“Should we stop and get some ice cream, Cole?” Barbara called brightly as Steve drove them home. But she hardly felt lighthearted. Ever since she’d seen Cole’s terribly violent drawing—all the blood and that missing arm—Barbara had been frantic. Quietly, though. She’d been doing her very best to keep her worry to herself, or at least away from her son.
Cole’s appointment with Dr. Kellerman, a slight man with unnecessarily unkempt hair and saggy brown eyes, had been a real disappointment. It wasn’t much more than a glorified playdate. And it had been so traumatic being in that little observation room, watching Cole through the one-way glass as if he were some kind of animal. Barbara had kept promising herself that she wouldn’t get wound up afterward. But that was easier said than done.
“At this point, it doesn’t make sense to press Cole on exactly why he did the drawing,” Dr. Kellerman had said after his forty-five minutes of games and puzzles (and hardly any talking to Cole) were finished. “It’s unlikely that he even knows.”
“How can you possibly be sure?” Barbara had all but shouted. Unwise, obviously, unless she wanted to be blamed for everything. She couldn’t help herself though. “You barely asked Cole anything.”
“Trying to compel Cole to explain himself at this juncture would be both ineffective and counterproductive.” Dr. Kellerman’s voice had stayed calm, soothing, as if Barbara were the patient. “It would likely only add to his anxiety.”
“So that’s it?” Barbara asked.
“At this immediate moment, what triggered Cole to do that particular drawing isn’t nearly as important as managing his anxiety. That’s what’s behind both his acting out in school and the drawing.” The doctor went on, “With some careful assessment, we may find that his anxiety has been going on for quite some time, and these incidents represent some kind of peak. Sometimes it’s possible to notice certain sensitivities only in retrospect.”
“Cole isn’t sensitive,” Barbara had snapped. And that was that. She wasn’t listening to Dr. Kellerman anymore, and she didn’t care if he knew it. “He never has been.”
Besides, Barbara already knew exactly what was going on. Cole had heard something he shouldn’t have or seen some kind of violent video game or some bit of a terrible R-rated slasher movie, and it was haunting him. And there was only one place that could have happened: Stella’s house. It was that older son of hers, probably, or maybe some fly-by-night boyfriend of Stella’s. That was the best-case scenario: a movie, a game, something two-dimensional and not real-life.
Because Barbara had seen enough of Stella to know that there might be no end to the inappropriate nonsense that went on in her home.
“Honey, did you hear me about the ice cream?” Barbara called again.
When Cole still didn’t answer, she craned around, bracing herself to see him sitting there in his car seat, staring out the window in that awful zombified way. Mercifully, his head was tipped forward in his sleep. He looked so peaceful and perfect like that. The way he’d always been. It made Barbara want to cry. How could he have fallen apart so quickly and so completely?
“Home,” she whispered to Steve, motioning toward the backseat.
Steve glanced in the rearview at Cole sleeping, and nodded. He made a left onto Rainer Street, taking the back way, under the canopy of bowed beech trees on Mayfair Lane. Those trees had always seemed so magical and mysterious when Barbara was little, riding in the back of one of her dad’s Al’s Autobody pickups. Now they just looked ugly and evil.
She turned to look at Steve as he drove on. He was trying to seem relaxed, unconcerned, but she could see the worry gathered at the corners of his eyes. He’d actually seemed off ever since he came home to bring them to the appointment, even though he’d been fine that morning. Barbara hadn’t asked what had happened in the intervening four hours at work. She wasn’t going to, either. She didn’t care about any investigation right now, not even one about some poor baby.
What Barbara cared about was her baby. She would have preferred that Steve hadn’t gone into work at all that morning, but that was her husband: Duty calls, he goes. And now here he was, distracted again. She especially hated this particular faraway, worried look. She’d seen it before, and nothing good ever came of it.
Barbara had never liked the parties in the woods. Too out of control for her taste. Of course, that was what most of the other kids in Ridgedale High School loved about them. Sometimes as many as a hundred kids spread out all over the place—couples hooking up, boys playing their stupid game, girls gossiping in their cliques. Everyone drunk on the beers and whiskey they’d stolen from or been given at home. It was impossible to find any of your friends, and even when you did, everyone was too messed up to have an actual conversation. Barbara put up with the stupid parties, though, because Steve thought they were fun, especially “drunk obstacle,” not that he was ever allowed to play. He was never drunk enough.