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

something I didn’t recognize, something I didn’t have a name for at the time, and at that moment I didn’t want to be anywhere near him.

Back in my bedroom, I sat on the green carpet and began digging through one of my Lego bins. As I pulled out the pieces and placed them in piles around me, I felt myself calming down. Six-by-two rectangles to the left. Four-by-twos in front. Two-by-two squares to the right. I sat on the floor in the centre of all those organized piles and concentrated on the sheer sense of them.

Mom came back and I waited for her to tell us what happened. She said nothing. It was as if she hadn’t been to the Nessors’ at all. She moved between the table and the microwave, heating up leftover spaghetti. We ate in complete silence. I wanted to ask if Mrs. Nessor had told her anything, but the strangeness of the afternoon, coupled with the silence at the table, made me think twice about asking any questions. As soon as we were done eating, Ricky got up to clear the table. He filled the sink with soapy water and threw a tea towel at me. “You’re drying,” he said.

We stood at the sink together, without saying anything. Ricky rinsed each dish carefully before passing it to me to dry. Mom sat at the table, watching us. No one spoke.

I went to bed that night confused. Ricky was still Ricky. Whatever dark secrets I was conjuring up in my crazy head, I needed to stop. I didn’t live with a monster. I lived with my mom and my brother. And I loved them both. I really did.

When I woke the next morning, it was after eight o’clock. Mom usually woke me up at seven thirty on school days. I wandered into the kitchen where Ricky was eating a piece of toast, his hair still rumpled from sleep. He was wearing baggy grey track pants and a wrinkled T-shirt. Mom was sitting across from him in her housecoat. Her eyes were swollen and pink around the edges.

“How come we slept in?” I asked.

“Oh sweetie,” Mom said. “They found Amy last night.”

“Where?” But I knew whatever was coming next, it wasn’t good. No one looked happy, or relieved. And if everything was about to return to normal, I should have been on my way to school, with a bologna sandwich and a baggie of apple slices in my lunch. My brother would be gone already too, standing with the other high school students at the corner, where some of them would be having a quick cigarette while they waited for the bus.

“They found her in the ravine. She was — Zoe — she wasn’t alive anymore.” Mom dissolved into tears in front of me, which was almost more frightening than the news that Amy was dead.

I looked at my brother. “What happened?” I whispered.

“Somebody killed her,” he said. “So, no school for us today. Not with a killer on the loose.”

I didn’t know what to do. How to act. I was hungry, but it seemed wrong to have breakfast when Amy was dead. I looked back at Mom, who was drying her eyes on the sleeve of her housecoat. “Have some toast, Zoe. You should eat.”

Mom stood up, then immediately sank back into her chair. She lowered her head and closed her eyes. “Whew,” she said. “I got dizzy there for a second.”

I sat down at the table beside my brother and tried to swallow my growing fear along with mouthfuls of toast smothered in strawberry jam. Amy would never eat toast again. Amy would never walk home from school in front of me, swinging her braids from side to side. I didn’t really know Amy, but knowing she was dead cracked something inside of me.

PART TWO

CHAPTER ONE

•

WHILE I SIT IN MY living room, perched on the edge of my couch, waiting and watching for some piece of news about the Amy Nessor case that I can grab hold of, I feel my mind going numb. Glazing over. Just over two months ago, I went into a similar state of detachment when six days after I’d expected to get my period, it still hadn’t come. I am religious about taking the pill and my cycle has always been as predictable as clockwork. Understandably, I was a little freaked out.

Feeling like an irresponsible and embarrassed teenager, I drove out of town to buy a pregnancy test at a drugstore in Leeville where no one knew me. I didn’t tell Jason because I wasn’t ready to consider the implications of the test being positive. I felt trapped, like I was suddenly bound to a very different future with Jason than the one I’d imagined. I waited until late Saturday night to do the test when I wouldn’t have to face anyone afterwards. My hands were shaking as I set the test stick on the edge of the sink. I refused to look at it until a full two minutes had passed. During those two minutes, my mind went blank. It was as if I’d hit a switch and just turned off my brain.

Still in that strange blank state, I read the results. One pale blue line. Negative. I couldn’t feel relief because at that moment I couldn’t feel anything. But I knew, when I climbed under my blankets that night, that my numbness was really fear. I hugged my pillow and tried to make sense of my reaction. Would it really be so terrible to have a baby with Jason? We were both adults, for Pete’s sake, in a committed and stable relationship. I already knew he was a good father so what was I so worried about? I drifted into a restless sleep, punctuated by unsettling dreams.

The next morning, when my period came, I broke into tears. All the tension from the previous week left my body in great, gulping sobs. I was almost giddy with relief.