He Never Forgot

by P. D. Workman

  But Kenzie didn’t complain about his writing. She looked over the list and then turned her attention back to the pictures, seeing if she could contribute anything to the puzzle’s solution.

  “Single-family homes. Mostly bungalows,” she observed.

  Zachary nodded. “I had a pretty good idea going into it that it wouldn’t be apartments. He has possible memories of a basement.”

  Kenzie nodded. “And no duplexes.”

  Zachary closed his eyes for a moment, trying to center himself. He added this note to the list. He had been aware of it, but had not put it into words.

  “What’s wrong?” Kenzie asked.

  “Nothing. I put it down.”

  “Yes… but I thought…” Kenzie trailed off.

  She was very good at reading him. Too good, sometimes, so that it felt like she could get right into his brain. And there was danger in anyone being able to read his thoughts.

  “Color schemes are all dull,” Zachary said, pointing to one of the points on his list. “Mostly beiges and browns.”

  Kenzie looked at the pictures, then back at Zachary. He had been using the skills that he had developed in reading faces and body language to figure out what Burton remembered or was emotionally affected by, so why should it surprise him that Kenzie could do the same with him?

  “It’s nothing.”

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, okay. But don’t act like nothing happened,” Kenzie said gently.

  Zachary hesitated. He looked at the pictures of the houses. “With multiple-family dwellings, it can be harder to get away with abuse. Neighbors hear through the walls, report… what they might overhear.”

  Kenzie was still. “Oh. Yes. Hadn’t thought about that.”

  She looked back at the pictures as well. Zachary waited for her to continue that line, to drill down to ask Zachary about his experiences, but she didn’t. They were working a case, and maybe she recognized that it wasn’t the right time to discuss his demons.

  “You have the fences,” Kenzie commented. “Lots of chain-link enclosed yards.”

  Zachary nodded. “Yes. More secure than a wooden fence. Strong, good visibility, easy to lock. There are not many plants. This place probably wasn’t landscaped. A few shrubs, maybe, close to the house. But if you want good security, like the fence provides, then you don’t want them close to the windows. You don’t want people to be able to get access to windows while hidden by shrubbery.”

  “Just because it wasn’t landscaped then, doesn’t mean it isn’t landscaped now,” Kenzie pointed out. “It’s been a lot of years since he lived there.”

  “Yes. Hopefully, that won’t stop him from recognizing it when he sees it.”

  “You’re going to need more than just his visual recognition, aren’t you? Is that going to be good enough for him? He doesn’t want proof that it was where he lived?”

  Zachary hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know. If he feels an emotional connection, then maybe not. I don’t know whether seeing the house is what he wants, or whether he needs to know what happened to him there. I don’t think he knows. I don’t think he will know until he sees it. He only has one goal right now.”

  “I guess if he sees it, then you can do a title history to see who has owned it.”

  “If his family owned it. But they might not have.”

  Kenzie conceded the point. “It’s really interesting. I wonder how he’s going to feel when he sees it.”

  “I asked him how he felt when he saw one of these houses that was close…”

  Kenzie raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

  “He was anxious and afraid.”

  “Hmm.” Kenzie nodded. “So he’s not chasing a happy feeling. Looking for a place where he felt peaceful and contented.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Zachary considered how much to reveal to Kenzie about his client. He owed Burton some degree of confidentiality, of course, but as long as he didn’t give Kenzie any identifying information about him, his privacy was assured. “He’s not in the best shape emotionally. Drinks a lot. He says that his adoptive family was very loving, gave him everything he needed, but he went badly off the rails.”

  “And you think that’s because of what happened to him before he was adopted?”

  “It’s possible. Plenty of kids from loving homes still experiment and get dragged down by addiction, but he’s quite a mess. He only has vague memories and feelings about what happened before he was adopted, but his facial expressions and body language… they don’t lie. And they say that the memories are not happy ones.”

  Kenzie nodded, accepting his analysis. “What’s your next step?”

  “Tomorrow, we’re going to meet with the social worker who placed him with his adoptive family. I haven’t told him yet, but I’ve set up a time with her.”

  “You’re meeting her without him?”

  “No, I just haven’t let him know yet. He’s not doing anything while he’s here, other than drinking and looking for this house, so he’ll be available. But I don’t want to tell him too much ahead of time. I don’t want to make him any more anxious than he already is.”

  “You don’t think you need to prepare him ahead of time?”

  “I think it could send him on a binge, if he isn’t already on one. Best not to chance it.”

  10

  The pictures were cleared away. Their dishes from dinner were in the dishwasher. Zachary sat on the couch, staring at his phone screen, swiping at random.

  “Everything okay?”

  Zachary looked over at Kenzie. “I thought maybe I should touch base with Rhys.”

  She nodded. “I think it would be a good idea. He has to be wondering how you are, why you haven’t been talking to him.”

  “Vera said she didn’t think it would make him worse, if I called.”

  “How is he doing?”

  “He’s back to school, but his teachers say he is distracted. Not getting his classwork done. Vera said he’s not telling his therapist much. He says everything is fine now.”

  Kenzie sighed. “Kids. Teenagers are not well-known for sharing their troubles with their parents or caregivers. And when you start with someone who is already non-verbal…”

  “Non-speaking,” Zachary corrected. “Or mostly.”

  She looked at him for a minute, then shrugged. “Does he usually talk to his therapist? Or have good communication with him?”

  “Vera made it sound like it was less than usual. I didn’t ask any details.”

  Kenzie nodded. “Well, pop him off a message. I don’t see what harm it could do, especially if Vera said to go ahead.”

  Zachary looked back at his phone, shifting back and forth between screens with his thumb, as if he didn’t know what to do. He was just concerned about Rhys and didn’t want to make things any worse than they already were.

  “Just bite the bullet,” Kenzie suggested. “But it’s up to you. I’m going to take a break. I have some things to catch up on.”

  She got up and left the room, leaving Zachary to himself. He suspected she didn’t have anything to do that she couldn’t do sitting beside him, but was leaving the room to give him privacy to work through his problems on his own.

  And she was right. That was exactly what he needed. He opened his message app. It was at Rhys’s name already. Zachary glanced through the last few words and pictures that he and Rhys had last exchanged. All before the shooting. Nothing since. Rhys had come to him for help, and Zachary had done his best, but had ended up scaring Rhys. Maybe permanently traumatizing him. Could he ever forgive himself for that?

  Bite the bullet.

  Zachary tapped out a brief message. Just checking in to see how you are doing.

  He watched the screen for a reply. There was no guarantee that Rhys was looking at his phone or was able to answer him right away. He might be doing chores or be in therapy, though it was pretty late for that. He might be working on homework, unable to concentrate on his classw
ork during the day. He might have already gone to bed, overwhelmed by the anxiety he’d had since the incident.

  Or maybe he didn’t want to talk to Zachary. Or was unable to bring himself to reply. He’d had enough problems with communication before, usually choosing to use images and concepts rather than linear language. Ever since his grandfather had been shot.

  Like Luke.

  Although Luke’s injury had been superficial and his grandfather’s fatal, it had been similar enough to throw Rhys into flashbacks and cause ongoing issues.

  Even though Zachary was staring at the phone screen, he had ceased to see it, and was surprised when the phone vibrated in his hand. He looked down and saw Rhys’s reply.

  It was a picture Zachary had seen before. The three women in the Salter family. Rhys’s grandmother, aunt, and mother. All smiling at the camera. Rhys with them, looking solemn and unhappy.

  Rhys usually smiled when he greeted Zachary, but the rest of the time, his face was naturally sad. Mouth turned down. A look of grief in his eyes. He had been through so much in his short lifetime, and it had left a permanent mark.

  Zachary’s chest hurt, looking at that picture. He knew now what he hadn’t known when he’d seen it the first time. The secrets those three women and Rhys’s silence had hidden. The ongoing pain and trauma that Rhys suffered as a result. They weren’t the happy women he had taken them for the first time he saw that picture. The happy faces were just masks, hiding all of the ugliness underneath. Zachary touched his phone screen as if Rhys might feel it and be comforted.

  I’m so sorry, Rhys. I never meant to hurt you.

  He felt Rhys’s hand around his forearm in the clasp Rhys had given him when he had visited last. Strong and forgiving. Rhys didn’t hold it against him. But Zachary did.

  Another message came through from Rhys. This time, a picture of Luke. Zachary immediately recognized it as a still taken from a video Rhys had made of Madison and Luke. Madison had been cropped out, only her shoulder still visible.

  Zachary knew what Rhys was asking. He wanted to know how Luke—who Rhys knew as Noah—was doing. Had he recovered? What had happened to him?

  Zachary wasn’t sure how to respond.

  Rhys would want to know that Luke was okay, that he hadn’t died like Grandpa Clarence, but how would he feel about the fact that Luke was free? He hadn’t been charged for his crimes and hadn’t paid the price for what he had done to Madison.

  The minutes ticked by as he thought about how to word his reply. Another message from Rhys bubbled up under the picture of Luke. A big cartoonish question mark. Zachary sighed.

  He’s okay. Recovered from the shooting with just a scar.

  Rhys sent a thumbs-up.

  Zachary breathed a sigh of relief. How’s school?

  Rhys sent back a gif of some celeb shaking his head slowly. Zachary wasn’t sure who it was. He didn’t watch a lot of TV that might be popular with the younger generation. But he understood the sentiment.

  Any way I can help?

  As he waited for Rhys’s response, Zachary looked again at the picture of Rhys with his family and the picture of Luke. Even though Rhys had told his therapist that everything was fine, he was clearly still caught in the emotional vortex that the shooting had triggered. He was obsessing over what had happened, maybe remembering things that he hadn’t been able to recall before. Zachary ran this thumb along the edge of the phone, trying to compose his thoughts in a way that would resonate with Rhys.

  I know about flashbacks, he typed finally, though he knew that the language was awkward and someone else would have been able to be more eloquent than he was. I still have a lot of them myself.

  Rhys posted a series of dots, which Zachary thought meant that he was trying to compose an answer. He waited, watching the screen for the next image or text to appear.

  Eventually, a picture of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin was added to the stream.

  Even if we’re apart, I’ll always remember.

  Zachary stiffened, alarmed. He quickly thumbed in a response. Are you thinking about suicide?

  This time, Rhys’s response came quickly. A red circle with a slash through it. Zachary took a deep lungful of air, strained.

  If things are bad and you need help… it’s okay. You remember when you told me to go to the hospital.

  Yes.

  But that wasn’t what Rhys had meant. Zachary studied the picture of Pooh and the words written over it. He looked at the previous couple of exchanges, thinking. The picture wasn’t about being apart or saying goodbye. It was the memories. I’ll always remember. Rhys was thinking about Luke. About his dead grandfather. He couldn’t get the images out of his head. Just like Zachary couldn’t shake his flashbacks, even after so many years had passed.

  It sucks, he typed, having to remember things that you don’t want to.

  Yes.

  Have you talked to your therapist about them?

  Another big red circle with a slash through it. Zachary had already known the answer when he asked.

  He can’t help you if you don’t tell him.

  :-L

  Zachary had to look that one up. A quick internet search told him the emoticon signified frustration. A feeling he could understand and relate to. Do you need a new therapist? Does he listen to you?

  :-L

  Grandma would get you a new one if you need one. I can give her some names.

  After a minute, Rhys sent a gif of a man raising and lowering opposite hands. Maybe.

  I’ll talk to her. You can still decide.

  OK.

  Zachary blew out a long breath. He didn’t think he’d been holding it, but he felt like it was a long time since he had taken a full breath. He was worried about saying the wrong thing to Rhys and making him feel worse or decide to cut off communication.

  Okay. If we find someone you can connect with, maybe he can help you feel better. Work through some of the memories.

  There was no response from Rhys.

  Sorry again, Zachary messaged. Really sorry about Luke getting shot and bringing back those memories.

  Rhys sent back a picture of a baby with a scrunched-up expression and the name, Luke?

  Oh. Noah. He’s not going by that anymore.

  :-O

  Zachary smiled at the expression of surprise. For the flashbacks, do you know how to anchor?

  Rhys sent a picture of an anchor.

  It can help. You focus on your senses. Identify five things that you see, five things you hear, etc. Like I did with you in the car.

  Helps U?

  Yeah. Sometimes. I’m still working on it. My family tries to help me. Remind me to do it. Kenzie too.

  Rhys sent back a picture of Kenzie with a red heart outlining her face. When they were communicating face-to-face, Rhys always asked after Kenzie with a kissing sound. It never failed to make Zachary blush, however hard he tried not to react.

  He turned his face toward Kenzie’s bedroom and called out to her. “Kenz? Do you want to say something to Rhys?”

  She returned to the living room and sat down, reaching out for Zachary’s phone. “Of course. How’s he doing?”

  “Things are tough. But he’s hanging in there.”

  “Good.” Kenzie’s eyes flicked up, seeing her picture in the message feed, but she didn’t scroll up to see the rest of the conversation. Slouching down into the couch, she tapped out a message. She looked up from the phone after sending it and looked at Zachary. “So you’re okay too? Wasn’t so bad after all.”

  “Just had to bite the bullet, like you said. I was worried…” He trailed off. Kenzie already knew what he’d been worried about.

  Kenzie looked back down at the phone as Rhys sent her a message back. They exchanged a few more messages, and then Kenzie handed Zachary his phone back. “Yeah, he seems a bit down, but okay.”

  Zachary nodded. “Sometimes people put on a false front and tell you they’re okay when they’re not. But Rhys… he’s pret
ty good about not glossing over how he feels.”

  “Yeah. You know, I think part of it is his communication difficulties. He doesn’t have the words to waste like we do. He’d better get the message out as succinctly as he can, because it’s so hard for him.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Zachary looked down at the phone and said his goodbyes to Rhys, sensing that he was done with the conversation. I’ll talk to Grandma.

  A dog waved its paw at Zachary. He shut off the screen, turning his full attention back to Kenzie. “Okay. I’m done that. And done work. So I’m all yours.”

  She slid closer to him and put her arms around him. “Excellent. Just what I wanted.”

  11

  Zachary tried several times to reach Burton, but there was no response to his calls and texts. Either Burton was still passed out, or he had decided he was finished with Zachary. Hopefully, he had made it back to his hotel. Zachary considered going over to check on him and have a talk, but decided that his attention probably wasn’t wanted. Burton had made it clear that his alcohol consumption was no one’s business but his own and that he would deal with Zachary on his own terms. So if he wanted to reach Zachary, he could be the one to make the next move. If Zachary had to cancel or reschedule the social worker, then he would.

  After Kenzie headed off to work, Zachary had an appointment with his own therapist. He took a couple of minutes at the beginning of the session to tell Dr. Boyle about Rhys and to ask her for some recommendations for therapists who would take the time to learn how to communicate with Rhys, and not just assume that he either didn’t want to communicate or was not able to.

  “He sounds very interesting,” Dr. Boyle observed. “He hasn’t learned sign language or how to use a communications device? There are so many options; I would think that he would have succeeded in finding something that worked for him.”

  “He has… it’s just kind of unconventional. His mutism seems like it’s more than just a problem with speaking, but even putting language together in the usual way. His grandmother says that he does okay with multiple-choice or short-answer questions at school, but he doesn’t write in full sentences and he couldn’t write an essay or something like that. When he and I are talking, he doesn’t type in sentences. It’s all… concepts rather than structured sentences.”