Ten
Reece
Diana was out the door the moment I pulled into the driveway and standing by the car as I got out. Her shoulder-length dark
brown hair, which she normally kept pinned back, was falling across her face, a clue, as if I needed one, that she was anxious.
“He’s home,” she said, brushing her hair away from her eyes.
I sighed with relief. Her earlier call that Gage had not returned had had me on edge from the moment I’d left McCabe.
“Family room,” she said.
Even though I knew he was back, it was a relief to see his skateboard on the floor just inside the front door. I found him
slouched on the couch, feet on the coffee table, remote in hand, scrolling through the channel guide, as if on a quest to
find just the right show. The constantly changing feed seemed to have a hypnotic effect on him. Like a lot of boys his age,
Gage was all arms and legs, as if his torso hadn’t had a chance yet to catch up with his growth spurts. If he’d been standing,
we’d have been able to look at each other eye to eye.
“Hey,” I said, putting my butt down on the table, resting a hand on his ankles. He kept his focus on the TV, like I wasn’t
there. “Give me that,” I said, prying the remote from his hand and hitting the off button. “Look at me.”
Slowly, he fixed his eyes on mine. They were red, but whatever crying he’d done appeared to be over.
“I’m sorry about your grandpa,” I said. “I know he meant the world to you. To all of us.”
Gage looked away. Diana stood in the doorway, arms folded, her shoulder up against the doorjamb.
“You’re going to start hearing some pretty ugly stuff about what happened. If there was a way to protect you from all of it,
I would, but there just isn’t. It looks like my dad was seeing this other woman.”
I let that sink in for a moment before going on. Gage waited.
“Something happened between them, I don’t know what or how it all came together, but it seems your grandfather had a gun—I
didn’t even know that—and he used it to shoot this woman.” I gave that a second, and then said, “And then your grandfather
turned the gun on himself.”
Gage’s lips were pressed tightly together, but he managed to pry them apart and ask, “So Grandpa killed himself.”
“Yeah.”
“They found a note?”
“They did, actually, yeah.”
“Did you see it?”
I nodded. “The detective, she showed me a picture of it. We’re all going to be in shock for a while, trying to understand
how this could happen.” I took a breath and added, “And what it’s going to do to your grandmother.”
He turned his head to look at me. “It’s all her fault.”
“I’m sorry?”
Gage shrugged and stared at the blank TV again.
“What are you talking about, it’s your grandma’s fault?”
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I said that.”
I looked to Diana for the first time, saw the distress on her face, hoping I might catch a sign from her about how hard to
push our son.
“Gage,” I said gently, “if there’s something you know that you’re not telling us, you need to share it.”
What was he suggesting? That my mother did this?
Shot that woman, then murdered her own husband and made it look like suicide?
That was beyond preposterous. My parents’ relationship was frosty, but I couldn’t imagine a scenario where she was involved.
And even if Mom did have some distantly tangential role in what had happened, how would Gage be aware of it?
“I don’t know anything,” Gage said finally. “I just know she’s not a good person.”
“Gage, don’t say that,” Diana said.
He looked at her accusingly. “You’re the one who calls her a cold fish.”
Diana said, “That’s not— I don’t think I ever said that.”
“I hear you guys,” Gage said. “What you say about her.”
A denial seemed to be on Diana’s lips, but I gave her a quick shake of the head. The thing was, Gage wasn’t wrong. Mom had
a way of getting under our skin.
“We all know what she’s like,” Gage said. “She’s this control freak, getting in everybody’s business. She turned Uncle Holden
into a head case.”
“Gage,” I said.
He kept on going. “It’s pretty obvious that’s why Grandpa was fucking somebody else.”
The comment was so raw, so shocking coming from our son, that it stunned Diana and me into a brief silence. Like we’d been
slapped. The kid was grieving, but he was pushing my limits.
Gage, sensing he’d not only crossed a line but leapt right past it, said, “I’m just saying, that’s all.”
“Enough,” I said, recovering my ability to speak, but with an edge in my voice.
“Sorry,” he grumbled.
“We’re all trying our best to deal with this,” I said.
“Where were you?” Diana asked him.
Gage rolled his head around in her direction. “Around.”
“Around where?”
“The mall. With Dan. He was looking for shoes. Got something to eat at Five Guys.”
“Where were you when I called?” she asked.
A shrug. “Heading home. Like I said. God, it’s like an interrogation room around here.”
Not something Gage would have any familiarity with, I thought. But he did watch plenty of cop shows.
Diana said, “I’m not interro— I was just asking, okay? And while we’re at it, what about last night?”
“Last night?” he said.
“Where were you?”
“I was out.”
“You were supposed to be home by midnight.”
“I texted that I’d be late. You said okay.”
Diana glared at me, as though it had been my decision to let him come home an hour later, even though we had discussed it.
Well, as much as you can really discuss something when you were fast asleep seconds earlier. Gage had texted Diana, who woke
up, saw the message, nudged me awake, and said, “What do we say?”
“It’s fine,” I’d said, just wanting to put my head back onto the pillow. So Diana had texted back to say it was okay, but
now it was all on me.
And why were we fighting about this now, anyway?
“I just think there need to be some more rules around here,” Diana said. She was generally pretty cool under pressure, but
suddenly she looked as though she’d hit the breaking point. “It’s all been too loosey-goosey. Everyone does whatever they
want no matter how it affects others. Come and go as you please. Stay out all night. From now on—”
“I didn’t stay out all night. I came—”
Diana wasn’t done. “From now on you’ll do what we say and you’ll be home when we say you’re to be home and—”
“Jesus!” Gage said. “What’s this got to do with Grandpa—”
“Hang on,” I said.
But now Gage and Diana were talking over each other, no one actually listening.
“Hey,” I said. “Hey!”
They both stopped and looked at me. I raised my palms as I tried to bring the tone down a notch.
I had a vague sense what was happening here.
Something unthinkable had happened, we were overwhelmed, feeling powerless.
And Diana had channeled all that frustration and anxiety into trying to control something, anything. At this moment, it was Gage.
“Look, we’re all on edge, and right now, we need to lean on each other, not start tearing each other apart.”
Diana turned and walked out of the room.
Gage and I looked at each other, neither of us knowing what to say. I broke the silence. “I’ve got people to call, I guess.
Arrangements to make.”
Some of those arrangements might be more my mother’s responsibility than mine, but would she be in any shape to make them
once she knew the details of what had happened? Would she even want a funeral for my father? How obliged would she feel to
give my father a proper send-off when his final act was one of betrayal and jaw-dropping scandal?
“You okay?” I said to Gage.
“No.”
I nodded. “Me neither.” I sighed. “I’ll talk to your mom. She’s just stressed. It’ll be okay.” I didn’t know whether I believed
that, but I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
“Are the police all done with this?” he asked.
“No. They’ve got to do a full investigation.”
“Why?”
I thought, Seriously?
“It’s . . . a murder, Gage. Due diligence and all that.”
“But they found a note. Grandpa said he did it. It’s obvious.” He shook his head, then asked, “And where is Grandma, anyway?”
Good question.
And at that moment, as if on cue, my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket, saw that it was my mother. I answered.
“Take me home,” she said.