Finding Jake

by Bryan Reardon

  The team (sans Carter) stormed the field as Jake ambled back to the dugout. They jumped on him and around him, patting his back and knocking on his helmet. He smiled and laughed, but did not say anything.

  In that moment, I felt such amazing pride in my son. Looking back, I could say that there were countless better reasons to be proud of him. I barely went a day without stopping and looking at him, seeing how great a kid he’d turned into. The truth was, though, that there’s something about that moment watching your kid do something great, whether it’s a spelling bee, a dance recital, or a baseball game. Leaning on the fence, I watched him handle his moment with a composed but good-natured reaction. I listened to the other kids talk to him in the dugout.

  “Nice one,” Ritchie said.

  “Yeah,” Ben said.

  “Did you see that thing?” Ritchie said. “You killed it.”

  Jake nodded and smiled. He answered a couple of questions. Me, I tried to focus on the game, not wanting to show too much. I knew that if I made a big deal of it, it would embarrass him. So I waited and continued to eavesdrop.

  “That kid on third tried to trip you,” someone said.

  “Nah,” Jake answered. “I don’t think so.”

  I thought Carter said something behind me, but when I looked back, he had just jammed more dirt in his mouth. For only a second I considered retrieving the ball for posterity but decided that would be passé. Instead, I turned to look at the team, expecting Jake to still be in the middle of the throng, but he sat alone on the bench, stowing his gear.

  After the game, Jake and I loaded up the car and headed home. He buckled himself in and I looked at him through the rearview mirror.

  “Nice hit,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  “You tore the cover off it. That was our first home run. I’m really proud of you, bud.”

  “Ben hit one last week.”

  “No, he stopped at third, remember?”

  Jake looked out the window, but I could see his smile.

  “Your team was happy for you.”

  He nodded.

  “How come you sat by yourself?”

  I immediately regretted the question. Jake, however, did not miss a beat.

  “I don’t love crowds.”

  I laughed, amazed at such self-awareness coming out of a seven-year-old.

  “Carter’s a weirdo,” he said after a while.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He eats dirt. Plus, he hit Ben.”

  I still couldn’t understand that. Ben was the alpha dog on the team. In my day, if a kid like Carter even looked funny at a kid like Ben, Carter would have been eating dirt in the old-school sense (not that he would have minded, I guess).

  I sensed a teaching moment. Taking a deep breath, I thought about my words before I said them.

  “I understand what you are saying, Jake, but it is important to be nice to everyone. I won’t make you be friends with Carter. I’ve never made you be friends with anyone. But you should be nice. Look, it’s probably hard for him being on the team. He hasn’t hit the ball yet, and he can’t catch . . .”

  I knew immediately I should not have said that. Sometimes I spoke to Jake as if he was older than his actual age. When I glanced back, though, he didn’t seem to react.

  “All I’m saying is, just be nice to him.”

  “But he shouldn’t have hit Ben,” Jake said.

  “That’s true.” I nodded thoughtfully. “But still. You should be nice.”

  What I wanted to add was that considering Carter appeared to be a total loon, you didn’t want to be on his list when he went bat crazy. I knew enough to leave that part out.

  Maybe a week after the game, I waited at the bus stop, surrounded by a dozen adults chattering in three distinct pods. I lingered on the fringe, watching Laney. She ran across the yard (Tairyn’s), chasing Becca (Tairyn’s daughter) and her little sister Jewel. The girls, all below school age, shrieked and giggled.

  “Hi, Simon.”

  I turned my attention away from the girls and found that Tairyn had slipped in beside me.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  “How’s Rachel? I saw on Facebook that she’s in London.”

  My wife’s job had recently expanded to international business law. This sent her across the pond and back quite often.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “You think she’s in London?” Tairyn laughed.

  From a purely impartial perspective, Tairyn happened to be beautiful. Her long, naturally blond hair looked like it belonged on a model. In fact, most of her looked that way, from her large blue eyes, her pouty mouth, her (as my college buddy would say) banging body. She dressed as if walking the streets of SoHo, in high Italian leather boots and perfectly disheveled layers of clothing that somehow flattered her figure. I wondered what might have led her to the same banal existence I’d blundered into.

  “No, she is. She gets back . . .” I did not have to think about it. I knew the exact moment she would return, because the second she did, I would run screaming from the house, desperately needing some time away from the kids. Tairyn’s arrival simply erased my memory.

  “Friday,” she finished for me. “You’re a mess, Mr. Connolly.”

  I shook my head, attempting sheepishness. “I am.”

  “Anywho, Becca asked if Laney could come over tomorrow. Figure it might give you some time to yourself.”

  I froze, as asinine as that sounds. Rachel had coached me for this moment. Playdates had transformed as Laney aged. Like her mother, my daughter engaged everyone and always looked for the party. She made friends with every kid in the neighborhood, including those Jake had written off as mean or weird.

  I had not adjusted well. I still preferred having the kids at home with me. Laney went to preschool until twelve thirty, so the two of us usually ran errands or stopped by the bookstore in the afternoon. Laney met Jake off the bus like a puppy left home alone all day. Jake tended to pick her up and hug her. The two got along great and spent most afternoons fighting imaginary, medieval armies in the basement, Jake the strong, silent knight and Laney (to my delight) the brilliant, effervescent, ax-wielding dwarf.

  In the past, Tairyn, along with others, asked to have her over after school. I almost always said no. If Rachel happened to be traveling, then I always said no. In simple, easily understood words, Rachel explained that I had to change my ways. She said the next time someone requested our daughter, pause, breathe, and say yes.

  I paused and took a breath, glancing over at Laney. She danced and carried on, totally immersed in the group, a bag of true happy.

  “So different,” I thought I said to myself.

  “What?” Tairyn asked.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  She looked at me, utterly confused. I just found it amazing how different my Laney was from Jake—yin and yang. I didn’t really want to go into all that with Tairyn, though.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes what?” A surprised laugh punctuated her question.

  “She can play tomorrow.”

  Tairyn appeared shocked, as if she expected me to decline. “Okay, then. Do you want to drop her off after you pick her up from school?”

  My head cocked to the right. How did she know when I picked her up, or that she even went to preschool? Rachel said our neighborhood was a village. At times, I worried the townspeople might brandish pitchforks and chase me out.

  “Excellent.”

  The bus rumbled into view. I smiled, fidgeted, and Tairyn eased up to Karen and complimented her Uggs. I stood, alone again, staring at the yellow behemoth as it inched closer. Laney grabbed my leg and did her little excited dance. She pushed ahead of the adults, anxiously waiting as the bus came to a stop. The doors opened and her dance intensified.

  The other kids parted around Laney, barely giving her notice. One girl, Regina’s daughter, patted her on the head. Then her brother appeared. She rushed to him and Jake picked
her up off her feet. I sighed. Everything was right in the world, even if Laney had a playdate.

  Jake sat at the counter, doing his homework. Laney sat beside him, drawing a picture with crayons and a number 2 pencil. I watched them, unloading the dishwasher as I did so. Laney, her brow slightly furrowed, glanced on occasion at her brother, emulating his grip on the pencil.

  Suddenly, he looked up.

  “Hey, Dad,” he blurted out.

  “Yes, son,” I responded with mock gravity.

  “I did what you told me.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  “I was nice to this kid, because you told me.”

  At first, I did not understand. He stared at me while I thought, and I suddenly understood that if I didn’t get this right, I would undermine some lesson I had thought important. That is when it dawned on me—baseball.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Like Carter.”

  He beamed. “Yup.”

  “Well, tell me about it.”

  Laney stopped drawing, listening intently as Jake began his story.

  “Well, you see, this kid at school, Doug, always gets in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” I interjected.

  Rachel told me I needed to learn to listen without interjection, yet I thought asking pertinent questions displayed interest. Plus, Jake never minded.

  “Like, he doesn’t always act nice to the other kids. This one time, he pushed Katie B. into the water fountain.”

  “That’s not good,” I said.

  He shook his head. “She was okay. And she is a little mean sometimes, too. But Doug should not have done that.”

  “But you let the teacher handle it?”

  “I guess. But that’s not what I’m talking about. See, the other kids really don’t like Doug. He’s . . . they call him weird. Well, today we had indoor recess.”

  “Why?”

  “Too muddy from the rain.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, I decided I would play checkers with Doug.”

  “That’s nice of you,” I said. “What did Max do?”

  Max was Jake’s best buddy in the second grade. For a moment, I wondered if I should ask that question, but I wanted to make sure that Max and Jake stayed friends. I liked that kid.

  “He was okay, I think. He played with Kevin and Kent.”

  “Excellent. Like I said, though, I’m not telling you who to be friends with. I’m just saying that you never have to be mean to anyone, even if everyone else is.”

  “That’s what I did,” he insisted.

  “I know. And I’m proud of you, buddy.”

  Laney leaned her head on his shoulder. “Me, too,” she added in her adorable little voice.

  Jake beamed, as did I. It was one of those rare moments that I assume most stay-at-home dads have. I basked in the fleeting glory, feeling like I might actually be okay at this.

  CHAPTER 8

  DAY ONE

  The police cruiser banks a slow turn onto our street. I immediately see why. The calm, residential oasis that is our neighborhood has erupted. Layers of haunting activity radiate out from our home. Men in dark uniforms form the center as they scurry in and out of the front door like worker ants. Yellow caution tape cordons off a ragged, trapezoidal area. I cannot tell if it is a safety issue, or if it designates a crime scene.

  Beyond the tape, dozens of vehicles, mostly white-and-black cruisers, form a jagged barrier. Six white news vans troll, some parked, some inching forward, looking for a crack in the defense. Women in awkwardly colorful outfits clash with the grass and trees lining our neighbors’ houses. They speak into overly large microphones as giant cameras glow green. A man in a red golf shirt spots the car in which I sit. He looks around, his expression strangely blank, and locks in on us. I watch in a detached void. Everything takes on a surreal calm, an empty veneer over a scene that my psyche cannot survive intact.

  The man in the golf shirt appears within a foot of the moving car. The brightness of the fabric grasps me like a monster’s claws, pulling my soul away. I do not understand this, but I feel the tugging deep inside. Looking up at his face, I recognize him as a parent I’ve seen around school. Then the man sees me. His face transforms into a caricature of grotesque hatred.

  “You killed my son!” A hand slaps the side of the car. “I’ll—”

  The rest is lost as he passes out of sight. I crane my neck and see another officer from outside subduing him. I realize I have the same shirt in my closet and my vision wavers. I slump over in the seat, bringing my head down between my knees.

  “Are you okay, sir?” the officer asks from the front seat.

  “Yeah,” I mutter, not looking up.

  The officer pauses. My vision clears but I do not lift my head. On the drive over, I have called Jake’s number at least ten more times. Each time, the voice mail picks up after barely one ring. The rational side of my brain tells me that if Jake had his phone (God knew he forgot it often enough) he’d have called me or his mom by now. At the same time, he picked up earlier, or at least someone did. The rest of my brain knows that there is nothing at all rational about this situation.

  The car door opens. A hand rests on my shoulder.

  “Mr. Connolly,” a man’s voice says. “I’m Detective Rose. Your wife is waiting for you.”

  I don’t recall getting out of the police car, nor do I remember walking over to where Rachel sits in the wrought-iron café chair on the patio behind our garage. Instead, I rise from the fog shrouding my being and find myself sitting beside her, my elbows on the mosaic surface of the small round table between the two chairs. Neither of us speaks for some time. This nook becomes an eerie eye of the storm.

  “He’s dead,” Rachel whispers.

  This makes me angry. My skin burns and beads of sweat burst on my forehead.

  “You don’t know that,” I hiss back at her. “He answered his phone. I think he did.”

  “Did you talk to him? Did you hear him?”

  She shakes her head. It is a motion that, in the past, frustrated me. It belies the true gravity of a situation by seeming overly accusatory. It is the type of nit-picking that only a married couple who survived child rearing can have and it fills me with guilt.

  “I’m calling him.”

  She dials his number. I watch. With every ounce of my soul, I pray he will answer, that Rachel will be able to get my son on the phone. I watch for any sign on her face that would tell me he answered. When I see the tears, I know we’ve failed.

  “I know,” she says, dropping her phone, not looking at me.

  I am unsure of what she means until I realize she is answering my original response. She is saying that she knows our son is dead. My teeth grind. I want to slap her. This is the first (and only) time I have felt this way. In fact, I have been known to be a judgmental prick when it comes to nongentlemanly behaviors. This reaction emboldens the guilt and my anger dissipates as quickly as it flared. I bend over and carefully pick Rachel’s phone up off the asphalt.

  “Why are they here?” I ask.

  I know, at least in a cerebral manner, why they are here. I think the question comes from a deeper place. It is the first time that the thought—What did I do—enters my mind.

  Rachel does not understand. The question clearly annoys her.

  “I told you on the phone. They think he shot those kids.”

  “He didn’t,” I say.

  It dawns on me that I have just done exactly what Rachel did to start the conversation. I state as fact something that is nothing more than a gut belief. Doubt is already creeping into the seams, but when I say that, I mean it. When I say it, I am 100 percent sure that Jake did not shoot anyone, but isn’t that what every parent would think?

  “That kid did it,” she says.

  I know she means Doug.

  “I think—”

  She cuts me off. “No, I mean I know he did it. I heard police talking. Someone fucking told them that Jake is a friend o
f that—”

  “They aren’t friends,” I snap.

  Rachel looks at me. Only she knows what she intends with that look, but I feel accused. She must blame me for Jake being acquainted with Doug. She traces it all the way back to that baseball game, in fact, and what she considers my misguided parental decisions. At least, that is what I feel in the moment. In reality, I doubt I ever told her the baseball story.

  “Look, I just told him to be nice to everyone.”

  Rachel blinks, slowly. “What? What are you talking about?” She shakes her head. That’s when I notice the tears. Rachel is not a crier. Usually, her tears come only when she is frustrated. Seeing them now awakens me from the circuitous path of my thoughts as they rattle through my skull.

  Whether my wife and I have communication issues, or bigger issues, for that matter, is irrelevant. Thoughts vanish and instinct takes over. I go to my wife, hold her, and we cry, together, for a long time.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Connolly.”

  An officer approaches us, his hands outstretched. He looks abashed. We both stare at him without saying anything. My throat is raw and the words are buried under the shock again.

  “I can take you inside now. So you can get a few things.”

  “Get a few things?” Rachel asks. “What?”

  Although not crying now, I can hear it just below the surface of her words. The officer can as well.

  “Have you heard anything more about Jake? Has anyone seen him?” I demand.

  The officer swallows and looks away. “Detective Rose will come over when he gets a chance. He can talk about all that with you. I’m just supposed to take you inside so you can get some things.”

  It dawns on me what he means.

  “You won’t be leaving soon, will you?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not at liberty to say. But you might want to call family, or reserve a room somewhere.”

  Rachel bounds to her feet. She looks ready to strangle the kid (because the officer can’t be more than twenty-two years old). I grab her wrist and steady her. She staggers. Under any other circumstance, such a display of vulnerability would make her uncomfortable. Years of working in the male-dominated law profession has taught her to shun such frailties. Watching her now, I see the Rachel I met decades ago, before all that, the young woman so full of smiles and wide-eyed openness. I help steady her but feel weak myself. At the same time, I notice that the officer does not flinch. He has seen this tale before.