Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

school, but only for one year and that was early on and he didn’t finish: he was notably absent from a team photo of the state champions at the end of the season, even though his name comes up on a team roster early in the year. The search also reveals some adjacent Atwaters who I don’t figure have much to do with his family at all. They have better addresses in posher parts of the county. William Atwater’s immediate family had definitely been from a poorer branch: a foreclosure notice to his childhood address in his sophomore year confirms this idea. There is more in this vein: things that are almost interesting but that together don’t produce a very clear picture.

While I do this work, I don’t think about what I will do if I encounter him. When. A part of me is certain that will take care of itself. It is locating him, that’s the thing. Nor do I allow myself to dwell on the fact that platoons of professional hunters have thus far not turned him up. I have the feeling that part does not truly matter. At one point he will be found. And when he is, I’ll be nearby and ready. And by then I’ll know what to do—that’s the one thing I know for sure. I don’t know now, but I will. Then.

The search doesn’t make me feel any better, but it makes me feel a little less empty. Like I am doing something. Moving something ahead.

To get things going in that direction, I read a book about a serial killer and discover the author had close contact with everyone close to him as she was doing the research and then writing the book. She’d had access to his family and friends and even, once he was incarcerated, with the killer himself.

I think about that for a while and realize that it is another—albeit low-tech—route to information. Apparently, for the author of the book I’d read, everyone was prepared to crawl all over each other in their enthusiasm to talk with her. Everyone has a story. Everyone wants to be heard. And, in our culture, authors are respected. So after a few days of trying to contact people and getting nowhere, I start saying I am writing a book. It’s a lie, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Everything changes. Doors start opening and suddenly no one will shut up.

With sudden access to the key people in his past as well as a lot of nearby bystanders, I begin to get a more complete picture of William Atwater. A loner, in school and as a young adult. Possibly abused by at least one of several stepfathers, according to a couple of his former classmates. That sophomore year appears to have been significant. Maybe things had been lost that can never be regained. But of course, at this stage, all of that is unverifiable. He is broken. Clearly. Beyond that, we don’t know for sure.

His real father was dead or lost. Stories vary and it seems impossible to determine which is true. Maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. His mother mostly raised him and is still alive. She had three other children, all with different dads, and it seems to me that she will have information to add.

Her phone number is listed. In all of this, that fact surprises me for some reason: How many people can still be reached on a landline? How many people still have a phone number that is on public record? Maybe that will change, I think, now that he is well known. Maybe these are the last days some of these phones will ring. It seems likely that the Atwater phone rings a lot. These days.

Though it might ring a lot, it doesn’t ring long before it is picked up, and I can learn nothing from the single syllable used to answer the phone.

“Mary Atwater?” I begin.

“Yes.” This time I can hear caution, or think I can. It doesn’t surprise me. People have likely been calling her all day every day for weeks. Or more.

“I am calling about your son, William Atwater.”

“Yes.” And this time, there it is; for a second, I hear hope.

“I am writing a book about his life, Mary.”

“Ah.”

“If you could just answer a few questions …”

“Everyone is writing a goddamned book,” she says mildly.

“Right. Well. Okay.” I stammer a bit with it, not quite sure where to begin. “I’m trying to find him.”

She laughs at that. A dry, unpleasant sound. “You and every goddamned one else,” she informs me. There is a smokiness to her voice. Something illicit. I can’t pin it down.

“Right,” I say, “okay,” wanting to keep the slim dialogue going and not sure how to do it. I feel like I’m holding a balloon by the most delicate of silken strings: I have a decent hold on it now, but it could drive upwards on a current, and the string could snap while I try to bring it home. “There is something in his face in the photos I’ve seen.” I hesitate, grappling for the right words. The words that will keep her talking. “Something … innocent. I don’t know if that’s quite right. But something that doesn’t represent the things I’ve heard.”

This is his mom, that’s what I’m thinking. The person who gave him life. And I am pushing for the kindest version of the truth. That’s all any of us can ever aspire to. There are worse goals.

“The boy …” she begins. Stops. Settles herself. Starts again. That smoky voice. “… the boy I knew would not have been capable of what he is accused of.”

“He was not a mean child.” I make sure it’s not a question.

“No, no. That’s just it. He was very kind. Very respectful.” A pause between us. I let it be. And then, her voice drops. I can’t hear the smokiness as I strain to listen. “But it’s just that there was something on him.” It’s