“And the person who signed in last isn’t your best suspect?”
“Well, but look closer. Each one is filed last by a different person. Can my entire command be on the take? The whole place? I don’t want to believe that,” he said. “Oh, man, I really can’t believe that. Now, I put a ringer in there for you, one sheet that’s different from all the others. That’s a sample you can go by or maybe it will help you see something I can’t see. I don’t know. Could you take a look and let me know if there’s anything—I don’t know—interesting or odd? Anything at all, doesn’t matter how small.”
After the call, long after, I was still thinking about what he’d said about belief. We are more than the magic we believe in. We are more.
It had never occurred to me to be more. My life had been chiseled down to the smallest portion. My own doing. I had only ever made plans to be less, to be nothing more than alive.
Chapter Seventeen
I worked all day on a stack of samples from candidates for an executive position at a giant international conglomerate. Another subcontract from Kent, ever the savior. The company sold enough dangerous products that its human resources department took special precautions when assigning away power. I didn’t want to know about this company, what they sold or made or built. I didn’t want to think about how many corporations there were like this one, or how few, and how much of the world they ran. I pictured myself taking the check for this job into the bank on the courthouse square, signing up for a college fund.
The time by which Joshua should have been home came and went.
Not that I hadn’t expected him to pull a little rank, after this morning’s performance. Today, at last, I’d resigned myself to the problem of Joshua. There was a little photo of him, fairly recent, sitting nearby. I’d only unpacked it three months ago, but it was already forgotten among the other knick and knack. He looked so young in the photo, even though it was a year old at best.
So? He was growing up.
In a secret part of my mind, I had hoped for something more, something concrete and fixable. A bully. Trouble with a teacher. Body issues. Depression? I could learn, get him help.
But no. Thirteen. He was just thirteen, rushing headlong against every barrier I’d set up around the two of us. He had to rebel against me. I was all there was.
It was just like when he was two years old, and wanted everything in sight, raving Mine! Mine! with his fists flailing. Or when he was six and seven and did the exact opposite of what I said, just to see what I would do. Once, when I was walking him to first grade, I’d reminded him about looking both ways at crossings just as we reached one. A lesson we’d gone over and over. Before I could finish the sentence, he’d taken a big step into the road. A car rounding the corner had to squeal to a stop. Scared, Joshua played as though he hadn’t heard me. But I knew him—he was much easier to know then—and I’d seen the wayward expression in his eyes, the extra stretch he put into that last step.
He was a lot like me.
I should be comforted. It was normal. Isn’t that what I’d wanted, for him to have a normal childhood? Why I’d sacrificed so much? All I’d given up—but this refrain seemed familiar, as though I’d absorbed the common lament of mothers everywhere through sitcom television. Maybe the way we lived wasn’t that different from the way other families did. Maybe he was just thirteen. Maybe he should be craning his lanky limbs beyond me. He should be thrashing around, doing exactly what I told him not to— Where the hell was he?
“A referendum on who I’m hanging out with,” I said to the closed front door and the silent hall beyond.
All this because I’d sat at a café with Joe Jeffries? Working, by the way. Had he not considered that? The dinner invitation was a complication. My acceptance was a complication. I wish I had Grace’s phone number, to call and ask. Was it wrong? To go out on a date with the kids’ guidance counselor?
And while I had this imaginary friend on the phone, I might have some other questions. What did you wear for a dinner date in this town? People would see us. We would be much discussed, and I wondered if that weren’t the sort of thing Joe liked, anyway. Another woman would have nodded. Exactly.
A former sports hero? I plucked at the keys on my keyboard. He wasn’t even my type. A spokesperson for manhood, for good-natured, hearty masculinity. Together, his features portioned themselves out well, but that was a trick of the eye. If you looked closely, each feature was just a bit too large for his face, his face too full of wide, white teeth. If I could have said I had a type, I would have chosen something else entirely. Someone who could keep his long limbs in check, for one thing. Someone who sat on the other side of the table at dinner and kept any accidental brushings of their knees to a minimum. When we walked side by side, his arms should not swing. I should have said no. I really should have said no.
Finally the tramping of Joshua’s feet came to the door, and his key rattled in the lock. He closed the door, locked the deadbolt, dropped his backpack hard upon the table. As though it were any day. As though the vapor of our conversation from that morning didn’t still hang in the air. “Hey,” he said, already halfway to the refrigerator.
“Hey, yourself.” My mind raced through things I didn’t want to say. Not yet.
He rummaged in the fridge and came to the table with a tough slice of old leftover pizza and a soda. It was a dare. So this was how it was going to be. Chewing, waiting, watching. A game of chicken, and I was a chicken.
In two more bites, the snack was gone. He went back to the kitchen and started opening cabinets. I listened as he systematically scanned every shelf.
“There are those crackers—”
“Found them.” He came back to the table with his hand in the open box. He sat down again and, his full attention offered, dropped cracker after cracker into his mouth.
“How was school today?” I said. “Was there school today?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m worried about the boys you’re hanging out with,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“You didn’t ask me a question.”
“OK, fine,” I said. “Why are you hanging out with Steve Ransey?”
Joshua’s hand stopped midway to his mouth. “What’s wrong with Steve Ransey?”