But this is a dream. The reality is that the footsteps come from behind me, not in front. I hear sirens approaching, more than one, and their call melds into a baleful moan. I push forward as if we are racing. I will find him first. No one else.
My eyes never look back. I scan the woods, looking for a path or a dark shadowy mass that might be a fort.
“Help me find you, Jake,” I whisper.
I want a sign; I deserve a sign. I love my son with everything I have ever had. I know, I have always known, that I would die for him in an instant if need be. But nothing is that romantic, that dramatic. I was never given the chance to sacrifice for Jake. And now, when I plead for something to show me the way, a stag in the mist to guide me, the call of a red-tailed hawk, Jake’s favorite bird, to bring me to my son, there is only silence and dread.
I stop, my head tilting back. I look up at the sky, cracked by the skeletal limbs grasping above me. A cloud floats lazily toward the late-autumn sun, softening the long shadows that streak across the landscape like the mythological remnants of some great lightning storm.
“I’m sorry,” I bellow. “I’m so sorry.”
When I look ahead again, through tear-clouded eyes, I see the pond. A snippet of the past comes clear. I remember Jake telling me about the pond behind the Martin-Klein house.
My walk turns to a run when I see the fort appear from behind a patch of massive fern. I trip over a thick fallen branch, dropping to a knee. My hand skids across a patch of exposed rock and pain sears up the length of my arm. I stagger back to my feet and keep moving.
The fort rests low to the ground. A lean-to, two large sheets of weather-stained plywood tilt upward, supported by three gnarled black limbs. Dirt, moss, and dried leaves form a thatchlike roof atop the sheets of wood.
Above, the sun thrusts through the blanketing cloud and the world around me brightens like a new beginning. Something sparkles by my foot. I bend down to pick it up. My fingertips touch cool metal and I lift the object off the ground. It is an intact round of ammunition.
My heart races. I look down and see more bullets. They scatter across the forest floor like pebbles in a streambed. For some reason, I begin to count them. It lasts only a fraction of a minute but I see more than fifty. My mind cannot focus. I still do not understand.
Then I see my son’s shoe. It is a simple swatch of neon yellow but I know it immediately. The shoe is almost covered by fallen leaves as it rests undisturbed beside the large fern. I stare at it, frozen in place, unable to move, unable to see that it is not just a shoe, that it is my son alone in these woods, somehow forgotten until this very instant, lost and gone forever. All those thoughts are so unfathomable. They are the stuff of paralyzing nightmares, the reality of a life I never considered, even during my darkest parental neurosis.
I cannot move. I need to go to him, but I cannot accept that he is not there anymore. He’s left us already. He’s gone off alone. I can’t bring him back. I can’t talk to him anymore. We can’t joke. We can’t wrestle. We can’t go out for dinner or eat pulled pork at home with Laney and Mom. I can’t drive him. I can’t pick him up. I can’t wait for him. He’ll never walk toward me, smile at me, be there.
Jake can only be inside me now. He can only speak through memories and impossible imagination. What ifs. If onlys. I wishes.
Dogs bark. Someone is close behind me. I think he’s been there all along. It is the dogs, however, that awaken me again. I take a step and then two. I fall to my knees. I embrace what was Jake, what will never be Jake again. I hold him but it is not him. I cry and rage. And I never see the empty box of ammunition in his cold hand.
CHAPTER 28
AFTER
I am alone with Jake, the two of us now lost together behind the Martin-Kleins’ house. Time must pass, birds must call out from the trees above the fort, but I am not there. Then I realize I am no longer alone. An enormous police dog, a German shepherd, tilts its head. I look into its deep brown eyes, my hand resting on my son’s still chest. Someone once told me that I should never look into the eyes of a dog, that it is a challenge. That is not how I feel. Instead, this grand animal looks into my soul. I feel it tugging at some semblance of life and realize it must be mine. It is trying to bring me back. I am sure of it.
The dog does not move. I hear people approaching but our connection remains firm. In my head, we speak to each other, two animals in the forest contemplating the most basic fact of life.
He is dead.
Yes.
I can’t live.
You can.
Why?
Because.
Is that good enough?
Yes.
I don’t understand.
You do.
I want more than anything to die. I do not want to get up or walk out of the woods. I do not want to live a life of meaningless moments. I want to lie down and never leave my son’s side. If there is a will to live, I think I lose mine.
Or do I? What is it that keeps me breathing? I would like to say it is Rachel and Laney. That is the correct answer, the human answer you expect to hear from me. If that is not the answer, then I am unlikable.
The honest reason I breathe is because I am scared. I fear death. I fear living. I fear loss. I fear change. I fear everything and nothing at the same time. Instinct, some leftover synapses from before the Ice Age, tortures me. It keeps me from turning off. It rewires my brain. I no longer think years ahead or days ahead or moments ahead. I don’t even think one breath ahead. I simply take in air and let air out. I become an automaton of survival.
I let them take me away but I look back over a shoulder at Jake. I want to cry but I might be out of tears. Instead, I feel an icy chill radiate out from my torso.
“I can’t leave him,” I say, but it comes out as a whisper.
“It’s okay, Mr. Connolly,” an officer says. “We’ll take care of him. I need to get you some help.”
“I’m fine.”
He leans into me as we walk down the barren, shaded path.
Something strange happens. I do not remember walking past the Martin-Klein house. I am not even sure where I am, except I know I sit inside the back of an ambulance. A paramedic holds a mask over my face. I breathe in the cooled air, unafraid. In fact, I feel utterly numb.
Rolling my eyes around, I see silver instruments, an IV drip, and a blood pressure cuff around my bicep. Three blankets lie atop me but I do not really feel their weight.
“Just relax, Mr. Connolly. Your blood pressure dropped. We’re giving you fluids and a sedative. You’ll be fine.”
No, I won’t, but he doesn’t know that. Nor do I tell him. Instead, I close my eyes.
When I sit up, Rachel is there. She reaches out a hand and, together with the paramedic, helps me out of the ambulance. We hug. She has tears and they flow freely. She shakes in my arms. I hold her but I am still devoid of feeling.
I should be reacting differently. I look around, sure people are staring at me, wondering how I could be so normal, so nonchalant about my son.
“You feel cold,” she says.
At some point she stops crying.
“I’m fine.”
The scene around me clarifies.
I startle. “Where’s Laney? She shouldn’t . . .”
“It’s okay. She’s with my mom.”
I did not know Rachel’s mom came up from the beach. In fact, I never even thought of her parents during this entire thing. I never called my parents. I didn’t call my siblings. I feel guilty about that, which seems absurd in the moment.
An engine starts. Another ambulance rolls slowly up the driveway. I want to climb in, as if Jake has simply suffered a concussion at a flag football game. But there is nothing else left for me to do, just take air in and let it out again.
CHAPTER 29
DAY FOUR
More than twenty-four hours have passed since I found my son, a series of empty moments at once agonizingly slow and blurrily fast. We were taken home, toge
ther. We cried, together. All three of us slept in the family room; the rest of the house remains as it was after the police search. At some point, the doorbell begins to ring. Then it never seems to stop. Covered dishes march into the kitchen as well-meaning neighbors, many of the same who blamed Jake a day before, return to our door bearing food, eyes empathetic, mouths wordless. A silence descends. Rachel takes Laney to her mother’s condo. I am left to clean up the mess, which I do with numbing regularity.
That night, I learn that the footsteps I heard behind me when I searched for Jake belonged to a cameraman from the local NBC affiliate. He filmed the entire thing with a handheld. At four PM that afternoon, the police issued a report of their findings. Together, the story and the report play out on the television set.
Tonight, the final pieces of a national tragedy fall into place and a hero emerges from the carnage. The footage you are about to see was shot earlier today by a cameraman in Wilmington, Delaware. Once thought to be an accomplice in the school shooting on Monday, Jake Connolly’s body was found in the woods behind the home of his schoolmate, the alleged shooter, Douglas Martin-Klein. Police issued a preliminary report this evening telling a remarkable but sad story. It appears that young Jake learned of Martin-Klein’s intention to shoot students at the school. He confronted the boy in the Martin-Klein house where police believe Martin-Klein fired a shot from the same assault rifle used in the school shooting. The bullet struck Jake Connolly in the lower back. What happened after that is amazing.
Suffering from what police at this time believe would have been a mortal gunshot wound, Jake Connolly heroically ran from the house back to a fort the two boys built when they were young. There, he apparently scattered over one hundred rounds of ammunition before being shot down by Martin-Klein. Police believe that this action may have saved dozens of lives at the school.
The police have also issued a report that clarifies some earlier evidence that leaked to the press during those first days after the shooting. Although Jake Connolly’s blood was found on the door leading into the school, it is now believed that the blood had been on Douglas Martin-Klein’s hand following Jake’s tragic attempt to stop the shooting. Eyewitness reports placing two shooters entering the building that morning have also been recanted.
I warn you that the footage we will show now may not be suitable for young viewers. It shows Jake’s father, Simon Connolly, racing through the woods, calling out to his son, only to find his son’s body at the base of his childhood clubhouse.
There was a note, too, found in Jake’s pocket. Thankfully, the police returned it to me without it leaking to the press. I read it once and I can’t read it again. Not yet. It read:
Dad,
I’ve needed an amnesty moment for a while now but I was afraid to ask for it. I think you already know what it is about. You’ve known for a long time, I think. Longer than I have. It’s about Doug. But I guess it is also about me, too.
I am afraid. Not of talking to you but of how things have been lately and what I have been thinking about. I can’t seem to figure out what to do. No options seem right to me. It’s like I took a wrong turn somewhere and I can’t find my way home.
I think Doug is a psychopath. I am not being mean. I actually researched it. He’s not like what you see on TV. He doesn’t draw bloody pictures or keep a stalker wall or anything like that. We all like violent stuff. It’s something else, something darker on the inside.
Doug doesn’t care. When Max makes fun of him, it doesn’t make Doug sad or hurt him. It makes him angry, really angry. I’ve tried to get Max to stop, and he has really, but other kids do it, too. They won’t just leave Doug alone. It is starting to make me angry, too. Why do people have to be so mean? Why do they have to rag on kids every day? Sometimes I wish the tables would turn. I wish someone could teach them a lesson.
Sometimes, you don’t really know a person. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know myself. I wonder what I will do when things get worse. I wonder what kind of person I really am. Doug has a gun. It’s hidden in the clubhouse we built when we were kids. I haven’t seen it but I know. He told me. I worry that he is going to hurt someone. He’s gotten scarier. He hung a doll at my spot in the woods. I know it was him, and it was a message to me. I don’t think he’d hurt me but I should tell you. I think you can help, but I know you’ll tell the school or Doug’s parents. If that happens, I think he’d snap and do something really bad.
I’m going to try to talk to him one more time. If it doesn’t work, I’ll give you this. Just promise me you won’t freak, okay?
I love you dad.
Jake
Everything I needed to find him on one piece of paper. Unfortunately it came too late. Much as I did.
CHAPTER 30
DAY SIX
The line of people outside the church wraps around the block. Rachel, Laney, and I sit in the front pew. Occasionally, someone close to us kneels and offers their condolences. Laney sobs until Rachel finally takes her into a small room in the vestry that the priest offered to us in case anyone needed to get away. I sit there, my head bowed, listening to the soft music rolling out of the organ up on the balcony.
The viewing lasts for hours. Laney does not come back out. Time has lost its meaning, for as soon as one ceremony ends, the next seems to start. We are at the funeral now. People are talking about Jake. I am sure people feel like I should be up there, speaking, but I can’t. The words are inside me but I do not want to share them. I am afraid to open that door because a raging storm lurks just behind.
I am okay, stable even, until after the funeral. People come back to our house. I don’t want them to, but they do. I know Rachel feels the same because she sends Laney to be with her folks at their condominium. I try to talk to some of my closer relatives and friends, but what is there to say? They speak about Jake, about his bravery. I take that in. It does help, I guess. But then I see her.
I am sitting down in the kitchen, my legs feeling weak, when the front door opens. A woman takes a tentative step into the house. I recognize her immediately and bound to my feet.
“What are you doing here?” I say loud enough for over a dozen people to hear.
Mary Moore freezes. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out.
Rage fills me. This woman who stood in my yard, condemning my son, even wishing my daughter dead, dares to come into my house now that he’s a hero.
“Get out,” I say.
A room filled with more people than it can comfortably hold grows more still than it ever has been before. I feel the eyes on me, boring into me, but I can only look at Mary Moore. My jaw clenches and my hand trembles. I want to run, to lash out, and to collapse all at once.
Fingernails bite into my forearm. A harsh tug twirls me around to face Rachel. Her face is red, her eyes are afire.
“What is wrong with you?!”
“She . . .”
“NO!” Rachel breaks down crying. “No. You can’t do this!”
I look around and see the eyes now. They are full of shock.
“What?” I ask Rachel, maybe everyone.
“Go upstairs,” my wife whispers. “Get hold of yourself.”
I sit on the edge of our bed. It takes only a moment for me to realize what I have just done. My emotions thunder and crash. It would be a lie to say I felt totally wrong. So many people vilified Jake. Now, they all come to our house and say how great he was. Where were they yesterday, the day before?
Another part of me realizes I just called out the mother of one of the victims. What kind of monster would do something like that? It is beyond contempt. And I wish I could turn back the clock and take it all back.
Eventually, sooner than it should have, the noise downstairs lessens as people trickle out the door. Rachel opens the door to our bedroom and stands at the threshold.
“I’m taking Laney and going to my parents’ house for a while.”
This is not a request or an idea, it is a fact. She is telling me she is
taking my daughter away.
“You are not,” I say.
“I am. And you need to get some help.”
“What?”
“You need to talk to someone, someone who can convince you that none of this is your fault.”
I feel my body trembling. “I never said that.”
She laughs, a bitter sound that I’ve never heard before. “Really, Simon. I remember what you were like about the stupid little stuff. You used to tell me you ruined the kids because you wouldn’t go to a playdate, for Christ’s sake. I know you, Simon. I know that you think you caused all this. Even worse, I know that you feel like you questioned our son, that you maybe, for a second, thought he did this. And I . . . I know you . . . think that if you found him . . .”
“Shut up,” I snap.
She does not move. She does not back down. “I know you, Simon.” The tears return. “I just don’t have the strength to help you right now.”
Rachel turns and walks away from me. I am alone in our house, a bitter irony considering how often I wished I could be over the years.
CHAPTER 31
DAY TWENTY-SOMETHING
One day, I’ve lost count at this point, I rise from the couch. My muscles are cramped, rigid, and my mind lacks an anchor. It floats on the undercurrent like a ghost ship through the ocean mist. I find myself getting dressed, lacing up my running shoes, and stepping through my front door.
No crowd surrounds my house. I might be alone. Yet I break into a sprint, my eyes locked on each step my shoes make, seemingly of their own accord. They retrace steps from weeks before as if they align with a glowing path toward some end of which I am still unaware.
Halfway to the Martin-Klein house, my pace slows, for I realize that is my destination. I still cannot look around. I cannot understand why I am going, but now I know where. For a second, I consider turning back, but I do not. Instead, I press forward, speeding up. My breath, ragged and made painful by the cold air, seems the only thing fighting for my survival.
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