She answered right away, ushering me in quickly.
“Tell me what happened,” I ordered, already heading to Aaron’s room to see for myself that he was indeed not there.
She followed after me, tripping over herself to keep up with my wide gait. “He went to his room right after dinner, around seven, saying he had homework he wanted to get done ahead of the weekend. I did some work, changed into my pajamas, then curled up with a glass of wine in the living room to watch a holiday thing on Netflix. I meant to check on him when I went to bed, but I guess I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I looked then, and he was gone.”
“So you have no idea how long he’d been missing?”
“No. But I couldn’t have fallen asleep before nine-thirty or ten. It was probably after that when he…”
Unless he’d snuck out before then, while she wasn’t paying attention.
New York flats being what they were, it only took a second to verify Aaron’s absence. I turned to my ex-wife, looking at her for the first time since I’d arrived. She was wearing a long sheer nightgown with a silk robe that nearly reached her feet.
She’d never worn anything that fancy to bed when we’d been married.
I took a step toward her. “You were alone all evening?” I meant to sound as accusatory as I did.
“What are you asking?” She clutched the lapels of her robe like she did to her defenses.
“You’re sure you weren’t entertaining a male gentleman and that’s why you didn’t realize our son had disappeared before three in the goddamned morning?”
“As though it couldn’t happen on your watch.”
“I find it hard to believe I wouldn’t notice a thirteen-year-old boy sneaking out of a flat this size. It’s not like this is Grand Central Station, for Christ’s sake. It’s not even two thousand square feet.”
She stuck her chin out. “Really? You’d notice? Like how you noticed your wife had been having affairs for nearly a year before you confronted her about it?”
Splice. Right through the skin, straight to the heart. She knew where to hit me, how to strike with her words. I hadn’t noticed her affairs. I hadn’t wanted to.
And maybe she was showing me something of herself too—that she’d wanted me to notice, and I hadn’t. She’d wanted me to save her, and I couldn’t. Another reminder of how I’d failed her. How I’d failed all of us.
See that, Audrey? Love doesn’t win. It just disappoints. Over and over again.
“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?” The thin voice in the doorway pulled our focus immediately.
There he was, still bundled in his coat and a beanie cap that said Excelsior! in bold red letters across the front.
God, we were both shitty parents—Ellen and I. So wrapped up in ourselves and the same old argument that we couldn’t even notice the kid we were looking for when he came home.
“Aaron!” Ellen ran to him, enveloping him in her arms. “You’re here! You’re all right! We were so worried! We called the police and your dad came over and I was out of my mind…”
Her relief at his appearance quickly faded and the anxiety of the night crept in to take its place. She pulled out of her embrace and gripped him tightly by the upper arms. “Where the hell have you been, young man? How dare you frighten us like that!”
“I went out!” he answered defiantly.
“To that damn YouTube meetup with your friends, didn’t you? The one I said absolutely not to when you asked if you could go?”
His guilty expression told the answer as much as his silence.
I hung back and watched, my own relief seeping in slowly and heavily, trapping me like quicksand. What could have happened? What might have been? This late on the streets of a busy city. Barely a teenager.
It was easier not to think about. Easier to just watch and sink.
They made an odd tableau, the two of them. Ellen, who stood on the upper side of average, barraging Aaron, who nearly stood as tall as she did these days, with her verbal onslaught. How long before she lost all control over him? Soon, if she wasn’t careful. Soon if she hadn’t already.
But could I even judge her parenting? Was I any better of a father, absent as I was? And, truth be told, I would have been yelling myself hoarse if she hadn’t taken the lead. If I weren’t drowning in my emotions. If I weren’t remembering Audrey’s last words to me—Listen to what he has to say.
So far, he hadn’t much to say at all. Or, rather, Ellen hadn’t given him much chance for a defense. She didn’t let up, in fact, until she seemed to remember the police were on the case. She stormed out of the room to retrieve her phone and make the call.
Left alone together, Aaron chanced a glance in my direction. I could feel the frown on my face. Could imagine the disappointment he saw on my features. It was no surprise that he hung his head sullenly in response.
I took a breath and forced the tension from my body. “Aaron…” I began carefully.
“I know already,” he snapped, throwing his beanie on his desk. He unzipped his coat and threw it over the back of the chair. “Mom said everything, okay. You don’t need to be involved. Why are you even here?”
Because I’m your father. Because I love you, you idiot.
I forgot, sometimes, that the teenager method of communication was very often brutal and unforgiving.
Another breath. Another careful start. “You went to a YouTube thing? What sort of event was this?”
“Just a thing that the guys from the AV club were going to.” His back was to me, but I felt his eagerness to share as well as his reluctance to do so.
“Was it a concert? A seminar?”
With a sigh that resembled so many of my own, Aaron turned to me. “Just a YouTube personality. Two of them, actually. Jacksepticeye and Markiplier. They’re friends so sometimes they do their meetups together.”
“And you get their autographs? Is it like those comic conventions?” I was so out of touch with today’s culture.
He gave me a frustrated glare. “No, Dad. It’s like...they’re YouTubers. They do shows. They’re famous.”
“Oh.” I didn’t have any better understanding now than before. “Are they inappropriate? Was that why your mother didn’t want you to go?”
“Not really. They’re just...normal. They comment on video games while they play. Mom didn’t want me to go because she said I needed to get my homework done tonight since I wouldn’t get any done tomorrow because of Thanksgiving and then after that you and I are doing that ski trip.” He paused as he toed off his shoes. “I would have rather skipped Connecticut, but nobody asked me.”
Again, that cruelty. I wondered how much of his ability to hurt me had been learned from his mother. How much he’d inherited from me. How two broken people could raise a boy to become a whole man.
Ellen had defeated me that way. She’d destroyed parts of me that I’d never have back. She’d made me bitter and cruel in return.
I vowed not to be that man to my son.
“You could have told me. I would have canceled my dinner plans tonight to take you to the event.”
His eyes lifted to meet mine, surprised and curious.
“And we can cut Connecticut short. Come back Saturday night instead. If you’d like. So you can get caught up on your homework on Sunday.”
“Really?” He grinned. “Thanks, Dad. That would help.”
“No worries.” I stepped forward to tousle his hair. It was as much physical affection as he allowed these days, and even that he often pulled away from. This time he tolerated it, and it made up for the disappointment at losing an entire day of his company.
And I couldn’t say I’d been completely selfless in giving up the day with him, anyway. I had other ideas of how I wanted to spend that time.
I shut the door to the den behind me and slumped against it. “Well, that was terrible.”