Offspring

by Jack Ketchum

  “Sure you can,” said David.

  The binoculars were his father’s too, old and not particularly high-powered, but in working order.

  Luke looped the thong around his neck, dropped the claw hammer noisily into the toolbox and looked through the lenses.

  “Know how to focus?” said David.

  Luke shook his head. David walked over and showed him.

  “See, you’ve got two images here. Now you break the lenses either toward your nose or away from your nose until you’ve got just the one image,” he said. “Only one. Then you turn this knob until whatever you want to see is good and clear.”

  Luke tried it, pointed them at Campbell.

  “Hey!” he said, smiling.

  “You got it, huh?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Good.”

  He turned the lenses out toward the field and focused again.

  “Radical!”

  Our Turtle friends again, thought David. He wondered who Luke’s favorite was, Michelangelo or Donatello. Personally he leaned toward Leonardo, though he guessed that basically Turtle Power was Turtle Power. As opposed, for instance, to the Power of Greyskull.

  “You like ’em?”

  “Yeah!”

  “I’ll loan them to you for the duration.”

  “What’s a duration?”

  “As long as you’re here.”

  “And then I have to give them back again?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Luke looked hopeful. David guessed he was at that age when kids got very much into possessions.

  “I’m gonna go look around, okay?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He headed through the oak trees out into the field, stopped and turned and focused on the windows of the house. Campbell lit a cigarette and they watched him for a while.

  “Seems like a nice boy,” said Campbell.

  “He is,” said David.

  “I’m not the sort of man who minds kids,” said Campbell. “If he wants to hang around some when we start working it’s okay by me. Sometimes it helps a boy to feel he’s useful. ‘Specially a boy with trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  He hadn’t told Campbell a thing about Luke, or for that matter about Claire and Steven. Only that Luke was his godson and that he and Claire would be staying awhile.

  “I’ve raised two boys and a girl myself, and I’ve built a lot of houses for a lot of people. Things come out in people when they’re building houses. Things you sometimes don’t really want to see. Stress, I guess you’d say. There’s a lot of money involved, of course. House is a big investment. There’s a lot of decisions that look small, but aren’t. Not at the time. Hell, they’re crucial. I’m not saying I’ve seen it all by now, but I did see a pretty good fella kick his dog one time just because his windows hadn’t arrived the day we were ready to set ’em. Kids get trouble too. You see it sometimes.”

  It was the most he’d ever heard Campbell say on a subject. Any subject.

  Campbell pulled on the Pall Mall and pointed to the deck above.

  “We’ll do this here in tongue-and-groove quarter-sawn fir,” he said. “Soon as we finish the addition. You’ll see. It’ll look real nice.”

  Luke came to the edge of the clearing and put up the binoculars. The woods sprang into focus. Suddenly deep.

  He wondered if it was okay to go in, if there were any bears in there. He wondered if bears could climb trees or if he just had to look for them along the ground.

  Well, he was going in. He was an explorer, a scout looking for Indians or bear and he was going in.

  He wouldn’t go far.

  The woods were cooler, damper. He liked the feel of the air in there, on his face and bare arms. He liked the green smell. He was glad he wasn’t wearing shorts because in places the brush was thick and he had to plow through. He knew enough to watch for stickers and go around them. Sometimes if the brush wasn’t too thick he’d jump right in and then crash through like you’d do if a bear were chasing you fast as a car. Then he’d come to a bunch of trees and slow down and there would be only the soft brown needles crackling under his Reeboks.

  He was in a place like that now.

  He was standing on a hill in a grove of pine trees and it was shady all around.

  He raised the binoculars. He scouted the ground as far as he could see for Indians creeping through the brush below.

  This was fun.

  This was scary.

  Partly it was scary because the game was scary, because Indians and bears were naturally scary, and partly it was the woods, because the woods was a wild place, a place he’d never been to before—and he was an explorer in a way. That part was real.

  Something moved in the brush to his left; he heard the rustle, but by the time he turned and focused it was gone.

  There were birds above him; he could hear them calling each other. He decided to try to find a nest. He was an explorer and he was starving in the wilderness and he needed the birds’ eggs to keep him from dying.

  Starving, he trudged forward to the very top of the hill.

  Exhausted, he raised the binoculars. He scanned the trees.

  He saw the platform immediately.

  It was lodged between the branches of an oak tree the next hill over. The hill was a little bit higher than this one. He’d be able to see everything all around.

  He forgot about starvation.

  He ran down the hill until the ground turned mossy beneath him, slippery. Then he walked. He avoided a patch of stickers. The uphill climb was rocky and not too steep so his footing was good.

  And there it was.

  The treehouse was old—he didn’t know how old but the wood was gray, weathered like David’s porch. He wondered if it was safe. It was pretty high up. Maybe five times bigger than he was.

  Scary.

  He didn’t want to fall.

  The steps nailed to the tree trunk looked okay, though. The wood was thick and each step had two big nails hammered into it and none of the boards were cracked that he could see.

  He’d start with the steps and see how it went.

  The tree had grown at an incline, leaning slightly, so his climb wasn’t hard. He didn’t look down, just up to see if the next board above him seemed safe. There was one toward the top that was cracked at one end from the nail on over so he tugged on it to see if it would pull free. It didn’t. He kept going.

  Soon he was up.

  There were four posts supporting a railing that went all the way around the platform at what looked like about waist level for him. He grabbed one of the posts and shook it. It wobbled a little, but it was pretty sturdy.

  He looked for breaks in the platform flooring. There were leaves scattered around so he couldn’t see it all, but what he could see didn’t discourage him.

  He hauled himself onto the platform.

  He stood and squinted into the sunlight.

  It was like being at the top of the world.

  From here you could see all the way through the woods to David’s house. He was a little surprised at how far away it was, how far he’d come. He raised the binoculars to see if he could spot David or Mr. Campbell but he couldn’t, there were too many trees.

  He looked down. And that surprised him too.

  He really was way up there.

  For some reason looking out was a whole lot better than looking down so that was what he did. He walked carefully to the other side of the platform, testing each step. The boards held. Through the trees the sky seemed to glint at him. He raised the binoculars again. He was amazed.

  From here you could see the sea.

  And now that he thought about it, you could smell it, too. Something salty and seaweedy coming toward him on the breeze. It reminded him somehow of the breath of a cat. Nice, but a little rotten.

  It reminded him of the day his dad had taken him to Sandwich. They’d spent most of the day in a bar with a friend of his. Business, his dad had said—though it
didn’t sound like business. But then later in the day he’d let him go alone down to the ocean, to the rocks there, and look for crabs in the water. Maybe that was when they talked about business, he didn’t know. He’d seen a couple of crabs he liked watching and when his father came to get him he didn’t want to leave.

  He cried. His dad had walked away from him.

  He wondered how far away the ocean was from here. You couldn’t tell exactly.

  Thinking of his dad made him angry and sad the way it always seemed to do, a funny lonely feeling that made him want to punch or kick something. Like there was nobody around anywhere but him, just him, whether he was up in a treehouse really completely alone or sitting at his desk at school with his teacher and all the other kids around. And having to have that feeling, it wasn’t fair at all. He knew he wasn’t really alone. He knew it was dumb because his mom was always there, he had Ed and Tommy, he had friends, but there was still this stupid alone feeling and he still wanted to kick or hit something.

  He didn’t dare kick anything up here but maybe some leaves. Kicking a bunch of leaves wouldn’t do him any good. But he did it anyway.

  And something rattled across the platform.

  Something white.

  He squatted and sifted through the leaves.

  Bones!

  He didn’t know what kind but they were bones, all right. Small, most of them, about the size of the bones of the model Tyrannosaurus that sat on his desk at home. Just a little dirty from being under the leaves, with some little red ants crawling over them.

  He brushed away the ants. He collected the bones carefully one at a time and put them in his pocket. He got a pocketful.

  He’d ask David what they were. David would know. Or Mr. Campbell.

  Awesome!

  What a neat place! His place. His secret place.

  He grabbed the post and started down the ladder.

  And got two steps down when something shook the tree above him.

  He felt it on the ladder. A trembling in the tree itself. He froze there. Looking up.

  A branch was swaying above the treehouse, maybe ten feet up. He couldn’t see anything through the leaves. But something was there. Or had been.

  Maybe it was gone now.

  A squirrel or something.

  And maybe it wasn’t.

  But the thrill of fear was there. That hadn’t gone, it prickled the skin all over his body. And somehow that made the treehouse even better, that something had scared him there.

  What a place!

  He hurried down the ladder.

  3:25 P.M.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” said Claire. “He’s on the road already.”

  Admittedly it was early. But the vodka tonic helped. And since Melissa was in for a nap now, Amy joined her.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know where. He wouldn’t say. Just that he’d see us tonight. So we could talk. Jesus, the last thing I want to do tonight is to talk to Steven. Maybe two months ago I’d have wanted to. For Luke’s sake if nothing else. But now . . .”

  She heard Campbell’s pickup pull out of the driveway. It made her feel strangely adrift, abandoned. She didn’t even know the man except for ten minutes’ talk in the kitchen. But he was normalcy, he was the regular stuff of David’s and Amy’s everyday life—one more person on their side, and by extension on her side. It’s crazy, she thought. But she hated it that he was leaving.

  “I don’t get it,” Amy said. “He doesn’t want the divorce?”

  “I don’t know. He said he wants to talk about it. He’s mad about something. He had that tone. Controlled. Edgy. Like he gets when he’s holding something back that he doesn’t want to deal with right away but he sure as hell will when the time comes. He’d been drinking.”

  “Good. Maybe he’ll drive himself into a tree.”

  Claire reached for her drink. Her hand was shaking. She willed it steady.

  “I don’t want him to see Luke,” she said. “He missed Christmas. He missed his birthday.”

  “You think Luke will want to see him?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. Probably he won’t think about the last six months. He’ll just be excited to see him again. He’s his father.”

  And what nasty accident of genetics was that? she thought. That Luke should be such a decent kid, with such a father?

  Oh, Luke was trouble. He was angry. He was defiant. Especially to her he was defiant lately. But partly that was his age and partly it was resentment and confusion over Steven being gone and the two of them being all alone together. Partly it was Luke feeling powerless to make things better. And partly it was her own fear. Her own frustration and anger ingested and absorbed by him.

  He was angry all right. Yet there was a firm core of kindness in Luke, of caring and concern. You saw it in the way he’d looked at Melissa before. You saw it in the way he treated other kids. He wasn’t a bully and he didn’t appreciate kids who were. Though god knows he was big enough to qualify if he wanted to. He was even nice to the girls in his class.

  At his age, that was something.

  “You know he still has Steven’s Christmas present wrapped in his room? A bird. A blue ceramic bird they made in school. It’s absolutely terrible. He has to tell you it’s a bird or you’d never know what it was. But he made it for Steven.”

  She was going to cry.

  No you’re not, she thought.

  Amy helped, reached across the table and took her hand. The same gentle squeeze that had stopped the tears dozens of times over the years. Stopped them or started them flowing, as need be.

  The back door opened and she started, afraid for a moment that it was Luke. She wasn’t ready to see Luke yet, to have to talk to him about Steven. I hate this, she thought. It’s been six months. Am I supposed to let him see him now?

  But it was only David. He took one look at them and his smile faded. He stopped in the doorway.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “Steven’s on his way,” said Amy.

  “What?”

  “He just called half an hour ago.”

  David closed the door behind him. He went to the antique Coolerator, took out a beer and opened it. He closed the refrigerator door. He did all of these things carefully, as though door and refrigerator and bottle were all extremely fragile, as though they might break out of sheer molecular tension.

  “What about the restraining order?” he said.

  “He seems to be choosing to ignore it,” said Amy.

  “Oh yeah? The hell he is.”

  He went to the phone and started dialing.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Vic Manetti. The police.”

  “Wait. Wait a minute,” said Claire.

  David looked at her. He’s a very nice man, thought Claire, and he cares. But I’m not at all sure about this. He replaced the phone on the receiver and looked at her.

  “What,” he said.

  “Luke,” she said. “I’m thinking about Luke.”

  He walked to the table. She could feel his anger and indignation held tightly in check.

  “What about Luke, Claire? Luke saw you backed against the kitchen wall one night while Steven worked off his drunk by slapping you around. Isn’t that what the restraining order was about in the first place?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what about Luke?”

  “Steven’s his father. It’s been six months.”

  “So?”

  “Luke misses him. He doesn’t even talk about it anymore but that’s just protective. He misses him anyway. I wish he didn’t but he does. And I just don’t know if I have the right to—”

  “Of course you have the right. You have every right to—”

  “Steven was drunk that night.”

  “He could be drunk right now,” said Amy.

  She felt suddenly exhausted. There was no denying it. The voice on the phone was a drinker’s voice, alternately slurred and too crisply u
nder control. She remembered the night in the kitchen, screaming for Luke to get out of the room, to get back into bed, and Luke running, terrified into total unnatural silence. She remembered feeling Steven’s physical presence loom over her like the threat of bloody death or worse, like a kind of rape, while he slapped her face and punched her in the ribs and stomach and breasts, targeting the breasts as though they had some sick special meaning to him, knowing the meaning because for months he had not wanted to make love to her, he had wanted to drink instead, and she had asked him why that night, pleading for their marriage, not knowing he was drunk at first, and he was telling her why, with each blow to her breasts he was telling her why, that it was her womanness he loathed, he hated, her unspeakable flesh.

  “I’ll call,” she said.

  “Let me,” said David gently. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I know some of these people.”

  He went back to the phone and dialed. Claire looked at Amy, and Amy nodded to her, saying, it’s the right thing. It’s the only thing. And squeezed her hand again.

  “Hello? Gloria? Is Vic there? It’s David Halbard up on River Road.”

  The air seemed suddenly stiller, the house quieter, now that it was happening. Now that he was actually calling the police to keep Steven away from them.

  She remembered her dream last night. He was some sort of vampire or dog or snake. He was lying across her body and had pinned her to her bed. His teeth were in her neck. He was a dog and he started to pull back his head with her flesh in his teeth and shake.

  The dog dream, in variations, went all the way back to her childhood. She would wake having peed the bed.

  It was the first time the dog was Steven.

  “Uh-huh? Okay. Well, we’ve got a kind of situation here as well. What it amounts to is we’ve got houseguests, a woman and her eight-year-old son. The woman’s an old friend and she’s involved in a very messy divorce right now. There’s a restraining order against her husband.

  “Yes, physical violence involved. He’s not supposed to see them under any circumstances. None whatsoever. But now we’ve had a call from him saying he’s on his way up here from Connecticut. He says he’ll arrive tonight sometime. We don’t know when or what the hell to do once he gets here.”

  He looked puzzled.