Finding Jake

by Bryan Reardon

  “She loves you, you know.”

  “I know,” I said. “Please don’t misunderstand this, but it’s always been kind of easier with Jake. I’ve just known how to play with him, and even, sometimes, what to say to him. Does that make sense?”

  Her smile was so warm that it caught me off guard. Years later, I would be able to close my eyes and see her face at that moment anytime I wanted to.

  “It does. You don’t think I feel the same way? Sometimes, when I watch you two playing Wii or catch outside, I wish I was you. With Laney, I get it. You know? Not everything, but our thoughts are similar. At the same time, I feel something so deeply for Jake. It’s like that difference makes it more intense.”

  I’d never heard her say that before. When she did, it triggered something inside my heart. I so totally understood what she said that I actually felt like I had said it myself.

  “I would die for her,” I whispered.

  Rachel squeezed my hand. “I know. That’s why I love you.”

  The entire household floated on a cloud of contentment for weeks after our date night. I remember considering the very real possibility that nothing changed outside of my own perceptions. I saw things as light and airy. A C plus in spelling for Laney—oh, just do better next time. A call from the guidance counselor over an argument on the bus—that’s just boys being boys. I slept great every night, and in doing so realized I had not for years, maybe since the evening Jake came into this world. I watched television without each scene reminding me of some worry I felt. A kid getting bullied on a cop drama—oh, that’s really an exaggerated problem these days. A girl in a sitcom being put on the fringe by her friends—so clichéd.

  Then, one afternoon, everything changed. My old neurosis boomeranged right out of thin air, striking my ill-prepared brain like a cattle prod. It happened while I sat at the kitchen table. Jake walked in from the bus stop just before three PM.

  “Dad, can you take me to Doug’s house?”

  I swallowed, failing to push the acid from my stomach back down. “Huh?”

  “Can you take me over to Doug’s?”

  “Why? I mean, you haven’t hung out with him in a while, have you?”

  Jake shook his head. “Look, I know you don’t like him. But it was you who taught me to be nice to people. The kids at school really have him down. They pick on him a lot. I just want to stop by there and see if he’s okay. I’m not going to do it every day or anything.”

  “What about Max, and your football buddies?”

  Jake’s eyes widened. “What about them?”

  “Do they like Doug?”

  “No.”

  One of my greatest failure moments as a father dribbled out of my mouth. “Do you think they’ll be okay if you go over there?”

  Jake did not smile. “If they aren’t, then I don’t want to be friends with them.”

  The look on his face said it all. Every kid probably has that moment, the realization that their parent is full of shit. Jake had sucked up my grand advice like a sponge all his life. Suddenly, when the going got a little tough, I backtracked, took the easy road, failed to live up to my own lofty standards. For a second, I felt like I could see through his eyes. Jake looked at me, looked through me, and saw a human, a man as flawed as any other. From that moment on, he would make his own life. My hands were off the wheel. Jake was on his own.

  “I’ll get the keys,” I said.

  He turned away and muttered, “Thanks.”

  CHAPTER 20

  DAY TWO

  The phone rings again, startling me. It is Jonathan, so I pick it up.

  “Hello.”

  “Simon, I’m outside. Parked across the street. I need to talk to you and Rachel. Unlock the front door but stay toward the back of the house. I will let myself in.”

  Jonathan hangs up. I push myself to my feet. The sobs behind our door have stopped. I knock lightly.

  “Rachel, we need to talk. Jonathan’s coming in now. But someone else just called.”

  I head to the front door and find it is already unlocked. The police must have left it that way, which surprises me. My head swivels on my neck, frantically taking in every inch of our living room and foyer. Even the yellow-gold paint appears different. Nothing about the place seems real anymore. I stand in someone else’s house, a home for someone else’s life, a life existing in a dreamlike world that cranks forward no matter how I try to plant my feet and stop the excruciating turn of the wheel. My feelings, made into words, make no sense anymore. All I can think about is Doug. And Alex. Did the doll have something to do with all this? Could I have missed something at the cemetery?

  “Look, about Jonathan—”

  “Later.” Rachel walks down the stairs. “Who called?”

  I tell her. Then I ask, “What do you know about Alex Raines?”

  “I don’t. Not much. Jake told me that they got into a fight at school. That’s about it . . . Wait. Facebook. I checked Jake’s page when you left last night. There was something there from Doug about a fight. I figured it was about that Alex kid, but maybe we can find more.”

  Rachel grabs her work iPad from the table by the door. She turns it on as voices rise from outside. I turn and the door opens.

  “Can you comment on the report that his parents didn’t even know the video games he played?” someone yells.

  “They should be thrown in jail!”

  “Murderer.”

  “Bottom-feeding lawyer.”

  “It’s your fault.”

  I blink, sure that my mind fabricated that last one, if not all the others. Jonathan pushes through the entryway. I glimpse the back of a uniformed officer as he pushes the throng of media, and others, people who for reasons of their own have camped outside my house. Some look to judge, some look for answers that can’t relieve their pain.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, but I glance at Rachel. She is scanning pages on her iPad. Fleetingly, the irony of how much it used to bother me when I lost my wife to her electronic devices occurs.

  Jonathan closes the door behind him. “This is what I expected. We need to talk—you, Rachel, and me.”

  Rachel looks up. I can tell she is unhappy about Jonathan but there is more. I want more than anything to ask her what she’s found, but I see Laney standing at the top of the steps. Rachel follows my gaze. When she looks at Laney, our daughter runs down the stairs and sits beside her on the couch.

  I take a step toward them, hands outstretched.

  “Maybe this isn’t—”

  “She’s going to hear this,” Rachel says. “She needs to hear this.”

  I do not agree, but I do not protest, either. I sit down, my body so exhausted that I wonder if I will ever stand again. Laney will hear the truth; everything her brother was will be stripped from her memory, her heart, and cast into the darkest pit of someone’s judgment.

  “I’d advise—”

  My wife cuts Jonathan off. “I don’t need your advice.”

  Jonathan flinches, a funny sight from a man so well polished. Today he wears a perfectly tailored black suit with a classy striped tie and Italian leather shoes. His white hair, circling his head like a halo, falls perfectly in place, more a drawing than real. He smiles and the creases around his eyes look perfectly planned out, some artist’s interpretation of a genteel man.

  He decides to plow forward despite Rachel’s comment. “Okay. I came over to lay some things out. First, the police are actively searching for Jake. They had a pattern radiating from the school, where the janitor claims to have seen him before the shooting. I can tell you they have uncovered absolutely no sign of him, or anyone else. I’ve also found out some details about the Martin-Klein boy. A couple of surveillance cameras captured his movements. He appears first entering the gym. No one is there and he proceeds into the lobby of the school. He then runs to a nearby classroom, opens the door, and fires randomly, it appears. Eventually, he steps away from the room, backs up against a locker, and . . . He dies of a
self-inflicted wound to the head. It was the last piece of ammunition on his person.”

  I look at Laney. She watches Jonathan, her expression dull, as if she’s asleep with her eyes open. I get no read at all from her. She seems to have tuned out. Rachel touches her arm but the two do not look at each other. I do not know what passes between them, but sense it nonetheless.

  Rachel’s voice is cool as she asks, “Is Jake on the video?”

  Jonathan shakes his head. “No. The police claim that the video contains sound of unaccountable gunfire.”

  “Maybe it was an engine backfire,” I say from out of nowhere. It seems a silly thing to say, but my mind nags on something. I think back to standing below the school and hearing something, seeing the police officer react.

  “The police are conducting DNA analysis throughout the school. Your son’s blood was found on the door the shooter used to get into the school and near the classroom where most of the shooting took place. A janitor, an Edwin Manner, reported seeing two kids enter the school through a door behind the auditorium approximately three minutes before the shooting started. Later, he told the police he wasn’t sure he saw anyone. He didn’t even know they were students. I doubt his testimony will be in play here.”

  “Did he identify either child?” Rachel asks. She uses her “lawyer” voice.

  “Not positively, though the police did show him pictures of both Jake and Martin-Klein. There is a woman, too. She lives on the farm adjacent to the school’s property. Her name is Donna Jackson. She IDed Jake, but not the Martin-Klein boy. We looked into her background. She’s been through a couple of mental wards. Real ‘black helicopter’ type.”

  “Black helicopter?” I ask.

  “Paranoid. Thinks the government is tapping her phone, that kind of thing. Also, three kids reported that Jake left school that morning heading to Martin-Klein’s house about one hour before the shooting, prior to classes starting.”

  “Who?” Rachel asks.

  “Three boys. Ben Campbell, Brian Cushing, and Max Turner.”

  My stomach rolls and I feel a chill, as if my skin suddenly turned clammy. “Max?”

  I don’t want to believe it. Jake’s best friend for over a decade. Why would Max turn on him like that?

  “Those are his friends,” Laney whispers.

  Jonathan somehow knows this. His nod is grave as he folds his hands on the tabletop.

  “The media is worse,” he says. “They dug up trash from Facebook and Twitter and are painting an awful picture. I have not seen it, but they are reporting that Jake posted something about assassinating someone in his class.”

  “That’s a game!” Laney blurts out. “The seniors play it every year. They get assigned a name and have to ‘assassinate’ that person. It’s just pretend. They use water pistols. It goes on until someone wins.”

  Jonathan pulls a pad out of his jacket pocket and jots something down. “Thank you, Laney. That was very helpful. They also claim Jake played violent war video games online.”

  “Everyone does,” Laney says. “At least all the boys.”

  “There was a fight with this kid Alex Raines,” I said.

  I tell Jonathan the entire story. He shakes his head. He seems about to ask something more delving but stops himself.

  “They’ll run with that,” he answers.

  “Who’s they?”

  “The media. They’ve already put it out there that Jake was quiet; that he wasn’t friends with some of the kids in the neighborhood. They are painting him into a very antisocial corner. I really think your family would be served by hiring a PR firm we’ve worked with. They specialize in image management.” He pauses, sensing the sudden chill in the room. “I know this is a very trying time, but you have to think down the road . . . to future civil suits.”

  “Get out,” I say.

  Jonathan appears shocked. His mouth opens but no words escape. Rachel looks at me. I sense something different, like a wall crumbling down between us. She does not smile, though.

  “I’m sorry, Simon. I . . . Your father sent me to help. He’s worried about how this will progress. He’s worried about you all.”

  “Leave,” I say.

  I stand and Jonathan is forced to follow suit. He backs up a step toward the door but I pass him, swinging it open. The crowd outside reacts with a cacophony of voices that meld into a single, accusatory drone. I ignore it and hold the door for Jonathan.

  “I’m sorry, Simon.”

  His expression says something altogether different. It says, You are a fool. I ignore that, too, and close the door behind him. When I turn, Rachel is standing next to me. She hugs me and cries against my chest. I do not see her move but Laney joins us. We hold each other, as we used to group-hug when the kids were young. It is all too much. I do not hide my tears from my daughter. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. The truth, though, is I have no desire to. This is the reality of our life. She’s a part of it now. Her childhood, in essence, fled once this began, as it did for all the children in her school that day.

  Once Jonathan leaves, Laney slips away and Rachel and I sit down in our living room, eyes wide open.

  “I don’t think he meant to be so awful,” I say, half thinking through my own thought.

  Rachel’s eyes darken. “What?”

  “Jonathan. He just wants to help.”

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  By the way she says you, I sense her feeling of betrayal. I do not fully understand it, not yet, but I know it’s directed at me. I try to backtrack.

  “I know. He was out of line. He should never have taken it that far.”

  She leans forward. “Taken what?”

  It is almost as if those two words slip through the salivating mouth of some predatory animal. They pierce, tearing at what is truly behind her words.

  “I mean . . . he should not have suggested we hire a PR firm.”

  “Why not, Simon?”

  I sense being on the most frightening, unsure footing I have ever stood upon in my life. The tattered remains of my world hang in the balance. I do not know the proper response. I should remain silent, knowing whatever I say could push it all over the edge, into the abyss.

  “It was thoughtless on his part.”

  “No, it was not. It was very thought out. I can’t believe it. You think our son did this, don’t you? Goddamn!”

  To describe Rachel’s expression would be an injustice. Her eyes bore through me, as if peeling away the imperfections of my outer layers only to find utter rot at the core. For the first time, I taste hatred in the air between us, a foul, acrid thing that dries my mouth like scalding coffee. I know now what I have done, but she is right. My head hangs.

  “I don’t. But where is he? What else could it be?”

  She rises. For the first time in our relationship, Rachel towers over me in every sense. I look up at her, pleading, but to no avail. When she speaks again, her words hiss from her mouth like droplets of acid, burning, sinking down to my soul.

  “That brain of yours, that whirling dervish of what ifs, is probably picking through every moment of the past, trying to find out how you caused this. What? Was it that we didn’t take him to playdates? Or maybe we didn’t push sports on him. God knows a star football or lacrosse player is far less likely to do something awful to someone. Right? Is that what you’re doing to our son right now?

  “You never could accept things for what they are. You have to pick it apart like scraps from a bone, leaving everyone and everything around you bare and exposed. You never once thought about it, did you? You’ve already forgotten how special he was.”

  Tears run down both of her cheeks, random tracks of sorrow plunging from her chin toward oblivion. Her words don’t cut like I’d expect them to. Instead, I listen to each one. Could it be that I have thought too much, but not enough? The concept grates at my sensibility. Yet at the same time rings hauntingly but confusingly true.

  I had been thinking too much. I though
t that I failed Jake. I should have taken him to playdates. I should have helped him be a better athlete. I should have pushed him to be more social, more talkative. I should not have let him have a Facebook page or Twitter account. I never should have bought him a video game or a Nerf gun. More important, I should have seen this coming. How could I have not seen this coming?

  What I need to grasp hold of, to pull forth and never let go of, is so simple. With each passing minute, a beautiful memory of my son vanishes, replaced by the angst and horror around me. The key is not to learn the now; it is to remember the then.

  Before I can do that, Rachel hands me her iPad.

  “Read this.”

  My wife shows me a conversation playing out on a Facebook post. I see Jake’s name, his picture, and Alex Raines’s as well. I begin to read:

  Jake: Look dude I am out

  Alex: Ha

  Alex: Pansy.

  Alex: Who asked you weirdo

  Alex: You come by my house with that thing again it WILL be over

  Alex: surpise surprise crazy U gonna be blocked

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Someone else originally commented.”

  “Oh,” I say, rereading the thread. “So what Alex is saying is in response to someone else. It’s probably Doug. You think he’s talking about that doll?”

  Rachel’s hands rest on her hips. “What doll?”

  I realize I never told her about it. When I do, finally, she is incensed.

  “Why did you take it?”

  “I thought . . . if they found it.”

  “What, that they’d think Jake did it?”

  “I . . .”

  “You need to find our son.”

  Our conversation is left at that simple truth. She leaves me; I hear her footsteps somewhere else in the house. Then she reappears, Laney in tow. My daughter looks at me and I am surprised that there is no accusation implied by her expression. But there is utter sadness.

  “No, Mom,” she says, tugging at Rachel’s arm. “Don’t leave. I don’t want to leave. We need to stay together.”