Erik looked away. “Leave me alone.”
Will shut the door. Erik remained in his room the rest of the day, with the door shut, although the house was empty. Will did not come back. Erik lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, watching it get dark. The silence inside the house screamed. The ambient noises from outside puzzled him. How could the world just be going by? Didn’t anyone realize what had happened?
The slam of a screen door made him sit up. He looked out the window, through the hedge to the girls’ backyard. Daisy was sitting on the back stairs. He could see her white shirt in the dusk, and the glowing red tip of her cigarette. The minutes slipped by as she smoked, her arms around her shins, chin on her knees. She lit a second cigarette off the end of the first and smoked it. Then a third.
He could go over.
They could smoke and talk. She could explain.
They could work it out.
He fell back down on the bed again, unable to stop the tears. Great, shuddering sobs in his chest and throat, a lament smothered into the pillow. She was sitting there smoking, wearing the same skirt and shirt and carrying David on her skin. David was all over her body. Maybe even dripping out of her. She had taken her clothes off for David. She had opened her mouth for David, opened her legs for David. She had let David inside her, moved under him like a lover. Her arms up around his neck, her knees hugging his hips.
Was he supposed to sit there and smoke and listen to her explain all that?
How could you do it? Erik went to the window. Stared through his tears to the tiny, balled-up figure on the back steps. How could you? What were you thinking, what made you go? What did you need?
Then he knew what the explanation was.
She needed the pain Erik wouldn’t give her anymore.
He was useless to her.
She went to get it from David.
Erik sat up and threw the pillow aside.
He picked up anything within reach and threw it.
It wasn’t to be borne.
“It’s over,” he said. “We’re finished. You’re useless to me now.”
He drew in a deep breath, balling his hands into fists, setting his jaw.
Feel nothing.
He picked up the backpack he had started filling and set it on the bed.
It’s over. You will feel nothing.
He began to gather more things together.
Through the night he sorted and packed. A swift and brutal triage of what had to be taken and what could be left forever. He pulled together his belongings and pushed aside Daisy’s. He loaded trash bags and duffles into his car, and before the sun came up, he left.
“I will explain,” he said to his mother, six hours later. “But not now. I’m home but pretend I’m not here. I just need some space. Then I’ll explain.”
He shut himself up in his room and slept for two days. The house was quiet around him. Christine was working. Pete wasn’t home from college yet. Lena was there, though. She lay on the floor by Erik’s bed, occasionally putting her paws on the mattress and licking his face. He pushed her away.
The morning of the third day, he summoned his will and got up. He was brushing his teeth, staring in the mirror at his haggard face and scruffy growth of beard, when his hand flew up to his neck.
His necklace was gone.
He dropped the brush, minty foam dripping from his mouth. His hands felt his neck and chest in wild desperation.
Gone.
How could it be gone?
He looked in his bed, yanked sheets and blankets and shook them out, waiting to hear the clink of gold links on the floor.
Nothing.
He went through his backpack, his pockets. He combed the floor. He went all over the house. Through all the boxes and bags of possessions he had brought from Lancaster.
It was gone.
Was it on him when he left school? Of course it was.
I think it was.