When Justin had first gone missing, Eric had fantasies of a swift return, an absence so insignificant that his son would come home unaffected. Nothing more than a sleepover, he thought. A week at camp. He never stopped expecting to see Justin around every corner, never stopped scanning the faces of children for his son’s eyes and mouth and cheekbones, but the fantasies of him emerging from the ordeal unchanged fell away. If they ever found him alive, Eric knew Justin would be so altered by the trauma that he’d bear no resemblance to the boy who’d disappeared. Of course they would accept the changed boy; they’d adopt him, offer up Justin’s room, lend him their son’s name. But Eric also knew there’d be a chasm between them. He’d never mentioned his lowered expectations—voicing them would have cast them in iron and he longed to be proven wrong—but they persisted. Now that Justin was home, now that he seemed so disorientingly himself, Eric was realizing that he hardly felt rinsed of doubt. Walking his father out on Thursday night, Eric confided this and Cecil said, “It’s early yet. You’ll cotton to it soon enough.” Eric tried to believe him. He tried to accept that such profound relief was something that took getting used to.
That night, before Laura drifted off, they’d been whispering about the arraignment. If Buford pleaded not guilty the following morning, Justin would start meeting with Garcia a few times a week to prepare the state’s case. Justin had agreed to this as casually as agreeing to buckle his seat belt, but the thought of requiring any more of him was abhorrent.
In bed, Eric’s mind was surging. He sniffled. Years before, it had been how he and Laura would check to see if the other was awake. Sometimes they’d talk. Others, they’d make love. He sniffled again, louder. Nothing. He slipped out of the bed and crept into the house.
He expected his son to be watching television, but the living room was dark, the kitchen empty. He had a sense of having marshaled his nerve too late; he was, at once, absolved and a coward. The air conditioner hummed in the walls. The house smelled of potpourri. The air was cloying, dank. Eric felt seasick. Moving toward Justin’s room gave him a jumpy, underwater feeling, as if he were swimming through the wreckage of a sunken ship, paddling from one ruined space to another. When he eased the door open, he saw that Justin’s bed was still made. Moonlight reflected off the aquariums. The mice were skittering in their cedar chips. His heart constricted in his chest, pumping heavily. He peeked into Griff’s room—maybe they’d stayed up talking or playing videogames, or maybe Justin had gotten scared and wanted to sleep with his brother—but he only saw Griff, balled under his blanket. Eric ran his hand over his face, leaned back against the wall.
Jesus, he thought. Jesus, no.
Then he heard Rainbow’s tags in the backyard. He went through the door in the kitchen, stepped down to the porch and onto the patio. Humidity swamped him.
“She had to pee,” Justin said, his back to Eric. He stood on the edge of the cement as if it were a pier.
“Me, too,” Eric said, going for a joke. Justin made no response. Rainbow was invisible in the distance, but Eric could hear her parting the tall weeds and padding over the knotty grass. Even at night, the yard was an embarrassment. He said, “I let the yard go.”
Justin shrugged, a gesture at once innocent and, Eric worried, judgmental. An easy wind came through the trees. Rainbow trotted along the fence line. Coils of gray clouds hung in front of the yellow moon, a gauze of light that deepened the darkness. It was as if parts of the sky were wet, blacker than usual.
“Are you hungry?” Eric said. “I can fix silver dollars again.”
“I’m good,” Justin said.
In the dark sky, the gray clouds were unspooling, fraying, giving up. Eric wished he hadn’t asked about the pancakes, for now he suspected that Justin hadn’t loved them as much as he’d claimed. He wished, too, that he’d stayed in bed. Maybe he’d always had such trouble connecting with Justin and he’d idealized their old relationship. There was an odd prospect of comfort in such thinking, but Eric couldn’t remember the old life just then. Sweat pilled on his neck, glazed his chest. The seasickness returned. A tightening in his throat, desperate and dry.
Eric said, “Did you ever learn how to wink?”
Justin stayed quiet, maybe trying to wink. Rainbow trotted in the far corner of the yard. She sniffed hard at something, then moved away, swishing through the grass. A twig popped, then another. Justin said, “No, I still close both eyes.”
“That’s okay,” Eric said. “It took me years—”
“I delivered papers with him,” Justin said. “If you were wondering.”
Eric became exquisitely aware of his bare feet on the patio. He remembered reading how there are some seven thousand nerve endings in the soles of your feet, and presently he could feel every one of them. He felt as if he’d drunk a gallon of ice water; he fought not to tremble. Justin said, “Our schedules were flipped. We slept all day, then went to throw the route at night. Right now feels like midafternoon to me.”
“That’s no fault of yours.”
Justin picked up a stick and whipped it into the dark yard.
“I got to where I could sleep for twelve hours a day. More sometimes. Time speeds up when you’re asleep, or it doesn’t matter.”
“You felt safer that way. It makes sense,” Eric said, sounding lame. He wished they weren’t alone, wished Laura would step outside. He said, “Dolphins never really sleep. Their brains stay awake. They’re smart.”
“That’s pretty sick,” he said. “Snakes sleep a lot, but you can’t ever really tell. They don’t have eyelids.”
“Papaw got bit by a cottonmouth when he was about your age,” Eric said.
“I think I remember him telling me that. Maybe when we went to the rattlesnake races that year.”
How long since Eric had thought of that day trip to San Patricio County? The egg-toss contest, the diamondback hatbands and belts and boots, the cotton candy and beer in plastic cups, and the picture he’d snapped of Laura between the boys, holding their hands, as they watched the races. Justin had been afraid, hadn’t wanted to stand too close, and Cecil had said it was okay to be scared, said he wished he’d been afraid as a boy and saved himself a nasty water moccasin bite. That Eric could access the same memory as Justin did was exhilarating. He wanted to gather his son in his arms, but he didn’t want to call attention to the moment, didn’t want to jeopardize how their pasts were fitting back together.
Rainbow loped onto the patio, her tail wagging. She pressed her wet nose to Eric’s feet, tickling him, and he scratched the scruff of her neck. Her fur was soaked with dew. He wanted Justin to turn around, but he stayed staring into the yard.
“I’ll do better on sleeping,” he said. “On waking up earlier, I mean.”
“You’re doing fine.”
Another wind kicked up, the warm smell of the bay floating over them. Eric didn’t know what time it was, which struck him as odd. Nothing felt familiar. Laura had sometimes taken late-night walks when she couldn’t sleep—she’d go ride the ferry or sit on the beach—but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d stood outside under a silent moon.
“I remember the rattlesnake races,” Eric said. “You and Griff had a good showing in the egg toss.”
“I still think those other kids were using a hard-boiled egg.”
“You’re probably right.”
Rainbow jumped onto the back porch, circled herself, and lay down with a sigh.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, bud?”
“He’ll plead not guilty.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Tomorrow, he’s going to plead not guilty. He told me he would, if he ever got caught.”
“Okay,” Eric said. “That’s okay.”
“I guess I just wanted you to know,” he said.
“Thank you,” Eric said. He was feeling turned around and trapped, like the wreckage he’d been swimming through was collapsing around him. He said, “No, I appreciate it. No, this is good. This is
really good to hear.”
8
THE PLEA DIDN’T SHOCK LAURA. NOR DID THE NEWS THAT Dwight Buford had retained a well-heeled lawyer from Houston, a French cuff–wearing man named Edward Livingstone who was donating his services. “Publicity hound,” Garcia had said. Unless Livingstone successfully petitioned to have it moved, the trial would begin in Corpus in late September. Eric acted furious—which meant he was terrified—and Laura had pantomimed anger, too, but it was relatively baseless. She wanted Buford to pay, to suffer and die and rot, but now that Justin was home, she cared precious little about what happened in court. Times had even come when a nauseating wave of gratitude had surged through her, as if Buford had intentionally—graciously, apologetically—returned her son.
Her ambivalence surprised her. She’d long believed that the meridian that would define and divide her life would be Justin’s disappearance. Before, after. Light, darkness. But no, the true division was his homecoming. Every previous experience grew formless, irrelevant. It was as if everything she’d known before had been covered in heavy black cloth. Her childhood in the Panhandle? Gone. The lives and deaths of her parents? Vanished. The tender ways Eric had courted her, the inexplicable pleasure she’d found in pregnancy, the stash of holiday and birthday cards by which she could trace her sons’ penmanship (Justin’s backward G’s, Griff’s R’s that looked more like A’s), the summer when Justin refused to wear anything except the orange astronaut costume she’d sewn for him from a pattern in a magazine—all of it as insubstantial as puffs of air. Even volunteering at Marine Lab, even an experience as recent as Alice swimming to the side of the pool, breaching and then gently resting her beak in Laura’s palm seemed no more real than fragments of a story she’d heard secondhand. If anything, thinking of all the hours she’d logged in that damp warehouse was discomforting. How transparent she must have appeared: the sad woman trying to save lost animals because she couldn’t save her son. She hadn’t been to Marine Lab since last Wednesday, the day Justin came home. She didn’t know if she’d ever go back.
To spend any time away from him seemed duplicitous. And now, on the opposite side of the meridian, there seemed so much time. Every hour—every minute—contained new pockets of capacity. She made lists of things to do and meals to cook: Monopoly and Frito pies, charades and omelets, rented movies and homemade pizza. She felt reborn. Filled with vigor and mirth. With bottomless optimism. Watching the press conference, she’d remembered how some of the reporters and police officers in the room had maintained that Justin had drowned. Fuck you, she’d thought. Just fuck you now. The irony was that she felt as if she had drowned, as if she’d stayed conscious only long enough to watch her old haggard life blur and dissolve away. How shallow her existence had been, how selfish and lax and ungrateful. Behold the frigid wife, repulsed and repellent. Behold the bereaved mother, continuing to buy her missing son’s favorite cereal, practically daring his brother and father not to eat it. Then, regardless of what she deserved, she’d been brought to the surface and resuscitated, revived into a benevolent world. Her elder son, the scaffolding of her heart, the blood within its soft chambers.
Part of Laura knew she was being idealistic. Knew the past was anything but vanquished. Knew the sham of her confidence would crumble beneath her and she’d plunge into the pit of guilt, of shame and despair, that came with having failed her son. Knew she should be more disgusted by the images of Dwight Buford standing before a judge and pleading not guilty. They watched it online, then on the newscasts. His patchy stubble and sallow skin and the girth packed like dough into his orange prison jumpsuit. Eric had watched the video clip countless times on the computer; he’d studied it. Laura took care to avert her eyes or leave the room. No, the past couldn’t be ignored, but she had to believe that it could be controlled, quarantined. She wanted to focus on the future. Now that Justin was home, now that she’d been offered a reprieve—despite how ungrateful she’d been, despite how she’d deserved to have her heart cut out of her chest with a spoon—her sole concern was making good on the implicit oath of motherhood: I will keep you safe. Had Justin said he wanted to leave Texas, she would have packed their bags and made sandwiches for the drive. They would have left within the hour. Had he said he wanted Buford to die, she would have found a way to claw out the man’s wet throat.
SHE TOOK JUSTIN TO HAVE HIS CAVITY FILLED. HE WASN’T READY to run into anyone yet, so Dr. McKemie was meeting them at his office at ten of seven on Tuesday morning. Justin hadn’t slept at all yet. His eyes were heavy.
Justin said, “The treasure chest.”
“You remember.”
“He’ll probably say I’m too old now.”
“I bet he’ll give you a one-time pass,” she said.
McKemie was a wiry, mustachioed man who’d outfitted his waiting room with the mounted heads of a twelve-point buck and a pink-tongued javelina. He kept an old footlocker filled with cheap toys for kids to riffle through after appointments; they got one toy just for showing up and two if they were cavity-free. Laura didn’t know if other kids called it the treasure chest, but hers always had. She was excited to see McKemie’s face when he laid eyes on Justin. Every time she saw her son now, Laura brightened—she felt it—and she remembered how it was in the early days after Eric proposed, how her eyes were drawn to her engagement ring, how possessing such a beautiful thing could convince her that she deserved it.
“He still lets Griff,” she said now, carefully avoiding his brother’s nickname. The other night, she and Eric had called him Lobster in unison when he surprised them with an answer during Trivial Pursuit. “Lobster!” they’d said and looked at each other with delighted surprise, but Laura had also seen a brief look of confusion—of exclusion—passing over Justin’s face. Immediately, she knew the nickname drew too much attention to the years Justin had missed. Later, in bed, she told Eric they needed to start calling Griff by his real name. He wouldn’t care. Laura had long suspected he tolerated the nickname only as a courtesy to his grieving parents. Oh, the mystery of what your children know, the scope and terrifying beauty of their perception. Now she said, “I think last time he got a Slinky.”
Justin nodded, his head against the window. His eyebrows had thickened. His jaw had become more pronounced. She had to stop herself from stroking his hair.
Seagulls wheeled overhead. The streets and yards and roofs were dew-darkened, glistening and quiet. Shrimpers were heading out of the bay. When they arrived at the dentist’s office, the parking lot was empty.
“I fed the mice some bread while you were in the shower,” she said. She just wanted to get him talking. Being alone with him felt like a gift. She said, “They really love the crusts.”
“Griff feeds them popcorn. He put some quartz from his rock collection in their tank.”
Laura had wondered about those rocks, though she should’ve known they were Griff’s. Since Justin had come home, Griff had deferred to his brother in every way. He seemed to be constantly ceding something, striving to make him more comfortable; it was as if Justin were in a wheelchair and Griff was always running ahead to move furniture and open doors for him. Griff, who’d gotten in those fights, whose friends had dwindled, who was fearless on his skateboard but so intimidated by most everything else. Then a memory buffeted her: Both of her sons had, for a time, been afraid of the dentist’s chair in Dr. McKemie’s office. They didn’t like the hydraulic hiss the chair made when they were raised and lowered.
“The barbecue will be sick,” Justin said.
The barbecue. Eric’s project. Saturday would be the Fourth of July, so he wanted to have Cecil over and grill in the backyard. He’d bought sparklers, patriotically colored paper plates and napkins and streamers. Their freezer was overrun with meat. He liked the symbolism of Independence Day.
“We’ll be eating ribs for weeks,” Laura said. “Your father’s eyes are bigger than our stomachs.”
“The yard’s looking good.”
“It is,” she
said. Over the years, she’d watched the backyard succumb to dirt and choking weeds. Not only had she not minded the decline, but she could almost remember admiring it, how pure and undeniable the loss of essence. Now she said, “He wants to find someone to come and lay down new sod. It’s too hot, and it’ll be expensive, but his mind is made up.”
“He doesn’t have to.”
“He just wants everything to be perfect.”
Justin nodded. He seemed about to say something more, but turned to face the window. The morning was opening up around them. Laura hoped McKemie was running late or stuck in traffic. She even considered throwing the car in reverse and taking Justin someplace where he could further unburden himself. She longed to ask him questions: Did he hurt you? Were you here the whole time? Do you know how much we missed you, how desperately we tried to find you? Did you miss us? Do you miss him?
Instead, she said, “Lots of nights your father would go out looking for you in the truck. He’d take Rainbow. He’d say, ‘Let’s go find that boy.’ And he always sounded so optimistic. He was convinced that would be the night, like he’d thought of a simple and obvious place where we’d all forgotten to look.”
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