The Dead Room

16

Jamie woke up to bickering voices. Her bedroom door had been shut and Carter was no longer beside her.

‘Stop bossing me around,’ Carter said from behind the door.

‘Keep your voice down,’ Michael hissed. ‘You’ll wake up Mom.’

Too late, she thought, and looked at the alarm clock. It was going on eleven.

Shit. She had overslept and the kids had missed the bus for camp. She’d have to drive them. She whipped off the covers and got out of bed, her head groggy, pounding.

‘I’ll get dressed when I want to,’ Carter said. ‘You’re not the boss of me, pancake balls.’

‘Dumb-dumb, how many times do I have to tell you “pancake balls” doesn’t make any sense?’

‘Oh, yes, it does.’

Jamie opened the door. Her two boys were huddled at the end of the hall in front of the dead room – Carter barefoot and dressed in his Batman pyjamas, a black Batman mask covering his face; Michael wearing baggy shorts, sneakers and another one of Dan’s old Bruce Springsteen concert T-shirts. They were too big for Michael’s slender frame but he wore them anyway – to stay close to his father, she suspected, to try to keep him from fading.

‘Jesus, Mom,’ Michael said, coming closer. ‘What happened to your face?’

‘Fell. I… ah… tripped in… ah… ah… hospital. Garage. Hit… ah… bumper. Car bumper.’

Michael stared at her the way Dan used to, with that X-ray vision glare that told her he’d caught her in a lie.

She looked at Carter and said, ‘Get… ah… dressed.’

‘Okay, Mom.’ He grinned at his older brother before ducking into his bedroom.

Jamie went into the master bathroom and started brushing her teeth. A moment later she saw Michael’s reflection in the mirror. He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.

‘How’d the hospital tests go?’

‘Fine,’ she said around her toothbrush. ‘You… ah… eat?’

He nodded. ‘I fed Carter too.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You were gone a long time.’

She spit out toothpaste. ‘Fine. Honest.’

‘You didn’t get home until after three in the morning.’

A mild irritation crept its way through her. Michael was always monitoring her comings and goings, clocking the time of her arrivals and departures.

Why are you getting angry at him, Jamie? You were gone all day, then you called and fed him that lie about having to stay late at the hospital to have another MRI and now here you are with the right side of your face swollen. He’s worried about you. For Chrissakes, go easy on him.

‘Mom, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I don’t want to go to sports camp any more.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m too old for it. And I was thinking I could help you around the house for the rest of the summer. Mow the grass, do some cleaning. The garage could use it. The house hasn’t been cleaned since… you know.’

Since your father was murdered.

It was a tempting offer, having both Michael and Carter close to her now. She might have indulged the idea if it wasn’t for Ben. She needed to devote her time to finding his two partners. After she dropped off the kids, the plan was to head to Ben’s Boston address. She wanted to see what was in his house, if anything.

‘I’m not scared staying alone at the house – I was fine yesterday while you were at the hospital,’ Michael said. ‘I can watch Carter for you too. And we can spend some time together before school starts.’

Jamie rinsed out her mouth and shut off the water. She turned to him and said, ‘You… ah… need… ah… need… to, ah… be with… ah… friends.’

‘What friends? They avoid me. It’s like I’m invisible.’

‘Have… ah… you… talked… ah –’

‘Mom, I just said they avoid me. They don’t call me to hang out or do anything. Even their parents avoid me. Remember last week when we were at the grocery store and saw Tommy’s mother? Remember what happened?’

Unfortunately, she did.

Standing in the cereal aisle with Michael and Carter, she saw Tommy Gerrad’s mother, Lisa, turning her trolley into the aisle. Jamie waved hello and then, in her broken, fragmented speech, suggested that Tommy should come over and hang out with Michael, play on the Xbox or maybe even make a plan to see a Pawtucket Red Sox game. Both boys loved baseball.

Lisa Gerrad made up some excuse about how booked the summer was with camp and holidays. She checked her watch, said she had to get to an appointment and moved past them as if the shop had suddenly caught on fire.

‘Think about the money you’ll save,’ Michael said. ‘I know money’s tight.’

Jamie sighed, not wanting to think about money right now, how Dan’s meagre investments, and her disability and SSI payments, barely covered the monthly bills. She had used the payout from Dan’s small life insurance policy to put a serious dent in the mortgage, but even after refinancing at a lower rate, she still had to pay Wellesley’s property taxes, which just kept going up year after year.

‘Thank… ah… you, but… ah… ah… you… ah… need to… ah… go. To camp.’

Michael didn’t speak, but the fight hadn’t left his eyes.

She didn’t have time to argue. She brushed past him and went downstairs to gather Ben’s things, reminding herself to dump the bag of bloody clothing in the back of the minivan.

The kids didn’t talk during the twenty-minute drive to Babson College. Carter played a game on his Nintendo DS. Michael sat in the front seat, earbud headphones connected to the iPod resting on his stomach, and stared out of the window as if he were on the way to his funeral.

Jamie pulled up to the main building, a massive brick structure with white pillars in the front. Kids ranging from as young as five to as old as sixteen bounded up the steps and ran around the lush, green campus shaded with trees.

‘Take… ah… bus… ah… ah… home, okay?’

‘Okay, Mom.’ Carter kissed her on the cheek.

‘I… ah… may… ah… home late.’

Carter grabbed his backpack and opened the door. Michael didn’t move. He was looking out of the front window at Tommy Gerrad, who was standing with a group of other thirteen-year-olds near the steps. They were all whispering to each other, staring at the minivan.

Jamie debated about whether to say something to Tommy. She had known him since pre-school. Spoiled and sometimes bratty, but all and all a good kid.

‘Mom, why do you hate me so much?’

She spun around on her seat, her stomach clenching. She tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out.

‘Okay, maybe hate was the wrong word,’ he said. ‘But you don’t like me. You feel something. Is it because I look like Dad?’

Yes, Michael was a spitting image of his father, and, if that wasn’t painful enough, Michael, just like his father, always asked complicated emotional questions in this nonchalant way, as if they were speaking about mathematical equations instead of feelings. Like Dan, Michael kept his true emotions bottled and locked away on some shelf to gather dust.

‘I know I remind you of him,’ Michael said. ‘What he did to us.’

I still don’t know what your father did to us, Jamie wanted to say.

‘Forget it,’ he said, and opened the door. ‘You’ll just go on pretending.’

‘Pre… ah… ah… Pretending?’

‘That you wished I was dead.’

A cold, sick sweat broke out across her skin. ‘I… I… ah… don’t… ah… ah…’

‘Ever since he died, it’s like you can’t stand being around me – and don’t say you don’t because you and I both know it’s true. I’m more like Dad, and Carter’s more like you. If I was dead, you would have moved on.’

To what? Jamie wanted to say. To where?

‘I know you wouldn’t have kept the house,’ he said. ‘I know you wanted to leave here but didn’t because of me. I had to beg you to stay.’

‘Not… ah… not true.’

‘About the house or that you wished I was dead?’

She started to speak, stammering the words as usual.

Michael, either sick of waiting or not wanting to hear what she had to say, opened the door. She tried to grab his arm but he had already stepped out of the car.

‘Michael, don’t… ah… wait –’

He shut the door and walked away. She stared after him, blinking back tears.

She didn’t hate him and she didn’t wish he was dead. Jesus! How could he have said such appalling things? Yes, after Dan’s murder, she had wanted to pack up and move. Michael had put up a fight, but even if he had wanted to move, it wouldn’t have mattered. The house couldn’t be sold. She had called a number of real estate agents. They were interested until they recognized the address.

But you don’t like me. You feel something… it’s like you can’t stand being around me – and don’t say you don’t because you and I both know it’s true…

Michael had never been a touchy-feely kid, not even as a baby. He had rejected her breast, preferring the bottle. He screamed after he finished eating, wanting to get away from her. Michael didn’t cry when Dan fed him. They had a special connection, Michael and Dan, the two sharing a bond and a secret language spoken mainly through gestures, nods and grunts. And now Dan was gone, leaving Michael marooned in some strange wilderness without a guide or compass.

Jamie needed to be busy. She took Ben’s mobile phone from her pocket, wanting to reconnect the battery and take a closer look at what was stored on it. Maybe there would be something –

A knock on her window startled her.

She whipped her head around and saw a tall, lanky man with short white hair and thick-framed glasses. Her 68-year-old parish priest, Father James Humphrey.

She rolled down the window. ‘What… ah… why… ah… you here?’

‘I help out with the sports programme.’ His soft voice still carried traces of his Irish brogue. His grandparents had come over on the boat, and all the Humphrey children – nine brothers scattered across the north-east – had kept the accent alive.

He seemed to be waiting for her to say something – or maybe he didn’t know where to start. She hadn’t seen him or gone to church since Dan’s murder.

‘I… ah… can’t talk… ah… now. Got… ah… busy day.’

‘What happened to your face?’

‘Accident,’ she said. ‘Fell.’

‘Against a man’s fist?’

Her face flushed.

‘My brother Colm, God rest his soul, was a boxer. I recognize a shiner when I see one.’ Humphrey’s kind and gentle eyes were free of judgement. ‘What happened, love? Who hit you?’

‘Accident,’ she said again. ‘I have… ah… go. Appointment.’

He nodded and shifted his gaze to Carter’s car seat. ‘Are you still seeing the therapist?’

‘Yes.’ Humphrey had given her the name of a therapist who specialized in helping victims of trauma. The woman, Dr Wakefield, agreed to work pro bono. Jamie had visited the woman for a month and then stopped going.

Humphrey looked back at her.

He knows, she thought. He knows I’ve lied to him, I can see it written all over his face.

‘Have to… ah… go. Goodbye… ah… Father Jim.’ Jamie put the minivan in gear and drove away.