7. Eric #2
“Do you get along with your dad?” Alex asks now.
“Sure. I guess. He and Max are really tight, because they work together. But dad and I are solid enough.” Except when he tries to get me to talk about my future. And then I’m only annoyed.
“What about your mother?” she presses.
“What about her?” I grumble. “Is this an interview?”
“Sorry,” she says quickly. “I just wondered when you saw her again after that summer.”
“The answer is never.”
“Oh.” And now Alex is clearly wishing she hadn’t asked. “Sorry.”
“Thanks, but I’ve had twenty more years to get over it.”
“Still.” Alex shrugs. “You never really get over that. I didn’t, anyway.”
It surprises me that she’s willing to say so. Max and I never mention our mother. Never. Max would no sooner say her name aloud than he’d admit to being afraid of snakes. And he hates snakes. Come to think of it, I know more about how my brother feels about snakes than about how he feels about Mom.
And I’m exactly the same. I don’t speak her name because it gives her too much power. But the wound is still deep. She left us and never looked back. Not only was it hurtful, it’s shameful. Who does that?
Once in a while, my dad brings it up. He says he blames the age difference between them.
He didn’t start a family until he was forty, and she was twenty-five.
As a young man, he was a military intelligence officer for the US Navy.
After that, he became the chief of police in the New Jersey town where I grew up.
So by the time he met and married my mom, he was ready to settle down.
“She wasn’t in the same place,” he once said, in a dramatic understatement.
I remember my mother as someone who was always dissatisfied. With me. With dad. With the house where we lived. Still, it took me by complete surprise when she walked out.
It was a Sunday. There was football on TV. Dad got a call and announced he had to make an unexpected trip into town. That happens a lot when you’re the chief of police, and none of us was surprised.
But mom lost it, throwing one of her fits. “You’re never home! You don’t care about me!” I sat on the couch and pretended she wasn’t screaming and crying. I never knew what to do when my mom was upset.
Only it didn’t end in the usual way—with the slam of the bedroom door. This time she packed a bag and walked right out the front door, barely even saying goodbye. “I’ll be at my sister’s,” she said to Max, who followed her outside.
I stared at the football game, barely seeing it. They fought all the time, but she never walked out before.
Even then, I didn’t really think it was permanent. Who leaves without saying goodbye to her kids? I didn’t cry, or plead with her. Not because I wouldn’t have bothered. Just because I didn’t believe she meant to stay away.
For a month I watched the front door, thinking she’d walk back through it. Then one day dad took me out for ice cream after school—just me, not Max. “She’s not coming back, son,” he said as the spoon halted on its way to my mouth. “It’s not your fault, either.”
“Then whose fault is it?” I’d spat.
“Nobody’s,” my dad grumbled. “Your mom expects her life to be one long party. But nobody’s is. She’ll figure that out eventually. I’m just sorry for you and your brother that she couldn’t be the mother you need. I guess that’s what I get for marrying someone fifteen years younger than I am.”
And remind me why I’m thinking about this? The Hawaiian sand is warm under my feet. I’m carrying my shoes and watching children run into and out of the surf. I’m full of good food, and the sun is shining. My bossy companion in the tiny bikini is whistling an off-key tune.
“Where shall we have dinner?” Alex asks as our hotel comes into view.
“Dinner? Aren’t you too full of ice cream to care?”
“Eventually I will, though, and so will you.” Alex gives me a glare that dares me to argue. “I’m going to look for a nice restaurant off the property. I’d rather not run into him again before I have to.”
“Yeah, okay.” If Alex wants to dine somewhere special, I won’t argue. Much.
We’re just heading up the carefully manicured path to the hotel when my phone makes a sound I’ve never heard before. It’s a buzz, like an angry wasp.
Worse, Alex’s phone does the same. She halts in her tracks. “That can’t be good. My phone only makes that sound when there’s a security breach.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“No.”
I lift my head and scan our surroundings. The resort’s generous lawn is lightly occupied by sunbathers in hammocks. Four teenagers are playing chess with giant pieces on a black-and-white tiled patio.
It’s not exactly a threatening environment, but I take a step closer to Alex anyway, and then I pull out my phone. There’s a message from an unidentified number. Return to the room, but do not touch anything until cleared by our team.
“Well, that’s ominous,” Alex grumbles, looking over my shoulder. She pulls out her phone. “I have the same message.”
We ride the elevator in silence. And when we reach the suite, the door is already ajar.
Inside I spot an unfamiliar man. He turns immediately to flash me his ID.
There’s no name on it, of course. The Company doesn’t do that.
There is, however, a holographic picture of a skeleton key. That’s my brother’s symbol.
I nod. “I’m Eric. Nice to meet you—?”
“Pieter. Sorry for the intrusion.”
“What happened here?”