The Last Family

17

Reb stood at the hall mirror, appraising himself. He looked around to make sure neither Erin nor his mother was watching, and then he did a few muscle poses. He imagined a crowd being driven wild by the rippling of his pectoral and biceps muscles. Reb knew he was thin, but in the mirror he could be a well-oiled weight lifter with steellike tissue, a rock-and-roll superstar with a flowing mane of hair, or a movie star. Wolf sat and smiled at him as he posed. Reb was allergic to Wolf, and his nose ran some and his head was often stuffy, but a stuffy head was a small enough price to pay for such good and devoted company.

As Reb stared at his own face, he tried to formulate a picture of his father chasing bad guys around the country. He knew from photographs what his father had looked like before he’d been shot through the eye, but he couldn’t imagine him with his eye out and a big hunk of his skull blown off. In his mind his father’s eye socket was a black hole, and the side of his skull was open to the elements, with the brains visible like the anatomical illustration in his encyclopedia. Now he was trying to turn that image into one of a superhero who had covered his brains with bulletproof Plexiglas. It was hard to imagine a man whose brains were open to the air being taken seriously by bad guys.

Adam Masterson had no complete memories of life with his father. What he had were bits and snatches of dreamlike memory. He could imagine being on the shoulders of a man, feeling safe and protected, being lifted into strong arms, the sandpaperlike surface of a warm cheek, the smell of cologne or flowers… the feel of something like soft flannel against his face. And there was the phantom voice he heard in his dreams. The voice of someone who cared.

Reb didn’t know exactly why the agents were guarding them and the house, but knowing they were there was nice and comforting, and it was sort of like starring in a movie. He liked the younger agents, Sean and Woody, but the older man bothered him a little because the man knew them and he didn’t know the man, whose eyes were like leftover coals in the grill. He thought he might want to be an agent like Woody and Sean, to have a gun and to protect people, as they did. One thing, he thought, nobody at school is gonna mess with me.

Reb looked into the mirror and imagined himself walking down the halls with Woody on one side and Sean on the other, waving the other kids out of his way and maybe shooting a few bad guys who sprang in through the classroom windows. Maybe the agents would be wounded and he would have to use one of their big guns to save them. And he would be on television and get medals for bravery.

Reb sat on the bottom step and rubbed Wolf. Biscuit called from the kitchen, “Kiss pretty bird.”

Wolf turned his head, erected his ears and barked.

“Don’t encourage him,” Reb said.

Erin sat on the floor of her bedroom amid a scattering of photographs. She was illuminated by a slanting shaft of sunlight as she stared at a picture of her father walking across the yard with her, a toddler, seated on his shoulders. Paul Masterson’s arms were crossed, pinning her tiny legs against his chest for balance-her arms were cinched around his neck. It was a pre-Reb day in Washington, and the cherry-blossom trees were in full bloom behind them. She wished she could remember that day. Of course, her mother had taken the picture. She wondered what Laura had been wearing as she’d snapped the shutter. Was there a picnic lunch just out of the frame? It must have smelled wonderful, crisp and sunny as it had been.

Erin had been crying as she went through the album, but she all but had it out of her system now. She had remembered Mr. Greer from before, and it was comforting to see him but strangely disturbing at the same time. She could picture him with her father, standing at the grill in the yard, turning hamburgers. Sipping golden liquid from glasses and laughing. She had memories of Reb as a baby and her father’s patience with him-with both of them. She had loved Arlington; looking back, it seemed to her those days had all been warm and positive. She thought back to the way news of the shooting had sent Laura into shock. Erin recalled how frightened she had been when her mother had explained what was happening. She had stayed with a baby-sitter while her mother went to Miami for several weeks to be with her father.

She had stood at the door as her mother had readied herself to go with the agency driver to the waiting jet.

“I’ll call as soon as I get to Miami.” The word “Miami” had terrified the nine-year-old. Daddy went to Miami and look what happened.

“Will he die?”

“They say he’ll be fine. In time. His head is hurt, but they’re going to make it all better.”

“Honor bright?”

“Honor bright.” Her mother had crossed her heart. “If your father can get well and come back to us, he will. That I can promise.”

When her father came home, though, everything was different. She thought about how he flew into rages-how angry he seemed to be all the time. She would never forget how his left hand seemed stuck at the end of his limp arm, trembling, all but useless. She would always wonder whether he would have stayed if she hadn’t been so terribly scared of him. She felt guilty and she missed him. She missed having his arms around her, missed him tickling her, tossing her to the bed and walking with her feet on top of his. Now he was out there, just when she had finally begun to accept his sitting in his cabin in the mountains. If he isn’t there alone and isolated anymore, why isn’t he here? If he wants to protect us, where is he?

Erin told herself that she didn’t care that he was disfigured, and she told herself that she had never cared. But if her mother’s presence, when her friends were around, embarrassed her, she could imagine how the sight of her father would have made her feel. She hated herself for the thought. Now she was out of that phase. Now

… she thought. I could handle it now. Or could she? God, Erin, you’re such a shit!

Laura had told her that Paul had left because he wasn’t right in the head from the wound. Erin had believed that; she had wanted to believe it. Now he was out there and evidently he was together enough to work a case. His brain couldn’t be too screwed up, she reasoned.

Her parents had had a fight the night before he’d left, and she remembered the policemen coming and her mother begging her father to calm down. And she remembered that her mother had had a bruise on her chin, or maybe she had imagined that part. The policemen’s faces had made her feel very frightened. They looked as if they wanted to hurt her father.

Erin believed she would see him again. Someday he’ll understand, she told herself. And he’ll come back and love us again. And maybe she believed it… a little.