How long had Caleb waited, before seizing the perfect opportunity? What was he waiting for?
The flood, yes. But if he wanted to run, he could’ve just run.
All these memories, slowly taking shape.
And I remember that there’s one more place I might find answers left behind.
—
I drive straight to the library. He was the only kid I knew who spent time working there. Between the library at school and the Internet at home, I didn’t see the need. I liked bringing my research back home to work on. My house was quiet. My room was my own.
But he loved working here. He knew it so well. He took me here, even, on Valentine’s Day. Told Sean he’d rather study here than at home. Hid snacks in the drawer that no one else checked, left homework there and trusted it would still remain when he went back for it.
The room smells of books, of carpet, and the air hums from the heating vents. There are people scattered in a few of the cushioned chairs throughout the space, some roaming the aisles; I hear typing coming from behind a cubicle.
I walk with purpose, like I belong here, cutting through the aisles, to the desk where Caleb always sat.
The chair squeaks gently as I sit, rocking back. The wheels catch on the plastic underneath. I place my feet in a slight indentation, and imagine Caleb in this spot instead.
The computer boots up to the main page, with the library catalog. I pull up the Internet instead, looking through the search history. Here, there’s a little more information. Not like his computer at home, which has been wiped clean. Except there’s too much. Other people have used this computer, and even going back to the summer dates, it’s impossible to tell what’s from Caleb and what’s from someone else.
I hear a printer start up at the circulation desk across the room, and a woman crosses the space to retrieve her papers, handing the man behind the desk a few coins in return. I make my way over to the desk, hoping he can help. “Hi,” I say.
The man looks up, smiles with his lips still pressed together, and waits.
“I was working on a project,” I begin. I give him a sad story. Except it’s not a story. It’s true. The details are the only thing changed. “With a boy from my school. And he died.” My voice wavers, on its own. These things I’ve never said aloud, instead shutting myself off from the rest of the world. Disappearing into myself.
The smile withers, the man leans back. “I heard about it,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, feeling like a traitor to Caleb. To everyone. And I press on. “I know he used to work here. I was wondering if you had any information for me about what he might’ve been working on?”
He leans forward again. Shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Yes, I do recall him working on something. He asked for my help once, about accessing public court records, and I pointed him toward a website. But that’s all. We don’t keep records of the material printed off. I’m sorry.”
“Can you tell me the website?” I ask.
“Sure.” He pulls off a yellow sheet of paper from his pad, writes down a web address, and I hold it tight in my hand as I walk back to the computer.
Typing in the address, I see it’s a link for a government site, where it looks like you can make an account and access court transcripts.
Caleb, what were you looking for?
I wish the username information were automatically filled in from when Caleb was here, but it’s blank.
I feel Caleb again, like I’m getting closer, and then he’s slipping away.
This was where he worked when he didn’t want anyone to know what he was doing, then. This was where he felt safe.
Opening the cabinet door, I hear him in my memory, unwrapping the candy—I can almost taste the butterscotch flavor, from when we were here on Valentine’s Day. I slide open the smaller drawer inside, expecting to find an assortment of Caleb’s uneaten candy, but there’s nothing here but a paper clip, and a pencil that rolls forward with the momentum of the drawer.
I reach my hand farther, leaning down to peer inside, and instead of candy I see a stack of papers, folded in half, pushed up against the back of the drawer. They blend in with the white base. There’s another pencil wedged against the papers, and some sort of energy bar that I’ve seen before in Caleb’s room, in the bunker. My heart’s in my throat when I pull out the papers, hoping they aren’t blank. Hoping he took some notes.
But they’re more. Oh, they’re more.
I see, on the top, the court heading. I see the details. This is the judgment from his father’s trial. A summary of events, and the sentencing.
My hands shake as I skim the printout. It’s not all of it. It’s a random few pages, not in order. The second page, I see, contains a reference to his mother. The shock of seeing her name, of realizing his mother had testified, and for the prosecution. Her account is brief, stilted, and I can hear her quoted words as if she were whispering them into my ear. And as I do, the scene comes alive:
We had been fighting. He said I needed to get a job, that we couldn’t cover the mortgage. We had a big fight, and I told him I was taking our son to my mother’s. But I changed my mind, came back, and he wasn’t home. I woke up to the smell of smoke. It was everywhere. I grabbed my son across the hall. The smoke was already so thick I couldn’t see, but he was screaming, and I found him. He had burned his hand, between his thumb and index finger, on the door handle. I covered us with a blanket. And then we ran.
That raised scar between his thumb and pointer finger, that I’ve rubbed my fingers across, listened as he spun me some tale about a knife, a child wanting an apple. An imaginary story, a sweet scene—being kind to his memories. When really, his father put his life at risk. He had long believed it. His mother testified against him. He was sentenced to arson, insurance fraud, endangering the welfare of a child.
The page cuts off at the next witness. An arson investigator. It picks up in the middle of another account, from another witness.
A witness who saw a man running from the house, late at night. A man who fits the description of his father. He points him out in court.
I go back to the first page, search for the name of the witness, and it stops me cold.
Sean Larson.
—
I picture Caleb in this seat, reading these pages—what does he see? He had been to that house, to look for something. The scene of the crime. Something, maybe, his father had tried to tell him. Something he was now discovering for himself. A reminder, every time he glanced down at the patch of raised, discolored skin on his hand.