Mommy Said Goodbye Read online

  Which meant Craig’s dress shirts were probably wadded in a stack on his bureau rather than hanging in the closet, but Craig wasn’t about to quibble.

  “Thank you,” he said, and meant it.

  “Did you know that Grandad doesn’t throw his socks away when they get holes in them? He says he doesn’t mind a little ventilation.”

  “He grew up without much money. Even though he’s got enough now, he thinks before he buys anything.”

  Brett puzzled over that. “Oh. But…socks?”

  “Maybe we should buy him some for his birthday.”

  The boy’s expression made plain what he thought of socks as a birthday present.

  Casually, Craig said, “Your teacher called tonight.”

  A flare of something very like fear was dampened in a heartbeat. Brett’s face went blank. “Ms. McKinnon?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  His son tried to hold out, but couldn’t. “What did she want?”

  “A conference.” Craig waited for a deliberate moment. “Do you know what it’s about?”

  Brett shrugged. Craig’s least favorite response.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  Brett turned his face away on the pillow.

  “Do you want to go fishing tomorrow?” Craig asked.

  He looked back at his father. “Really?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “Does Abby have to come?”

  “Nope. She’s going somewhere with Summer.”

  “Cool! Yeah!”

  THEY HAD A GOOD DAY, taking their poles to a small lake where they rented a rowboat and trolled. With Labor Day weekend past, the lake was uncrowded, a few powerboats crisscrossing, one water skier making half a dozen laps before taking a spectacular fall.

  The sun was warm, the blue surface of the lake dazzling, the occasional excitement of hauling in a trout of legal length all they needed to save them from boredom. Trees grew down to the shores of the lake, interrupted by summer cabins and docks.

  Craig made no effort to direct the desultory conversation, just let it drift along with the boat.

  Only once did the subject of Brett’s mom come up.

  After one of the many long, contented pauses, the eleven-year-old said, “That policeman is dead, right?”

  Craig nodded. “His funeral was last week.”

  “What will they do now?”

  “I don’t know.” Craig flexed his pole and cranked the reel a few times. “It may not make any difference that he’s gone.”

  His son gave him a look older than his years. “He thought you killed Mom.”

  Craig considered denying it, but dismissed the notion. He wasn’t a believer in telling his kids lies.

  “Yeah, that’s the impression he gave.”

  “Maybe the other cops don’t.” Hope was scrabbling here. “Maybe they’ll find Mom.”

  “You know, even if they did, I don’t think she’ll be coming home.”

  Brett nodded. “Unless she’s, like, being held captive somewhere. I read about this guy who kidnapped women and kept them for, like, six months at a time. Or she could have amnesia or something.”

  “Almost anything’s possible.” Craig made his voice gentle. “But the chances are she’s either dead or she left because she wanted to.”

  “Yeah,” his son said despondently. “I know. But…hey!” His pole bowed. “Wow, this feels like a big one!”

  That was it. Excited about his catch, Brett didn’t seem interested in talking about his mother anymore.

  Sunday was catch-up day: clean the house, mow the lawn, buy groceries for the week. Brett was even quieter than usual but helpful, Abby as chatty as always.

  Monday Craig did errands: the bank, the dry cleaners, the post office. He usually drove to Tacoma to do them, just so he didn’t have to endure the stares.

  Coward, he accused himself. Or maybe he was paranoid; maybe some of the stares were imagined. Could be that he and Brett both were being egotistical in believing the whole world gave a flying leap about their personal drama.

  He still went to Tacoma.

  Abby and Brett both took the bus home from school. They’d be okay without him for an hour. Craig parked in front of the elementary school administration building and waited until the buses pulled out and the majority of the parents picking up children had left the parking lot.

  While he waited, he tried to remember a woman he’d met a few times but probably hadn’t exchanged ten words with. She was pretty, he seemed to recall, but not in Julie’s class. He remembered her as too thin, tense. Always nice, but looking wired, as if she didn’t sleep. Brett had hung out with her kid and seemed to like her. For some reason, Julie and Robin McKinnon had clicked, which was the part that worried Craig.

  Finally he made himself get out of the car and walk in. This was the kind of place he hated most to go, where he was especially unwelcome. A sign on the door read Visitors MUST Check In At Office. The secretary looked up with a smile that froze when she saw him.

  “May I help you?”

  “Just checking in to see my son’s teacher. Ms. McKinnon is expecting me.”

  He signed in and she handed him a pass that he was supposed to clip to his shirt pocket.

  “I’ll let her know you’re on your way.” The secretary turned away.

  Striding down the hall, careful not to turn his head to look into classrooms or to make eye contact with passing adults or kids, Craig imagined that she was summoning reinforcements to be sure that Robin McKinnon didn’t risk life and limb by being alone with him.

  More paranoia.

  Turned out that Brett’s classroom was in a portable just outside the double doors at the far end of the wing. If he’d known, he would have parked in the back and gone straight to her classroom without walking the gauntlet. The hell with their rules.

  Not a good attitude for the parent of two young kids.

  He went up a ramp, knocked and went in.

  As Robin McKinnon turned from the blackboard, an eraser in her hand, his first thought was that she was prettier than he’d remembered.

  She’d put on weight, but in a good way. It made him realize that what he’d seen back then was worry. Something wrong in her life. He remembered something about a divorce, but that had been a while back, hadn’t it? But divorce did bring consequences: money problems, or her boy had reacted badly to his dad moving out.

  Now she had a round, gentle face, big brown eyes and light brown hair pulled loosely into a ponytail on the crown of her head. It was beautiful hair: thick, straight, shiny. Heavy silk.

  She wore a batik-print skirt in brown and cream and a cream-colored T-shirt. Quite a bit taller than his petite wife, Robin McKinnon was five-seven or -eight, slim but curvy in the right places.

  “Mr. Lofgren. Thank you for coming.”

  She didn’t smile. Blocking his awareness of her as a woman, he nodded curtly.

  “Please. Come and sit down.” She led the way to her desk. When she sat behind it, he followed suit in a creaky old armchair of that yellowed oak being retired from all public institutions.

  She looked nervous, but her eyes met his. “We’ve met before.”

  “I remember.”

  “I was very sorry to hear about Julie’s disappearance.” She said it carefully. Had rehearsed it, he guessed. “I liked her.”

  He nodded again, keeping his face expressionless.

  “This must have been a very difficult year and a half for you.”

  Craig had lost patience with pretence. “Is there a point to this?”

  Her expression told him he’d been rude. “I was going to add that it must have been a difficult time for Brett as well.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry. Yes. Of course it has been. As you said, he’s angry.”

  “And sad,” she prompted, as if he’d forgotten something important.

  Craig grimaced. “That goes without saying. Does he miss his mom? Of course he does. But that’s not at the root of his pr
oblems. It’s the whispers, the friends who turned their backs, the cops coming over and over again to interview his father.” He heard how harsh his voice had become. “It’s the fact that we might as well live in a zoo, with people peering into our cage with morbid interest and fear.” He made himself stop. “Does that give you some insight into Brett, Ms. McKinnon?”

  She gaped, and Craig realized that he had been leaning toward her, trying with body language to strengthen his description of a life he hoped would horrify her. Would truly let her understand his son.

  Letting out a long breath, he leaned back. The chair groaned. Silence swelled.

  Her tongue touched her lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I didn’t realize…”

  “Why should you? Unless you hurried your son to the other side of the street because you saw Brett coming.”

  There was a fearlessness in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. And something else—shame.

  “No,” she said, still in that low, husky voice. “I wouldn’t have done that. But I should have encouraged Malcolm to stay in touch with Brett. I let Brett slip from my radar. For that…I really am sorry.”

  To his astonishment, he believed her. All he could do was nod. His throat seemed to have closed. He met kindness so damn rarely.

  Clearing his throat, he nodded at the folder and spiral binder she had squared on the desk blotter in front of her. “Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

  Blinking, she looked down, then gave her head a small shake. “Yes. Of course.” She bit her lip, then lifted her head to meet his eyes again. “From the first day, Brett’s been…sullen. He stays to himself. He has no friends that I can see.”

  “He never did make friends as easily as my younger, Abby. But he had a couple of good friends. One moved away right before…” His jaws tightened. “The other kid pretty much turned his back on Brett. I don’t know if it was by choice, or on his parents’ orders. Or if Brett’s turmoil drove him away.”

  “Oh, no,” she murmured. When he said nothing more, Ms. McKinnon seemed to gather herself. “He…attacked another boy one day this week.”

  “He was in fights a few times last year.”

  “Yes. But this seemed different from the usual elementary school fights. Mrs. Hayes didn’t say anything in her notes about Brett to make me think she’d been alarmed by the incidents last year, beyond the fact that they’re a symptom. But this time…” Her eyes were unfocused as she frowned, apparently searching for words. “He…erupted. I could see such rage on his face. I think, if I hadn’t been here, he’d have really hurt the other boy.”

  “But you broke it up.”

  “Well, of course!” She glanced down at the spiral binder that lay between her hands, planted palm-down on the desk. “I’ve had concerns from the first day, but I wouldn’t have called you yet, I would have let Brett settle in and seen how it went, except for this.”

  Her touch ginger, as if the garden-variety spiral notebook held directions for building a nuclear bomb, she lifted it, turned it around and held it out to him.

  Uncomprehending, he took the notebook.

  “In my class, everyone has to write a journal. They make entries every day. I do warn them that I’ll be glancing through their journals, mostly just to be sure they’re writing. Sometimes I read more than other times, particularly if I’m concerned about a student. Sometimes they write quite a bit about their home lives.”

  What in hell?

  Craig looked down at it, strangely reluctant to open the cover. Something had shaken a woman who’d been teaching sixth grade for a number of years. He’d have thought she would have seen—and read—it all by now.

  With an abrupt movement, he flipped open the notebook and saw his son’s nearly illegible scrawl filling the page.

  Lots of people deserve to die. Not my mom—she’s not dead anyway—but lots of other people. That cop. I want to go, like, burn a cross on his grave. Or something. So people know he’s a son of a bitch.

  Actually, “son of a bitch” was preceded by some horrific obscenities. Words Craig hadn’t realized his son knew, far less used.

  Heart drumming, he continued to decipher the scrawl.

  Like Ryan Durney. I wanted to kill him! I still want to kill him!!! Maybe I will. He says I’m like my dad. He thinks I’m a murderer, so maybe I’ll be one. I’ll just punch him and keep punching…

  Feeling sick, Craig read to the bitter end. The appalling stream of consciousness broke off midsentence. Apparently journal-writing time had ended. Hands shaking, he closed the notebook and sat with his head down.

  Oh God, oh God. How could this rage, this rot have been filling his son’s head without him knowing?

  Craig had read about the stunning tragedies at schools like Columbine without understanding how it could have happened without the parents seeing that their children had turned into monsters.

  Now…now he knew.

  Eyes burning, he looked up. “I had no idea.”

  Voice soft, Robin McKinnon said, “I assumed you didn’t.”

  “He says I’m ‘like my dad,’” Craig quoted. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Does Brett think…” His throat closed.

  With clear compassion, his son’s teacher said, “I don’t know. He did defend you to me, but…what a child says isn’t always what he believes, deep in his heart.”

  Pushing the spiral notebook away with revulsion, Craig asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  “Not…quite. Hints of it.” She nibbled on her lip. “These kids have all seen slasher movies, you know. Really grisly stuff. So imagining themselves in that world, if you will, isn’t the stretch for them it might have been for us when we were kids.”

  He nodded numbly, wanting to believe that Brett didn’t mean any of this, but unable to.

  “This, though…” She, too, gazed at Brett’s journal. “It shocked me.”

  Craig shook his head. “He must have known you’d read it.”

  “Yes, and that’s what gives me hope. I think he must want an adult to know what he’s thinking and feeling.”

  “He could have told me.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “he wants to be strong for you.”

  Maybe he did. Craig remembered the clean bedroom, the folded laundry, the help raking the lawn and vacuuming the living room. Brett didn’t even ask about his mother often, he went on as if, on the surface, nothing had changed.

  “I suggested counseling. Six or eight months ago. After he started picking fights.” He had to breathe deeply a couple of times. “He said no. He was okay.” His mouth worked. “He’s not okay.”

  “No. He’s not.”

  “Thank you, Ms. McKinnon.” Craig blundered to his feet. “You undoubtedly want him out of your classroom and this school. I don’t blame you.”

  She shook her head and said firmly, “Please sit down. I don’t want Brett to go anywhere.”

  Craig stared at her now determined face.

  “This,” she nodded again at the notebook, “suggests he is quite troubled. But he’s only eleven years old. He has plenty of reason to be angry. What he’s feeling isn’t irrational. The other children do stare and whisper, in part because his attitude invites it. But, in fairness to Brett, that’s not the whole story. Ryan Durney did suggest that—” Here she faltered.

  “I’m a murderer.”

  “Um…” Her gaze shied. “Something like that. Ryan warned a girl away from Brett, suggesting that…”

  “He’s just like me.” Craig swore under his breath.

  “The sad thing is that Ryan isn’t an unusually cruel boy. They taunt each other at this age, the boys in particular. They…hunt for weaknesses, in themselves as much as in the others. I really believe if Brett had fought back in a different way, if from the beginning he’d said, ‘Jeez, I know my mom took off. I don’t know what that cop’s problem is,’ the other boys would have dropped it.”

  “But they smelled blood.”<
br />
  “Exactly.”

  He sat in silence, feeling defeated.

  “I strongly recommend counseling,” Ms. McKinnon said.

  Craig nodded. “Do I tell him you showed me this?”

  “Why not? I warned the students that what they wrote wouldn’t be private. If he doesn’t know how inappropriate his thoughts and fantasies are, it’s time he finds out.”

  “Damn straight,” Craig muttered.

  Voice tentative, she said, “I assume there’s a reason you haven’t moved to a community where you can make a fresh start.”

  “We’ve been strongly encouraged to stay put.” He made sure she heard the irony.

  “I see.”

  Weirdly, in the midst of his turmoil, Craig was distracted by the swing of her ponytail when she nodded, the way light from the overhead fluorescent fixture shimmered from it. He realized he was staring and made himself look away, at the blackboard.

  “I talked to the administration in Salmon Creek about moving Brett, but they turned me down.”

  “They’re desperate to pass a bond issue, and classrooms are bulging. I’m not surprised.”

  His impression had been that they hadn’t wanted Brett and his problems. But he kept that to himself. “I even looked into the Christian school here in town, but they let me know that they thought Brett’s presence would be disruptive.” If he’d been a member of their church, it might have been different, they’d implied. He didn’t buy that.

  His son’s teacher asked, “How is your relationship with Brett?”

  “Actually…” He cleared his throat. “Actually, it’s pretty good. We went fishing Saturday. He helped me around the house yesterday.”

  “Is he involved in any activities with kids his age outside school? At church? Does he still play sports?”

  Craig shook his head. “Everything just went by the wayside….”

  She nibbled on her lip in a way that distracted him as much as her glorious, shining hair. “Can you encourage him to take up an activity again? Or is that impossible because of your job?”

  “My father would chauffeur Brett.” His voice scraped. “But who would have him?”