“I know.”
“Good. Give Shaun a hug for me, and try not to call when I’m taking a shit, okay?”
They both laughed and hung up. Evan sat staring at the wall, through it. The slight glow of knowing his and Jason’s friendship was still strong paled in comparison to the numerous questions that grew from the new knowledge. He stood and made his way to the windows overlooking the dock and the lake beyond. He half expected to see the floating form of a body there. Instead, the water rippled and the pine boughs bent, while the wind chimes tinkled in tones that didn’t sound pretty anymore.
Shaun stirred on the couch, and Evan went to him. Sitting beside him, he stroked his son’s hair as he opened his eyes.
“Hi, honey, good sleep?”
Shaun smiled and yawned, stretching his arms over his head.
“Let’s get you up and do some exercises.”
For the next hour they worked on balancing and range-of-motion routines. The strength in Shaun’s arms surprised him at one point, and he actually lost his grip on his small wrists. This brought about a shocked look on Shaun’s face before he erupted in a series of excited shrieks. Evan clapped his hands over his ears in mock dismay, which only caused him to yell louder.
“You’re getting too strong, son,” he said, once Shaun became calm again. “Can you say ‘strong’?”
“Strog.”
Evan smiled and reached for the iPad to run through some flash cards, but he stopped. Putting his hands on Shaun’s, he looked into his son’s eyes.
“Do you like it here, Shaun? Should we stay?”
“Stay?”
“Yes, do you want to stay? We’ll leave if you say so, right now, buddy. You tell me. Give me a sign.”
He put a palm against the boy’s cheek and waited. Shaun’s eyes roamed across his face for some guidance.
“Stay?” Shaun repeated.
Evan dropped his hand into his own lap and nodded.
“Let’s go down to the lake.”
~
They watched the sun set behind the trees, its burning orange coalescing into a deep red, and then it was a purple bruise hidden behind a wispy crop of clouds. A floatplane roared into view near dark, its flashing wings close enough to see lines of rivets in its aluminum hide. Evan watched Shaun’s face turned toward the whirring prop, and for a moment he imagined that the truck had not slid through the stop sign. He imagined the white line of scar evaporating, leaving smooth, unblemished skin and an undamaged brain beneath it. He watched the wonder in Shaun’s features catching the last light of the day, and when he turned his head to issue an excited yell, Evan almost expected full sentences of questions to come out of his mouth instead.
“You can ask me, buddy,” he said, holding one of Shaun’s hands as the plane touched down on the lake, its skis slinging up jets of water. “How does it fly, Dad? How can it land on the lake?”
Shaun vibrated in his chair, his head turned away as the plane slowed before taxiing toward the right, out of view.
“You can ask,” Evan whispered.
19
That night, after Shaun fell asleep, Evan began working on the clock.
He went downstairs with his laptop, intending to make some notes and begin an outline to send to Justin. Sitting at the worktable, he cleared a spot, moving the diagrams and Bob’s scribbles out of the way. It felt natural to write in the presence of the clock, an inspiration whenever he glanced up from the screen.
Soon he found himself staring at the clock more and more while typing less and less. Its obsidian luster deepened further under the glow of the new light bulbs. The four hands on its shining face were still, but he could imagine them moving. He could see the shortest one buzzing around faster than the other three, like a fly caught under glass. The longest would move slower, placid in its surety. All of them spinning backward.
Evan jerked at the cold touch of the encasement’s glass, and only then realized he’d stood and moved in front of the clock. Dropping his hands to his sides, he saw the places where his fingertips had brushed the pane, the fine lines of his fingerprints visible like road maps. The strange symbols and hash marks in place of numbers shone. Now that he looked closer, he saw they were separated into ten groups. Ten, not twelve.
Frowning, he turned and grabbed the chair near the table and pulled it before the clock. When he stood on the chair, his head came slightly above the clock’s face. Yes, the symbols were definitely in groupings, with small spaces defining their outlines. Evan reached out and placed an index finger on the group at the twelve o’clock spot. He traced the raised markings, trying to ignore the shaking of his hands. The brass was colder than the encasement, and he shivered. Dropping his hand away, he leaned in close to the face, the grin of the crescent moon looking even more gruesome at this distance.
Something in the center of the group caught his eye: a minute O that looked incongruous with the rest of the cryptic figures around it. It took another moment for the rest of the shape to come into focus, and then suddenly it was there.
A zero was buried within the grouping.
Evan pulled back, blinking. Had that been there the entire time? No. Maybe. He looked again and saw in the spaces between the symbols, a clear path cut through, forming the number.
“How did I miss that?” he whispered.
He waited, staring at the spot, for something to change or the zero to disappear, consumed by the nonsensical etchings again, but it didn’t. It remained. With trepidation, he focused on the next distinguished cluster. Sure enough, a one hid in its center. A two could be seen in the next, a three in the one after. All of the numbers were buried in the negative space between the cast symbols. He counted up to nine before coming back to the zero at the top.