And right.
I was still going to write my rebuttal, even though in my heart, I knew Jill’s article was accurate. I just wanted to deflect some of the blame off of me.
I sat down at my desk and pulled out a pencil and my notebook. Lauren had noticed me walking by and poked her head in. “Do you need me for anything?”
“No, thanks.”
“You want me to take dictation?”
“No, I’ll just write this one by myself.” I wondered if she had read the article and wanted to make sure that I still felt like I needed her. Not that her actions were any different than they had been in the weeks before. She had been a faithful, helpful employee.
She backed out of my office, and I got down to writing. Halfway through my first sentence, I suddenly became distracted. There was a feeling in the air that was so strong it forced me to stand up. My stomach dropped like the time I woke up and thought I heard someone breaking into the house. There was an intruder nearby. Obviously, he wasn’t inside right then. It was a small clubhouse and there was nowhere for anyone to hide. But there was a presence there, and I could almost feel it choking me. It was a sense … or a smell … or …
I backed up against the wall, suddenly needing air desperately. I had to prop myself up with the desk as I anxiously moved for the door. I lunged out. Lauren was sitting at a desk outside my door. I was gasping.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I … I’m just going for a walk.” But walking wouldn’t do the trick. After a few steps, I found myself running. I headed straight for home, the feeling of dread melting away with every stride. I ran out of breath, not from running, but from this strange horror that had overtaken me. I slowed down and caught my breath. The feeling was gone. I wasn’t being strangled any more, and I felt like I could breathe again.
Was I going crazy?
I went home. It was much earlier than usual for me to go home for the day, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near my clubhouse. I figured I would go up to my room and read for a while. I’d get lost in another world for an hour or two, and I’d forget the one I had just run from.
“Mom?” I called out when I opened the back door and went into the kitchen. She didn’t answer, and I remembered that she’d had an afternoon meeting at work. I opened the refrigerator and pulled out some orange juice. As I reached for a glass, I felt a draft. I was suddenly very aware of sounds outside—birds, cars driving by on the street. I peered into the living room and saw that a window was open. Strange, I thought, since the air conditioning was on. The thin drapes were billowing in the wind. I closed the window.
As soon as the wood of the window touched the wood of the sill, I felt it again—the same presence I’d felt in my clubhouse. The cup dropped from my hand as my entire body went numb.
It finally hit me which sense was being heightened—the sense of smell. There was a familiar scent in the air: the smell of dread and fear and a time I wanted to forget. I managed to move my legs enough to maneuver past the dining room table and toward the stairs. I was walking in slow motion, dreading each step but desperately wanting to know who or what was there in my house, alone with me.
I heard and saw nothing. But the smell was getting stronger. It sickened me but also drew me. I walked on, my eyes darting but my head not moving, for fear that I would make a noise and awaken something I wanted to remain asleep. As I started up the stairs, something caught my eye. On an end table by the couch was a set of keys. Not my mom’s keys, not my keys … but a set of keys with a picture-frame keychain on it. Taking a closer look, I saw that in the picture frame was a photo of me—when I was seven.
I whipped around and headed for the door. Frantically, I scrambled for the doorknob, but my sweaty hands slipped off it. Trying to unlock the door was suddenly like trying to disarm a bomb before it went off.
“Jim.”
I screamed and threw myself against the wall in one motion. It was my dad. I tried to scream again but nothing came out. He was just standing there, 15 feet away, smiling but obviously nervous. I pressed myself against the wall harder, trying to put as much distance between him and me as possible.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think you’d be home yet. I thought you’d stay in Kidsboro longer.”
He looked exactly the same except for a few things. He had dyed his hair black, probably because he was a fugitive from the law, and, for some reason, he seemed much shorter than he had before. Maybe because the last time I had seen him I was much shorter.
He appeared sober, and that was encouraging. He also didn’t move toward me, which made me feel better. But he had always been very good at getting people to trust him.
Tears welled up in his eyes. “You’re so big. You look just like I did at your age.”
My lips were trembling, but I managed a question. “Why are you here?”
“Well, I know you’re not gonna believe this, but … I missed you. I wanted to see my family again. I promise I won’t hurt you. I know you’ve heard that before, Jim, but I’ve changed. Really. You guys leaving just killed me. I didn’t even want to go on. There was a time when all I did was think about my life, and how I’d messed it up so bad. So I turned to God, Jim. Just like you. About a year ago I became a Christian. Jesus helped me get back on my feet. I’ve stopped drinking, I’ve stopped … well, a lot of stuff. I have a new life now. I want the chance to prove to you that I’ve changed, because I want my family back.”
I was still pressed up against the wall. “If you’re a Christian,” I said, “why did you break into our house?”
“I know I shouldn’t have done that. But I wanted to know you again, and I was still scared that you wouldn’t want to know me. That’s why I went to Kidsboro and asked all those questions. I wanted to meet my boy again, even if It was through his friends. You’ve got some great friends, Jim. They love you. They think you’re the best, even the ones who disagree with you. I’m so proud to be your father. Do you think it would ever be possible for you to forgive me for all I’ve done to you?”
I didn’t move a muscle. He had convinced me many times before that he was a “new man,” and I was always devastated when I soon realized that he wasn’t. “I don’t believe you,” I said.
My dad closed his eyes and dropped his head. “I don’t blame you.”
When he closed his eyes, I subconsciously planned my escape. My hand drifted up toward the doorknob.
“I know we can never be a family again,” he said, “but I’d like to be able to visit, you know? I don’t know if I can handle being out of your life forever.”
Our next door neighbor pulled into his drive way. My dad was distracted for a moment, maybe thinking it could be my mom. I saw an opening and took it. I bounded up the stairs and ran into Mom’s room—the only inside door in the house with a lock.
“Jim!”
My heart was beating so loudly that I couldn’t tell if there were footsteps behind me or not.
I burst through my mom’s bed room door and spun around to reach the lock. I slammed the door, knocking two pictures off the walls. I turned the lock and ran for the phone by her bed.
Mr. Henson was on speed-dial, so I punched two numbers and waited for his phone to ring.
It wasn’t a dead-bolt lock, and It wasn’t a steel door. I knew he could get in if he really wanted to. I watched the knob carefully, waiting for it to turn.
One ring.
It was happening just like it had before. When my dad was on a tirade, I would sit up in my room, huddled up on my bed. I would sit and wait for it to be over, praying to God that the door wouldn’t open, and that he wouldn’t turn his anger on me.
Two rings.
It felt like I had been on this phone for hours. Please be there! I heard a noise and locked my eyes on the knob. Still, it didn’t turn. Maybe he was grabbing a bat or something to knock the door in. He might have been scouting the house out for days, he probably knew where my room was, and my clo
set, and …
I jerked my head around to the window. He could’ve gone out my window and walked across on the porch roof! He could be right outside, ready to bash in the window with my aluminum bat.
“Hello?” It was Mr. Henson on the line.
“It’s my dad. He’s here in my house!”
“I’ll be right there.” I heard him yell to somebody, “Get over to the Cummings house! Now!” He came back on the line about 10 times calmer. “Where are you?”
“In my mom’s bedroom.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything since I ran away from him.”
“So he knows you’re there?”
“Yeah.”
“Is the door locked?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Stay right where you are until we get there. Somebody should pull up in two minutes. Stay on the line.”
I didn’t know if I had two minutes. My eyes darted back and forth from the doorknob to the window, but I saw no signs of my dad. Outside the door, it was silent, as if I were alone. I didn’t trust the silence.
Finally finding my head, I examined the room for an escape route in case he did come through the door. I could jump out the window, climb down the porch roof, and jump down into my front yard. Nothing else came to me, though I continued to scan. Then I saw the master bathroom. If I went in there and locked the door, it could buy me some time. If I only had to kill two minutes …
I glanced at my watch. I only cared about the second hand.
I thought I saw the doorknob move, but after 10 eternal seconds, decided it was my imagination.
My entire body was shaking, my shirt dripping with sweat. I checked my watch again. It had barely moved. I made a dash for the bathroom, ignoring Mr. Henson’s orders to stay on the line.
I locked the door behind me and climbed into the bathtub. I was desperate for every second—perhaps the extra second it would take him to find me behind the shower curtain would be all I needed. I crouched down on the ceramic and bit my fingers.
Suddenly, off in the distance I could hear a siren. It was coming closer and closer … and then it stopped in front of my house.
I could hear at least two officers burst through the front door. One shouted something to the other, and I heard footsteps running up the stairs. An officer slammed his body on the bedroom door. “Is anyone in there?”
I managed a weak, “Yes.” I jumped out of the tub and ran into the bedroom. I unlocked the door and let the officer in.
“Is he still here?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. Did you see where he went?”
“No. I was running away from him.”
“Was he armed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How long were you up here?”
It seemed like four days. But I took a wild stab at the answer. “Maybe five or 10 minutes.”
“How did he act? Was he angry?”
“No. He wanted me to forgive him.”
“Okay, come on.” He took me to the squad car. I sat in the back behind a locked door while three officers searched the house and all around it.
After they had searched everywhere, the officer who had come upstairs got into the front seat. “I’m gonna take you to your mother.”
“Is anyone going to be looking for him?”
“We’ll have a few squad cars and some officers on foot searching. We’ll find him.”
7
SHOCKING NEWS
MY MOM AND I went to Mr. Whittaker’s house. We were planning on staying with one of Mom’s friends overnight, but we wanted to spend the evening with Mr. Whittaker. I always felt safe at his house.
He poured me a glass of lemonade. As I lifted the glass to my mouth, I noticed my hand was still shaking. We were silent for a long time, not really knowing what to say to each other.
“Do you think he’s changed, Mom?” I finally asked.
“No,” she said. I guess she saw my head drop, because she seemed to sense my disappointment. “Ryan, your father’s very tricky. He’s good at making people believe in him. But he always ends up disappointing them. I don’t know if he could ever change.”
I stared at my lemonade and asked the question again, only this time of Mr. Whittaker. “Do you think he could change?”
“God’s changed worse people than your father, Ryan. I know it’s possible. I hope your dad has changed, I really do. But I understand how your mom feels. It would be tough to ever trust him again.”
“Impossible, you mean,” Mom interjected.
We sipped lemonade for a few more minutes, silent. “You do think they’ll find him, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, I do,” Mr. Whittaker said. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”
“Because I don’t want to move again,” I said. “I like it here.”
“I hope you don’t have to move either.”
I called Scott and told him I wouldn’t be in Kidsboro the next day, and that I was handing over the reins to him. He Was to be the mayor for the day. He sounded way too excited. He asked me if he would get my salary for the day, and I said yes. He finally got around to asking me why I wasn’t coming. I told him I was taking a personal day off from work.
Mom and I slept in the same room that night at her friend’s house. I was on a sofa, and she got the bed. Actually, not much sleeping occurred at all. I laid awake almost all night, staring at the ceiling. Every now and then, I glanced over at Mom. She was pretty much doing the same thing. There was a tree branch hitting the window outside. I knew It was a tree, but I still had trouble convincing myself of that. In my imagination, it was always my father trying to break in. If he could track us down to Odyssey, he could find us here. In fact, he could probably find us anywhere. I knew we’d have to go into hiding again, but I couldn’t imagine ever feeling safe, no matter where we were.
“Ryan, are you awake?” Mom called softly.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been thinking. I hate it, but if they don’t catch him, we’re going to have to move again. Maybe to Canada or something.”
I didn’t want to hear those words, but I’d known they were coming. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s not your fault.”
After a few moments of silence, I could hear her crying. I got off the sofa and snuggled up to her. She put her arm around my head and stroked my hair, we prayed together, and, finally, I was able to sleep.
It felt like I had just fallen a sleep when there was a knock at our door. Mom’s friend poked her head in the room we were staying in. “Hey.” We both woke up. “There’s a policeman here to see you.”
It wasn’t quite daylight yet, and I looked at the clock—5:54. This had to be important. We ran up the stairs and met the policeman just inside the front door.
“Sorry to wake you up, but I thought you should know this as soon as you could,” he said.
“That’s okay. What’s going on?”
“We have your husband in custody. He’s in the Richland jail right now.” My mom gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. She hugged me as tightly as she ever had. I felt a hot tear running down my face. It was as if an anchor had just been unchained from my heart.
After we’d cried on each other for a few moments, Mom talked with the policeman. “How did you catch him?” she asked.
“We didn’t,” he said. “He turned himself in.”
“Really?” I said. “He must’ve known there was no way out.”
The policeman shook his head. “That wasn’t it. He turned himself in in Richland, which is about two hours away from here. He must’ve caught a ride or hopped on a bus or something. We probably wouldn’t have caught him all the way out there. He could have gotten off scot-free.”
My mom looked at the officer as if his nose had just melted off his face. I must have looked the same way because he said, “You folks need to sit down?” We were too numb to move.
“What did he confess to?” Mom asked.
“Enough to keep him in prison for quite a while.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“He’s at the Richland sheriff’s office if you want to go see for yourselves. A lot of folks want that.”
“Yes,” Mom said. “I think I need to see him behind bars for myself.”
We took our time getting ready, even though I think Mom was anxious to get on the road for the two-hour trip. We ate breakfast, got dressed, and walked out the door into the bright sunlight. I noticed that Mom didn’t put on any makeup, and though she may not have thought about it herself, I considered this important. My dad always wanted her to wear lots of makeup. Now she was going to see him for the first time in five years, and she didn’t care anything about what she looked like to him. He was not going to tell her what to do any more. Or maybe her mind was in other places and she forgot. I liked the first reason better.
We didn’t talk much on the road. My head was filled with all sorts of emotions—mainly just relief. I couldn’t believe It was finally over. But I was also a bit confused by the whole thing. As the road flew by, I came up with a theory.
“Mom,” I said, the first word out of either of our mouths in 20 minutes.
“Yes?”
“Dad said something to me in the living room, and I was just thinking about it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he wanted to prove to me that he had changed. Do you think maybe this was his way of doing that?”
“Turning himself in?”
“Yeah.”
“Could be.”
“I mean, why would he go all the way to Richland to turn himself in? I think he was trying to show us that he did it because he wanted to, not because he had to.”
“You may be right.”
She turned left and merged onto the interstate. There was little traffic. “Do you think he’s changed?” I asked.
She chuckled under her breath, but then seemed to think it over. She glanced at me with sympathy. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To know he had changed?”
The Fight for Kidsboro Page 31
