His editor’s call was just the excuse he needed to leave Anissa’s condo. He’d seen the welcome relief on her face in response. Neither of them knew how to extricate themselves from the odd situation they’d found themselves in, but both were desperate to do so. He knew he’d see her soon enough, back at the house anxiously hovering over his parents, eyeing the front window as if the members of the press might at any moment take up pitchforks and rush the house.
“Thaddeus, are you there?” Felicia, his editor, asked in her distinct New England accent.
“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. I was just out . . . for a walk.” He gave her the simplest explanation possible. “We just got back from the press conference,” he added, playing on her sympathy just in case she was mad at him.
“Yeah, kiddo. I saw. That’s why I’m calling. That must’ve been rough.”
He laughed in spite of himself. “Now, Felicia, didn’t you always tell me to reach for le mot juste? Rough doesn’t do the situation justice.”
He heard her smile through the phone. “Touché. Then I will say it must’ve been awful. Horrible. Excruciating.”
“The worst,” he agreed.
“Well, for what it’s worth—and please don’t think me tacky for saying this—we’re already seeing an uptick in sales. We couldn’t pay for this kind of press. You’re everywhere.”
He forced himself to look at the bright side, to find the silver lining, to do all the things the motivational types tell you to do in times of hardship.
“Well, that’s good,” he managed.
“If some good can come from this, all the better.” She paused. “Right?”
“Yes,” he said. “All the better.” He could see the entrance to his neighborhood just ahead, the sign still the same as the day they’d moved in: white brick adorned with carved iron oak leaves that used to be green but were now oxidized, flanking the words Vista Woods. He used to think his home was a place where nothing bad could ever happen. He’d believed that until he was fifteen years old.
“I don’t do this emotional stuff all that well, so please forgive me if I come across as insensitive. I don’t mean to be. I want you to know how sorry I was to hear about your brother. I don’t want to diminish what I know you and your family are going through. Contrary to what some may believe, I do have a heart. And mine is breaking for you right now,” Felicia said.
Thaddeus stopped walking before he reached the entrance.
“Thanks,” he said. Threatening tears made his eyeballs ache, but he would not break down and cry while on the phone with his editor. Thankfully, she quickly moved the discussion back to business.
“I’ve got to run to a meeting here in a minute, so before I do, I just wanted to say that, when you’re up to it, we should talk about the next book. There’ll be a real demand for a follow-up, what with the new, um, developments. So—and again, please don’t think I’m tacky—just maybe jot down some notes about things that happen, how you’re feeling, anything that could be usable later.”
He resumed his walk, passing through the neighborhood entrance and down the main street.
“It’s not tacky,” he said, even though that wasn’t really true. Now was not a good time to be talking about another book. Once upon a time all he’d wanted was what he had at that moment: an editor who wanted another book from him.
Trouble was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to write another book about Davy. He didn’t know if he wanted to write the “part two” of this story, the part he was living even as his feet carried him home from the spot where his brother had disappeared. He knew one thing, though. If he did write another book, he couldn’t hold back again. He’d have to go deeper than he had before. He’d have to share himself, even the ugly parts—especially the ugly parts. To do anything less was to cheat Davy, to hustle him in a way he didn’t deserve. He wanted to be the guy who could tell the full truth, but he wasn’t sure.
“Well, dear heart,” Felicia said. “I do need to run. But before I go, I saved the best for last. With all this press you’re getting, I decided to send in reinforcements. I don’t want you to have to deal with reporters, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea for someone to speak on your behalf. She will, of course, confer with you before saying anything.”
Thaddeus’s head spun with the implication of what she was saying. “She?” he asked, his voice cracking like a teenager’s.
“Nicole. I’ve sent her down there.” She sounded confused. “I asked her to call you. Didn’t she?”
“She might have,” he admitted. “I’ve not been on my phone much today.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” Felicia tutted. She shrieked and Thaddeus jumped. “Shit, shit, shit!” she yelled into the phone. “I really do have to go now. Talk soon. Kiss kiss.” And then she was gone.
By then he had reached his house, keeping out of sight by going through the neighbors’ backyards again. He blinked at his own backyard, seeing it as it used to be. There was where the tetherball pole stood. There was where Kristy used to swing, tipping her toes into the air as she screamed, “Higher! Higher!” at whichever brother she’d conned into pushing her. There was the clothesline where his mother used to hang their sheets, letting them snap dry in the breeze, the fabric carrying the fresh smell of line-dried laundry into their dreams.
All those things were gone now.
He heard a familiar voice call his name and suppressed a grimace as he turned to spot his mother standing on the edge of the patio, barefoot, her toes at the line where the grass met the concrete.
“Thaddeus,” she said in a scolding tone. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!”
He shook his head and walked over to her. Movement in the yard next door caught his eye, and he saw Larkin standing in her yard by the picnic table. For a moment it was as if no time had passed. She was still there and he was still being scolded by his mom. He lifted a hand in greeting as he neared his mother. She had changed out of the clothes she’d worn to the press conference.
“What’d you need?” he asked.
“I needed to know where you disappeared to,” she retorted, hugging herself a little tighter with crossed arms.
“I didn’t disappear,” he said, sounding like a petulant teenager. He added an “I’m fine” as a half-hearted reassurance. He didn’t know why he couldn’t do what a normal son would—reach out and hug her, offer real words of comfort. Things had never been normal between them after that night. Though she’d never said it out loud, he knew she blamed him.
“Well, you should at least let us know if you’re going somewhere.”
He started to protest that he had told them, but she held up her hand to silence him. “I know, I know. You don’t have to inform me of your whereabouts. I get that. But right now, while you’re here, could you please just let me know where you go?” She smiled at him and he softened. In some ways he missed his mother as much as he missed Davy.
“Sure,” he said.
She reached out and patted him stiffly on the shoulder. “Ok, well, some people brought food. If you’re hungry.”
“The tragedy brigade in action,” he said, and they both smiled sadly at each other, at the fact that people bringing them food had been part of their lives for far too long. But now, he hoped, it would be over. Davy had been, finally, found.
His stomach rumbled at the mention of food, and he started to follow his mother into the house. Larkin called his name, halting his steps.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, demonstratively pointing in the direction of Larkin’s house. “I’m going next door.”
“Smart-ass,” she said and headed inside, leaving him to rotate on his heels in the direction of where Larkin waited.
* * *
For a moment they stood, silent and awkward, by the picnic table. Looking everywhere but at her, Thaddeus scanned the surface of the table for evidence that he’d been there long ago, but he couldn’t find his initials carved in the wood.
“Believe it or not, this isn’t the original table,” Larkin said.
“Really?” Thaddeus responded, incredulous. “It looks just like it.”
“Apparently the other one got hit by lightning,” she said and gave a little laugh.
Thaddeus laughed too, shaking his head. “You’d think at some point our parents would’ve been like, ‘Peace out, this place is cursed.’”
“You would think,” she agreed. He watched her mull it over. “But your parents—or your mom, at least—wouldn’t leave and, well, I guess my folks felt like someone had to stay with her.” She shrugged and Thaddeus winced.
“I watched today,” she said. “That must’ve been awful.”
He thrust his hands into his pockets and nodded. “It was pretty hard.” He dragged the toe of his shoe across the grass, turning the blades over to the paler underside, leaving a streak through the green.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
He started to nod, but then stopped and cocked his head, making full eye contact for the first time since he’d walked over.
“What do you think?” he asked, the words somewhere between a jest and a jeer, as he tried to be the Thaddeus she remembered, the one who teased and taunted, always staying aloof, especially after that night.
“I think you’re probably miserable,” she answered.
He lobbed a question back at her. “And you, happy?”
Just as he said it, a wasp flew in between them, buzzing around her head. She tried to swat it away, but it dodged her hand and went back for another run at her face. This time, before it could reach her, Thaddeus pawed it to the ground and stepped on it. He smashed his foot into the earth more than necessary, taking delight in destroying the threat.
“My hero,” she joked, placing her hand on his arm, her touch electric. He thought again of being in the dark car with her, but then remembered that in that dark car she had told him she was pregnant. He stepped back, just enough for her hand to fall away.
“I’m hardly a hero,” he said, carefully drawing a boundary line with his words, even as he tried to forget her touch. “I mean, your husband is off doing something that’s actually heroic. Fighting for his country.” He raised his eyes to the sky. “I travel around the country telling the same old story to strangers.”
Larkin hopped up to perch on the edge of the picnic table and gave him a look. “You wrote a bestselling book, Thaddeus. That’s huge. You’re famous.”
“I’m not famous.”
She jutted her chin in the direction of his front yard, where, no doubt, the press was lining up to get ready for the evening broadcast.
“When they go live in a little bit, they’ll talk about Davy, yes. But they’ll talk about you too. About the book, about what you shared. That takes bravery of its own, to share your story with the world like that.”
He felt the compliment more than he heard it but shrugged it away, focusing instead on the possibility that she had read the book, that she knew she was the girl next door. But he didn’t dare ask her.
“That’s just it,” he hurried to say. “It’s not because I was brave. My book sold because people are nosy. They saw us in the news; they wanted the inside scoop; they bought the book.” He looked back over his shoulder at his house, sitting there just the same as it always had, before and after Davy.
“They wanted to know what it would be like to be us without actually having to be us,” he continued. “Because who would want that? Who would want to be us? No one should have to be us.” He turned back to her. Their eyes met and held for a moment, his brown boring into her blue. He could feel the emotion building, a storm bearing down on his soul. He needed to get out of there before she witnessed its landfall.
“Don’t you see?” he asked, his breath coming in little gasps. “I didn’t want you to have to live with all of this.”
He heard her intake of breath and knew that she understood.
“Wait,” she said. “So you’re saying that’s why you . . . that’s why we . . . never . . . I thought you just weren’t interested anymore.” Her eyes were wild, darting all over the place as she tried to grasp what he’d just admitted. Perhaps he shouldn’t have blurted it out, but it was too late now.
“I was trying to save you,” he said. “From me. From us.” He took a deep breath. “I was trying to set you free.” He turned and fled, once again leaving her with no choice but to watch him go.
October 12, 1985
9:37 p.m.
TJ wakes to the sharp sting of pine needles digging into his cheek. Spitting and cursing, he struggles to sit up. Once upright, he blinks as he tries to bring things into focus, reorienting himself as to where he is and how he got here.
He is in the field with his buddies. They tried beer for the first time. He had several, growing more used to the taste with each one. Then Lee Watkins convinced them to shotgun one. That’s the last thing he remembers. He looks over at the trash bag that held all the beer. There are no more can-shaped lumps underneath the plastic.
He scans the field, sees another still form on the ground near him and crawls toward it with hope, calling, “Philly—hey, Philly. Wake up.” He leans over the form and shakes it gently, then backs away. Phillip is likely to come up swinging if awakened. But when the form turns and he gets a look at the face, he sees that it’s just a guy named Greg from school. They had Spanish together last year.
“Sorry, man,” TJ says. “I thought you were Phillip.”
Greg slumps back over. “Nah, man. He left.”
“Left?” TJ asks, confused. Wouldn’t Phillip have told him he was leaving? And why would Phillip leave? It doesn’t make sense. With a gathering fear TJ wonders if Phillip is angry at him for getting so drunk that he passed out. He feels panic welling inside. He needs to find Phillip. Phillip is his best friend. Phillip arranged this whole thing, included him.
“What time is it?” Greg asks, rubbing his eyes. Greg must’ve shotgunned beer too.
What time is it? A new panic fills him as he thinks of Davy for the first time since waking up. Davy, who is somewhere out in that vast dark field. He looks at his watch, remembering how he’d promised his mother that he’d keep track of the time, how he’d waved this same watch under her nose to prove his point. Relief fills him when he sees it is only a quarter to ten. His parents won’t even think of leaving the party till eleven at the earliest. He still has time to collect Davy and get them both home safely. When he goes to stand up, his head pounds, his stomach lurches in protest.
TJ decides he will never drink again. It was fun—and cool—to try it, but it wasn’t worth it. Beer makes people do stupid things, and TJ doesn’t need any help in that department. He calls out the time to Greg, who groans loudly in response, then he trudges off toward where the kids had been playing earlier, expecting that Davy will be with them.
Footsteps, heavy and plodding, run up from behind, and he looks over to see Lee Watkins closing in. The dude is tall. TJ has to look up to see his face. He wonders if maybe Lee was held back a couple of grades. He wonders who this guy even is. He doesn’t remember seeing him before tonight.
“Where ya goin?” Lee asks, sounding genuinely disappointed that TJ is leaving.
“I gotta find my brother and get home. If my parents get back and we’re not there, there’ll be hell to pay.” He gives a “you know how it is” laugh. But Lee doesn’t laugh along.
“I was gonna see if you wanted to come to my house,” Lee says, pointing in the direction of the road that runs in front of the farm. “It’s not far from here.”
TJ makes a disappointed face for Lee’s sake. “Man, any other time I’d love to, but like I said, I gotta find my little brother. He’s”—TJ waves vaguely at the field—“Out there somewhere. Or he’d better be.”
Lee studies the darkness as if he can see through it. “I could help you find him, if you want.”
TJ looks at him, surprised. “I mean, sure, if you want.”
“We could split up? Look in different places,” Lee suggests as they walk.
TJ sees no kids around, hears no sounds of laughter or thundering feet like before.
“Ok,” he says. “I’ll go over where he left his bike when we got here. It’s up there near the road.”
He doesn’t wait for Lee to tell him where he’s going. He breaks off toward the road, feeling the gravity of the situation. With every step he takes, he can feel the fuzziness in his head being replaced by the clarity of the urgency. He guesses this is what people mean when they talk about “sobering up.” But he doesn’t need coffee like in the movies. Davy’s absence has provided all the coherence he needs.
His feet pound in time with his head as he picks up his pace, running toward where Davy left his bike. He prays it will be gone, that Davy gave up on him and headed home hours ago. He’ll give him a hard time for doing it, but deep down he’ll be proud of the kid for taking care of himself. TJ keeps his eyes peeled for the bike.
“Davy!” he calls into the expanse of the field. “Davy!” he tries again. He keeps calling as he runs, his voice growing more ragged as he gets closer to the junction between the road and the field.
He feels his heart sink as he spots the bike right where Davy left it, the little bit of moon in the sky glinting off the metal as if it intended to lead him right to it.
* * *
Davy runs back to the man’s house, his heart pounding after seeing a large shape walking in the field. He doesn’t know who it was—it could’ve been one of TJ’s friends heading home, but he is afraid out here, alone in the dark. It was one thing when he had Anissa by his side, but he has lost her. So he goes back to where they started, hoping she has too.
As he draws nearer to the house, he does not see her.
“Anissa?” he whispers into the dark stillness. There is no reply. He tries again, then again. But Anissa is not there. He looks over his shoulder, back at the vast darkness of the field, and wonders if he can ask the man for help. Perhaps he has a flashlight he can borrow.
At the man’s screen door, he casts about for what to say to the stranger who still sits drawing, then tearing away the drawings and tossing them to the floor. The pile of discarded hands has grown. Davy observes him, feeling safe in the warm glow of light with the sound of the baseball announcers calling plays on the television. He understands that the man, too, feels safe there, doing what he is doing.
Suddenly Davy hears the sounds of a car approaching and turns to see headlights sweeping across the little house, across him, standing there in the doorway. He tries to dodge the lights, pressing himself against the house as if it can shield him, but it is too late. Whoever is driving the car has likely spotted him there, lurking outside the man’s house. Heart pounding, he waits for the sound of the car parking, the driver’s side door opening, footsteps coming toward him. Pressed flat against the house, he opens his mouth to call out to the man inside. The word help sits on his tongue.
But the car does not stop, it executes a perfect three-point turn in the space in front of the two houses, then drives away just as suddenly as it appeared. Davy watches the taillights and exhales a long sigh of relief, unflattening himself from the man’s house.
Then he hears the protesting sound of the screen door being yanked open and looks up to see the man standing there, holding open the door. Davy knows bugs will get into his house that way. He starts to tell him that, but the man speaks before he can.
“What the hell?” he asks, glaring at Davy.
Davy starts to apologize for being at the man’s door, to explain why he is there. But his words come out in an indistinguishable jumble.
The man shakes his head. “Are you the kid who was spying on me earlier?”
Davy wants to lie, but he can’t. He nods miserably and looks down, studying the tops of his sneakers. They are white Nikes with a red swoosh, just like Marty McFly’s. They’ve gotten dirty tonight as he ran through the field. He will have to clean them tomorrow.
“Beat it, kid,” the man says and goes to shut the door.
Davy extends his arm to stop the door from closing. He will be brave like Marty, fearless.
“Do you have a flashlight I can borrow?” He points back toward the field. “I’ve got to cross the field by myself, and it’s so dark tonight. If I just had a flashlight, I think it would be better. I was with my friend, but she ran ahead of me and I lost her, and now—”
“I don’t have a flashlight,” the man says, sounding tired. Davy wonders what time it is. He thinks about his warm bed. He thinks about his parents coming to kiss him good night when they get home, how his mom will smell like wine and perfume and his dad will smell like the stinky cigars he always says he doesn’t smoke.
“You sure?” Davy asks, because that is what Marty McFly would do.
“Look, it’s late; you better get home.” The man rubs his hand through his hair. There is ink on his fingers. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
Davy stops listening. He peers past the man into his house, at the table he’d seen when he was spying. Davy thinks about the funny-looking knives he saw, like sharp spatulas. If he can’t have a flashlight, he thinks, maybe he can have a weapon. He’ll be like a soldier, crossing enemy lines with his trusty knife for protection. He’ll fight his way home.
“Can I have one of those?” He points in the direction of the table.
The man sighs and looks over his shoulder at the table. “One of what?”
“Those knives you’ve got over there,” Davy says. “I just need one.” This, he feels, is reasonable. “And I can bring it back tomorrow,” he adds. “I don’t live far. I’ll ride my bike here and bring it back. I promise.” Davy holds up his hand, making the Scout’s honor sign though he’s never been a Scout. After TJ quit, his parents lost interest in the whole enterprise. But this man does not know that.
“Please?” he adds, because sometimes that works on his mom.
The man shakes his head but then turns and walks toward the table. He peruses the selection before plucking one—the smallest one, from the looks of it—and walking back to Davy. He hands it over.
“It’s a putty knife,” the man tells him. “But it’s sharper than it looks. So be careful.”
Davy brandishes it as he bites back a smile. He has a weapon. Everything will be ok.
“Thanks,” he says on a breath. He tucks the knife into his pocket, feeling better already.
“Now beat it kid. I gotta get some sleep,” the man says. Without waiting for Davy’s response, he closes the screen door, then the wood door behind it too.
As he turns to make his way back across the field, Davy hears the lock click, noting how the darkness grows even darker when the man turns out his lights.
Davy stands in the drive for a moment and debates following the lane back up to the main road, but then he thinks of the car he saw. What if the person is pulled over down the lane, waiting for a kid like him to come walking along? No, better to cross the field and do his best to move quick and stay out of sight. He pats the knife in his pocket. He’ll be ok.
He goes along at a good clip, his pace picking up a little more with each shadow along the outer edges of his vision, each strange noise coming from the woods. He wishes he’d run into one of the other kids. He starts to wonder if he is the only one left, if they’ve all gone home. He does not think Anissa would do that, but he supposes her mom could’ve come home and demanded she go inside her little falling-down house.
Up ahead, he spies someone else walking in the darkness. The figure is too large to be Anissa, so he does not call out. He slips his hand in his pocket, touches the handle of the putty knife, even as he begins to tail the person, keeping his distance and doing his best to move quietly.
At the very least, he is not alone anymore. The figure stops and so does Davy, staying very still, barely even breathing as he waits to see what will happen next. The person clicks on a flashlight, bringing the relief that only a light in the darkness can.
The figure swings the light one way, then another, then turns in a new direction, cutting sideways across the field instead of back toward the road. Davy guesses this must be a shortcut. With the aid of the light, Davy sees the person’s face and recognizes it. He smiles with relief but says nothing to reveal he is there as he continues to follow the figure in a direction he hopes will lead him home.