People fight every day to control their regret, to keep it from stealing their happiness. Sometimes they fight just to function, to work and drive their kids to school and make dinner without jumping off a bridge. It is painful. Brutally painful. The skillful ones manage to outmaneuver it. Then they go to sleep and it finds its way back to the throne. Morning comes and they awake again as slaves to this ruthless dictator.
I pulled into my driveway, a slave to my own regret. I could already see how irreparable my actions were. I felt stained by the kind of stain that never comes out. The kind of stain that would make you throw the thing out. Red wine on a white tablecloth. Blood on Charlotte’s blouse. I thought about Bob Sullivan. A cheater. A liar. But an innocent man. I thought about Sean Logan. A hero. A tortured soul. And now the anger at Bob Sullivan was festering within him. I thought about Jenny, I thought about her blood spilled on that bathroom floor and how I was so close to giving her back her memory, and with it her very life. These things I had done, I might as well have slammed into these innocents with my car while my eyes were looking away. Maybe it’s worse than that. This was no accident. This was me driving down the road, my son on one side and these innocents on the other—and no room to pass safely between them
My wife was in the kitchen, making a snack for my son. I could hear that fucking game on in the TV room, my son’s laughter, gunfire, explosions. More laughter.
What’s wrong with you? What’s happened? my wife asked me.
I did not know this at the time, but I had been crying. Fury at having to save him this way and fear that escaped from the box on the shelf seeped from my eyes. There were a lot of tears that day.
I walked past her to the TV room. I did not stop to turn off the game. I grabbed my son by both arms and pulled him to his feet.
Dad—he started to say.
I took the remote from his hands, and I threw it at the TV. I shattered the screen. My wife screamed and ran in from the kitchen. She had the plate of food in her hands.
Alan!
Holding my son’s arms, I shook him, hard. “You tell me right now! Why were you in those woods? What were you doing in those woods!”
I wasn’t! I told you!
I shook him again and again. My wife set down the plate and rushed to my side, grabbing hold of my arms, trying to pull me away from our child.
“Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know what might have happened? Tell me! Why were you there? Why were you in those woods?”
Julie stared at him, waiting for an answer. The more time that passed, the more she had come to wonder whether he had raped Jenny Kramer. I could see it in her eyes, the sadness that had crept in.
I saw his phone sitting on the couch. I grabbed it. I knew the password because my wife had told me. I also knew from my wife about the porn she’d found on his computer. I opened the home screen and checked the browser history.
What are you doing! Stop that! Jason screamed. He lunged for the phone, but I was faster. His arm swept through the air, missing me completely.
I let an image load, some porn star’s hairless pussy with a giant cock about to enter. The picture started to move into video. The image of people fornicating on the screen. The sound of people fornicating on the audio. My wife gasped, her hand drawing to her mouth.
Mom … Our son turned to her for help. She looked at him and then to me. My emotions had infected her.
“This is how you’re building your house? This is what you want the police to see if they get your phone? You want one more thing that makes you look like a rapist?”
Jesus, Dad! Everybody looks at this stuff. It’s just regular stuff! It doesn’t make me a rapist!
“Regular stuff?” I said, shoving the phone up close to his face. “There is nothing regular about this. Nothing!”
Julie pleaded with him. Jason, please! We still love you. We’ll still help you. But we have to know. Tell us! Please, just tell us!
My son’s face was bright red, and I knew we had turned him. I knew he was breaking. And for a moment, I actually thought it was possible that he had done those terrible things to my sweet Jenny. Oh, the places the mind can go! We are so fragile. So very, very fragile.
Okay! He screamed at us, pulling his arms from my grasp. Just let me go!
We stood there in the center of that room. Julie and I holding our breath with anticipation. Jason gathering his courage. I turned off the phone and tossed it onto the sofa.
I was there, okay! I was fucking there! Are you happy now? Are you happy I’m going to jail?
Julie gasped. What did you do? My God, what?
“Jason…” I said, almost in a whisper. My mind was out of control.
Jason started to cry. I told you there were a lot of tears that day. He sat on the couch and hung his head into his hands.
I went to find that guy. The guy in the blue Civic.
“Cruz Demarco?” I asked. “The drug dealer?”
I had a hundred dollars. And I went to find him.
“Where did you get a hundred dollars?”
I took it. From a wallet in the kitchen. I don’t know whose it was—it was just there and it had all this money in it.
“So you thought you’d steal the money and buy drugs?”