Things You Won't Say

by Sarah Pekkanen

  The voice belonged to her mother.

  •••

  Henry was waiting in the camp director’s office, his T-shirt torn and his right eye swollen.

  Christie wanted to run to him and throw her arms around his thin shoulders, but she knew it would embarrass him. Despite his defiant expression, she could tell from the quiver in his lips that he was struggling to hold himself together.

  “Hey, buddy,” Mike said. He reached out and tilted up Henry’s chin. “You’re going to have a serious shiner. Didn’t they give you some ice for that?”

  “I don’t need ice,” Henry said, jerking his chin out of Mike’s hand. There was blood on the front of his shirt, too. It pained Christie just to look at it.

  Suzanne, the camp director, cleared her throat. She was thirtyish, broad-shouldered and pink-cheeked, with khaki shorts and wheat-colored hair pulled into a ponytail—exactly the type of person you’d expect to be running a camp.

  “As I said on the phone,” Suzanne told them, “Henry was in a fight. I saw it myself. He threw the first punch.”

  “Henry wouldn’t do it without a good reason,” Christie said. Of that she was certain.

  “I’m all ears,” Suzanne said. She squatted down next to Henry so she could look him in the eye, but Henry just shook his head.

  “If he won’t talk about what happened, we have no choice but to dismiss him immediately,” Suzanne said. Christie had been prepared to yell at her, to call her on bureaucratic bullshit, but it was clear from her expression Suzanne didn’t relish the thought of making Henry leave.

  “I have a feeling this is probably unusual for Henry,” Suzanne said as she straightened up. “He’s only been here a day, but I saw him helping the younger kids with batting practice while the rest of his group was swimming.”

  Suzanne walked to the door and hesitated. “He won’t tell me, but maybe he’ll tell you,” she said as she left, closing the door behind them.

  Christie had no idea what to say. She wondered whether the onset of puberty was responsible for the changes in Henry, or if it was something more. She’d hidden so much from her mother—boyfriends, joints, cleavage-baring tops (though she’d hidden those only so her mother wouldn’t borrow them). Maybe she’d been foolish to think that because Henry was kind and polite and a good student he’d be immune from the typical pressures of adolescence.

  “Did someone say something to you about me?” Mike asked.

  “Why do you think everything’s about you?” Henry asked.

  “Henry!” Christie was shocked.

  “Look, it had nothing to do with that stuff,” Henry said. “The guy was just a dickhead.”

  “Okay,” Mike said calmly. “But you usually don’t go around punching dickheads, which makes me think there’s something more to it than that.”

  “Maybe,” Henry said. “Can we just go already?” His duffel bag was near his feet. He probably hadn’t even had a chance to unpack it.

  Christie looked at Mike, who shrugged. “Sure,” she said.

  They opened the door, and Christie shook her head at Suzanne. “He wants to leave,” she said.

  “I understand,” Suzanne said. “Henry, if you change your mind and want to talk about it, I’d still like to hear your side. You can call me anytime. Even after the session ends.”

  Henry nodded. “Okay,” he said.

  Suzanne touched Mike’s forearm. “Usually we don’t give refunds if kids are asked to leave, but in this case . . . Well, please call me,” she said.

  Mike nodded his thanks and shouldered Henry’s bag, despite Henry’s protest that he could carry it, and the three of them walked down the dirt path toward the parking lot. There were a half dozen wooden cabins nestled in the woods to the right, and a little farther off, Christie could see the sun setting low over the cool blue sheen of a lake. A few sailboats with bright masts were docked by the edge and a big tire swing dangled from the limb of a tall tree.

  “How’d you find this camp?” she asked Mike. Despite whatever had happened to Henry here, it looked like a really nice place. Henry lived in the suburbs and certainly had access to parks and other green spaces, but there was nothing like this in Mike’s neighborhood or in Christie’s. Even though the camp was just sixty miles away, it was like something out of a storybook, an enchanted spot for kids.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “Jamie did.”

  “Oh,” Christie said. She thought about how Jamie had complained about paying child support, yet willingly put up money to send Henry here without even asking Christie to chip in. She wrestled with an unwelcome feeling of gratitude toward Mike’s wife.

  “I think we should go get something to eat,” Christie said. “Are you hungry, Henry?”

  “Do you even need to ask?” Mike joked.

  Christie could tell they were on the same page; they’d silently agreed not to bring up whatever was troubling Henry for now, to keep the mood light and safe.

  “Let’s go find someplace with man food,” Mike said. “No stinking salads for us.” They reached the car, and Henry climbed into the backseat. The sky was completely dark now, and the Mercedes thrummed comfortably as they headed down the paved road.

  After a few miles, the street widened into two lanes and they began seeing neon signs for gas stations and fast-food outlets.

  “Is Wendy’s okay? Or wait—how about Subway?” Mike asked. “There’s one up ahead.”

  “Subway’s good,” Christie said at the same moment Henry said, “Okay.”

  They pulled into the parking lot and found a spot near the entrance. The place was deserted, so their food and sodas arrived quickly.

  “I was thinking we could throw the ball around tomorrow,” Mike said. “Just you and me.”

  Henry nodded and took a bite of his foot-long sub.

  “Do you want to stay with your mom tonight?” Mike asked.

  Henry shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “We’ll figure it out later,” Mike said. “Still got a ways to go before we get home.”

  They ate quietly for another minute, then Henry’s voice erupted in the stillness. “I’m not going to apologize!”

  “Okay,” Mike said, again in that calm cop voice.

  Christie didn’t respond. She hoped Henry would keep talking if they didn’t bombard him with questions.

  “There was this jerk who kept cheating!” Henry said. “He kept insisting he got on base when it was so obvious he was out. Then we played hoops and he was fouling this short guy nonstop. And I kept calling him on it, but he just gave me this stupid smile, like he knew exactly what he was doing. And then I see him trip the short guy when everyone was running out to the fields to practice getting fly balls before dinner. He did it on purpose. Just stuck out his foot, watched the guy go down, and then he kept running like he had nothing to do with it.”

  “Did you tell one of the counselors?” Christie asked.

  Henry shook his head. “What’s the point?”

  “They’re there to help you, buddy,” Mike said. “They would’ve done something to the guy. Talked to him, or watched him more closely.”

  Henry shrugged. “He’s the kind of guy who sucks up to adults. It would’ve been his word against mine.”

  Christie saw something flicker across Mike’s face. He pushed away the rest of his sub.

  “Listen to me,” Mike said. “Never stop doing the right thing. It doesn’t matter if they believe you or not.”

  Henry slumped back in his seat. He was still wearing his baseball cap, and the brim cast a shadow over his eyes. “Look where it got you,” he said.

  Mike closed his eyes, and Christie could see pain washing over his face.

  “I get it,” Mike said, opening his eyes again. “I messed up.”

  “But you said the guy had a gun—” Henry began to protest.
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  “That’s not what I meant,” Mike said. “But yeah, I thought he did. Every bit of training I’ve had, every instinct— Look, that doesn’t matter. I did what I thought was right.”

  Mike leaned closer to Henry. “But then you saw people on the Internet attacking me, and your friends were saying stuff, and I was just sitting around the house doing nothing.”

  Henry began to cry then. “Are you and Jamie going to get divorced?” he asked.

  Christie’s eyes widened.

  “What? Why do you say that?” Mike asked.

  “Because you’ve been sleeping in the basement!” Henry said. He swiped his hand across his nose. His voice rose and cracked with his next sentence. “You think I didn’t notice?”

  Christie tried to hide her shock. Things were that bad between Jamie and Mike?

  “Look, I’ve had insomnia, okay?” Mike said, his voice low. “That’s why I started staying down there.” He was lying, Christie thought. She wondered if Henry picked it up, too.

  “Henry, we should talk about this privately later,” Mike said. Christie looked down at the table and didn’t say a word.

  “I didn’t know you felt this way . . . I guess I’ve been wrapped up in my own stuff. Seeing my best friend like that, knowing I might’ve been able to stop it if I’d only been faster . . . It killed me,” Mike said.

  “It wasn’t your fault!” Henry blurted.

  Mike reached across the table and grabbed Henry’s hand. “Partners are supposed to protect each other.”

  Mike’s eyes were nearly as red as Henry’s now, and Christie could see a muscle in his jaw tensing. “After I went back to my beat, and—and everything happened and they said there wasn’t a gun . . . I was first at the scene and even I couldn’t find a gun . . . it did stuff to my mind. Made me wonder if I was going crazy. Sometimes I thought you guys might all be better off without me.”

  “Dad!” Henry burst out, his voice panicked.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything. But maybe I should’ve talked to you.”

  He let go of his son’s hand and took a sip of soda, then continued. “Your mom has been helping me. She and the detective she works with, that guy Elroy.”

  “You are?” Henry asked, turning to Christie. She nodded, feeling oddly shy.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be found guilty of anything, Henry,” Mike said. “I thought I saw a gun, so I did the right thing in that moment. That’s what I keep trying to tell myself, anyway.”

  “Was it weird?” Henry asked. “To kill someone?”

  Christie saw Mike swallow hard. He didn’t directly answer Henry’s question, but in a way, he did. “I think about it all the time,” Mike said. “All the time.”

  “I’m almost his age,” Henry said, looking down at the napkin he was shredding.

  Mike closed his eyes briefly. “That’s the worst part,” he said.

  They were quiet for a moment, then Mike released a tired-sounding sigh. “Look, maybe I wanted to be punished. Maybe that’s why I didn’t fight back. Because even though I did what I thought I had to, he was just a kid . . .”

  His voice trailed off.

  Henry’s tears had dried up, but Christie noticed his usually neat fingernails were chewed off. How had they missed the signs that Henry was suffering so? She’d been buying a Mercedes while her son was floundering. She wondered if Jamie had seen it and had come up with the money for camp because she sensed Henry desperately needed an escape.

  “I felt like you never talked about it,” Henry said. “And it was all anybody else was talking about.”

  “You mean your friends?” Mike asked.

  “And sometimes when I was at someone’s house, I’d hear a mother on the phone say my name. Once I went into Brian’s kitchen and his dad and mom were there. They got quiet and looked all guilty when they saw me,” Henry said.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” Mike said.

  Henry nodded and sniffed a few times. Then he looked down at his father’s half-eaten sub. “Can I have that if you’re not going to finish it?”

  Christie laughed. Mike didn’t join in, but at least he smiled, even though his face still looked sad. “I’ll buy you another one,” Christie said. “As many as you want.”

  “Look, why don’t you go to your mom’s tonight,” Mike said. “I’ll come for a while, too, if that’s okay, and we can talk more. Christie can tell you what the private detective found.” He looked at Christie.

  She felt as if the three of them were ensconced in something as fragile and shimmering as a bubble. Whatever was unfolding now—she wasn’t exactly sure what it was—felt beautiful and true.

  “That would be really nice,” she said, and she was rewarded by matching smiles from her son and his father.

  * * *

  Chapter Seventeen

  * * *

  MIKE’S ABSENCE WAS EVERYWHERE: in his blue toothbrush standing in a cup by the bathroom sink, in the empty running shoes by the front door, in the T-shirt in the basket of still-warm laundry Jamie was folding. She held the shirt against her front and folded down its arms, realizing her movements mimicked a hug.

  It was nearly ten o’clock on the second evening after he’d left. As darkness had fallen, her regrets had begun to mount: the anger she’d flung at Mike, the way her effort to save him had led to an even bigger gulf, and her disastrous visit to Ms. Torres. She should have known what had happened would forever be unfixable. She couldn’t get Jose’s mother’s haunted brown eyes out of her mind. She wondered if Mike ever saw them, or if it was only Jose’s face he pictured.

  But one emotion had risen above the others swirling within her, like a bright buoy bobbing in dark, turbulent waters. She still loved her husband.

  She finished folding the T-shirt, laying it atop the stack in the laundry basket. Maybe she shouldn’t have blamed Mike for withdrawing, because she’d done plenty wrong lately, too. She should have told Mike about the incident at the mall instead of shielding him, and she never should have blown up at Christie. She probably should have pulled Mike back into the family by asking him to help more with the kids, instead of letting him retreat. And she’d known exactly what the strange barking noise she’d heard in the basement had been; she’d just been too scared to acknowledge it, because if Mike was breaking down, where would that leave her?

  She stood up, the heavy basket of laundry digging into her hip as she carried it into her bedroom and set it atop the dresser. She went back into the living room, tossing plastic Barbies and metal trucks into toy bins and retrieving a sticky sippy cup of apple juice from beneath a pillow on the couch. She straightened a pile of books on the coffee table and picked up the small, handheld vacuum to get the crumbs off the rug. Every time a car drove past the house, its headlights flashing, her heart leapt, then fell as she realized it wasn’t a taxi bringing Mike back home.

  She finished tidying the room, then went into the kitchen with the thought of having another of the Budweisers she’d bought for Mike. She froze, the unopened bottle in her hand, when she heard a sound that could’ve been Mike’s key scraping in the front door’s lock, but the door never opened. She looked at the beer, wondering if she should skip it and go to bed. But she felt wide awake, her nerves tingling, and she knew her bed would feel too empty tonight, even though she was used to sleeping alone by now. She set down the unopened drink and picked up her phone, her finger hovering over the button that would connect her to Mike.

  Jamie hesitated, then slid the screen of her phone over to the next page and found the app they’d installed a few months earlier, after they’d—well, actually Christie had—gotten confused about whose turn it was to pick Henry up from baseball practice. It had been Jamie’s turn, but Eloise had had a potty-­training accident just as Jamie was about to leave. By the time she’d gotten her daughter clean
ed up and changed and made it to the field, it was empty. An hour later, Jamie was in a full-blown panic and Mike was rushing home. Henry wasn’t answering his phone. None of his teammates had seen him leave. She finally reached Christie, who blithely informed her they were at a bowling alley and hadn’t heard their phones ring over all the noise. A few days later Mike had suggested they install the app, which used satellites to track the location of every phone in their family plan.

  Which meant Jamie could use it to see Mike’s current whereabouts. She pressed the button to activate the app and watched as it zoomed in on Mike’s location. She recognized the address immediately: Christie’s place.

  The room spun as she gulped air. Mike had known how upset she was about the shift in his relationship with Christie. And yet his ex was the one he’d turned to! Jamie wondered if they were having drinks together again, if Christie was leaning forward, her fingernails gently scraping the skin on Mike’s forearm.

  She started to call Mike, then hung up before being connected. She couldn’t bear to talk to him, knowing Christie would probably be listening in the background. She began to pace, hot currents roaring through her.

  Even though she couldn’t believe Mike would cross the line into cheating with Christie, his presence at her apartment was betrayal enough. He couldn’t be planning to spend the night in Henry’s room, which would be empty since Henry was at overnight camp. Could he?

  Whatever was happening between Mike and Christie needed to stop—now. Jamie gripped her head in her hands, trying to think of what to do next. She had to find someone to come watch the kids. Lou was still at the zoo, and it was too late to call a friend. But there was a college kid named Rob who lived around the corner who’d occasionally babysat for them last summer. He was in school somewhere on the West Coast. Maybe he’d come home for the summer and hadn’t yet heard about the shooting. Jamie found his number in her contacts, then texted him, asking if he was around and free to watch the kids for an hour or two while she ran an errand. They’re asleep so it’ll be easy! she typed, hoping her desperation didn’t show.