“Come out!” Susan turned the doorknob and pushed at the same moment that Raz opened the door, and she almost fell inside the bathroom. “Why is there a gun in your hamper?”
“A gun?” Raz’s dark eyes went wide. A towel was wrapped around his waist, and he had barely dried off his chest, slick with water. She hadn’t seen him naked to the waist in a long time, and she realized he wasn’t a kid anymore, but a full-grown adult man, who had secrets.
“Raz, are you telling me you didn’t know there was a gun in your hamper? Where did you get it? What’s it doing there?”
“Oh, jeez.” Raz stepped out of the bathroom, tucking the towel tighter around his waist.
“Is it loaded?” Susan pointed at the bed, but Raz made no move toward the gun.
“Yes, I think.”
“Raz, you had a loaded gun in your room? Where did you get it?”
“From Ryan.”
“Ryan!” Susan couldn’t begin to process the information. Just when she thought it was bad, it went worse. Now both boys were involved. “Where did he get it from? And why do you have it?”
“Are you mad at me? Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad, honey,” Susan said, realizing that the words were absolutely true. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. You and Ryan have a gun? Why? How?”
“He got it from a guy that he knows.”
“What guy?”
“He didn’t say, I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember or he didn’t say?” Susan thought he was lying.
“I don’t know, it was, like, awhile ago, and he gave it to me and he asked me to put it in my room, so I did.”
“Did he tell you what he got it for?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea?”
“No.”
“Oh God.” Susan found herself rubbing her face. She had put on makeup for the therapy session, but her foundation was coming off on her finger pads.
“Don’t be mad,” Raz said again.
“How do you know it’s loaded?”
“He told me.”
“Did it come that way or did he buy bullets?”
Raz smiled his goofy smile. “Bullets are like batteries. They’re not included.”
Susan didn’t laugh. “This isn’t funny.”
Raz looked at her directly, seeming to focus. Then after a moment, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“I am too,” Susan heard herself say, her voice softening.
“What are you sorry for? You’re just the mom.”
Susan felt the words cut through her chest, though Raz hadn’t meant it in a bad way. “I haven’t been acting like a mom, not for a long time, and I’m sorry about that.”
Raz frowned. “It’s all right, I get it. It’s because Dad died.”
“No, it’s because he lived. I stopped being the mom when he was still alive because he was such a good father. But you still needed me. You still needed a mom.”
“It’s not your fault.” Raz swallowed hard.
“Yes, it is. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I didn’t notice your room was getting this bad. I’m sorry I didn’t know how sad you were.”
Raz blinked, and for a moment he didn’t say anything fresh or come back with a wisecrack. “I am sad.”
“I know, honey. I know that now.” Susan reached out, hugged him, and held him again, the same way she had the other day in the car, and she stopped herself from saying I’m sad too. Because it couldn’t be about her anymore, not for another minute. She held him close, her youngest son, as wet and slick as the day he was born and she had held him in her arms for the first time, and she realized that she had hugged him more in the past two days than she had probably in the past two months, and when she let him go, they both wiped tears from their eyes.
“I just had the gun for safekeeping, Mom. I wasn’t going to do anything with it.”
“I’m afraid you were,” Susan said, her heart speaking out of turn.
“No, I would never hurt anybody.”
“I know that.” Susan kept her tone quiet, even grave, which wasn’t hard to do because it was exactly how she felt. Deep inside, she knew the answer to the question she was about to ask him, as if her very soul housed the two of them, mother and child, the way her body once had, long ago, back at their very beginning. “I know you’d never hurt anyone else. I’m worried you would’ve hurt yourself. Did you ever think about that, honey? Did you ever pick up that gun and think about that? About hurting yourself?”
Raz nodded, then his lips began to tremble, and tears came to his eyes. Susan reached for him again, hugging him closer while he began to cry, and they sank to the floor together, surrounded by the debris of their lives. She cradled him against her chest while she told him that she loved him more than she had ever loved anybody in her life, that he was her special and spirited son, and that she would always be there for him and that they were going to sort this out together, the three of them.
As a family.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chris made his way to the kitchen and shook Jamie’s hand. “Jamie, thanks for having me today. I really am so sorry about Abe. He really was such a nice guy.”
“Thanks.” Jamie met Chris’s eye, his gaze sad, but strong. “I’m glad you could come. It was so kind of everyone to bring the food, and they won’t leave me alone, which is fine with me. And Abe would have loved that you came and got the pictures. I know you two would’ve been great friends. The Wyoming thing and all.”
“I think you’re right.” Chris felt guilty. He realized that, unlike his typical operation, he was undercover among a wonderful group of people, a true community. It affected him in a way he’d never experienced, conflicting him. But he reminded himself to stay on track.
“It’s just so hard to imagine that we’re here, but he’s not. I mean, I know he was depressed and I guess you heard he tried once before, everybody knows, he was open about that. He even volunteered at a suicide hotline.
“He didn’t give any sign or anything, this time?”
“No, I knew the rejections were starting to mount up. He counted them and there were twenty-one.” Jamie shook his head. “I think the number just got too high. He felt hopeless, like it would never happen for him.”
“Did you talk to him Friday night?”
“Yes. He called me around eight o’clock, asking me how long I’d be, and we spoke for about five minutes. I couldn’t talk longer, I had people. He sounded bummed about the latest rejection, he told me about how there were twenty-one. He said he wanted to talk to me when I got home.”
“Did he say what about?”
“I assumed it was about the rejections.”
“That’s what Courtney and Rick said, too. I wonder if he talked to anybody else.”
“No, he didn’t. I asked everybody. So when I came home, that’s why I figured he wasn’t here, that he went out to forget about it and have a drink. But otherwise he was looking forward to summer.” Jamie paused. “And those pictures he pulled for you, he couldn’t wait for you to see them. I’d love to show them to you but,” Jamie hesitated. “They’re in the cottage. I guess you heard that’s where he…”