Finding Jake

by Bryan Reardon

  “We are going home,” Rachel says.

  I turn to look at Laney. Her expression is vacant and her body is twisted away from the center of the car, as if avoiding a ghost. I hang up the phone and drive. Rachel turns away again, looking out the window.

  “Sweetie,” I whisper.

  Laney does not answer.

  “When we get close to the house, duck down, okay? There will be cameras there, people trying to take your picture.”

  “No,” she says.

  My head jerks back, startled. “What?”

  “No, Dad,” she repeats in a calm, shockingly mature voice. “I won’t hide. They don’t know Jake. They’re stupid, every one of them. If they knew him, they wouldn’t be saying stuff like they are. He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t. And I won’t hide from any of them.”

  I look at Rachel, my head feeling heavy. She looks back at me, maybe for the first time since leaving the police station. She knows what we will see. We have seen news reports about other shootings. An understanding passes between us. This is a moment where we must decide. Do we allow Laney to continue to think everything will turn out okay, or do we make her face reality, accept that Jake is gone, that he’s left us in the most horrible way possible? None of us, not anyone who knew Jake well can understand this. Maybe Douglas Martin-Klein brainwashed my son. For the first time, I wonder if maybe it is . . . was drugs. I just don’t know, but I note that my mind is finally accepting it and looking for the whys. Now we must understand if Laney’s should, too.

  Rachel, again reading my mind like only she can, shakes her head. I nod. We go back to ignoring each other. I assume her stomach twists and turns like mine as we near our shattered home. Is it still home? I don’t know how to know. I simply drive.

  It hits me how little time has passed, at least from a normal perspective. I received the initial text about the shooting less than twenty-eight hours before. Nothing is normal now, though.

  As we turn in to the neighborhood, Rachel climbs from her seat into the back. She sits in the middle and I realize that she, too, must fear the ghost in the car, the ghost that follows us everywhere. She wraps around Laney, who lets her mother take care of her while she stares defiantly out the window. Even in my grief, I feel a stab of intense pride in my daughter. She is stronger than I could ever imagine.

  Cars line both sides of the street when we are still five houses down from ours. Through the sentry-straight trunks of two pin oaks, I see a throng of people in our front yard. I swallow, fighting not to turn the car around and flee. The decision is made. We will face it now.

  A man with a camera, the first to see us, sprints down the rise in front of the house. A well-dressed woman in her forties tries to keep up, her heels sinking into the dewy turf. Others realize what is happening. Their mouths salivate (I am sure) as they sense the arrival of their prey.

  I struggle to make eye contact with anyone outside. They meld into a throbbing, soulless organism. I hate them for what they are putting my family through. Some hold signs reading: HOLD THE PARENTS RESPONSIBLE. Others mouth what look like obscenities. One man, older and dressed like a farmer, someone I am sure I have never seen before, kicks the side of the car.

  “Fuck you,” I hiss, forgetting Laney is in the car. I don’t think she hears me. Her wide eyes do not blink as they stare at an array of humans who despise her lost brother.

  Then I see Mary Moore, mother of Jake’s homecoming date, Kandice. Kandice is dead. I realize this as I take in the loss and sadness, the confusion and need on Mary’s face. Any anger I feel vanishes. What is left cannot be described. It is guilt piled on to emptiness and set afire.

  “Lord God,” I whisper.

  I am not present as I inch the car up the driveway. I must have opened the garage because it beckons like the gates of Hades. A single uniformed officer keeps the perimeter as I park and shut the door behind us. Light fades and we are in the dark. None of us moves. The only thing I manage to do is push the ignition key so the engine cuts off before we asphyxiate.

  Rachel helps Laney out of the backseat. They pause, letting me go ahead. My hand hesitates on the knob. I finally turn it and open the door into the den. This is not our house. Everything looks different. The couch tilts slightly askew. A lamp leans against the wall. I walk slowly into the kitchen. Drawers remain opened. The light is on. Nothing is as it should be, as I left it the morning before.

  Rachel pushes past me. Somehow, maybe by the pace of her stride, I know where she is heading. She goes to Jake’s room. I freeze, straining my ears. There is only silence until the door slams shut. Another door slam follows, our bedroom. I turn but Laney has disappeared. I walk, as quietly as a cat, up the stairs. The floor creaks as I near our room. I freeze again, listening. I hear crying, two sets. I can differentiate Laney’s sobs. I picture her as a baby, crying in my arms. Then I can hear Jake as a baby again, too. His wails deeper yet more lusty than his sister’s.

  My phone rings. I answer, thinking it is Jonathan. It is not.

  “Youfuckingmurderer.”

  The words slur together, the voice heavy from alcohol.

  “Who is this?” I shout.

  “You know who the fuck this is. Your son killed my boy. That worthless piece of shit of yours killed my Alex.”

  It is Alex Raines’s father. I close my eyes and it hits me that he is also the man I saw in the golf shirt the day before. I want to hang up but something keeps me on the line.

  “That coward of yours did it on purpose.”

  “What are you saying?” I hiss back at him.

  “Your son. He can’t fight his own battles. My son showed him.” Mr. Raines (I cannot remember his first name) coughs and laughs at the same time. “I’m going to come over there and kill you,” he slurs. “I mean it.”

  “What was going on between Alex and Doug?”

  “Don’t act stupid . . . murderer.”

  The line goes dead.

  “Why’d Alex call you a loser?” I had asked Jake that day, two months before, when the guidance counselor called.

  He sat outside on the back patio reading a book for school. He looked up over the spine, his shaggy dark hair shadowing his eyes. I was unable to read his expression.

  “Amnesty moment . . .”

  I shake my head. “You’re too late. Phil Hartman already called.”

  Jake knew that amnesty moments were about telling me things before I found out on my own. I noted just a slight twitch to his eye, like he’d stepped on unsure footing.

  “Uuuuurrrrrrr.” Jake shot his arms out, book still in hand, pantomiming Frankenstein. I laughed despite myself.

  “Funny. He told me there was a little more to the story than you admitted.”

  Jake brushed his hair back and looked at me. “You’ll make a big deal out of it.”

  “No I won’t.”

  Jake laughed. “Yeah, and I’ll get a buzz cut.”

  “Is that a bet?”

  My son thought about taking me up on it. Instead, he leaned back and looked at the sky.

  “Why’d he call you that? I never knew you had a problem with Alex.”

  “I don’t,” he mumbled. “At least I didn’t.”

  “So, why?”

  “He didn’t call me a loser,” Jake said.

  “That’s what Phil said.”

  Jake barked out a laugh. “Ha. You’re quoting guidance counselors now? But really. He didn’t say it to me. He said it to someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “A friend I was talking to. Alex was being a jerk. I don’t even know why he came over and started to mess with us. He bumped into me, but I just ignored that. Then he . . . Well, I shouldn’t have pushed him.”

  “Who was with you?” I asked again.

  “Don’t freak,” he said.

  I paused, waiting. He looked back up at the sky when he answered.

  “Doug.”

  CHAPTER 19

  JAKE: AGE TWELVE

  Jake, now in mid
dle school, sat in the living room reading. The doorbell rang and he did not look up. I put down the dish towel I was using in the kitchen and walked by him.

  “Did you hear the bell?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  That was it. I shook my head and answered the door. The delivery guy handed me our order and I paid in cash.

  “Thanks,” I said, tipping the kid who was probably only five years older than Jake. He nodded and walked toward his car. I shut the door.

  “Is that dinner?” Rachel called from upstairs.

  “Yeah.”

  I went into the kitchen to get everything ready. I got everyone plates for the pizza and left Rachel’s salad in the plastic takeout container. I put the order of wings at the center of the table and grabbed a bunch of napkins. Maybe five minutes later, Rachel and Laney came down from upstairs. Laney had a Nintendo DS in her hand.

  “No games during dinner,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes just a little. “I know, Daddy.”

  With dinner on the table, Jake still hadn’t come. I called him again and got no answer. When I poked my head into the living room, he walked past me.

  “You could have answered,” I said.

  “Sorry.”

  We sat down and started eating. Rachel asked the kids about their day.

  “Good,” Laney said, a wing in her hand and sauce on her cheek.

  Jake kept eating. I looked at Rachel and she shrugged.

  “Three things,” she said.

  “Three things” was a policy created by Rachel. The concept dripped with simplicity. The kids had to tell us three things about their day. In practice, it resembled more and more a trip to the dentist as the kids got older.

  Laney dove into the request. She mentioned what she played at recess, who got in trouble in class, and something about the bus I did not fully understand.

  “Well, they sit by themselves, so they end up taking third-grade seats. It’s just not fair.”

  “Did you talk to the bus driver?” Rachel asked.

  Laney shook her head. “No way. I’m no rat.”

  I laughed. “Your turn, Jake.”

  “I dunno.”

  “Come on,” Rachel said.

  Jake took a bite of pizza and spoke while chewing. “I had a test in math.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “Good.”

  I waited for more, but that was it on the subject.

  “Two more,” Rachel said.

  “I didn’t have a test in social studies,” he said, smirking.

  I laughed. “Good one.”

  The conversation continued along in that vein. Laney carried the load a little more than Jake, but the years showed on our children. Little flashes of adult mixed with preteen moods, giving off the air of the true person each would become when out from under our tutelage. It was at once infuriating and amazing.

  When dinner finished, we had to remind them to take their dishes to the sink. Jake retired to his book and Laney to her DS. Rachel helped me clean.

  “They’re growing up fast,” I said.

  Rachel nodded. “Yeah.”

  Finishing, I hung the dish towel and turned to her. She checked her phone.

  “I’m going to head downstairs to work out.”

  “Okay.”

  Watching her go, I picked up a book and joined Jake in the living room.

  Maybe a week later, one evening after helping the kids finish their homework, I heard the garage door open as I slid the last plate into the dishwasher. Like a spouse of a deployed soldier returning home, I felt the urge to rush and meet Rachel at the door, scoop her up into a giant hug and tell her that she is my best friend in the world. Instead, I calmly folded a kitchen towel and hung it from the handle of the stove.

  Rachel entered the house. I listened as her footsteps neared. They sounded the slightest bit tentative, yet I knew they were not. She did nothing without conviction, a trait I’d fallen in love with long before.

  “Hi.” She said it first.

  I turned and looked at her; forcing my voice to sound chipper. “Hi.”

  “Guess what?”

  Her tone sounded playful. I cracked a real smile. “What?”

  “We are going on a date tonight.”

  My eyebrow arched. “Jake has a basketball game. And what about Laney?”

  “Tairyn offered to have her overnight, so I called Jen up and asked if she could take Jake. She said Max would love to have a sleepover. Looks like we are free.”

  “Nice!”

  We both paused. I imagined Rachel felt similarly to how I did. The divide between us caused the concept of date night to be layered with a nagging fear, like we would mess even that up.

  “I got us a room at the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Philly?”

  She nodded. “Thought we’d get some sushi, maybe walk South Street.”

  I laughed. “Like the good old days.”

  Our date night soared beyond my expectations. At one point, while we drank a deliciously adventurous carafe of warm sake before dinner, I realized something. Away from all the chaos and worry surrounding child rearing, no doubt exaggerated by our gender pioneering, we quickly recalled what brought us together and led us to the miracle of childbirth in the first place. We talked for hours, just the two of us, as if no one in the bustling Old City of Philadelphia mattered. We walked Market and down Second, passing hip youngsters, a crowd that the rest of the nation would never imagine stalking the chronically misunderstood streets of the City of Brotherly Love. The place crackled with energy and we drank it up and walked on by, greedily hoarding, not sharing with others, only each other.

  Rachel and I sneaked a kiss as we walked a long, quiet Third down to South. Once there, the hipsters melded with the chaotic. Unlike Old City, South Street probably earned the city’s reputation. Police officers dotted the corners as partiers, thugs, and high-schoolers jostled along the sidewalk, some ducking into exotic shops with feather-lined hats and multicolored condoms while others scanned the throng, predatory eyes searching out weakness. What they did with it, I do not know. Having grown up visiting South Street, I was adept at avoiding those looks, and trouble in general, for that matter.

  Hand in hand, we visited a classy Irish restaurant and pub for a couple of pints, and even hit up the Troc for some dancing. We didn’t last long in that mash fest. Walking the streets for another half hour, we simply basked in our freedom. Amazingly, we did not talk about the kids for most of the night. After hailing a cab, I turned to Rachel and smiled.

  “We needed this.”

  She wrapped her arm around mine and snuggled into my shoulder. “Yes, we did.”

  Back at our room, we never bothered to turn on the lights. When our bare skin touched, I whispered in her ear, “Too bad this place doesn’t have a tiny kitchen.”

  I called Jen as we headed home Saturday morning.

  “Hi, Jen.”

  “Hi, Simon. How was your date night?”

  I could not tell if she was being playful there or not. Not that she would be.

  “It was great. We had a lot of fun.”

  I glanced at Rachel. She paid me no mind as she wove through traffic on I-95.

  “Well, I just dropped Max and Jake off at the Caseys’ house for their Saturday football game.”

  “Great,” I said. “We’ll just pick him up from there. Was he good for you last night?”

  Jen laughed. “Jake? Ha, has he ever been bad?”

  “He has his moments,” I said.

  “Right. They all do, I guess. But it is hard to imagine Jake’s. He actually offered to wash the dishes last night. My jaw hit the ground.”

  “Wish he’d do that at our house. Are they finishing up at the normal time?” I asked.

  “I assume so. Those boys are like clockwork.”

  I laughed. “Thanks again for having him.”

  “No problem.”

  “We owe you one. Talk soon.”

&n
bsp; “Bye-bye.”

  It took us about twenty-five minutes to reach the Caseys’ neighborhood. The entrance lane crossed over a small red bridge spanning a meandering creek. Two men in thigh boots stood in the shallow water fishing for trout. Beyond the far bank, the left side of the road opened up into a wide field with a backstop in the far corner. The boys, six in all, played football, orange plastic cones marking the sidelines. Rachel eased the car to a stop, two wheels on the grass. She cut the engine and we watched for a time.

  “Why didn’t we buy here?” I asked.

  Rachel laughed. “Too much nature for you.”

  As corny as it sounds, I felt warm inside watching the boys play ball. I could hear their voices, still high at times, right through the closed windows. They dove and bounced off each other, playing harder than any one of them ever would for an organized team, as if this game meant so much more.

  As we watched, Jake snagged a pass over the head of another kid. Cutting back the other way, he eluded one tackle, only to be plastered by Max. The two hit the ground hard. When Jake pulled himself up first and put out a hand to help Max, I felt so good, almost teary, although I probably should not admit that.

  At the same time, I tempered my happiness, knowing that, as a dad, I rode life like a giant roller coaster. I let the highs get too high and I let the lows get too low. Seeing Jake having so much fun was great. The next day, however, could bring about something totally different. My plotting mind imagined weeks at home, sadness and alone, bullying and depression.

  Rachel, somehow sensing my thoughts, took my hand in hers.

  “I heard what Jen said. You did a great job, you know . . . with the kids.”

  I looked at her. Being married to someone for so many years, it was not hard to recognize true sincerity. My wife’s words traveled straight from her heart. I knew it immediately. I felt it, too. In that moment, I felt like the best dad on the planet. But a modest dad at the same time.

  “Laney would have been happier if you had been home with her.”

  Once I said that, I worried. Depending on my inflection, it could trigger Rachel’s working-mom guilt. It did not, though, not this time. Our date night must have provided some fresh myelin for the frayed nerves of daily life.