He cried for hours. Literally hours. His eyes felt as though they were full of sand, and his head ached from stuffiness. He wiped his nose on his short sleeves because he had nothing else to use for that unpleasant purpose. He had to keep slapping at his bare arms and legs because the mosquitos were eating him alive.
But Stewie did not get up and go home.
At the end of the day it grew dark, as days always will. The only difference between that day and every other one was that Stewie still had not gone home and gone inside. And he had no plans to do so, even though it was too dark to see Marilyn’s old house.
Just as dusk was turning to pitch-blackness, he heard several people wandering up and down Lake Road calling his name. One was clearly Stacey, but the others didn’t seem to be anyone Stewie had ever known.
He did not let on that he was there.
The darker it got, the colder it got. And he had no jacket or sweater.
His bare, mosquito-bitten arms and legs developed gooseflesh from the cold, and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. Still he had no urge, no will at all, to end this strange moment of acting out.
But then it began to rain.
He had been looking up at the brilliant field of stars because they were beautiful, and because nothing else could be seen. There were no streetlights at the lake. Then, more suddenly than seemed realistic, the sky turned into a thick gray blanket of clouds, and what seemed like seconds later he was drenched.
And that was it. That was just too much.
It was one thing to be freezing. It was quite another to freeze while soaking wet.
He rose as quickly as he could manage, though his hips and shoulders and muscles ached from lying on the hard ground for so long.
He jogged home in the rain because the effort helped him warm up some.
He trotted up his own driveway, thinking Stacey would be at work. But he could clearly see her through the kitchen window. She was talking on the phone. He was too far away to see the expression on her face, but her mood seemed to surround her like a fog, or maybe Stewie could just imagine it all too easily.
All the lights were blazing in the living room as well, and as he walked by the window they illuminated him, and he caught a glimpse of himself in the big, long living room mirror. He stopped dead and stared at himself for several seconds, processing his shock.
His exposed skin was covered in angry red welts. His hair was a soggy mess, trailing onto his forehead, and matted with mud and twigs. His clothes dripped muddy water that trailed down his cold bare legs. His nose was still visibly runny and his eyes looked puffy and red.
Stacey was going to kill him.
He looked up then and saw her. She had spotted him, and opened the kitchen door. She stepped out to stare at him, even though it was still raining. Even though standing outside with him quickly soaked her to the skin. They considered each other in the glow of light from inside the house.
It was bright enough that he could watch her register his condition, which was a shame, as her reaction was something he would have preferred not to see. She looked him over from head to toe, her face hard.
She opened her mouth to say something, and Stewie winced, expecting a bellow of rage to come out of her. Instead she simply closed her mouth and said nothing at all.
Then, almost before he could see it coming, she was on him, crouching slightly to his level, and throwing her arms around him. She held him so tightly it hurt, and made it hard to pull full, deep breaths. But he didn’t say so. He didn’t say anything. Just stood shivering in her arms in the rain.
He waited for her to lecture him about how scared she had been, or what she had gone through to find him, but she never spoke a word.
When she finally pulled away, he saw that she had been crying.
“I need to see Dr. Briggs,” he said.
“I’ll call him again in the morning.”
“Again? You called him today?”
“I called everybody today. Anybody who might’ve seen you.”
“Can you call him tonight? I think I need to see him now.”
“It’s Sunday night, Stewie.”
“Can you at least ask?”
A long pause, during which they continued to be soaked by that cold rain.
“Come inside and take a bath. I’ll probably just get his answering machine, but I’ll try.”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Just come inside, Stewie. Just come in out of the rain.”
While he ran himself a hot bath, Stewie heard her on the phone in the kitchen. Heard her call the sheriff’s office and tell someone there, in a breathy voice, that the sheriff and his men could stop looking now, and never mind, and thank you all the same.
He was soaking in a hot tub with bubbles when she rapped softly on the door. Normally he didn’t like bubbles, but on that night it was a luxury that made him sigh with relief. The hot water was allowing his teeth to stop chattering, but it was also making his bug bites itch fiercely.
“Stewie?” Stacey said through the door.
“Yeah?”
“He says he’ll come into the office an hour early tomorrow and see you before his first client. Eight o’clock.”
“Thank you. But what about school?”
“I’ll write you a note.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Stewie. I know you loved her.”
“You knew about that?”
“Yes, I told you. I called everybody.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“You’ve had an awful lot of loss in your life for such a young guy. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“No,” Stewie said. “That’s exactly what I think about the situation. It really doesn’t seem fair.”
Theo stuck his head into Stewie’s room just as Stewie was dropping off to sleep. Or maybe he already was sleeping, and maybe the Theo in his dream turned into Theo in reality when his brother spoke.
“You asleep?” Theo asked from the doorway.
“No,” Stewie said. It was a lie, but somehow it didn’t feel like the bad or wrong kind.
Theo came over and sat on the edge of Stewie’s bed in the dark. Stewie assumed his brother was going to scold him for worrying everybody. But when Theo spoke, his voice sounded deep and soft.
“Remember when you used to go around and check all the hoses? Three times a day at least, you would check them all. Just to make sure Gam didn’t forget to turn one off again.”
“Yeah, I guess I remember. Why?”
“I don’t know. No reason.”
“Something must’ve made you think of it.”
Silence for a beat or two. Stewie wished he could see his brother’s face in the dark.
“I suppose I just wanted you to know that I miss her, too.”
“I figured you did,” Stewie said. Then, when Theo didn’t answer, Stewie added, “You never said so, though.”
“Neither did you.”
“Oh. That’s true.” They sat in silence for a time. Then Stewie added, “You mean Gam, though. Right? Not Marilyn.”
“I meant Gam.”
“I didn’t figure you miss Marilyn, because you didn’t like her all that much.”
“I didn’t hate her or anything. I had nothing against her, and I don’t want to say anything mean about her now that she’s gone. Maybe you saw another side of her. I just sort of thought she wasn’t the nicest person.”
“Neither was Gam.”
“True. But she was our gam.”
“Marilyn was sort of my gam,” Stewie said.
“Then I’m sorry you lost her.”
He patted Stewie on the shoulder a couple of times and left his room without saying more.
Stewie sat in his regular chair across from Dr. Briggs, drumming his fingers on his knees. It wasn’t like him to be so fidgety, but he secretly hoped it would draw attention away from his shivering. He was wearing his heavy wool slacks and a jacket, even though it was a warm day. And of course inside Dr. Briggs’s office it was always warm.
He hadn’t spoken much yet, which made him feel guilty, because the doctor had come to work an hour early just so Stewie could talk.
“Are you cold?” Dr. Briggs asked.
It made Stewie jump a little.
“I’m not sure,” Stewie said. “Maybe. I caught a bad chill last night and somehow it seems like it never quite went away. But I can’t exactly tell if it’s that or if it’s something else.”
“Tell me about the something else.”