A Question of Will

by Craig Spector

  "Paul, don’t..."

  "Just come home. Get some rest, come home tomorrow if you want. But come home. Okay?"

  No reply. Paul reeled, shockwaves of emotional freefall rippling through him. "Julie?"

  "I can’t. Not right now." She sighed, added softly. "I’m sorry."

  "Julie, please..." Paul started to say something else... but before he could find the words, her heard the sound of the receiver cradling on the other end. The line clicked and went dead. Paul stood for a heartbeat, holding the phone, in shock. Another recorded voice sounded, followed by a horrendous, shrill tone.

  "If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again... [boo dah DEEEEE...] If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again..."

  The tone trilled again, snapping him back. Paul hung up the phone.

  And just like that, she was gone.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Paul stared at the telephone, swigging his beer and pacing the kitchen as if afraid that to stand in one place would be to invite the floor to drop from beneath him, swinging down like a gallows door to pitch him into a still deeper abyss. Eventually he picked it up, hit the speed dial keyed to her folks’ number. It rang, unanswered, once, twice. On the third try, someone picked up.

  "Yeah..." Ted, Julie’s dad, gruff and abrupt.

  "Ted, please," Paul said urgently. "I gotta talk to Julie..."

  "No, you don’t," he countered, in full on paternal protective mode. "She doesn’t want to talk to you."

  "Goddammit, Ted, I’m not kidding!" Paul barked, civility faltering, then failing completely. "Quit fucking around!"

  Ted flatly told him not to call, not to come there. And hung up.

  "Bastard!" Paul slammed the phone down, as shock gave way to stunned disbelief, to raw, boiling anger. Son of a bitch. He could only imagine how long the old fart had dreamt of saying those words, to leverage him out of Julie’s life for good. Paul punched the speed dial again. The phone rang once, rang again. On the third ring an answering machine kicked in. The one he and Julie had bought for them. The one they had never used.

  It beeped, recording. Paul hung up, stood in silence. His gaze tracked wildly across the room, spied Eleanor’s happy little plaque hanging above the sink.

  Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

  "Son of a BITCH!" Paul roared and heaved the beer bottle at it. It twirled end over end to hit the wall, amber glass exploding in a spray of shrapnel and suds. Next came the kitchen table, upending as he grabbed the edge and flipped it, sending a bowl of fruit tumbling to smash on the tiles. Paul picked up one of the wooden kitchen chairs and swung it like a Louisville Slugger, the top of the chair clipping the hanging light overhead, sending it spinning in a mad pendulum swing. The chair came down, obliterating into a crunching pile of kindling against the heavy wooden table base. Shadows lurched and loomed wildly. The whole room looked alive and demented, its placid façade rendered in lunatic shades.

  "NOOOO!" He cried again, thoughts reeling. First his daughter. Then his wife. Gone. Everything he loved in the world had been taken from him, up to and including his Goddamned dog.

  And now there was nothing between the man, and the nightmare.

  Paul turned to the kitchen counter, the dishes neatly washed and racked. He swept the plates and glass from the side of the sink. They spun and flew to the floor in a flurry of glittering fragments. Paul watched them shatter, blood pounding in his veins.

  And that was just the beginning.

  ~ * ~

  Monday morning came like a curse.

  Paul shuffled through the wreckage, shell shocked and spent, oddly calm. The first floor looked like a bomb had gone off in it, the rage that had consumed the kitchen spreading until it had engulfed everything within reach. Dining room and living room were mauled and mangled, furniture battered and broken, bookcases thrown over to vomit their contents across the floor. A fireplace andiron poked through the blackened television tube like a stake through a vampire’s heart. Only the cabinet holding the home videos had escaped unscathed; it stood like a lone sentinel, in mute testimony.

  Paul found the cordless phone in the carnage, laying under a cracked family photo, picked up the receiver and dialed. He called Julie’s school, ostensibly to cover for her, in truth in a desperate bid to maintain the crumbling façade. He was politely, if awkwardly, informed that Julie had already filed for a leave of absence, right before the holidays. An indefinite leave.

  "Of course she did," he said quietly. And hung up the phone.

  He felt weirdly displaced, as if watching himself from afar. He had read statistics, how fifty percent of marriages suffering the death of a child ended in divorce. Cold numbers. Meaningless. He wondered, how many suicides?

  Paul turned and walked upstairs to the hall bathroom, stood before the sink. He turned the water on and splashed it across his face, then stared at himself in the mirror.

  "Fine," he told the reflection. "I’m fine." Paul smiled, showing teeth, lips thin and strained. "She’s fine," he said, practicing, and smiled again: better this time, more lifelike, applying just the right touch of disarming sadness.

  "Everything’s fine," he said, smothering the feelings. He said it again, and again, until his eyes, like windows to the soul, went dark and clouded over, masking the heat inside. Until no one would ever guess what was raging there.

  By Monday afternoon the destruction had been largely repaired. Paul had diligently uprighted and restored, sweeping away the fragments, masking the damage like a shattered vessel painstakingly pieced and glued back together: seemingly whole, riddled with weakness, ready to come unglued at the slightest touch.

  Paul stood at the front door, donning his coat and scarf. A little mirror hung by the coathooks. Paul zipped up and glanced up to see a perfect simulation of himself staring back.

  "I’m fine," he said.

  Then turned and walked out the door.

  ~ * ~

  Nightfall. Our Lady of Sorrows. Another F.L.A.M.E. meeting. Paul was again in the company of lost and lamenting souls huddled in the basement rectory, seated in the outer ring of folding chairs. He listened to the litany of suffering. The holidays loomed heavy on them all; again and again he heard quiet dread expressed, the myriad ways that every television and radio magically transformed into an agent of emotional ambush, every trip to the market or stroll through a shopping mall turned numbly rancid and redolent with threat, every cheery song a taunting reminder, every festive card a ransom note. Each of them bore the burden of a world which stubbornly refused to cease its turning; all felt to some degree stranded, disoriented, displaced.

  Afterwards the group gathered loosely, sipping coffee and chatting in soft and muted tones. Nina was there, presiding over the proceedings; when she saw Paul she smiled and asked earnestly how he was doing.

  "Fine," Paul told her. "Everything’s fine."

  His words carried just the right mixture of sadness and resignation; when he smiled his woeful smile, her heart melted.

  "It’s not easy," she told him. "It never will be. But it does get better, with time." She touched his shoulder, in purely innocent empathy. In that instant a part of him rebelled; Paul felt an urge to just blurt it all out -- to tell her, tell everyone, what was really going on.

  Then he looked past her, and his blood froze.

  Nina saw him stiffen, turned instinctively to follow his gaze. And then she froze, too. Standing by the snack table near the double doors, was a woman: same slight, frail frame, same cheap Burlington overcoat, offset by a cheap and absurdly cheerful rayon scarf. Her chestnut hair had gone dull and brittle, pale skin thin and bloodless, as though stress were aging her in dog years, leeching all color from her world, rendering her mutely monochrome. But he still recognized her, and as she looked up, Paul found himself staring, in frank and naked shock, at Kathryn Wells.

  The Wells woman’s eyes widened, as she recognized him, too. For a moment, she looked as if she might scurry
off. Then she turned and looked away, trying to hide in plain sight.

  "What’s she doing here?" Paul asked, instinctively glancing around for her husband. But the elder Wells was nowhere in sight. Nina looked from Kathryn to Paul, visibly uncomfortable.

  "I’m sorry," she explained. "Our policy is to welcome everyone who’s suffering…"

  "Even them?"

  "They lost someone, too," Nina countered gently. "Kathryn’s been coming for some time now. I realize this might be awkward…"

  "No," Paul said flatly, then softened. "No. It’s fine." He looked at her. "Really."

  Nina started to say something else, but Paul started across the room, sliding past small knots of members chatting in twos and threes, zeroing in on Kathryn Wells. He caught up to her as she hovered before a large folding conference table, pointedly busying herself with the stacks of fliers advertising support group events. She saw him in her peripheral vision and visibly flinched, but stood her ground. Paul cleared his throat.

  "Ms. Wells?" he said levelly. "I’m Paul Kelly…"

  She nodded, shrinking into herself. "Yes, of course…" she began, then ventured, politely wary. "How are you?"

  "I’ve been better," he replied, paused. "And you?"

  Kathryn let out a little laugh, small and entirely devoid of mirth. She uncoiled a bit and shrugged. "Oh, about the same…"

  Their eyes met, fleeting. Kathryn looked away. "I’m sorry for…" she faltered --for what? For her son’s crime? For birthing a murderer? For ever existing at all? — then continued, "…I’m sorry for intruding like that. At your house, I mean. It was a stupid thing to do."

  "No," Paul said. "No, actually, it was very kind. I’m sorry we…" his turn to hesitate. "Well, let’s just say I’m sorry, too."

  She looked surprised, almost shocked; certainly Paul was the last person on earth she ever expected kindness from. "You don’t have to say that…" she said.

  "I know," Paul replied. "I guess I just wanted to tell you, if you ever needed to talk…" he let the thought trail off, the conversation dying. Kathryn nodded and turned to go. As she did Paul suddenly took a tentative step forward. It felt a little like searching a burning building -- pushing forth through blinding smoke, feeling for heat and contact as if by Braille. He did not know what was around the next corner. But he knew the shape of a door when he felt it.

  "Kathryn --" he began. She turned, regarding him. "Would you like to get some coffee?"

  Kathryn Wells glanced from him to the steaming pot on the table; Paul amended. "Some actual coffee, I mean. I know they mean well, but this stuff’s mostly good for tanning leather…"

  She smiled, faintly; it wasn’t much of a joke, but any port in a storm. As she did, Paul caught a glimpse of former beauty, some hint of what the years had dog-piled into submission. It struck him that she was actually very pretty, in a shy, self deprecating way. She hesitated, then nodded. "Yes," she answered. "Yes, I would."

  Paul smiled his practiced smile. He hadn’t imagined this, couldn’t have seen it coming in a million years.

  But just like that, a plan was born.

  ~ * ~

  The coffee shop was small and out of the way, the better to not be seen -- not a yuppified Starbuck’s, but an old Italian place on a quiet side street in East Glendon. The night air was crisp and clear, chill but not too cold. Paul and Kathryn sat outside at a small marble and wrought iron café table, nursing steaming cups of cappuccino, enmeshed in private détente.

  Kathryn watched as Paul lit a cigarette. He saw her looking, held the pack forward. Kathryn hesitated, looking momentarily like a school girl misbehaving, then reached out to pluck one thin white cylinder with delicate fingers. He noticed her nails were bitten short.

  "Thanks," she said. As she placed it to her lips Paul flipped his Zippo open, lit it. Embers glowed as Kathryn sucked deeply, exhaling a plume of frost-tinged smoke. "Jimmy doesn’t like it when I smoke," she said guiltily.

  Paul shrugged, like no big deal. "Jimmy doesn’t need to know everything," he remarked casually. Kathryn laughed, nervous.

  "Tell that to Jimmy!" she blurted ruefully, then caught herself. She took a sip of coffee; Paul watched, his expression carefully neutral. Kathryn put the cup down, changing the subject. "So.. how is your wife?" she asked.

  "She left me," Paul said. He spoke softly, but the words landed like a slap. It was intentional. Kathryn’s eyes widened.

  "Oh God. When…?"

  "Last night, or last week, depending," he replied, then shrugged. Watching her watching him.

  "I’m so sorry…" Kathryn said, then paused. Paul looked quietly aggrieved. It was her turn.

  "My husband is a good man," she began, protectively. "He just has his own ideas of how things should be."

  Paul nodded, understanding. "He’s pretty strict?"

  Kathryn bit her lip, gazing out into black night sky beyond streetlight glare. She nodded.

  "What about with Will?" Paul asked. "Was he very strict with Will?"

  Kathryn withdrew a bit, innately defensive. But Paul just waited. A solitary tear formed in the corner of one eye. She wiped it away. Paul watched, then asked softly.

  "Tell me about the fire…"

  Kathryn Wells did a double take, then seemed to sag. "I don’t know," she sighed. "It’s like I told the police and the reporters -- it was about four o’clock that afternoon. I looked out the kitchen window, and saw smoke." Her voice trembled ever so slightly. "I went outside, and Will was standing over the trash can, feeding papers into it…"

  "What kind of papers?" Paul asked.

  "Just papers," Kathryn shrugged miserably, then added softly, "notebook papers." Paul was looking at her neutrally; he knew she wasn’t telling him everything. Kathryn tried to evade his quiet, probing stare, but more tears began to well in her eyes, like a dam giving way under relentless inner pressure. Suddenly it cracked.

  "It was his sketchbook," she confessed, and started to cry. Her hands fluttered in her lap like trapped birds. "All of his drawings, everything. He just burned them…"

  Paul thought of the designs inked on faded denim; the ones he himself had fed into the flames. "What was in the book?"

  "I don’t know!" Kathryn wailed, and meant it this time. "It was like his private world, he wrote and drew in it all the time. He never let me see it. He never let anyone see it." She shuddered under the weight of her own guilt. "And then his father came home, and just gave him hell, not because he burned it, but because he set a fire…"

  "Had he ever done something like that before?"

  "No!" Kathryn replied, adamant and defensive. "He’d been moody all week, but he wasn’t like that. He was a good boy…"

  She drew up short, as her gaze met Paul’s, then flitted away. "Oh, God," she murmured, almost to herself. "It’s all my fault…"

  "What is?" Paul asked.

  "Everything," she said. "All of it…"

  Paul leaned closer, speaking so softly it was almost like a voice in her head. "Why?"

  Kathryn looked at him, and the floodgates breached and spewed forth. She began to speak the terrible, unspoken truths: of her own sense of failure, the guilt, the confusion, the bottomless remorse. She spoke about Will: a quiet and sensitive child, smart but reclusive. She spoke of his relationship with his father: the elder Wells’ unerring strictness, their inability to communicate, her endless struggle with her husband to just let the boy be himself. She recounted the boy’s increasing rebellion, the inevitable battles, the downward cycle she was somehow not strong enough to avert. And then she spoke -- in halting, urgent tones -- of the nightmare since… it…. had all happened; of the prying eyes of police and neighbors and media, of the horror of knowing that the child she had once carried inside her had come to be accused of something so heinous.

  And Paul nodded and listened, allowing her to unload a portion of her burden, sifting every scrap for usable detail.

  "Sometimes I wish it were all over," Kathryn suddenly confessed. "
Everyone says he’s gone, but he’s not gone to me." Her tone turned plaintive, deeply wounded. "I keep expecting to see him, every time I turn around. I keep expecting to hear his voice, calling out from the living room, asking what’s for dinner, something… anything…" She paused, voice trembling. "Sometimes the not knowing hurts more than anything," she added, almost to herself, then in a voice barely audible, "Sometimes I think knowing he were dead would be better than never knowing what happened to him at all. At least then maybe we could move on."

  Kathryn stopped, suddenly exposed, ashamed of the love she felt for her own son. "Some mother," she said. "You must think I’m terrible." She lowered her head. Paul watched for a moment, then reached out across the tiny table to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Kathryn sobbed quietly.

  "It’s all right," he told her. "It’s all right."

  But it wasn’t all right. Not even a little bit. And they both knew it. Kathryn continued to cry, the gentle strength of his touch moving her until she seemed to visibly deflate with each new breath. Paul placed an arm around her, murmuring quiet comfort. And though he said the right words, pushed all the right buttons, Paul felt none of it. She was a cipher to him, collateral damage in his twisted mission.

  His mission, which had expanded until it included nothing less than the complete destruction of her world.

  "It’s okay," he told her. "Just let it out. Let it all out…"

  Kathryn cried.

  And then she did.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It was just after ten p.m. on Wednesday that Paul arrived at the Waterfront, a dank little dive situated three blocks from the piers, just past a sprawling expanse of oil refinery once owned by Exxon but now under the banner of some indeterminate multinational conglomerate who performed the same job but paid a fraction of the wages. The resulting downsizing had contributed mightily to the Waterfront’s glory days being firmly behind it, and by outward appearance, it would not be missed.