Mike found a curb spot about a block up from Terry Russell’s duplex, a spot under the shade of a tree that offered a good view of the nurse’s front door and porch. He tilted his seat back and lit a cigarette and smoked and watched Terry’s front porch and driveway. He saw himself at nine pedaling up the driveway on his new bike—a birthday gift from Lou, no less—and Mike tried to turn away from the memory and heard Lou calling him from the backyard and then saw Lou sitting on the back steps, Lou freshly showered and dressed in a clean white undershirt and a pair of jeans, not a crease on them.
“Take a load off, chief,” Lou said, and slapped the step next to him. “Me and you need to have a talk.”
It was a humid evening in July, the air thick with heat and the smell of fresh-cut grass and bark mulch. Mike sat down on the opposite end of the step, a good arm’s length between them—the space he needed in case he needed to run. Lou didn’t seem angry—at least not yet. At the moment his eyes were fixed on their neighbor, Ned King, on all fours and working on his garden, his tan shorts and the hard, peach-colored plastic of his artificial limb streaked with mud.
“A mine did that,” Lou said. “Stepped on it and blew his leg clean off. Now the poor son of a bitch is fighting cancer. Agent Orange. You’d think God might smile once in a while, give us a break.”
Louis Sullivan, Purple Heart recipient, shook his head and sighed, sad or angry, maybe a mix, Mike could never tell. His father’s moods, what made them fluctuate and erupt, were about as easy to predict as the New England weather.
“Your mother’s never coming back,” Lou said. “Not a week from now, not a year from now. She’s gone, understand?”
“Gone where?” Mike asked, but he already knew the answer.
The month after she left, a padded envelope addressed to Mike arrived at Bill’s address. Inside the envelope were a silver key chain and a note card. The next time I write, I’ll have an address where you can write me, his mother had written. Soon you’ll be with me here in Paris. Have faith, Michael. Remember to have faith, no matter how bad it gets. And remember to keep this quiet. I don’t have to remind you what your father would do to me if he found out where I was hiding.
Paris. His mother was living in Paris.
Lou took a pull from his beer bottle and when he was done,let the bottle hang between his legs. Mike paid close attention to Lou’s hands,waiting for them to clench up—the sure sign that a beating was on the way.
“It doesn’t matter where she went,” Lou said. “She left us. That’s what matters. And praying isn’t going to bring her home. God doesn’t give two shits about your problems. He doesn’t care that your leg got blown off from a mine or why your brother died in some shit war or why your mother ran away. He takes and keeps on taking because underneath it all, God’s a sadistic prick. Remember that next time you listen to Father Jack mouthing off about the great, divine plan He’s got for everyone.”
Mike toyed around with the idea of unleashing the truth on his father, imagining how it would hit him. But if Lou found out where she was hiding, Mike knew his father would hunt her down and kill her. Mike had heard the stories about how his father made people disappear. Not only that, he had witnessed his father’s anger firsthand. Those experiences were practically tattooed on his skin.
“You want to cry, go ahead and let it out. Ain’t nothing to be ashamed about. I cried when I found out my brother died in the war, and I cried when I buried my mother.” Lou searched his son’s eyes for a reaction.
“I’m okay.”
“You want to be a man about it. I respect that.” Lou gripped Mike’s neck and squeezed hard. Drops of sweat ran down Mike’s back. “Don’t worry, Michael. It’s gonna be okay. You’ll see.”
Mike asked if he could get going; he was supposed to meet Bill down at Buzzy’s. Lou nodded, and Mike bounded down the hallway to his room. As he passed by his father’s bedroom, the door partly open, he caught a bright metallic blink that made him stop.
On top of Lou’s opened suitcase was a camera—a real sweet one by the looks of it. What was Lou doing with a camera? And where had he been for the past four days?
Mike looked through Lou’s bedroom window. His father was still sitting on the porch steps. Mike stepped inside his father’s bedroom, and when he picked up the camera, he saw an envelope stuffed in the corner of the suitcase. Inside were plane tickets to Paris, only the name on the tickets was Thom Peterson—the same name on the passport, the one with a picture of Lou with a beard and a mustache.
Sitting in the truck, Mike thought back to that night in the church with his mother: Real bravery—true bravery—involves the spirit. Like having faith your life will turn out better when it looks like it won’t. Having faith—That’s real bravery, Michael. Always have faith, no matter how bad it looks. Don’t let your father or anyone else take that away from you.
The setup, followed by the first letter: And remember to keep this quiet. I don’t have to remind you what your father would do if he found out where I was hiding.
And now the second: I’m coming for you … I need you to keep being patient … Don’t let your father find this address … If your father finds out where I’m hiding—I don’t have to remind you what your father is capable of.
Mike pictured his mother dropping each of these letters off at a mailbox or whatever they called them over there in Paris—his mother knowing exactly what she was doing.
And yet … and yet on some level, even before he found out about Lou’s trip to Paris, hadn’t he known his mother wasn’t coming home? Hadn’t he known that, over the course of the five months she was gone, if she had really wanted to come get him, wouldn’t she have made some sort of arrangement? Some sort of effort? She would have tried something.
Your mother could be very persuasive with that soft gentle voice of hers—you know that better than anyone. Smoothest liar I ever met, your mother.
Funny thing about the mind—how it could take each experience and trauma and shave off the parts it didn’t need or want. Easy to store that way, he supposed. Or maybe it was a survival mechanism. Maybe the brain simply couldn’t handle cataloging the polarizing depths of how some of us could love and hate and kill in equal measures. Maybe the reason he couldn’t see himself as an alcoholic with a violent temper that mirrored his murderous father’s was the same reason he couldn’t see Sarah willingly walking off with Jonah, Jess being unfaithful, his mother never coming home because she didn’t have any room for him in her new life. To accept the truth was to accept all of it, and he could feel his mind crumbling under the sheer weight of it.
Mike pictured Lou lying back in his bed, his hands clasped behind his head and beads of sweat running down his forehead as he stared at the bars of his jail cell.
Admit it, Michael. Your life was much simpler when you were busy hating me.
A blue-gray Volvo came to a stop at the corner of Dibbons Street, and then banged a left and made a quick right into Terry’s driveway. At first, Mike thought that the Volvo was going to back up and turn around; then Terry came rushing out of her door and down the stairs, one hand clutching both a bulky black leather briefcase and her purse. She looked up the street as if expecting to find someone. Mike had already sunk further down in his seat.
This is ridiculous. He took out his cell phone and after he dialed Nancy’s number, he inched back up and peered over the truck’s dashboard. Terry was still leaning into the passenger side window of the Volvo. The briefcase, he noticed, was no longer in her hands. Just the purse.
“What’s up?” Nancy asked.
Mike explained what was going on, watching as the driver stepped out of the Volvo.
Nancy said, “ You recognize the guy?”
Salt and pepper hair, kind of tall—around six one—wearing a white shirt and chinos with sneakers. Mike was positive he had never seen this guy before. “No,” he said. “Right now he’s running up the stairs to Terry’s house.”
“And what’s Terry doing?”
“She’s getting behind the wheel of the Volvo…. Now she’s pulling out of the driveway.”
“Can you see the license plate?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it to me.”
Mike did, and right as he finished, Nancy said, “ Follow her. I want to know where she’s going.”
“Don’t you think we’re being—”
“Just do it. She know you drive a truck?”
“I have no idea.” Terry had pulled out of her driveway and was now driving down the opposite end of the street, away from him. Mike wedged the phone between his ear and shoulder and started the truck.
Nancy said, “ You ever follow someone?”
“Yeah, I do it all the time, pick women out, stalk them for fun.” He drove down the street. The Volvo was at a STOP sign. No directional was on.
“What you want to do is to stay as far behind her as you can without losing her,” Nancy said. “If she’s checking around to see if she’s being followed, she’ll be looking two or three cars behind. Since you’re in the truck, you’re sitting higher up, you have a better view of the road and don’t need to be as close. You got a friend who can keep an eye on her house until I get there?”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme here?”
“That a yes or no?”
“I have someone in mind.” Mike was at the STOP sign now.
“Have him call me. Stay on Terry, and whatever you do, don’t lose her.” Nancy hung up.
The Volvo had turned left and was now driving up Grafton. A mile or two down the road were the exits for Route 1.
So Terry was going out for a drive. So what?
Why would she take this man’s Volvo? Why not take her own car?
He started to rattle off possible explanations: Maybe there was some mechanical problem with her car. Maybe—Who the hell knew? There could be a dozen explanations, all of them perfectly valid.
Still, as he drove, he felt Nancy’s paranoia mixing with his own. Okay, Terry had acted weird, even a little fanatical about the whole abortion thing. And yes, when she came out of her house, she had looked around the street, checking it out. Why? Was she looking for him? The police?
And let’s not forget her mentioning the items Jonah stored underneath the floorboards in his bedroom.
Mike called Bill.
“I need you to do me a big favor, and I don’t have the time to get into the reasons why,” Mike said. “I just need you to do it, okay?”
“Lay it on me.”
“You got a pen?”
“I’m in the kitchen next to the chalkboard. Shoot.”
Mike gave Bill a brief explanation of what was happening, then rattled off the address and Nancy’s cell-phone number. “Watch the house,” Mike said. “Call Nancy, tell her you’re there, keep her updated.”
“I’ll keep my cell phone on,” Bill said. “Where are you going?”