The Good Son by Carolyn Mills (free e reader txt) 📗

seemed to me to be impossibly huge breasts. Although I was still a kid, Ricky was seventeen, and I couldn’t fathom why he would want to have something like that. Still, I knew enough to understand that it was a secret. Mom wouldn’t like it one bit if she found out.

I stuffed the magazine back in the sock and left his room empty-handed. I asked him later about the cleats, but I didn’t admit that I’d gone through his closet. By then, I was smart enough to keep a few secrets of my own.

I started sneaking into his room after that, looking for things he might be trying to hide. I stumbled upon all kinds of stuff that made my stomach twist: a pack of cigarettes tucked away in the bottom drawer of his nightstand; a pair of lacy pink underwear in a shoe box under his bed; and strangely, a pair of earrings that I recognized as Mom’s, pinned to a small square of velvet that he had hidden under the corner of his mattress. I was digging through the stuff in his closet again when I found a lumpy plastic bag tucked away in the back corner, buried under a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. My heart was pounding as I lifted the bag onto my lap. The handles had been tied in a loose knot and it took me a few minutes to tease them apart.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Then, slowly, I realized that the plastic limbs at the bottom of the bag were naked Barbies. When I pulled one of the dolls out to examine it, I saw that someone, Ricky most likely, had used a black marker to draw between the Barbie’s legs. I fished out another one. Same thing. And this one’s head had been pulled off. Something hot and angry burned in my chest. These were my dolls. How dare he draw on them! Did he think I wouldn’t recognize them because they weren’t wearing any clothes? I’d noticed three of them were missing weeks ago, but since I had pretty much stopped playing with my Barbies, I hadn’t bothered looking for them.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. I crammed the plastic bag of Barbies under the jersey. My heart thudded with fear as I tried to come up with a good reason for being in Ricky’s room. The footsteps continued past his bedroom door. I breathed out in relief.

Back in the safety of my own room, I rearranged the cushions on my bed and counted my breaths until I felt calm. I didn’t know how to describe the way I felt about seeing the scribbled black lines on my Barbies, but for days, I couldn’t stop thinking about those naked dolls.

I didn’t hear him come home the day he walked in and caught me digging through his sock drawer. Before he could say anything, I held up some sort of glass tube with a spout sticking out the side. “What’s this?” I asked, trying my best to sound innocently curious.

“Gimme that,” Ricky said. He grabbed the tube, which I now know was a bong, and shoved it back in the drawer. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see —”

“Stay out of my room.”

It took me weeks to summon up the nerve to sneak in there again. He must have known I’d come back though, because I don’t remember finding anything good after that.

And I looked. I especially looked for that bag of Barbies. I wanted to wash off the black marker between their legs; I wanted to make them clean again. I thought I could fix what Ricky had done.

The police probably would have been interested in those Barbies, but, by the time I made the connection, it was too late.

CHAPTER SIX

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MY EXTRA-LONG SHOWER DOES at least temporarily take the chill out of my bones. As I’m towelling off, I glance at my phone and notice that I have a missed call from Jason. I’m anxious to talk to him because I don’t want the weirdness from last night to linger, but first I need something to eat; I’m feeling light-headed.

I decide on an omelette. I don’t have the energy to make anything more ambitious. I’m dicing a green pepper, half-listening to the news on the TV in the living room, when I hear a name that stops me cold. Still gripping my paring knife, I stand on the threshold to the living room, staring in stunned silence at the image of six-year-old Amy Nessor on the screen.

It’s the same school photo they used when she went missing twenty-nine years ago, with her uneven blonde pigtails and her impish smile showing off the gap where her front tooth used to be. I remember this picture all too well — the slight tilt to her head, the plaid dress and lace collar — although I haven’t seen it since I was a kid. My heart races as the news anchor explains in his ultra-calm voice that Amy Nessor’s case is being re-opened. New evidence has emerged. There aren’t many more details than that and the anchor quickly, too quickly, moves on to the next story. Amy’s sweet, unsuspecting face is replaced by a protest taking place somewhere else in the world. People are shouting and punching the air, but I don’t register any of it. The knife slips from my hand and as the handle strikes my foot, I’m jolted out of my stupor. I bend down to pick up the knife. Does Ricky know? What is he doing right now? He must be freaking out. I think of my mom and feel bile rise in my throat. This is going to kill her. This is absolutely going to kill her. With a rasping grunt that tears through my ribcage I jam the thin blade of my paring knife into the kitchen doorframe. It wobbles there for an instant, like an accusation, before