and lime lines slightly clumped and ripped up by cleats but still holding.

  Three men in combat fatigues occupy the field. On the twenty-yard line, Jim is poised, pumping the ball, deciding where to pass. In the end zone is John, ensconced in a wide white hospital bed, his head propped up, his body whole. His arms are open wide, and his smile—big and gregarious—is so John. He’s too far away for Jim to consider lobbing the ball, but John looks so damned happy that Jim cannot take his eyes off him.

  In the dream Noah keeps calling from midfield, “Dad! Throw it here! I’m open!” as he zigzags exuberantly over the field.

  If you drew a line between their positions, you would have a triangle, with Jim standing at the skinny acute angle. That is, if Noah would stand still.

  “I’m open, Dad!” he calls, somehow annoying Jim, who grips the ball, not sure what to do. A pass to John is like throwing the ball away, while Noah could easily catch the ball and run.

  Still, Jim palms the ball, riddled with indecision, at the head of the triangle.

  “Triangulation.” Dr. Jump’s voice peels in his head. “Triangulation occurs in family dynamics. For example, you have an issue with your wife but you cannot communicate with her directly, so you discuss it with Madison, who then is compelled to intercede and becomes part of the relationship.”

  Jim looks from Noah to John, unable to make his decision. But then the bushes move behind John, and heads appear in the brush beyond the end zone. Goddamn it, the Viet Cong, creeping up behind John.

  Lit by panic, Jim drops the ball and tears down the field to his firstborn son. Got to push that bed off the field before the enemy gets to him. Move it, move it! Come on, man, run!

  But the pain in his bad leg throbs.

  And then he woke up.

  After the dream, Jim didn’t have too much trouble getting back to sleep, probably because of the medication. But now, as he lopes toward home, the ache in his bad leg steely from the cold, the dream tugs at the edges of his conscience, something minor to be attended to, something to straighten out, like a traffic ticket or an overdue electric bill.

  Since he’s been working with Dr. Jump, nothing really rattles his cage. It’s all on the fringes. Surface level.

  The streetlights are on when he turns onto the last block, yellow glows against the cobalt sky. Slowing his pace in front of the house, Jim winces at the pain in his leg. Man, it’s a whopper.

  Inside, the only light comes from the computer monitor in the dining room alcove, where Madison and Sharice sit together, faces lit by the screen.

  “Oh…” Sharice gasps at the sight of him, as if he wasn’t supposed to come in through the front door. Although she quickly turns back to the monitor, he does not miss the shimmer of tear streaks on her face.

  “Mom…” Leaning in front of her mother, Madison usurps the mouse and clicks a few pages closed. “Just close it out, okay?” she says, clearly annoyed with her mother. She is worlds ahead of her parents when it comes to navigating the Internet, a skill that frequently leaves Jim wary and wondering if she has too much cyber-freedom.

  “But I…” Sharice shakes her head. “I’m not going to lie to him.”

  “What’s going on?” Jim demands.

  Madison is already on her feet, storming to the stairs. The tips of her hair sweep his shoulder as she hurries past him. “I’m done.”

  “Don’t go anywhere.” Jim reaches for her wrist, but she yanks it away, scowling at him. “What is it?” he asks his wife.

  Sharice tips her head toward the computer. “We found Noah.”

  Those three words open up a wide chasm between them; it’s as if Jim could separate his life into the minutes and hours spent on solid ground before this moment, and the marshland of the future riddled with mud holes that will suck his feet down into pits of guilt, puddles of disloyalty.

  “Actually, Madison found him a few weeks ago. She’s been e-mailing back and forth with him, and it sounds like he’s doing well.” Sharice speaks quickly, nervously. “His name and photo are posted on a Web site of war resisters who’ve fled to Canada, and we were just looking at the site. His personal statement is beautifully written. You should take a look.”

  Jim sits on the sofa, leans down and begins unlacing his running shoes. “You know I can’t.”

  “Okay, that I don’t get.” Madison pounds up to the landing, then wheels. “He’s your son, Dad. He survived, and he’s just trying to stay alive. What is wrong with you? You act like he’s dead, too. Is that what you want?”

  “Of course not.” Jim looks up at her, his heart racing to keep up with the emotions that can’t seem to find a main artery to flow through in his body. He loves his son, of course he does. Then why can’t he feel anything at this moment? Nothing but a stagnant numbness in his soul. “Noah is my son. You don’t give up on one of your own. But I can’t turn my back on my country to spare the life of one man. That goes against everything I believe in, everything I’ve sworn to protect.”

  “Oh, please!” Madison tosses her head defiantly. “Take a look around, Dad! This country you’re protecting doesn’t want soldiers overseas getting in people’s faces and getting themselves killed. People want peace. No one wants to lose a son or brother or husband in a war where there isn’t even a fucking enemy!”

  Jim sucks air between his gritted teeth as Sharice springs to her feet at the computer desk. “Madison!” Sharice glares at her daughter.

  “Watch your mouth, young lady.” Jim’s head is beginning to ache. Domestic strife is an alien thing in this household. He and Sharice have always kept their arguments on the level of debate, their disagreements tamped down.

  “Don’t shush me when you know it’s true,” Madison rails. “You can act like a patriot all you want, but at the end of the day Noah is out there somewhere, all alone.” Her voice cracks with emotion. “And I for one am going to keep letting him know that someone loves him. And you can’t stop me.”

  “Don’t push us,” Jim threatens.

  “I—I hate you!” she shouts, then pounds up the stairs.

  Jim is looking down at his hands when the door slams upstairs and a silence falls over the dark house. “Adolescence,” he mutters. “How long does that go on?”

  “Another thirty years or so?” Sharice’s slippers tap the wood floor as she moves about, turning on lights. The red dragonfly Tiffany lamp in the living room, the orange glass cones that hang over the kitchen counter. The house is instantly warmed, a home. This, he realizes, is Sharice’s gift—turning a building into a home, making a dark place warm and inviting and inhabitable.

  “At least she’s not drinking,” Sharice says. “And you can understand why she’s upset.” She returns to the computer and clicks the mouse. “If I ask you a question, do you promise you won’t snap at me?”

  Jim sighs. “Ask away.”

&
nbsp; “Is it treasonous and illegal just for you to look?”

  “That’s not it.” He paces past her, past the Web site behind her, into the kitchen where he grips the counter. “You know that’s not it.” The truth is, he’s never had much of a tolerance for the war resisters. He remembers them from the sixties, their faces splashed on TV screens with their bold, black eyeglasses and picket signs. College kids spitting at cops, shapely girls in bell-bottom pants shoving peace signs at you, long-hairs, freaks, lazy-ass kids who expect someone else to fight for their freedom.

  “Then please.” She pats the bench beside her. “Come look. For me?”

  And there he is on the football field, palming the ball, quarterback in the clutch. Why doesn’t he throw it to Noah? Why not give the boy a chance to run with it?

  With a sick feeling in his gut, he puts his hands on his wife’s shoulders and allows himself to take in the Web site. No long-hairs or hippies, just boys, young men like the ones who served in his own platoon.

  Boys like his son.

  “He looks good, doesn’t he?” Sharice asks.

  Jim blinks back tears, unable to answer for the knot in his throat.

  Chapter 64

  Fort Lewis

  Abby

  Abby awakens in the dark, her mouth dry and fuzzy, her shoulder stiff from sleeping in such an unnatural position huddled in the chair. Trying to find comfort, she shifts positions and notices the digital clock on the TV cable box: 6:14. a.m. or p.m.?

  Through the haze of drowsiness she tries to orient herself. She’s at home in her own living room, but—

  Oh, God!

  She bolts upright and nausea springs through her core. Sofia…where is she? And—

  “No!” She curls up, face to her thighs and hands balled into fists as she remembers it all far too vividly.