by David Beers
Alicia stared out into the parking lot, not seeing any of it. Her mind was completely wrapped around Diane’s words.
“So you’re upset he’s acting like himself again?”
“I don’t buy it,” Diane said immediately. “There’s still something different about him, even if it’s not the despondent John I’ve seen recently. It’s the way he smiles, Alicia. It’s like he’s not smiling at me, but at someone else in the room. Someone I can’t see. As if he’s smiling to say, see, I can play nice at home.”
Alicia felt a chill run down her spine and the hair on her arms stand up. Something about her brother smiling at another person in the room creeped her out in a way that she couldn’t fully voice. As if he was seeing things.
“Did you say anything to him?”
“No, not a word,” Diane replied. “I mean, he was much better with the kids. Tim and Drew loved him playing games and I wasn’t going to ruin that.”
Alicia was quiet for a moment, looking down at the tiny blonde hairs on her arm still standing at attention as if in the military. “What do you want to do?”
“Have him committed?” Diane said, laughing as she did, a laugh that sounded forced and lacking any fun. “I don’t know. I want him to go see someone, like he did before.”
Alicia remembered when John went to see their mom’s psychiatrist. It had been just after she got sick.
Don’t think about that.
She shoved it from her mind as quickly as possible; Diane brought it up because Diane didn’t know anything about it.
“Do you think he would see anyone?” Diane said.
“You know him better than I do.”
Another sigh across the line. “I think I’m going to talk to him about it tonight. Will you give him a call?”
“Yeah,” Alicia said. “Of course.”
27
A Portrait of a Young Man
Years Earlier
“Can I go?”
Lori looked at her son, and wondered the same question.
Could he?
She knew he was asking a very different question than the one that came to her mind. John wanted to know if she would let him go to the beach with Harry’s family. She wanted to know if he could be let out of her household. Lori knew what Dr. Vondi said, but she also knew that she didn’t tell him everything. She couldn’t. To tell everything would sentence John to some kind of home, or perhaps penitentiary—though, admittedly, that was a stretch.
“His mother’s going?” she said.
“Yes, Mom. And his dad.”
“I need to think about it,” she said. “Go outside and play and I’ll tell you tonight.”
“Okay, but they have to know by tomorrow,” John said.
“That’s fine. I’ll have an answer tonight.”
John looked at her for another second as if judging his chances of being able to go. As usual, she didn’t know what his eyes saw or what his mind did with that information, but he did turn around and head out the front door.
She watched it close and then sighed.
Things were getting worse and she couldn’t deny it any longer. She kept it hidden, perhaps even from herself, over the past five years. They didn’t talk about it in therapy and she ignored what she saw, just swept it under some mental rug. Now, though, things were starting to poke out of the rug’s sides, refusing to stay hidden any longer.
The squirrel kept popping up in her mind like some kind of disgusting whack-a-mole. She would bop its head and it would disappear, only to see it jump up again when she didn’t expect it. Lori found the squirrel in the woods behind their house. She had been walking the dog and it sniffed the damn thing out. The squirrel had been hidden (You don’t know that. You don’t know that at all.) off the path, but Charlie must have gotten wind and then nearly dragged her into the bramble.
She had thought he saw something alive, and was hoping—terrified—that it wouldn’t attack Charlie. But, he brought her to a dead animal—a squirrel—instead. Not just dead, though; the thing was skinned and it’s eyes cut out. Raw flesh oozed out liquids, and flies dotted the creature.
Lori stared at it for at least five minutes, unable to pull away.
Others had access to this trail, but … it was too close to the house.
John hadn’t thought anyone would find it. He thought that no one would would walk off the trail this far.
And that squirrel was now burnt into a recess of Lori’s mind, because it was the actualization of what she had feared for so long.
Lori didn’t know how to stop John, and in all honesty, didn’t think he could be stopped.
So what did she do? Did she tell the authorities? Get them to put a stop to this before it grew out of control? No. She wouldn’t do that to her son. She wouldn’t effectively end his life before it even started.
This trip? What could happen on it?
Lori just couldn’t believe he would hurt Harry. Other people, other things—yes, she was coming to know that as true—but Harry? Lori knew John loved her, loved his family … he wasn’t a run-of-the-mill psychopath, wasn’t like Clara in that way. But what was she to do? Watch him everyday for the rest of his life? If she made the decision to stay silent, then John would have to adapt. He would have to control it.
Or he would end up strapped to an electric chair.
28
Present Day
Alicia didn’t call John. The last conversation they had together, when he stood up and walked off, leaving her tipsy and alone at his pool, had been enough for her. She didn’t necessarily buy what Diane said, that her brother needed to be committed or to go see—no, don’t, not that—but she didn’t think she would get any truth out of John, either.
She didn’t walk back inside her office building once hanging up with Diane, but walked to the railing that surrounded the paved entryway. Just beyond the railing was a sprawling lawn, meticulously watered and maintained. She liked coming out here from time to time and looking at the green grass; it gave her a sense of peace. Or lent, rather, as when she left, the world slammed back on her with a burglar’s speed.
She wasn’t going to call John, but she still needed to understand what was happening.
Can Dad help? she wondered.
Him? He wouldn’t bat an eye if a doctor announced to him that he had AIDS, let alone worry about this. He’s going to think you and Diane are crazy.
Maybe.
She pulled her phone back out of her pocket, found his number, and put the phone to her ear.
“Hey, sweetie,” he answered.
“Hey,” she said. “Has Diane called you?”
“Nope,” he said and she could mentally see him shaking his head as he told her.
“She’s worried about John.”
“Everyone is always worried about John, it appears,” he said. “I’m sure you’re sitting at work worrying yourself.”
“I am,” she said.
A long pause ensued, to the point that Alicia didn’t know if he had hung up.
“You there?” she said.
“Yeah, I’m here. Just thinking. Did Mom ever say anything to you about John?”
Alicia’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, she said some things to me when she was in the hospital. Crazy stuff. I never mentioned it because it doesn’t really matter. I was just wondering if she ever said anything to you about him that really stuck out?”
Alicia didn’t understand the questioning, how he went from laughing at her for being worried to wondering what her mother might have said.
“Are you worried?” Alicia asked.
“Me? No.”
“Then what’s with that question?”
“Can’t an old man be curious?”
Alicia thought back, quickly trying to categorize any of her mother’s conversations about John as unusual, but nothing stood out to her. “I can’t think of anything, Dad.”
“Just as well. Look, Diane and you and Lori are th
e three most worrying women I’ve ever met. The three of you worry enough so that no one else on Earth should ever have to worry. John is fine. If he wasn’t fine, he’d be off on a bender somewhere. You all just need to leave him alone for a bit.”
What else did you think he was going to say, Alicia? That John needed an intervention and he would lead it?
“You’re probably right, Dad,” she said.
“I know I am. Father Knows Best. An amazing show and also words to live by. Now what else can I do for you, dear? Or do you only call your father to discuss your concerns about John? Are you not concerned for me as well, my only daughter?”
Alicia smiled, knowing that he was only ribbing her.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. Call me later.”
Alicia’s father thought they should all leave John alone.
Alicia loved her dad, but didn’t believe that at all. So when she got off the phone she went back into her office, shot her boss an email saying she wasn’t feeling well and would be heading home.
She then went to her car and drove to John’s office.
Alicia found his car in the parking garage and then waited around until someone near him left. She parked her car and then watched his.
She got there at two in the afternoon, so she knew she would have some serious time to kill. She had the radio, podcasts on her phone, and a book. She used all three while waiting. Alicia wanted to keep her mind busy, keep it off her brother and what she was about to do, but it was so hard.
Alicia planned on following him. All night if need be, until he went home. She decided when she walked back into her office that she would do this until she discovered what was going on, or concluded that nothing was going on. She wouldn’t find out from John, and Diane was as clueless as she was. So Alicia waited, switching between book and music every thirty minutes or so.
At 4:45, she put her book down and started looking straight out her windshield at his car. She didn’t want to end up so enraptured by a paragraph that she missed him, and then end up having sat here for hours with nothing to show for it. At 5:10, she saw John walking across the parking lot. Alicia slid down in her seat until she could barely see over the dashboard, watching John head to his car. She didn’t care so much if John caught her, she’d simply tell him the truth—though, if that happened she would lose the ability to tail him.
John saw nothing, only pulled his keys out and opened his car door. He pulled out of the parking spot and Alicia counted to ten before sitting up and following.
He should have gone straight through the city, but instead pulled onto the highway.
“Where are you going, John?” she whispered, exiting to the highway as well, one car behind her brother.
Alicia quickly realized following someone when not wanting to be noticed was pretty damn hard. She couldn’t get closer than one car behind, but when John switched lanes that made it difficult to keep a car in between them. She did her best to not move from behind the one she was currently following until she found another one.
And, finally, John put his blinker on and started heading to the far right.
He was exiting.
Alicia braked relatively hard and started moving right, wanting to put distance between them but needing desperately to get over fast.
“God, please,” she said, hoping that another car would get off at this exit as well.
None did.
She saw John’s car at the stoplight, left blinker on, ready to pull onto Westminster Boulevard.
“Christ, Christ, Christ,” Alicia said in rapid succession. She slowed her car way down, but kept moving. She certainly couldn’t stop on the off-ramp even though no cars were behind her.
She rolled the car to a slow, slow stop—with perhaps ten feet in between his car and hers. Alicia leaned down in her seat, hoping to all the Saints that he wouldn’t look in his rearview mirror, and that if he did, she was far enough away so that he couldn’t see her.
The light turned green and his car started moving. She let out one of the longest sighs of her life before finally pressing down on the gas. Sweat smattered across her brow and she felt her armpits growing hot. She reached forward and turned the air conditioning on full blast, despite the winter season.
She stayed thirty or forty feet back from him on Westminster, her hands shaking though she held the steering wheel tight.
John turned into a church parking lot and Alicia laughed into her empty car as he did.
“What the ffffuuuucckkk?” she said, nervous energy rippling through her consciousness.
Alicia passed the church, drove for a few minutes, then turned around and went back. She took a left into the church, slowly rolling by the welcome sign. She saw John’s car immediately and went to the other side of the parking lot, where she stopped.
This wasn’t a bad thing, John at a church—his church she assumed, though she had never been to it.
She didn’t pick up her book while she waited this time.
“We’re going back in here?” Harry said. “How many times must you bring me to this place? If anything, the Pope would consider me a manifestation of the Devil.”
“You can always leave, ya know?” John said. “And I don’t appreciate the accusation. If you’re the Devil’s manifestation, and you’re simply my manifestation, what does that make me?”
“Exactly,” Harry said as he looked forward, clearly considering the conversation over.
“You’re staying here then?”
“Yes.”
John smiled at his insolence. Good. Time Harry suffered a little bit. John got out of the car and walked across the parking lot. He had called Father Charles before he left work, ensuring the priest would be here.
Father Charles didn’t sound too happy about it.
Truth was, John didn’t really know why he had showed up here.
He and Harry were going forward. In fact, they might have to go further than ever before if Starbucks’ Girl could give the police information. And yet, John still felt an intense urge to go back to God. To try reconciling this whole thing, though he could only imagine how insane it must look to Father Charles.
To John, though, he knew nothing else.
He opened the church doors and walked inside. His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting as the door closed behind him. Father Charles sat in the front, his head bowed. A still lay over the room. John didn’t want to move and disturb the eerie peace holding sway, yet the priest had heard the doors open and close.
“Father,” he said, unable to break his immobility.
“You actually came,” Father Charles said, tilting his head up and turning half around.
John looked down and for a single second thought he might bolt. He would run outside jump in his car head back to his house park in the garage and close the door once he pulled in then let the car keep running until sweet sleep overtook him and he no longer had to talk to this priest.
For a single moment.
Then he started moving, walking down the aisle toward the man that heard his confessions for the past fifteen years.
“Hi, Father,” John said, taking a seat on the opposite pew. He looked forward and saw Jesus still hanging in all his glorious pain.
“Why are you back here, John?”
He was quiet for a second before finally saying, “I don’t know.”
“Do you want another confession, as much as it pains me to ask it?”
“No.”
The priest nodded. “You won’t tell me anything outside of that confessional booth, will you? You’re too smart for that. Because then you know I can go to the police. Can and will.”
“Do you hate me, Father?”
“You make me hate myself,” the priest said. “Hate myself because I can’t do anything to stop you, nothing that wouldn’t fall outside God’s laws.”
“That’s why I came maybe, in a way. Because I hate myself, too.”
The priest laughed
a small chuckle. “Do you want pity? I don’t have any for you, John. I have contempt and disgust.”
“Aren’t you a psychiatrist, Father? Without the collar, would we be calling you doctor? I think I heard that at church one day.”
“I am,” the priest said.
“In your professional opinion, what’s wrong with me?”
“Have you never seen a psychiatrist before?”
John blinked, very slowly, almost to the point that his eyes remained closed. He opened them, though, and said, “I have.”
“Did you tell him the things you’ve told me?”
“I think I did, not in so many words.”
“Did he go to the police?” Father Charles said.
“No.”
The priest shook his head. “How many people know?”
“Now? None. Just you and me.”
“And I’m incapable of helping.”
“I think you’ve helped me.”
The priest turned to him, eyes wide. “You think I’m talking about helping you?”
“I suppose you’re not … I don’t know, just trying to give you some comfort, maybe.”
“Have mercy, Father,” the priest said, lowering his head again.
John stayed quiet, looking up at the statue of his Savior. A question came to his mind, one that he had asked himself before, one that Harry asked as well, but not one he ever brought to Father Charles. Thinking it was blaspheme, let alone saying it.
“Why won’t He help me? Why does he curse me with this and not offer any grace, any … relief? Hell, Father, it’s a sin to kill myself—a mortal sin. I can’t even do that to get out of this.”
“There are ways out of this, John, but you won’t take them. You won’t turn yourself in. You won’t stop. God’s grace knows no limits, but He will not help those who harm his children while refusing to help themselves.” The priest paused for a second. “I can help you, I think. If you’ll let me. I can take you in as a patient, and when you tell me that you’re going to hurt someone, I can go to the police for you. I’ll remove the barrier of you going to them, of you having to initiate that action.”
