The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (ebook reader online txt) 📗

It had been there since the day he and Clair had returned home, from their wretched day at the beach. Without Devon. Like a talisman, Clair had demanded it remain, a sentry for its lost child. Adam pulled into the driveway, walked over and scooped up the truck. He held it in his hands, uncertain what to do with it. Then he walked around the side of the house, laid it in Devon’s sand-box, along with his dinosaurs, Matchbox cars, and other play things. He stood for a moment, feeling more alone than he had ever felt. Who was he without Clair, without Devon? A failed actor? A poor friend who substituted flirtation for connection? He felt alienated from the human community, as though he had lost so much more than his son and wife. He had lost the very connection to humanity. A father is meant to protect his family. He didn’t. Desperate, he didn’t know what to do or where to go.

Adam walked straight to the drinks table and poured a large whisky. He had been advised not to drink alcohol, the adverse effect of the sedative overdose still in his system, but now he needed it, the burn, the rush, the silencing of his thoughts. He walked into the kitchen, looked out the window onto the leaf strewn yard. August in the north-west was the beginning of fall. Especially after such a long, dry summer. Everywhere, he could see the remnants of months without rain or even much moisture from condensation.

The sand-box drew his eyes, unwillingly. The yellow truck sat in the middle, its small shovel raised like a fist, pummeling the world around it. He felt suddenly exhausted. Without bones, or blood to sustain his upright posture. He fell, more than sat, into a chair, hardbacked, and stiff. The kitchen table before him littered with the crumbs from his poisoned toast. Odd, he thought, that the forensics people didn’t clean that up. He half-heartedly touched one with his index finger, putting it to his nose and sniffing. Enough, he thought. Get on with it. He drank down the last of his whisky and walked slowly through the house, to their bedroom, and into the bathroom. He stripped, turned the shower on. He stepped into the downpour, as hard and hot as he could stand it, letting the water beat on his back, run down his face. Tears, sudden and unwanted, stung his eyes. After a long time, when the water turned cold, he got out of the shower, sat on the edge of the bed, his forearms resting on his knees. The raucous sound of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ blared through the quiet. His ringtone. Devon had picked it out, loving the pounding and power of the voices and drums.

A flashback, cutting straight to his heart. Devon, slick and wet from their shower, his hair, hanging in ringlets around his face, dancing as only a three-year-old can to the thumping beat. The image conjured up another scene, a day at the beach, almost one year before the tragedy.

‘Daddy, look, faces!’ Devon had pointed excitedly at the bobbing heads of two sea-lions, curious and staring. Their big eyes following his and Devon’s movements as they walked across the sand, towards the tidal pools.

‘Those are sea-lions, Dev. They sound like big dogs when they bark.’

‘I hear them,’ he had called out, running ahead. ‘Orff, arff,’ he had mimicked.

‘Be careful, Dev, the rocks can be slippery,’ Adam remembered warning, smiling at the small footprints left in the damp sand, before the next wave washed them away.

He hadn’t seen his son that happy in weeks. They had started him in pre-school for children with autism and other neurological disorders. He resisted the confinement. When allowed to be free of clothes, furniture, expectations, he danced. Adam thought he looked like a tribal warrior just released from captivity, his limbs and torso gyrating and spinning in circles. Adam had laughed so hard, tears formed. And they did again. Now, pooling in the corners of his eyes. No more, he said to himself, I’ll cry no more. I have to do something about this. Something; I don’t know what.

The call had gone to voicemail. He pressed play, and heard his sister-in-law’s voice.

‘Adam, what the hell’s going on. We just got back in the country, talked to Ben’s parents. She’s what? Incarcerated? Are you OK? Call us.’

Adam stood, looked at himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. Clair had hated it, he remembered, calling him vain for wanting to see so much of himself. Now, as he looked, he had to agree. It was a bad idea. He had lost weight, his skin sagging around his bone structure. He opened the door, pulling out clothes at random. Pants, a long-sleeve tee, wool sweater. He couldn’t get past the chill the hospital had infused into him. Cold crisp white sheets. At home, they slept under flannel year-round. Socks, slip-on loafers, and then maybe he could call them back. But first, another drink.

‘Hello,’ he said, fatigue and uncertainty measuring his usual self-assured tone.

Later, after assuring them that Clair was not in jail, that it was a hospital and she was being cared for by professional medical and nursing staff, arrangements were made for Adam to pick them up at the airport in Eugene. The local airport only served small, commuter traffic. Adam liked his in-laws. He only saw them once or twice a year. It hadn’t been that long ago this time, though. The memorial for Devon. Adam winced inwardly remembering that.

The coast-guard had called off the rescue mission after a few days. Then, it had switched to a recovery mission, if even that were possible, given the elements and natural predators. Adam had wanted a way to acknowledge the loss, and to close this event. Clair had called it staging a scene. ‘You just want to be the star, the grieving father, the wounded hero,’ she had scorned. ‘I