~
Dusk approached, and the water became scorched glass beneath the falling dark. Evan took Shaun down to the lake and showed him the art of skipping rocks. There were quite a few perfect skippers, and he picked out the best, trying to get as many hops out of the rocks as he could. He threw until his shoulder began to ache. Shaun sat in his medical seat, transfixed by the sight of the rocks jumping like living things across the water. Whenever Evan would pause to massage his shoulder, Shaun would cry out “More!”—one of the few words he could say with ease.
“That’s all I’ve got, buddy, we gotta go in,” Evan eventually said.
“Na!”
“We have to, it’s getting dark.”
Shaun responded by kicking his feet against the chair and clawing at the belts that held him in place.
“Shaun, stop, stop,” Evan said, hurrying to his side. “It’s all done, we have to go up to the house.”
“Na!”
Evan sighed and tried to restrain Shaun from banging his head against the back of the chair. “Shaun. Stop,” Evan said, raising his voice.
Shaun froze. The anger on his face melted into a sob as he brought his hands up to cover his eyes. Evan lowered his head.
Good job, you made him cry again.
“Shaun, Shaun, look at me.”
The boy pulled one wet fist away from his eye.
“Do you want to try?”
Shaun gazed at him but didn’t move.
“Throwing the rocks?” Evan imitated the motion with his arm and then gestured at Shaun. “You try?”
A grin replaced the frown on the boy’s face.
“Okay, let’s get you out of that chair.”
Evan unbuckled his son and led him down to the water. Keeping him from falling while finding a good rock proved difficult. With one arm wrapped around Shaun’s chest, Evan guided his son’s hand in the motion, releasing the stone at the correct time. The rock hit the water and skipped once before dropping out of view.
“Yay, Shaun! You did it.”
“More?”
“Okay, buddy, one more.”
But it was full dark by the time they returned to the house, and they’d thrown so many rocks Shaun could barely keep his head upright. Evan helped him go to the bathroom, brush his teeth, and get into bed.
“That was fun today,” he said, smoothing Shaun’s hair back from his forehead. “You did good riding in the boat and at the hospital, and I think a couple more times and you’ll be skipping rocks by yourself.” He spoke in lower and lower tones, each word helping to sink Shaun’s drooping eyelids into place. “Mom’s proud of you too.”
His throat tightened, and he inhaled through his nose, blinked the tears away. After listening to him breathe deeply for over a minute, Evan leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
“Night, buddy, sleep good.”
He left the room and paced through the quiet house, to the kitchen, putting a mug of water in the microwave for tea. While the unit hummed, he found his laptop case amongst the rest of his luggage and sat with it at the kitchen table. After firing it up, he searched his documents for the last article he’d started, and cringed at the date the document had last been modified: almost two years prior. The disappointment only lasted a minute, and the familiar feeling took its place as he opened it up. It was an article about an Afghanistan veteran who’d run into a burning building to save a little girl, despite the fact that he was a double amputee and had only prosthetics from the knees down. The dates and facts were so old the article was useless now. Evan closed the document and slid its icon into the trash.
The sound of the microwave beeping pulled him from his seat, and he returned a minute later gripping the steaming mug of green tea. As he sat, he sipped the drink, letting his eyes flow over the half-dozen articles remaining in the document folder—an expose on a salmonella outbreak at a grocer near their house in the cities, a few hundred words about a special-education plan that affected Shaun being cut, and a document titled “Young Cancer.”
Evan deleted the last on the list, then opened a blank page. He stared at the blinking cursor. He wasn’t a fiction writer at heart, and he knew it. Without a subject, facts, something to research, he felt lost. He’d enjoyed many great books throughout his life, and he never understood how the authors did it. How could you venture into the unknown, no guide or map save the one you drew for yourself? He needed a solid groundwork laid out before typing the first word; anything else felt foolish and immaterial. He sighed, and drank more tea and looked out the dark window, as if trying to pluck a subject randomly from thin air.
A sound snapped him from his trance, and he glanced around the empty kitchen, waiting. It came again, a quiet snap, once, there and gone, almost like a coffeepot cooling.
Or a fingernail tapping on a window.
Evan stood and walked to the back wall, finding a switch near the sill and flipping it on. The backyard and solid line of trees beyond blazed into life with the glow of the floodlight. He cupped his hands around his face, searching the tree line and ground between. Nothing.
The sound came again, and Evan spun in place, his eyes flitting to the living room. The source was definitely inside the house. After shutting the outside light off, he made his way through the living room, checking behind the sofa and recliners. He threw a glance at the vacant entryway, then walked to the bedrooms.
Shaun still slept peacefully, one arm cocked above his head. Evan stepped fully into the room, and looked behind the door and tugged the curtains over the bed open enough to see nothing was there.
Tick. Tick.
His spine stiffened and goose bumps flowed over his exposed forearms, onto his back. The sound had come from the kitchen, he was sure of it. The idea of a weapon came to mind, and he mentally cursed himself for leaving his pistol at their home. He hadn’t seen any need to bring it here. Now, it seemed a stupid oversight.